Hilda Seligman

Hilda Mary Seligman (18 January 1882 - 20 December 1964; née McDowell) was a sculptor, author and campaigner. She was married to the metallurgist and chemical engineer Dr Richard Seligman (1878-1972). They had four sons: Adrian Charles Cuthbert Seligman (1909-2003), Peter and Madron; and a daughter: Audrey Babette Seligman (1907-1990).

During the inter-war period, Hilda Seligman entertained Mahatma Gandhi and the Emperor Haile Selassie at her home in Wimbledon, London, UK. She created a bust of Haile Selassie, from life, and it is now displayed in Cannizaro Park. The bust originally stood in the grounds of Lincoln House, where Hilda and Richard lived, until the building was demolished in 1957.

Hilda's bronze sculpture, 'J. P. Blake, Esq.' was displayed at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts Eighty-Second Annual Exhibition, 1943.

She spent some time in India and founded the 'Skippo' Fund in London in 1945. The fund was set up with royalties from her book Skippo of Nonesuch (1943) about a goat named 'Skippo', and donations and gifts from Lady Pathick Lawrence and Lady Stafford Cripps. The Fund paid for a mobile health van that custom built in the UK, and later other health vans to serve isolated villages in India and Pakistan. The Fund's 'Asoka-Akbar Mobile Health Vans' were given to the All India Women's Conference to administer.

Hilda also wrote two other small books: When Peacocks Called (1940), Asoka, Emperor of India (1947). Rabindranath Tagore wrote the foreword to When Peacocks Called.

In 1999, Hilda's papers (Ref: 7HSE) were given as a gift to the Women's Library, London School of Economics, where they are still held.