Wilhelmina Hay Abbott

Abbott was born Wilhelmina Hay Lamond in Dundee, Scotland, on 22 May 1884. Her mother was Margaret McIntyre Morrison and her father was Andrew Lamond, a jute manufacturer and commission agent. She had one older sister, Isabel Taylor Lamond.Jane Rendall, "Abbott, Wilhelmina Hay (Elizabeth)," in Elizabeth Ewan, Sue Innes, and Siân Reynolds, eds., The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women (Edinburgh University Press 2006): 3. {{ISBN|0748617132}}{{Cite web |title=Abbott [née Lamond], Wilhelmena Hay [Elizabeth] (1884–1957), women's movement organizer and suffrage campaigner |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-111937 |access-date=2022-12-16 |website=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |year=2022 |language=en |doi=10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.111937 |last1=Beaumont |first1=Caitríona |isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 }} The family moved to Tottenham when her father received a job as managing director of Henry A. Lane & Co. She was educated at the City of London School for Girls and in Brussels. She trained in London for secretarial and accounting work between 1903 and 1906, but then attended University College London in the summer of 1907, where she pursued a broader course of ethics, modern philosophy, and economics.[https://books.google.com/books?id=iTnXdlutlVsC&dq=Elizabeth%20Lamond%20Abbott&pg=PA9 Cheryl Law, Women: A Modern Political Dictionary (I.B. Tauris 2000): 9.] {{ISBN|186064502X}} As a young woman she began using the first name "Elizabeth."

In 1909 Elizabeth Lamond started organizing for the Edinburgh branch of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. She made several visits to the Highlands to raise awareness and help found groups. In June 1909 she spoke at an ‘At Home’ in Inverness, resulting in 25 new members to the Inverness NUWSS society according to Common Cause, the newspaper of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies.{{Cite journal |date=24 June 1909 |title="Reports of Societies with the National Union: Inverness" |url=https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/Documents/Detail/the-common-cause.-jun-24-1909/146107?item=146116 |journal=Common Cause |volume=I |issue=11 |pages=146 |via=LSE Digital Library}}{{Cite journal |date=24 June 1909 |title="The Ladies 'At Home' |journal=The Highland Times}} She returned in July and August, accompanied first by Miss Lisa Gordon and then later by Alice Low, for one of the more innovative and colourful campaigns in the Highlands – touring on bicycles, visiting the Black Isle, Inverness and Badenoch and Strathspey. Their accounts published in Common Cause provide insights on the campaigning techniques used by the NUWSS, and the reception towards suffrage outside of the main centres.  Starting at Fortrose and Rosemarkie, they cycled to Inverness, then on to Kingussie followed by Aviemore, Newtonmore, and then on to Pitlochry and further south.{{Cite journal |date=12 August 1909 |title="Our Highland Campaign" |journal=Common Cause}} In October she was back again, this time to speak at the newly established Dingwall Society.{{Cite journal |date=21 October 1909 |title="Edinburgh-Dingwall" |journal=Common Cause}}

In July 1910 she campaigned with Mary McNeill in Shetland and the Orkney Islands.[https://books.google.com/books?id=f6qIAAAAMAAJ Leah Leneman, A Guid Cause: The Women's Suffrage Movement in Scotland (Aberdeen University Press 1991)]: 95. {{ISBN|0080412017}}{{Cite book |last=Taylor |first=Marsali |title=Women's Suffrage in Shetland |publisher=lulu.com |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-4461-0854-3 |pages=176}} On the way south, she spoke at Wick and Thurso leading to the formation of a society in Thurso, called the John o'Groats Society.{{Cite journal |date=11 August 1910 |title="Federation Notes. Scottish" |url=https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/Documents/Detail/the-common-cause.-aug-11-1910/146770?item=146778 |journal=Common Cause |volume=II |issue=70 |pages=292 |via=LSE Digital Library}} Continuing south, she spoke at Grantown-on-Spey at the beginning of August, receiving detailed coverage in the local paper.{{Cite journal |date=11 August 1910 |title="Great Mental and Moral Force. Women's Suffrage Advocated" |journal=Strathspey Herald}} In May 1912 she again visited the Highlands, now as Mrs Abbott, this time a tour of Sutherland, with meetings in Thurso, Wick, Helmsdale, Brora, Dornoch, Golspie and Bonar Bridge. Another organiser, Eleanor Sheard, spent four weeks ahead of time preparing the way with initial meetings. Their work led to the formation, or revival, of local suffrage societies in Sutherland.{{Cite journal |date=6 June 1912 |title="Scottish. Special Campaign in Sutherland" |url=https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/Documents/Detail/the-common-cause.-jun-6-1912/149152?item=149168 |journal=Common Cause |volume=IV |issue=165 |pages=140 |via=LSE Digital Library}}

Lamond took a position on the executive committee of the Scottish Federation of Women's Suffrage Societies, along with Dr. Elsie Inglis.[https://books.google.com/books?id=hb80AQAAMAAJ&dq=Lamond%20suffrage%20Orkney&pg=PA33 Eva Shaw McLaren, Elsie Inglis, the Woman with the Torch (London 1920): 3-4.] {{ISBN|1428039449}}[http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=DOM19171211.2.8 "The Late Dr. Elsie Inglis," Dominion 11(66)(11 December 1917): 3.] McNeill and Inglis became doctors in the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service.

