Helen Carruthers Mackenzie


Dame Helen Carruthers Mackenzie DBE was a Scottish suffragist, pioneering social work educator and public health campaigner.

Early Life

Born Helen Carruthers Spence in Mortlach, Banffshire, the daughter of William Spence, merchant tailor and provost of Dufftown, and his wife, Mary McDonell. She was educated at the local village school, where she became a pupil teacher. She trained to be a teacher at the Church of Scotland Training College in Aberdeen and then she taught around Aberdeen until she married Dr William Leslie Mackenzie in 1892.

Social and Political work

Shortly after their marriage the couple moved to Edinburgh, where Dr Mackenzie was Chief Medical Officer for Leith. Helen became involved in the social and political life of the city, acting as the Honorary Secretary of the Edinburgh and District branch of the Women's Emancipation Union in 1895, and was part of the Suffrage movement in Edinburgh alongside Elsie Inglis, Flora Stevenson, Louisa Stevenson, Mary Burton and Jessie Methven. She went on to be one of the founders of the Edinburgh Women Citizens' Association in 1918, alongside Mona Chalmers Watson.
Throughout her life showed a strong commitments to education, public health and women's campaigns and issues. In 1901 Dr Mackenzie was appointed the Scottish Local Government Board’s first medical inspector. He and Helen collaborated on a 1903 Royal Commission for Scotland report on the health of school children in Edinburgh. Helen Mackenzie organised the studies and wrote the reports, and was present while her husband examined the children. The report demonstrated conclusively that there was inverse relationship between affluence and children's health. They successfully argued that teachers should be trained in health issues and many of their recommendations were adopted into the 1908 Education Act.
Lady Leslie Mackenzie was one of the founding committee members on the University of Edinburgh's School of Social Study and Training, where she taught a course on Local Government from 1918 until at least 1932. In addition, she had a long involvement with the Edinburgh College of Domestic Science, chairing it from 1943 - 1945. She served as President of the National Association of Health Visitors, Women Sanitary Inspectors and School Nurses as well as being a Member of the Departmental Committee for the review of public health services in Scotland. She continued to be active in social and political work up until her death in Edinburgh in 1945.

Honours

Her husband was knighted in 1919, after which she was known as Lady Leslie Mackenzie. She was honoured in her own right when she was made a Dame in 1933, for her work with women and children. In 1937 the University of Edinburgh made her a doctor of letters.