Dr. Elsie Inglis

‘Glasgow, May 1892.

‘What do you think of Lord Salisbury’s speech, inciting to rebellion and civil war? Now, don’t think of it as Lord Salisbury and Ulster, but think of it as advice given by Mr. Gladstone to the rest of Ireland. If you like to take the lead into your own hands and march on Dublin; I don’t know that any Government would care to use the forces of the Crown against you. You will be quite justified because the Government of your country is in the hands of your hereditary foes. There is only one good point in Lord Salisbury’s speech, and that is that he does not sham that the Ulster men are Irishmen. He calls them a colony from this country. Lord S. must have been feeling desperate before he made that speech.’

‘1894.

‘I think Mr. Chamberlain’s speech was very clever. It was this special Home Rule Bill he pulled to pieces, and one could not help feeling that that would have been the result whatever the Bill had been, if it had been introduced by anybody but Mr. C. His argument seemed to be in favour of Imperial Federation, as far as I could make out. I have no doubt the Bill can be very much improved in committee, but the groundwork of it is all right. The two Houses and the gradual giving over of the police and land, when they have had time to find their feet. As to the retaining the Irish members in Parliament being totally illogical, there is nothing in that; we always make illogical things work. And the Irish members must stay.

‘I do like Mr. Balfour. He is so honest. I expect he hates the Irish Party as much as any man, but he spoke up for them all the same. If he had not, I don’t believe Mr. Chamberlain and some of the others would have spoken as they did. The Conservative Party was quite inclined to laugh at the paid stipendiaries until Mr. Balfour spoke.

‘I have been reading up the Bishop of Chester’s scheme and the Direct Veto Bill. I don’t like his scheme. It would be very nice to turn all the pubs into coffee-houses, but a big company over whom the ratepayers have no control would be just as likely to do what would pay best, as the tramway companies now, who work their men seventeen hours and their horses three, at a stretch. It would be quite a different thing to put the pubs under the Town and County Councils. As to this Bill it is not to stop people drinking, but simply to shut up pubs. A man can still buy his whisky and get drunk in his own house, but a community says, “We won’t have the nuisance of a pub at every corner,” and I am not sure that they have not that right, just as much as the private individual has to get drunk if he chooses. A great many men would keep straight if the temptation were not thrown in their faces. The system of licences was instituted for the good of the public, not the good of the publican.

‘The Elections will be three weeks after my exam. Dearest Papa! – There is as much chance of Mr. Gladstone being beaten in Midlothian as there is of a Conservative majority.’

Another friend writes: —

‘I should like to send you a recollection of her in the early Nineties. My friend, Dr. Jessie MacGregor, wrote to my home in Rothesay, asking us to put up Dr. Inglis, who was to give an address at a Sanitary Congress to be held there. It was, I believe, her first public appearance, and she did do well. One woman alone on a platform filled with well-known doctors from all parts! Her subject was advocating women as sanitary inspectors. She was one of the pioneers in that movement also. I can well remember her, a slim little girl in black, fearless as ever, doing her part. After she had finished, there was a running criticism of her subject. Many against her view, few for the cause on which she was speaking. It was an unique experience. The discussion got quite hot. One well-known doctor asked us to picture his dear friend Elsie Inglis carrying out a six-foot smallpox patient.

‘I think she was the first lady medical to speak at a Congress. It was such a pleasure to entertain her, she was so quiet and unobtrusive, and yet so humorous. I never met her again, but I could never forget her, though we were just like ships that pass in the night.’

One of her Suffrage organisers, Miss Bury, gives a vivid picture of her work in the Suffrage cause: —

‘It was Dr. Elsie Inglis who brought me to Scotland, and sent me to organise Suffrage societies in the Highlands. I speak of her as I knew her, the best of chiefs, so kind and encouraging and appreciative of one’s efforts, even when they were not always crowned with success. I remember saying I was disappointed because the hall was only about three-quarters full, and her reply was, “My dear, I was not counting the people, I was thinking of the efforts which had brought those who were there.”

