Dorothy Wedderburn

Dorothy Enid Wedderburn (née Barnard, formerly Cole; 18 September 1925 – 20 September 2012) was Principal of Bedford College, part of the University of London, and, after the merger with Royal Holloway College, another college of the university, was the first principal of the combined institution.

Wedderburn was born in Walthamstow and educated at Walthamstow County High School for Girls in north-east London and Girton College, Cambridge, where she read economics. She joined the Communist Party in the 1940s, but ended her membership of the party in the late 1950s, though remaining on the left of the labour movement.

She was a research officer at the Board of Trade from 1946–66, did research in applied economics at Cambridge and then worked as a lecturer, and subsequently reader and professor, in industrial sociology at the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London, then part of the University of London, from 1965–1981. At Imperial she was head of the Department of Social and Economic Studies from 1978–81.

In 1981 she became Principal of Bedford College. The 1982 partnership agreement between Bedford and Royal Holloway was signed as a result of severe cuts in government spending on higher education. Discussions had taken place between Wedderburn and Holloway's then principal, Dr Lionel Butler. Before anything was finalised, Butler died suddenly on 26 November 1981. Following this, final discussions took place between Wedderburn and Dr Roy Miller, Holloway's new principal. These included Bedford leaving its site in Regent's Park, London and moving to the Holloway site. The merger finally took place in 1985 and the newly merged Royal Holloway and Bedford New College was inaugurated in 1986 by Her Majesty The Queen at a ceremony at Royal Holloway's chapel. Wedderburn was appointed as first principal of the merged college and served from 1985–1990, and was also the last principal of Bedford.

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