Chrystal Macmillan 1872-1937
Chrystal Macmillan speaking in Rome 1923
© Aletta Library, Amsterdam
Chrystal Macmillan campaigned all her life for women's equality.
The first woman to graduate in science from Edinburgh University, Chrystal Macmillan was a committed suffragist, travelling from Dumfriesshire to the Shetlands, giving public speeches and working with women to set up suffrage societies.
She was a leading figure in three women's international organisations: International Women's Council, International Women's Suffrage Alliance and Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
In April 1915, she was an organiser of the International Women's Congress which met at The Hague and was then elected one of five delegates who travelled across Europe and to the USA, urging 21 Heads of State to set up mediation to end the war. Sadly not one statesman would take the first step. WILPF is now the oldest women's peace organisation www.wilpfinternational.org.
Later Miss Macmillan became a barrister, and in 1929 she founded Open Door International to campaign for women's equality in the workplace.
From 1924 until 1933 she worked to reform British, Empire and International Law on the Nationality of Married Women: she insisted that women were as attached to their nationality as men and should not suffer the loss of it through marriage.