Edinburgh Ladies' Educational Association

The Edinburgh Association for the University Education of Women (EAUEW), originally known as the Edinburgh Ladies' Educational Association (ELEA), campaigned for higher education for women from 1867 until 1892 when Scottish universities started to admit female students. For nearly a quarter of a century it arranged its own classes for women with lecturers from Edinburgh University, and it was connected with a wider campaign across Europe to open universities to women students.

The ELEA was founded by Mary Crudelius, with Sarah Mair and others, in 1867 just before Sophia Jex-Blake started pressing Edinburgh University to admit medical students. Jex-Blake's campaign, covered by the press in both London and Scotland, made Edinburgh a visible part of a nationwide movement demanding higher education opportunities for women. Crudelius wished to keep the ELEA separate from the controversy raging over the women aspiring to become doctors, and she built up support amongst male academics, with strong encouragement from David Masson, Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature, who offered the first university-level lectures to Edinburgh women in 1868. These were well-attended and within the next five years the association had arranged for several more subjects to be offered, including science subjects.

In August 1867 the University of London had been given powers to hold special examinations for women. In 1868 the university drew up plans to grant them certificates, although it would be another ten years before women could graduate with full degrees. One of David Masson's earliest ELEA lectures in 1868 responded to this news: "Is it to be borne that our Scottish Universities are to be Universities for only the men of the land, while other Universities are Universities for the men and women of the land? Is it to be borne that those of Scotland's daughters, be they few or be they many at present, who desire not to be behind any of their British sisters in culture, shall have to look for encouragement and aid to the Universities in England ... ?"

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