Elsie Inglis
1864-1917

Elsie Inglis studied medicine at the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women. When the founder of the school, Sophia Jex-Blake, dismissed two students for what Inglis considered to be a trivial offence, she obtained funds from her father and some of his wealthy friends, and established her own medical college in Edinburgh. As well as studying medicine at the Edinburgh Medical College, Elsie was also trained at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

After qualifying as a doctor, Inglis was appointed to a teaching post at the New Hospital for Women by its founder, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. She eventually returned to Scotland where she established in Edinburgh a maternity hospital that was staffed entirely by women. A supporter of universal suffrage, Inglis joined the NUWSS and in 1906 and played an important role in setting up the Scottish Women's Suffrage Federation.

On the outbreak of the First World War, Inglis suggested that women's medical units should be allowed to serve on the Western Front. Although the War Office representative in Scotland opposed the idea, Dr. Inglis and her Scottish Women's Hospitals Committee sent the first women's medical unit to France three months after the war started. By 1915 the Scottish Women's Hospital Unit had established an Auxiliary Hospital with 200 beds in the 13th century Royaumont Abbey. Her team included Evelina Haverfield, Ishobel Ross and Cicely Hamilton.

In April 1915 Elsie Inglis took a women's medical unit to Serbia. During an Austrian offensive in the summer of 1915, Inglis was captured but eventually, with the help of American diplomats, the British authorities were able to negotiate the release of Inglis and her medical staff.

During the First World War Inglis arranged fourteen medical units to serve in France, Serbia, Corsica, Salonika, Romania, Russia and Malta. In August 1916, the London Suffrage Society financed Inglis and eighty women to support Serbian soldiers fighting in Russia.

Inglis was taken ill while in Russia and was forced to travel back to Britain. Elsie Inglis arrived at Newcastle Upon Tyne on 25th November, but local doctors were unable to save her and she died the following day. Her body lay in state at St Giles in Edinburgh.

Fellow Scot, Arthur Balfour, Foreign Secretary for Britain at the time of her death, summed her up as follows:

"Elsie Inglis was a wonderful compound of enthusiasm, strength of purpose and kindliness. In the history of this World War, alike by what she did and by the heroism, driving power and the simplicity by which she did it, Elsie Inglis has earned an everlasting place of honour."