Elsie Cassels

Elsie Cassels (February 1864 — 12 November 1938) was a Scottish-born naturalist and the first woman to become Vice-President of a Canadian naturalist society. Cassels lived in Red Deer, Alberta and became a recognised authority across Canada on migratory birds who exchanged information (from detailed observations from 1920 to 1935), with the leading (male) ornithologists of her day, 'her keen enthusiasm stimulated a wide interest in ornithology'. Cassels objected to game hunting for pleasure as a conservationist before this was a common approach to wildlife, and helped found a bird sanctuary and in 1924 one of the first Canadian wildlife refuges at Gaetz Lakes, Alberta.

Biography

Elsie McAlister was born in February 1864 near St. Mary's Loch south of Edinburgh to father, Free Church teacher, Archibald McAlister, and mother Janet Reid. Elsie had three brothers and two sisters and the family lived with another family of four lodgers in Megget; two of her brothers, John and Charles worked in the insurance business, and may have introduced Elsie to the man she later married. In 1899, Elsie married William Cassels, born in Yorkshire, England to Scottish parents, his father Andrew Cassels, vicar of Batley, was known to the Brontë family. William was educated privately at the Edinburgh Academy, when his mother was widowed. The Cassels was an 'irregular' marriage performed by a lodger at the Free Church School House. The couple were from different religious backgrounds with William brought up in the Church of England, and Elsie from the Free Church of Scotland.