During World War I, Lamond toured extensively in India, Australia, and New Zealand as a lecturer, for two years, raising money for the Scottish Women's Hospitals.[https://books.google.com/books?id=ckkyAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22Mrs.%20Abbott%22%20Scottish%20women&pg=PA368 Eva Shaw McLaren, ed. A History of the Scottish Women's Hospitals (Hodder & Stoughton 1919): 368-371.] Of her travels, she declared, "I received unbounded hospitality."[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=YA5iAAAAIBAJ&sjid=hukDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3080%2C1923599 "Scottish Women's Hospitals; Mrs. Abbott Back from New Zealand," Sydney Morning Herald (15 January 1918): 4.] After the war, she served as an officer of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, and edited its newsletter, Jus Suffragii.[https://books.google.com/books?id=ygXwlK_mj50C&dq=Wilhelmina%20Hay%20Abbott&pg=PT24 Elizabeth Crawford, "Mrs. Elizabeth Abbott," Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928 (Routledge 1999): 1-2.] {{ISBN|184142031X}}[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=H8tOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4UwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5488%2C1211830 William L. Malabar, "Romance Nations in Europe Tardy with Woman Suffrage," St. Petersburg Daily Times (15 January 1921): 6.]

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.{{Cite web |url=http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cats/65/10548.htm |title="Open Door Council," finding aid, Women's Library. |access-date=21 September 2014 |archive-date=30 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120330120646/http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cats/65/10548.htm |url-status=dead }}[https://books.google.com/books?id=jPNoquGb5aMC&dq=%22Elizabeth%20Abbott%22%20%22Open%20Door%20Council%22&pg=PA92 Deborah Gorham, "'Have We Really Rounded Seraglio Point?' Vera Brittain and Inter-War Feminism," in Harold L. Smith, ed., British Feminism in the Twentieth Century (University of Massachusetts Press 1990): 92.] {{ISBN|0870237055}} Abbott chaired the Open Door Council in 1929.[https://books.google.com/books?id=ojb5q3InZh4C&dq=%22Elizabeth%20Abbott%22%20%22Open%20Door%20Council%22&pg=PA45 Elisabeth Prügl, The Global Construction of Gender: Home-based Work in the Political Economy of the 20th Century (Columbia University Press 1999): 45.] {{ISBN|978-0-231-11561-2}}[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=h0QyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=qK8FAAAAIBAJ&pg=1754%2C164152 Mrs. Lillian Campbell, "With the Women of Today: Launch Equality Drive," The Daily Times [Beaver County, PA] (21 June 1929): 16.][https://books.google.com/books?id=-2R1bmDquigC&dq=%22Elizabeth%20Abbott%22%20%22Open%20Door%20Council%22&pg=PA145 Pamela M. Graves, Labour Women: Women in British Working Class Politics, 1918-1939 (Cambridge University Press 1994): 145.] {{ISBN|9780521459198}} She also chaired the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene for ten years, and was active with the organization for much longer.[https://books.google.com/books?id=VLLaUuYYA2IC&dq=Association%20for%20Moral%20and%20Social%20Hygiene%20Abbott&pg=PA22 Roger Davidson and Gayle Davis, The Sexual State: Sexuality and Scottish Governance, 1950-1980 (Edinburgh University Press 2012): 22.] {{ISBN|0748645608}}[https://www.jstor.org/stable/175664 Susan Kingsley Kent, "The Politics of Sexual Difference: World War I and the Demise of British Feminism," Journal of British Studies 27(3)(July 1988): 242.]

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.Elizabeth Abbott and Katherine Bompas, The Woman Citizen and Social Security (London: Bompas 1943).[https://books.google.com/books?id=KV6QAgAAQBAJ&dq=%22Elizabeth%20Abbott%22%20%22Katherine%20Bompass%22&pg=PT173 Elizabeth Wilson, Women and the Welfare State (Routledge 2002).][https://books.google.com/books?id=TJiYmNayUvUC&dq=%22Elizabeth%20Abbott%22%20%22Katherine%20Bompas%22&pg=PA396 John MacNicol, The Politics of Retirement in Britain, 1878-1948 (Cambridge University Press 2002): 396.] {{ISBN|0521892600}}

She married travel writer and war correspondent George Frederick Abbott in 1911. They had one son, Jasper A. R. Abbott, born that same year. Abbott died in 1957, age 73.

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Category:1884 births

Category:1957 deaths

Category:British women in World War I

Category:Scottish suffragists

Category:People from Dundee

Category:Scottish women activists

Category:Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service volunteers

Category:People educated at the City of London School for Girls