From Scotland to Serbia and Back Again

Susan Brown | Scottish Blethers

Until 2020 and the rapid spread of Covid-19 across the world, few people outside of Serbia would have heard of the Scottish nurse Louisa Jordan.  Indeed, even in Scotland, like many unsung female heroines, she was unknown as well.  This was to change with the onset of the Covid pandemic and the need to set up additional hospital space in major cities, including Glasgow.  Part of the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre was transformed into an overflow hospital, and it was named after Louisa Jordan.

The story of the NHS Louisa Jordan Hospital which greets everyone who comes into the building
Image | NHS Louisa Jordan Hospital

Born in 1878 in Glasgow as one of 10 siblings, her working career was mainly in care and nursing on the East and West of Scotland, as well as in Manchester, England. She later enlisted with the Scottish Women’s Hospitals for Foreign Service in December 1914, after the start of the First World War.  She joined the first Serbian unit and looked after war wounded soldiers until the outbreak of a typhus epidemic in 1915, when she took charge of a typhus ward in Serbia.  

Also working at the typhus hospital was Dr. Elizabeth Ross, a pioneering female doctor from Tain in Ross-shire, Scotland. She qualified in 1901, only a few years after the first female medical graduates of University of Glasgow.  After graduating, she worked in Persia with the Bakhtiara Tribe who held her in such regard that they made her Chieftainess. 

Her career took her on to work as a ship’s surgeon travelling to Japan and India—she is thought to be the first woman to hold this post. At the beginning of World War I, Elizabeth accepted Russia’s invitation to work in a hospital in Serbia, which brought her into contact with Louisa Jordan.

Louisa looked after many patients and volunteered to care for Dr. Ross who had become infected with typhus, but unfortunately , despite Louisa’s best efforts, Dr. Elizabeth Ross died on her birthday, 14th February. Louisa Jordan also fell sick with typhus and died on 6th March 1915 at the age of 36.  She was buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Chela Kula Military Cemetery in Niš, Serbia.  In total, 22 British women lost their lives in Serbia to typhus whilst looking after the war wounded.

Dr. Ross is remembered annually in Serbia on her birthday, and the youth movement of the local Red Cross is named after her as The Dr. Elizabeth Ross Society. Dr. Ross is one of six female doctors from UK (five are from Scotland) that were commemorated on stamps in Serbia in 2015.   

Serbian postage stamp of 2015, depicting Dr. Elizabeth Ross
Image | Post of Serbia, Wikimedia Commons

The nurses who served during the typhus epidemic are also remembered and honored. Louisa Jordan’s name is inscribed on the War memorial in Buckhaven, Fife where she worked as a district nurse before the war.

Want to learn more about British female medical volunteers and heroes from World War I? Here are a few links that will help guide you:

Dr. Elizabeth Ross | Tain Museum
Scottish Women’s Hospitals in WWI | Womens History Network
British Nurses in Serbia during WWI | Britić