Obituary Dr. Jessie Scott’s Service During First World War

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28975, 17 August 1959, Page 3

Obituary Dr. Jessie Scott’s Service During First World War

Dr. Jessie Anne Scott, Who was well known for her service with the Scottish Women’s Medical Corps in Serbia during World War I, where her corps suffered great hardships during the retreat of the Serbian and Russian armies in 1916, and she herself was a prisoner of war for three months, died in Christchurch on Saturday. She was 76. Dr. Scott left New Zealand on the outbreak of World War I to join the Scottish Women’s Medicap Corps, which was organised by Dr. Elsie Maud Inglis, one of the first women medical graduates of the University of Edinburgh, where Dr. Scott also received her medical training.

The Scottish Women’s Medical Corps was a hospital unit staffed entirely by women, but as the British Government did not accept the services of medical women, or make use of hospitals organised on such lines, the first units of the corps went to France &nd Serbia. When the Austrian and German armies overran Serbia, Dr. Scott was taken prisoner with others of her unit, but after three months the British hospital units were released, and their members returned to England through Switzerland. • Service in Russia

The Scottish Women’s Medical Corps was then sent to Russia to work with the First Serbian Division of the Russian Army. The unit sailed to Archangel at the end of August, 1916, and went at once to the south or Russia. The hospital unit had just begun operating in the Dobrudja area on the Russian front in Rumania when the German and Austrian forces began an offensive, and the hospital unit was forced to retreat along with the armies and refugee population of Rumania. Extreme hardships were experienced in the retreat but thanks to the leadership of Dr. Inglis the unit and its equipment Were brought safely back to Russia. „ , Dr. Scott continued as a medical officer attached to the Serbian Army until 1918. In 1919, she was attached as a doctor to the Royal Army Medical Corps in Salonika, and also served in France with this corps during this year. For medical work with the Serbian Army, she was awarded the Order of St. Sava by the Serbian Government. Dr. Scott came of a pioneering farming family at Brookside, her parents being David and Mary Armit Scott. She was educated at the Christchurch Girls’ High School, and then went to Edinburgh University to take her medical training. After qualifying as a doctor in 1909, she was a resident medical officer at the Edinburgh Hospital for Women and Children from 1909 to 1910, and was an assistant medical officer for the London County Council from 1910 to 1913: She'returned to New Zealand in 1913 and was in practice in Auckland, but on the outbreak of World War I was recalled to the United Kingdom by Dr. Inglis to serve with the Scottish Women’s Medical Corps. Work in London

Returning to England in 1920, Dr. Scott was again a medical officer for the London County Council, and did further postgraduate work in women’s and children’s diseases at the Chelsea Hospital for Women and thfe Victoria Hospital for Children.

Dr. Scott returned to New Zealand in 1925, and was in private practice in Christchurch. She was an honorary gynaecologist at the Christchurch Public Hospital from 1925 to 1935.

For some 30 years Dr. Scott was a member of the Federation of University Women, and was a former president of that organisation. She was also a member of the National Council of Women. Other organisations to which she belonged were the Canterbury Women’s Club, the Cercle Francais, the Canterbury Society of Arts, the Association of Friends of the Museum, and the Antarctic Society. During World War II she was also a deputy-chairwoman of the Women’s War Service Auxiliary.