Emily Williamson

In 1891, she had founded the Gentlewomen's Employment Association in Manchester, and she also initiated two influential programmes from within this group: the Princess Christian Training College for Nurses and, in 1898, the Loan Training Fund, which helped to subsidise the costs of further education for young women. Although it is believed that records of these organisations no longer exist, the Loan Training Fund was said to have been the first of its kind in the country.

Emily Bateson was born at Highfield, Lancaster, in April 1855. She was the daughter of Frederick Septimus Bateson and Eliza Frost. She settled in Didsbury after her marriage on 8 June 1882 to Robert Wood Williamson, where they lived until their relocation to The Copse, Brook, Surrey, in 1912. When Robert died in 1932, Emily moved to London where she remained for the rest of her life. She died at home in Kensington on 12 January 1936, aged 80. The couple did not have any children.