Janetta Mary Ornsby

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Janetta Mary Ornsby
Born
Janetta Mary Isabel Palmer

22 July 1871
Died17 August 1954 (aged 83)
Edinburgh, Scotland
Women's Engineering Society formed by these seven signatures in 1919

Janetta Mary Isabel Ornsby (née Palmer; 22 July 1871 – 17 August 1954) was a Scottish suffragist and one of the founders of the Women's Engineering Society.[2]

Early life[edit]

Ornsby was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, to Rev. Albert Reynolds Palmer of Dalkeith and Margaret Anne MacFarlane (1839–93) of Collessie, Fife.[3] She was the granddaughter of Dr. John MacFarlane, minister of the Free Church of Scotland in Dalkeith, and had three siblings: Ethel, who undertook medical training at the University of Edinburgh; Charles, an architect; and Brien, a minister in Australia.[4]

Marriage[edit]

In 1896, Janet Palmer married Robert Embleton Ornsby (1856–1920),[4] agent to the Seaton Delaval Coal Company[5] and author of the memoirs of James Robert Hope Scott in 1884.[6] Due to her husband's ill health, she often addressed coalminers and coal owners in his absence.[7]

Women's Engineering Society[edit]

Ornsby was involved in the women's suffrage movement and was one of the seven signatories on the founding documents for the Women's Engineering Society in 1919, alongside Lady Katharine Parsons, her daughter Rachel Parsons, Margaret, Lady Moir, Laura Annie Willson, Eleanor Shelley-Rolls and Margaret Rowbotham. She was elected to the WES Council at the first AGM on 19 May 1920.[8]

She died in 1954 in Edinburgh.[4]

References[edit]

  1. ^ 1911 England Census
  2. ^ Koerner, Emily Rees (7 August 2019). "Who launched the Women's Engineering Society in 1919?". Electrifying Women. Retrieved 24 February 2023.
  3. ^ 1881 England Census
  4. ^ a b c womenengineerssite (2020-12-25). "The Fourth Signatory". women engineers' history. Retrieved 2023-03-14.
  5. ^ "Durham Mining Museum - Robert Embleton Ornsby". www.dmm.org.uk. Retrieved 2023-03-14.
  6. ^ Ornsby, Robert (1884). Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott of Abbotsford: With Selections from His Correspondence. J. Murray.
  7. ^ Henrietta Heald (2019). "Five – Seeds of Revolution". Magnificent Women and their Revolutionary Machines. Unbound Publishing. p. 65. ISBN 978-1-78352-679-6. OCLC 1129583128.
  8. ^ "The Woman Engineer, Vol 1". twej.theiet.org. 1920. Retrieved 2023-03-14.

External links[edit]