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31 July 2017

In the heart of Glasgow, surrounded on three sides by a motorway, a major hospital and a large brewery, sits a picturesque burial ground.

Glasgow Women’s Library, assisted by Friends of Glasgow Necropolis, created , highlighting the stories of women like Marion Gilchrist, Agnes Strang and Corlinda Lee.

Image from University of Glasgow Library

Despite leaving full-time education at 13, Marion Gilchrist .

She continued to pursue an education after leaving school to work on her family’s farm in South Lanarkshire.

In 1892 she was one of nine women to enroll in the newly-opened Medical School at Queen Margaret College, .

After qualifying she became a general practioner, specialising in the treatment of eye diseases, before going on to become ophthalmic surgeon.

through membership of militant suffrage organisations like the and the .

Image from Friends of the Glasgow Necropolis

Corlinda Lee’s grave describes her as Queen of the Gypsies.

The term derived from her marriage to horse trainer George Smith.

Both came from well-known gypsy families; together they became known as the king and queen of gypsies.

George has been credited with the idea of hosting ‘gypsy balls’, where .

Corlinda was supposed to have read the fortune of Queen Victoria at one of these events in Knockenhair Park in Dunbar on August 1878 and .

Radio 4’s Clare Balding took a ramble around the Necropolis and heard from Christine Reid from Glasgow Women’s Library.

Image from Jenny Bann

Historian Diana Burns became fascinated by a gravestone which stood a few metres away from the most famous structure in the Necropolis, .

It contained no dedication beyond an image of four children and the words ‘beloved mother’.

Burns was able to work out that this was probably the grave of Agnes Strang, a woman who died in childbirth in the winter of 1849.

At this time in British history, it is estimated that nearly 600 women would die for every 100,000 births.

That number began to fall dramatically in the late 19th Century .

By 2015, maternal mortality rate in the UK was occurring at a rate of 9 women per 100,000 births.