📚Also at the end of her second year as a History undergraduate student, Ritu decided to apply to the Summer Research Programme, and has been working under the supervision of the Senior Tutor on a project entitled ‘Beyond the break with Eton: Access and Widening Participation at King's in the 20th Century.’
“As a College, King’s is regarded for its reputation for diversity and inclusion - this is why I applied to it myself. And yet, from its foundation in 1441 until the mid-nineteenth century, its membership was constituted exclusively by Etonian boys. This research project gives me the chance to unpick, and historicise, this evolution of King’s into the heterogenous College it now is.
Sifting through the College Archives has deepened my appreciation for primary source analysis, and the careful labour it requires, but it has also illustrated that the membership of King’s College has historically been fiercely contested. Henry VI’s founding statutes were invoked by both reformist students and reactionary Fellows as arguments for change, from the admission of non-Etonians to the admission of women in 1972.
Though still ongoing, I have thoroughly enjoyed producing this timeline of King’s widening participation so far, and have attempted along the way, to excavate those agents who fought for accessibility and progress.”
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