April 25th Professor Lilian Knowles (Death)


Truro – born Lilian Charlotte Anne Knowles (née Tomn; 1870–1926) was educated at Truro High School and Girton College, Cambridge where she was the first student to obtain a double First Class result in her Part I and Part II History and Law Tripos. 

At the time, women were not allowed to be awarded degrees and she was awarded an ad eundem D.Litt by the University of Dublin. Ad eundem degrees were honorary degrees conferred for work completed at another university and Knowles was one of the first of the seven hundred ‘Steamboat Ladies’ honoured in this way.

After postgraduate research at the London School of Economics, Knowles became the first full time lecturer in Economic History in Britain. Promoted to Reader in 1907 and to a full Professorship in 1921, Knowles was the second Professor of Economic History in Britain and, in 1924, became Dean of the Faculty of Economics at the LSE, the first female Dean of the University of London.  Unusually for the time, Knowles did not give up work upon marriage.

Knowles became renowned for her two-volume work ‘Economic Development of the British Empire’ which was completed by her husband after her sudden and premature death from cancer in 1926.

 

 

 

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