| Dame Harriet Findlay | |
| Birth Name: | Harriet Jane Backhouse |
| Birth Date: | 12 March 1880[1] |
| Birth Place: | Darlington, England |
| Death Place: | Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Occupation: | political activist, philanthropist |
| Father: | Sir Jonathan Backhouse, 1st Baronet |
| Children: | Edmund Findlay |
Dame Harriet Jane Findlay, Lady Findlay, DBE (Backhouse; 12 March 1880 – 24 July 1954) was a British political activist and philanthropist.[2]
Harriet Jane Backhouse was born in County Durham, the only daughter of banker Sir Jonathan Backhouse, 1st Baronet (1849–1918) and Florence Salusbury-Trelawny (1845–1902), daughter of John Salusbury-Trelawny. She had five brothers; her eldest, Edmund Blackhouse, was a prominent scholar, and two others, Sir Roger Backhouse and Oliver Backhouse, had distinguished careers in the Royal Navy.[2]
She married Scottish newspaper proprietor Sir John Ritchie Findlay, 1st Baronet (son of John Ritchie Findlay and Susan Leslie) on 9 July 1901. They had three sons and two daughters.[2]
In 1919, Findlay joined Rosaline Masson, Ella Millar and Miss M.R. MacLeod as the first four women to become members of the Cockburn Association, Edinburgh's influential conservation organisation formed in 1875 to protect and preserve the built heritage, natural environment and civic amenity in the city.[3]
She was active in Scottish politics becoming a Justice of the Peace in Edinburgh in 1926 and being elected president of the Scottish Unionist Association in 1927. She chaired the management board of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary during the Depression. She died on 24 July 1954, aged 74.[4]
Lady Harriet Findlay was invested as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1929 and was styled as Dame Harriet Findlay.
With her husband Sir John Ritchie Findlay, 1st Baronet (13 January 1866 – 13 April 1930), she had two surviving sons and two daughters: