Kathleen Wood-Legh

Kathleen Louise Wood-Legh (1901–1981) was a Canadian historian, specialising in medieval social and economic history.

Life Born in Mount Forest, Ontario, Kathleen Wood-Legh was blind from childhood. After completing a BA in 1923 and an MA in 1924, both at McGill University, she travelled to England with her family for further study. In 1926 she began a PhD at Newnham College under the supervision of G.G. Coulton on church life in medieval England, completed in 1932. Despite glowing references from G.M. Trevelyan, she was unable to secure a permanent academic position and became a tutor and supervisor for undergraduate students at the University of Cambridge. With Anna McClean Bidder, in 1950 she was a founding member of the Society of Women Members of the Regent House who are not Fellows of Colleges, better known as the Dining Group. This informal group of female scholars at Cambridge became the nucleus for Lucy Cavendish College, established in 1965. Wood-Legh wrote the constitution of the new college, becoming a fellow. Her key publications include:

Studies in Church Life in England under Edward III (1934). Based on her PhD thesis. Perpetual Chantries in Britain (1965). Based on the series of Birkbeck lectures she delivered in 1955. (ed.) Kentish Visitations of Archbishop William Warham and his deputies, 1511-1512 (1984).

Legacy She is commemorated by the Wood-Legh Room in Lucy Cavendish College, and by the Wood-Legh Prize, awarded by the University of Cambridge Faculty of History for the best dissertation in the MPhil in Medieval History. Her papers are held by Cambridge University Library.