For Women’s History Month, we are celebrating the achievements of pioneering Regent’s Women. In this first instalment of the series, we explore the life and story of Violet Hedger, the first female student at Regent’s Park College, who trained for Ministry at the college when it was based in Regent’s Park in London from 1919-1923.

Violet was born on 5 January 1900 in Hornsey, Middlesex. Her father, Thomas Hedger was a cleaver (wood chopper) and her mother, Alice Sewell, was the daughter of a greengrocer. From an early age, Violet was involved in the life of the flourishing Ferme Park Chapel in Crouch End, London: a Baptist church where Rev Dr Charles Brown was the minister – a great influence on Violet and a strong supporter of her ministerial journey.

Young Violet worked hard and was a gifted child – she won a scholarship to secondary school in 1912 and passed the London University matriculation exam with honours aged 17, gaining full marks in the Scripture paper. Initially wanting to be a missionary, Violet applied to Spurgeon’s College – she was refused entry because the college did not admit women. Her next application, to Regent’s Park College – at this time still based in Regent’s Park, London – was successful.

In an extremely understated report, the Regent’s Park College Committee Minutes for 30 September 1919 note, ‘Miss Violet Hedger, 19, Ferme Park. Accepted on probation for the usual course.’ Nothing indicated the revolutionary nature of the admission, and there was no record of discussion or debate among the committee.

There is no further mention of Violet in the Committee Minutes until summer 1923, when it was noted that along with two other students, she remained unsettled (without a pastorate), but the annual College Reports hint at the novelty of Violet’s position. In the report for the academic year ending in September 1919, when Violet was admitted, it is noted that ‘Further applications have also been received and twelve have been accepted for the new Session, so that we now have thirty-one students, two of whom are married men and one – for the first time in the history of the College – a woman.’ For the next four years, Violet’s name appears in the lists of students and examination successes; and after completing her studies, in the list of ministers trained at the College – first as V. Hedger and later as Violet Hedger. No further comment is made about her being a woman.

Violet’s experience at Regent’s was mixed. She was accepted when George Gould was Principal, but he was near retirement and his successor, Henry Wheeler Robinson, seemed to take a much less positive attitude towards women generally, and Violet in particular. She recalled some years later that ‘Dr Robinson ignored the fact that I was there. We never had one conversation.’

While College usually paid examination fees, Wheeler Robinson refused to do so for Violet – apparently, she was bound to fail, and it would be a waste of money. Violet was left to pay her own fee of £5 and completed all of her examinations – she gained the degree. In 1990, on Violet’s 90th birthday, the College presented her with an apology and a framed cheque for £5 – a light-hearted way to affirm the ministry of women and celebrate Violet’s ministry, and a joke that she very much enjoyed. The cheque was never cashed.

Despite the challenges she faced, Violet made her way through training at Regent’s with absolute success and flying colours. The reason why she remained unsettled for some time after receiving her degree is unclear. In January 1926, Violet was announced as beginning pastorate at Littleover, Derby and it was reported that: ‘So far as we know, Miss Hedger is the first woman student from one of our theological colleges to enter the home ministry, and the experiment made by the Littleover church will be watched with much interest.’

Violet stayed at Littleover Baptist Church for three years, before moving to North Parade, Halifax from 1934-1937. After this, she moved to Zion, Chatham where she remained minister throughout the Second World War, during which time the church was bombed once and the manse three times. After the last bombing, Violet was recovered in the manse buried under rubble, unconscious and suffering serious injuries. After years of rehabilitation, Violet continued a life of ministry which concluded with her final pastorate at Chalk Hill, north London from 1952 to 1956.

In the course of her impressive and impactful career as a minister, Violet Hedger showed that it was possible for a woman to be not just a minister but an effective minister. She asked questions that demanded answers; she took seriously a theoretical theological position on women’s ability to serve equally with men and exposed the practical implications. She modelled a response to a calling based on particular gifts, rather than more traditional gender-based patterns of service, and she had a strong sense of what women could bring to the male model of ordained ministry. Primarily, she saw women first as people with gifts and vocations, and secondarily as women – not defined by gender or sex.

Despite what must have been a consistent and constantly challenging experience of female ministry – with snide comments, open challenges and more – Violet Hedger provided a new vision of pastoral ministry that gave other women permission, and even encouraged them, to follow in her footsteps.

Violet’s legacy at Regent’s continues today – she has a portrait in Helwys Hall and is the namesake of the Centre for Baptist Studies’ Project Violet, exploring the experiences of women in ministry, which concluded with a final report in 2024 that proposed a raft of changes to help women flourish and which has already had a real and significant impact of change in churches around the world.

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Bibliography:

A. Clarke & P. Fiddes, Dissenting Spirit: A History of Regent’s Park College, 1752-2017, (Centre for Baptist History and Heritage: 2017).

D. Rooke, ‘Lady Preacher in the News: A Portrait of Violet Hedger’, Baptist Quarterly, 55:4, (2024), pp. 200-215.