A key time in history when Dumfries’ women found their voices to spearhead change, took up careers, helped with the war effort – and so much more – is being explored in an exciting new exhibition.
The Women of Dumfries: Art, Suffrage, Temperance and War exhibition has been launched at Dumfries Museum and will run until January, featuring the time period of c.1850-1950 through objects and lives.
Regarded as a time when more local women entered the public sphere and became engaged with key issues such as the suffrage campaign for women to vote and the Temperance Movement to limit or stop alcohol consumption, the exhibition also shows that some conformed to expectations of their time – while still achieving remarkable things.
Other women were wholly unconventional such as Dalton-born Dr Flora Murray, who is now regarded as an LGBT icon. The trailblazer and pioneering surgeon founded Endell Street Military Hospital in World War One with her partner in life and work, Louisa Garrett Anderson.
They both have remarkable life stories and were member of the suffrage movement’s Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903.
This year marks the 100th year of Dr Murray’s death and Dumfries Museum has on display a stunning portrait of her by Francis Dodd. It is on loan from the Royal Free Hospital Charity and was used as the basis for the £100 Bank of Scotland note which Dr Murray now features on.
Artefacts associated with Dr Flora Murray are also on display for the first time in the region.
Councillor Ian Blake, chairman of the council’s communities committee, said:“We are so pleased that this painting, which now features on the £100 Bank of Scotland note is on display in Dumfries for the first time. Flora Murray was born in Dalton and it is great to see this LBGT icon being celebrated in Dumfries and Galloway.”
The exhibition shows that World War One and Two changed life for women in so many ways – there were new opportunities but also terrible tragedies.
It also includes Elizabeth Murray – Flora’s niece and daughter of William Murray who was MP for Dumfriesshire from 1918 – who was an ambulance driver in WWI on the Western Front and was awarded the Croix de Guerre medal which is on display in the exhibition, on loan from the Murray family.
Another highlight is the recently conserved Volunteer Aid Detachment (VAD) uniform from WWI.
The suffrage section and the fight for women’s right to vote, is also widely covered from a local viewpoint in the exhibition, including suffragette Susan Taylour from Stranraer who delivered a talk in Thornhill in 1874 – one of the first women to speak in public on women’s suffrage. The display includes a poster advertising the talk.
There is also information on another a prominent suffragette and campaigner for women’s rights, Dora Marsden, who spent the last 25 years of her life in The Crichton after suffering a breakdown – and is buried in Dumfries in an unmarked grave.
The region was also a mover and shaker in “the women’s crusade” Temperance movement and Dumfries campaigner, Margaret McKinnon, is featured in the exhibition. She was a noted member of the British Women’s Temperance Association and the museum has a banner and tea service from it – which was used in Dumfries in the 1890s – on display.
And the final component is the impact of Dumfries women on the art scene, explored through the works of Chris and Nan Fergusson – mother and daughter – who were incredibly talented artists.
Works on display include pictures drawn by Nan as a young woman attending the Maxwelltown Convent School, objects made by Chris when she studied at Glasgow School of Art and paintings from her later career.
Chris Fergusson’s work includes many scenes of Dumfries in the early 20th century in watercolours and oils that are now on display in the museum.
She tutored at Kirkcudbright Academy, Glasgow High School for Girls and the Maxwelltown Benedictine Convent School in Dumfries over her lifetime. She also painted many places in Scotland and is known, too, for her metalwork and tapestry pieces, and her interest in the suffrage movement.
Chris and her husband, David, were involved in many different aspects of Dumfries life including the Dumfries and Galloway Fine Arts Society, which they helped to found in 1922 with celebrated artists Jessie M King, E A Taylor and E A Hornel.
Much of her works on display at the museum have been loaned by her grandchildren.
