Grace Annie Lockhart | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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Grace Annie Lockhart

Grace Annie Lockhart, pioneer of women's university education (b at Saint John 22 Feb 1855; d at Charlottetown 18 May 1916).


Mount Allison Wesleyan College, class of 1875.
The class of 1875, Mount Allison Wesleyan College, including Mount Allison's first female university graduate, Grace Annie Lockhart. Credit: Mount Allison University/2007.07, item 1190.

Grace Annie Lockhart, pioneer of women's university education (b at Saint John 22 Feb 1855; d at Charlottetown 18 May 1916). On 25 May 1875, Lockhart received a bachelor of science and English literature from Mt Allison College, Sackville, NB, and thus became the first woman in the British Empire to receive a bachelor's degree. Although her later life was spent in a more conventional role, as the wife of the Methodist minister J.L. Dawson, Lockhart's academic achievement as a student provided clear evidence of the justice of women's claim to full rights in the field of higher education.