Elizabeth Haldane
Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane | |
---|---|
Born | Edinburgh, Scotland | 27 May 1862
Died | 24 December 1937 St Margaret's Hospital, Auchterarder, Perthshire, Scotland, UK | (aged 75)
Pen name | E. S. Haldane |
Occupation |
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Nationality | Scottish |
Genre | non-fiction, biography, philosophy |
Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane
Biography
Elizabeth Haldane was born on 27 May 1862 at 17 Charlotte Square,
Haldane was persuaded by
In later life, she corresponded with her niece, Naomi Mitchison (née Haldane) who regarded her suffragist views as being out of date. Haldane accepted "the restriction of women's activities to the inside, the personal, the domestic" whereas Mitchison considered women to be equally free to pursuit their lives outside the home.[10] She died on 24 December 1937 at St Margaret's Hospital, Auchterarder.[11]
Haldane was an accomplished translator and put her considerable talents to use translating works of philosophy, including treatises by
Quote
If Truth were to be found in mixing with the world, Descartes was bent on finding it; but, as he himself realised, he was a stranger in the world into which he had entered—a stranger in a mask which concealed his true expression. He learned, what all men learn in time, that there is no sphere of life in which the contradictions of mankind can be got rid of; everywhere alike is there error and deception: if we accept what is set before us by custom and example, we shall certainly go wrong. Truth must be sought for from the beginning: the Book of the World but sends us back to ourselves.
Descartes' first reflections that winter at Neuberg, when free from cares and passions he remained the whole day in his well-warmed room, gave the colour to the remainder of his life. The student, undistracted by society that interested him, devoted his whole attention to his thoughts, and his thoughts directed the course of his later speculations. What, then, was the lesson learned? The first conclusion the young man came to was this: that seldom does a work on which many persons have been employed attain to the same perfection as that which has been carried out by one single directing mind: this we see clearly in buildings, or in cities which have grown from villages. And with nations the case is similar: civilisation is a growth which has largely come about through the necessity bred of suffering, while the direction of some wise legislation or the ordinances of God must be incomparably superior. Learning has suffered in this way; the sciences have gradually been drawn far from the truth which a sensible man, using his natural and unprejudiced judgment, would gather from his own experience.
- Descartes, His Life and Times, Haldane, Elizabeth Sanderson, 1862-1937. P. 67-68 published 1905
Official appointments
- Vice-Chairman, Territorial Nursing Service;[12]
- Member of QAIM Nursing Board;
- Deputy President of British Red Cross Society, Perthshire Branch;
- for some time a Manager of Edinburgh Royal Infirmary;
- Member of Scottish Universities Committee, 1909;
- Member of Royal Commission on the civil service, 1912;
- of Advisory Committees (National and Scottish) under the Insurance Act, 1912;
- of School Board since 1903;
- of County Authority for Education, 1919–22;
- of Scottish Savings Committee, 1916;
- of General Nursing Council, 1928;
- Central Council Broadcast Adult Education, 1930;
- Governor of Birkbeck College;
- late Governor of London School of Economics.
Publications
- Hegel's History of Philosophy (3 vols), translated with Miss Frances H. Simson, MA. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1892–96;
- Kegan Paul& Co., 1897;
- R. B. Haldane) Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1899, ("Famous Scots Series";
- Descartes: His Life and Times. London: John Murray, 1905;
- Descartes' Philosophical Works. (2 vols), with Professor G. R. T. Ross. Cambridge University Press, 1911/2;
- The British Nurse in Peace and War. London: John Murray, 1923;
- Mary Elizabeth Haldane: A Record of a Hundred Years, (1825–1925). (Edited) London: Hodder and Stoughton, [1925]; reprinted by Kennedy & Boyd (2009) in the Naomi Mitchison Library Series;
- George Eliot and her Times: A Victorian Study. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1927:
- Mrs Gaskell and her Friends. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1930;
- The Scotland of our Fathers: A Study of Scottish Life in the Nineteenth Century. London: Alexander Maclehose & Co., 1933;
- Scots Gardens in Old Times, 1200–1800. London: Alexander Maclehose & Co., 1934;
- From One Century to Another: The Reminiscences of Elizabeth S. Haldane. London: Alexander Maclehose & Co., 1937;
- Articles in various magazines, and in Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics
References
- ^ "Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane:Historical Figures and Perthshire". Strathearn.com. Retrieved 28 September 2007.
- ^ Births and deaths information available at the General Register Office for Scotland, Scotlands People Centre in Edinburgh, and also at Scotland's People.gov.uk. She was christened 'Elizabeth Saunderson' but the additional 'u' seems to be a clerical error.
- OCLC 2174488.
- ^ Macdonald, Murdo (2020), Patrick Geddes's Intellectual Origins, Edinburgh University Press, p. 24
- ^ The Territorial Force Nursing Service 1908–1921: available here.
- ^ From One Century to Another, p.196.
- ^ From One Century to Another, pp. 223, 257.
- ^ From One Century to Another, pp.101–102.
- ^ From One Century to Another, p.164.
- .
- ISBN 978-1843710967.
- ^ This list of her appointments appears in her 'Who was Who' entry.
Sources
- Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007 available at http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U210623
- From One Century to Another: The Reminiscences of Elizabeth S. Haldane. London: Alexander Maclehose & Co., 1937. Available here.
- British Library catalogue available at http://www.bl.uk.
Further reading
- Alberti, Johanna (1990). "Inside out: Elizabeth Haldane as a women's suffrage survivor in the 1920s and 1930s". .
External links
- Works by Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Elizabeth Haldane at Internet Archive
- Review of Haldane's 'Descartes: His Life and Times' by Edward Cary published in the New York Times in 1906
- Haldane's entry in The Dictionary of Twentieth-Century British Philosophers (ed. by Stuart Brown, Hugh Bredin) viewable through Google Books
- December 28, 1937 Times obituary for Haldane[readable as an image]