
Lady Marion's helm and crest above her
stall in St. Giles' Cathedral.
Lady Marion Anne Fraser,
LT (17
October 1932) is a Scottish
music
educator.
Personal life
She was
born Marion Forbes to Robert Forbes and Elizabeth
Taylor Watt, and educated at Hutchesons'
Girls' Grammar School
, Glasgow
, the
University of
Glasgow
(M.A.),
and the Royal
Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Whilst a student at
Glasgow, she was elected President of the
Queen Margaret Union.
In 1956, she married
William Kerr
Fraser, himself a former President of the
Glasgow
University Students' Representative Council and at the time a
junior civil servant at the
Scottish
Office. He went on to become
Permanent Secretary there, and later
Principal and
Vice-Chancellor and then
Chancellor of the
University of Glasgow. They have three sons and one
daughter.
Career
Fraser
worked as a music teacher and became Director of St Mary's Music
School
in Edinburgh
from 1989 to 1995, as well as being Founding Chair
of the Friends of the Royal
Scottish Academy from 1986–89, a Governor of the former Laurel
Bank School for Girls from 1988 to 1995 and a Director of Scottish
Opera from 1990-1994. In 1996, shortly after stepping down
as Director of St. Mary's, she was appointed to the
Order of the Thistle; her husband by
this time already held a knighthood in the
Order of the Bath, entitling her to be
addressed as
Lady Fraser, however she now became
Lady
Marion Fraser in her own right.
Lady Marion has been a trustee of the Scottish Churches
Architectural Heritage Trust since 1989, and President of
Scotland's Churches Scheme since 1997. She was trustee of the Lamp
of Lothian Collegiate Trust from 1996 to 2005, and Chairman of the
Board of
Christian Aid from 1990-1997,
and of both the Scottish International Piano Competition and the
Scottish Association for Mental Health from 1995 to 1999. She
served as
Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of
Scotland from 1994 to 1995. She was made an Honorary Member of
the Company of Merchants of the City of Edinburgh in 1998 and an
honorary Fellow of the
Royal
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 2002, and was
awarded an
honorary LL.D. by the University of Glasgow in 1995
and an honorary D.Univ. by the
University of Stirling in 1998.
References