| Administrative History | Mary Esslemont was born in Aberdeen in 1891, and in 1914 graduated BSc from the University of Aberdeen, where she participated fully in student life, being the first female president of the Student University Council and she was a noted Aberdeen suffragist. She worked as an assistant in the Botany department at the University of Aberdeen, and as a science lecturer at Stockwell Training College, London, before entering the medical school, from which she graduated in 1923. She was appointed assistant medical officer of health in Keighley, Yorkshire, from 1924 - 1929, before returning to Aberdeen, where she was in private practice for over 30 years.
She was a member of council of the British Medical Association for 23 years, during which time she served on its Public Health, Amending Acts, Joint BMA and Royal College of Nursing, Occupational Health, and Journal committees. She was also the first woman to serve on the Scottish Council, and became its chairperson in 1968. During her time in Aberdeen she became involved in many other local organisations and causes, for which work she was awarded freedom of the City in 1981. She served on the University General Council for over 40 years, and in 1947 became the first woman assessor on the University Court. Maintaining her family's well-established association with local politics (her father and grandfather had both been Liberal MPs for Aberdeen South), she became first woman president of Aberdeen Liberal Association in 1954. In 1954 she received an honorary LL D (Aberdeen) and in 1955 was awarded a CBE. |
| Description | Interviews with Dr Mary Esslemont, recorded on 9th, 15th, 23rd August 1984, by Dorothy Johnston.
Transcript of interview recorded on 9 August 1984:
J You came to the university in 1910. Did you then know that you wanted to do science?
E Oh yes. I came up intending to do science.
J Had you been well-taught at school in science? (Clarifying) Had you been encouraged by your teacher at school to do science?
E Yes.
J Would this have been common for young girls at that stage?
E Oh yes, they were quite keen.
J When you then entered the university, did you take any courses in the Arts side?
E No. I did take an arts degree. I just took the extra subjects that were required. My Chemistry, my Physiology, my Botany and my Zoology were four of the things that were all right for an M.A. degree. And then in addition I took Political Economy, Moral Philosophy and German and that gave me the other degree.
J So in fact you graduated with both arts and science. Would that have been done in the same year. Your graduation?
E Oh yes, you do them simultaneously.
J So you would have graduated with a joint degree.
E Yes.
J Was this quite usual for students? To do as many subjects?
E I think it wasn't unusual. As a matter of fact, in those days most of the medicals took a degree beforehand.
J So in fact when you came back later to do medicine it helped that you had already taken this degree.
E Yes.
J I wondered a bit about the other side of the course. What you would have done in the lab. and whether you would have had any field work?
E When I was doing science? The B.Sc. was an honours degree; there was no ordinary B.Sc. and an advanced one, there was just the B.Sc. You had to have the level of second class honours before you could count that for your B.Sc. I had Chemistry, Botany and Zoology. I did the three.
J And for all of those would you have done lab. work?
E For all of those you would do lab. work, yes? And then I taught for two years in the Botany Department. I was assistant to Professor Trail. I did the lecturing and the practical work with the medical students, and that sort of thing when I was teaching in the Botany Department.
J The medical students had to do Botany had they?
E Yes, they did Botany.
J And for Botany would you have gone out into the country with Professor Trail or one of the other members of staff on field trips?
E Oh, we had a lot of excursions in the country, yes. Both in Botany and in Zoology with Arthur Thomson. We had a lot of field work.
J These would have been day trips would they?
E Or a half day. Not necessarily a whole day.
J But you wouldn't have gone so far afield, that you had to stay away overnight?
E No, oh no. Never away overnight.
J They quite often do that now.
E They do, do they?
J Yes, particularly with Geology. But with your Geology you would just have had day trips.
E. Yes.
J From your later experience elsewhere when you were teaching in London, did you feel that the Aberdeen course had been a good one?
E Oh yes, I felt that.
J And the equipment was modern and adequate.
E All right, yes.
J One of the other things that we often wonder about the teaching, was to what extent the lectures were dictated. Did you take your own notes? Or would the lecturers have dictated their notes to you?
