Jessie Webb

Jessie Stobo Watson Webb (31 July 1880 – 17 February 1944) was an Australian academic and historian, one of the first female teachers at the University of Melbourne. The only monograph of Webb's life is by R. T. Ridley, published by the History Department of Melbourne University.

Early life Webb was born in 1880 on Ellerslie Station, near Tumut, at the foot of the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales. Webb was the only child of grazier Charles Webb, originally from New Zealand, and his wife Jessie Webb, née Watson, of Scotland, who died shortly after childbirth. Webb joined Clara Puella Greig who operated an independent coaching college, staffed with other female university graduates. Webb ran tutoring programs catering for students from matriculation level through the whole duration of undergraduate courses.

Full-time lecturer On Elkington's retirement in 1913, she was elevated to a full-time lecturer, after Ernest Scott, the new professor, successfully lobbied the university to provide for a full-time assistant.

Webb was promoted to become a senior lecturer within the history department in 1923. In 1925, she was an acting professor. Webb remained the only female employee in the history department until the appointment of Kathleen Fitzpatrick in 1938. The Jessie Webb Collection now forms part of the Classics and Archaeology Collection at the Ian Potter Museum of Art. Elsewhere in university life, Webb contributed to the founding of the University Women's College – since 1975 known as University College – which was established in 1933.

Literary anthology Webb joined in 1909 with her friend Ella Latham – fellow 1902 Melbourne Arts graduate, fellow tutor at her coaching academy, and wife of John Latham, future Chief Justice of Australia – in editing a literary anthology designed for school students, Phases of Literature: From Pope to Browning. During this time she visited archaeological sites in Mycenae and Knossos, where she was taken on a tour by Arthur Evans,

Webb returned to Europe again in 1936 – sailing out on a Norwegian cargo ship

Legacy Webb's contribution to history and the teaching of history in Melbourne has been little noticed by subsequent generations. That Webb did not publish any historical work has contributed to this, though Kathleen Fitzpatrick has said that Webb "underestimated her ability and scholarship, and probably felt handicapped by distance from ancient sites, great libraries and professional colleagues which could not be bridged by rare periods of overseas leave." Though Manning Clark was disappointed at the lack of "wisdom and understanding" he had sought but failed to find in Webb's lectures, A. A. Phillips praised her knack for human observation, which he compared to that of Jane Austen, and Keith Hancock rated her among the best three teachers he had at Melbourne.

While Webb's speciality was Ancient Greek history, she was well read in all classical history. She had a strong interest in Roman history, and followed the rapidly developing fields of Egyptian and Mesopotamian history and archaeology throughout her career. Former students noted the breadth of Webb's interests and reading, and her frequent inclusion of the best contemporary research in her lectures. Susan Janson has praised the sustained quality and variety of the large number of exam papers Webb set over the course of her career, and argued that "f we take [them] as our evidence of Jessie Webb's productivity, we can revalue her work as a historian."

The Jessie Webb Award is presented annually by the Numismatic Association of Victoria for the best article by a female author in the Victorian Numismatic Journal.