Margaret Neill Fraser was born on 4 June 1880 the daughter of Margaret (d.1927) and
Patrick Neill Fraser FRSE (d.1905), a
botanist. She had an elder sister Rachael A. Neill Fraser (b. 1871) and three brothers: James Watson Neill Fraser (b. 1873), William Neill Fraser (b. 1876) The company had been established by her father's great uncle,
Patrick Neill. Fraser's home golf club was
Murrayfield Golf Club. She was runner-up in the 1912 Scottish Ladies Golf Championship, beaten by Dorothea Jenkins and semi-finalist in the 1910
British Championship. She played often at internationals in
Ranelagh and
Barnehurst. Fraser was a member of the Golfing Gentlewomen and the
Ladies' Golf Union. Fraser was a member of the
St Andrews Ambulance Association and a trained nurse. At the outbreak of the
First World War she volunteered alongside others such as suffragette doctor
Elsie Inglis, with Grace Symonds and Dr Elizabeth Ross (1877–1915) to create the
Scottish Women's Hospitals in
Serbia under the overall umbrella of the
French Red Cross. It was locally run by
Lady Leila Paget who was married to the ambassador. The majority of the group of women were also
suffragettes, for example women doctors surveyed in 1908 had been 538 for the vote and only 15 against. At the time high-profile women golfers, like Fraser were a rarity even being allowed to play on men's courses and wanted to demonstrate responsibility and fair play, thus 'most good women golfers of that time tolerated the Suffragists and abhorred the Suffragettes' Fraser arrived at the hospital in
Kragujevac in Serbia in December 1914 Fraser contracted
typhus Following Fraser's death, she was described as 'perhaps the most popular woman's golfer in Great Britain' the Ladies Golf Union collected funds from international donors sufficient to provide 200 additional beds in Serbian hospitals in her memory. Fraser's funeral was described as a 'terribly sad affair with the funeral party having to struggle through thick snow and mud.'Madge Neill Fraser is the only woman listed on Murrayfield Golf Club's Roll of Honour.
The British Journal of Nursing expressed regret at her death, and noted she was a nurse and a chauffeur. Her name is listed on the globe-shaped memorial to
VAD and nurses who died in two world wars, in the
National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas, Staffordshire dedicated by HRH Countess of Wessex, GCVO on 14 June 2018 '
As the stars in a dark sky they lit up our world.' Fraser's name is also on the Women's Roll of Honour as part of the
Five Sisters window in
York Minster. ==References==