Misplaced Pages

Madge Elliot (activist)

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
MBEMadge Elliot
BornMatilda Callaghan Robson
20 June 1928
Hawick, Scotland
Died25 May 2024 (aged 95)
Hawick, Scotland
OccupationRail campaigner

Matilda (Madge) Callaghan Elliot (née Robson; 20 June 1928 – 25 May 2024) was a Scottish rail activist.

Biography

Elliot worked as a tennis coach by profession. Elliot campaigned against the closure of the old Waverley Line, which ran between Edinburgh, Hawick and Carlisle, before it closed in the 1960s due to the Beeching cuts. She relied on the train to Edinburgh when she was visiting her then three-year-old son in hospital. In 1968, she and her local MP David Steel delivered a petition to Harold Wilson on the route.

In 1999, she was given an MBE for her services to lawn tennis in the Scottish Borders. The same year she helped found the Campaign for Borders Rail. In 2015, a train on the Borders Railway was named in her honour. She was the first passenger on the new line. In 2017, she was part of an exhibition on accessability at the Scottish Parliament.

Elliot died in May 2024, at the age of 95. She had Alzheimer's disease.

References

  1. "Scotsman Obituaries: Madge Elliot, campaigner whose efforts to reopen Borders Railway saw a locomotive named after her". The Scotsman. 2024-07-29. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  2. ^ "Borders Railway campaigner Madge Elliot dies aged 95". BBC News. 2024-05-27. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  3. "How the Borders Railway creates a new future for Scotland's "forgotten" region". The Herald. 2015-08-21. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  4. "Beloved railway campaigner dies at the age of 95". The Southern Reporter. 2024-05-28. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  5. "Borders rail campaigner Madge Elliot takes front seat". BBC News. 2015-07-26. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  6. "Train is named after rail campaigner Madge Elliot". BBC News. 2015-06-03. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  7. "Campaigner is the first 'passenger' on new Borders line". www.railmagazine.com. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  8. "Story of Madge Elliot MBE forms part of new Scottish Parliament exhibition". John Lamont. 2017-03-01. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  9. "Borders Railway campaigner Madge Elliot dies aged 95". BBC News. 2024-05-27. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  10. "'We will certainly miss her: Scottish Borders railway campaigner dies at the age of 95". ITV News. 27 May 2024.
Categories: