Dr Elizabeth Marian Erskine

Marian Erskine served as a member of the Executive Committee of the National Vigilance Association (Eastern Division) and provided health and medical care to staff and clients of the organisation. 

She was born in 1873 and was educated at Edinburgh Ladies’ College (the former name of Mary Erskine’s, which is now part of ESMS) (Anon., 1942).  She studied at the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women run by Dr Sophia Jex-Blake (one of the Edinburgh Seven – the first women to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh), graduating in 1894.  She then began working at the Bruntsfield Hospital (the Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children) (Leneman, 1994).  The Bruntsfield Hospital offered medical care to women – including gynaecological and maternity care, as well as providing training and work opportunities to female medics (LHSA).   

Dr Marian Erskine was one of several female doctors – including Dr Isabel Venters, Dr Mary Liston and Dr Mary MacNicol – who provided medical care and advice to clients of the NVA (and organisations associated with it) in the early years of the organisation.   

Marian Erskine was noted to oversee the X-ray and electrical departments at the Bruntsfield Hospital for many years.  During the First World War she travelled to Salonica (Thessaloniki) in Greece in 1916 to set up a medical unit there.  Then in 1921 she travelled to Belgrade with the Secretary of the NVA (Glasgow Branch), Mrs Ellen Hunter, with the aim of wrapping up the Scottish Women’s Hospital in Belgrade and establishing in its place a school for Serbian women to train to be nurses (Leneman, 1994). She retired from Bruntsfield Hospital in 1923 (Anon., 1942). 

References: 

Anon (1942) Noted Physician: Death of Marian Erskine, Edinburgh Evening News, 1st June, . 

Lothian Health Service Archives (2025) ‘Lothian Hospital Histories: Bruntsfield Hospital’. Available at: Bruntsfield Hospital history