Four generations of women

Ahead of her time: Jeannie Barclay

As one of 14 children growing up on a croft near Keith in Aberdeenshire, university was not an expected path for Freja’s great grandmother Jeannie Barclay.

At a rural school at the turn of the 20th century, she’d have faced pressures to follow the well-trodden route of a life working in the fields or in domestic servitude.

But Jeannie was bright. Very bright. Not only did she succeed in gaining entry to Keith Grammar School, she became the school Dux – a traditional academic award given to a pupil whose achievements are the highest.

Despite this, gaining entry to university was far from easy. The movement for the higher education of women had begun in earnest in Britain and the United States during the 1840s, but progress was slow in Scotland.

It was not until February 1892 that the Scottish Universities Commissioners published an Ordinance authorising the universities to make provision for the instruction and graduation of women. 

And the majority of those early female entrants came from middle class origins, far removed from Jeannie’s crofting life.

She overcame all of these challenges and was awarded a scholarship to study at the University of Aberdeen in 1910.

Here she excelled, studying for both a science and arts degree at the same time and receiving special distinction in both maths and geology.

In a letter dated February 9, 1914, A.W Gibb, lecturer in Geology, describes her as one of the ‘most able’ students to have ever passed through his laboratory stating that ‘in a class of over sixty men and women she gained the First prize in Systematic Geology’.

He wrote: “Jeannie attained an average of over 90 per cent in her Geology exams and was awarded special distinction in Geology for her Science Degree.

“Miss Barclay is a woman of high character and is possessed of personal qualities which have made it a pleasure to be associated with her in scientific work.”

She graduated in 1914 just months before the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand which would plunge the world into war.

Jeannie dreamed of becoming a museum curator and quickly threw herself into applying for roles in the sector across the UK, including at the Natural History Museum in London.

She held a good degree and a raft of glowing references from her University tutors and former teachers.

Alexander Emslie, a former rector of Keith Grammar School wrote: “Miss Barclay is a young lady of outstanding ability, pleasing manner and excellent good humour. She has had nothing but her own powers to help her forward, and I am confident that these will yet carry her into a position of high responsibility which she will fill with great efficiency and complete acceptance.”

Despite her obvious talents, Jeannie was a woman ahead of her time and was unable to secure an offer of museum work.

Instead she applied to the University of Cambridge where she was awarded a scholarship by Homerton College, a renowned teacher-training institute.

Jeannie returned to her native north-east in 1915 to teach at the Gordon Schools in Huntly until she married John Stephen in 1920. They had met at university in Aberdeen and were married in Botriphnie Church.

But marriage meant the end of Jeannie’s teaching career. Freja reflects that her great grandmother’s achievements are bitter-sweet.

“She was clearly a woman of fierce intellect and she achieved so much – pushing the boundaries for the women of later generations. But she must have been incredibly frustrated to see the doors to her chosen career closed,” she says.

“Following her journey shows just how many challenges even the most successful women faced and that even when they had overcome these to succeed academically, society still required that they give up that hard-fought progress upon entering marriage.”