Mary Fraser Dott (died about 1980) was a Scottish nationalist political activist and founding member of the National Party of Scotland and the

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic party. The party holds 61 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, and holds 9 out of the 57 Scottish seats in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, ...

. She was a candidate for the Edinburgh East by-election of 1947.

Political career

Mary and her husband George Dott were already Scottish nationalists when, in 1928, they became founder members of the National Party of Scotland;

William Wolfe William Cuthbertson Wolfe (22 February 1924 – 18 March 2010) was a Scottish accountant, manufacturer and Scottish National Party (SNP) politician. He was the National Convenor (leader) of the SNP from 1969 to 1979, playing a central role in ...

, ''Scotland lives'', p.19 when this merged into the

(SNP), they became founder members of the new party. From the 1930s, Dott organised the Scottish Literature Society, and under this title, held events at her house in Edinburgh which included readings by people including Hugh MacDiarmid. In 1946, the SNP's revised policy document was developed and signed by leading party members at the Dott's house, and incorporated some of their ideas, taken from

social credit Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed in the 1920s and 1930s by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made t ...

and

Georgism Georgism, in modern times also called Geoism, and known historically as the single tax movement, is an economic ideology holding that people should own the value that they produce themselves, while the economic rent derived from land—includ ...

. Following this, in 1947, she was appointed as the party's National Secretary.History of the SNP
, Aberdeen SNP During this time, she attended the 1948 Hague Congress on behalf of the party, and she stood unsuccessfully in the 1947 Edinburgh East by-election, taking 1,682 votes. She was the only woman to stand in a British parliamentary election for the party until Winnie Ewing in 1967. Although Dott stood down as National Secretary in 1951, she remained active in the party, opposing

John MacCormick John MacDonald MacCormick (20 November 1904 – 13 October 1961) was a Scottish lawyer, Scottish nationalist politician and advocate of Home Rule in Scotland. Early life MacCormick was born in Pollokshields, Glasgow, in 1904. His father was D ...

Scottish Covenant Association The Scottish Covenant Association was a non-partisan political organisation in Scotland in the 1940s and 1950s seeking to establish a devolved Scottish Assembly. It was formed by John MacCormick who had left the Scottish National Party in 1942 ...

split. She served on the SNP's publicity committee, and was involved in the campaign to have Queen

Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 19268 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. ...

recognised as the first Elizabeth to rule over Scotland."Scottish nationalists claim victory", ''

Ottawa Citizen The ''Ottawa Citizen'' is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. History Established as the Bytown ''Packet'' in 1845 by William Harris (journalist), William Harris, it was renamed the ''Ci ...

'', 6 April 1954, p.42 In 1962, she gave a speech at Broxburn in support of

, where she claimed that Scottish MPs were "afraid of being laughed at" due to their nationalities.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dott, Mary Fraser Year of birth missing 1980 deaths Politicians from Edinburgh Scottish National Party politicians Scottish Renaissance Scottish National Party parliamentary candidates Scottish political candidates