Dorothy Garrod, first woman Professor at Cambridge.

SMITH, PAMELA JANE

Key-words: Dorothy Garrod, women, Cambridge, archaeology, universities

In May 1939, the accomplished Palaeolithic archaeologist, Dorothy Garrod, was elected Cambridge's Professor of Archaeology -- the first woman to hold a Chair at either Cambridge or Oxford. Garrod was well qualified for the position in several ways. Trained by R.R. Marett at Oxford and the Abbe Henri Breuil in France, she was renowned for her excavations in Gibraltar, Palestine, Southern Kurdistan and Bulgaria. By 1939, Garrod was one of Britain's finest archaeologists. She had discovered the well-preserved skull fragments of 'Abel', a Neanderthal child, in Gibraltar, identified the Natufian culture while excavating Shukbah near Jerusalem, directed the large, long-term excavations at Mt Carmel, established the Palaeolithic succession for that crucial region and then travelled, in 1938, to explore the important Palaeolithic cave of Bacho Kiro in Bulgaria. Published reports of her excavations had appeared promptly and were very favourably reviewed. The pre-historian, Grahame Clark, who was to succeed her to the Disney Chair in 1952, described Garrod's The Stone Age of Mount Carmel (1937) as 'pure gold' (Clark 1937: 488).

Garrod's papers

Regardless of her accomplishments, Garrod has remained a shadowy figure. Until recently, persistent rumours suggested she had burnt her literary remains. However, as part of my Ph.D research into the institution of prehistory at Cambridge University, I located, with Paul Bahn's and Genevieve Pincon's help, a vast store of Garrod's unpublished and unsorted material held in the Bibliotheque du Musee des Antiquites Nationales outside Paris (Smith et al. 1997). This material is kept under the name of French archaeologist Suzanne Cassou de Saint-Mathurin, who had excavated with Garrod in France and Lebanon. When Saint-Mathurin died in 1991, boxes of Garrod's diaries, letters, field notes, photographs and manuscripts were bequeathed to the MAN along with Saint-Mathurin's papers.

Reserved, assured, delightful

These unpublished papers, along with personal recollections of colleagues and former students, reveal a contrast between Garrod's personality as Professor and her behaviour in every other context. In the field she is at ease and gently humorous; reserved but fun. In the Faculty, however, she is described as 'cripplingly shy' -- dry, distant, difficult to know. Excerpts from her correspondence and field diaries and comments of her contemporaries document this striking contrast. Garrod's earliest letters, long before her Professorship, show a spontaneous, joyful attitude toward life and work.

'My dear Jean', wrote Garrod to her cousin in 1921, 'The last week in France was great fun. It was really almost too moving to be true. You crawl on your stomach for hours ... climbing up yawning abysses (lighted only by an acetylene lamp ...) and get knocked on the head by stalactites and on the legs by [stalag]mites, and in the end arrive at all sorts of wonders; bison modelled in clay, and portraits of sorcerers, and footprints of Magdalenian man'. Garrod was about to meet her life-long mentor, the renowned pre-historian, Abbe Henri Breuil. 'Comte Begouen, our host ... is a dear, and we also met the Abbe Breuil who ... explores impossible caves in a Roman collar and bathing dress. He got an Hon. degree at Cambridge last year, but more fully clothed'. The humour and joie de vivre evident in this letter are typical of Garrod (Box 72: MAN).

'She was eager, fastidious, apparently not robust, but with a clear sense of values ... and courage ... hence the very strenuous field work [in] --France, Spain, Palestine, Kurdistan ... caves and underground rivers', Garrod's cousin, Jean Smith wrote in 1968 (Box 72, MAN). Garrod's notebooks and diaries from the very strenuous excavations at Mount Carmel Caves, Palestine, from 1929-1934, document bonhomie and courage under stress.

