Margaret Alford

Margaret Alford (5 September 1868 – 29 May 1951) was an English classicist and pioneering academic who achieved a First at Cambridge University in 1887, a time when women were not formally awarded degrees. She spent more than two decades teaching at schools and universities, while publishing and editing many books. She specialised in Latin prose, particularly the works of Livy, Tacitus and Cicero, an area almost entirely dominated by male scholars.

Education Margaret Alford was born in Leavenheath, Suffolk, but spent most of her life in London. Punch magazine noted, and satirised, the success of women in Classics at Cambridge at the time, and of the two women's colleges Girton and Newnham; Alford was mentioned as 'a Classical First' in a verse called The Ladies' Year

Career 1891–1917: Visiting Lecturer at Girton College 1894–1919: Visiting Lecturer at Westfield College, London 1904–1909: Head of Department of Latin at Bedford College, London 1918–1943: Managed the periodicals for the joint Societies (Hellenic and Roman), and served on the council for the Hellenic Society

During the period of 1942-1945, she served as the only woman on the editorial staff of the Oxford Latin Dictionary. Alford worked on other books including Liddell-Scott-Jones's Greek-English Lexicon, Lampe's Patristic Greek Lexicon, and index to H. M. Allen's edition of the letters of Erasmus (Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterdami)

Awards and honours 1943: Elected to Honorary Fellowship of Girton 1943: Awarded with an honorary MA from the University of Oxford

Published works Throughout her career as a university lecturer, Alford published a number of books, mostly commentaries on Latin texts: Livy, Book V (London: Macmillan Elementary Classics, 1892) Latin prose for translation: for the use of higher forms in school and of students working for pass degrees (London: Macmillan & Co., 1902) Versions of Latin Passages for Translation (London: Macmillan, 1910) Tacitus, Histories, Book I (University of London Press, 1912) Cicero, Letters to Atticus, Book II (London: Macmillan Red, 1929) Livy, Book II (London: Macmillan Elementary Classics, 1933)