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Alice Hutchison

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Alice Hutchison
Born(1874-08-12)August 12, 1874
Dalhousie, India
Died1953
NationalityBritish
Other namesHutchinson (different spelling)
OccupationDoctor
AwardsOrder of Saint Sava third class

Alice Hutchison (12 August 1874 – 1953) was a British medical doctor who served in the Balkan and First World Wars. She was one of the first women to lead a war-time hospital unit[1] and was awarded the Serbian Order of Saint Sava.[2]

Early life and education

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Alice Marion Hutchison was born 12 August 1874 in Dalhousie, India. Her father, John Hutchison, was a missionary working in India for the Church of Scotland; her mother was Margaret Andrew.[3][4][5] She was educated at Beechwood in Moffat,[6] and in Bridge of Allan.[3]

Career

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Group of the Women's Sick and Wounded Convoy Corps in Camp at Radlett in 1912.

Hutchinson became a doctor after graduating from the University of Edinburgh in 1903, and earned a Doctor of Medicine degree two years later.[7] Afterwards, she was the doctor in charge of the John Street Dispensary in Edinburgh, a hospital that provided free medical care. She was in India, serving during a cholera epidemic that hit the country.[8]

Hutchison was one of the three women doctors who travelled to Bulgaria as part of the Women's Sick and Wounded Convoy Corps. The Corps, which was set-up by Mabel St Clair Stobart, was almost all women, with the exception of three men. The unit spent five weeks in the country treating the wounded and sick as a result of the war. They left after the armistice was signed.[9][10]: 62 

World War I

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She volunteered at the outbreak of World War I for the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service (SWH). She was the first doctor from the SWH sent to France and was initially placed in Boulogne, France. While looking for a building to house a hospital, a typhoid epidemic broke out amongst Belgian refugees in Calais. She, along with another doctor and ten nurses, treated the patients. She was noted for having the lowest rate of deaths due to typhoid in her hospital.[11][12][13]

In May 1915, Hutchison and her unit, named the London-Wales Unit, were sent to Serbia. On their way there, they stopped in British controlled Malta. They were detained by the British military and ordered to treat the wounded there. This was the only time in the war where SWH officially treated British wounded.[14] : 1060 

After two weeks in Malta, they arrived in Serbia to set up 40-tent hospital in Valjevo.[15]: 239–240 [16] In October, an invasion of German and Austro-Hungarian forces entered Serbia, pushing back the army. After Bulgaria invaded, the Serbian military decided to retreat through Albania. Hutchinson decided to not follow the Serbian army, and stayed with her patients. She was captured by Austro-Hungarian forces on 15 November 1915. She, along with members of her unit, spent three months interned in Hungary, where she met Caroline Matthews who had been captured in Serbia after similarly staying with patients in Uzsitsi and was being tried for 'espionage', she called out 'How are you, Twiggie!' (Matthews' maiden name was Twigge).[17] She successfully argued for all their release, citing the Geneva Convention. In February 1916, they were sent across the border to Switzerland, arriving back in England on 12 February.[15] Following her return from Serbia, she was awarded the Order of St. Sava (third grade) for running one of the units which cared for the wounded Serbian soldiers.[2] The Scotsman newspaper published an extensive interview with Hutchison in February 1916, during which she described her experiences, including her captivity by the Austrians, when part of the captives' journey was in railway horse-boxes. During their two months under guard, they devised tableaux vivants, dressing for example as the Kaiser and Emperor Franz Josef.[18]

Later life

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Hutchison moved to London, England after the end of World War I, where she worked in several hospitals. She died at the age of 79 in 1953.[8]

References

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  1. ^ Leneman, Leah (1994). "Medical women at war, 1914–1918". Medical History. 38 (02). Cambridge University Press (CUP): 160–177. doi:10.1017/s0025727300059081. ISSN 0025-7273. PMC 1036842.
  2. ^ a b "Serbian Decorations for Scottish Women". Dundee Evening Telegraph. No. 12287. 14 April 1916. p. 1. Retrieved 6 November 2018 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  3. ^ a b Hutchison, Alice Marion (7 November 1953). "OBITUARY". British Medical Journal. 2 (4844): 1050–1052. doi:10.1136/bmj.2.4844.1050-b. ISSN 0007-1447. PMC 2029985. PMID 13094114.
  4. ^ Hutchison, John (8 August 1936). "Obituary". The Times. No. 47448. p. 12. Retrieved 6 November 2018 – via GALE Group.
  5. ^ Hutcheson, Alice Marion. "India Births and Baptisms, 1786-1947". FamilySearch. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
  6. ^ "Moffat Lady in Serbia Safe". Daily Record and Mail. No. 21470. 11 November 1915. p. 3. Retrieved 6 November 2018 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  7. ^ Hutchison, Alice Marion. (1905). "A contribution to the study of the subchorial haematoma of the decidua". The University of Edinburgh. Retrieved 27 June 2024.
  8. ^ a b McEwen, Yvonne. "10 Scottish Women's Hospital Women" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 March 2018. Retrieved 20 April 2018.
  9. ^ "The Women's Sick and Wounded Convoy Corps at the Balkan War". Kai Tiaki: The Journal of the Nurses of New Zealand. VII (2): 29. 1 April 1914.
  10. ^ Stobart, Mabel Annie Boulton (1913). War and women, from experience in the Balkans and elsewhere. London, G. Bell & Sons, Ltd.
  11. ^ Central States Medical Monitor. 1915. p. 304. Retrieved 27 June 2024.
  12. ^ Shrady, G.F.; Stedman, T.L. (1918). Medical Record. W. Wood. p. 27. Retrieved 27 June 2024.
  13. ^ Leneman, L (April 1994). "Medical women at war, 1914-1918". Medical History. 38 (2): 160–177. doi:10.1017/s0025727300059081. PMC 1036842. PMID 8007751.
  14. ^ The Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 1922.
  15. ^ a b Drinker, Frederick E. (1917). Our War for Human Rights: Being an Intensely Human and Brilliant Account of the World War and why and for what Purpose America and the Allies are Fighting, Including the Horrors and Wonders of Modern Warfare, the New and Strange Devices that Have Come Into Use, Etc. ... Austin Jenkins.
  16. ^ "Women And The First World War: The Work Of Women Doctors". Woman and her Sphere. 6 May 2014. Retrieved 20 April 2018.
  17. ^ "British Women in Serbia - A Record of Grit and Endurance: English Girl Fighting in the Ranks - Doctor who Stayed with Wounded till Enemy Came". Yorkshire Evening Post. 28 September 1916. p. 4.
  18. ^ "Scottish nurses from Serbia: Hardships of second unit". The Scotsman. 14 February 1916. p. 8.
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