E Oh no, you did your own. You did all your own preparation.
J And are there any particular lecturers that you remember? You mentioned Professor Trail.
E Professor Trail was not an interesting lecturer at all. He was really rather dull, but he was a marvellous botanist. I mean, for example he did all the Amazon valley at one point. He was a marvellous botanist. But he wasn't like J. Arthur Thomson, who was a fascinating lecturer. His first lecture of the session to his science students,... the place was packed, just because he was such a good lecturer.
J He had a reputation.
E Yes and not only the reputation, but it was real.
J Would you have seen anything of him outside the lecture hall? Was there any contact in other ways, with members of staff?
E With both of them? Well, with the Professor Trail: not very much with him outside, but certainly yes, with his wife and daughter. But the Zoology people? Yes, you see their children were contemporary with me.
J I see. And of course the Trails lived in Old Aberdeen.
E In Old Aberdeen yes. And so did the Thomsons. And then one of them married the other, the two families married into each other.
J I suppose that Professor Soddy was also one of your lecturers was he, in Chemistry.
E No, I was earlier than that, it was Professor Japp, who was a lecturer when I was [there].
J Well the other aspect of your studies that we were wondering about was the library. What use you would have made of the University library.
E The students made a great deal of use of the library. I didn't make as much use of it in that point of view because I could study at home, you see, but if they were in digs where it wasn't easy, they used the library as a place in which to study in.
J They were also allowed to borrow quite freely from the library, were they?
E Well, not too many at one time, but otherwise they could borrow quite freely.
J And what about library hours? You say that they studied there, but the library wasn't open very late, was it?
E You know I don't remember that, because I never used it in the evening, so I don't really remember how late it opened.
J But they would have used it during the day. They would have used it to study during the day?
E Yes.
J Well, the question of digs brings me on to the next sort of category of material I was going to raise with you, and that is how exactly the students lived and what sort of social contacts you had with each other. Now I understand that you lived at home throughout your course.
E Yes. A good many of them lived in digs.
J Were they difficult to come by?
E Well, no in a way they weren't. I had seldom heard students that weren't happy in their digs. The class that took them in as borders were very good to the students, very good, very kind and made them feel at home.
J Would most of the students have come from this part of Scotland?
E Well, I should say that the large majority maybe came from the north, the north-east. But they came from all over.
J Had you ever thought of going anywhere other than Aberdeen?
E For University? No I never thought of that.
J And amongst your contemporaries. Did you know of many who went elsewhere?
E No, very few. Some of them got maybe a scholarship for Oxford or something like that. But unless they got a scholarship they didn't go away.
J The students who were in digs, they presumably would have eaten there in the evening.
E Yes, they had their meals there.
J What about lunch?
E They took their lunch out, yes. There was a vegetarian cafe they went to a lot in Broad Street and there was a little dairy round the corner that they used to go to. Simple meals in the middle of the day.
J And would you have gone home?
E Well, I would have gone home but as it happened, you see, my father and uncle ran Esslemont & Macintosh and they used to provide a lunch just for the buyers, [very] cheap, and I used to go there for my lunch. It was very handy for me.
J Well, when you were at University at that stage, would most of your lectures have been at Marischal?
E Yes. I had only one class at King's College and that was Moral Philosophy and it met at nine in the morning, but all my other classes, even for an arts degree were in Marischal. You see the German was taught in Marischal and Political Economy in Marischal.
J And so, many of the students would have had very little knowledge of King's or Old Aberdeen.
E A good many would have had little knowledge of it, unless they were arts students. But you could do it a lot without having more than maybe one or two classes at King's.
J And was there any sort of social centre for the students at Marischal? Was there a common room or anything?
E Well, the men had the union, of course. The women had a room, and the cloakroom. There were the two rooms, and one was a kind of sitting room and it had a hatch which opened on to the Union corridor, and they used to get coffee through in the morning or something from the Union, from the men's Union, through this hatch part.
J And when would you have used that room, the sitting room?
