If you glance down when stepping over the Turl Street threshold into Jesus College, you’ll see a flagstone that celebrates the women who enrolled here for the first time in 1974.  Although the first women-only colleges at Oxford opened in 1879, there were no co-educational colleges until 95 years later when Jesus, and four other previously men-only colleges – Brasenose, Hertford, St Catherine’s and Wadham – admitted women.

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In a film about the flagstone, Professor Yvonne Jones, Professorial Fellow in Medicine at Jesus and Sir Andrew McMichael Professor of Structural Immunology, explains “In the College archives, the start of discussions on co-education at Jesus can be traced back to 1969. The question of admitting women was first formally raised at a College meeting on 16 December 1970. It received overwhelming support – with 13 voting for the motion and just three against. At that meeting it was also agreed that Jesus would join the Working Party of Colleges, set up to explore the principle of co-education at Oxford.

By the end of 1971, in what became known as the ‘Jesus experiment’, the governing bodies of several colleges had voted to give themselves power ‘by the amendment of their statutes, to admit women’.

At the start of Michaelmas term 1974, the first women undergraduates admitted by Jesus College stepped through the Turl Street gate and walked into First Quad. That year the College admitted 22 female undergraduates out of a total of 99. Sir John Habakkuk was Principal of Jesus College from 1967-1984. He reflected on his experience of College becoming co-educational in a letter to the Master of Pembroke College Cambridge in 1982, concluding: “I think that all my colleagues feel the ‘experiment’ has been very successful.” On the 40th anniversary of co-education, in 2014, the commemorative flagstone was installed.

Watch the film here

This article previously formed part of 12 Objects – a 450th Anniversary digital exhibition series which told Jesus College’s rich and vibrant story through some of the objects in our collection. Curated by a range of expert contributors, led by Helen Morag Fellow Professor Paulina Kewes and College Archivist Dr Robin Darwall-Smith, this series brought to life the stories of the people who have made the Jesus community what it is today. Each month we announce a new object, explore its history and get a 21st Century perspective from one of our contributors.