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

Debate between Ian Murray and Andrew Murrison

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Ian Murray]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. Commemorating the centenary is easy, but we need to ensure not only that the education and commemorations run right through society, in schools and workplaces, but that all four corners of the United Kingdom commemorate the contribution of women—and indeed, of everyone, including those who made the ultimate sacrifice in giving their lives.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. Does he agree that we need to learn lessons not necessarily only from the extraordinary contribution that women made during the great war and the social strides that they made in that time, but from what happened during the peace? It is certainly the case that many of the advances retreated in the immediate post-war era and into the 1920s, and in many ways women were set back to where they were in 1914. As we approach the centenary of the end of the great war, perhaps we need to give thought to what happened shortly thereafter.

[Ian Murray]

Absolutely. As the hon. Gentleman said, we should commemorate not just the contribution that women made during the wars, but the contribution that they made subsequently. Indeed, in this very building, Emily Davison is commemorated downstairs for her contribution to the suffragette movement. I am very much of the view that if more women had been running the world, perhaps the great wars would never have happened.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Murrison]

I think the hon. Gentleman might have misunderstood my point. In the years following the great war, many advances that women had made and the position that they had established for themselves in society sadly took a step back. People such as Dr Inglis, who had become very prominent, were in fact told to take a back seat, particularly when the men came back from the war.

[Ian Murray]

Absolutely. Women are still fighting the same battles today. The advancement that they made during the great war was almost forgotten, until the second world war, of course, when women again played a significant role. We need to remember their contribution not just during the war efforts, but in between. That is part of the story of the commemorations and the story we should tell of our recent history.

The women’s dedication to help thousands of badly injured men in dire conditions is commendable. In Serbia in particular, the typhus epidemic had gripped the country, and without those women many tens of thousands—if not hundreds of thousands—of lives would not have been saved. Serbia was home to the first Scottish women’s hospitals field unit in 1914. Despite the life-threatening conditions of the typhus epidemic, to which four staff from the Scottish women’s hospitals had lost their lives, Elsie went to serve in the hospital on the frontline. Sent out to look after 300 beds, Elsie and her team were in fact faced with 550 beds filled with injured and ill soldiers. With a dreadful lack of sanitation in the overcrowded hospitals, Elsie faced the Serbian officials and firmly refused to let the overcrowding endanger the lives of patients and nurses. A true heroine, she went from negotiating with Serbian officials to finding innovative ways to deal with the overflow patients at the hospital, without a second thought for her own safety. Her colleagues took the same approach.

Even after the beginning of the great retreat, in which Serbia was invaded by the Austrian army, Elsie and many of her volunteers refused to give up. Again, she defied demands from the British Government to return home. Despite finding out that she had cancer—I stress that she had cancer as well—she set up two more field hospitals. In 1915, she was captured and repatriated, but still did not rest until Serbian soldiers were guaranteed safe passage out of Serbia. Once this safe passage had been granted and the soldiers arrived in Newcastle, Elsie battled through the pain of her own illness to greet them. Sadly, she passed away on 26 November 1917.

It has been said that Dr Elsie Inglis

“made Florence Nightingale look like a part-time care assistant”.

Her fierce dedication to helping others leading up to the great war shows that Elsie really was a role model in her own right. I am pleased that my constituents in Edinburgh and people in the rest of Scotland have such an outstanding figure to look up to and aspire to. Elsie broke down barriers and proved time and again that women will always be an integral part of society. She continually praised the work carried out by her many volunteers, refusing to think of her effort as any greater than theirs. Elsie never asked them to do something that she would not be willing to do herself. She took part in the most menial tasks and always worked as part of the unit.

Elsie’s humbleness about the great things that she achieved is why I feel so strongly about remembering her legacy and giving her and other women who contributed to world war one the recognition and commendation they deserve. We should commemorate and celebrate her life and work.

On 29 November, 1917, Elsie Inglis was buried in Edinburgh following a state funeral at St Giles’ Cathedral, with the flags of Great Britain and Serbia placed on her coffin, the lilies of France around her, and the torn banners of Scotland’s history hanging over her head. She was later awarded high honours by France, Russia and Serbia. Indeed, in Serbia, Dr Inglis and her colleagues are regarded as heroes and saints, with 17 statues to her in Serbia alone.

The UK should properly recognise Dr Inglis and the other unacknowledged British heroines who set up the Scottish women’s hospitals during the first world war. To mark the centenary of her death, I am pleased that this year the City of Edinburgh Council has decided to name a street after her and that the Edinburgh Evening News is running a fundraising campaign to have a statue of Elsie erected in her beloved Edinburgh.

The Scottish Women’s Hospitals Trust, led by my constituent Ian McFarlane and his trustees, aims to work with the Serbian Government and the Edinburgh Evening News to get the funds to build this well-deserved and much-overdue monument. A private ceremony was held at her grave on Sunday to mark the centenary of her death. As a mark of her growing reputation, a commemoration will also take place at St Giles’ cathedral tomorrow, on the same day as her state funeral 100 years ago.

