Jean Milligan


Jean Callander Milligan was a physical education teacher at Jordanhill College who founded the Scottish [Country Dance Society]. She is credited with creating the modern incarnation of Scottish country dance.

Early life and education

Milligan was the daughter of educators James Milligan and Isabella Milligan. She was considered a fragile child after surviving rheumatic fever, and did not attend school until she was nine years old, and began at Garnethill School, where her father was the headmaster. She trained to teach physical education at Dartford College, where she was a student of Martina Bergman-Österberg.

Career

Milligan learned some traditional dances, recipes, and handiwork skills from her mother, and performed Morris dancing at a 1910 festival. She taught physical education at Dundas Vale Training College in Glasgow, where she started the school's netball and hockey clubs, and after 1931 at Jordanhill College. During World War I, she went to Malta to volunteer at a military hospital.
Milligan and Ysobel Stewart co-founded the Scottish Country Dance Society in Glasgow in 1923. She and Stewart ran an annual summer school beginning in 1927. In 1946 she attended the International Youth Festival with a troupe of 66 dancers, and in 1948 she represented the Scottish Country Dance Society at a meeting of the International Folk Music Council in Basel.
She retired from school teaching in 1948, and worked full-time on representing Scottish dance. She traveled in North America, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere on behalf of the society. She was named Scotswoman of the Year in 1973, by the Glasgow Evening Times. In 1977, the University of Aberdeen awarded Milligan an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.
Milligan was a member of the Glasgow committee of the National Fitness Council, the Scottish League for Physical Education, and the advisory board of the Journal of School Hygiene and Physical Education. She was dance advisor to the Scottish Film Council.

Publications

  • The Scottish Country Dance
  • Won't You Join the Dance? A Manual of Scottish Country Dancing
  • Dances of Scotland
  • 101 Scottish Country Dances
  • 99 More Scottish Country Dances
  • ''Introducing Scottish Country Dancing''

    Personal life and legacy

Milligan lived in a tenement in Glasgow during World War II. She died in 1978. Her centenary was marked by the City of Glasgow in 1986. The "Miss Jean Milligan Reel" is named for her. In March 2024 she was one of the women featured in a podcast episode about Scottish women and dance.