Chrystal Macmillan
Encyclopedia
Chrystal Macmillan was a Scottish
barrister, feminist and pacifist, and the first female science graduate from the University of Edinburgh
as well as that institution's first female honours graduate in Mathematics. She was an activist for women's right to vote
, and for other women's causes. She was the first woman to plead a case before the House of Lords
, and was one of the founders of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
.
In the first year of World War I
, Macmillan spoke for the peace-seeking women of the United Kingdom at the International Congress of Women
, a peace congress convened at the Hague
. Afterward, she met with world leaders such as President Woodrow Wilson
, whose countries were still neutral, to present the proposals formulated at the Hague. Wilson subsequently used these proposals as some of his Fourteen Points
, his justification for making war to forge a lasting peace. At war's end, Macmillan served as a delegate at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919
, and helped encourage the founding of the League of Nations
. Macmillan tried but did not succeed in getting the League to establish nationality for women independent of the nationality of their husbands.
in St Andrews
on the east coast of Scotland. She returned to enroll at the University of Edinburgh in October 1892. Among the first female students there, she was not the first to graduate, as others were more advanced in their studies when they entered as graduate students, and earned Masters degrees before she finished her undergraduate work. Macmillan studied science subjects including Honours Mathematics with George Chrystal
, Astronomy with Ralph Copeland
, and Natural Philosophy with Peter Guthrie Tait
and Cargill Gilston Knott
. She earned her Bachelor of Science
degree in April 1896, the first woman at Edinburgh to do so.
In the summer of 1896 she went to Berlin for further university study, then returned to Edinburgh and passed an examination in Greek language
to enter the Faculty of Arts in October 1896. She studied a number of social subjects including politics, and graduated in April 1900. Macmillan was the first woman to earn First-class honours from Edinburgh in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, also earning Second-class honours in Moral Philosophy and Logic. During this time she was a member of the Edinburgh Ladies' Debating Society, a forum which helped her gain confidence arguing in the face of opposition. She also joined the Edinburgh Mathematical Society in May 1897, the second woman member after Flora Philip in 1896.
(NUWSS), of whom Macmillan, along with Louisa Stevenson
, served as executive committee members from Edinburgh. She was known as Chrystal Macmillan—she did not use the name Jessie, her mother's first name and her own birth name.
As graduates, Macmillan and four other women were full members of the General Council of Edinburgh University, but they were denied the opportunity to vote in February 1906 to determine the Member of Parliament
who would represent the university seat. Macmillan argued that the wording of the General Council's voting statutes used the word persons throughout, and that she and the other female graduates were indeed persons. In March, Macmillan wrote to Elizabeth Clarke Wolstenholme Elmy to ask for aid, as Elmy was the author of the pamphlet The Enfranchisement of Women. Macmillan told Elmy "I formed my beliefs on your pamphlet." Elmy recommended she contact Charlotte Carmichael Stopes
for additional useful arguments. Macmillan brought the case before the University Courts in 1907 but lost, and lost a subsequent appeal. Scottish suffragists banded together to raise the £1000 required to present a case to the House of Lords
. They hoped to raise awareness in Great Britain of the absurdity and injustice of denying the vote to educated women such as themselves.
In November 1908, Macmillan appeared in London to argue, as a university graduate, for her right to vote for Scottish University seats. During her speech, the buildings of Parliament were made to suspend the temporary arrangements put in place to prevent women from entering—such arrangements had been instituted after the first militant suffrage agitations. Macmillan was the first woman to argue a case before the bar of the House of Lords. She was backed by her contemporary, Frances Simson, one of the first eight female graduates of Edinburgh. Given audience late in the day, Macmillan spoke for three quarters of an hour. Press reports of the appearance described her as a "modern Portia
", the beautiful, intelligent and controversial wife of Brutus, famous assassin of Julius Caesar
. In Scotland, Glasgow's The Herald
reported that she began nervously but warmed to her subject and "argued law in an admirable speaking voice". Two days later she continued to plead her case, this time in "complete self-possession", wearing a dark red outfit and hat trimmed with ermine furs. Like other suffragists in Britain and the United States, she based her case on the words person and persons in the voting statutes, arguing that such unspecific words were no basis for the exclusion of one entire sex from voting. The court upheld both lower courts' decisions that the word persons did not include women when referring to privileges granted by the state. She lost the case, but The New York Times
reported that she responded to the decision against her with the words "We'll live to fight another day". In Wellington, New Zealand, the Evening Post wrote a less strident account, noting that Macmillan was cheerful in defeat. After the court adjourned, she said to a reporter from the London Daily Chronicle
, "I don't suppose that there is anything more to be done just now, but we shall live to fight another day." No matter her exact words, her time at the House of Lords attracted worldwide publicity which proved valuable to the women's cause.
