Comedian Eleanor Morton has released a book celebrating women from the past and what we can learn from them still. It’s funny, wry, surprising and a brilliant starting point for discovering women’s history. We asked her to name her five favourite women from Scotland’s history.

Life Lessons From Historical Women
By Eleanor Morton
Published by Radar

1) The Edinburgh Seven – Cheating a bit, because there’s seven of them, but their story is so important. In the mid-19th century, frustrated at being unable to study medicine at university, seven Scottish women campaigned and eventually won places at Edinburgh University. It wasn’t the end of their struggle – a riot broke out amongst male students when the 7 attempted to sit an anatomy exam in 1870: the men even let a sheep loose. Sadly, the women were not granted degrees from Edinburgh, and had to obtain them abroad. In 1878, Sophie Jex Blake became Edinburgh’s first female doctor. Today it’s almost impossible to imagine the medical profession without the thousands of female doctors who contribute to our NHS.  

2) Mary Seacole – This is also cheating a bit, because Mary was in fact from Jamaica, but her father was Scottish, and I think it’s important to recognise Scotland’s ties with the Caribbean due to our large part in the slave trade. Mary was known as a ‘doctress’, a woman practised in traditional medicine (obviously not allowed to study it professionally). She’s perhaps best known for her work in the Crimean War, where she set up a self-funded field hospital, after the British government refused to give her money or training. She’s now getting the recognition she deserves for her entrepreneurial spirit and passion for healthcare, and I would love to see someone trace her father’s roots and find out a bit more about her Scottish background.  

 3) Mukami McCrum – With apologies to Ms McCrum, who I hope doesn’t mind being called a historical woman! Mukami was heavily involved in the Lothian Black Forum in the 1980s – an organisation devoted to fighting racism in Scotland. In particular, Mukami participated in the organisation’s battle to have the murder of Axmed Abuukar Sheekh in Edinburgh’s Cowgate recognised as a hate crime. Racism had long been an uncomfortable reality in Scotland, and Mukami and others paved the way for this status quo to be challenged. She also founded the Shakti Women’s Aid, an Edinburgh charity for Black women, in 1985.  

4) Williamina Fleming – She was a Dundee-born astronomer who was an early pioneer in the cataloguing of the night skies. She was also a single mother and a housekeeper, arriving in the USA with practically nothing, and rising to become a prominent scientist. Scottish women often feel overlooked in history, and Williamina’s name should be much better known – she even discovered the famous horsehead nebula. Her diaries also provide an incredible insight into what it was like raising a child as a full time working mother who was expected to help her male colleagues on top of her own work.  

5) Mary Queen of Scots – Mary gets a lot of attention, and yet I still feel most people don’t really know a lot about her. She’s been reduced to a rather tragic, glamorous figure, engaged in an eternal catfight with her cousin Elizabeth, but before her life went south (literally) she was the Queen of Scotland and France, a highly accomplished woman who made many good decisions alongside her bad ones. Mary’s role as queen in Presbyterian Scotland tells us a lot about power and gender dynamics of the time, and I think she deserves to be known as more than simply the doomed queen.

Life Lessons From Historical Women by Eleanor Morton is published by Radar, priced £18.99.