{{Infobox person | name = Elizabeth Girling | birth_name = Elizabeth Aytoun | birth_date = 7 March 1913 | birth_place = Birmingham | death_date = 24 March 2005 (aged 92) | death_place = Edinburgh | 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)<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=The New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women|last=Ewan|first=Elizabeth|last2=Pipes|first2=Rose|last3=Rendall|first3=Jane|last4=Reynolds|first4=Siân|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|year=2018|isbn=9781474436281|pages=161}}</ref> was an English veteran of the Spanish Civil War, a political activist and a charity campaigner.
== Early life and education == Elizabeth Aytoun was born 7 March 1913 in Birmingham, UK, to Dorothy Henderson and Rev Robert Aytoun, an Old Testament scholar.<ref name=":0" /> Her father died when she was seven, and Edward Cadbury became her guardian.<ref name=":2">{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/may/05/guardianobituaries|title=Obituary: Elizabeth Girling|last=Maclean|first=John Ross|date=2005-05-04|work=The Guardian|access-date=2019-05-31|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}</ref> Cadbury funded Girling's education, and she attended St Leonards School in St Andrews, followed by Oxford University, where she studied English Literature; one of her tutors at Oxford was J R R Tolkien.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/elizabeth-girling-1-708791|title=Elizabeth Girling|website=www.scotsman.com|language=en|access-date=2019-05-31}}</ref>
While at Oxford, Girling became a communist and would go on to work for both the League of Nations Association and Transport and General Workers' Union after graduation.<ref name=":1" />
== Spanish Civil War == Girling travelled to Spain in 1937 to join the resistance against General Franco's uprising.<ref name=":2" /> Based in the Pyrenees, her main responsibility was caring for children evacuated due to the war.<ref name=":2" /> While in Spain, she met Frank Girling, then a Cambridge student working for the International Voluntary Service for Peace.<ref name=":3" /> They married in 1939.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|url=https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/frank-girling-1-520129|title=Frank Girling|website=www.scotsman.com|language=en|access-date=2019-05-31}}</ref>
== Activism and charity work == Having left Spain, Girling opened the family home, Ashintully Castle, to refugees from Eastern Europe and London during World War Two,<ref name=":2" /> while Frank was posted first to the east coast of Scotland and subsequently to India.<ref name=":3" />
After the war, the couple moved around England, Frank's work as a social anthropologist and academic taking them to university cities including Cambridge, Oxford, Leeds and Sheffield, before eventually settling in Edinburgh.<ref name=":1" />
Girling remained a committed socialist and was a firm supporter of the Labour party.<ref name=":1" /> She founded the Partisan Coffee House in Victoria Street, Edinburgh, in 1959 which would become a well-known meeting place for left-wing intellectuals and artists throughout the 1960s.<ref name=":0" />
Girling was also a campaigner for improved services for allergy sufferers in Scotland, and was a founding member of the Lothian Allergy Support Group.<ref name=":1" /> Representing this organisation, she petitioned the Scottish Parliament to establish specialist clinics for allergy sufferers in Scotland.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.holyrood-parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/report.aspx?r=2981&mode=pdf|title=Public Petitions Committee|access-date=31 May 2019}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Girling, Elizabeth}} Category:1913 births Category:2005 deaths Category:People educated at St Leonards School Category:Alumni of the University of Oxford Category:Activists from Birmingham, West Midlands Category:British communists Category:British women of the Spanish Civil War