Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service

Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service
Elsie Inglis and other members of the SWH
Organisation
Funding	National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, Red Cross, donations
History
Opened	1914
Closed	1919

The Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Services (SWH) was founded in 1914. It was led by Dr Elsie Inglis and provided nurses, doctors, ambulance drivers, cooks and orderlies. By the end of World War I, 14 medical units had been outfitted and sent to serve in Corsica, France, Malta, Romania, Russia, Salonika and Serbia.^[1]

Beginnings

At the outset of the war, Dr

Fawcett wished to include "Women's Suffrage" in the name, but Inglis opposed this on the grounds that "suffrage" had controversial political connotations based on the example of those who advocated civil disobedience such as

Initial fundraising was highly successful after Fawcett invited Inglis to speak in London, and by the end of August 1914 they had raised more than £5,000. Established shortly after the outbreak of World War I as voluntary all-women units, the Scottish Women's Hospitals offered opportunities for medical women who were prohibited from entry into the Royal Army Medical Corps.^[5]

The headquarters were in Edinburgh throughout the war, and there were also committees in Glasgow and London, working closely with the London office of the Croix Rouge Francaise (French Red Cross).^[3]

Dr

In December 1914, a hospital was established with 200-beds at Royaumont Abbey, known as Scottish Women's Hospital at Royaumont, officially called Hôpital Auxiliaire 301.^[9] The initial staff included Inglis, Alice Hutchison, Ishobel Ross,^[10] Cicely Hamilton,^[4] Marian Gamwell,^[11] and Katherine Harley. The Scottish Women's Hospitals serviced 14 medical units across mainland France and Corsica, Malta, Romania, Russia, Salonika and Serbia.^[1] In April 1915, Dr Inglis was head of a unit based in Serbia. Within seven months of mobilising, the SWH were servicing 1,000 beds with 250 staff which included 19 female doctors.^[3]

France

The first Scottish Women's Hospital was, in November 1914, staffed, equipped and established at Calais to support the

.

Serbia

Also in December, a hospital led by Dr

but the fight had exhausted the nation. Both soldiers and civilians were half starved and worn out and in those conditions diseases thrived and hundreds of thousands perished.

From December 1914 to November 1915, the hospital was based in Kragujevac. The Imperial War Museum's "Lives of the First World War" has a list of all those who worked in that location.^[12]

Four SWH staff, Louisa Jordan, Madge Fraser, Augusta Minshull and Bessie Sutherland died during the epidemic, the first two are buried in Niš Commonwealth Military Cemetery. By the winter of 1915 Serbia could hold out no more. The Austrians had been joined by German and Bulgarian forces who again invaded, and the Serbs were forced to retreat into Albania.

The SWH staff had a choice to make, stay and go into captivity (or worse) or go with the retreating army into Albania. In the end some stayed and some went. Elsie Inglis, Evelina Haverfield, Alice Hutchison, Helen MacDougall and others were taken prisoner and were eventually repatriated to Britain. The others joined the Serbian army and government in its retreat and suffered the indescribable horrors of that retreat and shared the hardships endured by the Serbian army.

The march

The Serbian army retreated over the mountains of Albania and Montenegro in the depths of winter with no food, shelter or help, and thousands upon thousands of soldiers, civilians, and prisoners of war died during the retreat. One SWH nurse, Caroline Toughill, had her skull fractured when the car in which she was travelling fell off a cliff near the town of Rača. Despite treatment by a Serbian major and another passenger from the car, (nurse Margaret Cowie Crowe) in a Red Cross camp to which she was taken, she died.^[13] Those who made it to the safety of the Adriatic Sea continued to give what help they could to soldiers, civilians and in particular to the many boys who had joined the retreat. As a direct consequence of this the SWH set up a convalescent hospital in Corsica in December 1915 to help displaced Serb women and children.

Salonika

During this period the hospital at Troyes in France was ordered to pack. Designed as a mobile rather than a fixed hospital it was equipped with tents and vehicles. It was attached to a division of the French army and was dispatched to

, a huge killer made worse by the lack of suitable clothing supplied by the Allied armies.

It was joined in August 1916 there by the Ostrovo Unit or the American Unit. This hospital was funded chiefly by American donors and was so named in gratitude to them. The unit was moved in early September 90 miles north–west of Salonika to Lake Ostrovo (now Lake Vegoritida in Greece), and supported the Serbian Army's push back into its homeland. Also sent to Ostrovo was a Transport Column. This was a motor ambulance unit which allowed SWH to collect casualties quickly rather than wait for casualties to be brought to them, including volunteer women motor ambulance drivers, like Elsie Cameron Corbett.

