The final item of business today is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-12191, in the name of Jenny Marra, on celebrating Mary Slessor on international women’s day. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament recognises the centenary of the death of Mary Slessor, the missionary who left the slums of Dundee at the age of 28 and went on to save hundreds of lives and promote women’s rights in Calabar in Nigeria; commends the Mary Slessor Foundation’s work with a number of people, companies and organisations throughout Dundee and beyond to organise a series of events throughout the centenary year; welcomes the launch of these events with the unveiling of a commemorative standing stone and plaque in front of Dundee’s Steeple Church; recognises Mary Slessor’s importance as a historical figure as a Scot, a woman and the first female magistrate in the British Empire, and considers that her accomplishments should especially be highlighted on International Women’s Day 2015 to celebrate her work in helping create a future for women that is bright, equal, safe and rewarding.
17:02
I thank all the members who are here this evening to take part in this debate as we approach the important annual milestone of international women’s day.
Life in Dundee in the mid-1800s might be difficult for us to visualise now. There was a lot of slum housing, poverty pay, short life expectancy, chronic sanitation provision and, for thousands of people, a hard working life in the jute mills, which were unsafe, noisy and extremely unhealthy. It was into that world that Mary Slessor was born in 1848. It was her strength of character, shaped by her environment and her city of Dundee, that spurred her on to inspire not only the people of our city, but others across the world.
As a youngster, Mary dedicated herself to her church—the Church of Scotland—and to her education, spending every moment expanding her knowledge and reading the writings of Thomas Carlyle, John Milton and David Livingstone. Those thinkers inspired her to her core, despite her difficult surroundings and her father’s alcoholism, and in 1876 at the age of 28 she set sail from Southampton to arrive eventually in the very different world of Calabar in Nigeria.
Life in Calabar proved to be gruelling, exhausting and at times heartbreaking for Mary as she set out on her work to teach, to help the families around her and to worship. Mary adopted orphan children in Nigeria and worked hard to act both as a missionary and as a mother, despite battling ill health and malaria numerous times. During her time in Nigeria, Mary Slessor not only saved hundreds of lives of men, women and children, but offered a brand of assertiveness that was a less-than-orthodox style of missionary work.
From the beginning, because of the cultural differences that existed between Mary and the people she was living among, it was clear that her work would be a challenge, but her integrity, respect and determination in learning the language and customs of the local people allowed her to overcome some of those issues and, in many ways, to become the people’s representative.
That was an unconventional route for a missionary to take, but learning the languages of the people and how to live with them led Mary Slessor to provide the valuable role of interpreter between the Calabar chiefs and British officials in the region. It is that strong engagement with culture that was one Mary’s latest strengths and the key characteristic that we should celebrate today.
It is worth noting the work that Mary Slessor did with twins; she was a pioneer in that area. It was believed at the time in Calabar in Nigeria that twins were the work of the devil and that one of them should die. It was Mary’s fortitude in fighting against that that allowed many babies and children to survive.
The purpose of international women’s day is to look beyond ourselves and address the inequality that affects us globally. I hope that we can breed a better understanding between ourselves and try harder to bring together other cultures of the world to fight inequality and find a progressive and respectful way. That is a progression of which I think Mary Slessor would have been proud.
Mary’s impact is still felt and celebrated throughout Nigeria. Her unwavering belief in God’s will, her bravery and her determination meant that she was greatly respected by the local people among whom she lived. The devastation that swept through them on news of her death is a testament to that. Mary’s legacy is marked this year as we reach the centenary of that passing. In large part, that legacy can be seen in the work of the Mary Slessor Foundation in Nigeria, which includes work in agriculture, health clinics and skills centres. The foundation retains strong links with the city of Dundee.
A number of excellent centenary celebrations are taking place throughout Dundee, starting with the unveiling of a bronze plaque at the city churches—one of which, aptly, is St Mary’s kirk—in the centre of our city. In April, the dedication for the plaque will be given by the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland after attending a service at the Steeple in Dundee.
