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Transcriber’s Note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text in small capitals is shown in UPPER CASE.
DR. ELSIE INGLIS
[Illustration: DR. ELSIE INGLIS, 1916]
DR. ELSIE INGLIS
by
LADY FRANCES BALFOUR
Author of ‘The Life of Lady Victoria Campbell’
‘Life and Letters of Rev. James Macgregor, D.D.’
With Illustrations
Hodder and Stoughton
London New York Toronto
TO
SERBIA
AND THE
SCOTTISH WOMEN’S HOSPITALS
THAT SERVED AND LOVED
THEIR BRETHREN
1914-1917
‘In your patience possess ye your souls.’
PREFACE
The story of Elsie Inglis needs little introduction. From first to last
she was the woman nobly planned. She achieved what she did because she
was ready when the opportunity came. Consistently she had lived her
life, doing whatever her hand found to do with all her might, and ever
following the light. She had the spirit of her nation and of her race:
the spirit of courageous adventure, the love of liberty, and equal
freedom for all people.
If this memoir represents her faithfully, it is because it has been
written among her own family and kindred. Every letter or story of
her is part of a consistent whole. Transparently honest, warmly
affectioned to all, the record could hardly err if, following exactly
her footprints in the sands of time, it presents a portrait of one of
old Scotia’s truest daughters. I owe manifold thanks to her sisters,
her friends, her patients, above all, to her Units, for the help they
have given me in what has been a labour of love and growing respect.
She, being dead, yet speaketh; and, while we thank our God for every
remembrance of her, we hope that those who are her living memorials,
the patients in the Hospice, and the Scottish Women’s Hospitals, will
not be forgotten by those who read and pass on the pilgrim way.
The design for the book cover has been drawn by Dr. Inglis’ countryman,
Mr. Anning Bell. It is the emblem of her nation and of the S.W.H.
F. B.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
INGLIS OF KINGSMILLS, INVERNESS-SHIRE 1
CHAPTER II
ELSIE MAUD INGLIS 17
CHAPTER III
THE LADDER OF LEARNING 27
CHAPTER IV
THE STUDENT DAYS 40
CHAPTER V
LONDON AND DUBLIN 59
CHAPTER VI
POLITICAL ENFRANCHISEMENT AND NATIONAL POLITICS 82
CHAPTER VII
THE PROFESSION AND THE FAITH 111
CHAPTER VIII
WAR AND THE SCOTTISH WOMEN 137
CHAPTER IX
SERBIA 162
CHAPTER X
RUSSIA 191
CHAPTER XI
THE MOORINGS CUT 234
CHAPTER I
INGLIS OF KINGSMILLS, INVERNESS-SHIRE
_PART I_
AMERICA
‘Their graves are scattered far and wide,
O’er mountain, stream and sea.’
‘God of our fathers! be the God
Of their succeeding race.’
Among the records of the family from whom Elsie Inglis was descended
there are letters which date back to 1740. In that year the property
of Kingsmills, Inverness-shire, was in the hands of Hugh Inglis. He
had three sons, George, Alexander, and William. George inherited
Kingsmills, and the Inglis now in Inverness are descended from him.
Alexander, the great-grandfather of Elsie, married Mary Deas, and about
1780 emigrated to Carolina, leaving his four children to be educated
in Scotland, in charge of his brother, William Inglis. The portrait of
Alexander, in the dress of the period, has the characteristic features
of the race descended from him. The face is stamped with the impress of
a resolute, fearless character, one who was likely to leave his mark on
any country in which he took up his abode. There is an account of the
property and estates of Alexander Inglis of Charleston ‘merchant in his
own right.’ The account sets forth how the estates are confiscated on
account of the loyalty of the said Alexander, and his adherence to, and
support of the British Government and constitution.