In 1911, Macmillan attended the sixth congress of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance
(IWSA) in Stockholm
. There, she embarked upon a long-term project, in cooperation with Marie Stritt, president of the German Union for Woman Suffrage, and Maria Vérone, president of the French League for Women's Rights, to document women's voting conditions around the world. In May 1913, after two years of correspondence with widely separated women's rights activists to gather global information, the women completed Woman Suffrage In Practice, 1913, a book to which Carrie Chapman Catt
added a foreword. Published in conjunction with the NUWSS and the National American Woman Suffrage Association
, the book described current women's voting practises in 35 countries and empires, with the authors dividing the work by country. Macmillan was responsible for writing about the UK, the US, New Zealand, Australia, India, China, South Africa and five smaller countries. Macmillan noticed that in few countries and empires were women excluded specifically by statute—they were instead kept from voting by custom alone. She wrote from both personal experience and outside observation of women's activists: "as soon as they become alive to this fact, they have tested the legality of their exclusion in the law courts." In 1913, Macmillan attended the seventh IWSA congress in Budapest
, and began to serve the IWSA as vice president, a position she would hold for ten years. In 1914, she authored a 30-page booklet entitled Facts versus fancies on woman suffrage published by the NUWSS.
began, Macmillan looked for peace activism on the part of NUWSS. Instead, she found a majority of British women were in favor of helping the men win the war. Her pacifism was not at all passive—soon after hostilities broke out, she traveled to Flushing, Netherlands
on a mission of mercy. By late October 1914 she was providing food for refugees from the fall of Antwerp
. Macmillan signed the Open Christmas Letter
, a peace-seeking exchange between women of warring nations, in late 1914.
Elsewhere in the world, pacifist women were forced to adjust to the realities of war. After "the guns of August", Rosika Schwimmer
, a native of Austria–Hungary working in England but prevented by war from returning home, outlined her idea for an international conference of neutrals to mediate between warring nations. In September 1914, Stritt wrote to Catt in America with "deep personal regret" for the "terrible war". The pacifist women of Germany were forced by war to withdraw their invitation to host the annual IWSA congress which was to have been held nine months later in Berlin. In December 1914, Canadian Julia Grace Wales, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
, published her views about working toward a mediated peace in a pamphlet entitled "Continuous Mediation Without Armistice", popularly known as the Wisconsin Plan
. Taking these messages as her inspiration, Catt proposed that, rather than holding a woman suffrage convention in Berlin, an international peace congress of women should meet in The Hague
for four days beginning 28 April 1915.
When this announcement reached the UK, the NUWSS was divided on the one hand by patriots such as Millicent Fawcett
who were devoted to war work and on the other by the signers of the Christmas letter who wished to send peace delegates. However, the majority of the NUWSS were nationalistic more than they were peace-minded. They rejected a resolution favored by internationalists Helen Bright Clark
and Margaret Bondfield
which would have supported a delegation of women at The Hague. Because of this, women such as Margaret Ashton
, Helena Swanwick and Maude Royden resigned from the NUWSS and made plans to attend at The Hague, some 180 women in total. Macmillan was the only internationalist executive of NUWSS who did not resign; she was away performing relief work. Volunteering near The Hague, Macmillan prepared to join the ex-NUWSS members after the group crossed the English Channel
.
At The Hague 28 April to 1 May 1915, a large congress of 1,150 women from North America and Europe gathered to discuss peace proposals. The event was called the International Congress of Women
, or the Women's Peace Congress. The 180-strong contingent of British women was greatly reduced by Winston Churchill
's purposeful cancellation of British ferry service across the Channel, stranding most of the British activists. Already in Antwerp, Macmillan easily attended the women's conference to speak for the UK—she was one of only three British women present. Macmillan was selected as a member of the international committee who were to travel to neutral nations and champion the proposal of the Congress. The Wisconsin Plan was unanimously adopted as the optimum method for returning peace to the world, and Macmillan, Schwimmer and the committee traveled to the neutral US to present President Woodrow Wilson
with it. Many of the women's peace proposals were used by Wilson in his Fourteen Points
, and the women's efforts helped encourage the later founding of the League of Nations
.
