 Macmillan was born Jessie Chrystal Macmillan on 13 June 1872 to Edinburgh tea merchant , John Macmillan and his wife Jessie Chrystal Finlayson . She was the couple 's only daughter among their eight sons . After an early education in Edinburgh she boarded at St Leonards School and St Katharines School for Girls in St Andrews on the east coast of Scotland . She returned to enroll at the University of Edinburgh in October 1892 . Among the first female students there , she was not the first to graduate , as others were more advanced in their studies when they entered as graduate students , and earned Master 's degrees before she finished her undergraduate work . Macmillan studied science subjects including Honours Mathematics with George Chrystal , Astronomy with Ralph Copeland , and Natural Philosophy with Peter Guthrie Tait and Cargill Gilston Knott . She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in April 1896 , the first woman at Edinburgh to do so . 
