in
Edinburgh 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). 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. In 2025 the erection of a
statue to Elsie Inglis was approved by members of the City of Edinburgh Council's development management sub committee. Some of Inglis's last words included "not me, my unit" in answer to praise of her work. The statue will honour the 1,500 women volunteers who served with the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service from Scotland, New Zealand, Australia and Canada. == Notable women volunteers == •
Wilhelmina Hay Abbott, fundraiser for the Scottish Women's Hospitals •
Louisa Aldrich-Blake, British surgeon (later worked in obstetrics and gynaecology), •
Millicent Sylvia Armstrong, Australian orderly •
Mary Josephine Bedford, Australian ambulance driver •
Jean Aitken Bell, Scottish nurse •
Elizabeth Bertram, Scottish nurse •
Agnes Bennett, Australian doctor •
Mary Alice Blair, New Zealand doctor and Head of Unit •
Elsie Bowerman, British ambulance driver •
Mary Annie de Burgh Burt, British nurse sister •
Vera Christina Chute Collum, British X-ray assistant •
Elsie Cameron Corbett, British ambulance driver •
Lilian Violet Cooper, Australian doctor •
Elizabeth Courtauld, British doctor •
C Muriel Craigie, British headquarters administrator •
Elsie Jean Dalyell, Australian doctor •
Georgina Davidson, Scottish doctor •
Margaret Charlotte Davidson, Scottish orderly then nurse •
Mabel Dearmer, British orderly •
Mary De Garis, Australian doctor •
Violet Douglas-Pennant, British philanthropist •
Miles Franklin, Australian cook •
Margaret Neill Fraser, Scottish nurse •
Norah Neilson Gray, British nurse •
Edith Hacon, Scottish housekeeper •
Kathleen Burke Hale, British fundraiser decorated by 7 countries •
Helen Hanson, British physician, missionary, suffragist •
Mabel Hardie, British surgeon •
Katherine Harley, British nurse •
Evelina Haverfield, British nurse •
Maud Doria Haviland, British chauffeur, ornithologist and anthropologist •
Mary H. J. Henderson, Scottish unit administrator and war poet •
Lydia Manley Henry, Scottish surgeon •
Ruth Holden, American paleobotanist, nurse •
Vera "Jack" Holme, British ambulance driver •
Laura Margaret Hope, Australian doctor •
Alice Hutchison, British doctor •
Isabel Emslie Hutton, British doctor •
Elsie Inglis, British doctor and founder of the Scottish Women's Hospitals •
Kathleen Innes, British Quaker, educator, writer, pacifist - orderly and administrator •
Frances Ivens, British chief medical officer •
Louisa Jordan, Scottish nurse •
Honoria Somerville Keer, British surgeon •
Olive Kelso King, Australian ambulance driver •
Sybil Lewis, British doctor, from
Hull but trained in
Edinburgh •
Rotha Lintorn-Orman, British ambulance driver •
Henrietta Lister, British racecar driver and artist •
Hilda Lorimer, British classical scholar - orderly •
Edith McKay, Australian nurse •
Mary Lauchline McNeill, Scottish doctor and suffragist •
Alexandrina Matilda MacPhail, Scottish doctor •
Katherine Stewart MacPhail, Scottish doctor •
Louise McIlroy, Irish-born British physician •
Louisa Martindale, British physician and surgeon •
Caroline Matthews, British doctor •
Ethel Moir, Scottish nursing orderly •
Harriet Christina Newcomb, British-Australian committee member •
Ruth Nicholson, British Assistant surgeon •
Grace Pailthorpe, British surrealist painter, surgeon, psychology researcher •
Hilda Petrie, British archaeologist, honorary secretary for the Scottish Women's Hospitals •
Mary Elizabeth Phillips, Welsh doctor •
Alma Rattenbury, British orderly and murder accused •
Elizabeth Ness MacBean Ross, British doctor •
Laura Sandeman, Scottish doctor •
Jessie Ann Scott, New Zealand doctor •
Olive Smith, British masseuse •
Eleanor Soltau, Unit leader to Serbia and British doctor •
Mabel St Clair Stobart, British Unit Head and Major •
Edith Stoney, Irish radiographer •
Leslie Joy Whitehead, Canadian soldier ==Archives==