After the war, Macmillan went to Zürich
in May 1919 as a delegate to the International Congress of Women. The Congress strongly condemned the harsh surrender terms that were being planned for Germany in the Treaty of Versailles
to be signed the next month. Macmillan carried the Congress' condemnation to the ongoing Paris Peace Conference
, but no changes were made to the treaty.
, a lawyer concerned more with the theory of law than with individual cases, and she began to work for women's rights from within the legal community. She passed the bar on 28 January 1924 and joined the Middle Temple
. As she was studying for the bar, she co-founded the Open Door Council
for the repeal of legal restraints on women. Macmillan worked to lift restrictions and so give women of all stations an equal opportunity in the workplace. NUWSS was re-organised in 1918 as the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, but Macmillan disagreed with the group's stance on protective legislation for women workers. In 1929, she co-founded a global group, the Open Door International for the Economic Emancipation of the Woman Worker—she served as president of this group until her death.
In 1935, Macmillan unsuccessfully stood for election as the Liberal
candidate from Edinburgh. In the same period, she worked to stem the traffic in females used as sexual slaves
. To that end, she worked with Alison Roberta Noble Neilans
' Association for Moral and Social Hygiene. Feminist writer Cicely Hamilton
wrote of Macmillan that "she was the right kind of lawyer, one who held that Law should be synonymous with Justice ... Her chief aim in life—one might call it her passion—was to give every woman of every class and nation the essential protection of justice. She was, herself, a great and very just human being ... She could not budge an inch on matters of principle but she never lost her temper and never bore a grudge in defeat."
, known as Lady Aberdeen, but Macmillan saw the issue in a new light during the war. Women who were married to foreigners were, upon declaration of war, faced suddenly with status as enemy nationals within the land of their birth. From the same legal basis, a number of British women were enjoying full citizenship in enemy territories. Macmillan was in favor of women retaining their existing citizenship through marriage. To that end, she wrote a piece entitled "The Nationality of Married Women" that was published twice in Jus Suffragii, once in July 1917 and again with updated statistics in June 1918. However, no new laws were passed about it, and a woman's citizenship remained tied to that of her husband.
The subject came up again in 1930, during the Conference on Codification of International Law, held in The Hague. A strong contingent of women from America joined international women's groups to change the existing nationality laws, but the women were unable to agree on wording. Intense lobbying by women, and a massive parade demonstration, failed to influence the conferees, and the international law continued to hold that a woman's nationality followed her husband's. In response, Macmillan organized an International Committee for Action on the Nationality of Married Women early the next year. Six of the most influential international women's groups sought a broad base of support from working women. Macmillan's stated goal was to delay ratification of the Hague Convention, and to make certain that a woman's nationality would not change without her consent, and that the nationality of a couple's children would not be more influenced by the father's nationality. The new committee was successful in lobbying the League of Nations to address the problem, but when the League constituted a study group, that group was split between two intractable factions. On one side were those who wanted a married couple to have exactly one nationality, based on that of the husband, and on the other side were those like Macmillan who favored independent citizenship between spouses, with the possibility of wives having different citizenship than their husbands, and children to be allowed dual citizenship. In 1932, the women's group, at an impasse, were pushed aside as ineffectual by the League of Nations, who decided in favor of ratifying the Hague Convention. The women's group disbanded, and the Hague convention was ratified in 1937.
, she specified bequests to the Open Door International for the Economic Emancipation of the Woman Worker, and to the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene.
established independent nationality for each married person, a ruling Macmillan had worked toward without success in her lifetime.
A building at the University of Edinburgh is named for her, the Chrystal Macmillan Building at the north-west corner of George Square. Since 2008, it houses the majority of the School of Social and Political Science. The Chrystal Macmillan Prize is a £100 award given "at the discretion of the Scholarships and Prizes Committee" of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple
in London, a professional group of attorneys. The prize was founded as an annual grant to benefit female law students scoring the highest in the bar's final examination, and to support societies with which Macmillan was associated. A Millennial Plaque honoring Macmillan is placed at the King's Buildings
, a science campus at the University of Edinburgh. The plaque notes that she was a "suffragist, founder of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom", as well as the being the "first woman science graduate of the University", an honor she achieved in 1896.
