Jean Lindsay was born in India, the only child of Major-General James Douglas McLachlan and Guendolin Mab White. She was educated at schools in Edinburgh and abroad and at Queen's College, Harley Street. She read History at Girton 1929-32, obtaining a distinction in Part II of the Tripos. She undertook historical research in Cambridge, London and Spain as a Cairnes Student from 1932 to 1936, leading to her PhD in 1936, and she was awarded the University Prince Consort Prize and Seeley Medal in 1938. After distinguished war service in the Ministry of Information and in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry [FANY, renamed FANY (The Princess Royal's Volunteer Corps) in 1999] 1939-45, she came back to Girton as Lecturer in Modern History and Fellow, later also a University Lecturer. She married Humphrey David Richard Pelham Lindsay in 1947. In 1960, she moved to Edinburgh, where she was Headmistress of St George's School until her retirement in 1976. Jean Lindsay published widely, particularly on the history of Anglo-Spanish relations.