It is greatly encouraging that the children of our city are involved in Mary Slessor’s commemoration. There are the invitation letter photography competition and short story competition for young Dundonians, and lectures by Ruth Kirkpatrick, Doug Binnie—who joins us in the public gallery—Billy Kay and Dr Sarah Worden. An exhibition, a number of plays and concerts and a dedication from the Sheila Tennant awards to Mary illustrate just some of the inspiration that Mary Slessor has brought to her home city.
I pay tribute this evening to the people on the committee in Dundee who have done so much in the past two or three years to plan the centenary celebrations of Mary Slessor’s death and to mark her contribution to the city and the world. I am honoured tonight to speak to the motion in my name—I acknowledge Dave Thompson’s amendment—to mark international women’s day 2015 and to celebrate the life of the courageous and inspirational Mary Slessor.
17:09
I thank Jenny Marra for bringing the motion to Parliament and for acknowledging the achievements of Mary Slessor—a woman from Dundee who devoted her life to the promotion of women’s rights in Nigeria. Her accomplishments, along with the accomplishments of many other women, truly deserve to be celebrated every day and not just today. However, it is essential that they be highlighted on international women’s day. The theme for this year’s international women’s day is “Make it happen”, and Mary Slessor is the true embodiment of that phrase.
However, I also want to highlight the accomplishments of another Mary who was also an extraordinary woman: Mary Barbour. For those of you who do not know, Mary Barbour was a Glaswegian woman who was known for her political activism throughout the early 20th century. Although she was from an average working-class background, the work that she accomplished throughout her life was anything but ordinary. Having had first-hand experience of the poverty and oppression that was rampant throughout Glasgow, Mary Barbour was considered a working-class hero throughout Glasgow.
She was born in 1875 in Kilbarchan, and later moved to Elderslie in 1896. She married an engineer and they settled in the Govan area of Glasgow, where she raised her two sons. She joined the first Scottish co-operative guild, Kinning Park Co-operative Women’s Guild, which offered an outlet for women, including Mary, to discuss important and relevant political issues. It was also a route through which women were taught and encouraged to enter the male-dominated sphere of politics.
In 1915, in response to a rent increase in overcrowded tenement blocks, there was an outpouring of opposition, mainly from women, in protest against the new policies. The women who took to the Glasgow shipyards wielding pots and pans—as is sometimes still done today in honour of Mary—were often referred to as Mrs Barbour’s army.
Mary organised and spoke at rallies, which culminated in November 1915 with the passing of the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (War Restrictions) Act 1915, which changed the housing system not just in Glasgow but throughout the rest of the country. It also brought Mary Barbour to the forefront of political activism.
Mary made a name for herself once again when she became the first woman councillor for the city of Glasgow in 1920, standing against two male candidates. Her commitment to helping women and children was especially evident from the policies that she fought for throughout her tenure as a city councillor and later as the first woman baillie.
She pushed for a wide range of policies, from free school milk to pensions for mothers, which benefited the working class. We too should “Make it happen”, just as Mary Barber did nearly a century ago, and indeed as Mary Slessor did, by celebrating the many accomplishments of those women in order to encourage the young women of today to become active in fields across the spectrum.
17:13
I thank Jenny Marra for securing this important debate on the life of an amazing Christian woman. I highlighted Mary Slessor’s Christianity in my amendment, which I thank Jenny Marra for acknowledging.
Mary Slessor was a hard-working mill girl from Dundee who, as Jenny Marra said, became a Christian missionary in Calabar in Nigeria. She is an inspiration. Calabar was an area where no European had set foot before and, despite several bouts of illness and constant danger, Mary lived with the tribes and learned their language and traditions. She adopted many Nigerian children, and in particular twins who had been left to die. She was an astonishing woman, and it is only right that on international women’s day in 2015 we celebrate her contribution to the world.
