Frances Melville OBE
1873 - 1962
Most senior academic woman in Scotland, suffragist, progressive innovator and leader
Frances Melville was born into a middle class Edinburgh family at a time when women were still considered to be homemakers, wives and mothers, unsuited for the rigours of serious academic study and educated primarily to enhance their social skills. Following the 1892 Ordinance under the Universities (Scotland) Act authorising universities to make provision for the instruction and graduation of women, she became one of the first women to matriculate for a degree at The University of Edinburgh.
She went on to pursue a brilliant academic career as student tutor at The University of Edinburgh, lecturer at Cheltenham Ladies College and The University of St Andrews, where she had the distinction of being the first woman in Scotland to gain a Bachelor of Divinity degree. In 1909 she became academic administrator as Mistress of Queen Margaret College for women, unique in Scotland and part of The University of Glasgow from 1892. She was to hold this post until her retirement in 1935. In 1927 she was awarded an honorary LLD by The University of Glasgow, the first Scottish woman graduate to be honoured in this way.
Frances was President of the first Women’s Representative Council at The University of Edinburgh, attended the inaugural meeting of the Women’s Debating Society and went on to chair the society in its first year. She also participated in a debate on women’s suffrage, an early indication of her lifelong commitment, not only to this cause but to women’s issues in general. In 1906 she was one of five women who pursued a lawsuit to the House of Lords for women graduates to have the right to vote in Scottish University elections. They failed (persons not subject to legal incapacity being interpreted as men only) but she went on to stand as an independent candidate in the 1938 By-election for the Combined Scottish Universities Parliamentary Constituency. She came second, ahead of two male candidates.
Throughout her working life, and in retirement, Frances was involved in a wide range of committees and associations. She represented The University of Glasgow on the Glasgow Provincial Committee for the Training of Teachers, was Convenor of Queen Margaret Settlement, initiated the Scottish Women’s Hospitals for Foreign Service with Elsie Inglis and was responsible for the War Register of Women Graduates who undertook relief war work in hospitals and munitions factories and on the land. She was a member of the Council of Scottish Justices’ and Magistrates’ Association and one of the first women in Scotland to be a JP, dealing mainly with cases under the Education and Children’s Acts. Concerned about the effects of poverty in Glasgow, she also took an active interest in housing, special and nursery schools, and the training of social workers.
Her reserved and sometimes stern demeanour belied the warmth of a woman who cared deeply about all people in need - not just the female population, and who was never afraid to criticise male-dominated institutions. She also had a great sense of fun, reported to have driven her car with uncharacteristic abandon along the country lanes near her home for Local Defence Volunteers during WWll.
Even after gaining the right to a university education leading to a career, many women still faced difficult decisions due to the problem of combining marriage, motherhood and a career. Frances never married and so had the time and freedom to devote herself to championing women’s rights. Her obituary (GlasgowHerald, 8th March 1962) referred to the strengths of her indefatigable encouragement and guardianship of women’s interests. She was awarded an OBE in the 1935 Jubilee Honours List in recognition of this.
Barbara Badger
Sources:
Knox, William. Lives of Scottish Women: Women & Scottish Society 1800-1980: The University of Edinburgh Press, 2006
Catto, Iain (editor). No Spirits & Precious Few Women: The University of Edinburgh Union 1889-1989. Edinburgh University Union, 1989
Ewan, Innes, Reynolds and Pipes (eds.). Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women: from earliest times to 2004: The University of Edinburgh Press, 2006 The University of Glasgow archives
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Abrams, Gordon, Simonton and Yeo (eds.). Gender in Scottish History since 1700: The University of Edinburgh Press, 2006
Election address of Frances Melville, independent candidate (Scottish Universities Parliamentary Constituency By-Election 1938), National Library of Scotland
The University of Edinburgh Union, Park Place: The Union, 1910.
Geyer-Kadesch and Ferguson (eds.). Blue Stockings, Black Gowns, White Coats, 1995, Johanna Geyer-Kadesch & Rona Ferguson, 1995
