Why it takes a woman to turn around a 600-year-old Cambridge college

The master-elect of Gonville and Caius College is thinking about redecorating. The wood panels that run the length of the college hall are already lined with portraits of old Masters and famous alumni. The effect is impressive, imposing – and, above all, masculine. There are barely a handful of portraits of women on display, and they are of benefactresses rather than fellows.

“I haven’t quite cracked how to get more good pictures of women on the walls,” Dr Pippa Rogerson says.

Although her own portrait will eventually grace the hall when she retires, that is not soon enough for her, given she is acutely aware of the “subliminal message” being sent by the grand, dark-panelled room. 

Dr Pippa Rogerson

So when Rogerson takes the reins next year, the first female master in the college’s 669-year history, she will put up a smattering of female faces – starting with her five daughters in her own study.

“They’re all fantastic,” Rogerson says. “I’m probably lucky, but the five of them actually get on really very well.”

Her girls make a striking quintet. Four of the five have bright red hair (“plenty of Irish on both sides of the family”), and all bear a distinct similarity to their mother.

“They’re the most fantastic team. Very keen on teamwork in my family,” she adds. “We just have to be, really.”

Ten years ago, her husband, Jerry, died after a brief battle with lung cancer, leaving Rogerson, then a fellow and lecturer in law at Gonville and Caius, to raise five daughters as a single mother. Her youngest was just three-years-old at the time. “That really did divide my life into before and after,” she says.

“He lived for nine months after diagnosis, so we had enough time to say goodbye and do the things that some people might not get the chance to do.

“Life throws you these complete curveballs. You’re not in control, you really aren’t. You just keep going. One foot in front of the other.”

Dr Pippa Rogerson

After her husband’s death, Rogerson worked hard to ensure a degree of continuity, taking the girls out to concerts or to football practice. There were inevitable compromises, but the family “muddled on”.

“You don’t sweat the small stuff any more. You don’t take your health for granted, or take for granted that people are going to be there the next day, the next month, the next year.”

Ten years after their father’s death, two daughters have graduated, two are at university, the youngest is living at home. “They’re scattered around the world at the moment,” Rogerson says. “The team has come through.”

While raising five daughters single-handedly and juggling a career as a leading British academic reads more like a film script, Gonville’s master-elect recounts life in the fast-lane with a cheerful dose of pragmatism.

She is unabashed when she tells me that, on paper, she seems to have “had it all”; but she is equally quick to rationalise her success, pointing out that her achievements to date are four decades in the making. It was that same sense of rationale, she adds, that steered her towards reading Law in the first place.

Born in Suffolk in 1961, she first applied to read economics at Newnham College, Cambridge. But after falling out of love with finance before the year was up, she switched to something more aligned with her skills and interests. “I’d never really thought about [Law] before, and it was totally serendipitous, really.

“I still think it’s a fascinating subject. It’s really useful training for the mind and a way to think about abstract theory. It’s also very practical, because law has to work in society.”

Rogerson graduated in 1983, followed by a year of law school. She then joined what is now Clifford Chance as a solicitor. She had never wanted to become a barrister, believing herself unsuited to the “gladiatorial combat” required by the bar.

It was at Clifford Chance, young and ambitious, that she met her future husband, a court and finance lawyer: “I always said I wouldn’t marry a lawyer. Well, never say never!”

While Rogerson observes that many married women are forced to make the compromise between career and family, she insists that her marriage to Jerry was forged on an equal playing field; of 12 women who  joined Clifford Chance at the same time, she is one of only three still working today.

“I never ironed a shirt of [Jerry’s], ever, in the 25 years we were together,” she says. “They were his shirts; he could iron them. Or pay someone else to iron them.”

It was a marriage of give and take. Both spoke openly about their long-term ambitions, deciding together what should be prioritised. In 1986, Rogerson re-entered academia to complete her PhD at Caius; her research underwent a period of stagnation when the children were young. Jerry worked for “a very good firm in Cambridge” to avoid the hour-and-a-half commute from London.

She realises that her marriage was somewhat unusual for its time, just as she acknowledges that her appointment as the first female Master at Gonville and Caius “shouldn’t be a big deal – but obviously is”.

For a woman who “has it all” on paper, Rogerson is remarkably down-to-earth in the flesh. She’s excited about the new role: “It’s a great honour and privilege to be Master at all.”

By chance, Rogerson’s arrival coincides with the 40th anniversary of Gonville first admitting women, giving Rogerson the perfect opportunity to set the tone for her tenure.

“We’re going to have a celebration,” she says. “Trinity did something for their 40th recently, and [they] put pictures of the women fellows on the walls. We’ll think about what we might do to make [the college] a bit more reflective of the current operation.”

Dr Pippa Rogerson

Rogerson is aware that any significant changes to the college may be met with hostility: “The college is 670 years old. It is a super tanker that does not turn round very quickly.”

However, she’s keen to ensure that “the college is the best version of itself”, and, for Rogerson, that involves making sure that the college is “reflective” of the outside world.

“When you look at our student body, I think Cambridge could be more reflective of the population as whole. My own law students are a pretty diverse group, but it’s a bit more of an uphill struggle with Classics and Modern Languages, to be honest.

“I think Cambridge are probably a little behind the curve on that. You see fewer women professors than you might do at a newer university.”

However, there is one element of the role that brings with it a note of personal sadness – the traditional requirement that the Master moves into the “Goldfish Bowl”, the lodge nestled in the heart of the college.

For it will see her leave the family home she shared with Jerry and the children. The pangs of sadness in her voice are clear.

“I’m not quite sure what I’ll do with the house yet. I might let it, I might sell it. But it will be strange to leave.” She pauses. “Very.”

“I think my youngest is the one who’s going to suffer the most. She’s very unhappy about having to leave the house, the home that she’s grown up in.”

Her youngest, 13-year-old Millie, has another reason to be perturbed: mum has decided to send her to boarding school.

“I’m going to be doing a lot of travelling with the college, so I’ve made the very hard decision that she’s going to boarding school. I worry about her being on her own in the college a mile from her nearest friend, so I think boarding will be the least worst option.”

On the whole, however, Rogerson’s five daughters are all “very supportive”. They are, after all, a “team”, and they’ll make it work.

“We only have one life and actually it’s pretty short,” Rogerson says. “When opportunities come along, think hard before you turn them down.”