Scottish advocate of women's education, 1846?1941
|
---|
![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/14/Sarah_Mair.jpg/220px-Sarah_Mair.jpg) Sarah Mair, c. 1876
|
Born
| (
1846-09-23
)
23 September 1846
Edinburgh, Scotland
|
---|
Died
| 13 February 1941
(1941-02-13)
(aged 94)
Buckinghamshire, England
|
---|
Known for
| president of the Ladies' Edinburgh Debating Society
|
---|
Abercromby Place, Edinburgh
The grave of Sarah Siddons Mair, St Cuthbert's Churchyard, Edinburgh
Dame Sarah Elizabeth Siddons Mair
DBE
(23 September 1846 ? 13 February 1941) was a Scottish campaigner for women's education and
women's suffrage
. She was active in the
Edinburgh Association for the University Education of Women
and the Ladies' Edinburgh Debating Society, which she founded before she was 20.
[1]
Life
[
edit
]
Born into a well-to-do family in
Edinburgh
, Sarah was the daughter of Major Arthur Mair of the 62nd Regiment and Elizabeth Harriot Mair (
nee
Siddons). She was the granddaughter of actor
Henry Siddons
and great-granddaughter of actress
Sarah Siddons
.
[1]
The family lived at 29 Abercromby Place in
Edinburgh's Second New Town
.
[2]
When Mair was 19, she started the Edinburgh Essay Society, soon renamed the Ladies' Edinburgh Debating Society.
[3]
She became its president and remained so for 70 years. The society met in the spacious Mair family home in the
New Town
and offered Edinburgh women of a certain background the chance to discuss social questions, while learning public speaking and debating skills. They published
The Attempt
, renamed the
Ladies' Edinburgh Magazine
in 1876, which linked them with readers across the country. It was edited by Mair and Helen Campbell Reid.
[4]
Charlotte Mary Yonge
contributed and Mair reviewed in it
Josephine Butler
's essay collection
Women's Work and Women's Culture
.
The society and its headquarters in the Mair dining-room were the focus of much effort to promote women's rights and education, spearheaded by women from usually prosperous professional families.
Louisa
and
Flora Stevenson
were early members, as were
Louisa Lumsden
, founder of
St Leonards School
in
St Andrews
, and
Charlotte Carmichael
, mother of
Marie Stopes
.
The society debated at intervals the question of women's suffrage,
[4]
with Mair a lifelong supporter of it. In 1866 and 1872, she found that she and her fellow-
suffragists
were in the minority, but from 1884 onwards motions in favour of women's suffrage were carried by rising majorities. Mair belonged to the
Edinburgh National Society for Women's Suffrage
, which had been founded in 1867 as the first Scottish society to campaign for votes for women, and sent speakers to events all over Scotland, including Dr
Elsie Inglis
, its honorary secretary from 1906. Mair later became its president,
[3]
and then president of the Scottish Federation of Women's Suffrage Societies. She often managed to mediate between groups with different approaches to campaigning for the vote. Once
women over 30 were enfranchised
in 1918, she led the Suffrage Society into a new phase as the Society for Equal Citizenship.
Sarah Mair was an important member of the
Edinburgh Ladies' Educational Association
in 1867,
[4]
present at the founding meeting, but not considered a founder member, presumably because she was unmarried and rather young. She and
Mary Crudelius
were willing to take one step at a time towards their goal of equal access to university education for both sexes, with Mair believing a practical approach would bring the right results. However, they ultimately wanted more than a separate system for women, however good the teaching.
In 1876 came an effort to improve women's pre-university education. Classes were offered in St George's Hall to help them gain university entrance, with correspondence courses for those unable to attend.
[5]
In 1886 she was involved with
Mary Russell Walker
and others in setting up St George's Training College, followed by
St. George's High School for Girls
in 1888.
[6]
The training college was the first Scottish institution to train women to teach in secondary schools and the high school the first Scottish day school for girls that taught them up to university entrance level. Girls from St George's were among the first female graduates of
Edinburgh University
. Mary Russell Walker returned from London in 1885, qualified to lead the college and later the school.
[6]
During the
First World War
Mair's association with
Elsie Inglis
, begun as fellow suffragists, continued as she was president of the Hospitals Committee of the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service, whose funding was raised from contacts in Edinburgh and beyond. Mair also acted as treasurer of the
Edinburgh Association for the University Education of Women
's Masson Hall project, and chaired committees of the
Bruntsfield Hospital
for Women and Children and the
Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital
.
[4]
She belonged to the Ladies' Chess Club.
Awards
[
edit
]
Mair's work for women's education led to an honorary
LLD
from Edinburgh University in 1920
[7]
and a
DBE
in 1931.
[1]
Remembrance
[
edit
]
Mair's death at her niece's home in
Buckinghamshire
was followed by a funeral service in
St Mary's Cathedral
, Edinburgh. An obituary in
The Scotsman
called her a "woman pioneer" and a "venerable and notable Edinburgh lady, one who has helped make history in her time." She is remembered also on her paternal family's memorial in
St. Cuthbert's
Churchyard, Edinburgh.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
"Dame Sarah Mair".
The Times
. 24 February 1941. p. 7.
- ^
Edinburgh Post Office directory 1846.
- ^
a
b
Innes, S (2004).
"the Edinburgh Women Citizens' Association"
.
Women's History Review
.
13
(4): 621?647.
doi
:
10.1080/09612020400200414
.
S2CID
205658350
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Ewan, Elizabeth L.; Innes, Sue; Reynolds, Sian; Pipes, Rose (8 March 2006).
The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women
. Edinburgh University Press.
ISBN
9780748626601
.
- ^
"Mair, Dame Sarah Elizabeth Siddons (1846?1941), promoter of women's education and campaigner for women's rights"
.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004.
doi
:
10.1093/ref:odnb/48668
. Retrieved
8 April
2020
.
(Subscription or
UK public library membership
required.)
- ^
a
b
"Walker, Mary Russell (1846?1938), headmistress and promoter of women's education"
.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004.
doi
:
10.1093/ref:odnb/48670
. Retrieved
8 April
2020
.
(Subscription or
UK public library membership
required.)
- ^
Kipling, Rudyard (1990).
The Letters of Rudyard Kipling: 1920-30
. University of Iowa Press. p.
[1]
.
ISBN
9780877458982
. Retrieved
7 July
2017
.
Sources
[
edit
]
- Elizabeth Crawford,
The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866?1928
(Routledge 1999), ISBN 184142031X
[1]
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
Organisations
| |
---|
Campaigners
| |
---|
Historians and
writers
| |
---|
Art, culture and
commemoration
| |
---|