Mary was renowned for being an industrious woman who grew up in an environment of slum housing, poor pay and short life expectancy. She started her working life early, while she was still at school, in the toil of the jute mills, which were unsafe, noisy and unhealthy. By the age of 14 she was working 10 hours a day as a skilled weaver. She was one of seven children who were born to a loving mother but a cruel father, Robert Slessor, who regularly assaulted his wife after heavy drinking sessions. Mary’s mother, despite her hard life, remained a strictly pious woman. She encouraged young Mary to attend church, and Mary became a fully committed Christian.
As Mary’s enthusiasm continued to grow, the whole family listened with interest to the progress of the Christian missionaries abroad. It soon became Mary’s dream—some might say her calling—to become one of them. She immersed herself in the Bible and thrust herself into learning all that she could. She was particularly spurred on by the efforts of fellow Christian David Livingstone. She taught Bible class in the Queen Street mission, conducted prayer meetings and helped the poorest and most underprivileged children. She attended Wishart Memorial church in the Cowgate, which sat above a pub and earned the local nickname “Heaven and Hell”.
Mary dedicated herself to Jesus and to her education, spending every moment expanding her knowledge, and of course she prayed for guidance, which came. When David Livingstone died in 1874, published beside his obituary was a piece of his writing that seemed to address Mary alone. It read:
“I direct you to Africa ... to carry out the work that I have begun ... I leave it to you”.
It was the calling that Mary had been waiting for. Despite the dangers, she applied to the foreign missionary board of the Scottish United Presbyterian Church. Her application was accepted, for service at the Hope Waddell mission in Calabar. So it was that, on 5 August 1876, at the age of 28 and dressed in sober attire—every inch a Victorian lady missionary—she set sail from Southampton on the SS Ethiopia, destination Africa.
During her time in Nigeria, Mary saved hundreds of lives, as has been said. She stopped sacrifices and severe punishments. She stopped the murder of twins and the outbreak of tribal war. Her unwavering belief in God, her bravery and her determination meant that she was greatly respected among the tribes.
Mary died in 1915, aged 67, with great mourning among those to whom she had dedicated her whole life. Since her death, she has become a worldwide inspiration for Christians and women alike, and it is great that her life will be celebrated in Dundee and elsewhere this year. However, we must not forget that she was first and foremost a follower of Jesus Christ.
17:17
I thank my colleague Jenny Marra for securing this debate to recognise the significant achievements of Mary Slessor. Colleagues have spoken about Mary’s life and about the important work that she did as a missionary in Nigeria. Like her hero David Livingstone, Mary had to work hard from a very early age. As we have heard, she began work at the age of 11 and often worked 12-hour days in Baxter’s jute mill. Her home life was also challenging because of her father’s alcoholism, and Mary found solace and direction in her religion.
As we know, Mary Slessor’s faith took her to Nigeria and led her to pursue the life of a missionary. However, her way of going about her work was somewhat different from that of her contemporaries. She chose to live outside the missionary compound and to dress and eat like the people she served, and she refused for many years to filter her water, as local people had no means to do so. Over the years, her forthright manner, courage and determination won her many friends among the Nigerian people. As we have heard, she challenged the long-held practice of killing twin babies and adopted several local orphan children whom she raised as her own.
Mary Slessor was perhaps as remarkable a character as David Livingstone, whom she revered but, unlike Livingstone, she has been somewhat overlooked in her homeland. She was the first woman to appear on a Scottish banknote and she is the subject of two memorials in Aberdeen, but it took the efforts of the Mary Slessor Foundation, in this, her centenary year, to ensure that a monument to her memory was erected in Dundee, in addition to the range of celebratory events. I add my congratulations to the organising committee on the work that it has done.
In a previous debate about another significant Scottish woman whom we have heard about this evening—Mary Barbour—I lamented the lack of significant formal recognition of the achievement of women in Scotland. Across Scotland, only 20 statues depict individual women, and half of those were erected in the past 50 years. Although there is little research about the number of statues that are dedicated to men compared with women, it is clear that men are disproportionately recognised. For instance, there are 12 statues in George Square in Glasgow and only one is of a woman—and that is of Queen Victoria.