Russia

Following her repatriation to the UK in February 1916, Dr Inglis set about equipping and staffing a hospital to serve in Russia. Other veterans of the first Serbian hospital, including Dr Lilian Chesney and

for some time, died. Soon after the Elsie Inglis Unit was established in her memory and sent out to join the Girton & Newnham and the American units both providing medical support to the Serb army in Macedonia. Together they provided much needed help during the campaigns of 1918 which saw the Serbs and their British, French, Russian, Greek and Italian allies drive the Germans, Austro-Hungarians and Bulgarians out of Macedonia and Serbia.

Closing years

Towards the end of the war SWH in Serbia itself provided medical help to soldiers, civilians and prisoners of war (as well as continuing to provide care to refugees in Corsica and at the TB hospital in Sallanches in France). A new fixed hospital was established in Vranje for 300 patients, but by early 1919 this had been handed over to the Serbian authorities - more or less bringing to an end the SWH. While most SWH members went home and resumed their pre war lives, many SWH staff and ‘veterans’ chose to stay on to provide much needed medical care in Serbia. Dr Katherine Stewart MacPhail opened a hospital for sick children in Belgrade (and continued this work until forced out by Tito's government in 1947); Evelina Haverfield ran a hospital for orphans until her tragic death in March 1920; and some others did what they could to help, often using their own money, to single-handedly help destitute soldiers, refugees or the many orphans and widows who were all in desperate need of assistance. Others did relief work elsewhere. Isabel Emslie Hutton, for example, went to work with refugees from the Russian Civil War in Crimea.

Impact

Over 1,000 women from many different backgrounds and many different countries served with the SWH. Only the medical professionals such as doctors, nurses, laboratory technicians and x-ray operators received a salary and expenses; while non-medical staff such as orderlies, administrators, drivers, cooks and others received no pay at all (and were in fact expected to pay their way).^{[citation needed]}

In keeping with the aims of the SWH it was a deliberate policy that, as far as possible, all members of SWH units should be women, so allowing opportunities for unqualified women who could nonetheless get the chance to both serve the war effort in some capacity and the cause of women's rights. Some women joined because it was one of the few opportunities open to women to help the war effort; others saw it as a rare chance for adventure in a world that up till then offered women very few chances; and all shared, with varying degrees, the desire to improve the lot of women. Over £500,000 was raised by every manner possible to fund the organisation and during the war years it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of patients' lives were save; all nursed and helped by the SWH.

