1877 Kate Edger becomes NZ’s first woman graduate

Kate Edger became the first woman in New Zealand to gain a university degree and the first woman in the British Empire to earn a BA. Read more about Kate Edger.

Edger was one of an elite group of New Zealand women who were pioneers in their academic fields.

Helen Connon enrolled as Canterbury College’s first woman student. Matriculating in 1876, she graduated BA in 1880, becoming the second woman arts graduate in the British Empire. When she gained her MA with first-class honours in English and Latin in 1881, she was the first woman in the British Empire to win a degree with honours.

In 1893 Ethel Benjamin enrolled for an LLB degree at the University of Otago. She was the first woman to be admitted to the law school at the university, the first in Australasia to permit women to take a law degree. Benjamin graduated LLB in July 1897.

In 1888 Stella Henderson won a University of New Zealand junior scholarship to Canterbury College. She completed her BA and received a college exhibition for excellence in honours work in political science in 1892. In 1893 she gained her MA with first-class honours in English and Latin. In 1898 she graduated LLB.

Elizabeth Gregory graduated PhD in biochemistry at University College, London, in 1932. Gregory’s services to education and the community were recognised by honours and awards, including a visitor’s grant from the Carnegie Corporation in 1940; fellowship of the Institute of Chemistry in 1943; a Coronation Medal in 1953; and appointment as an OBE in 1961. She was made emeritus professor of home science in 1962 and awarded the honorary degree of LLD in 1967 – the first New Zealand woman graduate to be so honoured.

Image: Kate Edger