[1] A sometimes "anxious" child, she had enjoyed escaping to the mansion her father had built amidst the "rugged splendour of Glen Affric" in the Scottish Highlands.

[2] She received a well-rounded education in English, French, mathematics, history, and geography, and was such a good student that her teacher recommended she attend college.

Isabel became an evangelical at an early age, believing like many Victorians in a life dedicated to good works, as well as social and moral reform.

[6] Lady Aberdeen's daughter has written that "Ishbel interpreted the duty of wife as one who not only provided for her husband a serene background in private life, but as one who also thought and fought for him in all his affairs.

She organized a Household Club that held classes for servants to learn singing, carving, reading, and other activities.

She established the Onwards and Upward Association, which provided servant girls with postal courses on topics ranging from geography to literature to domestic science.

[12] Her commitment to housing improvement and fascination with the work of Octavia Hill is recorded by her daughter Baroness Pentland who wrote in a 1952 biography of her mother: 'In February 1939 she presided at the showing (for the first time outside London) of a centenary exhibition illustrating the life of Hill's work which had been brought north and explained by Miss Anne Lupton'.

The Aberdeens were no strangers to the country, as they had visited several times before; during their cross-Canada tour of 1890 they had even purchased a homestead in British Columbia.

She hosted many popular social events, such as winter festivals and costume balls, and was more politically involved than her predecessors.

[16] She regularly offered him advice, and in fact newspapers commented (sometimes critically) that it appeared she held the power in their relationship.

[21] A key organization that she helped establish is the Victorian Order of Nurses, which aimed to give women better training and a higher salary so they could provide services to rural and disadvantaged populations.

Lady Aberdeen and the group's supporters had to overcome resistance from the medical community before receiving the organization's royal charter in 1898.

Her name lives on in Lady Ishbel Avenue, part of the former Purdysburn Fever Hospital site in south Belfast.

[33] Lady Aberdeen is credited with introducing the Golden Retriever to Canada; her father, Sir Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks, 1st Baron Tweedmouth, a Scottish aristocrat, is best known as the originator of the breed.

[1] The Ontario Heritage Trust erected a plaque for Lady Aberdeen 1857–1939 on the grounds of Rideau Hall, 1 Sussex Drive, Ottawa.

"Widely respected for her organizational skills and strong commitment to public service, Lady Aberdeen served as president of the International Council of Women from 1893 to 1939.