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History
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The Universities (Scotland) Act of 1889 enabled the Scottish universities to take in women. In 1890 Aberdeen University decided that it agreed with this idea, then in 1892 P. J. Anderson, Rector's Assessor, brought forward a motion to the University Court that women should be admitted to graduate in all the faculties of Aberdeen University. The first subject to admit them was English, under Professor Minto's teaching, then botany under Professor Trail. None of these early women students intended to graduate: they were all well-to-do Aberdonians treating the courses they attended as a kind of finishing school. The first class of women intending to graduate matriculated in 1894: they were from further afield and had competed in the Bursary examinations, and four of them graduated in 1898, two with Honours in Classics. The first woman student in medicine matriculated in 1895 and graduated in 1900. Honorary degrees soon followed, and the first woman lecturer was appointed in Humanity (Latin) in 1903, though women on the teaching staff were not given the status of lecturers until 1906. Two women library assistants were appointed in 1894, though there was a struggle even into the 1930s to have women properly represented on the University Court. By that time women had graduated to every available level and in every subject. A Women's Union was set up around 1925. The anniversary of the first matriculation of women students intending to graduate was celebrated in 1944 and again in 1994.
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