Died 8 July 1951 | ||
Minna Galbraith Cowan (1 May 1878 – 8 July 1951) was a Scottish political activist.
Born in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Cowan attended Girton College, Cambridge, then completed a social science diploma at the University of Edinburgh. She sat on numerous committees, and in 1914 visited India to study the conditions of women there, writing The Education of the Women of India to relay her conclusions.
During World War I, Cowan served in the Women's Royal Naval Service, while also sitting on Edinburgh School Board. In 1919, she became the first convener of the city's new education authority, in which role she introduced limited free school meals and play centres to occupy children out of school hours, and reduced the maximum class sizes to fifty pupils. Four years later, she moved to the city's higher education committee, with responsibility for secondary schools, and in 1930 to its overarching education committee.
Cowan was also active in the Unionist Party, standing unsuccessfully in Paisley at the 1929 UK general election, and in Edinburgh East in 1935.
In World War II, Cowan worked for the Ministry of Food, where she took the lead in establishing British Restaurants in eastern Scotland. After the war, she also served on the National Council of Women of Great Britain, and was its president in 1946/7, in which role she tried to build links with the German women's movement, and also campaigned for better treatment of Greek refugees.