Julia Kennedy

Julia Elizabeth (Poppy) Kennedy (23 December 1839 – 9 December 1916) was a British classical scholar. She was a supporter of women's suffrage and higher education for women.[1]

Julia Kennedy
Born(1839-12-23)23 December 1839
Shrewsbury, UK
DiedDecember 9, 1916(1916-12-09) (aged 76)
Cambridge, UK
OccupationClassicist
RelativesMarion Kennedy

Life

Julia, the daughter of Janet and Benjamin Hall Kennedy, was born in 1839 in Shrewsbury. She had four siblings: Charlotte Amy May Kennedy (1832‒95), Marion Kennedy (1836‒1914), Edith Janet Kennedy (1842‒1922), and Arthur Herbert Kennedy (1846‒85).[2] The Kennedy family moved to Cambridge in 1867, when Benjamin took up the Regius Chair in Greek at the University of Cambridge.[3]

Julia was taught philology under Walter William Skeat, and was described by John E. B. Mayor in 1871 as "an intelligent member of his Latin class for ladies".[1] In 1877 she passed the Cambridge Higher Local Examinations.[4]

In the 1880s she gave lectures on Anglo-Saxon at Girton College.[5] In 1890 she was elected to membership of the Cambridge Philological Society.[5]

She was active in the women's suffrage movement.[6][7] In 1908, Julia Kennedy and Rosamund Philpott were the first women to stand for election in the Cambridge Town Council elections.[8]

Kennedy's Revised Latin Primer

Kennedy's Latin Grammar was first published as the Public School Latin Primer in 1866,[9] based on an earlier Latinae Grammaticae Curriculum, or a Progressive Grammar of the Latin Language written by Benjamin Hall Kennedy.[10] A revised version of the Public School Latin Primer primer was published in 1888 as the Revised Latin Primer under Benjamin Hall Kennedy's name. However, the revised version was not written by Benjamin Kennedy himself, but Julia and Marion Kennedy: Julia wrote the philological introduction, and her sister Marion had provided the examples.[10] Letters from Julia to the publisher concerning issues related to copyright raised in 1914 demonstrate the extent of their involvement, and highlight Benjamin Kennedy's reluctance to produce a revised version: "My father was only prepared at first for a comparatively slight revision...it was not easy to make him see the extent and far reaching quality of the alterations which were called for, both by the rapid growth of comparative philology and by the newer methods of teaching."[11] Kennedy's Revised Latin Primer soon became the standard Latin Grammar in England,[10] and is still in use.[12]

Julia Kennedy's letters to the publishers of the Revised Latin Primer are part of the Longman Group archive held at the University of Reading.[13] A radio musical about the role of Julia and Marion Kennedy in writing the Revised Latin Primer and the fight for women's access to higher education was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2019, narrated by Mary Beard.[14][15]

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References
  1. "Kennedy, Marion Grace". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128-e-48417. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. Bridge (17 October 2015). "Marion Grace Kennedy". Mill Road Cemetery. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  3. Page, Thomas Ethelbert, "Kennedy Benjamin Hall", Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 30, retrieved 28 June 2019
  4. "The Times Digital Archive - Document". gdc.galegroup.com. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  5. Bridge (17 October 2015). "Marion Grace Kennedy". Mill Road Cemetery. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  6. "The Times Digital Archive - Document". gdc.galegroup.com. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  7. "Fifth List. The Women's Fund". The Daily Mail (Issue 5006). 23 April 1912. p. 7.
  8. "Lady Candidates in Petersfield And New Town". Cambridge Independent Press. 23 October 1908.
  9. Kennedy, Benjamin Hall (1867). The public school Latin primer. The Library of Congress. London, Longmans, Green, and co.
  10. Stray, Christopher. "Primers, Publishing, and Politics: The Classical Textbooks of Benjamin Hall Kennedy." The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 90, no. 4, 1996, pp. 451–474. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24304887
  11. Letter from Julia Kennedy to Longmans, 20 February 1915, excerpt in Stray, Christopher. "Primers, Publishing, and Politics: The Classical Textbooks of Benjamin Hall Kennedy." The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 90, no. 4, 1996, pp. 451–474. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24304887.
  12. "Revised latin primer | Classical languages". Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  13. "Archives of the Longman Group".
  14. "BBC Radio 4 - Amo Amas Amusical". BBC. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  15. "BBC Radio 4 - Amo Amas Amusical, Amo Amas Amusical - Pianist Jeremy Limb, Gwen Martin, Clemmie Franks, Daniel Thomson, Emily Levy, Michael Solomon Williams, Richard Moore". BBC. Retrieved 28 June 2019.


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