Jean Milligan

Milligan was the daughter of educators James Milligan and Isabella Milligan. She was considered a fragile child after surviving rheumatic fever, and did not attend school until she was nine years old, and began at Garnethill School (Glasgow High School for Girls), where her father was the headmaster. She trained to teach physical education at Dartford College, where she was a student of Martina Bergman-Österberg.{{Cite web |date=9 July 2021 |title=Inspirational women: Jean Milligan |url=https://rscds.org/blog/inspirational-women-jean-milligan |access-date=2025-04-09 |website=Royal Scottish Country Dance Society |archive-date=18 February 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250218121127/https://rscds.org/blog/inspirational-women-jean-milligan |url-status=live }}

Milligan learned some traditional dances, recipes, and handiwork skills from her mother, and performed Morris dancing at a 1910 festival. She taught physical education at Dundas Vale Training College in Glasgow, where she started the school's netball and hockey clubs, and after 1931 at Jordanhill College. During World War I, she went to Malta to volunteer at a military hospital.

Milligan and Ysobel Stewart co-founded the Scottish Country Dance Society in Glasgow in 1923.{{Cite web |last=Houston |first=Ron |date=2018 |title=Jean Milligan |url=https://www.sfdh.us/encyclopedia/milligan_j.html |access-date=2025-04-09 |website=The Society of Folk Dance Historians (SFDH)}}{{Cite book |last=Ballantyne |first=Patricia |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Scottish_Dance_Beyond_1805/2NvBDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Jean%20Milligan&pg=PT127&printsec=frontcover |title=Scottish Dance Beyond 1805: Reaction and Regulation |date=2019-12-06 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-429-78413-2 |pages=127–128 |language=en}} She and Stewart ran an annual summer school beginning in 1927. In 1946 she attended the International Youth Festival with a troupe of 66 dancers, and in 1948 she represented the Scottish Country Dance Society at a meeting of the International Folk Music Council in Basel.

She retired from school teaching in 1948, and worked full-time on representing Scottish dance. She traveled in North America, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere on behalf of the society. She was named Scotswoman of the Year in 1973, by the Glasgow Evening Times. In 1977, the University of Aberdeen awarded Milligan an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

Milligan was a member of the Glasgow committee of the National Fitness Council, the Scottish League for Physical Education (Women), and the advisory board of the Journal of School Hygiene and Physical Education.{{Cite journal |date=1927–1928 |title=Board of Advisers |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Journal_of_Physical_Education_and_School/_08iAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Jean+Milligan&pg=PA160-IA3&printsec=frontcover |journal=Journal of School Hygiene and Physical Education |volume=20 |pages=front}} She was dance advisor to the Scottish Film Council.

• The Scottish Country Dance (1925){{Cite journal |date=1 March 1925 |title=Books Received |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Musical_Times/vBxppcDCjA8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Jean+Milligan&pg=PA236&printsec=frontcover |journal=The Musical Times |pages=237}}
• Won't You Join the Dance? A Manual of Scottish Country Dancing{{Cite web |title=Salute To Miss Milligan, Scottish Country Dance Instructions |url=https://www.scottish-country-dancing-dictionary.com/dance-crib/salute-to-miss-milligan.html |access-date=2025-04-09 |website=Scottish Country Dancing Dictionary}}
• Dances of Scotland (1951, with Donald G. MacLennan){{Cite book |last=Milligan |first=Jean C. |url=https://archive.org/details/dancesofscotland00mill/page/n6/mode/2up?q=Milligan+Scottish+Dance |title=Dances of Scotland |date=1951 |publisher=New York : Chanticleer Press |others=George A. Smathers Libraries University of Florida}}
• 101 Scottish Country Dances (1957)
• 99 More Scottish Country Dances (1963)
• Introducing Scottish Country Dancing (1968, with Irene Stewart)

Milligan lived in a tenement in Glasgow during World War II. She died in 1978. Her centenary was marked by the City of Glasgow in 1986.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdh71BnTs14 Jean Milligan Centenary Weekend] (11 July 1986), RSCDS Archive, via YouTube. The "Miss Jean Milligan Reel" is named for her.{{Citation |last=The Session |title=Miss Jean Milligan Reel |date=2018-05-01 |url=https://thesession.org/tunes/16965 |access-date=2025-04-09 |language=en-ie}} In March 2024 she was one of the women featured in a podcast episode about Scottish women and dance.{{Cite web |date=2025-03-07 |title=New Podcast Uncovers Women's Dance History from Mary, Queen of Scots' Court to Edinburgh's Lively Georgian Circus |url=https://tracscotland.org/news-post/newsid/26231-new-podcast-uncovers-womens-dance-history-from-mary-queen-of-scots-court-to-edinburghs-lively-georgian-circus/ |access-date=2025-04-09 |website=Scottish Storytelling Centre |language=en-GB}}

{{reflist}}

• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ5d-E2LPo0 A 1963 talk by Jean Milligan], audio uploaded to YouTube by the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A_wBARyc1k A 1970s television appearance by Jean Milligan], video uploaded to YouTube by the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society

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Category:Physical education in the United Kingdom

Category:Scottish country dance

Category:1886 births

Category:1978 deaths