New Temporary Exhibition Coming Soon

‘Field Notes: Reflections on Camp Life at the Scottish Women’s Hospitals’

Surgeons’ Hall Museums new temporary exhibition ‘Field Notes: Reflections on Camp Life at the Scottish Women’s Hospitals’ opens on the 10th of November. Inspired by material held in the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh’s Archives, the exhibition aims to highlight the incredible story of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals through a new medium. 

The Scottish Women’s Hospitals (SWH) were formed by Elsie Inglis after her offer of a ready-made medical unit staffed by women was turned down by the Royal Army Medical Corp. After the French government accepted her offer, 14 units of women volunteers left the safety and comfort of their own homes to help soldiers of all nations on the front line of allied countries such as Serbia and France during the First World War.

For the past year, Edinburgh based artists Joan Smith and Susie Wilson have been working with the archive’s collections. They hope to bring the story to the attention of a contemporary audience through their creation of drawings, prints, artists books and paintings all of which have been inspired by the glass lantern slides and notes created by the women on the front line. 

‘Field notes: Reflections of Camp Life at the Scottish Women’s Hospitals’ opens to the public on the 10th of November and will run until the end of March.



'Shelter' by Joan Smith