Introduction
Evelyn Vida Baxter LLD FRSE FLS FZS MBE (29 March 1879 - October 1959) was a Scottish ornithologist and the first woman awardee of the Union Medal of the British Ornithological Union.
Life
Evelyn was born on 29 March 1879 to John Henry Baxter and his wife at Gilston, Fife.
She took an interest in natural history and especially in bird migration and after being encouraged by Eagle Clarke in 1905, she and her friend Leonora Jeffrey Rintoul FRSE (1878-1953) took up bird studies at the Isle of May. They studied the movements of birds for twenty years leading to several publications. Baxter was also involved in establishing the Scottish Ornithologists' Club on 24 March 1936. Baxter and Rintoul published The Birds of Scotland in 1953.
During the war years, she volunteered with the Women's Land Army while also teaching at Sunday school where she was known as "Miss Evie". For her wartime work she was awarded an MBE in 1945. Along with Rintoul, they became in 1951 the only non-graduates out of eight women Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She became the first woman Vice President of the British Ornithologists' Union and received their Union Medal in 1959., the first woman to do so.
She died at The Grove, Kikton of Largo, Fife.