Louisa Lumsden 1840-1935

Louisa was born Aberdeen but moved to Cheltenham at 12 when her father died. Went to finishing school in London. She was bored by conventional middle class life and was allowed to return to Scotland when university standard classes were set up in Edinburgh in 1868.

Soon after Louisa became one of the first students of Girton College Cambridge (recently founded by Emily Davies) graduating in 1873. She stayed on as a classics tutor and later moved to Cheltenham as a classics teacher. In 1877 she was asked to come to St Andrews to head the new St Leonard’s school. She organised it like a boys school –a high level of academic input and stress placed on physical development. It was successful but she left in 1882 to return to Aberdeen and be an active member of two school boards.

In 1895 she was back in St Andrews as warden of a new university hall of residence. She had great ambitions for this but fell out with the governing body and resigned in 1900.

She was always in favour of women’s suffrage but until the campaign took off in the early 20th cent she saw women’s education as her priority. In 1908 the Aberdeen Suffrage Association asked her to become its president. Her interest took off. She had a horse drawn caravan, which she offered to activists like Helen Fraser for campaign tours. A convinced constitutionalist, she never condoned militancy but did feel the ambivalence felt by many, saying:

“One has a mean feeling when one is quietly enjoying the good things of life and others are in prison for their convictions.”

She was later on the committee of the SFWSS and went on the campaign trail herself, addressing meetings with Lady Frances Balfour and Elsie Inglis etc.

Louisa was pro war and helped to recruit the Seaforth Highlanders. During the 1920s she worked for the Unionist Party and Women’s Rural Industries.