In the schedule of property there occur, in close relation, these
items: 125 head of black cattle, £125; 69 slaves at £60 a head, £4140;
a pew, No. 31 in St. Michael’s Church, Charleston, £150; 11 house
negroes, £700; and a library of well-chosen books, at a much lower
figure. Alexander never lost sight of the four children left in his
native land. In 1784 he congratulates his son David on being Dux of his
class, and says that he prays constantly for him.
[Illustration: ALEXANDER INGLIS (_d._ 1791)
GREAT-GRANDFATHER OF DR. ELSIE INGLIS]
Mary Deas, Alexander Inglis’ wife, through her ancestor Sir David
Dundas, was a direct descendant of Robert the Bruce. All that is known
of her life is contained in the undated obituary notice of the American
newspaper of the day:--
‘The several duties of her station in life she discharged as became
the good Christian, supporting with exemplary fortitude the late
trying separation from her family.’
Alexander’s restless and adventurous life was soon to have a violent
end.
After their mother’s death, the three daughters must have joined
their father in America. One of them, Katherine, whose face has been
immortalised by Raeburn, writes to her brother David, who had been left
in Scotland, to inform him of the death of their father in a duel.
[Illustration: MRS. ROBERTSON, _née_ KATHERINE INGLIS
GREAT-AUNT OF DR. ELSIE INGLIS
(_Portrait by Raeburn_)]
The letter which Alexander Inglis wrote to be given to his children,
should he fall in the duel, is as fresh and clear as on the day when it
was written:--
‘MY DEAR, DEAR CHILDREN,--If ever you receive this letter it will
be after my death. You were present this morning when I received
the grossest insult that could be offered me--and such as I little
expected from the young man who dared to offer it. Could the epithets
which in his passion he ventured to make use of be properly applied
to me--I would not wish to live another hour, but as a man of honour,
and the natural guardian and protector of everything that is dear and
valuable to myself and to you, I have no alternative left, but that
of demanding reparation for the injury I have received. If I fall--I
do so in defence of that honour, which is dearer to me than life.
May that great, gracious and good Being, who is the protector of
innocence, and the sure rewarder of goodness, bless, preserve and keep
you.--I am, my dear, dear children, your affectionate father,
‘ALEXR. INGLIS.
‘CHARLESTON,
‘_Tuesday evening, 29 March 1791_.’
The letter is addressed by name to the four children.
Katherine writes to her brother David in the following May:--
‘In what manner, my dearest brother, shall I relate to you the
melancholy event that has befallen us. Our dear parent, the best of
fathers, is no more. How shall I go on? Alas! you will hear too soon
by whose hand he fell; therefore I will not distress you with the
particulars of his death. The second day of our dear father’s illness
he called us to his bedside, when he told us he had left a letter
for us three and his dear boy which would explain all things. Judge
if you are able, my dear brother, what must have been our thoughts
on this sad occasion to see our only dear parent tortured with the
most excruciating pains and breathing his last. We were all of us too
young, my brother, to experience the heavy loss we met with when our
dear mother died, we had then a good father to supply our wants. I
have always thought the Almighty kind to all His creatures, but more
so in this particular that He seldom deprives us of one friend without
raising another to comfort us. My dear sisters and self are at present
staying with good Mrs. Jamieson, who is indeed a truly amiable woman.
I am sure you will regard her for your sisters’ sakes. You are happily
placed, my brother, under the care of kind uncles and aunts who will
no doubt (as they ever have done) prove all you have lost. How happy
would it make me in my present situation to be among my friends in
Scotland, but as that is impossible for some time I must endeavour
to be as happy as I can. My kind duty to uncle and aunts.--I am, my
dearest brother, your truly affectionate sister,
‘KATHERINE INGLIS.’
Thus closes the chapter of Alexander Inglis and Mary Deas, his wife,
both ‘long, long ago at rest’ in the land of their exile, both bearing
the separation with fortitude, and the one rendering his children
fatherless rather than live insulted by some nameless and graceless
youth.
