Dame Bertha Surtees Phillpotts was an English scholar in Scandinavian languages, literature, history, archaeology and anthropology.
18 Facts About Bertha Phillpotts
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Bertha Phillpotts's mother, Marian Hadfield Phillpotts, was a competent linguist.
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Bertha Phillpotts then obtained a Pfeiffer Studentship which enabled her to travel to Iceland and Copenhagen to pursue her research.
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An elder brother, Owen Surtees Bertha Phillpotts, was Commercial Attache at the legation.
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Bertha Phillpotts's services were requested by the head of mission, Sir Esme Howard, and she undertook both clerical and research work for him.
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Bertha Phillpotts's other elder brother, Brian, was an officer of the Royal Engineers who served in the First World War and was fatally wounded in action near Ypres in September 1917.
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Bertha Phillpotts was Principal of Westfield College from 1919 until 1921, and a member of the College Council from 1922 until 1932.
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Bertha Phillpotts became the Mistress of Girton College in 1922, succeeding Katharine Jex-Blake, who happened to be her first cousin.
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Bertha Phillpotts held this post until 1925 when, following the death of her mother, she resigned in order to look after her elderly father who was living in retirement in Tunbridge Wells.
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Bertha Phillpotts remained a member until she resigned from her post at Girton College in 1925.
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Bertha Phillpotts is particularly known for her theory of ritual drama as the background to the Eddic poems.
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In June 1931, when she was already in failing health, Bertha Phillpotts married a long standing friend and fellow Cambridge academic, the astrophysicist and educator, Hugh Frank Newall, FRS.
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Bertha Phillpotts died from cancer in Cambridge on 20 January 1932, aged 54.
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Bertha Phillpotts was the first female academic to be so honoured.
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Bertha Phillpotts possessed a lively personality and an intrepid spirit, as the following tribute by a Cambridge colleague shows:.
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Bertha Phillpotts was already not well, and came for a rest.
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Dame Bertha Phillpotts then leapt into another boat and came in second.
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Bertha Phillpotts was one who, for all her learning, her high sense of duty, had a gallant gaiety altogether her own.