Edith Wardale

Edith Elizabeth Wardale (6 March 1863 – 27 February 1943) was a British philologist and literary scholar. She earned a first class degree and an early doctorate. She taught at St Hugh's, Oxford, where she broke glass ceilings. She was an early woman lecturer, and she was the first woman to serve on the medieval and modern languages and literature faculty board. She resigned in a successful protest concerning the dismissal of a fellow lecturer.

Life Wardale was born in Orcheston in 1863. She lived in the parish named Orcheston St Mary, where her father, John Wardale, was the rector. Her mother was Susannah Jennings Gay.

She initially entered Oxford University via Lady Margaret Hall but within a year she moved to St Hugh's Hall. She became the star-pupil of Joseph Wright who said she was the first woman to gain a "decent degree". Unlike many of his peers, Joseph Wright allowed her to teach classes in Old English, Middle German and the history of literature in Old High German. The Oxford Association for the Education of Women employed her in 1891 as a tutor of Old English and she became a tutor at St Hugh’s.

She was Oxford's first woman examiner in English in 1925.

She wrote An Introduction to Middle English in 1937. Two years later she became a Doctor of Letters.

Wardale died in Oxford in 1943.