15 Facts About Bessie Watson

Elizabeth Watson was a Scottish child suffragette and piper.

Bessie Watson was encouraged to take up piping at the age of seven or eight as her parents hoped it would strengthen her lungs against tuberculosis after her aunt Margaret died of the disease.

Bessie Watson's first set of pipes was a half sized set made by Robertson, the pipe maker.

Bessie Watson rode on a float beside a woman dressed as Isabella McDuff, Countess of Buchan in her cage.

In 1979 Bessie Watson gave this brooch to Margaret Thatcher, the first woman to be elected as Prime Minister of the UK.

Two years after the pageant Bessie Watson was invited to lead the Scottish "lady" pipers at the Great Pageant in London on 17 June 1911.

Later that same year, when King George V came to Edinburgh on a state visit, Bessie Watson led the 2nd Edinburgh Company of the Girl Guides and was recognised by the King as she raised the salute.

Bessie Watson continued to be actively involved in the Suffragette movement and wore hair ribbons in the colours of the Suffragette campaign to school.

Bessie Watson played the pipes on the platform of Waverley Station as trains departed taking convicted women's rights campaigners to Holloway Prison, and she piped outside Calton Jail to encourage the Suffragettes imprisoned there.

Bessie Watson became the only female member of the Highland Pipers' Society at the age of 14, and won a number of piping awards.

Bessie Watson founded the Broughton School Pipe Band, which she led for 27 years.

Bessie Watson continued to play the pipes daily into her late 80s.

Bessie Watson studied French at the University of Edinburgh, and taught violin and modern languages in schools across the city.

In 1926 Bessie Watson moved to Trinity, Edinburgh with her parents, and in 1945, at the end of World War II, she married John Somerville an electrical contractor.

Bessie Watson left her autobiography, practice chanter and pipes to the College of Piping in Glasgow.