Sarah Siddons Mair

Sarah Siddons Mair was a Scottish campaigner for women's education and suffrage. She founded multiple groups and societies and played a vital role in improving women’s access to education.

At the age of just 19, Mair started the Edinburgh Essay Society, soon renamed the Ladies’ Edinburgh Debating Society. She became its president and remained in the role for 70 years. The society met regularly at Mair’s family home at 29 Abercromby Place in Edinburgh. It provided space for women to gather, discuss and promote women’s suffrage and education reform.

The society also published The Attempt, renamed the Ladies’ Edinburgh Magazine in 1876, which connected its Edinburgh members to readers across the country. The magazine was edited by Mair and Helen Campbell Reid. At 21, Mair was present when Mary Crudelias founded the Edinburgh Association for the University Education of Women.

She was an influential figure as the group campaigned for higher education for women from 1867 until 1892 when Scottish universities started to admit female students.

In 1888, Mair was instrumental in founding St George's School for Girls in Edinburgh, the first girls' school in Scotland to offer the same curriculum as boys’ schools, all the way up to university entrance standard. When Scottish universities finally began to admit women in 1892, St George's students were among the first graduates.

A keen chess player, Mair set up the Edinburgh Ladies' Chess Club in 1904. Three years later, she became president of the Edinburgh National Society for Women’s Suffrage.