David Inglis grew up in charge of the kind Uncle William, and endeared
himself to his adopted father. He also was to fare to dominions beyond
the sea, and he carried the name of Inglis to India, where he went in
1798 as writer to the East India Company.
Uncle William followed him with the usual good advice. In a letter he
tells David he expects him to make a fortune in India that will give
him ‘£3000 a year, that being the lowest sum on which it is possible to
live in comfort.’
David’s life was a more adventurous one than that which usually falls
to a writer. He went through the Mahratta War in 1803. He left India in
1812. On applying for a sick certificate, the resolution of Council,
dated 1811, draws the attention of the Honourable Company to his
services, ‘most particularly when selected to receive charge of the
territorial cessions of the Peshwa under the Treaty of Bassein in the
year 1803, displaying in the execution of that delicate and difficult
mission, proofs of judgment and talents with moderation and firmness
combined, which averted the necessity of having recourse to coercive
measures, accomplished the peaceable transfer of a valuable territory,
and conciliated those whose power and consequence were annihilated
or abridged by the important change he so happily effected.’ David
Inglis seems to have roamed through India, always seeking new worlds to
conquer, and confident in his own powers to achieve.
One of the Napoleonic invasion scares alarmed the Company, and David,
with two companions, was sent out on a cruising expedition to see if
they could sight the enemy’s fleet. As long as he wrote from India, his
letters bear the stamp of a man full of vital energy and resource.
The only thing he did not accomplish while in the service of the
Company was the fortune of £3000 a year.
He entered a business firm in Bombay and there made enough to be able
to keep a wife. In 1806 he married Martha Money, whose father was a
partner in the firm. They came home in 1812, and all their younger
children were born in England at Walthamstow, the home of the Money
family. One of the descendants, who has read the letters of these three
brothers and their families, makes this comment on them:--
‘The letters are pervaded with a sense of activity, and of wandering.
Each one entering into any pursuit that came to hand. All the family
were travellers. There are letters from aunts in Gibraltar and many
other airts.
‘The extraordinary thing in all the letters, whether they were
written by an Inglis, a Deas, or a Money, is the pervading note of
strong religious faith. They not only refer to religion, but often, in
truly Scottish fashion they enter on long theological dissertations.
David Inglis, Elsie’s grandfather, when he was settled in England
gave missionary addresses. Two of these exist, and must have taken
fully an hour to read. Even the restless Alexander in Carolina, and
the “whirlwind” David in India scarcely ever write a letter without
a reference to some religious topic. You get the impression of
strong breezy men sure of themselves, and finding the world a great
playground.’
_PART II_
INDIA
‘God of our fathers, known of old.
. . . . .
Beneath Whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine.’
John, the second youngest son of David and Martha Inglis, was born
in 1820. His mother being English, there entered with her some of the
douce Saxon disposition and ways. Though the call of the blood was
to cast his lot in India, John, or as he was generally called David,
appears first as a student. His tutor, the Rev. Dr. Niblock, wrote a
report of him as he was passing out of his hands to Haileybury. Mrs.
Inglis notes on the letter: ‘Dr. Niblock is esteemed one of the best
Greek scholars in England, and his Greek Grammar is the one in use in
Eton.’
‘Of Master David Inglis I can speak with pleasure and pride almost
unmixed. I can only loudly express how I regret that I have not the
finishing of such a boy, for I feel, and shall ever feel, that he
is _mine_. He has long begun to do what few boys do till they are
leaving, or have left, school, viz. to think. I shall long cherish the
hope, that as I laid the foundation, so shall I have the power and
pleasure of crowning my own and other’s labours. He will make a fine
fellow and be a comfort to his parents, and an honour to his tutor.’
John Inglis received a nomination for Haileybury College from one of
the directors of the East India Company, and went there as a student in
1839. There he was noted as a cricketer and a good horseman, and also
for his reading. He knew Shakespeare almost by heart, and could tell
where to find any quotation from his works. On leaving Haileybury he
sailed for Calcutta, and was there for two years learning the language.