‘Her letters were an inspiration. She gave one the full responsibility of one’s position, and always expected the best. Resolutely direct, and straightforward in her dealings with me as a subordinate worker, she never failed to tell me of any word of appreciation that reached her, as she also told me candidly if she heard of any criticism. She had such a big, generous mind, even condescending to give an opportunity for argument when there was any difference of opinion, and absolutely tolerant and kind when one did not agree with her.

‘She was always considerate of one’s health, and insisted that the hours laid down for work were not to be exceeded, or, if this was unavoidable, that the time must be taken off as soon as possible afterwards. She only saw difficulties to conquer them, and I well remember in one of her letters from Lazaravatz, she wrote so characteristically – “the work is most interesting, bristling with difficulties.”

‘My happiest recollection is of a visit to the Highlands, to speak at some Suffrage meetings I had arranged for her. In the train she was always busy writing, in that beautiful clear characteristic hand, like herself, triumphing over the jolting of the Highland Railway, as she did later in Serbia. In the early morning she had to catch a train at Inverness, and we went by motor from Nairn. For once the writing was laid aside, and she gave herself up to the enjoyment of the sunrise, and the beautiful lights on the Ross-shire hills, as we travelled along the shores of the Moray Firth. When the car broke down, out came the despatch case again, while the chauffeur and I put on the Stepney. There was no complaining about the lost train, a wire was sent to the committee apologising for her absence, and then she immediately turned her attention to other business.’

One who first came under her influence as a patient, and became a warm friend, gives some reminiscences. Her greeting to the elect at the beginning of the year was, ‘A good new year, and the Vote this year.’

‘I remember once, as we descended the steps of St. Giles’ after attending a service at which the Edinburgh Town Council was present, she spoke joyfully of the time coming when we, the women of Edinburgh and of Scotland, would “help to build the New Jerusalem, with the weapon ready to our hand – the Vote.”’

The year 1906 brought the Liberals into political power, and with the great wave of democratic enthusiasm which gave the Government of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman an enormous majority there came other expressions of the people’s will.

The Franchise for women had hitherto been of academic interest in the community: a crank, many thought it, like total abstinence or Christian Science. The claims of women were frequently brought before Parliament by private members, and if the Bill was not ‘talked out,’ it was talked round, as one of the best jests of a Parliamentary holiday. The women who advocated it were treated with tolerance, their public advocacy was deemed a tour de force, and their portraits were always of the nature of caricatures, except those in Punch, where the opponent was caricatured, and the women immortalised.

The Liberal party found its right wing mainly composed of Labour, and Socialist members were returned to Parliament. From that section of thought sprang the militant movement, and the whole question of the enfranchisement of women took on a different aspect.

This chapter does not attempt to give a history of the ‘common cause,’ or the reasons for the rapid way it came to the front, and ranked with Ireland as among the questions which, left unsettled, became a thorn in the side of any Government that attempted to govern against, or leaving outside the expressed will of the people.

This is no place to examine the causes which, along with the militant movement, but always separated from them, poured such fresh life and vigour into the old constitutional and law-abiding effort to procure the free rights of citizenship for women.

