Mary Elizabeth Sutherland (30 November 1895 in Burnhead, Banchory-Ternan, Aberdeenshire – 19 October 1972 in

East Kilbride East Kilbride (; gd, Cille Bhrìghde an Ear ) is the largest town in South Lanarkshire in Scotland and the country's sixth-largest locality by population. It was also designated Scotland's first new town on 6 May 1947. The area lies on a rais ...

) was a Scottish feminist and labour activist.

Life

Born in Aberdeenshire, Sutherland joined the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...

(ILP) while she was at secondary school. Her mother died when she was sixteen, and she brought up her siblings; however, she won a scholarship to the

University of Aberdeen , mottoeng = The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom , established = , type = Public research universityAncient university , endowment = £58.4 million (2021) , budget ...

and graduated in history in 1917. She taught at Aberdeen Girls' High School and became active in the labour movement, campaigning for a minimum wage.Cheryl Law, ''Women: A Modern Political Dictionary'', page 143, Sutherland took a succession of political administration posts, including being an organiser for the

Scottish Farm Servants' Union The Scottish Farm Servants' Union was a trade union in the United Kingdom. The organisation was founded in 1912, when a group of farm labourers from Turriff asked the Aberdeen Trades Council to help them form a union. Joseph Forbes Duncan, sec ...

from 1920 to 1922, a sub-editor on '' Forward'', the Glasgow ILP newspaper, and then from 1924, being Scottish Women's Organiser for the Labour Party. When the ILP left the Labour Party in 1931, Sutherland remained a member, and in 1932 she was promoted to Chief Women's Officer for the party and moved to London. From 1947 to 1952, she was the British representative to the

United Nations Commission on the Status of Women The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW or UNCSW) is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), one of the main UN organs within the United Nations. CSW has been described as the UN organ promoting gend ...

, and she was also secretary of the Standing Joint Committee of Industrial Women's Organisations.Elizabeth Ewan et al, ''The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women'', page 349, She was friends with the Nigerian activist Folayegbe Akintunde-Ighodalo. She retired from her Labour Party post in 1960, but remained active in other roles, including secretary of the Houseworker Trust.

References

External links

Website United Nations

''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Pat Thane, 23.09.2004
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sutherland, Mary 1895 births 1972 deaths Alumni of the University of Aberdeen Members of the Fabian Society Labour Party (UK) officials People from Banchory Socialist feminists