Notable women volunteers

• Wilhelmina Hay Abbott, fundraiser for the Scottish Women's Hospitals
• Louisa Aldrich-Blake, British surgeon (later worked in obstetrics and gynaecology),
• Millicent Sylvia Armstrong
  , Australian orderly
• Mary Josephine Bedford, Australian ambulance driver
• Jean Aitken Bell, Scottish nurse
• Elizabeth Bertram, Scottish nurse
• Agnes Bennett, Australian doctor
• Mary Alice Blair, New Zealand doctor and Head of Unit
• Elsie Bowerman, British ambulance driver
• Vera Christina Chute Collum, British X-ray assistant
• Elsie Cameron Corbett, British ambulance driver
• Lilian Violet Cooper, Australian doctor
• Elizabeth Courtauld, British doctor
• C Muriel Craigie, British headquarters administrator
• Elsie Jean Dalyell, Australian doctor
• Georgina Davidson, Scottish doctor
• Margaret Charlotte Davidson, Scottish orderly then nurse
• Mabel Dearmer, British orderly
• Mary De Garis, Australian doctor
• Violet Douglas-Pennant, British philanthropist
• Miles Franklin, Australian cook
• Margaret Neill Fraser, Scottish nurse
• Norah Neilson Gray, British nurse
• Edith Hacon, Scottish housekeeper
• Kathleen Burke Hale, British fundraiser decorated by 7 countries
• Helen Hanson, British physician, missionary, suffragist
• Mabel Hardie, British surgeon
• Katherine Harley, British nurse
• Evelina Haverfield, British nurse
• Maud Doria Haviland, British chauffeur, ornithologist and anthropologist
• Mary H. J. Henderson, Scottish unit administrator and war poet
• Lydia Manley Henry, Scottish surgeon
• Ruth Holden, American paleobotanist, nurse
• Vera "Jack" Holme
  , British ambulance driver
• Laura Margaret Hope, Australian doctor
• Alice Hutchison, British doctor
• Isabel Emslie Hutton, British doctor
• Elsie Inglis, British doctor and founder of the Scottish Women's Hospitals
• Kathleen Innes, British Quaker, educator, writer, pacifist - orderly and administrator
• Frances Ivens, British chief medical officer
• Louisa Jordan, Scottish nurse
• Honoria Somerville Keer, British surgeon
• Olive Kelso King, Australian ambulance driver
• Sybil Lewis, British doctor, from Hull but trained in Edinburgh
• Rotha Lintorn-Orman, British ambulance driver
• Henrietta Lister, British racecar driver and artist
• Hilda Lorimer, British classical scholar - orderly
• Edith McKay, Australian nurse
• Mary Lauchline McNeill, Scottish doctor and suffragist
• Alexandrina Matilda MacPhail, Scottish doctor
• Katherine Stewart MacPhail, Scottish doctor
• Louise McIlroy, Irish-born British physician
• Louisa Martindale, British physician and surgeon
• Caroline Matthews
  , British doctor
• Ethel Moir, Scottish nursing orderly
• Harriet Christina Newcomb, British-Australian committee member^[16]
• Ruth Nicholson, British Assistant surgeon
• Grace Pailthorpe, British surrealist painter, surgeon, psychology researcher
• Hilda Petrie, British archaeologist, honorary secretary for the Scottish Women's Hospitals
• Mary Elizabeth Phillips, Welsh doctor
• Alma Rattenbury, British orderly and murder accused
• Elizabeth Ness MacBean Ross, British doctor
• Laura Sandeman, Scottish doctor
• Jessie Ann Scott
  , New Zealand doctor
• Olive Smith, British masseuse
• Eleanor Soltau, Unit leader to Serbia and British doctor
• Mabel St Clair Stobart, British Unit Head and Major
• Edith Stoney, Irish radiographer
• Leslie Joy Whitehead, Canadian soldier

Archives

Elsie Inglis' archives are held at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. A large cardboard box, ref TD1734/20/4, containing many individual accounts of the flight from Serbia, can also be found there

Scottish Women's Hospital Archives are also held at

ref 7VJH, as well as individual books, postcards and photographs related to the Scottish Women's Hospital and of several of the women who served.

The Women's Work Collection at the Imperial War Museum holds many photographs of the SWH.

Additional SWH members' materials are held in various archive offices: memoirs of Katherine North née Hodges are in the Leeds Russian Archive; the journals of Mary Lee Milne are held by the

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Scottish Women's Hospitals
• Women in Uniform, The National Archives
• Scottish Women's Hospital Unit
• Dr Elsie Inglis and the Scottish Women's Hospital
• Isabel Galloway Emslie Hutton (1928) With a woman's unit in Serbia, Salonika and Sebastopol Williams and Norgate, London
• McLaren, Eva Shaw (1919) A History of the Scottish Women's Hospitals Hodder and Stoughton, London (Google Books, archive.org)

Further reading

• Crofton, Eileen (1997), The women of Royaumont : a Scottish Women's Hospital on the Western Front, Tuckwell Press,
  ISBN 978-1-898410-86-7
• Navarro, Antonio de, 1860-1932; Robarts - University of Toronto (1917), The Scottish women's hospital at the French abbey of Royaumont, G. Allen & Unwin, retrieved 2 March 2017{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) — available online via the Internet Archive

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Scottish Women's Hospital.

• List of SWH people
• WW1 – Scottish Women's Hospital - especially in slides 22-25
• Serbia Remembers the Scottish Women's Hospitals
• Extensive biographical information and photographs of many of the women (in alphabetical order) was compiled for a now defunct website but can still be viewed on the Internet Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160315151127/http://scottishwomenshospitals.co.uk/women/
• A timeline of the Scottish Women's Hospital can be found at https://time.graphics/line/19360
• The website "Lives of the First World War" has compiled a list of women from the Scottish Women's Hospital who lost their lives during the war. It includes some photographs and biographical information:
  Alison86663. "Scottish Women's Hospitals-Roll of Honour". Lives of the First World War. Retrieved 14 September 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

Films:

• Scottish Women's Hospitals - a field hospital on the front line during the First World War
• The Women Who Went to War – A Great Adventure

Radio

• https://radioadelaide.org.au/2019/12/02/debbie-robson-the-swh-and-the-aussie-women-who-served-in-it/ - interview about Australian women and the SWH