Helen Ferguson, Viscountess Novar

Helen Hermione Munro Ferguson, Viscountess Novar (née Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood; 14 March 1865 – 9 April 1941) was a Red Cross leader, as well as an advocate for nursing and healthcare and political activist.

Early life Born Helen Hermione Munro Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood on 14 March 1865, she was the second child and eldest daughter of Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood and his wife, Hariot.

Her ancestors migrated from Scotland to Ulster in the 17th century and belonged to the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. She grew up on the Clandeboye Estate, a large country estate in Bangor, County Down, Ireland. But since her father had many overseas posts, she spent a lot of her early life outside the UK.

Marriage

On 31 August 1889, Blackwood married Ronald Munro Ferguson. They lived together in Kirkcaldy and Novar House in Scotland. Helen Street in Kirkcaldy, later Lady Helen Street, was named after her.

Lady Ferguson attended the House of Commons to watch her husband from the ladies' gallery. She also helped write and draft his parliamentary and later viceregal speeches.

Novar died at Raith House, Kirkcaldy, on 9 April 1941 of coronary thrombosis. There was a private funeral and cremation in Edinburgh and a public funeral at Raith. Her ashes were later placed alongside those of her husband at a sandstone memorial, with the epitaph "In the service of others her life was spent". She has been seen as a prominent figure in a network of aristocratic women's imperial feminism and philanthropy that extended across the British Empire.