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
barrister, feminist and pacifist, and the first female science graduate from the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
as well as that institution's first female honours graduate in Mathematics. She was an activist for women's right to vote
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
, and for other women's causes. She was the first woman to plead a case before the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
, and was one of the founders of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom was established in the United States in January 1915 as the Woman's Peace Party...
.
In the first year of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Macmillan spoke for the peace-seeking women of the United Kingdom at the International Congress of Women
International Congress of Women
The name International Congress of Women was used by a number of feminist and pacifist events since 1878.-Paris, 1878:The First International Congress of Women's Rights convened in Paris in 1878 upon the occasion of the third Paris World's Fair. Seven resolutions were passed, beginning with the...
, a peace congress convened at the Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
. Afterward, she met with world leaders such as President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
, whose countries were still neutral, to present the proposals formulated at the Hague. Wilson subsequently used these proposals as some of his Fourteen Points
Fourteen Points
The Fourteen Points was a speech given by United States President Woodrow Wilson to a joint session of Congress on January 8, 1918. The address was intended to assure the country that the Great War was being fought for a moral cause and for postwar peace in Europe...
, his justification for making war to forge a lasting peace. At war's end, Macmillan served as a delegate at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919
Paris Peace Conference, 1919
The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the armistices of 1918. It took place in Paris in 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities...
, and helped encourage the founding of the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
. Macmillan tried but did not succeed in getting the League to establish nationality for women independent of the nationality of their husbands.
Early career
Macmillan was born Jessie Chrystal Macmillan on 13 June 1872 to Edinburgh Tea Merchant, John Macmillan and his wife Jessie Chrystal Finlayson. She was the couple's only daughter among their eight sons. After an early education in Edinburgh she boarded at St Leonards School and St Katharines School for GirlsSt Leonards School
St Leonards School, formerly St Leonards School for Girls, is an independent school, founded by the University of St Andrews in the nineteenth century....
in St Andrews
St Andrews
St Andrews is a university town and former royal burgh on the east coast of Fife in Scotland. The town is named after Saint Andrew the Apostle.St Andrews has a population of 16,680, making this the fifth largest settlement in Fife....
on the east coast of Scotland. She returned to enroll at the University of Edinburgh in October 1892. Among the first female students there, she was not the first to graduate, as others were more advanced in their studies when they entered as graduate students, and earned Masters degrees before she finished her undergraduate work. Macmillan studied science subjects including Honours Mathematics with George Chrystal
George Chrystal
George Chrystal was a Scottish mathematician.He was born in Old Meldrum and educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and the University of Aberdeen, moving in 1872 to study under James Clerk Maxwell at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he graduated Second wrangler in 1875, joint with William Burnside, and...
, Astronomy with Ralph Copeland
Ralph Copeland
Ralph Copeland was an English astronomer and the third Astronomer Royal for Scotland.Copeland was born at Moorside Farm, near Woodplumpton in Lancashire, England and attended Kirkham Grammar School. He spent five years in Australia where he discovered his interest in astronomy...
, and Natural Philosophy with Peter Guthrie Tait
Peter Guthrie Tait
Peter Guthrie Tait FRSE was a Scottish mathematical physicist, best known for the seminal energy physics textbook Treatise on Natural Philosophy, which he co-wrote with Kelvin, and his early investigations into knot theory, which contributed to the eventual formation of topology as a mathematical...
and Cargill Gilston Knott
Cargill Gilston Knott
Cargill Gilston Knott was a Scottish physicist and mathematician who was a pioneer in seismological research. He spent his early career in Japan...
. She earned her Bachelor of Science
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
degree in April 1896, the first woman at Edinburgh to do so.
In the summer of 1896 she went to Berlin for further university study, then returned to Edinburgh and passed an examination in Greek language
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
to enter the Faculty of Arts in October 1896. She studied a number of social subjects including politics, and graduated in April 1900. Macmillan was the first woman to earn First-class honours from Edinburgh in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, also earning Second-class honours in Moral Philosophy and Logic. During this time she was a member of the Edinburgh Ladies' Debating Society, a forum which helped her gain confidence arguing in the face of opposition. She also joined the Edinburgh Mathematical Society in May 1897, the second woman member after Flora Philip in 1896.
