Duthie, Mary Ann McAllister, 1898-1997, teacher

Mary Ann McAllister Duthie (nee McDonald) was born in Jamestown, West Dunbartonshire, on 14 July 1898, to Donald McDonald and his wife, Elizabeth McLeish. She was the second of four children, with an older brother, Thomas, and two younger brothers, Peter and Donald. She was educated at Jamestown Public School and Vale of Leven Higher Grade School, where she gained the Junior Student's Certificate in 1917. Upon leaving school, she briefly took up employment in John Brown's Drawing Office in Clydebank, but this was not for her and she enrolled for the two-year 'Chapter III' course of teacher training at the Glasgow Provincial Training College, forerunner of Jordanhill College of Education. Mary qualified as a primary school teacher in 1919 and taught at College Street School in Dumbarton until 1932, when she married George Alexander Duthie, a master saddler, who had a business in High Street, Dumbarton. As women had to give up their posts on marriage, this was the end of her teaching career. Her student cohort (Section F, 1917-1919) held an annual reunion for 60 years. Miss Jean Milligan, who taught Scottish country dancing at the College, attended many of these reunions, which took place at the Ca' D' Oro restaurant in Glasgow. Mary, who had no children, died, a month short of her 99th birthday, in June 1997.

Dumbarton, Scotland;
Glasgow, Scotland

ISAAR(CPF): International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families, International Council on Archives (2nd edition, 2003); Rules for the construction of personal, place and corporate names, National Council on Archives (1997).

Created by Anne Cameron, December 2017.