Freedom Fighters

As far back as 1320 the rights of the Scottish people to rid themselves
of a tyrannical monarch were proclaimed in the Declaration of Arbroath
a document that arguably inspired the American Constitution four and a
half centuries later.

But it was through the ballot box rather than on the battlefield that
true liberty was won. And the legacy of a few dedicated, passionate and
driven individuals in delivering the vote not only in Scotland but
across the wider world is quite remarkable. Some, like Henry
Campbell-Bannerman and James Keir Hardie are well known. Hardie, in
particular, is remembered as a man who worked tirelessly to extend the
franchise for both sexes.

Jessie Chrystal MacMillan

But the impact of women in the fight for civil rights is less celebrated.
A plaque at Edinburgh University honouring Jessie Chrystal
MacMillan as its first female science graduate in 1896 is only one small
clue to her pioneering achievements. In 1908 she became the first woman
to plead before the House of Lords when arguing that female university
graduates should be given the right to vote. She was Secretary of the
International Woman Suffrage Alliance between 1913 and 1920 and at the
outbreak of the Great War helped organise the International Congress of
Women. Chrystal's influence was such that she was even made a delegate
to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Yet beyond a small plaque in the
centre of Edinburgh, Chrystal MacMillan is all but forgotten.

Other women who took the fight for democracy overseas are likewise
little known in the home country. Happily, many are remembered with pride
in places far from Scotland.

Katherine Wilson Sheppard

A case in point is Katherine Wilson Sheppard, daughter of Scots who
emigrated to New Zealand. Thanks in large measure to her efforts, New
Zealand became the first country in the world to grant women the right
to vote. Katherine emigrated there with her family in the late 1860's
and became politicised through her involvement in the temperance
movement. She drew up three huge petitions demanding franchise
extension. The force of this was so great that in 1893 the New Zealand
government caved in. It was a triumph of extraordinary proportions for
Katherine Sheppard. A world first that provided a beacon to movements
elsewhere.

Two other notable New Zealand reformers with Scottish connections are
also worthy of mention.

Anna Paterson Stout

The first is Anna Paterson Stout. Though a native New Zealander, her
parents were Scottish and her husband, and future Prime Minister of the
country, Sir Robert Stout was born in Shetland. Because of Robert's own
career, Anna's successes have sometimes been overlooked. After the vote
was won in New Zealand in 1893 she took the cause of women's rights all
over the world, and especially to the United Kingdom where Anna became a
close friend and ally of the Pankhursts.

Jessie Mackay

Jessie Mackay, also a New Zealander of Scots extraction made her
contribution to the cause of social justice through literature.
Jessie's first book of poems, The Spirit of the Rangatira inspired and
helped shape a sense of nationhood in the 1890s at the exact time when
New Zealand women were winning the vote. The two events were part of the
same process. Jessie's poetry spoke to and for ordinary folk. Some of
her work was couched in the Scots dialect, and other parts made use of
Maori legend. Though small of stature and thinly spoken, Jessie Mackay
was a literary giant, revered as the unofficial poet laureate of New
Zealand.

Catherine Helen Spence

Another who relied on the power of the pen to promote freedom was
Catherine Helen Spence. Born in Melrose in the Scottish Borders in 1825,
she emigrated and became Australia's first professional woman journalist
and first female political candidate. Her tireless work in social and
political reform, children's welfare and citizens' rights earned her the
sobriquet of "Australia's Greatest Woman". While New Zealand might have
been the first country to deliver women the vote, Catherine Spence's
influence on suffrage culminated in South Australia chalking up its own
first in giving women the right to stand for Parliament. It was
another breach in the wall of male exclusivity and its impact
reverberated around the world.

Long after her death Catherine Spence continues to fascinate and
influence. Named in a recent poll as one of the ten greatest South
Australians and, like Katherine Sheppard, featured on local banknotes, a
plaque was erected to mark her birthplace in Melrose in 1999.

And in North America

Whilst Scots did much to champion reform in the Southern Hemisphere they
also had a considerable impact in North America.

Born in 1795, Francis Wright was orphaned as an infant but luckily had
James Mylne, the Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University as
an uncle. Encouraged by him to think for herself, Fanny grew to admire
the United States. Her glowing account of the new democracy, "Views of
Society and Manners in America" written after a visit there in 1818 was
hugely influential with parliamentary campaigners in Britain.

Fanny eventually settled in the United States, dedicating her life to
the causes of female equality, anti-slavery and a new way of living. In
this she was influenced by the socialist community set up in Indiana by
Robert Owen, founder of New Lanark in Scotland, and of his son Robert
Dale Owen.

In 1825 Fanny purchased land at a place called Nashoba in Tennessee. She
planned to establish a co-operative community where freed slaves would
live and intermingle with white people. In itself that was outrageously
controversial. But Fanny Wright went further and encouraged intercourse
between the races as the only way to break down racial barriers.
Ultimately Nashoba was a failure, but undeterred she continued to argue
and to publish her views on socialism, anti slavery and women's rights
including free education for all, access to birth control and changes to
the marriage and divorce laws. When she died in 1852 her tombstone in
Cincinnati was inscribed with words she had chosen: "I have wedded the
cause of human improvement, staked on it my fortune, my reputation and
my life."

Where Fanny Wright had pioneered new ideas in nineteenth century
America, another woman of Scots lineage, Nellie McClung, did something
similar almost a century later in neighbouring Canada.

A radical feminist she was rarely lost for words. When the Premier of
Manitoba suggested "nice" women did not want the vote, Nellie replied:
"By nice women . . . you probably mean selfish women who have no more
thought for the underprivileged, overworked women than a pussycat in a
sunny window for the starving kitten in the street. Now in that sense I
am not a nice woman for I do care."

Whether or not she was nice, Nellie McClung was most certainly
determined. In 1916, thanks in very large part to her efforts, first in
Manitoba and then in many other parts of Canada, women were granted the
vote. Five years later Nellie McClung was elected as a Liberal MP where
she fought for medical care, birth control and freer divorce laws. Less
acknowledged, however, was her call for the sterilization of certain
minorities.

Nellie is also remembered for the part she played in the famous
"Person's Case" of 1929 when she fought for women to be allowed to serve
on the Canadian Senate. To do so would have contravened the British
North America Act of 1867 which stated that a "person" could only mean a
man. After a protracted legal battle which involved an appeal to the
British Privy Council, Nellie triumphed. Canadian women were finally
declared to be "persons".

It is now over ninety years since women first gained the vote in Britain a - seismic event which could not have happened but for the efforts of suffragists at home and abroad. Women campaigners like Katherine Wilson Sheppard, Jessie Mackay, Nellie McClung and Catherine Helen Spence.

Change today

And change continues to this day. Both Edinburgh and Glasgow have
had female Lord Provosts. The head of the Scottish judiciary,
the Lord Advocate, is a woman, as is a third of the members
of the Scottish Parliament. Of the four main political parties at
Holyrood, one is now led by women, and one has a woman as its
deputy leader. Perhaps the biggest tribute that can be paid to those who fought long and hard to win civil rights for all is that having women in positions of power and influence is no longer considered to be news. It is, as it should be, quite unremarkable.