Dr Elsie Inglis and Women’s Contribution to World War One

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) for securing what, for me, is a crucial debate.

I admit that before I heard about the campaign for the Elsie Inglis memorial in Edinburgh I knew little about her. As I heard more and was drawn in, I was astonished at the contribution she had made and moved by what she had done, not just for the many soldiers she saved or eased through the horrific suffering and death of the first world war, but for me and my generation. As has been mentioned, the centenary of that great war is coming up next year, but there is another centenary, that of the Representation of the People Act 1918, and Elsie Inglis was at the forefront of campaigning on both.

In Edinburgh, Elsie Inglis was one of eight women—the others being Sophia Jex-Blake, Isabel Thorne, Edith Pechey, Matilda Chaplin, Helen Evans, Mary Anderson and Emily Bovell—who campaigned for the right of women to practise medicine in the city. I wonder where we would be today without them. They led the way, and so many women have been able to follow and do so much. Elsie Inglis was a role model for the women of her time, but she is also a role model for us all today. Before the war, she had qualified as a physician and, appalled at the standard of care for other women, she was prompted to become a suffragist and to set up a maternity hospital in Edinburgh for poor women. The hospital, originally called The Hospice, became the Elsie Inglis Memorial Hospital. As the hon. Member for Edinburgh South and many others have detailed, Elsie Inglis’ achievements were huge, as were those of many other women in the great war, in world war two and in every conflict since. The contributions, suffering and achievements of those women have been vital to not just our modern wellbeing but our very survival as we are today.

The fact that these women have often been overlooked is at times the result of the women’s own modesty. Recently, at the funeral of a friend’s grandmother, I heard her story for the first time. She was to many people an ordinary, loving grandmother and mother, who had led a pretty standard Scottish life, but at the funeral I heard the remarkable moving story of a then young woman, who like many others had put her life on hold to join up and serve in the armed forces. She was a spotter for the RAF. That is an example of the contributions that so often have been overlooked. It is my generation who have benefited from many such achievements, who are able to stand here today and contribute to the wellbeing of our country. No opportunity to recognise those contributions should go unmarked.

Elsie Inglis is not just an example of the women who made a contribution to the great war; she is part of a glorious thread woven through British history of the contributions that women have made at home during war and at the front itself, and after war too. My mother, Nessie Jardine, appears on a monument in my home town to those who have died from asbestos-related conditions as a result of working in the shipyards on the Clyde and elsewhere in Scotland, which have played such a vital role in this country’s wellbeing. By honouring Elsie Inglis, we honour all such people, and this is an opportunity for which we should be grateful.