The pace quickened to an extent which was bewildering. Where a dozen meetings a year had been the portion of many speakers, they were multiplied by the tens and scores. Organisations had to be expanded. A fighting fund collected, meetings arranged, debates were held all over the country and among all classes. A press, which had never written up the subject while its advocates were law-abiding, tumbled over each other to advertise every movement of all sections of suffragists. It must be admitted the militants gave them plenty of copy, and the constitutionalists had an uneasy sense that their stable companions would kick over the traces in some embarrassing and unexpected way on every new occasion. Still the tide flowed steadily for the principle, and those who had its guidance in Parliament and the country had to use all the strength of the movement in getting it well organised and carefully worked. Societies were federated, and the greatly growing numbers co-ordinated into a machine which could bring the best pressure to bear on Parliament. The well-planned Federation of Scottish Suffrage Societies owed much to Dr. Inglis’ gift of organisation and of taking opportunity by the hand. She was Honorary Secretary to the Scottish Federation, and in those fighting years between 1906 and 1914 she impressed herself much on its policy. In the early years of her professional life, she used gaily to forecast for herself a large and paying practice. Her patients never suffered, but she sacrificed her professional prospects in a large measure for her work for the Franchise. She gave her time freely, and she raised money at critical times by parting with what was of value and in her power to give. Perhaps, the writer may here again give her own reminiscences. Her fellowship with Dr. Inglis was all too rarely social; they met almost entirely in their suffrage work. To know Dr. Inglis at all was to know her well. The transparent sincerity and simplicity of her manner left nothing to be discovered. One felt instinctively she was a comrade one could ‘go tiger-hunting with,’ and to be in her company was to be sustained by a true helpmate. We were asked to speak together. Invited by the elect, and sometimes by the opponents to enjoy hospitality, Dr. Inglis was rarely able to come in time for the baked meats before we ascended the platform, and uttered our platitudes to rooms often empty woodyards, stuck about with a remnant of those who would be saved. She usually met us on the platform, having arrived by the last train, and obliged to leave by the first. But she never came stale or discouraged. There was always the smile at the last set-back, the ready joke at our opponents, the subtle sense that she was out to win, the compelling force of sustained effort that made at least one of her yoke-fellows ashamed of the faint heart that could never hope to win through. Sometimes we travelled back together; more often we would meet next day in St. Giles’ after the daily service, and our walk home was always a cheer. ‘Never mind’ the note to discouragement. ‘Remember this or that in our favour; our next move must be in this direction.’ And the thought was always there (if her unselfconsciousness prevented it being spoken – as one wishes to-day it had been) – ‘The meeting went, because you were there and set your whole soul on “willing” it through.’

She had no sympathy with militantism. There was no better fighter with legitimate weapons, but she saw how closely the claim to do wrong that good might come was related to anarchy, and her sense of true citizenship was outraged by law-breaking which, to her clear judgment, could only retard the ultimate triumph of a cause rooted in all that was just and righteous. She was not confused by any cross-currents of admiration for individual courage and self-sacrifice, and her one desire was to see that the Federation was ‘purged’ of all those who belonged to the forces of disintegration.

She had the fruit of her political sagacity, and her fearless pursuit after integrity in deed and in word. When the moment came when she was to go to the battle fronts of the world, a succourer of many, she went in the strength of the Suffrage women of Scotland. They were her shield and buckler, and their loyal support of her work and its ideals was her exceeding great reward. Without their organised strength she could never have called into existence those units and their equipment which have justly earned the praises of nations allied in arms.

With the rise of the militant movement, the whole Suffrage cause passed through a cloud of opprobrium and almost universal objurgation. Women were all tarred with the same stick, and fell under one condemnation. It is now of little moment to recall this, except in as much as it affected Elsie Inglis. The Scottish Suffrage societies, who gave their organisation and their workers to start the Scottish Women’s Hospitals, found that the community desired to forget the unpopular Suffrage, and to remember only the Scottish Hospitals. Speakers for the work that Dr. Inglis was doing were asked to avoid ‘the common cause.’ No one who knew her would consent to deny by implication one of the deepest mainsprings of her work. The Churches were equally timid in aught that gave comfort or consolation to those who were loyal to their Christian social ideal for women. No organised society owes more to the administrative work of women than does the Christian Church throughout the world. No body of administrators have been slower to perceive that women in responsible positions would be a strength to the Church than have been the clergy of the Church. The writer of Uncle Tom’s Cabin puts into the mouth of the clerical type of that day the argument that the Old Testament gave an historic basis for the enslavement of races, and St. Paul had sanctioned slavery in the New Testament. The spirit of Christianity has raised women from a ‘low estate,’ and women owe everything to the results of Christianity; but the ecclesiastical mind has never shaken off the belief that they are under a special curse from the days of Eden, and that St. Paul’s outlook on women in his day was the last revelation as to their future position in a jealously-guarded corporation. Which of us, acquainted with the Church history of our day, but remembers the General Assembly when the women missionaries were first invited to stand by their fellow-workers and be addressed by the Moderator on their labours and sufferings in a common cause? It was a great shock to the fathers and brethren that their sex should not disqualify them from standing in the Assembly, which would have more democratic weight in the visible Church on earth if some of its elected lay members were women serving in the courts of the Church. In this matter and in many others concerning women, the Church is not yet triumphant over its prejudices bedded in the geological structure of Genesis.

