{{Short description|Scottish suffragist (1871–1954)}} {{Infobox person | name = Janetta Mary Ornsby | birth_name = Janetta Mary Isabel Palmer | birth_date = 22 July 1871 | birth_place = Boston, Lincolnshire, England<ref name="1911census">''1911 England Census''</ref> | death_date = 17 August 1954 (aged 83) | death_place = Edinburgh, Scotland }} thumb|Women's Engineering Society formed by these seven signatures in 1919|268x268px '''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.<ref name="electrifyingwomen2019">{{cite web |last1=Koerner |first1=Emily Rees |title=Who launched the Women's Engineering Society in 1919? |url=https://electrifyingwomen.org/who-launched-the-womens-engineering-society-in-1919/ |website=Electrifying Women |access-date=24 February 2023 |date=7 August 2019}}</ref>

== Early life == Ornsby was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, to Rev. Albert Reynolds Palmer of Dalkeith and Margaret Anne MacFarlane (1839–93) of Collessie, Fife.<ref name="1881census">''1881 England Census''</ref> 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.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=womenengineerssite |date=2020-12-25 |title=The Fourth Signatory |url=https://womenengineerssite.wordpress.com/2020/12/25/the-fourth-signatory/ |access-date=2023-03-14 |website=women engineers' history |language=en}}</ref>

== Marriage == In 1896, Janet Palmer married Robert Embleton Ornsby (1856–1920),<ref name=":0" /> agent to the Seaton Delaval Coal Company<ref>{{Cite web |title=Durham Mining Museum - Robert Embleton Ornsby |url=http://www.dmm.org.uk/whoswho/o513.htm |access-date=2023-03-14 |website=www.dmm.org.uk}}</ref> and author of the memoirs of James Robert Hope Scott in 1884.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ornsby |first=Robert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lPIgAAAAMAAJ |title=Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott of Abbotsford: With Selections from His Correspondence |date=1884 |publisher=J. Murray |language=en}}</ref> Due to her husband's ill health, she often addressed coalminers and coal owners in his absence.<ref name="Heald2019">{{cite book |author=Henrietta Heald |title=Magnificent Women and their Revolutionary Machines |date=2019 |publisher=Unbound Publishing |isbn=978-1-78352-679-6 |page=65 |chapter=Five – Seeds of Revolution |oclc=1129583128 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2l2vDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT65}}</ref>

== Women's Engineering Society == 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.<ref>{{Cite web |date=1920 |title=The Woman Engineer, Vol 1 |url=https://twej.theiet.org/twej/WES_Vol_1.html |access-date=2023-03-14 |website=twej.theiet.org}}</ref>

She died in 1954 in Edinburgh.<ref name=":0" />

==References== {{reflist}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ornsby, Janetta Mary}} Category:1871 births Category:1954 deaths Category:Scottish suffragists Category:People from Boston, Lincolnshire Category:Activists from Edinburgh Category:20th-century Scottish engineers Category:Women's Engineering Society Category:20th-century Scottish women engineers