He went as assistant magistrate to Agra. He married in 1846, and in
1847 he was transferred to the newly-acquired province of the Punjab.
He was sent as magistrate to Sealkote, remaining there till 1856.
He then brought his family home on three years’ furlough. With the
outbreak of the Mutiny all civilians were recalled, and he returned to
India in 1858. He was sent to Bareilly to take part in the suppression
of the Mutiny, and was attached to the force under General Jones. He
was present at the action at Najibabad, with the recapture of Bareilly,
and the pacification of the province of Rohilcund. He remained in the
province ten years till 1868, and during those years he rose to be
Commissioner of Rohilcund. In 1868 he was made a member of the Board
of Revenue in the North-West Provinces. As a member of the Legislative
Council of India, he moved, in 1873, to Calcutta. From 1875 to 1877 he
was Chief Commissioner of Oude.
The position Inglis made for himself in India, in yet early life, is
to be gauged by a letter written in 1846 by Sir Frederick Currie, who
was then Commissioner of Lahore. He had married Mrs. Inglis’ sister
Katherine.
‘We have applied to Mr. Thomasen (Lieutenant-Governor of the N.W.P.)
for young civilians for the work which is now before us, and we must
take several with us into the Punjab. One whom he strongly recommends
is Inglis at Agra. I will copy what he says about him. Sir Henry
Hardinge (the Governor-General) has not seen the letter yet. “Another
man who might suit you is Inglis at Agra; an assistant on £400,
acting as joint magistrate which gives him one hundred more. Active,
energetic, conciliating to natives, fine-tempered, and thoroughly
honest in all his works. I am not sure that he is not as good a man as
you can have. I shall be glad to hear that you send for him.”’
The letter was addressed to Inglis’ eighteen-year-old bride, and Sir
Frederick goes on:--
‘Shall I send for him or not? I am almost sure I should have done
so, had I not heard of your getting hold of his heart. We don’t
want _heartless_ men, but really you have no right to keep _such_ a
man from us. At the present moment, however, for your sake, little
darling, I won’t take him from his present work, but if, after the
honeymoon, he would prefer active and stirring employment, with the
prospect of distinction, to the light-winged toys of feathered cupid,
I dare say I shall be able to find an opening for him.’
Mr. Inglis’ wife was Harriet Louis Thompson, one of nine daughters.
Her father was one of the first Indian civilians in the old company’s
days. All of the nine sisters married men in the Indian Civil, with
the exception of one who married an army officer. Harriet came out
to her parents in India when she was seventeen, and she married in
her eighteenth year. She must have been a girl of marked character
and ability. She met her future husband at a dance in her father’s
house, and she appears to have been the first to introduce the waltz
into India. She was a fine rider, and often drove tandem in India.
She must have had a steady nerve, for her letters are full of various
adventures in camp and tiger-haunted jungles, and most of them narrate
the presence of one of her infants who was accompanying the parents on
their routine of Indian official life.
Her daughter says of her:--
‘She was deeply religious. Some years after their marriage, when she
must have been a little over thirty and was alone in England with the
six elder children, she started and ran most successfully a large
working-men’s club in Southampton. Such a thing was not as common
as it is to-day. There she lectured on Sunday evenings on religious
subjects to the crowded hall of men.’
In the perfectly happy home of the Inglis family in India, the Indian
ayah was one of the household in love and service to those she served.
Mrs. Simson has supplied some memories of this faithful retainer:--
‘The early days, the nursery days in the life of a family, are always
looked back upon with loving interest, and many of us can trace to
them many sweet and helpful influences. So it was with our early days,
though the nursery was in India, and the dear nurse who lives in
our memories was an Indian. Her name was Sona (Gold). She came into
our family when the eldest of us was born, and remained one of the
household for more than thirty years. Her husband came with her, and
in later years three of her sons were table servants. Sona came home
with us in 1857, and remained in England till the beginning of 1858.
