Wilhelmina Hay Abbott

Wilhelmina Hay Abbott (née Lamond; 22 May 1884 – 17 October 1957), also known by the name "Elizabeth Abbott," was a Scottish suffragist, editor, and feminist lecturer, and wife of author George Frederick Abbott.

Wilhelmina "Elizabeth" Abbott
Born	Wilhelmina Hay Lamond (1884-05-22)22 May 1884 Dundee, Scotland
Died	17 October 1957(1957-10-17) (aged 73)
Known for	Suffragist, editor and feminist lecturer
Spouse	George Frederick Abbott
Children	1

Early life and education

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.^[1][2] 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.^[2][3] 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.^[2][4] As a young woman she began using the first name "Elizabeth."^[1]

Career

In 1909 Elizabeth Lamond started organizing for the Edinburgh National Society for Women's Suffrage. In that role she campaigned with Mary McNeill in the Orkney Islands.^[5] She took a position on the executive committee of the Scottish Federation of Women's Suffrage Societies the next year, along with Dr. Elsie Inglis.^[6][7] 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.^[8] Of her travels, she declared, "I received unbounded hospitality."^[9] After the war, she served as an officer of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, and edited its newsletter, Jus Suffragii.^[3][10]

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.^[11][12] Abbott chaired the Open Door Council in 1929.^[13][14][15] She also chaired the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene for ten years, and was active with the organization for much longer.^[16][17]

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.^[18][19][20]

Personal life

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.^[3]

References

1. 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
2. Beaumont, Caitríona (2022). "Abbott [née Lamond], Wilhelmena Hay [Elizabeth] (1884–1957), women's movement organizer and suffrage campaigner". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.111937. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. Retrieved 16 December 2022.
3. Elizabeth Crawford, "Mrs. Elizabeth Abbott," Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928 (Routledge 1999): 1-2. ISBN 184142031X
4. Cheryl Law, Women: A Modern Political Dictionary (I.B. Tauris 2000): 9. ISBN 186064502X
5. Leah Leneman, A Guid Cause: The Women's Suffrage Movement in Scotland (Aberdeen University Press 1991): 95. ISBN 0080412017
6. Eva Shaw McLaren, Elsie Inglis, the Woman with the Torch (London 1920): 3-4. ISBN 1428039449
7. "The Late Dr. Elsie Inglis," Dominion 11(66)(11 December 1917): 3.
8. Eva Shaw McLaren, ed. A History of the Scottish Women's Hospitals (Hodder & Stoughton 1919): 368-371.
9. "Scottish Women's Hospitals; Mrs. Abbott Back from New Zealand," Sydney Morning Herald (15 January 1918): 4.
10. William L. Malabar, "Romance Nations in Europe Tardy with Woman Suffrage," St. Petersburg Daily Times (15 January 1921): 6.
11. ""Open Door Council," finding aid, Women's Library". Archived from the original on 30 March 2012. Retrieved 21 September 2014.
12. 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
13. 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
14. Mrs. Lillian Campbell, "With the Women of Today: Launch Equality Drive," The Daily Times [Beaver County, PA] (21 June 1929): 16.
15. Pamela M. Graves, Labour Women: Women in British Working Class Politics, 1918-1939 (Cambridge University Press 1994): 145. ISBN 9780521459198
16. Roger Davidson and Gayle Davis, The Sexual State: Sexuality and Scottish Governance, 1950-1980 (Edinburgh University Press 2012): 22. ISBN 0748645608
17. 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.
18. Elizabeth Abbott and Katherine Bompas, The Woman Citizen and Social Security (London: Bompas 1943).
19. Elizabeth Wilson, Women and the Welfare State (Routledge 2002).
20. John MacNicol, The Politics of Retirement in Britain, 1878-1948 (Cambridge University Press 2002): 396. ISBN 0521892600