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.

Education 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.

Career Cambridge and Imperial She was a research officer at the Board of Trade from 1946 to 1966, 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 to 1981. In 1974 she was part of the government's committee that published the 1975 Halsbury Report into pay and conditions for nurses and midwives. At Imperial she was head of the Department of Social and Economic Studies from 1978 to 1981. Wedderburn was appointed as first principal of the merged college and served from 1985 to 1990, and was also the last principal of Bedford.

The official title (Royal Holloway and Bedford New College) is still retained, but for everyday use the college is now referred to as Royal Holloway, University of London or simply Royal Holloway, London. On leaving Royal Holloway she declined the damehood normally offered to former female principals. There is no explanation given in any of the published obituaries. Holloway's remaining paintings were worth about £17m, but probably now substantially more.

Other posts Wedderburn was a Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of London from 1986 to 1988. From 1981 to 2003 she was also a senior research fellow at Imperial College. She was Honorary President of the Fawcett Society from 1986 to 2002. From 1998 to 2000, she was chair of the Committee of Enquiry into Women in Prison.

Dorothy Wedderburn's brother, George, was President of the Royal Statistical Society and Institute of Mathematics and its Applications in the 1970s and Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Essex.

Publications Wedderburn wrote extensively on social issues including White Collar Redundancy (1964), Enterprise Planning for Change (1964), The Economic Circumstances of Old People (1962) and later Justice for Women (2000).