Educated
privately, two years after the death of her Mother (1885), Elsie enrolled to
study medicine at the newly opened Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women. After she qualified, Elsie worked at the
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson New Hospital for Women in London and then at a
Maternity Hospital in Ireland, before setting up her own medical practice in
Edinburgh.
Elsie worked
closely with the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies and in 1914 she
set up the Scottish Women’s Hospitals.
The SWH supplied units consisting of women doctors, nurses, ambulance
drivers, orderlies and cooks for foreign assignments. After being turned down by the British War
Office, Elsie offered her units to France and was accepted. SWH units served during WW1 in France, Malta,
Romania, Russia, Salonika and Serbia.
Elsie travelled
with the unit which went to Serbia in 1915 and was captured by the Austrians
and repatriated to Britain where she began to collect funds to equip a unit to
be sent to Russia. In April 1916 she
was awarded the Order of the White Eagle by Crown Prince Alexander of
Serbia.
In 1916
Elsie went with a SWH unit to Odessa in Russia but was forced to return home in
1917 as she had developed cancer. Elsie
died in Newcastle-upon-Tyne immediately following her return to Britain, on 26th
November 1917. She was buried in Dean
Cemetery, Dean, west of Edinburgh.
Commemorative
events arranged to mark the Centenary of the death of Dr. Inglis are being
organised in Scotland. To find out more,
follow this link:
