Madge Elliot (activist)

Matilda (Madge) Callaghan Elliot (née Robson; 20 June 1928 – 25 May 2024) was a Scottish rail activist.

[1] Elliot campaigned against the closure of the old Waverley Line, which ran between Edinburgh, Hawick and Carlisle, before it closed in the 1960s due to the Beeching cuts.

[2] She relied on the train to Edinburgh when she was visiting her then three-year-old son in hospital.

[3] In 1968, she and her local MP David Steel delivered a petition to Harold Wilson on the route.

[4] In 1999, she was given an MBE for her services to lawn tennis in the Scottish Borders.