Janet Ruth Bacon
Encyclopedia
Janet Ruth Bacon was the daughter of a barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...

 and was Principal of Royal Holloway College, University of London (RHC) from 1935-44. She was unmarried.

Education

She was educated at Oxford High School and Girton College, Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

 where she read Classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...

.

Career

She first taught at King Edward VI High School for Girls
King Edward VI High School for Girls
King Edward VI High School for Girls is an independent secondary school in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England. It is part of the Foundation of the Schools of King Edward VI in Birmingham and occupies the same site as, and is twinned with, King Edward's School...

 in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

 during the First World War. She then was a lecturer on Classics at Girton becoming Director of Studies in Classics there from 1925-35. In 1925 she published The Voyage of the Arogonauts, an authority on the subject. She was appointed as Principal of RHC unanimously by the governors as successor to Miss Ellen Charlotte Higgins
Ellen Charlotte Higgins
Ellen Charlotte Higgins was the third Principal of Royal Holloway College, University of London from 1907-1935...

‎. The 50th anniversary of the college opening was celibrated in her tenure with a visit from Queen Mary
Mary of Teck
Mary of Teck was the queen consort of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, as the wife of King-Emperor George V....

. This was in 1937 as King George V had died in 1936 the anniversary year, a year of Royal mourning
Mourning
Mourning is, in the simplest sense, synonymous with grief over the death of someone. The word is also used to describe a cultural complex of behaviours in which the bereaved participate or are expected to participate...

.

She was principal during the Second World War when part of the college was occupied by an Officer Cadets' Training Unit. The stress of war-time forced her to resign on the grounds of ill-health but it was clear that she understood she had failed. One of her last responsibilities was as a member of the Post-War Policy Committee of the college. She disagreed with the majority on the committee and her failure to convince her colleagues added to her sense of failure as Principal. One of the proposals agreed was an intention for RHC to become co-educational. This later began in 1945 with the admission of men postgraduates and then in 1956 with male undergraduates. She was succeeded in the last year of war by Miss Fanny Street
Fanny Street
Fanny Street was Acting Principal of Royal Holloway College, University of London from 1944-1945. Her brother was Arthur George Street author of Farmer's Glory.-Education:...

as Acting Principal.
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