SI Edinburgh is proud to have had many past members whose lives and their achievements have been publically recognised. This page has been established to ensure they continue to be remembered as Soroptimists.
An honour for Molly Fergusson, OBE
A couple of months ago an email came through to me (Clephane) via the church website.
Asking if I knew how to contact the relatives of one of our former members – Molly Fergusson, whose memorial service Rev John Burdett and I conducted twenty years ago.
The lady enquiring had remembered my unusual name and had a go at trying to contact me.
After a bit of a false start, I recalled that one of Molly’s nephews had been involved in setting up a children’s charity and a web search revealed his name among the list of founder directors. So on to the company registers and I found an address. (Don’t underestimate the ability of the internet to locate you……….)
Handing this on to the original enquirer, I hoped she might manage to track him down. And indeed she did!
Together with his brother and their wives, she attended the unveiling of a plaque commemorating Molly as the first woman to graduate with honours in Engineering at the University of Edinburgh. This will be placed on the Sanderson Building at King’s Buildings.
Clephane Hume, a member of SI Edinburgh was privileged to be invited as well. “A novel experience, as we assembled at FloWave – the centre for academic research into wave and tidal interactions. From gentle waves to whirlpool action! Molly would have been vastly intrigued”.
For more information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Fergusson
(Clephane is even quoted on this Wikipedia entry!)