In all periods of the enfranchisement struggle there were individual clergy who aided women with their warm advocacy and the helpful direction of thought. Elsie Inglis was a leader of this movement in its connection with a high Christian ideal of the citizenship of women. To those who gathered in St. Margaret’s, the church of Parliament in history, to commemorate all her works begun and ended as a member of Christ’s Church here on earth, it was fitting that Bishop Gore, who had so consistently upheld the cause, should speak of her work as one who had helped to win the equality of women in a democratic, self-governing State.

This memoir would utterly fail to reproduce a picture of Dr. Inglis if it did not emphasise how her spirit was led and disciplined, tempered and steeled, through this long and fiery trial to the goal of a leading ideal. The contest trained her for her splendid achievements in overcoming all obstacles in ministering to the sufferings of nations, ‘rightly struggling to be free.’ Her friend, Miss Wright, says: —

‘We did not always agree. Many were the arguments we had with her, but she was always willing to understand another point of view and willing to allow for difference of opinion. She was very fair-minded and reasonable, and deplored the excesses of the militant suffragettes. She was in no sense a man-hater; to her the world was composed of men and women, and she thought it a mistake to exalt the one unduly over the other. She was never embittered by her struggle for the position of women. She loved the fight, and the endeavour, and to arrive at any point just meant a fresh setting forward to another further goal.

‘From her girlhood onward, her effort was to free and broaden life for other women, to make the world a better place to live in.

‘I had a letter this week from Annie Wilson, Elsie’s great friend. She says, “It seems to me Elsie’s whole life was full of championship of the weak, and she was so strong in maintaining what was right. I feel sure she has inspired many. I remember once saying in connection with some work I was going to begin, ‘I wonder if I shall be able,’ and Elsie saying in her bright way, ‘What man has done man can do.’ I am so glad that she had the opportunity of showing her great administrative capacity, and that her power is known and acknowledged. She is a great woman. I cannot tell you what it will be not to have her welcome to look forward to when I come home.”

‘Elsie had in many respects what is, perhaps wrongly, called a man’s mind. She was an Imperialist in the very best sense, and had high ideals for her country and people. She was a very womanly woman, never affecting mannish ways as a pose. If she seemed a strong-minded woman it was because she had strenuous work to do. She was never “a lone woman.” She was always one of a family, and in the heart of the family. Elsie always had the lovingest appreciation and backing from her nearest and dearest, and that a wide and varied circle. So, also, she did not need to fight for her position; it has been said of her, “Whenever she began to speak her pleasant well-bred accent and manner gained her a hearing.” She was ever a fighter, but it was because she wanted those out in the cold and darkness to come into the love and light which she herself experienced and sought after always more fully.

‘We looked forward to more frequent meetings when working days were done. Now she has gone forward to the great work beyond:

‘“Somewhere, surely, afarIn the sounding labour home vastOf being, is practised that strength —Zealous, beneficent, firm.”’

CHAPTER VII

THE PROFESSION AND THE FAITH

‘Run the straight race through God’s good grace,Lift up thine eyes and seek His face;Life with its way before us lies,Christ is the path, and Christ the prize.’‘Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.’

Elsie Inglis took up practice in Edinburgh, and worked in a happy partnership with the late Dr. Jessie MacGregor, until the latter left Scotland for work in America.

