Queer Places:
96 Old Church St, Chelsea, London SW3 6EP, UK
1 Burgess Hill, London NW2 2BY, UK
Penbury Grove, Witheridge Ln, Penn, High Wycombe HP10 8PG, UK
Freemans Farm, Townfield, Bardfield Rd, Thaxted, Dunmow CM6 3PY, UK
Wilhelmina
Hay Abbott (22 May 1884 – 17 October 1957), also known by the name "Elizabeth
Abbott," was a Scottish suffragist, editor, and feminist lecturer, and wife of
author George
Frederick Abbott. Suffragist, editor, and feminist lecturer, travelling
extensively and a key player in the organisations of the time including
Lady Rhondda’s Six Point Group and the Open Door Council.
Cicely Hamilton herself lived entirely in a world of
relationships with women, although discerning her closest intimacies is hard
because, like other public women of the time, she left, probably deliberately,
few traces of evidence – an uninformative autobiography, but no private papers
or diaries and few letters. Her most intimate friend was probably Elizabeth
Abbott, a married Scottish suffragist and a leading figure in a number of
suffrage organizations. Elizabeth had been the executor of Chrystal
MacMillan’s will and Cicely Hamilton left her the copyright of all her books and plays.
Wilhelmina Hay Lamond was born in Dundee,
Scotland. Her father, Andrew Lamond, was a jute manufacturer.[1] She
trained in London for
secretarial and accounting work, but then attended University
College London in the summer of 1907, where she pursued a broader course
of ethics, modern philosophy, and economics.[2] As
a young woman she began using the first name "Elizabeth."[3]
In 1909 Elizabeth Lamond started organizing for the Edinburgh National
Society for Women's Suffrage. In that role she campaigned in the Orkney
Islands.[4] She
took a position on the executive committee of the Scottish Federation of
Women's Suffrage Societies the next year, along with
Elsie
Inglis.[5][6]
During World War I she
toured extensively in India, Australia, and New Zealand as a lecturer, for two
years, raising money for the Scottish
Women's Hospitals.[7] Of
her travels, she declared, "I received unbounded hospitality."[8]
She married travel writer and war correspondent George Frederick Abbott in
1911. They had one son, Jasper A. R. Abbott, born that same year.
After
the war, she served as an officer of the International
Woman Suffrage Alliance, and edited its newsletter, Jus Suffragii.[9][10]
Concerned primarily about economic opportunities for women, she joined Chrystal
MacMillan, Lady
Rhondda, Emmeline
Pethick-Lawrence and others in founding the Open
Door Council (later Open Door International) in 1926.[11][12] Abbott
chaired the Open Door Council in 1929.[13][14][15] She
also chaired the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene for ten years, and
was active with the organization for much longer.[16][17]
In 1934 Elizabeth moved to Penbury, Bucks, previously living in Chelsea and
Burgess Hill. Elizabeth was also a member of the Women’s Automotive and Sports
Association.
In her later years, she continued work on women's economic security, as
co-author of The Woman Citizen and Social Security (1943), which responded to
gender inequalities in the Beveridge
Report.[18][19][20]
Wilhelmina "Elizabeth" Hay Abbott died in 1957, age 73.[21]
My published books:
BACK TO HOME PAGE