Women's rights
Macmillan was active in the Edinburgh National Society for Women's Suffrage (ENSWS). In 1897, two women's groups in Great Britain united to become the National Union of Women's Suffrage SocietiesNational Union of Women's Suffrage Societies
The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies , also known as the Suffragists was an organisation of women's suffrage societies in the United Kingdom.-Formation and campaigning:...
(NUWSS), of whom Macmillan, along with Louisa Stevenson
Louisa Stevenson
Louisa Stevenson was a Scottish campaigner for women's university education, women's suffrage and effective, well-organised nursing.-Family:...
, served as executive committee members from Edinburgh. She was known as Chrystal Macmillan—she did not use the name Jessie, her mother's first name and her own birth name.
As graduates, Macmillan and four other women were full members of the General Council of Edinburgh University, but they were denied the opportunity to vote in February 1906 to determine the Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
who would represent the university seat. Macmillan argued that the wording of the General Council's voting statutes used the word persons throughout, and that she and the other female graduates were indeed persons. In March, Macmillan wrote to Elizabeth Clarke Wolstenholme Elmy to ask for aid, as Elmy was the author of the pamphlet The Enfranchisement of Women. Macmillan told Elmy "I formed my beliefs on your pamphlet." Elmy recommended she contact Charlotte Carmichael Stopes
Charlotte Carmichael Stopes
Charlotte Carmichael Stopes was a British scholar, author, and campaigner for women's rights. She published several books relating to the life and work of William Shakespeare. Her most successful publication was British Freewomen: Their Historical Privilege , a book which influenced and inspired...
for additional useful arguments. Macmillan brought the case before the University Courts in 1907 but lost, and lost a subsequent appeal. Scottish suffragists banded together to raise the £1000 required to present a case to the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
. They hoped to raise awareness in Great Britain of the absurdity and injustice of denying the vote to educated women such as themselves.
In November 1908, Macmillan appeared in London to argue, as a university graduate, for her right to vote for Scottish University seats. During her speech, the buildings of Parliament were made to suspend the temporary arrangements put in place to prevent women from entering—such arrangements had been instituted after the first militant suffrage agitations. Macmillan was the first woman to argue a case before the bar of the House of Lords. She was backed by her contemporary, Frances Simson, one of the first eight female graduates of Edinburgh. Given audience late in the day, Macmillan spoke for three quarters of an hour. Press reports of the appearance described her as a "modern Portia
Porcia Catonis
Porcia Catonis, also known simply as Porcia was a Roman woman who lived in the 1st century BC. She was the daughter of Marcus Porcius Cato Uticencis and his first wife Atilia...
", the beautiful, intelligent and controversial wife of Brutus, famous assassin of Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
. In Scotland, Glasgow's The Herald
The Herald (Glasgow)
The Herald is a broadsheet newspaper published Monday to Saturday in Glasgow, and available throughout Scotland. As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 47,226, giving it a lead over Scotland's other 'quality' national daily, The Scotsman, published in Edinburgh.The 1889 to 1906 editions...
reported that she began nervously but warmed to her subject and "argued law in an admirable speaking voice". Two days later she continued to plead her case, this time in "complete self-possession", wearing a dark red outfit and hat trimmed with ermine furs. Like other suffragists in Britain and the United States, she based her case on the words person and persons in the voting statutes, arguing that such unspecific words were no basis for the exclusion of one entire sex from voting. The court upheld both lower courts' decisions that the word persons did not include women when referring to privileges granted by the state. She lost the case, but The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reported that she responded to the decision against her with the words "We'll live to fight another day". In Wellington, New Zealand, the Evening Post wrote a less strident account, noting that Macmillan was cheerful in defeat. After the court adjourned, she said to a reporter from the London Daily Chronicle
Daily Chronicle
The Daily Chronicle was a British newspaper that was published from 1872 to 1930 when it merged with the Daily News to become the News Chronicle.-History:...
, "I don't suppose that there is anything more to be done just now, but we shall live to fight another day." No matter her exact words, her time at the House of Lords attracted worldwide publicity which proved valuable to the women's cause.
In 1911, Macmillan attended the sixth congress of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance
International Alliance of Women
The International Alliance of Women is a non-governmental, feminist organization, which embraces both women’s groups and individuals. The basic principle of the IAW is that the full and equal enjoyment of human rights is due to all women and girls....
