Jane Ellen Harrison was a classicist credited with being the first woman to obtain a post in England as a ‘career academic’. Her scholarship combined archeological research with mythology to understand the religious rituals and social practices represented in the art and literature of ancient Greece. Born in Yorkshire, Harrison was among the first students to attend Cambridge University’s newly created school for women, Newnham College. She later studied with Charles Newton (1816–1894) in the Department of Antiquities of the British Museum and began a career as a speaker on archeology and classical art before her appointment to Newnham as a lecturer in 1898.