43 Facts About Chrystal Macmillan

Jessie Chrystal Macmillan was a suffragist, peace activist, barrister, feminist and the first female science graduate from the University of Edinburgh as well as that institution's first female honours graduate in mathematics.

Chrystal Macmillan was an activist for women's right to vote, and for other women's causes.

Chrystal Macmillan was the second woman to plead a case before the House of Lords, and was one of the founders of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

Chrystal Macmillan travelled to the neutral states of Northern Europe and Russia before meeting up with other delegates in the US Chrystal Macmillan met with world leaders such as President Woodrow Wilson, whose countries were still neutral, to present the proposals formulated at The Hague.

At war's end, Chrystal Macmillan helped to organise the second women's congress in Zurich and was one of the delegates elected to take the resolutions passed at the congress to the political leaders meeting in Paris to formulate the Versailles Peace Treaty.

Chrystal Macmillan supported the founding of the League of Nations.

Chrystal Macmillan tried but did not succeed in getting the League to establish nationality for women independent of the nationality of their husbands.

Chrystal Macmillan was the only daughter among her parents' eight sons.

In October 1892 Chrystal Macmillan was among the first female students to enrol at the university, she was however not the first to graduate as others were either more advanced in their studies or taking higher degrees.

Chrystal Macmillan studied a number of social subjects including politics, and graduated in April 1900.

Chrystal Macmillan was the first woman to earn First-class honours from Edinburgh in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, earning Second-class honours in Moral Philosophy and Logic.

Chrystal Macmillan joined the Edinburgh Mathematical Society in May 1897, the second woman member after Flora Philip in 1896.

Chrystal Macmillan was active in the Edinburgh National Society for Women's Suffrage.

Chrystal Macmillan argued that the wording of the General Council's voting statutes used the word persons throughout, and that she and the other female graduates were indeed persons.

Chrystal Macmillan brought the case before the University Courts in 1907 but lost, and lost a subsequent appeal.

In November 1908, Chrystal Macmillan appeared in London to argue, as a university graduate, for her right to vote for Scottish University seats.

Chrystal Macmillan was the first woman to argue a case before the bar of the House of Lords.

Chrystal Macmillan was backed by her contemporary, Frances Simson, one of the first eight female graduates of Edinburgh.

Chrystal Macmillan lost the case, but The New York Times reported that she responded to the decision against her with the words "We'll live to fight another day".

In Wellington, New Zealand, the Evening Post wrote a less strident account, noting that Chrystal Macmillan was cheerful in defeat.

Chrystal Macmillan was active in several suffrage organisations: The Scottish University Women's Suffrage Union, the NUWSS, the Edinburgh branch of the NUWSS Macmillan spoke at many suffrage meetings during this period; for example, in 1909, she was a speaker at an NUWSS meeting along with Dr Elsie Inglis and Alice Low in Edinburgh's Cafe Oak Hall.

Chrystal Macmillan then headed further north to Orkney and Shetland.

Chrystal Macmillan's visit led to the first formation of a society in Dornoch.

In 1911, Chrystal Macmillan attended the sixth congress of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in Stockholm.

Chrystal Macmillan was responsible for writing about the UK, the US, New Zealand, Australia, India, China, South Africa and five smaller countries.

When World War I began, Chrystal Macmillan looked for peace activism on the part of NUWSS.

Chrystal Macmillan signed the Open Christmas Letter, a peace-seeking exchange between women of warring nations, in late 1914.

Chrystal Macmillan was the only internationalist executive of NUWSS who did not resign; she was away performing relief work.

Chrystal Macmillan was selected as a member of the international committee who were to travel to neutral nations and champion the proposal of the Congress.

Chrystal Macmillan carried this written condemnation to the ongoing Paris Peace Conference, but no changes were made to the treaty.

Chrystal Macmillan was called to the bar on 28 January 1924 and in 1926 joined the Western Circuit, becoming only the second woman to be elected to its Bar Mess.

Chrystal Macmillan worked to lift restrictions and so give women of all stations an equal opportunity in the workplace.

NUWSS was re-organised in 1918 as the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, but Chrystal Macmillan disagreed with the group's stance on protective legislation for women workers.

At the 1935 general election, Chrystal Macmillan unsuccessfully stood for election as the Liberal candidate in Edinburgh North.

In 1917, Chrystal Macmillan spoke out against the practice of assigning a woman's national citizenship depending on whom she married.

From 1905, this had been the vocal position of Ishbel Hamilton-Gordon, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair, known as Lady Aberdeen, but Chrystal Macmillan saw the issue in a new light during the war.

Chrystal Macmillan was in favour of women having the right to independent nationality with the same right to retain or change as men.

Chrystal Macmillan's stated goal was to delay ratification of the Hague Convention, and to make certain that a woman's nationality would not change without her consent, and that the nationality of a couple's children would not be more influenced by the father's nationality.

On one side were those who wanted a married couple to have exactly one nationality, based on that of the husband, and on the other side were those like Chrystal Macmillan who favoured independent citizenship between spouses, with the possibility of wives having different citizenship than their husbands, and children to be allowed dual citizenship.

In 1937, Chrystal Macmillan's health was failing and in June of that year she had a leg amputated.

Chrystal Macmillan's remains were buried with her parents in Corstorphine churchyard in the west of the city.

The university's Chrystal Macmillan Building at the north-west corner of George Square is named in her honour, one of only two University buildings named after women.

In 1957, the United Nations established independent nationality for each married person, a ruling Chrystal Macmillan had worked toward without success in her lifetime.