Archives and Collections – Object of the Month

March 2019

This month the Whittaker Library is celebrating Women’s History with a display of books and other materials. You may have spotted inspirational quotes from trailblazing women around the walls of the Library. The Archives and Collections Object of the Month ties in with this theme:

The Glasgow Athenaeum: Forty-fifth Annual Report of the Directors for the Year Ending 31st August, 1892 List of Professors, including Professor Emma Ritter-Bondy

Emma Ritter-Bondy was born in 1838 in Austria. A graduate of the Vienna Conservatoire, Ritter-Bondy later moved to Glasgow. In 1892, The Glasgow Athenaeum (now RCS) made her Professor of Piano. This means that Ritter-Bondy was the first woman to be made a Professor in a Higher Education Institution in the United Kingdom.  This pamphlet, attached to the handwritten book of minutes, shows a list of the names of Professors in the Athenaeum School of Music in 1892, including “Madame Ritter-Bondy”:

Professor Emma Ritter-Bondy: a trailblazing woman and one of our own!

Click below to read a BBC news article on the subject:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-39191297