Mount A celebrates 150 years since N.B. woman first to graduate in Canada — and beyond

CBC

08-03-2025

Tucked away in the archives at Mount Allison University in Sackville is a picture of Grace Annie Lockhart on her graduation day.
It's dated May 1875, and she's surrounded by her male classmates.
All of the men are proudly posing in their convocation gowns, with their caps in hand. Lockhart is in a striped dress, her hands neatly folded on her lap and her hair is pinned up in a modest bun.
Despite being the first woman in Canada — and the British Commonwealth — to graduate from university, Lockhart was not permitted to wear the cap and gown. She was still just a woman, after all.
Now, 150 years later, that picture represents a significant turning point for women's right to the kind of education traditionally reserved for men.
"I think she'd be astounded by the beautiful diversity of post-secondary education and by how many women are on campus," said Krista Johnston, associate professor in the feminist and gender studies program at Mount A.
Lockhart is an important figure for students in the program. Every year at convocation, graduates pose for a picture with the campus plaque that honours her.
It's also not lost on Johnston just how significant her accomplishment was at a time when women were not even allowed to vote. After only four years at Mount Allison, Lockhart graduated with not one, but two designations — a mistress in English literature and a bachelor of science.
"She's one of the women who broke through that bar on women entering education in the post-secondary sector." Johnston said.
This fall, Mount Allison's Owens Art Gallery will have an exhibit of women artists from the Ladies' College to celebrate Lockhart, as well as the gallery's 130th anniversary..
The Ladies' College
In the mid to late 1800s, upper middle-class women began attending university. They enrolled in special colleges that taught sewing, art and music. The curriculum was designed to complement their eventual roles as wives and mothers.
Mount A's Ladies' College was no different, except that its first instructor, known as preceptress back then, was Mary Electa Adams. She pushed for a more rigorous academic program for women.
Lockhart enrolled in the Ladies' College in 1871.
According to David Mawhinney, an archivist at Mount Allison, there would not be a Grace Lockhart without a Mary Electa Adams.
Adams had been denied a degree and made it her mission to ensure other women who followed were given the opportunity.
"She felt she was being discriminated against," said Mawhinney. "And the wonderful thing is, she lived long enough to know she had established an institution that led to that first woman."
Sackville was also a remote rural community at that time and Mawhinney believes its location also played a role in allowing the school to experiment with letting women enrol in academic courses.
"Sackville was this very interesting environment in which to have that test case happen because it's not a fish bowl, so there wouldn't have been press pressure and that sort of thing," he said.
As a result, Mount A became the first Canadian institution of higher education to accept female students for true academic studies.
Saint John roots
Lockhart was born into an upper middle-class family in Saint John. Although finances were not a concern, her childhood was not easy. Her mother died when she was nine months old. The family housekeeper, Rosanna Wilson, became her surrogate mother, but she passed away when Lockhart was just eight.
Lockhart was the youngest of four sisters who all attended Mount Allison, thanks to an inheritance left by their maternal grandfather. Lockhart, however, was the only one to complete her studies.
After graduating at the age of 20, she spent six years teaching in Saint John and also at Mount A's Ladies College. During that time, she made speeches encouraging women's equality and the right to the same education offered to men.
Carolle de St. Croix, director of alumni engagement at Mount Allison, said while Lockhart went on to live a conventional life, she remained very progressive in her ideas.
"She was well ahead of her time. Pay equity, voting rights, you name it," she said. "But she was also a woman of her time. She married a Methodist minister, had children and took care of the home."
A Wife and mother
Lockhart married John Laird Dawson when she was 26. They had three sons — all Mount A graduates. The family moved every three years and lived in a number of communities in the Maritimes and Newfoundland.
After she married, there are few historical records of her life. Mawhinney believes that, despite this, she wielded influence at home and suspects she may have even been a ghost writer for her husband.
"I really think she was the power behind the throne," he said, after researching a book written by Lockhart's husband in 1912.
"It's extremely progressive. It's pretty obvious to me that some of what John Laird Dawson is writing about in this book, it sounds like her voice."
Grace Annie Lockhart died in 1916, at the age of 61. She's buried at the People's Cemetery in Tryon, Prince Edward Island. There is nothing at the site that recognizes Lockhart's accomplishments and that's something Mawhinney is determined to change this year.
"She has a modest gravestone," he said. "It would be really nice to put a plaque for her so people would know where they would be able to find her. We have one here [Mount A]. It would really be great to have one there."