Isabel Emslie Hutton

Isabel Galloway Emslie Hutton, Lady Hutton CBE (11 September 1887 – 11 January 1960), previously Isabel Galloway Emslie, was a Scottish physician who specialised in mental health and social work.[1] Emslie served leading units in Dr. Elsie Inglis's Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service in the front line in World War I and won awards[2] from the British, Serbian, Russian and French. Emslie married British military officer Lt General Sir Thomas Jacomb Hutton.

Isabel Emslie Hutton
Lady Hutton

CBE
Isabel Galloway Emslie Hutton
Born
Isabel Galloway Emslie

11 September 1887
Edinburgh, Scotland
Died11 January 1960 (aged 72–73)
London, England
NationalityScottish
EducationUniversity of Edinburgh
Known forMedical work during World War I
Order of the White Eagle (Serbia)
Order of St. Sava
Croix de Guerre
Order of St. Anna
Serbian postage stamp in her honour (2015)
RelativesGeneral Sir Thomas Hutton (married 1921)
Medical career
Professionphysician, psychiatrist
Fieldpsychiatry
InstitutionsRoyal Edinburgh Hospital
Notable worksWassermann sero-diagnosis of syphilis in 200 cases of insanity
With a Woman's Unit in Serbia, Salonika and Sebastopol
Mental Disorders in Modern Life
Memoirs of a Doctor in War and Peace

Early life and education

Isabel Galloway Emslie was born in Edinburgh in 1887. She was the eldest daughter of James Emslie, advocate and Deputy Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland. She was educated at Edinburgh Ladies' College, then enrolled at the University of Edinburgh, where she trained in the women's medical school, spending her hospital residence years at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. In 1910, she graduated with a degree in medicine and in 1912 was awarded her MD degrees with a thesis titled "Wassermann sero-diagnosis of syphilis in 200 cases of insanity".[3]

Career

While completing her thesis, Emslie worked as a pathologist at the Stirling District Asylum, then moved to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children before becoming the first woman to be appointed in charge of the women’s medicine of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital.

In 1915, she joined the Scottish Women's Hospitals Organisation and served in France at the Domaine de Chanteloup, Sainte-Savine, near Troyes, then with the French Army’s Armee d'Orient in Salonika, distinguishing herself by leading the unit which accompanied the Serbian army during the First World War.

Following the closure of the Serbian hospital where she worked, Emslie took over Lady Muriel Paget's mission in Crimea. In this role, she brought several orphaned children to Constantinople (now Istanbul) and organised relief for Russian refugees. In 1928, she published With a Woman's Unit in Serbia, Salonika and Sebastopol, an account of these years.[4]

For her work during this period, she was awarded the Serbian orders of the White Eagle and St. Sava, the French Croix de Guerre, and the Order of St. Anna of Russia.[5]

On her return to Edinburgh in 1920, she was reinstated to her former post at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital but resigned the position after her marriage the following year to Major Thomas Hutton.[1] She then moved to London, working as a researcher the Maudsley Hospital which led to a research paper with Sir Frederick Mott, and honorary consultancies at the Maudsley and the West End Hospital for Nervous Disease. In October 1939, she was living in Marylebone and was registered as a consultant physician.[6] In 1940, she published Mental Disorders in Modern Life, drawing on her experience from these roles.[7]

The grave of Isabel Emslie Hutton, Grange Cemetery

During the Second World War, she joined her husband in India and took up the post of director of the Indian Red Cross welfare service, also undertaking charity work, broadcasting, and dispatches for the external affairs department. She returned to England in 1946. In 1948, she was appointed as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Becoming a senior consultant, Hutton was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and a member of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association.

She died on 11 January 1960 and was buried with her parents in the Grange Cemetery in south Edinburgh. Her gravestone, sculpted by Pilkington Jackson, stands near the centre of the south-west extension.

Selected works
  • With a Woman's Unit in Serbia, Salonika and Sebastopol, 1928
  • Mental Disorders in Modern Life, 1940
  • autobiography, Memoirs of a Doctor in War and Peace, 1960.[8]

Awards and honours
Hutton on a 2015 stamp of Serbia from the series "British Heroines of the First World War in Serbia".

See also

References
  1. McConnell, Anita (2004) "Hutton, Isabel Galloway Emslie , Lady Hutton (1887–1960)" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/71709
  2. "Collection box and medals, associated with Scottish Women's Hospitals units and Dr Elsie Inglis". National Museum of Scotland, accessed via SCRAN. 000-180-000-413-C.
  3. Galloway, Emslie, Isabella (1912). "Wassermann sero-diagnosis of syphilis in 200 cases of insanity". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. Hutton, Isabel Galloway Emslie (1 January 1928). With a Woman's Unit in Serbia, Salonika and Sebastopol. Williams.
  5. "Obituary: Isabel Emslie Hutton". The Lancet. 275 (7117): 231. 23 January 1960. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(60)90161-6.
  6. National Registration Act 1939, 6, Montagu Place, St Marylebone, ancestry.co.uk, accessed 26 January 2021 (subscription required)
  7. Hutton, Lady Isabel Emslie (1 January 1940). Mental Disorders in Modern Life, etc. (First published under the title The Last of the Taboos.).
  8. Hutton, Isabel Galloway Emslie (1 January 1960). Memories of a doctor in war and peace. Heinemann.
  9. "Heroic Scottish women to feature on stamps". Herald Scotland. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
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