The Jamaican family of a promising student of Edinburgh University, who died aged 25 in 1936, have travelled to Scotland to receive her posthumous degree.
The relatives of Stephanie McGregor have travelled to Scotland almost 80 years after her death.
Her great niece, Lauren McGregor, will accept the degree at the University's medical graduation ceremony at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh.
A further 15 member of Stephanie's family will attend the ceremony.
While in Edinburgh, the family will visit Stephanie's grave at Piershill Cemetery.
They will also visit the Centre for Research Collections in the University's Main Library. There they will be shown Stephanie's student record, a photograph from her time at university and some related items.
Ms McGregor was born in Gayle St. Mary, Jamaica, in 1911, the daughter of plantation owner Peter James McGregor and his wife Julianna Marsh.
She began her studies at the University of Edinburgh in 1931 and the Advisor of Women Students wrote that she was "one of the best in her class".
She fell ill in January 1936 and released from the Royal Infirmary after 15 days, she travelled north to Argyll to convalesce, but this left her weakened and bedridden for a week.
Ms McGregor died on 4 July, 1936 - at the age of 25 - of rheumatic fever following tonsillitis that affected her heart.
At today's graduation ceremony, 79 years to the day since Stephanie's death, the university will honour her, and her family, with a posthumous degree as a "timely celebration of a remarkable and courageous life."
Lauren McGregor said: "I am so overjoyed. I just want to thank everyone who has helped to bring Stephanie's story to light, and to life."
Grant Buttars, the University's Deputy University Archivist, said: "Stephanie showed all the signs of a highly motivated and conscientious student.
"At the time Stephanie was studying, the numbers of female students were very small compared with men.
"Although she probably never saw herself as such, Stephanie can be seen as a contributor towards a major change within medical education, paving the way for those who followed."
Meanwhile, former Labour First Minister Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale received an honorary degree from the university. The peer, who is vice president of Unicef UK, tweeted an image of himself surrounded by students with the words: "Deeply honoured to be receiving an Honorary Degree today - and delighted my kilt still fits."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article