Wendy Wood

Wendy Wood (born Gwendoline Emily Meacham) (1892 – 30 June 1981) was a campaigner for Scottish independence and founder of the Scottish Patriots. An eccentric and colourful figure, she was also a gifted artist, sculptor and writer, and her antics often created controversy.

Wood was born in Kent, England, before her parents moved to South Africa, where her father was a brewery manager and landscape painter, and was brought up in the latter country. Wood adopted her mother's maiden name in 1927 to emphasize her artistic connections. Her mother's father was the sculptor Samuel Peploe Wood, and his brother was the painter Thomas Peploe Wood. If challenged as to her Scottish birthright, she would reply, 'One does not have to be a horse to be born in a stable', echoing the old proverb that is sometimes misattributed to the Duke of Wellington, albeit for a different purpose.

In 1928 Wood was one of the founders of the National Party of Scotland, which grew into the Scottish National Party, but, in the 1930s, decided that a non-party approach to Scottish independence was more effective. On Bannockburn Day in 1932, Wood led a group of nationalists into Stirling Castle, then an Army barracks as well as being open to tourists, to tear down the Union Flag and replace it with Scotland's lion rampant.Eric Linklater wrote that she flushed the Union Jack down the toilet, and she sued him for libel, eventually settling out of court for a farthing damages.

In the 1930s she also founded the Scottish Watch, a youth organisation (not to be confused with a later, unrelated extremist organisation of the same name). In 1949, she had founded the Scottish Patriots, which, at the time of her death in June 1981, were some 2,000 strong.

In the 1950s came protests against the use of the regnal title "Elizabeth II" in Scotland, as Scotland had not had an Elizabeth I (see also the case of MacCormick v. Lord Advocate). Wood hung an effigy of the secretary of state for Scotland in Glasgow in 1950 and displayed a Home Rule banner at that years' Highland Games. Wood was arrested and spent spells in prison on several occasions.

...
Wikipedia