Anna Lindsay (activist)

Anna Lindsay (née Dunlop; 24 June 1845 – 1 March 1903) was a Scottish women's activist. She was one of the founders of the Glasgow Association for the Higher Education of Women and her name was said to be synonymous with the women's movement in Scotland. She was the first chairperson of the Scottish Women's Liberal Federation.

Anna Lindsay
Born
Anna Dunlop

(1845-06-24)24 June 1845
Edinburgh
Died1 March 1903(1903-03-01) (aged 57)
Kelvinside, Glasgow
Known forScottish women's rights activist
SpouseThomas Martin Lindsay
Children2 daughters and 3 sons including Alexander Lindsay, 1st Baron Lindsay of Birker
Parent(s)Eliza Esther and Alexander Colquhoun-Stirling-Murray-Dunlop

Biography

Lindsay was born in Edinburgh in 1845, the eldest daughter of Eliza Esther (née Murray) and Alexander Colquhoun-Stirling-Murray-Dunlop, an MP and lawyer. She was educated at home, and went on to be one of the first students at the University Classes for Women in Edinburgh where she impressed her professors.[1]

The Glasgow Association for the Higher Education of Women was started after a suggestion of Mrs Jean Campbell by Professor John Nichol in 1868 to start lectures for women.[2] Lindsay was one of its founders.[1]

In 1889, she used her membership of the Liberal Party to form a local women's association that was known as the Glasgow and West of Scotland Women's Liberal Association. She was the Vice-Chair of the Association, and when, in 1891, it merged with other organisations to create the Scottish Women's Liberal Federation (SWLF) she became its Chair. It was only her health that prevented her from continuing in that role after 1899.[1]

From 1901-3, she was a member of the Scottish Christian Union, independent but affiliated to the British Women's Temperance Association. She also joined the Glasgow and West of Scotland Association for Women's Suffrage.[3]

Personal life

On the 8 October 1872, Lindsay married the academic Thomas Martin Lindsay and moved to live with him in Glasgow. Together they had five children, two daughters and three sons. Their daughter Susan married the medieval historian F. M. Powicke and their eldest son was Alexander Lindsay, 1st Baron Lindsay of Birker, who became a Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, Master of Balliol College, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford.[1][4][5]

In 1903, Lindsay died in Kelvinside in Glasgow.[1]

References
  1. K. D. Reynolds, ‘Lindsay , Anna (1845–1903)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 14 Oct 2017
  2. Myers, Christine D. (1 December 2001). "The Glasgow Association for the Higher Education of Women, 1878 to 1883". Historian. 63 (2): 357–371. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6563.2001.tb01470.x. ISSN 1540-6563. S2CID 144798761.
  3. Smitley, Megan K. (2002). 'Woman's mission': the temperance and women's suffrage movements in Scotland, c.1870-1914. Glasgow: University of Glasgow.
  4. Lindsay, Alexander Dunlop, 1st Baron Lindsay of Birker, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography at oxforddnb.com(subscription site), accessed 20 June 2013
  5. Reynolds, Paul (6 September 1978). "Lindsay papers Ref code: GB 172 LIN" (PDF). Keele University. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
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