Waterston was born in
Inverness in 1843. Her father ran the
Caledonian Bank in Inverness. She was a Scottish teacher who was given the job of the first Superintendent of a new girl's section at the
Lovedale Missionary Institute in
South Africa. She arrived in South Africa in January 1867 to work for
Dr James Stewart who led the mission. The Lovedale Girls' Institution opened on 23 August 1868. Waterston was the first woman physician in southern Africa. She worked there until 1873 when she returned to undertake the difficult task of obtaining medical training in England. Waterston was inspired by David Livingstone's death and the news that women were being allowed to become physicians. She was fortunate to be one of the first women to be trained at the
London School of Medicine for Women where she took her medical degree in 1880. She received a medical license from the Irish King and Queen's College of Physicians. After training she went to the
Livingstonia Free Church mission which at the time was at
Cape Maclear on the shores of
Lake Malawi. Lovedale was disillusioned when she saw the poor regard that the missionaries there had for the Africans and for her—the male missionaries accused of her coming to the mission to find a husband. Realising that she was not achieving her potential she left. In 1880 she was back to the Lovedale mission for three years before she became a physician in
Cape Town. She went into private practice, lived in part as a socialite, and was able to send money back to Scotland where her own family were unemployed, following the failure of the Caledonian bank in 1878. Waterston worked with the poor and established a "Ladies Branch of the Free Dispensary". It was known as "free expenses", but a small charge was always made to ensure the recipients' dignity. Waterston also insisted that the mothers who benefited should be married even though the child might have been born before the marriage. The organisation looked after mothers and also trained midwives to continue the work. In Bloemfontein she was part of a six-member committee appointed by the British Minister of War to investigate conditions in the concentration camps (other members of the committee included the suffragist
Millicent Fawcett and physician
Ella Campbell Scarlett). For her tireless work, Waterston was given the South African name of
Noqataka, "the mother of activity". In 1925 she became the second woman to be made a fellow of the
Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. In 1929 Waterston was made a Doctor of Laws by the
University of Cape Town. Waterston died in
Cape Town in 1932. ==Legacy==