Records of the Scottish Women's Hospitals

Reference and contact details: GB 0106 2/SWH
Title: Records of the Scottish Women's Hospitals
Dates of creation: 1914-1919
Held at: Women's Library
Extent: 7 boxes
Name of Creator: Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service
Level of Description: fonds
Language of Material: eng

Administrative/Biographical History

At the outbreak of the First World War, a large number of the existing suffrage societies put their administrative skills at the disposal of the war effort. The Scottish Federation of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, at the suggestion of Dr Elsie Inglis, put forward the idea of female medical units to serve on the front line. The War Office rejected the idea, but nonetheless private donations, the fundraising of local societies and the support of the National Union of Women's' Suffrage Societies financed a number of units staffed entirely by women.

The organisation's headquarters were in Edinburgh throughout the war, with committees also in Glasgow and London. The first unit mobilised established a 200 bed Auxiliary Hospital at Royaumont Abbey in December 1914. In April 1915, Dr Inglis herself was at the head of a unit based in Serbia. The Austrian offensive of that summer led to their camps being overrun and a number of the staff including Inglis herself being taken prisoner, only to be released after negotiations. By the end of the war there were fourteen Scottish Women's Hospitals in France, Serbia, Russia, Salonica and Macedonia. Inglis herself was ill with cancer by 1917 while working in Russia. She and her unit were part of the retreat of forces to Archangel and she was evacuated to Newcastle on the 25th November of that year, only to die the following day. The Scottish Women's Hospitals' work continued until the end of the war.

Scope and Content

Papers of the London Committee of the Scottish Women's Hospitals: authorisations, correspondence, files, circular letters, telegrams, postcards, photographs, statements of accounts, balance sheets, cheques and counterfoils, reports, lecture notes, lists of donors.

Administrative Information

Access Conditions

This collection is open for consultation. Intending readers are advised to contact The Women's Library in advance of their first visit

Further Information

Finding Aids

Handlist

Related Units of Description

Letters and reports of Elsie Inglis as well as correspondence, financial records, subscriptions, personnel files and various committee minutes created by the Scottish Headquarters, as well as reports from overseas units are held in the Mitchell Library, Glasgow. Papers related to the Scottish Women's Hospitals also exist in the Elsie Bowerman collection at the Women's Library (GB 0106 7/ELB). Additional Materials of members of the units are held in various archives: memoires of Katherine North nee 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 Edinburgh Central Library; the Lothian Health archives hold the letters of Yvonne Fitzroy.