Ruth Etchells
Dorothea Ruth Etchells was an English poet and college principal who spent most of her working life in the University of Durham.
From 1968, she taught in the English Department and soon became Vice Principal of Trevelyan College. In 1979 she was appointed Principal of St John's College, Durham, a notable appointment because this made her both the first lay person and the first woman to be principal of a Church of England college, Cranmer Hall, that trains clergy, who were in those days only male.
She was a member of the Church of England's Crown Appointments Commission that recommends future appointments of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1992 she was awarded a Lambeth Doctor of Divinity degree.
