‘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.