1. Sarah Mair was active in the Edinburgh Association for the University Education of Women and the Ladies' Edinburgh Debating Society, which she founded before she was 20.
11 Facts About Sarah Mair
1. 2.
Sarah Mair was the granddaughter of actor Henry Siddons and great-granddaughter of actress Sarah Siddons.
3.
When Mair was 19, she started the Edinburgh Essay Society, soon renamed the Ladies' Edinburgh Debating Society.
4.
Sarah Mair became its president and remained so for 70 years.
5.
Charlotte Mary Yonge contributed and Sarah Mair reviewed in it Josephine Butler's essay collection Women's Work and Women's Culture.
6.
The society and its headquarters in the Sarah Mair dining-room were the focus of much effort to promote women's rights and education, spearheaded by women from usually prosperous professional families.
7.
Sarah Mair belonged to the Edinburgh National Society for Women's Suffrage, which had been founded in 1867 as the first Scottish society to campaign for votes for women, and sent speakers to events all over Scotland, including Dr Elsie Inglis, its honorary secretary from 1906.
8.
Sarah Mair later became its president, and then president of the Scottish Federation of Women's Suffrage Societies.
9.
Sarah Mair often managed to mediate between groups with different approaches to campaigning for the vote.
10.
Sarah Mair was an important member of the Edinburgh Ladies' Educational Association in 1867, present at the founding meeting, but not considered a founder member, presumably because she was unmarried and rather young.
11.
Sarah Mair acted as treasurer of the Edinburgh Association for the University Education of Women's Masson Hall project, and chaired committees of the Bruntsfield Hospital for Women and Children and the Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital.