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]
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 Emmeline Pankhurst. While not all volunteers supported the suffrage movement, the letters "NUWSS" appeared on SWH letterhead and many of their vehicles, and the French press often referred to their facilities as "Hospital of the Scottish Suffragists", and the NUWSS provided financial support.[2]
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]
Dr Alice Hutchison was the first doctor of SWH sent to France to establish the first hospital. She initially placed it in Boulogne. While searching for a building for a hospital, a typhoid epidemic broke out amongst Belgian refugees in Calais. She, along with another doctor and ten nurses, treated the patients. She was noted for having the lowest rate of deaths of typhoid in her hospital.[6][7][8]
The first Scottish Women's Hospital was, in November 1914, staffed, equipped and established at Calais to support the Belgian Army. Vicomtess de la Panouse, wife of the French military attaché to the French embassy in London helped the group identify another location at the ancient Royaumont Abbey.[2] The abbey was the property of Édouard Goüin[fr], a rich industrialist and philanthropist whose poor health rendered him unable to fight. By December a second hospital was based there. It remained operational throughout the war and treated wounded from the French Army under the direction of the French Red Cross. A further hospital was opened at Troyes (Château de Chanteloup, Sainte-Savine) and Villers-Cotterets along with the popular and supportive canteens at Creil, Soissons and Crepy-en-Valois.
Serbia
Newspaper cutting from The Scotsman (1916) describing the work of Dr Elsie Inglis in Serbia
Also in December, a hospital led by Dr Eleanor Soltau was dispatched to Serbia. Other units quickly followed and Serbia soon had four primary hospitals working night and day. The conditions in Serbia were dire. The Serbian army had a mere 300 doctors to serve more than half a million men, and as well as battle casualties the hospital had to deal with a typhus epidemic which ravaged the military and civilian populations. Serbia had fought a surprisingly successful military campaign against the invading Austrians 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]
SWH resting during the Serbian retreat, November 1915
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 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
Women of the Sixth (American) Unit of the Scottish Women's Hospital at Ostrovo
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 Salonika in Greece when their French division was transferred there as part of a belated move by the Allies to provide practical help to the beleaguered Serbs. The hospital (known as the Girton & Newnham Unit after the Cambridge University women's colleges which funded it) was set up in a disused silkworm factory in the border town of Gevgelia, though it soon had to be relocated to the city of Salonika when the rapid Bulgarian advance threatened. Much of the work at Salonika was spent fighting malaria, 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 Evelina Haverfield, joined her. A hospital and attendant transport column of ambulances and support vehicles was sent to Russia. It served in southern Russia (Bessarabia and Moldova) and in Romania, providing medical care chiefly to the Serbian Division of the Russian army. This division was primarily made up of volunteers from the Serbian diaspora along with ethnic Serbian and south Slavic prisoners of war from the Austro-Hungarian army, who after their capture by Russia sought the opportunity to fight for their people. The Serb division had no medical facilities so these were provided by SWH to some 11,000 men with only seven doctors. Led by Elsie Inglis[14] who had a strong affinity to the Serbian army and people and was recognised in their highest award (The Serbian Order of the White Eagle) for her service,[15] the SWH staff once again endured the hardship of the war when they had to take part in a chaotic and painful retreat after the Romanian army was routed in 1917. Russia was then plunged into revolution and, when it became clear that the Russian army was unlikely to resume operations, the hospital was withdrawn. A division of Serb soldiers and officers, along with Inglis, sailed from Archangel through submarine infested waters to the UK. Tragically, the day after they arrived back in Britain, Elsie Inglis, who had been very sick with bowel cancer 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.
The Daily Graphic – press cutting 1916 praising the work of the SWH in Romania and Russia
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.
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 The Women's Library at the Library of the London School of Economics, ref 2SWH The Women's Library also holds a Scrapbook on Scottish Women's Hospital from the time, ref 10/22. Papers of individuals who were part of SWH now held at The Women's Library include the Papers of Elsie Bowerman ref 7ELB the Papers of Vera "Jack" Holme 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 National Library of Scotland, papers of Lilas Grant and Ethel Moir are in the Central Library, Edinburgh; the Lothian Health Archives hold the letters of Yvonne Fitzroy and more than sixty other documents relating to the hospital; a Photograph album relating to the Scottish Women's Hospital in Salonika, 1907–1918 (ref RCPSG 74) is held at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, whilst the Schlesinger Library, Harvard University holds the papers of Ruth Holden. The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland also holds papers of the Scottish Women's Hospitals in Serbia papers ref D1982. The National Library of Scotland holds film footage of a Scottish Women's Hospitals unit in action[17][18] and Scottish Screen has a documentary silent film, 'one of the earliest documentaries' of the front line medical and nursing activities, taken at the SWH units in Villers-Cotterês and in Salonika.[19]
Related Research Articles
Eliza Maud "Elsie" Inglis was a Scottish medical doctor, surgeon, teacher, suffragist, and founder of the Scottish Women's Hospitals. She was the first woman to hold the Serbian Order of the White Eagle.
Flora Murray was a Scottish medical pioneer, and a member of the Women's Social and Political Union suffragettes. From 1914 to the end of her life, she lived with her partner and fellow doctor Louisa Garrett Anderson.
Evelina Haverfield was a British suffragette and aid worker.
