Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Third Supplement.djvu/309

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Inglis
D.N.B. 1912–1921

decision was welcomed by the Serbian medical authorities, who had experienced the benefit not only of her surgical aid but also of the moral support given by the Scottish Women's Hospitals units during their retreat. For three months after the entry of the Germans and Austrians into Krushevatz on 7 November 1915, she continued to work at the hospitals, until the great majority of the patients were removed to Hungary. On 11 February she and her unit were sent under a strong Austrian guard first to Belgrade and then to Vienna, where, owing to the intervention of the American embassy, they were released and allowed to return to England.

Elsie Inglis's offer to the War Office of a unit for service in Mesopotamia, where the need for medical aid seemed urgent, was refused; but, after her return from a visit of inspection to the Scottish Women's Hospitals units in Corsica, she received an appeal from the Serbian minister for aid for the Serbian division in Russia. This request met with an immediate response. The London committee of the Scottish Women's Hospitals supplied two units with motor transport attached. On 16 August 1916 Elsie Inglis left for Russia, going to the front at Megidia to join the Serbian division fighting in the Dobrudja. Here the units worked until the retreat of the Russians in October brought her to Braila, where perhaps the hardest task, and what to most would have seemed a hopeless one, was presented to her. Braila was one vast dumping ground for the wounded, who streamed in every day. Only seven doctors were in the town, and no nurses, when she arrived. The units were now attached to the Russian division, until the Serbs, whose losses were very heavy owing to the lack of Russian support, had been reformed. From Braila the units went first to Galatz and then on to Reni.

The revolution in Russia had broken out in the meantime, and the difficulties of the units were increased, but despite the general confusion and the suspicion with which spy-hunters regarded a foreign hospital, they managed to work smoothly until the hospital was evacuated in August 1917 and Elsie Inglis rejoined the Serbs at Hadji-Abdul. Their position, however, became serious, for there was not much hope of the Russians making a stand; and efforts were made to get the Serbs out of Russia. Moreover, Dr. Inglis's health showed grave signs of failure, and her condition was aggravated by the intense cold and the lack of food, fuel, and clothing. The Scottish Women's Hospitals committee sent a cable advising her withdrawal, but leaving the decision in her hands. Her reply was: ‘If there were a disaster none of us would ever be able to forgive ourselves if we had left. We must stand by. If you want us home, get them [the Serbs] out.’ Enfeebled as she was, she met the situation courageously. Her plans for the future work of the hospital, should the Serbs be called upon again to fight, were all laid down to the smallest detail, but fortunately, before these plans had been put in operation, the order came for the Serbs to leave for England.

Dr. Inglis's cable home on 14 November announced their departure: ‘Everything satisfactory, and all well except myself’—the first intimation which the committee had received of her being ill. She bore the journey home with great fortitude and endurance of physical pain, and on arriving at Newcastle (25 November) refused to allow herself to be carried, but walked down the ship's gangway. Almost to the last her thoughts were of future plans, and in her message to the London committee was a request to them to continue their support of the Serbs, whom she had served so faithfully. One of those present among her family and friends spoke to her of the great work which she had accomplished. She replied: ‘Not I, but my unit.’ The end came at Newcastle on 26 November. The intrepid spirit met death as calmly as she had faced life. She was buried in the Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh, on 29 November.

[Lady Frances Balfour, Dr. Elsie Inglis, 1918; Mrs. Shaw McLaren, A History of the Scottish Women's Hospitals, 1919, and Elsie Inglis, 1920.]

E. P.

JACKSON, HENRY (1839–1921), regius professor of Greek at Cambridge, was born at Sheffield 12 March 1839, being the eldest son of Henry Jackson, an eminent surgeon of that town, by his wife, Frances, third daughter of James Swettenham, of Wood End, near Winksworth. He was educated at the Sheffield Collegiate School and Cheltenham College, from which he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1858, taking his B.A. degree in 1862. He became a fellow of Trinity in 1864, assistant tutor in 1866, praelector in ancient philosophy in 1875, and vice-master in 1914. In 1906 he succeeded Sir R. C. Jebb as regius professor of Greek in the university, and in 1908 received, as crown of many other distinctions, the

283