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Help us to digitise the herbarium specimens of the fascinating Scottish philanthropist, Miss Ellen Smith Dunlop. This project will allow her plant collections and associated digital images to be accessed by a larger audience and will contribute to the better understanding of the Scottish flora and the characters who have been invested in recording the plants through the years.

Miss Dunlop is an interesting indivisual, born to Sir Nathaniel Dunlop (1830-1919), a ship merchant based in Glasgow and Ellen Dunlop, née Smith (1841-1867) on 17 October 1876 in Blythswood, Glasgow Scotland. Her mother died shortly after giving birth. Ellen was raised by her father and ‘schoolroom maid’ turned lifelong friend, Miss Jeannie Macdonald.

Much like her father, Miss Dunlop was very active in her community, participating in and contribution to numerous organisations and causes throughout her life, especially those in the local Lanarkshire area. Involved in wartime support via work with various organisations including The Scottish Women’s Hospitals for Foreign Service, the Lanarkshire Territorial Force Association and Princess Louise’s Scottish Hospital for Limbless Sailors and Soldiers, she also financed and oversaw the construction of the Thankerton Creamery. A purely philanthropic act in support of the dairy farmers in the local area, the creamery was said to lack "nothing that modern science and engineering skill can produce" and was described as “a concrete example of socialism in the best sense" at the time of opening. Transcription of the specimens will add detail to the digital record and provide more knowledge of the plants and places collected at this time.