The role of Australian women in World War I was focused mainly upon their involvement in the provision of nursing services. Australian women also played a significant role on the Homefront, where they filled jobs made vacant by men joining the armed forces. Women also undertook fundraising and recruiting activities as well as organising comfort packages for soldiers serving overseas. Around the issue of conscription, women were involved in campaigning on both sides of the debate, while they were also equally involved in the New South Wales strike in 1917. Nevertheless, despite this involvement, women have never occupied a central position in the Australian version of the Anzac legend, although since the 1970s their role has been examined in more detail as a result of the emergence of feminist historiography, and specialist histories such as the history of nursing.
The Ostrovo Unit was a Field hospital unit with Transport Coloumn of the Scottish Women's Hospitals. It comprised approximately 200 tents and was situated near Lake Ostrovo, Macedonia during the First World War under the command of the Serbian Army. It was often called The America Unit as the money to fund it came from America and except for a few dressing stations, it was the Allied hospital nearest the front.
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The Scottish Women's Hospital at Royaumont was a medical hospital during World War I active from January 1915 to March 1919 operated by Scottish Women's Hospitals (SWH), under the direction of the French Red Cross and located at Royaumont Abbey. The Abbey is a former Cistercian abbey, located near Asnières-sur-Oise in Val-d'Oise, approximately 30 km north of Paris, France. The hospital was started by Dr Frances Ivens and founder of SWH, Dr Elsie Maud Inglis. It was especially noted for its performance treating soldiers involved in the Battle of the Somme.
Vera Louise Holme, also known as Jack Holme, was a British actress and a suffragette. Born in Lancashire, she began working as a touring male impersonator when her parents could no longer support her. A talented violinist and singer, she also was a member of the chorus of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and later became a member of the Pioneer Players. After joining the Actresses' Franchise League, she became involved in the women's suffrage movement. She became the Pankhursts' chauffeur and the first professional woman driver in London.
Mary Hannah Frances Ivens CBE FRCOG was an obstetrician and gynaecologist who was the first woman appointed to a hospital consultant post in Liverpool. During the First World War she was chief medical officer at the Scottish Women's Hospital at Royaumont, northeast of Paris. For her services to the French forces she was awarded a knighthood in France's Legion of Honour and the Croix de Guerre.
Katherine Mary Harley was a suffragist. In 1913 she proposed and organised the Great Pilgrimage on behalf of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. During the First World War she helped to found and organise the Women's Emergency Corps.
Katherine Stewart MacPhail OBE was a Scottish surgeon. During World War I, she served as Chief Medical Officer of two units of the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service. She cared for the wounded in Serbia, France, and the Thessaloniki Front. In 1921, during her stay in Serbia, she founded the country's first children's hospital. While she is remembered as a national hero in Serbia, she was criticised by some for providing her expertise in Serbia rather than in her own country. Her honours include several medals, plaques, and a postage stamp.
Ruth Nicholson FRCOG was an English obstetrician and gynaecologist who served as a surgeon in the Scottish Women's Hospital at Royaumont, France during the First World War. For this work she was awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille d’Honneur des Épidémies by the French government. After the war she specialised in obstetrics and gynaecology as Clinical Lecturer and Gynaecological Surgeon at the University of Liverpool with consultant appointments at Liverpool hospitals. She was a founder member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1929, being elevated to fellow of the college in 1931.
Margaret Charlotte Davidson (1879–1978) was a modern languages teacher in Dornoch, Sutherland in the Scottish Highlands.
Mary H J Henderson was an administrator with Elsie Inglis's Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service in the Balkans in World War I, earning five medals. She founded social work and civic groups led by women, in Dundee, Aberdeen and London and served on charitable bodies including Dundee War Relief Fund, and worked for women's suffrage. She was also a war poet.
Elsie Cameron Corbett JP was a volunteer ambulance driver and major donor to the World War One Scottish Women's Hospital for Foreign Service in Serbia. She was a prisoner of war in 1916 and won medals from the Serbian and British governments. She was also a justice of the peace, a leading suffragist, temperance supporter, folklorist and diarist.
Olive Smith was a masseuse, physical training instructor in the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service (SWH) in Serbia in World War I. She died of malaria, within two months of volunteering with Dr Agnes Bennett's SWH unit at Ostrovo, and is buried at the Allies cemetery in Thessaloniki. She is memorialised in her home town Haltwhistle and at the teacher training college she worked at, in Glasgow.
Georgina Davidson MBChB was a Scottish medical doctor who served with the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service in Serbia in World War I, and worked along with the Royal Army Medical Corps in war zone hospital services in Malta, Salonika and Constantinople. She was awarded the French Red Cross medal and the British War and Victory medals, and was mentioned in dispatches.
References
Citations
1 2 "SWH Scottish Women's Hospital"(PDF). Library at The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. 17 February 2016. Archived from the original(PDF) on 7 March 2016. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
1 2 3 Weiner, M-F. "The Scottish Women's Hospital at Royaumont", J R Coll Physicians Edinb 2014; 44: 328–36
1 2 3 Archives, The National. "The Discovery Service". Government of the United Kingdom. Archived from the original on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
↑ Shrady, George Frederick; Stedman, Thomas Lathrop (1918). "Medical Record". W. Wood. Archived from the original on 16 May 2018.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
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)
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