Elizabeth Malloch

An eldest child and only daughter, Elizabeth went to school first at James Gillespie's, where she won prizes for all-round excellence and, as she remembered for the rest of her long life, the best wild flower collection. Then she attended Edinburgh Ladies' College (now Mary Erskine School) before going on

to a university career at Edin-

burgh, Besancon, and Moray House Training College.

Away from her books, Elizabeth gave unstinting enthusiasm to the Guide movement, based in North Morningside Church, the 63rd Company, where she started as a Brownie, going on to become a Guide, Ranger, and, thereafter,

captain of Guide companies in Manchester, including the slum area of Hulme, which was largely destroyed by bombing in the Second World War.

Elizabeth Malloch's official service to the Guides culminated in her appointment as vice-president of Staffordshire County Guide Association. Informally, her lengthy association with the Guide movement never ceased; several old friends from her Guiding days

were present at her 90th birthday party, celebrated just a few days before her death.

Edinburgh born and raised, Elizabeth Malloch, equipped with a first-class honours degree, the University Prize, a Diplome d'Etudes Francaises from Besancon, a Scottish Teachers' Certificate, and a Diploma in Education from Edinburgh University, with prize for the Best Student of the Year, now took the road south, well-equipped for the busy career and lifetime of service ahead of her.

Manchester High School got her first, after which Elizabeth turned her talents to teacher training, first in Bingley, then Leeds, before, in the late 1940s, becoming principal of the Stafford Training College

of Education (now Madeley college of Education), a post she

held until her retirement in 1970

after 21 years as principal of the College, a ceremony attended, as Chancellor of Keele University, by Princess Margaret.

During her leadership of the college, Elizabeth had to cope with a change of site and rapid expansion of the student roll which rose from fewer than 400 to more than 1200 in a short space of time. By May 1970, in the college's 21st year, 3916 students had qualified as teachers.

By this time Elizabeth Malloch's expertise was sought the length

and breadth of the country, sitting on various steering committees, holding membership of the

National Advisory Council on the Training and Supply of Teachers, advising a number of steering

committees, consultative committees, and many other organisations involved in teacher training and the nation's education.

On retirement, Elizabeth moved to Bukhurst Hill in Essex, living there for the last five years of the life of her colleague Enid Hodgson, who had been her deputy at the college. Here Elizabeth became a lay pastoral assistant in the Church.

Returning at last to the city of her childhood to help her aunts, Isa and Minnie Clark, and for what she had imagined would be retirement, Elizabeth found, instead, that she was simply starring on the second phase of her life. The Church, in the form of St Mary's Cathedral, played an ever bigger role in her life, involving her in Sunday groups, training leaders for them, and in pastoral visiting.

Commissioned as a deaconess in 1985, nine years later Elizabeth Malloch, at the age of 84, was ordained a priest at St Mary's

Episcopal Cathedral in Edin-

burgh - a fitting conclusion to her long-time campaign for women in the priesthood.

Elizabeth's interests were widespread - from young mothers' groups and ethnic minorities to sheltered housing, and, at all times, instruction and training, as well as keeping in touch with many of her former students.