Theodora Keith 
Biography of Theodora Keith
Theodora Keith
Theodora Pagan, nee Keith, (1882-1930) was the first woman to hold a temporary lecturing post in the Department of History during the First World War. In 1919 she became Lecturer in the Department of Political Economy, teaching Economic History and Social Economics.
Born in Derbyshire, Keith obtained a History Tripos from the University of Cambridge before her appointment in 1909 as a teacher at Laurel Bank School in Glasgow. She researched and wrote about the economic history of Scotland and in 1910 published Commercial Relations of England and Scotland, 1603-1707. In 1911 she was awarded a Pfeiffer Scholarship at Girton College and worked at Cambridge, the British Museum and London School of Economics before returning to Laurel Bank in September 1914. That year, she published A Bibliography of Scottish Economic History and she continued to contribute articles and reviews to academic journals. In 1926, as Theodora Pagan, she published The Convention of the Royal Burghs of Scotland.
In 1917, Keith was appointed a temporary lecturer in the Department of Scottish History and Literature while Professor Robert Rait was on leave of absence at the War Trade Intelligence Department. On his return she was appointed to a lectureship at the Department of Political Economy, but left after one academic year to marry farmer Alexander Pagan and to emigrate to South Africa. Her successor was another woman, Nelly M Scott.
Summary
Theodora Keith
Economic Historian
Born 30 September 1882, Ashbourne, England.
Died 21 January 1930.
GU Degree:
Occupation categories: economic historians
Record last updated: 5th Mar 2013
