Turle | Sophia Adelaide | 1841-1923 | Patron of Girton College

Sophia Adelaide Turle was born in 1841 she was the daughter of James Turle, organist at Westminster Abbey 1831 until his death in 1882. Her long life, outwardly very quiet and retired, was governed by a dominant passion - the passion for helping women. From the first she was inwardly a rebel against the restrictions which then governed the lives of women, and all her sympathies were with the pioneers who began the work of breaking them down - with Mrs Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and the pioneers of medical education, and with the founders of Girton. Miss Turle gave a small donation from her dress allowance to Girton in very early days. Though not rich, she was generous and gave money unasked and without ostentation to women's causes. These causes included the London Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine for Women and the New Hospital for Women. From very early years she was interested in the Women's Suffrage movement and joined the London Society for Women's Suffrage in 1878. In 1910 she joined the Women's Social and Political Union. In 1914 she turned again to educational objects and founded a music scholarship of 80 a year at Girton. From 1914 her benefactions to Girton were many and generous including an unconditional gift of £500 in 1923. The College was a residuary legatee under her will and received among other things a grand piano. The money left by her was to be devoted to scholarships. Sophia Turle died in 1923. (Information taken from The Girton Review May Term 1924).

From the guide to the Personal Papers of Sophia Adelaide Turle, 1877-1905, (Girton College Library, University of Cambridge)