In 2010, the Parliament’s committee rooms were named for notable Scots. We have a female First Minister, a gender-balanced Cabinet and a significant number of women members, but only one of the six committee rooms is named for a woman—Mary Fairfax Somerville. It should be said that she is another woman whose contribution—in her case, to science, in an age when any education was considered dangerous to a woman’s health—is deserving of such an honour, but why stop there? Could the larger garden meeting rooms and the meeting rooms in Queensberry house be named for important Scottish women? After all, room TG.20/21 in the Parliament is adjacent to the wall on which the excellent sculpture “Travelling the Distance” by Shauna McMullan—which celebrates Scottish women—is located. Why not have a Mary Slessor room and a Mary Barbour room?
In the Mary Barbour debate, I read out a quotation that suggested that women such as Mary Slessor and Mary Barbour
“open a door to the world for all our daughters”.
This Parliament, which has championed equality, could push that door open a little further if we had the political will. I think that we do, which is why I have written today to the Presiding Officer to make a formal suggestion about room names. I hope that we can all agree on and act on that idea.
I am sure that the continuation of international development work would please Mary Slessor more than any monument that we could ever dream up. However, we need to make sure, as a Parliament, that the impact of women such as Mary Slessor is not forgotten and is formally recognised.
17:22
I congratulate Jenny Marra on securing the debate and on helping us to mark the memory of Mary Slessor, another important figure from Scottish history. I understand that the Parliament has a family connection to Mary Slessor: Deputy Presiding Officer John Scott is Mary Slessor’s cousin, twice removed—or so he told me before the debate—so we have a closer connection than we might think.
When people talk about Scotland’s contribution to the world, it is often measured by our great inventions and the technological feats achieved by our engineers and scientists. However, it is equally important to remember our impressive humanitarian record. Mary Slessor, Elsie Inglis and many others served as torch bearers for women’s rights in Scotland and across the world. It is particularly pertinent to remember those achievements on international women’s day.
The Scotland of today is very different from the world that Mary Slessor inherited in the 19th century. Born in Dundee during a time when women were denied the vote and other basic rights, she did the unthinkable and journeyed into the unknown with nothing more than her Christian faith and an unbending desire to help her fellow man and woman.
I agree with Dave Thompson that we should never underestimate the impact of Mary Slessor’s Christian belief—it was that which drove her, and inspired her, to remarkable feats. As a result, more than a century later, Mary Slessor continues to inspire and her foundation continues to help people in the developing world live longer and happier lives. In the century since her death, women in Scotland have earned the vote, can stand for Parliament and have the freedom to enter any career that they wish, with the knowledge that equal pay is enshrined in law.
Although the speed of progress in Scotland has been fast, evolution in other parts of the world has been slow and it is there that we must make more progress. Three weeks ago, along with other members, I was in Saudi Arabia, and it was quite shocking to see how women in that country are treated—quite literally—as second-class citizens. They are unable to drive cars and they are unable to go out in public unless they are covered head to foot. They have only recently become able to work outside the home.
The situation is equally bad in many other countries. For all of Mary Slessor’s achievements in Nigeria, she would no doubt be disappointed at the subsequent rate of progress, for women there are still subordinate to men. Female rates of education lag well behind those for their male counterparts. Last April, the world was shocked by the kidnapping of 200 schoolgirls. So long as girls are scared to go to school and parents are too frightened to send them, Nigeria will never reach its true potential. There is an old Indian proverb that says, “If you educate a woman, you educate the whole family.” That is why it is so important that female education is placed on an equal footing with that for males in Nigeria and across Africa.
