Marianne Bernard

(Marianne) Frances Bernard (12 February 1839, in Bristol – 9 April 1926, in Bristol) was Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge from 1875 until 1884.

Early life She was born in Bristol, the second daughter of the surgeon James Fogo Bernard and his wife Marianne Amelia Lawrence, sister of John Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence; Charles Bernard was an elder brother. She spent time in British India during the 1860s, when her uncle was Viceroy, in the households of her brother and uncle.

Bernard was trained at the Home and Colonial Training College, as an elementary school teacher. Emily Davies, whom Bernard succeeded, compared her to Charlotte Manning, the first head of the college when it was set up in Hitchin. Bernard relied heavily on Davies during a prolonged handover, for day-to-day matters. Lumsden, indeed, had been a candidate favoured by Girton alumnae, and those existing students who had resented the absentee authority of Davies took Bernard to be a shill.

During her tenure, Bernard guided the college through ongoing construction of the college facilities and an outbreak of smallpox in 1878. She brought back the alumna Elizabeth Welsh in 1876 as classical tutor; and saw two students, Constance Jones and Charlotte Scott, attain high marks in the 1880 Tripos. She held a position on the college executive committee until 1924.