(IWSA) in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
. There, she embarked upon a long-term project, in cooperation with Marie Stritt, president of the German Union for Woman Suffrage, and Maria Vérone, president of the French League for Women's Rights, to document women's voting conditions around the world. In May 1913, after two years of correspondence with widely separated women's rights activists to gather global information, the women completed Woman Suffrage In Practice, 1913, a book to which Carrie Chapman Catt
Carrie Chapman Catt
Carrie Chapman Catt was a women's suffrage leader who campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which gave U.S. women the right to vote in 1920...
added a foreword. Published in conjunction with the NUWSS and the National American Woman Suffrage Association
National American Woman Suffrage Association
The National American Woman Suffrage Association was an American women's rights organization formed in May 1890 as a unification of the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association...
, the book described current women's voting practises in 35 countries and empires, with the authors dividing the work by country. Macmillan was responsible for writing about the UK, the US, New Zealand, Australia, India, China, South Africa and five smaller countries. Macmillan noticed that in few countries and empires were women excluded specifically by statute—they were instead kept from voting by custom alone. She wrote from both personal experience and outside observation of women's activists: "as soon as they become alive to this fact, they have tested the legality of their exclusion in the law courts." In 1913, Macmillan attended the seventh IWSA congress in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, and began to serve the IWSA as vice president, a position she would hold for ten years. In 1914, she authored a 30-page booklet entitled Facts versus fancies on woman suffrage published by the NUWSS.
Peace activism
When World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
began, Macmillan looked for peace activism on the part of NUWSS. Instead, she found a majority of British women were in favor of helping the men win the war. Her pacifism was not at all passive—soon after hostilities broke out, she traveled to Flushing, Netherlands
Flushing, Netherlands
Vlissingen is a municipality and a city in the southwestern Netherlands on the former island of Walcheren. With its strategic location between the Scheldt river and the North Sea, Vlissingen has been an important harbour for centuries. It was granted city rights in 1315. In the 17th century...
on a mission of mercy. By late October 1914 she was providing food for refugees from the fall of Antwerp
Siege of Antwerp
The Siege of Antwerp was an engagement between the German and the Belgian armies during World War I. A small number of British and Austrian troops took part as well.-Strategic Context:...
. Macmillan signed the Open Christmas Letter
Open Christmas Letter
The Open Christmas Letter was a public message for peace addressed "To the Women of Germany and Austria", signed by a group of 101 British women suffragists at the end of 1914 as the first Christmas of World War I approached...
, a peace-seeking exchange between women of warring nations, in late 1914.
Elsewhere in the world, pacifist women were forced to adjust to the realities of war. After "the guns of August", Rosika Schwimmer
Rosika Schwimmer
Rosika Schwimmer or Bédy-Schwimmer "Rózsa" Rózsika was a Hungarian-born pacifist, feminist and female suffragist.Rosika Schwimmer was born on September 11, 1877 to a Jewish family in Budapest in Austria-Hungary...
, a native of Austria–Hungary working in England but prevented by war from returning home, outlined her idea for an international conference of neutrals to mediate between warring nations. In September 1914, Stritt wrote to Catt in America with "deep personal regret" for the "terrible war". The pacifist women of Germany were forced by war to withdraw their invitation to host the annual IWSA congress which was to have been held nine months later in Berlin. In December 1914, Canadian Julia Grace Wales, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
, published her views about working toward a mediated peace in a pamphlet entitled "Continuous Mediation Without Armistice", popularly known as the Wisconsin Plan
Wisconsin Plan
The Wisconsin Plan was a proposal created by Julia Grace Wales to end World War I. It envisioned an international conference composed of delegations from neutral countries, who would mediate between the warring powers and disseminate peace proposals, with the goal of eventually reaching a fair...
. Taking these messages as her inspiration, Catt proposed that, rather than holding a woman suffrage convention in Berlin, an international peace congress of women should meet in The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
for four days beginning 28 April 1915.