Field conditions were harsh. The crew endured uncomfortable, primitive living conditions, terrible heat, sticky humidity, limited and contaminated water, faulty equipment, dust, hot 'Khamseen' winds, violent electrical storms, torrential rains and exposure to serious disease. During their first season at Mount Carmel, Kitson Clark caught tick fever from being bitten by the abundant lice. During the final 1934 excavation season, one crew member, Ruth Waddington, was rushed to the German Hospital in Haifa with malaria.

The camp 1934 diary is permeated with lighthearted stories that belie these difficult circumstances. 'There was considerable consternation as there had been predictions of a cloudburst, an earthquake and the end of the world', writes crew member, Mrs Kennedy Shaw, nee Eleanor Dyott (25 May 1934, camp diary found near Box 62, MAN). 'Mud, muck, ooze upon the floor, torn tents and thunder -- all were forgotten as the sherry bottle was opened. Though it might be mentioned all knives were carefully cleared off the table ... as the dark showed blue lightning' (crew member Anne Fuller's April 1934 entry). The women named their tents and tiny mud brick huts the 'Tibn Towers', arranged daily tea and an occasional Sunday seaside holiday.

Frequent official visitors were handled with patient humour. 'The Towers must above all things keep up appearances', Fuller observes. 'The afternoon was awaited with some anxiety, as Miss Hilda Wills had announced her intention of visiting the Towers', reports Garrod on 14 April 1934. 'At 2.0 precisely Miss W.'s car was sighted turning into the "drive". DG hastened down to receive her, putting the finishing touches to her toilet as the car approached the causeway ... though ignorant of prehistory [Miss Wills] displayed just the right amount of interest -- in short behaved like the best type of Cultured English Hat ... drank tea in the parlour of the Towers, and drove away, leaving a cheque.... Sabbath Sherry was drunk at 6.45, the toast being ...

a "hat" of the best, named Miss Wills, a presenter of gifts and not bills, drove up to the Towers and stayed several hours, leaving twenty-five pounds and no mils'

(camp diary, 14 April 1934, MAN).

During her 1938 reconnaissance expedition to chart Palaeolithic sites in Anatolia, Garrod was 'largely self-propelled'. As in early field situations, her 'demeanor and dealings with the various Institutes and with the Turkish authorities were ... civil, effective and sure-footed with mutual respect and cordiality evident at all times'. Although ultimately in charge of key decisions, she always encouraged contributions from the young Harvard researchers, James Gaul as well as Bruce Howe. Meeting at meals for 'good talk and work', Garrod suggested that Howe spend his next year (1938-1939) in Cambridge to benefit from the Museum's extensive collections of Stone Age material and to attend Grahame Clark's and Glyn Daniel's lectures on prehistory (Howe pers. comm. 1998).

Garrod as Professor: reserved and frightened

Garrod's appointment 'was rather a bombshell as far as I could gather. It definitely ruffled the dovecotes', reports Howe. Her election was greeted with excitement and high expectations, especially by the Cambridge women's colleges. The Newnham College Roll Letter announced with pride, 'Miss Garrod's election to the Disney Professor has been the outstanding event of the year and has filled us with joy' (Letter of January 1940: 11). Fellow female scholars felt uplifted by her achievement (Alison Duke, in conversation with the author, 1998). 'The excitement of her appointment was great', reports Eleanor Robertson, archaeology student, class of 1938 (pers. comm. 1998). The wider University community also took note. 'The election of a woman to the Professorship of Archaeology is an immense step forward towards complete equality between men and women in the University' (The Cambridge Review May 1939).

