The Scottish Women's Hospital Archives, 1911-1922: delivering medical care on the Western front

The Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service (SWH) represented the largest medical endeavour entirely directed by British women doctors. Despite the War Office rejecting all-female medical units, by the end of 1919 the SWH had organized 13 fully equipped hospitals in France, Serbia, Russia, Romania and Macedonia, all staffed by women. This project was to sort, clean, repackage and catalogue the archive to support World War I studies around the centenary. The SWH’s contribution – and that of other medical women during WWI – was a major step in changing the perception of women’s roles in UK medical history.