Isobel Forrester born Isobel Margaret Stewart McColl (1895 – 1976) was a Scottish born ecumenist. She was chair and an active member of the

Scottish Churches Ecumenical Association Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English * Scottish national identity, the Scottish id ...

Life

Forrester was born at the manse in Glenlyon. She was the first child of Jane Mary (Jeannie) (born Baillie) and John McColl. Sir

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy ...

described Glen Lyon as the "longest, loneliest and loveliest glen in Scotland". Her family had to leave the manse in 1904 because of a rift in her father's church. She and her family moved to Edinburgh where she attended St George's School until 1913 when a scholarship took her to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford to study English. She returned to Scotland in 1917 with a third class degree and returned to St George's School to teach. In 1948 John Baillie, Forrester, and John's brother,

Donald Donald is a masculine given name derived from the Gaelic name ''Dòmhnall''.. This comes from the Proto-Celtic *''Dumno-ualos'' ("world-ruler" or "world-wielder"). The final -''d'' in ''Donald'' is partly derived from a misinterpretation of the ...

, formed the

, which in 1950 merged with the Dollarbeg group which had organised ecumenical conferences since 1945 or 1946. The annual conferences had been created in response to an inititiative by the

World Council of Churches The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, most ju ...

and its focus was the role of women with the church and they discussed important social, political, and religious issues. However her three decades of work and leadership was constrained by organisations and she worked within and beyond these groups. She was chair and an active member of the Scottish Churches Ecumenical Association. She was an enthusiastic supporter of the ordination of women. When the approval was given for women to be ordained she sent a telegram to her daughter in law Margaret Forrester in India telling her of the "sweeping victory" on 22 May 1968. Margaret was ordained and she became a writer for children. She died in York on 30 August 1976 and her funeral and cremation was in Edinburgh on 4 September 1976. Papers relating to her book and correspondence are in the University of Edinburgh.

Private life

She married William Forrester who was a theologian. The last of their five children was Duncan Baillie Forrester. He was born in 1933 and he became a professor of theology at the University of Edinburgh.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Forrester, Isabel 1895 births 1976 deaths Women's rights activists Alumni of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford