Elsie and Mairi Go Towar–ataleof nursing bravery on the front line
Siobhán O’connor and Alison O’donnell recount the story of the Madonnas of Pervyse, two young women who were pitched into the horrors of the Great War
The 11th of November marks the 100-year anniversary of the end of the First World War. Known as the Great War, it erupted in 1914 after Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo destabilising a politically fragile European region.
The deadly conflict lasted four years and led to the death of an estimated 20 million soldiers and civilians across the continent and beyond. It divided Europe into two sides, the Allies of Great Britain, France, Belgium, Russia and later the USA, and the Central Powers which included Germany, Austria, Hungary and Turkey.
Britain entered the war on 4 August 1914 after Germany invaded Belgium. The western front of the First World War, running from the Belgian coast all the way to Switzerland, saw some of the deadliest warfare with trenches on both sides and a no man’s land in between.
That same year a young Scottish woman, Mairi Chisholm, left her home to join a friend and trained nurse Elsie Knocker as a volunteer dispatch rider for the Women’s Emergency Corps in London.
This organisation contributed to the war effort by training women doctors, nurses and motorcycle messengers. As Mairi and Elsie were keen motorcyclists, an unusual hobby for women at the time, they put their skills to good use. While working in London, both women were asked by Dr Henry Munro, a British medical doctor, to join his Flying Ambulance Corps in Belgium near the front lines of the war.
Mairi and Elsie worked tirelessly picking up wounded soldiers and transporting them to a field hospital in Furnes to nurse them back to health. This was not always possible as an excerpt from Mairi’s diary at the time reads: “No one can understand... unless one has seen the rows of dead men laid out. One sees men with their jaws blown off, arms and legs mutilated.”
Both women felt they could save more lives by working closer to the front lines, as many soliders died while they transported them to hospital. Towards the end of 1914, Elsie and Mairi set up their own first aid post at a town called Pervyse in Belgium, only 100 yards from the trenches. They spent the next three and a half years treating wounded British, Belgian and even German soldiers, some of whom they rescued from the battlefield.
During the war Mairi and Elsie numerous medals and awards for bravery including the Chevaliers de l’ordre de Léopold from King Albert of Belgium and the British Military Medal.
Mairi was also decorated with the Queen Elizabeth Medal of Belgium and the 1914 Star, the British First World War campaign medal for service. They became instant celebrities, were widely photographed and known as the Madonnas of Pervyse, returning periodically to Britain to fundraise money to continue their nursing work on the front lines.
In March 1918, both Mairi and Elsie became very ill after a German bombing raid and gas attack struck their first aid post in Pervyse. Their driver and pet dog were killed but the two women, their orderly, a doctor and patients managed to survive.
After recovering in a hospital in London, Mairi returned to the front lines a few weeks later but Elsie was too ill to do so. Due to constant bombardment of the West Flanders region of Belgium by the Germany army, Mairi was forced to abandon
her first aid post a few months before the end of the war.
On returning to Britain she joined Elsie as an officer in the newly formed Women’s Royal Air Force, to help train women as clerks, mechanics and other tradespeople contributing to the Royal Air Force.
When the war ended mairi returned to Nairn and became a poultry breeder on a friend’s estate due to her poor health. She then moved to Jersey for a period and eventually came back to Scotland and lived near Oban for the
rest of her life until she died in 1981, aged 85.
Elsie lost contact with Mairi after the war but continued to live in England, working in a variety of roles. She died in 1978, aged 93. A bronze statue of these two great nursing heroines now stands at Ypres, Belgium to honour their courage and commitment.
The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) and the RSE Young Academy of Scotland, in collaboration with the Royal College of Nurs received