When the University of Edinburgh admitted women to the examinations for degrees in medicine, Dr. Inglis graduated M.B., C.M. in 1899. From that date onwards her practice, her political and suffrage work, and the founding of the Hospice in the High Street of Edinburgh, as a nursing home and maternity centre staffed by medical women, occupied a life which grew and strengthened amid so many and varied experiences.

Her father’s death deprived her of what had been the very centre and mainspring of her existence. As she records the story of his passing on, she says that she cannot imagine life without him, and that he had been so glad to see her begin her professional career. She was not one to lose her place in the stream of life from any morbid inaction or useless repining. She shared the spirit of the race from which she had sprung, a reaching forward to obtain the prize of life fulfilled with service, and she had inherited the childlike faith and confidence which inspired their belief in the Father of Spirits.

Elsie lost in her father the one who had made her the centre of his thoughts and of his most loving watchfulness. From the day that her home with him was left unto her desolate, she was to become a centre to many of her father’s wide household, and, even as she had learnt from him, she became a stay and support to many of his children’s children.

The two doctors started practice in Atholl Place, and later on they moved into 8 Walker Street, an abode which will always be associated with the name of Dr. Elsie Inglis.

Mrs. M‘Laren says: —

‘My impressions of their joint house are all pleasant ones. They got on wonderfully together, and in every thing seemed to appreciate one another’s good qualities. They were very different, and had in many ways a different outlook. I remember Jessie saying once, “Elsie is so exceptionally generous in her attitude of mind, it would be difficult not to get on with her!” They both held their own opinions on various subjects without the difference of opinion really coming between them. Elsie said once about the arrangement, “It has all the advantages of marriage without any of its disabilities.” We used always to think they did each other worlds of good. I know how I always enjoyed a visit to them if it was only for an afternoon or some weeks. There was such an air of freedom in the whole house. You did what you liked, thought what you liked, without any fear of criticism or of being misunderstood.

‘I do not know much about her practice, as medicine never interested me, but I believe at one time, before the Suffrage work engrossed her so much, she was making quite a large income.’

Professionally she suffered under two disabilities: the restricted opportunities for clinical work in the days when she was studying her profession, combined with the constant interruptions which the struggle against the medical obstructionists necessitated; secondly, the various stages in the political fight incident to obtaining that wider enfranchisement which aimed at freeing women from all those lesser disabilities which made them the helots of every recognised profession and industry.

When in the Scottish Women’s Hospitals abroad, Dr. Inglis rapidly acquired a surgical skill, under the tremendous pressure of work, which often kept her for days at the operating-table, which showed what a great surgeon she might have been, given equal advantages in the days of her peace practice.

Dr. Inglis lost no opportunity of enlarging her knowledge. She was a lecturer on Gynecology in the Medical College for Women which had been started later than Dr. Jex Blake’s school, and was on slightly broader lines. After she had started practice she went to study German clinics; she travelled to Vienna, and later on spent two months in America studying the work and methods of the best surgeons in New York, Chicago, and Rochester.

She advocated, at home and abroad, equal opportunities for work and study in the laboratories for both men and women students. She maintained that the lectures for women only were not as good as those provided for the men, and that the women did not get the opportunity of thorough laboratory practice before taking their exams. She thus came into conflict with the University authorities, who refused to accept women medical students within the University, or to recognise extra-mural mixed classes in certain subjects. Step by step Dr. Inglis fought for the students. ‘With a great price’ she might truly say she had purchased her freedom, and nothing would turn her aside. If one avenue was closed, try another. If one Principal was adamant, his day could not last for ever; prepare the way for his successor. Indomitable, unbeaten, unsoured, Dr. Inglis, with the smiling, fearless brow, trod the years till the influence of the ‘red planet Mars’ opened to her and others the gate of opportunity. She had achieved many things, and was far away from her city and its hard-earned practice when at length, in 1916, the University, under a new ‘open-minded, generous-hearted Head,’ opened its doors to women medical students.