With her election, Garrod was catapulted into a difficult situation within a new Faculty. As the first prehistorian to assume the Disney Chair, she was Professor of a subject only recently introduced into the curriculum and not yet fully institutionalized. Both prehistoric archaeology and anthropology were fighting for academic recognition, funding and accommodation (Smith 1997). Garrod's predecessor, Ellis Minns, did most of his teaching in the respected Classics Tripos rather than in Archaeology and Anthropology. 'Archaeological studies other than [classical archaeology] were still in an embryonic state', writes archaeologist Charles Phillips, who served on the Faculty Board during the 1930s (unpublished memoirs [1975-80]: 141). Archaeology was still considered a 'hobby pursuit' and a 'last resort' or 'soft' option according to former students. Many bright students who chose archaeology were told that they had no future. Among these were the pioneers of modern prehistoric archaeology: Cyril Fox, Louis Leakey and Grahame Clark (Clark, in conversation with the author, 1994).

From the beginning, Garrod seemed ill at ease in all hierarchical, formal situations where she represented the Faculty. Although she was an excellent tutor in informal, small groups -- 'her mother joined us for a cup of tea before proceedings began. It was all very friendly and easy' (Joan Lillico pers. comm. 1998) -- Garrod was uncomfortable within the more structured Faculty setting. Lecturing was 'not her chosen form of communication', states Dr Ann Sieveking, nee Paull, who listened to Garrod discuss the Upper Palaeolithic in 1951. Sieveking's observation is supported by Garrod's own statement to her friend, Mlle Germaine Henri-Martin: 'j'aime mieux ecrire que discuter de vive voix' [I much prefer to write than discuss aloud] (19 February 1961, Box 38, MAN).

According to archaeologist, Tom Lethbridge (Memoirs [1965]: 99), Garrod's position on the Board of the Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology was 'one of considerable frustration and difficulty'. During and before Garrod's tenure, the Faculty Board wrangled continually with a powerful University body called the General Board of the Faculties which controlled finances and final decisions on innumerable matters. The Faculty Board repeatedly disagree with the General Board on issues of funds and accommodations. 'The Faculty Board does not however agree with the view of the General Board' is the Faculty's refrain in the official Minutes.

It was precisely her administrative encounters with the General Board and its Secretary, John T. Saunders, who is remembered as a hard man, that seem to have caused Garrod the most consternation. As a Professor in the Faculty and as Head of her Department, she dealt continually with Saunders and the General Board. According to her Secretary, Miss Mary Thatcher (in conversation with the author, 1998), it was while Garrod was Department Head that the Faculty overspent on their allowance for electricity. The Board received a letter from

Saunders suggesting that Garrod please go and explain. 'She might have been a schoolgirl', states Thatcher, who accompanied Garrod, 'she shook with fear'. During the meeting, Garrod asked Saunders what the Faculty might do to improve the situation. He answered, 'Well, Professor Garrod, when you see a light on, turn it off' (Thatcher, in conversation, 1998).

Garrod often argued with the General Board on a moral basis. After the War, returning from National Service, Garrod received her stipend for several months while lesser Faculty members did not. She argued with the General Board that this was unfair. The General Board ignored her argument, stating that no Faculty were allowed stipends until they started to lecture. When she pointed out that she, as Professor, had not started lecturing but was receiving pay, the General Board responded that it could consider only hardship cases within her Faculty. Garrod suggested that since it was an issue of discrimination between officers of the same Faculty and as all the junior teaching officers were not receiving stipends, all were hardship cases. The General Board ignored her arguments.

When Garrod's responses to the General Board, recorded in the Faculty Minutes, are studied, she presents herself as relating to University officials as she had related to officials while on excavations and expeditions. While on expeditions, Garrod assumed that the other side was eminently reasonable and that a fair debate could solve all. She was forthcoming with Faculty needs and seemed to expect the General Board to give a clear answer. Her actions are reminiscent of her writing style, described by Clark (1937: 488) as 'dispassionate ... scientific ... modest'. She seemed to follow an idealized scientific model of discourse whereby if her hypothesis were to be wrong, open discussion would lead to a better solution.

Interpretation: what was Dorothy Garrod's difficulty in being Professor?

