Mary Hill Burton (1819-1909) was a Scottish social and educational reformer and the first woman governor of

Heriot-Watt College Heriot-Watt University ( gd, Oilthigh Heriot-Watt) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was established in 1821 as the School of Arts of Edinburgh, the world's first mechanics' institute, and subsequently granted univ ...

Biography

Mary Burton was born in Aberdeen but moved to Edinburgh in 1832 with her widowed mother and her brother, the lawyer and historian John Hill Burton. A single woman, with an independent income from rental properties, she was a supporter of the

Edinburgh National Society for Women's Suffrage The Edinburgh National Society for Women's Suffrage was a leading group for women's rights in Scotland. It was one of the first three suffrage societies to be formed in Britain. History The Edinburgh Ladies' Emancipation Society was at one time t ...

and an advocate for improving access to education for women and working people. In 1868, she went to court, unsuccessfully, for the right to register to vote. Mary Burton successfully campaigned for the Watt Institution to admit women students on equal terms to men in 1869, twenty-three years before legislation required Scottish universities to do so. Her niece Ella Burton was one of the early women students to benefit. Mary Burton was one of the first women elected to serve on Parochial and School Boards and became the first woman on the School's Board of Directors and later the first woman governor of Heriot-Watt College and Honorary President of the Watt Literary Association. She purchased Liberton Bank House on Gilmerton Road, Edinburgh, in 1844 and lived there until 1898.

Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...

, a family friend, lodged there while a student at

Newington Academy Newington may refer to several places: Places United Kingdom * Newington, London, a district of central London, England, and part of the London Borough of Southwark * Newington, Swale, Kent * Newington, Folkestone & Hythe, Kent * Newington, Than ...

in the 1860s. She died in 1909 in Aberdeen and is buried in Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh. In her will she left "£100 to provide prizes for 'deserving students irrespective of age or sex' attending evening classes at Heriot-Watt College and £100 to the Edinburgh Women's Suffrage Society to campaign 'for the admission of women to sit as members of parliament, either at Westminster or in a Scottish Parliament'".

Legacy

Heriot-Watt University has honoured Mary Burton with a fund for female students studying STEM subjects launched in 2019 on the 200th anniversary of her birth. The Mary Burton building on the university's main Riccarton campus is named after her. There is a

blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term ...

in her honour.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burton, Mary Hill 1819 births 1909 deaths People associated with Heriot-Watt University Scottish suffragists Burials at the Dean Cemetery People from Aberdeen