It was a sign of great attachment to us, for she left her own family
away up in the Punjab, and fared out in the long sea voyage, into a
strange country and among new peoples. She made friends wherever she
was, and her stay in England was a great help to her in after life.
When I returned to India after my school life at home, I found the
dear nurse of my childhood days installed again as nurse to the little
sisters and brother I found there.
‘She was a sweet, gentle woman, and we never learnt anything but kind,
gentle ways from her. By the time I returned she was recognised by the
whole compound of servants as one to be looked up to and respected.
She became a Christian and was baptized in 1877, but long before
she made profession of her faith by baptism she lived a consistent
Christian life. My dear mother’s influence was strong with her, and
she was a reader of the Bible. One of my earliest recollections is our
reading together the fourteenth chapter of St. John.
‘She died some years after we had all settled in Scotland. My parents
left her, with a small pension for life, in charge of the missionaries
at Lucknow. When she died, they wrote to us saying that old Sona had
been one of the pillars of the Indian Christian Church in Lucknow.
‘We look forward with a sure and certain hope to our reunion in the
home of many mansions, with her, around whom our hearts still cling
with love and affection.’
In 1856 Mr. Inglis resolved to come home on furlough, accompanied by
Mrs. Inglis, and what was called ‘the first family,’ namely, the six
boys and one girl born to them in India. It was a formidable journey
to accomplish even without children, and one writes, ‘How mother stood
it all I cannot imagine.’ They came down from the Punjab to Calcutta
trekking in dâk garris. It took four months to reach Calcutta by this
means of progression, and another four months to come home by the Cape.
The wonderful ayah, Sona, was a great help in the toilsome journey when
they brought the children back to England. Mrs. Inglis was soon to
have her first parting with her husband. When they landed in England,
news of the outbreak of the Mutiny met them, and Mr. Inglis returned
almost at once to take his place beside John Lawrence. Together they
fought through the Mutiny, and then he worked under him. Inglis was
one of John Lawrence’s men in the great settling of the Punjab which
followed on that period of stress and strain in the Empire of India.
His own district was Bareilly, and the house where he lived in Sealkote
is still known as Inglis Sahib ke koti (Inglis Sahib’s house). His
children remember the thrilling stories he used to tell them of these
great days, and of the great men who made their history.
His admiration was unbounded for those northern races of India. He
loved and respected them, and they, in their turn, gave him unbounded
confidence and affection. ‘Every bit as good as an Englishman,’ was a
phrase often on his lips when speaking of the fine Sikhs and Punjabis
and Rajpoots.
Englishwomen were not allowed in India during this period, and Mrs.
Inglis had to remain in Southampton with her six children and their
ayah. It was then that she found work in her leisure time for the work
she did in the Men’s Club.
In 1863, when life in India had resumed its normal course, Mrs. Inglis
rejoined her husband, leaving the children she had brought back at home.
It must have taken all the ‘fortitude’ that Mary Deas had shown long
before in Carolina to face this separation. There was no prospect of
the running backwards and forwards, which steam was so soon to develop,
and to draw the dominions into closer bonds. Letters took months to
pass, and no cable carried the messages of life and death across ‘the
white-lipped seas.’ Again, one of the survivors says: ‘I always felt
even as a child, and am sure of it now, she left her heart behind with
the six elder children. What it must have meant to a woman of her deep
nature, I cannot imagine.’ The decision was made, and Mr. Inglis was to
have the great reward of her return to him, after his seven years of
strenuous and anxious loneliness. The boys were sent, three of them to
Eton, and two more to Uppingham and to Rugby. Amy Inglis the daughter
was left with friends. Relatives were not lacking in this large clan
and its branches, and the children were ‘looked after’ by them. We owe
much of our knowledge of ‘the second little family,’ which were to
comfort the parents in India, by the correspondence concerning them
with the dearly-loved children left in the homelands.