Annie Rogers

Annie Mary Anne Henley Rogers (15 February 1856 – 28 October 1937) was a British promoter of women's education. She had an offer of a university place at the University of Oxford withdrawn when it was realised that the candidate was female. She proved that she was capable of achieving first-class Oxford University degrees but could not receive a formal degree until 1920. Her work as a home tutor for women students led to her being recognised as a founder of St Anne's College, Oxford. She wrote a history of women taking degrees, published posthumously.

Rogers was born in Oxford to James Edwin Thorold Rogers and his second wife, Ann Susannah Charlotte (née Reynolds). Her father was a campaigner for women's rights and later a Liberal MP. She was the eldest of six children and the only girl.

She had been a child model for Lewis Carroll in 1863. Carroll took pictures of her in costume and wrote a poem which he sent with a photograph. The poem read

Rogers had an offer of a university place withdrawn when it was realised that she was female. She had come top in the Oxford school examinations in 1873 and was automatically qualified for an exhibition at Balliol or Worcester College. As a consolation prize Balliol gave her volumes of Homer and her place was given to the boy who had come sixth in the tests.

Rogers was able to sit examinations for women at roughly undergraduate level in 1877 and 1879, giving her the equivalent of first-class marks in Latin and Greek and in Ancient History respectively. She was not formally awarded an Oxford degree until 1920 when women became eligible for admission as full members of the university and were given the right to take degrees. In 1879, Oxford University opened its first halls for women students and Rogers, as the only woman with the equivalent of an Oxford University degree became a don (lecturer). She joined, and became secretary of, the Association for Promoting the Higher Education of Women in Oxford.

In 1893, she was teaching Latin at Oxford High School. In 1897, she wrote a paper titled "The position of women at Oxford and Cambridge" which set out a case for improved funding for women's education. The paper inspired Clara Mordan who in time would fund the new buildings of St Hugh's College, Oxford.

Notably she became to secretary of the Society of Oxford Home-Students which would, in 1952, become St Anne's College, Oxford. She was a talented tutor to the women who were studying Classics at home and she is acknowledged as one of the founders of St Anne's College.

Rogers died in the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford in 1937 after being struck by a lorry in St Giles'. She was buried in Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford, on 1 November. In her memory a garden was laid out to the north of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, and a stone bench there bears an inscription in her memory.

Her book Degrees by Degrees was published in 1938; it records the history of degrees at Oxford.