#Women’s History Month – Isabella Elder

Hello! I'm cutting it fine before the end of March but here's another post about a worthy Victorian woman. 

Who was Isabella Elder and why do I want to write about her?

Isabella Elder
by John Everett-Millais 
CC

As a young child I spent many weekends in Govan, Glasgow, staying with my grampa and nana ( my maiden Aunt Nan) who lived a little bit along the road and around the corner from the Elder Park and the local library. However, at that time I didn’t know of Isabella Elder’s association to the library.

Isabella was a philanthropist, interested in improving the education of local people, women in particular. During Isabella’s life, Govan was not part of the city of Glasgow but a separate township with its own local administration. (It wasn’t till 1912 that Govan became an official area of Glasgow.)

Born in the Gorbals in 1828, which at that time had some prestigious housing, Isabella’s father was a solicitor (Alexander Ure). Though her education is unknown, she must have mingled in the circles of the more elite, wealthy people of the area since she married John Elder in 1857, a partner in the marine engineering firm Randolf Elder & Co. By 1860, the firm acquired a shipyard in Govan which thrived. By 1868, it became John Elder & Co. and was one of the most successful shipyards in the world though, unfortunately, Isabella’s husband John died in 1869 (he was only 43 years old). For the best part of a year, Isabella managed the shipyard herself, a most unusual situation for a woman in 1869. However, she relinquished sole management by 1870 and went into a partnership with her brother, John Ure.

With fewer day-to-day shipyard responsibilities, Isabella was rich and free to choose what she wanted to do (within the limits society set upon her). She had no children to look after and was free to explore the continent. Though closer to home she became a major benefactress in the Glasgow area. She donated a sizeable sum to Glasgow University to the Chair of Engineering and funded an endowment for the John Elder Chair of Naval Architecture.  There were other scholarships set up in John Elder’s name.

Particularly interested in the education of women Isabella went on to buy a large property in the prestigious west end of Glasgow, North Park House, which she then used to set up as a college for women. Queen Margaret College was the first college in Scotland to offer higher education to women. By 1890, Isabella began to fund medical courses for women at Queen  Margaret College though awarding women a degree wasn’t possible till a few years later when the college was amalgamated with Glasgow University, no doubt due to the influence and persistence of Isabella Elder (whose financial contributions weren’t not to be sneezed at).  The medical courses for women were taught by lecturers at Glasgow University, so the women were gaining a similar course of study as was given to male students and the first women graduated as medical practitioners in 1892. By 1898, women were also graduating in the Arts from Queen Margaret College/ Glasgow University. Not content to just organize the setting up of the facilities for women, Isabella ensured that standards continued to be met as per her original agreements with the university – in her book women weren’t to be given any sort of inferior programme of education. It was always to match the academic standards of courses for men and she was prepared to withhold any finances she donated to ensure it happened!

Isabella was awarded an honorary degree (LLD) from Glasgow University in 1901 for her contributions to women’s education in the area.

In the early 1880s, Isabella purchased land near the Elder’s Fairfield shipyard and had a public park built in honour of her husband and his father David.  Wanting to do more for the poorer women of the area, the School for Domestic Economy was established where young women learned how to cook and perform other household tasks on a limited budget. The Elder Free Library, at one end of the park, was funded and stocked by Isabella. During the early 1900s, she funded the building of the Elder Cottage Hospital and a nearby villa which was the Cottage Nurses training home. Those buildings were still in situ when my grampa and Nana took me walking around Govan in the late 1950s.

By 1905, Isabella’s health was failing. She suffered from gout and bronchitis and died of heart failure on the 18^th November 1905. It’s worthy of noting that her official death certificate was signed by Dr. Marion Gilchrist, the first woman to graduate as a doctor from Glasgow University.

Memorial window at Glasgow University CC

There are many tributes to Isabella’s generosity one of which is a memorial window in Bute House, Glasgow University, titled “The Pursuit of Ideal Education”. (She is depicted alongside Janet Anne Galloway and Jessie Campbell other women who should be given some limelight?)

Isabella Elder- Elder Park  CC
by sculptor Archibald Macfarlane Shannon,
a Glasgow University Graduate

In 1906, the current Provost of Govan, unveiled a very fine bronze statue of Isabella Elder in the Elder Park. Much of the £2000 need to fund the statue came from a public collection, many of the local people wanting to give something back to Isabella Elder.

I have childhood memories of seeing the statues in the Elder Park where I paddled in the pond on hot summer days in the late 1950s. My grandfather, I’m sure, knew all about Isabella Elder and probably told me about her though my memories are hazy. Born in 1884, my grampa was a sheet iron worker in that very same Fairfield Shipyard where he spent all his working life. He probably even remembered Isabella’s death since her was born and lived just a couple of short streets away from the park. My grampa, Edward Callan Auld was a feisty union member, a high-ranking shop steward, and continued in his own way to ensure that men working at the Fairfield shipyard in Govan got a good deal.

It's at a time like this that I wish I could remember many more of my grampa’s Govan stories.

Slainte! 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Isabella_Elder_biz_Sir_John_Everett_Millais.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Janet_Galloway_Memorial_Window,_Bute_Hall,_University_of_Glasgow.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Statue_of_Isabella_Elder,_Elder_Park,_Govan,_Glasgow.jpg