| Biography | Margaret Robertson Watt MBE (June 4, 1868 November 29, 1948) was a Scottish-Canadian philanthropist. She introduced the concepts and practices of the Canadian Women's Institute movement to Europe in 1914. Officials in the Agriculture Department were receptive to the idea of organised groups of rural women helping to produce food during wartime. As was the custom at the time, she was usually known as Mrs Alfred Watt.
Jane Robinson, in 'A Force to be reckoned with', noted that Adelaide Hoodless had already visited London and spoken about the movement. Hoodless was the original founder of Women's Institutes which began in the town of Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada. In 1899, Lady Aberdeen, wife of a former Governor General of Canada, welcomed Hoodless to England and was enthusiastic about the usefulness of such a womens organization. But the ideas needed the right time and place to take root. Mrs Alfred Watt had the determination and stamina to keep bringing the topic to everyones attention until the Agriculture Organizations Society (AOS) began offering funds. This initiative enabled a group of women to organize in 1915 as the first Womens Institute. They lived in and about the village of Llanfair PG in Wales.
Mrs Watt was a person of great energy and drive who believed strongly in the power of women working together for worthwhile goals. By 1919, she began suggesting the formation of an international organisation of Womens Institutes for rural women all over the world. This vision came to reality in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1933 as the Associated Country Women of the World. |