Ruth Margaret Adler

Dates: 
born 1 October 1944, died 18 February 1994

A feminist human rights and child welfare campaigner, Ruth Adler was the daughter of two German Jewish lawyers, Charlotte Kissinger and Rudolf Oppenheimer, who emigrated to Britain in the 1930s. She was born in London, and after graduating from Oxford she moved to Scotland with her husband and taught philosophy part-time at the University of Edinburgh while her two sons were young. She was a founding member of Scottish Women’s Aid (1974), and later became a member of the Lothian Region Children’s Panel. She helped to establish the Scottish Child Law Centre, completed a PhD in jurisprudence, and became a magistrate. In 1991 she was appointed as the first Scottish Development Officer for Amnesty International.

Sources
The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women
Entry on Ruth Margaret Adler by Fran Wasoff