But what about the countless other women who poured compassion and dedication into saving lives during the great war? November 2017 also marks the centenary of the foundation of the Women’s Royal Naval Service. The Royal Navy became the first of the three services officially to recruit women. Expansion of the wartime Navy led the Wrens to take on tasks that the Royal Navy had previously considered beyond women’s capabilities. Women’s contributions to the war effort went from strength to strength, and many Wrens were involved in planning naval operations, including the D-day landings in June 1944.

In December 1941, the Government passed the National Service Act 1941, which allowed the conscription of women into war work or the armed forces. In 1944, some 74,000 women were doing more than 200 different jobs. Of the courageous Wrens, 303 were killed on wartime service; we should pay tribute to them and all their efforts. On 7 July 1917, the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps became the British Army’s first all-female unit. More than 57,000 women served from July 1917 to 1921, including 10,000 in France.

I would like to recognise in particular the contribution of two great Scottish women to the WAAC: Alexandra “Mona” Chalmers Watson and Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan. Mona was from a high-achieving Edinburgh family and was the first woman to graduate from Edinburgh University as a doctor. Helen, who studied botany at King’s College London, had deep family roots in Ayrshire and Aberdeen. As well as playing leading roles in the WAAC, they fought hard against the patriarchy to show that women must have a more equal place in society and in the world.

It is also 100 years since Passchendaele, one of the most notorious battles of the first world war, which the House commemorated last month. In just three and a half months of fighting, an estimated 550,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded or lost. Around 90,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers went missing: 50,000 were buried without being identified, and 42,000 were never recovered from the fields of Flanders, which turned into an ocean of mud.

As well as paying tribute to those who lost their lives, I would like to recognise the contribution of Sister Kate Luard, who served as a nurse in the second Boer war as well as being head nurse at a casualty station on the western front. Sister Luard often described her work in letters from Passchendaele as “UBC”—“utter bloody chaos”. Despite the chaos, she persisted, saving countless lives. I am glad that her efforts were recognised; she was awarded the Royal Red Cross and bar. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to serve so close to the frontline under such enormous pressures, but her letters are a small insight into the passion and dedication that it must have taken to do so:

“The uproar is almost stupefying. They burst on two sides—streams of shrapnel which were quite hot when you picked them up. They came everywhere, through our canvas huts. Bursting shells are an ugly sight—black or yellow smoke and streams of jagged shells flying violently in all directions. It doesn’t look as if we should ever sleep again.”

More than 100,000 women joined Britain’s armed forces during the war. From ambulance driving to translating, women served Britain in a variety of ways; I will highlight a few more. Elizabeth Knocker and Mairi Chisholm set up their own first aid post close to the Belgian frontline at Pervyse in November 1914. Mary O’Connell Bianconi went to France in August 1917 as a member of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, where she worked as a driver in the St Omer ambulance convoy. After an air raid in July 1918, Molly and six of her driver colleagues drove their ambulances to pick up the wounded. Dame Katharine Furse joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment in 1909. On the outbreak of the first world war, she was chosen to be head of the first VAD unit to be sent to France. In 1917 she became the director of the newly formed Women’s Royal Naval Service.

We all know the immeasurable contribution women made back home—everything from working in munitions factories to building guns. I wish that I could identify by name each and every woman who made an enormous contribution to the great war. Unfortunately, time does not allow, but those unmentioned are by no means unnoticed. It is hard to imagine that women with such passion and hunger to help, and who spoke up when they were told to be quiet, could ever be forgotten. They most definitely helped to pave the way for future women to crack the glass ceiling.

Some important centenaries approach next year. To name a few, April 2018 will mark the formation of the Women’s Royal Air Force, an invaluable asset to the RAF in which around 32,000 women enrolled in its first two years. May 2018 marks the day that nine members of the Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps became the first British women to die on active military service when their trench was hit by a German bomb in Abbeville, France.

Many of the women whom I have mentioned saved lives through innovative thinking, putting the wellbeing of others above their own safety. They often worked under fire, in unthinkable conditions with little sleep and few resources. They offered a helping hand not because they wanted praise, but because they had valuable experience and skills to offer to those who were also putting their lives on the line for their country. I am extremely pleased to have had this opportunity to ensure that we continue to give them the recognition that they deserve, and I hope that their legacy will live on.

I will finish where I started by reading out what is on the gravestone of Dr Elsie Inglis, who is buried in Dean cemetery in Edinburgh:

“To the beloved and honoured memory of Elsie Maud Inglis. Born 1864, died on active service 1917. Surgeon, philanthropist, patriot, a leader of the movement for the political emancipation of women and founder of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals for foreign service. Mors janua vitae”—

meaning “Death is the gateway to life”.