Background
Born at Wickham, Hampshire, the daughter of an ironmonger and a school teacher, Donaldson trained as a nurse during the war and qualified in 1946.
Born at Wickham, Hampshire, the daughter of an ironmonger and a school teacher, Donaldson trained as a nurse during the war and qualified in 1946.
From 1967-1969, she chaired the Women"s National Cancer Control Campaign, and then the Vice President of the British Cancer Council. "Of course there are things which men can do better than women. But equally, women have attributes which men can never possess.
Personally, I find it difficult not to become over-involved in issues concerning people", Donaldson once commented.
She remained the only female Lord Mayor of the City of London until the election of Fiona Woolf in 2013.
In 1966, she was elected a Member of the City of London Court of Common Council, and became the first female Alderman in 1975, the first female Sheriff of the City of London in 1981 and in 1983 became the first female Lord Mayor. Donaldson chaired the Interim Licensing Authority for Human In Vitro Fertilisation and Embryology (see Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority) from 1985 and then a member of the Press Complaints Commission from 1991-1996.