There were very few women in teaching posts in Cambridge University in 1939. Garrod was a modest, shy person and appears to have been uncomfortable with the attention her election elicited. The fact that she was a woman barred her from some 'behind the scenes' interactions and also from social settings where deals might have been struck. Women were not allowed, for example, to dine at the men's colleges where issues were resolved during conversations at High Table. She would not have been present at important informal discussions where bureaucratic manoeuvrings might have been agreed upon.

Negotiating scrimmages with powerful committees was difficult because Garrod was unaccustomed to the often sharp style of Cambridge institutional interactions and was uncomfortable with the verbal sparring and sarcastic retorts which were an acceptable part of the negotiating process. In the electricity budget incident mentioned, she would have felt it rude to respond to Saunders in kind. However, when she did not retort, he would have judged her as 'weak'. As a result of Garrod's background and personality, she was poorly suited to such interactions.

Garrod had no experience in hierarchical, institutional settings, where she would have been under a General Board, yet over undergraduates. She had never gone to a public school such as Marlborough, as had her brothers, or entered Cambridge and stayed there to build her career, as had Grahame Clark. She was accustomed to leading small egalitarian research teams where she had control of funding and final decisions; she was ill-prepared for the University's ranked system.

Throughout, Garrod seems to have been operating on the more co-operative, reasoned and even dignified mode of behaviour she had enjoyed in the practice of research. This behaviour was maladaptive within Cambridge's arcane institutional, hierarchical arena where control and manipulation of scarce resources were critical and where bureaucratic effectiveness required a tacit knowledge of how to act. She never became acculturated to the type of informal behaviour needed to be a 'Cambridge man'.

All indications are that she was uncomfortable in her professorial role and left as soon as her sense of duty allowed. Upon retirement in 1952, the Faculty presented her with an ornate scroll, inscribed in Latin, which reveals their respect and can be translated as:

To Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod ... indefatigable explorer of antiquity, who for thirteen years professed the science of archaeology in Cambridge with such great learning, such great splendour, such great friendliness and humanity, her colleagues, acquaintances, friends, whose names are written beneath, joyfully giving thanks for so many things well done ... moved not only by love ... give with pleasure this clock as a gift.

'caelum non animum mutant, qui trans [mare] currunt' [Horace. Epistles, Book I, 11, line 27] 'those who hasten across [the sea] change their horizon, not their soul'

(Quoted by courtesy of Madeleine Lovedy Smith.)

Acknowledgements. All knowledge is community based. This is especially true when published sources do not yet exist. I have hence relied upon personal reminiscences and unpublished material to reconstruct Garrod's past. Interpretations only emerged after hours of discussions with colleagues, friends and supervisors. Space does not allow me to mention names but I can say it was a joy and privilege to work with the over 140 people who contributed. Grants arranged by Paul Mellars, Jane Renfrew and Lucy Cavendish College, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Garrod Fund of the Cambridge Department of Archaeology, The American School of Prehistoric Research and the LEE Foundation funded this research. This paper is dedicated to Loren and Lester.

References

CLARK, J.G.D. 1937. Review of The Stone Age of Mount Carmel: Excavations at the Wady el-Mughara 1, by D.A.E. Garrod & D.M.A. Bate, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 3(2): 486-8.

FACULTY OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY BOARD MINUTES. 1927-1943. Cambridge University Archives: Min. V.92a.

1944-1947. Cambridge University Archives: Min. V.94.

LETHBRIDGE, T.C. [1965]. The ivory tower. Unpublished memoirs in possession of Mrs Lethbridge.

PHILLIPS, C.W. [1975-1980]. Unpublished memoirs in possession of the Phillips family.

SMITH, P.J. 1997. Grahame Clark's new archaeology, Antiquity 71: 11-30.

SMITH. P.J., J. CALLANDER, P.G. BAHN & G. PINCON. 1997. Dorothy Garrod in words and pictures, Antiquity 71: 265-70.

PAMELA JANE SMITH, Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge CB3 0BU, England. pjs1011@cam.ac.uk