She was the first child of Jane Mary (Jeannie) (born Baillie) and John McColl.

[2] She and her family moved to Edinburgh where she attended St George's School until 1913 when a scholarship took her to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford to study English.

[2] In 1948 John Baillie, Forrester, and John's brother, Donald, formed the Scottish Churches Ecumenical Association, which in 1950 merged with the Dollarbeg group which had organised ecumenical conferences since 1945[3] or 1946.

The annual conferences had been created in response to an inititiative by the World Council of Churches and its focus was the role of women with the church and they discussed important social, political, and religious issues.

[4] When the approval was given for women to be ordained she sent a telegram to her daughter in law Margaret Forrester in India telling her of the "sweeping victory" on 22 May 1968.