Harriet Findlay

Dame Harriet Jane Findlay, Lady Findlay, DBE (née Backhouse; 12 March 1880 – 24 July 1954) was a British political activist and philanthropist.

Life

Harriet Jane Backhouse was the daughter of Sir Jonathan Edmund Backhouse, 1st Bt. (15 November 1849 – 27 July 1918) and Florence Trelawny (died 11 October 1902). She married Sir John Ritchie Findlay, 1st Baronet (son of John Ritchie Findlay and Susan Leslie) on 9 July 1901.

In 1919, Findlay joined Rosaline Masson, Ella Millar and Miss M.R. MacLeod as the first four women to become members of the Cockburn Association, Edinburgh's influential conservation organisation formed in 1875 to protect and preserve the built heritage, natural environment and civic amenity in the city.[1]

She was active in Scottish politics becoming a Justice of the Peace in Edinburgh in 1926 and being elected president of the Scottish Unionist Association in 1927. She chaired the management board of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary during the Depression. She died on 24 July 1954, aged 74.[2]

DBE

Lady Harriet Findlay was invested as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1929 and was styled as Dame Harriet Findlay.

Family

Husband:

Children:

  • Elizabeth Findlay (died 1958)
  • Laetitia Florence Findlay (died 5 July 1978)
  • Sir John Edmund Ritchie Findlay, 2nd Baronet (b. 14 June 1902 – d. 6 September 1962)
  • Lt.- Col. Sir Roland Lewis Findlay, 3rd Baronet (b. 14 July 1903 – d. 28 July 1979)

References
  1. "Historic Cockburn Association Office-Bearers".
  2. "Findlay , Dame Harriet Jane, Lady Findlay (1881–1954)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/51972. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

Sources
  • Charles Mosley, editor, Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes (Wilmington, Delaware: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd., 2003), volume 1, page 208.
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