As Jenny Marra and others have reminded us, one of Mary Slessor’s crowning achievements was to stop twins being sacrificed due to ancient rituals. If Mary Slessor was with us today, I am sure that she would be a vocal opponent of another cruel practice: female genital mutilation, which we have discussed many times in the Parliament. Nigeria has the highest number of cases of FGM anywhere in the world. Education of the general public at all levels, with an emphasis on the dangers and undesirability of FGM, will be paramount in reducing it.
In politics, with the exception of the current finance minister, women are still very much underrepresented in Nigerian public life. Ensuring that women can access the policy-making process and provide inspirational leadership will be crucial in forwarding women’s rights not just in Nigeria but across the African continent.
International women’s day should be celebrated by everyone. Anyone with a sister, a wife or a daughter wants them to have equal rights and opportunities. Although there is still a long road to travel in Scotland, Mary would be immensely proud of what women can achieve and have achieved in this country. In debating the life of Mary Slessor, we can point to a long history of humanitarian achievement, but we still have a role to play in providing leadership for human rights movements across the globe.
17:26
I thank Jenny Marra for giving us the opportunity to celebrate the life of one of Scotland’s best-known and most important daughters and, more generally, international women’s day.
Not many Victorian lassies who were born in Aberdeenshire and brought up in the slums of Aberdeen and Dundee earned a state funeral at the other end of their lives, ended up a member of the Order of St John or were a magistrate, which was pretty much exceptional in Victorian times. As we have heard, the Clydesdale Bank put her on one of its banknotes. Of course, I have a special interest because her alcoholic father came from Buchan in my constituency. We will all claim our little connections, because there is nothing so nice as the reflected glory of a true hero.
In 2007, Maureen Watt held an event in the Parliament to celebrate the life of Mary Slessor, and many members signed a motion about that at the time. It is good to come back to the issue on the anniversary of her death. Her life was not easy. It is clear that, when her father died in September 1870 at 6 Eliza Street in Dundee, she was not living in the most prosperous of circumstances, as that was not a part of Dundee where the rich lived. Four years later, when David Livingstone died, she was then only 25 years old. Her life was set by her experience of deprivation, her Christian faith and the inspiration that came from David Livingstone.
The Mary Slessor Foundation, which today supports her memory, has been responsible for many things. For example, money has been raised for the foundation by a play about her life, “Mother of All the Peoples”, which has been performed all over Scotland. I hope that it continues to inform people across Scotland about the inspiration that comes from Mary Slessor’s life.
I am pleased to hear that a commemorative standing stone and plaque now stand in front of Dundee’s Steeple church. There were previous plans to have a memorial in Dundee, although I am not sure that they came to fruition. Mary spent most of her life there, and it was probably more formative than her time in the north, so it is important that Dundee celebrates her life.
Mary Slessor was quite different and disjointed from women of her time. We have heard that she dressed, ate and drank in the way that the people in Nigeria she supported did. More fundamentally, she learned to speak the native language. For me, as someone who is no linguist of any great merit, that particularly stood out because, of course, she had to learn it from the people she was supporting—there was no one in particular to teach her. The inspection that took place in the early 1880s commented on the friendship that she had with the people and the fact that she had that language, which helped her in her work.
We have heard something of other women and I will say just a little bit about women in my former profession of software engineering.
Women have played a remarkable and substantial role in today’s computer technology. Ada Lovelace, who was the daughter of Lord Byron, was Charles Babbage’s programmer and is the first identified programmer.
Grace Hopper, who worked for the United States navy, retired three times and was begged to come back each time. When she finally retired, having been made a rear admiral by the US President, she was 80 years old and went to work for the remainder of her life for a computer company. She is responsible for the fact that we talk about bugs in programs because she coined that phrase.
I remember hearing on a flight about 25 years ago, although I cannot remember where, the announcement that it was the first commercial flight operated from Scotland on which all the crew members were female—those in the back of the plane and in the front of the plane. It is sad that it took that length of time before women were given even that modest recognition.
