The past week or so I have been working on a presentation that will celebrate the 170th birthday of one of Mt. A’s most illustrious female graduates— Grace Annie Lockhart (1855–1916)— on February 22. It is always a challenge to find something new to say, but as the saying goes, “necessity is the mother of invention.”
Earlier this year, I started a deep dive into the holdings and as luck would have it, I did find something new. Thanks to a librarian at the Vancouver Public Library, a photograph album was forwarded to the archives back in 1982. It had been listed but never fully explored. Within the leather-bound volume I found two new images of Lockhart which likely date to between 1875 and 1885. She would have been in her twenties at the time.
The album belonged to Alice A. Chesley who was a contemporary of Lockhart at the Female Academy. In fact, she went on to be the Preceptress, or head, of the institution at the time that Lockhart was receiving her bachelor’s degree in 1875, a first in the British Empire.
Both women married Methodist ministers, and they remained friends. In fact, Lockhart’s youngest son, John Chesley or “Ches” (Class of 1924), was undoubtedly named in her honour. In speaking with one of her granddaughters-in-law this week, Louise Dawson was very pleased to learn this new information.
There are many others who were instrumental in creating the circumstances at Mt. A which led to that first degree. Mary Electa Adams, the first Preceptress, demanded rigorous intellectual standards from the opening of the institution in 1854. Her inspiration was undoubtedly the fact that she had been denied the right to obtain her own degree.
The other person who deserves credit is the University’s third President James R. Inch (1835–1912). He advocated for and announced the change in 1872 that paved the way for generations of women since.
In thinking about this illustrious graduate I began to ruminate on who she was and perhaps more importantly how she might have seen herself. In 2016, her granddaughter was quoted in the Mount Allison Record saying, “We knew about [our grandmother’s accomplishment] certainly, but I can’t ever recall it being considered a big fuss … it was just something that happened and was fantastic. I don’t think my grandmother ever made a big deal of it either.”
How Canadian was my initial thought when I read this. Even her obituary offered no reference to the fact that she was the first woman in Canada to receive a university degree. Her worth instead was gauged by the number of friends she had made in her lifetime and her “sterling worth.”
I am going to leave you today with a thought from another woman who blazed a trail … the first deaf and blind woman to earn a bachelor’s degree. Helen Keller was right when she said that “true happiness” is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
Grace Annie Lockhart may not be as well-known as Helen Keller. Nevertheless, she fulfilled the dreams of generations of women who were denied that achievement in Canada and opened that path to the generations of women who have followed her. Our country and the wider world have benefitted from this change and I for one look forward to seeing where the women of this current generation will take us.
Happy 170th birthday Grace Annie Lockhart and thank you for setting us on the right path and providing that worthy purpose!
