The following information is taken from The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women and reproduced with kind permission of the Co-ordinating Editor, Rose Pipes. A list of abbreviations has been added to the end of the entry.

Abbott, Wilhelmina Hay (Elizabeth), n. Lamond, born Dundee 22 May1884, died Dunmow, Essex, 17 Oct. 1957. Suffragist and equalitarian feminist. Daughter of Margaret Morrison and Andrew Lamond, jute manufacturer.

Educated in London and Brussels, Wilhelmina Lamond trained as a secretary and accountant 1903-6. She later took the name Elizabeth, and married George F. Abbott, author, in 1911. She had at least one son. From 1909 she was organiser for the ENSWS and in 1910 a member of the executive committee of the SFWSS, as well as of the Scottish Committee which produced a Minority Report on Poor Law Reform. From 1916 she was a successful international fundraiser for *Elsie Inglis’s *Scottish Women’s Hospitals, raising £60,000 from India, Australia and New Zealand. In 1920 she became secretary of the IWSA, and edited its paper Ius Suffragii. She represented NUSEC at the International Alliance of Women for Equal Suffrage and Citizenship in 1923. In spring 1927 she acted as spokeswoman for the 11 newly elected executive members who resigned from NUSEC, criticising ‘new feminism’ for turning towards social reform and away from ‘the demand for the removal of every arbitrary impediment that hinders the progress, in any realm of life and work, of women’ (Alberti 1989, p170). With *Chrystal Macmillan, in 1926 she founded the Open Door Council to press for the abolition of restrictions on women’s right to work, and the Open Door International, after the IWSA refused to commit itself to opposition to all protective legislation in Paris in 1929. She was closely involved with the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene for 40 years; one tribute suggested that ‘most of all she will be remembered for her work in the footsteps of Josephine Butler for the defence of prostitutes’ (The Times, 1957). JR

AGC; Alberti, J. (1989) Beyond Suffrage. Feminists in War and Peace, 1914-1928; Law, C. (2000) Women. A Modern Political Dictionary (Bibl.); Leneman, L. (1994) In the Service of Life; The Times, 31 Oct. 1957 (appreciation); WSM.

Abbreviations

ENSWS Edinburgh National Society for Women’s Suffrage

SFWSS Scottish Federation of Women’s Suffrage Societies

IWSA International Women’s Suffrage Alliance

NUSEC National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship

AGC – A Guid Cause. The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Scotland. Leneman, L. (1991, 1995 rev. edn)

WSM – The Women’s Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide, 1866-1928. Crawford, E. (2001)