Mary Slessor did a lot for people in Scotland and in Africa, and it is right that we celebrate her life.
17:31
I, too, congratulate Jenny Marra on bringing the debate to the Parliament.
Mary Slessor grew to maturity in Dundee, as we have heard, but she spent the first 11 years of her life on Mutton Brae in her home city of Aberdeen. That was a run-down inner-city street but it is now long gone, having been swept away entirely in the 19th century improvements that created Union Terrace gardens. There is a memorial to her in the gardens, as Patricia Ferguson said, and a plaque in Belmont Street nearby.
At a service to mark the centenary of Mary Slessor’s death in January, Lord Provost George Adam rightly described her as
“one of Aberdeen’s greatest daughters.”
However, Mary Slessor belongs to all the places in which she is revered 100 years on. She is a citizen of Scotland and Nigeria alike. She belongs also to the international women’s movement and humanity as a whole as a champion of the rights of women, of mothers and children and of widows and slaves.
Time and again, Mary Slessor put her life on the line for others’ rights in this world and their salvation in the next. Her Christian mission was rooted in her experience of poverty and her profound belief in the equality of all in the sight of God.
The wheel has turned full circle, and several thousand Nigerians now live and work or study in Aberdeen. They include Pentecostal Christians such as Pastor Dr Mark Igiehon, who led time for reflection some months ago. In their view, Scots missionaries such as Mary Slessor brought Christian enlightenment to their country and now they are returning the favour by their mission in ours.
Mary Slessor was one of many north-east Scots who lived and worked in Africa in the 19th century. The stories of several others were told by the late Professor John D Hargreaves of the University of Aberdeen, who passed away earlier this year and will be remembered by his family and many friends in Banchory later this month. His account of those who went from Aberdeenshire to Africa was one of many publications in a long and distinguished career. Like Mary Slessor’s, his life was devoted to broadening African horizons and opportunities. He taught in the 1950s at Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone—the original west African university—and was still actively supporting higher education there long after his official retirement from Aberdeen.
Mary Slessor devoted herself to the physical and spiritual wellbeing of women and children among the Efik people of south-eastern Nigeria. John Hargreaves made his life’s work the empowerment of west Africans in general. He helped to rescue their history from a Eurocentric perspective and to return it to the people to whom it rightly belongs. Both of them achieved real and permanent change. I was lucky enough to learn about African history at the University of Aberdeen, from John Hargreaves and his colleague Roy Bridges, and to visit Nigeria as a PhD student 30 years ago.
Mary Slessor, John Hargreaves and Pastor Mark all represent different strands in a long and fruitful relationship between north-east Scotland and west Africa. In Aberdeen, we have a special opportunity to celebrate all those strands and to commemorate Mary Slessor. I am delighted that the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Sport is here this evening because, today, I have proposed to NHS Grampian that the replacement for Aberdeen maternity hospital should be named the Mary Slessor women’s hospital, to recognise both her work for disadvantaged mothers and vulnerable infants, and Aberdeen’s continuing engagement with Africa and the wider world.
If we want to follow Mary Slessor in tackling injustice and inequality wherever they arise, there could be no clearer signal of that intent than to add her name to those of the other pioneering women and men whose names are commemorated every day in the names that we use in our national health service.
17:35
I thank all the members who have contributed to this afternoon’s debate and I thank Jenny Marra for lodging the motion. It is heartening to see so much support for such an outstanding woman of Scotland as Mary Slessor. I share the admiration for her that has been expressed and am pleased to be able to close the debate on behalf of the Scottish Government.
Immortalised on the Canongate wall of this very building are the words of another Mary—Mary Brooksbank:
“Oh, dear me, the warld’s ill-divided,
Them that work the hardest are aye wi’ least provided,
But I maun bide contented, dark days or fine,
But there’s no much pleasure livin’ affen ten and nine.”