When this announcement reached the UK, the NUWSS was divided on the one hand by patriots such as Millicent Fawcett
Millicent Fawcett
Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett, GBE was an English suffragist and an early feminist....
who were devoted to war work and on the other by the signers of the Christmas letter who wished to send peace delegates. However, the majority of the NUWSS were nationalistic more than they were peace-minded. They rejected a resolution favored by internationalists Helen Bright Clark
Helen Bright Clark
Helen Bright Clark was a British women's rights activist and suffragist. The daughter of a radical Member of Parliament, Clark was a prominent speaker for women's voting rights and at times a political realist who served as a mainstay of the 19th century suffrage movement in South West England...
and Margaret Bondfield
Margaret Bondfield
Margaret Grace Bondfield was an English Labour politician and feminist, the first woman Cabinet minister in the United Kingdom and one of the first three female Labour MPs...
which would have supported a delegation of women at The Hague. Because of this, women such as Margaret Ashton
Margaret Ashton
Margaret Ashton was an English suffragist, local politician, pacifist and philanthropist, the first woman City Councillor for Manchester....
, Helena Swanwick and Maude Royden resigned from the NUWSS and made plans to attend at The Hague, some 180 women in total. Macmillan was the only internationalist executive of NUWSS who did not resign; she was away performing relief work. Volunteering near The Hague, Macmillan prepared to join the ex-NUWSS members after the group crossed the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
.
At The Hague 28 April to 1 May 1915, a large congress of 1,150 women from North America and Europe gathered to discuss peace proposals. The event was called the International Congress of Women
International Congress of Women
The name International Congress of Women was used by a number of feminist and pacifist events since 1878.-Paris, 1878:The First International Congress of Women's Rights convened in Paris in 1878 upon the occasion of the third Paris World's Fair. Seven resolutions were passed, beginning with the...
, or the Women's Peace Congress. The 180-strong contingent of British women was greatly reduced by Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
's purposeful cancellation of British ferry service across the Channel, stranding most of the British activists. Already in Antwerp, Macmillan easily attended the women's conference to speak for the UK—she was one of only three British women present. Macmillan was selected as a member of the international committee who were to travel to neutral nations and champion the proposal of the Congress. The Wisconsin Plan was unanimously adopted as the optimum method for returning peace to the world, and Macmillan, Schwimmer and the committee traveled to the neutral US to present President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
with it. Many of the women's peace proposals were used by Wilson in his Fourteen Points
Fourteen Points
The Fourteen Points was a speech given by United States President Woodrow Wilson to a joint session of Congress on January 8, 1918. The address was intended to assure the country that the Great War was being fought for a moral cause and for postwar peace in Europe...
, and the women's efforts helped encourage the later founding of the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
.
After the war, Macmillan went to Zürich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
in May 1919 as a delegate to the International Congress of Women. The Congress strongly condemned the harsh surrender terms that were being planned for Germany in the Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
to be signed the next month. Macmillan carried the Congress' condemnation to the ongoing Paris Peace Conference
Paris Peace Conference, 1919
The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the armistices of 1918. It took place in Paris in 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities...
, but no changes were made to the treaty.
Lawyer
By early 1918, British women who had attained the age of 30 were given the right to vote and hold office. Macmillan took the opportunity to become a non-practising barristerBarrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
, a lawyer concerned more with the theory of law than with individual cases, and she began to work for women's rights from within the legal community. She passed the bar on 28 January 1924 and joined the Middle Temple
Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn...
. As she was studying for the bar, she co-founded the Open Door Council
Open Door Council
The Open Door Council, established in May 1926, was a British organisation pressing for equal economic opportunities for women. It opposed the extension of 'protective legislation' for women, regarding such legislation as 'restrictive' and arguing that it effectively barred women from better-paid...
for the repeal of legal restraints on women. Macmillan worked to lift restrictions and so give women of all stations an equal opportunity in the workplace. NUWSS was re-organised in 1918 as the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, but Macmillan disagreed with the group's stance on protective legislation for women workers. In 1929, she co-founded a global group, the Open Door International for the Economic Emancipation of the Woman Worker—she served as president of this group until her death.
In 1935, Macmillan unsuccessfully stood for election as the Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
candidate from Edinburgh. In the same period, she worked to stem the traffic in females used as sexual slaves
Sexual slavery
Sexual slavery is when unwilling people are coerced into slavery for sexual exploitation. The incidence of sexual slavery by country has been studied and tabulated by UNESCO, with the cooperation of various international agencies...
. To that end, she worked with Alison Roberta Noble Neilans
Alison Roberta Noble Neilans
Alison Roberta Noble Neilans was an English suffragette. She was imprisoned three times for her activities; twice, for one month each occurrence, in 1908 and once, for three months, in 1909. Her third prison sentence was for pouring liquid into ballot boxes at a local by-election...
