Isabella Taylor McNair (1887- 2 May 1985) was a British educationalist, advocate of women's rights and former principal of Kinnaird College for Women in Lahore. [1]
She was born in Kilmarnock, Scotland. [2] She graduated with an MA in English from the University of Edinburgh. In 1917 she moved to British India to take up a teacher's post at Women's Christian College in Madras. [2]
In 1928 she was appointed Principal of Kinnaird College for Women in Lahore, Punjab. [2] She was known as a gentle woman, noted for her deliberate manner and soft voice, even when disciplining her students. She promoted religious tolerance, allowing Muslim girls who transferred to Kinnaird in the 1930s to fast during Ramadan. [2] As Principal, McNair advocated ideas of female intellectual equality, and expected alumnae to be active in public life as well as home life, and to "face intelligently the ballot box as well as the kitchen". [1] Under her stewardship, Kinnaird College became one of the most prestigious colleges in British India. [3]
Nair received the prized Kaisar-i-Hind Medal in 1948, in the last honours list of British India. [4] She retired in 1950 and returned to Scotland. In 1958 she was made a Fellow for Life by University of the Punjab. [5] She died in Edinburgh in 1985.
Bapsi Sidhwa is a Pakistani novelist of Gujarati Parsi Zoroastrian descent who writes in English and is a resident in the United States.
Tahira Syed is a Pakistani ghazal and folk singer. Her repertoire includes folk songs in Urdu, Punjabi, Dogri and Pahari.
The Kinnaird College for Women (KCW) is a university located in Lahore, Pakistan. It is a women's liberal arts university.
Sarala Devi Chaudhurani was an Indian educationist and political activist, who founded Bharat Stree Mahamandal in Allahabad in 1910. This was the first national-level women's organization in India. One of the primary goals of the organization was to promote female education. The organization opened several offices in Lahore, Allahabad, Delhi, Karachi, Amritsar, Hyderabad, Kanpur, Bankura, Hazaribagh, Midnapur, and Kolkata to improve the situation of women all over India.
Kinnaird is originally a Scottish Gaelic topographical term, ceann ard, meaning "high headland".
Fatima Begum is a revered woman of the Pakistan Movement.
Princess Bamba Sutherland was a member of the royal family that ruled the Sikh Empire in the Punjab. After a childhood in England, she settled in Lahore, the capitol of what had been her father's kingdom, where she was a suffragette and a passionate advocate of self rule and independence of India. She was a close and personal friend of Indian revolutionaries whom she hosted at her house in Lahore like Lala Lajpat Rai.
Alison Kinnaird MBE, MA, FGE is a glass sculptor, Celtic musician, teacher and writer born in Edinburgh, Scotland. She is one of the foremost and most original modern glass engravers in Scotland.
Queen Mary College (QMC), officially known as Government Queen Mary Graduate College, is an autonomous college for girls in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Lahore, Pakistan.
Isabel Galloway Emslie, Lady Hutton CBE was a Scottish physician who specialised in mental health and social work.
Mary Kinnaird or Mary Jane Kinnaird, Lady Kinnaird; Mary Jane Hoare (1816–1888) was an English philanthropist and co-founder of the Young Women's Christian Association. Kinnaird has one Women's College and a girls' High School in Pakistan and at least one school and hospital in India named after her.
Mona Hensman MBE, born Mona Mitter, was an Indian educator, feminist, and politician. She was a Member of Parliament, representing Madras State in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India's Parliament, as a member of the Indian National Congress. She was the first Women whip in Indian Parliament. She was the Principal of Ethiraj College for Women from 1953 to 1960.
Florence Hope Dissent, known later as Mrs. Dissent Barnes, was an Anglo-Indian medical practitioner and surgeon. Dissent was among the first female Indian doctors to practice medicine.
The Hon William Robertson, Lord Robertson was an 18th-century Scottish lawyer who rose to be a Senator of the College of Justice.
Elizabeth Jane Ross was a Scottish poet, artist, and collector of Gaelic music.
Helen Monro Turner was a Scottish artist based in Edinburgh. She worked her whole life and pursued careers as a wood cut specialist, glass engraver, illustrator and educator. She helped open and establish the first glass engraving department at Edinburgh College of Art on 8 January 1941. The scale of her work ranged from a single glass or a tiny engraved crystal box to huge architectural commissions such as the windows on the staircase in the National Library of Scotland.
Dora Chatterjee was the third Indian woman to graduate from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania and the first woman from Punjab to earn a medical degree. She founded Denny Hospital for Women and Children in Hoshiarpur.
Kalyani Sen, was Second Officer of the Women’s Royal Indian Naval Service (WRINS), a section of the Women's Auxiliary Corps (India) WAC(I). In 1945, she became the first Indian service woman to visit the UK.