British physician and surgeon, born at Naini Tal, India, on the 16th of August 1864, one of the nine children of John Forbes David Inglis, of the East India Co., and Harriet Thompson. After a childhood spent in India and Australia, the family settled in Edinburgh in 1878. She pursued her studies at the school of medicine for women in Edinburgh and at St. Margaret’s College, Glasgow, graduating M.B.C.M., and took up private practice in Edinburgh in 1895. She was instrumental in establishing a second school of medicine for women in Edinburgh and doubling the accommodation of the Edinburgh Bruntsfield hospital and dispensary for women and children. In 1901 she raised money to open the hospice in the Edinburgh High Street as a hospital for women, with the double purpose of benefiting the poor and providing greater facilities for the training of women doctors. Single-handed she developed an indoor and district maternity service and trained her nurses herself. In 1906 the women’s suffrage societies of Scotland were formed into a federation, of which she became honorary secretary, and for the eight remaining years before the war she was one of the most prominent suffrage workers in Scotland. In August 1914, inspired by her, a special committee of the Scottish federation of women’s suffrage societies, aided by the N.U.W.S.S., undertook the organization of the Scottish women’s hospitals for foreign service, and raised £440,000. She first went to Serbia in April 1915 to relieve Dr. Soltau at Kragujevatz. In November, when Serbia was invaded by Germans, Austrians, and Bulgarians, the Scottish women retreated to Krushevatz, and Dr. Inglis, Mrs. Haverfield and a few others remained behind till February 1916 as prisoners of the enemy to care for the Serbian wounded. In August 1916 she took a unit to the Dobrudja for service with the newly formed Serbian division attached to the Russian army. She died at Newcastle-on-Tyne on the 27th of November 1917, the day after her return from Russia with her unit and the Serbian division. The Serbian general headquarters dedicated a fountain to her at Mladanovatz in her lifetime; and she was given the Order of the White Eagle, Class V., and the Order of St. Sava, Class III.
See Dr. Elsie Inglis, by Lady Frances Balfour (1920).
