Elizabeth Girling | |
|---|---|
| Born | Elizabeth Aytoun 7 March 1913 |
| Died | 24 March 2005 (aged 92) |
| Alma mater | Oxford University |
| Known for | Spanish Civil War veteran; political activist; charity campaigner |
Elizabeth Jean St Clair Girling (née Aytoun; 7 March 1913 – 24 March 2005)[1] was an English veteran of theSpanish Civil War, a political activist and a charity campaigner.
Elizabeth Aytoun was born 7 March 1913 inBirmingham, UK, to Dorothy Henderson and Rev Robert Aytoun, anOld Testament scholar.[1] Her father died when she was seven, andEdward Cadbury became her guardian.[2] Cadbury funded Girling's education, and she attendedSt Leonards School in St Andrews, followed byOxford University, where she studied English Literature; one of her tutors at Oxford wasJ R R Tolkien.[3]
While at Oxford, Girling became a communist and would go on to work for both theLeague of Nations Association andTransport and General Workers' Union after graduation.[3]
Girling travelled to Spain in 1937 to join the resistance againstGeneral Franco's uprising.[2] Based in thePyrenees, her main responsibility was caring forchildren evacuated due to the war.[2] While in Spain, she metFrank Girling, then a Cambridge student working for theInternational Voluntary Service for Peace.[4] They married in 1939.[4]
Having left Spain, Girling opened the family home,Ashintully Castle, to refugees from Eastern Europe and London duringWorld War Two,[2] while Frank was posted first to the east coast of Scotland and subsequently to India.[4]
After the war, the couple moved around England, Frank's work as a social anthropologist and academic taking them to university cities includingCambridge,Oxford,Leeds andSheffield, before eventually settling inEdinburgh.[3]
Girling remained a committed socialist and was a firm supporter of theLabour party.[3] She founded the Partisan Coffee House inVictoria Street, Edinburgh, in 1959 which would become a well-known meeting place for left-wing intellectuals and artists throughout the 1960s.[1]
Girling was also a campaigner for improved services for allergy sufferers in Scotland, and was a founding member of the Lothian Allergy Support Group.[3] Representing this organisation, she petitioned theScottish Parliament to establish specialist clinics for allergy sufferers in Scotland.[5]