Clodagh Finn: Centenary of Irish scholar's death in Alps sadly overlooked

Dr Sophie Bryant campaigned for Irish university education and a firm place for women in it

Dr Sophie Bryant went on to be a noted mathematician, a social reformer, a suffragist, and educationalist.

No wonder we missed it. In August 1922, the papers were reporting on the “greatest pageant of sorrow ever seen in Dublin” as Michael Collins — the “lion-hearted chieftain” — was laid to rest amid a “mighty spectacle of mourning”.

But on the very same day (August 29) and on the very same page (page 4) the Irish Independent carried another important, but overlooked story under the headline: “Dr Sophie Bryant: Body Reported Found”. It went on to report that the remains of Dr Bryant, the Dublin-born scholar, mathematician, and champion of outdoor pursuits, had been found in the Alps after a two-week search.

In a tribute quoted in this newspaper, Professor Michael Sadler, the Principal of London University, said of her: “She would have died for truth, she would have died for freedom, and she would have died for Ireland”.

Yet, on the centenary of her disappearance and death, there is little official recognition of this singular woman who was born in Dublin, lived briefly near Dunmanway in Cork, and spent childhood summers in Fermanagh. She went on to be a noted mathematician, a social reformer, a suffragist, an educationalist — “one of the most brilliant of her day,” it was said —as well as a rower, an early cyclist, and a mountaineer.

She had climbed the Matterhorn twice and at age 72 was still active, joining a walking party to the Alps exactly a century ago. On August 14, 1922, she set out shortly before the others and they were surprised when they did not come upon her. They reported her missing when they arrived back and the story was widely reported in the press; a measure of her public profile and her standing.

Two weeks later, the Belfast Telegraph reported the sad news that her body had been discovered on some rocks a few yards from the mule track running from Montenvert to Chamonix. It said: “Dr Bryant [note the mention of her doctorate] had apparently attempted to take a short cut, but lost her way, and collapsed from traversing a difficult gully, and died of exhaustion.”

Rather poignantly it went on to say that her shoes, hat, and handbag were found at a short distance from the body and it was supposed that she had been about to bathe her feet following a bad sprain in a pool nearby when she had a seizure.

This paper published a piece the following day, on 30 August, to say that the papers in Switzerland had all published long obituary notices in which justice was done to Dr Bryant’s “immense services to education, and especially to the higher education of women. Her lifelong affection for Ireland and her unselfish labours in its cause are also described.”

Anniversary unnoticed

The centenary of her death has passed almost unnoticed. I say almost because the wonderful Dictionary of Irish Biography noted her passing on  August 14. Maybe there was more, but I missed it in the wall-to-wall coverage of the centenary of Michael Collins’ death.

Collins is a colossus, of course. There is no denying that but this woman, born in Sandymount in 1850 in Dublin, dedicated her life to inclusive education, political equality, social reform, and the telling of a version of history that celebrated the tradition of the Gael. Surely that deserves a mention and an official nod.

She was the third of six children born to Sophia Willock (née Morris) and Reverend William Alexander Willock, a mathematician and fellow of Trinity College Dublin. Her father encouraged her early education and when she was just 16, she won a scholarship to study at Bedford College in the UK.

Her list of achievements kept coming. In 1867, she was first in mathematics in the Cambridge local examination which had just recently opened to girls.

Two years later, she married a doctor, William Hicks Bryant, and when he died just 12 months later she became more deeply involved in education. She joined the staff of the North London Collegiate School in 1875 as a maths and German teacher and would eventually replace its founder, pioneer in women’s education Frances Buss, as head mistress.

Dr Sophie Bryant was a pioneer in her own right, too. She was one of the first two women to get a degree (mathematics and mental and moral science) from the University of London in 1881. She followed that, three years later, with a doctorate in science — the first woman in the UK and Ireland to receive one

She also played a key role in setting up the London School of Ethics and Social Philosophy a decade later.

Although she was based in the UK, she was a regular visitor to Ireland and considered herself Irish. She was, she said, a nationalist, in favour of home rule and the vote for women.

As she put it herself: “In home politics I am first of all a Nationalist, and till the Home Rule bill becomes law the cause of Home Rule is supreme in its claim on my loyalty. In general politics I am a Liberal, and to my mind the enfranchisement of women in our Western lands is the political step most sorely needed for the progress of the human race.”

Lectures and campaigns

She gave regular lectures to the Irish Literary Society and campaigned tirelessly for Irish university education and a firm place for women in it.

When she gave a lecture in May 1905 to the Catholic Graduates and Undergraduates’ Association in Dublin, she talked of “a democratic university” (“to applause,” the papers noted) that would not give the education of the Catholic people of Ireland into the hands of the bishops or into the hands of the religious orders exclusively, but into the hands of the people of Ireland (more applause).

This paper sang her praises and said her lecture “added another to her many laurels as an able and convincing speaker”.

Three years later, the National University of Ireland was founded with its three constituent University Colleges in Dublin, Cork and Galway.

Her books, too, were welcomed and, for the most part, well-reviewed. The Irish Independent noted, for instance, that “few of those who are of the literary craft can be said to be more Irish in nature and sympathy than the learned author of The Genius of the Gael”.

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The press, here and in the UK, also followed her closely, reporting on her lectures, her fight for votes for women, and her campaign to promote outdoor pursuits. One report in this paper even noted how, in 1920, a UK “police flying squad” foiled an attempted break-in at her home.

Indeed, after her death, she was remembered for many years. In 1937, suffragette and nationalist Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington recalled her contribution during a broadcast on Athlone radio on distinguished scholars and historians, while the 25th anniversary of her death was commemorated in 1947.

Now, as the centenary of her death in an Alpine accident approaches, we might carve out a few column inches — as the papers did in 1922 — to recall this exceptional woman.