Phillpotts, Bertha Surtees (1877–1932)
Phillpotts, Bertha Surtees (1877–1932)
British scholar . Name variations: Dame Bertha Surtees Newall; Dame Bertha Phillpotts. Born in 1877; died in 1932; graduated from Girton College in Cambridge, 1901; married H.F. Newall (1857–1944, an astrophysicist whose father constructed the Newall telescope), in 1931.
Dame Bertha Phillpotts studied medieval and modern languages at Girton College, from which she graduated with first class honors in 1901. For the next 12 years, she devoted herself to the study of Scandinavian culture and eventually became the first Lady Carlisle fellow of Somerville College at Oxford. She served as principal of Westfield College from 1919 to 1922, and as mistress of her alma mater from 1922 to 1925. In 1926, she became a university lecturer, a post she would hold until her death. Phillpotts was created a Dame of the British Empire (DBE) in 1929 and two years later published her notable work Edda and Saga. She died in 1932.
Lisa Frick , freelance writer, Columbia, Missouri