![Mount Allison Wesleyan College, class of 1875. Mount Allison Wesleyan College, class of 1875.](https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/f3bf62e8-fbf6-4845-af3f-68b59417d589.jpg)
Grace Annie Lockhart, pioneer of women's university education (b at Saint John 22 Feb 1855; d at Charlottetown 18 May 1916). On 25 May 1875, Lockhart received a bachelor of science and English literature from Mt Allison College, Sackville, NB, and thus became the first woman in the British Empire to receive a bachelor's degree. Although her later life was spent in a more conventional role, as the wife of the Methodist minister J.L. Dawson, Lockhart's academic achievement as a student provided clear evidence of the justice of women's claim to full rights in the field of higher education.