Over 250 women to receive honorary degrees at University of Bedfordshire

Over 250 women in their 70s and above are to receive honorary degrees at the University of Bedfordshire this weekend, decades after they completed their studies in physical education.

The women, who studied at Bedford College of Physical Education between 1940 and 1978, are receiving honorary degrees after a six-year campaign to prove the three-year courses they completed were worthy of degree status.

Some of those receiving a degree include Lady Sue Campbell, the head of England women’s Football Association and Hilda Moore, a 100-year-old retired England hockey player thought to be the oldest living recipient of an honorary degree.

They all studied at the college at a time when their courses were not acknowledged as degree level studies as they are today.

Jackie Gregory, 79, who studied at the college from 1961-1964 and helped push for the honorary degrees as part of the Bedford Physical Education Old Students’ Association, said the news was “unbelievable” and would be a “very special moment” for the women.

“I think it’s just this great sense of at last. It’s just absolutely amazing that after all this time, our quest – as we call it – has come to fruition and the women’s PE courses are going to be recognised in this way,” she said. “What we all did, what we all studied, somebody has finally recognised what we’ve been saying that it deserves some recognition.

“We don’t just want the recognition of the depth and the quality of the course, but we want to celebrate the people we have all become.”

Prof Helen Pankhurst, the great-granddaughter of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, will deliver a speech at the ceremony on Saturday.

Founded in 1903 by Margaret Stansfeld, a British educator who promoted physical education for girls, the college was eventually subsumed in to Bedford College of Higher Education in 1976, which went on to become part of the University of Bedfordshire.

The college was well regarded, and the courses studied by the female students were rigorous, both academically and physically. “It was incredibly full on, you never stopped,” Gregory said. “If you had a gymnastics lecture at 9am, you would be up early doing warm up. We had lectures on Saturdays too, and if you were selected to play for a team that would take up the rest of your day.”

Gregory said the honorary degrees were particularly poignant after the success of the Lionesses in the Euros this year, and the increased focus on promoting women in sport.

Many of the women who studied at the college went on to become physiotherapists, teach PE and sports to children and adults, and some have represented their country in sport.

Gregory spent most of her career as a PE teacher in secondary schools in Manchester. “We had to stand up for ourselves,” she said. “You did have fights on your hands, especially when it came to promotions, because if you were in a mixed school the head of department was always a man.

“When I wanted to move into senior management, I was told I wouldn’t get anywhere without a piece of paper saying I had a degree. But I think that made us stronger.”