She went home to her family, who so often had inspired her to good work, and as she sat and talked over the war and her plans with one of her nieces, she suddenly said, ‘I know what we will do! We will have a unit of our own.’
The ‘We’ referred to that close-knit body of women with whom she had worked for a common cause, and she knew at once that ‘We’ would work with her and in her for the accomplishment of this ideal which so rapidly took shape in her teeming brain.
She was never left alone in any part of her life’s work. Her personality knit not only her family to her in the closest bonds of love, but she had devoted friends among those who did not see eye to eye with her in the common cause. She never loved them the less for disagreeing with her, and though their indifference to her views might at times obscure her belief in their mental calibre, it never interfered with the mutual affections of all. She did not leave these friends out of her scheme when it began to take shape.
The Edinburgh Suffrage offices, no longer needed for propaganda and organisation work, became the headquarters of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals, and the enlarged committee, chiefly of Dr. Inglis’ personal friends, began its work under the steam-hammer of her energy. Miss Mair may again be quoted.
‘Well do I recall the first suggestion that passed between us on the subject of directing the energies of our Suffrage Societies to the starting of a hospital. Let us gather a few hundred pounds, and then appeal to the public, was the decision of our ever courageous Dr. Elsie, and from that moment she never swerved in her purpose. Some of us gasped when she announced that the sum of £50,000 must speedily be advertised for. Some timid souls advised the naming of a smaller amount as our goal. With unerring perception, our leader refused to lower the standard, and abundantly has she been proved right! Not £50,000, but over £200,000 have rewarded her faith and her hope.
‘This quick perception was one of the greatest of her gifts, and it was with perfect simplicity she stated to me once that when on rare occasions she had yielded her own conviction to pressure from others, the result had been unfortunate. There was not an ounce of vanity in her composition. She was merely stating a simple fact. Her outlook was both wide and direct. She saw the object aimed at, and she marched straight on. If, on the road, some obstacles had to be not exactly ruthlessly, but very firmly brushed aside, her strength of purpose was in the end a blessing to all concerned. Strength combined with sweetness—with a wholesome dash of humour thrown in—in my mind sums up her character. What that strength did for agonised Serbia only the grateful Serbs can fully tell.’
A letter written in October of this year to Mrs. Fawcett tells of the rapid formation of the hospital idea.
‘8 Walker Street,
‘Oct. 9, 1914.‘Dear Mrs. Fawcett,—I wrote to you from the office this morning, but I want to point out a little more fully what the Committee felt about the name of the hospitals. We felt that our original scheme was growing very quickly into something very big—much bigger than anything we had thought of at the beginning—and we felt that if the hospitals were called by a non-committal name it would be much easier to get all men and women to help. The scheme is of course a National Union scheme, and that fact the Scottish Federation will never lose sight of, or attempt to disguise. The National Union will be at the head of all our appeals, and press notices, and paper.
‘But—if you could reverse the position, and imagine for a moment that the Anti-Suffrage Society had thought of organising all these skilled women for service, you can quite see that many more neutrals, and a great many suffragists would have been ready to help if they sent their subscriptions to the “Scottish Women’s Hospital for Foreign Service,” than if they had to send to the Anti-Suffrage League Hospital.
‘We were convinced that the more women we could get to help, the greater would be the gain to the woman’s movement.
‘For we have hit upon a really splendid scheme. When Mrs. Laurie and I went to see Sir George Beatson—the head of the Scottish Red Cross, in Glasgow—he said at once: “Our War Office will have nothing to say to you,” and then he added, “yet there is no knowing what they may do before the end of the war.”
‘You see, we get these expert women doctors, nurses, and ambulance workers organised. We send our units wherever they are wanted. Once these units are out, the work is bound to grow. The need is there, and too terrible to allow any haggling about who does the work. If we have a thoroughly good organisation here, we can send out more and more units, or strengthen those already out. We can add motor ambulances, organise rest stations on the lines of communication, and so on. It will all depend on how well we are supplied with funds and brains at our base. Each unit ought to be carefully chosen, and the very best women doctors must go out with them. I wrote this morning to the Registered Medical Women’s Association in London, and asked them to help us, and offered to address a meeting when I come up for your meeting. Next week a special meeting of the Scottish Medical Women’s Association is being called to discuss the question.
‘From the very beginning we must make it clear that our hospitals are as well-equipped and well-manned as any in the field, more economical (easy!), and thoroughly efficient.
‘I cannot think of anything more calculated to bring home to men the fact that women can help intelligently in any kind of work. So much of our work is done where they cannot see it. They’ll see every bit of this.
‘The fates seem to be fighting for us! Sometimes schemes do float off with the most extraordinary ease. The Belgian Consul here is Professor Sarolea—the editor of Everyman. He grasped at the help we offered, and has written off to several influential people. And then yesterday morning he wrote saying that his brother Dr. Leon Sarolea, would come and “work under” us. He is an M.P., a man of considerable influence. So you can see the Belgian Hospital will have everything in its favour.
‘Then Mr. Seton Watson, who has devoted his life to the Balkan States, has taken up the Servian Unit. He puts himself “entirely at our service.” He knows all the powers that be in Servia.
‘Two people in the Press have offered to help.
‘The money is the thing now. It must not be wasted, but we must have lots.
‘And as the work grows do let’s keep it together, so that, however many hospitals we send out, they all shall be run on the same lines, and wherever people see the Union Jack with the red, white and green flag below it, they’ll know it means efficiency and kindness and intelligence.
‘I wanted the Executive, for this reason, to call the hospitals “British Women’s Hospitals for Foreign Service,” but of course it was their own idea, and one understood the desire to call it “Scottish”; but if there is a splendid response from England and from other federations, that will have to be reconsidered, I think. The great thing is to do the thing well, and do it as one scheme.
‘I do hope you’ll approve of all this. I am marking this letter “Private,” because it isn’t an official letter, but just what I think—to you, my Chief. But you can show it to anybody you like—as that.
‘I can think of nothing except these “Units” just now! And when one hears of the awful need, one can hardly sit still till they are ready. Professor Sarolea simply made one’s heart bleed. He is just back from Belgium. He said, “You talk of distress from the war here. You simply know nothing about it.”—Ever yours sincerely,
‘Elsie Maud Inglis.’
In October 1914 the scheme was finally adopted by the Scottish Federation, and the name of Scottish Women’s Hospitals was chosen.
At the same meeting the committee decided to send Dr. Inglis to London to explain the plan to the National Union, and to speak at a meeting in the Kingsway Hall, on ‘What women could do to help in the war.’ At that meeting she was authorised to speak on the plans of the S.W.H. The N.U.W.S.S. adopted the plan of campaign on 15th October, and the London society was soon taking up the work of procuring money to start new units, and to send Dr. Inglis out on her last enterprise, with a unit fully equipped to work with the Serbian army, then fighting on the Bulgarian front.