Winifred Smith

Winifred Smith (5 November 1858 – 1925) was an English botanist and educationist. She became a lecturer in the botany department at University College, London and took a leading role in supporting women students.

First forty years She was born in Mortlake, Surrey on 5 November 1858 to Fanny and James Smith, who owned and ran a building business. Some of Smith's education was at Queen's College, London, a pioneering school for girls aged from 12 to 20. She then "devoted" herself to teaching until she began studying at University College in 1899. In the late 1870s her family experienced changes: her father went bankrupt and Smith and her parents moved from the long-term family home in Mortlake High Street to live in Putney. After getting her degree she did research in symbiosis. She was also a member of the British Ecological Society. She was well known and well liked, and some people spoke of her affectionately as Auntie Winnie. Smith was also vice-chairman of the College Hall of Residence for women students and involved in a range of college activities, women's societies and causes. both supported women's suffrage, and both "detested that the women members of the academic staff were treated as second-class citizens". They did not want the women academics to be limited to a cramped, inadequate common room and planned a way of making the decision-makers take note of how much more space and comfort the men had. As Murray said, "Winifred Smith...and I cooked up a little scheme to get our way". They succeeded.

After her death on 24 December 1925, a Winifred Smith Memorial trust fund, announced in The Times, for the benefit of women students and members of staff: for holidays etc. The fund was enlarged by a bequest from the recent University College provost Sir Gregory Foster to commemorate his wife Maude as well as Smith, and so the college came to own two adjoining houses, Old Forge Cottage and Sunnyside in Muddle Green. This arrangement now takes the form of the Winifred Smith and Maude Foster Memorial Fund.