Margaret Newton begins studies at Macdonald College, becoming the first woman to earn a McGill agriculture degree.
On 28 September 1914, Margaret Newton formally enrolled in the Faculty of Agriculture at Macdonald College of McGill University, after initially being refused admission and warned that no woman had yet succeeded in the program. Her persistence led administrators to reverse course, and she entered as the only woman among roughly fifty male students.
This enrollment made Newton the first woman to pursue and later obtain a degree from McGill’s agricultural program and the first woman to graduate in agriculture from Macdonald College. At a time when evening laboratory access was restricted to men, she successfully challenged these rules so that she could conduct essential experimental work, opening opportunities for future women students.
Newton’s start of studies on 28 September 1914 is a genuine barrier-breaking milestone in Canadian higher education. It marked the entry of women into McGill’s agriculture degree stream and demonstrated that women could excel in rigorous agricultural science, including plant pathology and mycology. Her later contributions to wheat stem rust research were built on this decision to insist on equal access to agricultural training, and her example encouraged institutions and subsequent generations of women to claim space in laboratory-based agricultural and biological sciences.