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WITH NEWS OF:

The radical legacy of Dr Elsie Inglis 
‘Feather & Ether’ Solo Tour including Aberdeen, Stirling & Leeds
Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship 
Spell Songs May 2025 - tickets left at Gateshead

THE RADICAL LEGACY OF Dr. ELSIE INGLIS

If you’re over the age of 40 and were born in Edinburgh then there’s a good chance you came into this world at the Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital, the city’s main specialist medical support facility for more than 60 years until its closure in 1988.  The ‘Elsie Inglis’ was opened as an innovative twenty-bed space in 1925, 8 years after Elsie’s death, and a generation before the establishment of the NHS, at a time when women in Scotland were around a hundred times more likely to die as a result of pregnancy or labour than they are now.  The maternity unit in Elsie’s name was established with funds from the recently disbanded Scottish Women’s Hospitals for Foreign Service, a network of military field units which she founded and managed during WWI.  

Plaque at Surgeons' Square, University of Edinburgh

But Elsie was a medical pioneer and prominent advocate for women’s suffrage for decades before the First World War. One of the first women to earn the Triple License approved by the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Surgeons and the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, she obtained her medical degree in 1894. A decade later, she established The Hospice on Edinburgh’s High Street, a free 8-bed medical resource, offering maternity, surgical and general practice, and - radically - staffed entirely by women for women.  

Memorial in St Giles Cathedral

Elsie’s overseas medical service during WW1 was remarkable but her lifelong commitment to women’s healthcare is her transformational and lasting legacy. Yet it’s her short military career in field hospitals that’s become the visual focus of a controversial proposal for a memorial statue of her at the former Hospice site on the High Street.

To further honour Dr Elsie Inglis, a local campaign group - Statue for Elsie Inglis - was founded in 2017 and raised substantial public funds for the erection of a memorial. In July 2022, an open public call for artwork proposals from “both emerging and established artists” was announced, and many freelance artists crafted submissions. After just a few weeks though, the call was abandoned, without explanation, and an announcement followed shortly after, that Alexander Stoddart, the King’s Sculptor in Ordinary Scotland, had been appointed without competition. The decision caused some uproar then, a division that continues to rumble on as the statue proposal navigates its way now through the City of Edinburgh’s planning system.

A sketch of the proposed monument to Dr Elsie Inglis on the southern pavement of the Royal Mile. (Illustration: The City of Edinburgh Council)

Of course, art is a subjective business, and contesting the aesthetic merits of one statue proposal or another is something many of us are likely to disagree on. But if civic artworks and memorials are to occupy our public city streets, and reflect our collective history back to ‘us’, then shouldn’t they be both informed by and contribute to a broader or sharper understanding of who ‘we’ are, what’s being remembered and why? At very least, the processes by which they’re selected, erected and funded should be rigorous, transparent and public-spirited.

Statue to Adam Smith on Royal Mile in decidedly non-heroic relief 

In this instance, neither the process nor the proposal itself is adequate to the task. It’s not just that Stoddart’s signature neoclassical and self-declared “heroic-realist” style feels patrician and unimaginative to me (it does) OR that he’s a male artist with a patriarchal male gaze on an iconic female subject (though I fear this may be true too) OR that he’s already amply represented in Edinburgh city centre as a sculptor of historic figures (four in the city centre alone, including philosophers David Hume and Adam Smith). It’s that he was appointed by a closed and unaccountable group in an opaque and summary manner following the abandonment of an open call process, and that his proposal cuts uncomfortably against the radical humanitarian principles and qualities that Elsie Inglis herself embodied: humility, egalitarianism, and a commitment to the needs and experiences of women.

Down the Royal Mile, the statue of 18th Century poet Robert Fergusson is a counterpoint to classical ‘Greatness.’ (©Chris Dorney)

No one person or group can or should own collective or civic memory, of course. It’s a dynamic process, through which works of art in public spaces, at their best, can educate and celebrate, inspire and interrogate. Why, for example, place a champion of democracy and equality on a high pedestal above the level of passers-by? Goodness knows, the notion of classical ‘Greatness’ is deeply problematic these days, and not actually a representational necessity. Why celebrate Scotland’s greatest grassroots pioneer for women’s healthcare in military dress, at the site of the non-military women’s Hospice which she founded? And why situate someone with such a collegiate and collaborative approach to her medical and social care work entirely on her own?

Art won’t get made by committee, of course, and there’s no one legitimate way to answer these questions artistically. But they feel, to me, like important provocations, that dig into some of the ongoing faultlines of our time: elitism and democracy; militarism and social activism; individualism and community; and gender.

With thanks to local campaigners. You can find out more here.

I’ve been thinking and writing a lot about social history and collective memory, and I’ve set up a Substack - a free subscription writing platform - called Pockets of Wind Resistance to host it.  Feel free to join me there and to enjoy a deep dive into the world of other writers too.

FEATHER & ETHER SOLO TOUR

I head out on a solo tour next week, with three dates in Scotland and seven in England. I’d be especially pleased to see you in Aberdeen (first gig ever in the historic Tivoli Theatre), Stirling (it’s a long-held ambition to play the city’s Albert Halls) and Leeds (Howard Assembly is such an elegant venue). 

I probably won’t be touring as a musician again until autumn of 2026, because of this…
 

Dr GAVIN WALLACE FELLOWSHIP
I’m over the moon to have been chosen as the Dr Gavin Wallace Fellow in association with The Fruitmarket in Edinburgh and Creative Scotland. It’s an annual award for writers in Scotland, this year on the theme Attached to Land. The award enables me to take some time away from public-facing performances and workshops to focus on research and writing along the Forth Valley, East Lothian and Borders coastline. I’m still pinching myself. I will, of course, continue to keep in touch through these newsletters, on Instagram and via my Substack. And look out for some intimate pop up events along the path of the John Muir Way this year. But from September this year to March 2026 I’ll mostly be geeking out in quiet and curious ways.

More information about the post here.
 

SPELL SONGS
I do however have a short gigging stint next month with my Spell Songs compadres, ahead of one last immersive writing residency with this gorgeous team of thinkers and makers. We’ll release our third and final album together next year. If you don’t know our work, here’s a wee glimpse:

Thanks as ever for your support.

Karine x

PS join me on Instagram - my social platform of choice - a space for kitchen wonderings, impromptu songs from my stairwell and photos of stones, tides and bridges.

LIVE 2025

KARINE POLWART SOLO
APR 24 ABERDEEN TIVOLI THEATRE TICKETS
APR 25 STIRLING ALBERT HALLS  TICKETS
APR 26 DUMFRIES EASTERBROOK HALLS TICKETS
APR 27 BUXTON PAVILION ARTS LAST TICKETS
APR 28 CANTERBURY GULBENKIAN ARTS CENTRE TICKETS
APR 30 POCKLINGTON SOLD OUT
MAY 01 OXFORD SOLD OUT
MAY 02 LEEDS HOWARD ASSEMBLY ROOMS LAST TICKETS
MAY 03 BERWICK ON TWEED THE MALTINGS TICKETS

KARINE POLWART BAND
AUG 01 BELLADRUM TARTAN HEART FESTIVAL TICKETS
AUG 05 GLASGOW SUMMER NIGHTS AT THE BANDSTAND TICKETS

SPELL SONGS
MAY 16 SHEFFIELD OCTAGON SOLD OUT
MAY 17 GATESHEAD THE GLASSHOUSE TICKETS
MAY 18 EDINBURGH USHER HALL LAST FEW TICKETS