Quick Facts
Biography
Mary Louisa Georgina Petrie (1861 – November 19, 1935), later Mrs. Ashley Carus-Wilson (Mary Carus-Wilson or Mrs. C. (Charles) Ashley Wilson), was an English author and speaker known for her work on biblical study and missionary work. Her father was Martin Petrie. She wrote a biography about her sister, Irene Petrie, a missionary to Kashmir. The Pitts Theology Library at Emory University has a collection of her papers. Eleanora Carus-Wilson was her daughter. She was also published using the name Helen Macdowall in the Sunday at Home and lectured on women's suffrage. In England she established a correspondence program for the secular study of scripture.
Early life
Petrie was born in Yorktown, Surrey, England, the eldest daughter of Colonel Martin Petrie and his wife Eleanora Grant Macdowall Petrie. She graduated from University College, London, with a B.A. in 1881.
Career
Petrie founded, edited, and was president of The College by Post, a program for secular biblical study via correspondence created in the late 19th century.
She had articles published in various Christian and women's publications. She wrote nine books about missionaries and Bible study. She was also a speaker.
Her book Clews to the Holy Writ, promoted studying the Bible in its historical order.She wrote Irene Petrie: Missionary to Kashmir of her sister who died doing missionary work in India.
She married Charles Ashley Carus-Wilson, a professor in Montreal, Canada, in 1892, and they had three children. After her marriage, she published under the name C. Ashley Carus-Wilson except in The Sunday at Home where she went by Helen Macdowall, her mother's family name. Her children were named Louis, Martin, and Eleanora (Eleanora Carus-Wilson). She died November 19, 1935 leaving to her two surviving children the home in Kensington that she inherited from her father.
Alfred Tucker corresponded with her September 20, 1903. She planned to write a biography about him.
She left her freehold to her daughter Eleanora.
She also wrote on the medical education of women.