Scottish Women’s Hospitals Brass Badge, 20th Century

This brass shoulder badge would have been worn on the shoulder of someone who worked for the Scottish Women’s Hospital. When war broke out in 1914, people wanted to do what they could to support the war effort. Elsie Inglis, an innovative doctor and a well-known suffragist, immediately offered her services as a surgeon for the war effort. After being turned down at the War Office, she was famously told ‘My good lady, go home and sit still.’ Inglis then formed a plan to create fully equipped mobile Red Cross hospital units staffed by women, under the name of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals for Foreign Services.

The first units were sent to France and Serbia in December 1914. By the end of the war it is estimated that some 1000 women served in 14 fully equipped field hospitals in Serbia, France, Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Corsica and Malta.