Winnie Ewing

Early life

Born Winifred Margaret Woodburn in Glasgow, she was educated at Battlefield School and Queen's Park Senior Secondary School. In 1946 she matriculated at Glasgow University where she earned an MA and studied for an LLB. Though not very active in politics at that time, she joined the Student Nationalists. After graduation she qualified and practised as a solicitor and notary public. She was Secretary of the Glasgow Bar Association from 1962 to 1967.

Political biography

She became active in campaigning for Scottish independence through her membership of the Glasgow University Scottish Nationalist Association, and came to prominence in 1967 when she won the watershed Hamilton by-election as the Scottish National Party (SNP) candidate. A practising solicitor at the time of her election, she proved to be a sound choice as her eloquence and ability bolstered a hard-fought SNP campaign and saw her through to victory. She was also helped on to victory by a team of enthusiastic helpers, among them her election agent, John McAteer. On 16 November she made her first appearance at Westminster, with her husband and children accompanied her on the journey. She arrived at the parliament in a Scottish-built Hillman Imp and was greeted by a crowd and a pipe band. She said at the time of her election, 'stop the world, Scotland wants to get on', and her presence at Westminster proved to be a real focus for the SNP with a significant rise in membership being the result. Furthermore, many political commentators speculate that it was as a result of her victory that the then Labour Government established the Kilbrandon Commission to look into the establishment of a devolved Scottish Assembly.

Despite her high profile she was unsuccessful in retaining the Hamilton seat at the 1970 General Election. At the following February 1974 Election she stood for Moray and Nairn and was re-elected to Westminster, although another election followed in October of the same year. Following the October election she was announced as the SNP's spokesperson on external affairs and EEC. She first became an MEP in 1975, at a time when the European Parliament was still composed of representative delegations from national parliaments. She ceased to be a Westminster MP after the May 1979 election, but within weeks had won a seat at the European Parliament in the first direct elections to the Parliament.

She was elected the SNP Party President in 1987.

It was during her time as an MEP that she acquired the nickname Madame Ecosse (French for Mrs Scotland) because of her strong advocacy of Scottish interests in Strasbourg and Brussels. That sobriquet was first used by Le Monde and with Ewing using the term as a badge of pride, it stuck. By 1995 she had become Britain's longest serving MEP. She had been a former Vice President of the European Radical Alliance which included French, Guyanan, Flemish, Luxembourg, Italian, Corsican and Spanish (Canary Islands) MEPs.

In 1999 she gave up being an MEP and became a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) in the first session of the Scottish Parliament, representing the Highlands and Islands. As the oldest member it was her duty to preside over the opening of the Scottish Parliament, a session she opened with the famous words, 'The Scottish Parliament, adjourned on the 25th day of March in the year 1707, is hereby reconvened'. She sat as a member on the European Committee, then the Public Petitions Committee.

During the controversy that arose in the early years of the Scottish Parliament surrounding proposals to repeal Clause 28 (a law banning the active promotion of homosexuality in schools) she joined her son Fergus Ewing in abstaining, although her daughter in law Margaret Ewing supported repeal as did the majority of her party's MSPs.

In June 2001, having turned 72 years old, she announced that she would retire from Parliament at the end of the session. In January 2003 she lost her husband, Stewart Ewing, in a fire accident. He had been active with her in politics for many years, and had himself served as an SNP councillor for the Summerston area in Glasgow. The same year she lost her husband she stood down from being an MSP, although she continued to serve as the SNP's President, a position she held for many years.

On 15 July 2005 she announced she would be stepping down as President of the Scottish National Party at its September Conference, bringing to an end her 38-year career in representative politics.

Her son Fergus Ewing serves as SNP MSP, as did his late wife Margaret Ewing, and her daughter Annabelle Ewing, who was also an MP between 2001 and 2005.

Outside parliament

Ewing is a vice president of equal rights charity Parity.

On April 2009, BBC Alba broadcast a biographical documentary Madame Ecosse, produced by Madmac Productions. It was rebroadcast on BBC Scotland in July to mark her 80th birthday.

Awards and honours

She was conferred with honorary LLD degrees from the University of Glasgow in 1995 and University of Aberdeen in 2004, She was conferred with Doctor of the University degrees from the Open University in 1993 and University of Stirling in 2012.

In 2009, a portrait of her painted by David Donaldson in 1970 was loaned to the Parliament and put on display.