Our Founders' Connections with the Women's Movement
Our founders Christian Guthrie Wright and Louisa Stevenson were active in the women’s movement.
Louisa Stevenson was a member and honorary secretary of the Edinburgh Ladies' Educational Association, which later became the Edinburgh Association for the University Education of Women (EAUEW). Stevenson's role in the EAUEW led to her giving evidence to a Commission on University Education, and so doing contributed to the Universities (Scotland) Act 1889 which meant that Scottish universities were open to women students from 1892.
Christian Guthrie Wright was a founder of the Ladies' Edinburgh Debating Society, and, like Louisa Stevenson, an officer of the  Edinburgh Association for the University Education of Women (EAUEW).
In setting up our institution, our founders were backed by various interest groups, but particularly enlightened local medical practitioners and Church leaders.
The institution that they founded emerged in a period that was notable for real economic progress, but also characterised by many social and economic divisions and inequalities, and widespread poverty. The School was established as a voluntary effort to address two key problems facing society at the time: (1) the need to provide educational opportunities for women: (2) to improve the diets of working class families.
You can find a plaque commemorating our founders in Edinburgh’s Atholl Crescent.