Those words sum up the Scotland in which Mary Slessor lived and the reality of working in one of Dundee’s jute mills. It is true that the Scotland that Mary left at the age of 28 in 1876 no longer exists. However, the fight for women’s equality still goes on, and the principles and standards for which she stood are very much alive in the women who continue to work towards achieving gender equality. When we honour Mary Slessor, we honour them as well.
As we know, significant improvements have been made and things are by no means as tough for women as they once were. However, we still have a long way to go. Ending inequality in Scotland and contributing to its eradication internationally is at the heart of our ambitions as a Government. That is why we have prioritised that work in our programme for government, whether it be thorough our goal of making Scotland’s boardrooms gender balanced through our 50:50 by 2020 commitment, or through our strengthening of the criminal justice system’s response to tackling domestic abuse and other forms of violence against women. No one who listens to the First Minister can be in any doubt about the strength of our commitment to that agenda.
It is fitting that, today, just a few days before international women’s day, we are discussing one of the foremost women’s rights activists that Scotland has seen. It is also fitting that Mary Slessor’s work is now finally being recognised by all of Scotland in a year in which women are at the forefront of politics in Scotland and women’s equality is one of the main priorities for my Government.
I want to reflect on the speeches that we have heard. Jenny Marra spoke of Mary Slessor’s fortitude, bravery, determination, integrity and respect. Other members talked about her forthrightness and her courage, and David Thompson in particular talked about her faith. Patricia Ferguson made an important point about how we recognise women. Of course, statues are supported by public subscription and always have been, but I would draw members’ attention to the new heritage packs that have been introduced as part of a Historic Scotland scheme over the past few years. I have been clear that I want to ensure that women of Scotland are recognised as part of that, and I would encourage all members to put forward women for that commendation.
Murdo Fraser made an excellent speech about international perspectives and made an important point about the need for more equality for girls and women across the world, which involves a focus on education. Stewart Stevenson said that Mary Slessor was a remarkable woman of her time and Lewis Macdonald broadened the debate, speaking about the perspective of a modern mission in a historical context. Those are all important points to reflect on.
As others have highlighted, Mary Slessor was a formidable woman and an amazing role model for women today. She was the second of seven children in a family that was crammed into a single end in the slums of Dundee, at a time when work was scarce and money even more so. At a time when schools and education were for the privileged, Mary found her way into the classroom, albeit not quite to the same level as that of children from a more affluent background. Her experience was not how most people today would envisage going to school, and it was no ordinary school. She would be in the classroom for five hours in the morning, then spend the next five hours working in a noisy, dangerous jute mill.
An inspiration to Mary Slessor was the missionary David Livingstone, as we have heard, and his work to better the lives of those in Africa, who in Mary’s eyes were even more unfortunate than her. On hearing of his death, Mary found the courage within herself to follow her dreams, belief and faith and join the great work that was under way in Africa.
During her 38 years working with the people of Africa, Mary Slessor was taken in as an honorary member of the community. Not only did she stand up to the tribal chiefs but she saved the lives of countless men, women and children, some of whom she adopted as her own; we heard about her work with twins in particular. That was the work she was most proud of—breaking down barriers and spreading the word of peace, harmony and equality, and breaking a glass ceiling of her own in becoming the first female magistrate in the British empire.
In this, the centenary of Mary Slessor’s death, we welcome the launch of the many events that have been organised to celebrate the life and work of this incredible woman—work that the Mary Slessor Foundation continues today. For example, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners’ Rights will attend the planned civic reception in Dundee in April.
Only by recognising the path that was forged by Mary Slessor, and indeed by many others like her, can we, living in a modern world, appreciate just how far we have come towards being an equal, fair and prosperous country. We must recognise not just how far we have come, but how far we still have to travel. That journey is not just about us, the daughters of Scotland or the daughters of Europe; it is about the daughters of the world. In reflecting on Mary Slessor’s journey and her contribution, let us all rededicate ourselves to what we can do for the daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts and grandmothers of all the world.
Meeting closed at 17:42.Previous
Decision Time