Elizabeth Malleson (née Whitehead; 1828–1916) was an English educationalist, suffragist and activist for women's education and rural nursing.

[1][2] In May 1857, she married a businessman and lifelong Unitarian named Frank Rodbard Malleson and they were to have four children.

[9] Malleson moved with her family to Dixton Manor in 1884[3] and there she was concerned to find that there was little local service of nurses for pregnant women.

Malleson's scheme was not the first but she decided to form a national organisation and her appeal for help brought her into contact with Lady Lucy Hicks-Beech.

She was the wife of Michael Hicks Beach, 1st Earl St Aldwyn and they gathered enough support to launch a Rural Nursing Association.