Margaret Forrester

Margaret Forrester (born Margaret McDonald) became a missionary, Scottish church minister and writer. She was one of six women who successfully campaigned for the right of women to be ordained in the Church of Scotland. She supported gay-rights within the church. Life Forrester had been educated in Edinburgh before she studied theology at New College, Oxford with an ambition to be a minister. In the year before she graduated she was elected to be the University Theological Society's president. In 1967 six women wrote an open letter to call on the Church of Scotland to allow the ordination of women. The six were Mary Weir, Claude Barbour, Elizabeth Hewat, Mary Levison, Sheila White (later Sheila Spence and Forrester and they wrote an open letter requesting that women should be accepted as ministers in the Church of Scotland. Levison had been the first to petition for the acceptance of women as ministers in the Church of Scotland in 1963. Forrester had witnessed the debate which decided to nor allow women. Every year the request was renewed and in 1967 the six found that they were not allowed to lobby the men who were making the decision so they decided to hold a press conference. The YMCA lent a room and the press were invited but they were not expected in any numbers. On the day the room was packed and the six of them, and their petition, were in the press.