Mari Takayanagi
Supported by The University of Glasgow Library
Dr Mari Takayanagi, FSA, FRHistS, is a historian of British history from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries, specialising in women's history and Parliamentary history. She is also an archivist and heritage professional with particular expertise in public engagement, exhibition and outreach work. Her numerous publications include her book, Necessary Women: the Untold Story of Parliament's Working Women, co-authored with Elizabeth Hallam Smith (The History Press, paperback 2025). After 25 years working in the Parliamentary Archives, she now works freelance and as an independent scholar. She has held fellowships and research grants at Churchill College Cambridge, the Schlesinger Library at Harvard, and Gladstone's Library.
Mari will use the Visiting Research Fellowship at the University of Glasgow Library to undertake research on women, Parliament and politics c. 1915-1928. This period culminates in the Equal Franchise Act 1928 which gave women the vote on the same terms as men. She will particularly examine the papers of Alexander MacCallum Scott, MP for Bridgeton 1910-22, who was a known anti-suffragist and member of the Speaker's Conference on Electoral Reform in 1916-17. She will consider his changing attitude and role in relation to suffrage, women, their citizenship and equality, leading up to equal franchise and his death in 1928.
I am delighted and honoured to be awarded a University of Glasgow Library Visiting Research Fellowship. I'm really grateful for the opportunity to explore the Library collections in relation to women's rights issues in the run-up to 1928. We are approaching the centenary of equal franchise in 2028, when I hope women's history will be celebrated across the UK, and the University of Glasgow's rich collections are well placed to inform that.
