Mary Burton

Dates: 
Born 7 February 1819, died 19 March 1909

Mary Burton was born in Aberdeen but moved to Edinburgh in 1832 with her widowed mother and brother. She never married, but raised her orphaned nephews and nieces, and was educated by her mother. She persuaded the Watt Institution and School of Arts (forerunner of Heriot-Watt University) to open its classes to female students in 1869, and became its first woman director in 1874.

When the Institution became Heriot-Watt College in 1885 she became a life governor, and in her will she left legacies for prizes for evening-class students of both genders, and to the Edinburgh National Society for Women’s Suffrage to campaign for the admission of women to sit as members of parliament, either at Westminster or in a Scottish Parliament. She was a campaigner for women’s suffrage and Irish Home Rule, and urged that universities should be open in the evening to admit working people.

Sources
The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women
Based on an entry by Ann Jones