E Oh, I used it all the time because, you see, when you are doing science, you are doing lab. work all the time, all the academic year, especially in the Chemistry lab. So you use it a lot if you came out for a rest or that sort of thing.
J What about relations in general as far as the male and female students were concerned? Did you mix quite freely?
E Well, in some ways. We mixed quite freely in our societies. Like the Debating Society or any of the societies that we had. Otherwise not really, not socially you know. Then they had dances that they called the Cinderella Dances. But there, you see, you couldn't go without a male partner, so unless you were invited by one of the students you couldn't go. They very often took an outsider in. Men students often took an outside girl, not a student.
J But presumably in your studies, in the lab. and in lectures there was absolutely no difference, was there.
E No, there was no difference. The women always sat in the front seats at the lectures.
J Is that just custom?
E It was in my time, always. We all sat at the front two or three seats and the men sat behind.
J And if you were working in the lab. on experiments, would the women tend to work together?
E Yes, they put them in the rows together.
J Did you have any female lecturers?
E No, I don't think I had. No, the science people were all men.
J And how do you think you were viewed by your male colleagues? Did they expect you to do as well as they did?
E Oh, I think they did, yes.
J As far as you were concerned and your female friends, would you have had the same sort of ambitions for a career that the men would have had?
E I think so. Of course some of them were just getting married, that was their career.
J Did they know that?
E A few would have been like that, but the others would all be looking for something permanent, you know.
J And what would it normally have been?
E Teaching, mostly. You see, the only things open to women at that time were teaching and nursing. They didn't have all the opportunities they have now.
J I wondered also about student societies. You mentioned that women were quite freely able to join the societies?
E We joined the Debating Society for example and we were very free in the Debating Society. They had debates with the women there too.
J I know that when you came back to do medicine, you became President of the S.R.C., but when you were there in 1910, were women allowed into the S.R.C?
E Yes, the women were on that too.
J What about other societies. Where you a member of any other?
E I was a member of the Science Society? We had sort of science talks, you know.
J And I suppose the staff would have been involved in that?
E Well, not unless they were invited.
J The other question that arises, is to what extent as a student you had contacts with general life in Aberdeen and the issues of the day?
E Not much, and not nearly enough, I don't think. I feel that looking back.
J Was this because you lived at home, do you think?
E No, it didn't affect me so much as that because I lived at home, but if they were just in digs, you see, [it did affect them].
J But in general Aberdeen has always got on well with the student population, hasn't it?
E Oh, very well.
J So there would have been no feeling between them.
E No, no.
J What about political issues? Were you aware, do you think, as students?
E Well, you see, they became interested in politics, I mean R party politics that is, because they elected a [Rector] and he was political, so that roused the political feeling. That was the only thing that really aroused their interest in politics.
J Were most students, do you think, aware of the tension in Europe.
E When war broke out? No, not a bit, no. I think it was a big shock, very big shock.
J That must have happened just after you graduated.
E Yes, just after I graduated I went to Germany, just before the war broke out you see and was there when war broke out and so I'd been doing a walking tour of the Riesengebirge with a friend you see and I was just... back in Berlin and I went up first to Cooks, (I think) and they said to me, oh you're all right, you will always get a train for home. However later I went up to Cooks and they said, if I were you I would go home at once. So I immediately left and came back to Britain and was fortunately here before, well the war had begun on the east side but it hadn't begun on the west side before I got home. But they were busy trying to get in touch with me to tell me to come home because they were worried about it at this end, you see, when I was still in Germany.
J And so, presumably, you certainly hadn't thought it was likely.
E No, no. I was going away down to the Riesengebirge to do a walking tour you see, and I was just in the middle of this walking tour with my German correspondent. When we were at school we had a very good German teacher at the High School for girls here and we all had got correspondents there and I had this correspondent in Belgarten, Pomerania, it is now of course Poland, and I went over to stay with them for a bit.
E Because I was meaning to take German at the University and it was to improve my conversational German.
J When you came back to Aberdeen from Germany, did you find that many of your student friends were becoming involved in the war?
E The men, of course, were, because a lot of them were called up. A good many of them [were] killed.
End of Interview
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