' Association for Moral and Social Hygiene. Feminist writer Cicely Hamilton
Cicely Hamilton
Cicely Mary Hamilton , born Hammill, was an English actress, writer, journalist, suffragist, lesbian and feminist. She is now best known for the play Diana of Dobson's, with a setting in an Edwardian department store....
wrote of Macmillan that "she was the right kind of lawyer, one who held that Law should be synonymous with Justice ... Her chief aim in life—one might call it her passion—was to give every woman of every class and nation the essential protection of justice. She was, herself, a great and very just human being ... She could not budge an inch on matters of principle but she never lost her temper and never bore a grudge in defeat."
Women's nationality
In 1917, Macmillan spoke out against the practise of assigning a woman's national citizenship depending on who she married. From 1905, this had been the vocal position of Ishbel Hamilton-Gordon, Marchioness of Aberdeen and TemairIshbel Hamilton-Gordon, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair
Ishbel Maria Hamilton-Gordon, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair, GBE was a Scottish author, philanthropist and an advocate of woman's interests.-Family:...
, known as Lady Aberdeen, but Macmillan saw the issue in a new light during the war. Women who were married to foreigners were, upon declaration of war, faced suddenly with status as enemy nationals within the land of their birth. From the same legal basis, a number of British women were enjoying full citizenship in enemy territories. Macmillan was in favor of women retaining their existing citizenship through marriage. To that end, she wrote a piece entitled "The Nationality of Married Women" that was published twice in Jus Suffragii, once in July 1917 and again with updated statistics in June 1918. However, no new laws were passed about it, and a woman's citizenship remained tied to that of her husband.
The subject came up again in 1930, during the Conference on Codification of International Law, held in The Hague. A strong contingent of women from America joined international women's groups to change the existing nationality laws, but the women were unable to agree on wording. Intense lobbying by women, and a massive parade demonstration, failed to influence the conferees, and the international law continued to hold that a woman's nationality followed her husband's. In response, Macmillan organized an International Committee for Action on the Nationality of Married Women early the next year. Six of the most influential international women's groups sought a broad base of support from working women. Macmillan's stated goal was to delay ratification of the Hague Convention, and to make certain that a woman's nationality would not change without her consent, and that the nationality of a couple's children would not be more influenced by the father's nationality. The new committee was successful in lobbying the League of Nations to address the problem, but when the League constituted a study group, that group was split between two intractable factions. On one side were those who wanted a married couple to have exactly one nationality, based on that of the husband, and on the other side were those like Macmillan who favored independent citizenship between spouses, with the possibility of wives having different citizenship than their husbands, and children to be allowed dual citizenship. In 1932, the women's group, at an impasse, were pushed aside as ineffectual by the League of Nations, who decided in favor of ratifying the Hague Convention. The women's group disbanded, and the Hague convention was ratified in 1937.
Death
In 1937, Macmillan's health was failing. In June, a leg was amputated, and her heart was weak. On 21 September she died of heart disease, at home in bed at 8 Chalmers Crescent, Edinburgh. On 23 September her body was cremated. In her willWill (law)
A will or testament is a legal declaration by which a person, the testator, names one or more persons to manage his/her estate and provides for the transfer of his/her property at death...
, she specified bequests to the Open Door International for the Economic Emancipation of the Woman Worker, and to the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene.
Legacy
In 1957, the United NationsUnited Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
established independent nationality for each married person, a ruling Macmillan had worked toward without success in her lifetime.
A building at the University of Edinburgh is named for her, the Chrystal Macmillan Building at the north-west corner of George Square. Since 2008, it houses the majority of the School of Social and Political Science. The Chrystal Macmillan Prize is a £100 award given "at the discretion of the Scholarships and Prizes Committee" of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple
Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn...
in London, a professional group of attorneys. The prize was founded as an annual grant to benefit female law students scoring the highest in the bar's final examination, and to support societies with which Macmillan was associated. A Millennial Plaque honoring Macmillan is placed at the King's Buildings
King's Buildings
The King's Buildings are a campus of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and contains most of the schools within the College of Science and Engineering, excepting only part of the School of Informatics and the Institute of Geography, which are located at the central George Square campus...
, a science campus at the University of Edinburgh. The plaque notes that she was a "suffragist, founder of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom", as well as the being the "first woman science graduate of the University", an honor she achieved in 1896.