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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2019, SPi

Biblical Refigurations

Reimagining Hagar
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2019, SPi

BIBLICAL REFIGURATIONS
General Editors: James Crossley and Francesca Stavrakopoulou
This innovative series offers new perspectives on the textual, cultural, and
interpretative contexts of particular biblical characters, inviting readers to take
a fresh look at the methodologies of Biblical Studies. Individual volumes
employ different critical methods including social-scientific criticism, critical
theory, historical criticism, reception history, postcolonialism, and gender
studies, while subjects include both prominent and lesser known figures
from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2019, SPi

REIMAGINING
HAGAR
Blackness and Bible

NYASHA JUNIOR

1
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2019, SPi

3
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 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2019, SPi

To Jeremy David Schipper

who has never asked me to dim my light
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2019, SPi
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2019, SPi

Acknowledgments

I must thank my students at Howard University School of Divinity for

stimulating my thinking on the appropriation of Hagar. During a
classroom exercise I showed them European paintings of Sarah,
Abraham, and Hagar, and they blurted out, “Why is Hagar a White
woman? We all know that she’s Black.” I was surprised because they
had not voiced any objection to the skin color or features of other
biblical characters such as Adam, Eve, Moses, or Joseph, who were
portrayed as Europeans. I began to wonder how they could have
arrived at such a definite view of Hagar. I am grateful for their
inquisitiveness, which led me to this line of research. As well, I am
grateful to my former Howard University colleague Dr. Cain Hope
Felder, an esteemed New Testament scholar who has now retired. He
welcomed me warmly to the faculty at Howard University School of
Divinity. I and many other biblical scholars owe him a debt for his
pioneering scholarship.
While I was an undergraduate at Georgetown University, I took a
very challenging “Blacks in the Ancient Mediterranean” course with
the late Dr. Frank Snowden, a classicist at Howard University. He was
a scholar and gentleman, and I recall being impressed that he did not
rely on translations by others but translated ancient texts himself. Also,
I remember being proud to tell him that I had been admited to the
MPA program at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of
Public and International Affairs. Although at the time I had no
thought of pursuing doctoral work or becoming a biblical scholar,
Snowden’s high standards and scholarship influenced my develop-
ment and led me to my current career and this work.
Also while a student Georgetown, I remember hearing whispers of
enslaved Africans who were sold by Georgetown University to fund its
endowment. At the time, no details were available regarding their fate.
Now, there is movement to acknowledge the descendents of the 272
persons who were sold as well as others who were forced to labor at
Georgetown. (See slaveryarchive.georgetown.edu and gu272.net.)
Like other American institutions, Georgetown was built on a legacy
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2019, SPi

viii Acknowledgments

of human bondage on stolen land. Like all Georgetown Hoyas, I have

benefitted from this legacy, and I too owe a debt. My research on
enslaved persons for this book has made me even more aware of the
importance of telling the truth of our heritage and of making amends.
I am thankful for the support and encouragement of my Temple
University Department of Religion colleagues. I am grateful for help-
ful comments from the University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia
Seminar on Christian Origins. Also, thanks to my virtual friends
on social media who have cheered and encouraged me. A collective
shout-out goes to Patricia Matthew, Ellen Muehlberger, Zandria
Felice Robinson, Stephen Russell, Mark Kelly Tyler, and Fred
Ware. Thanks and hugs go to my long-suffering friends James
Logan and Bridgett Green. I am forever grateful for the firm founda-
tion of my mother Abbie Gale Junior, my extended family, and my
church family at Greater Bethlehem AME Church. They were the
first to teach me about Hagar.
All biblical translations in this book come from the New Revised
Standard Version (NRSV) or the King James Version (KJV).
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2019, SPi

Contents

List of Figures xi

Introduction 
. Mother Hagar 
. Egyptian Hagar 
. Aunt Hagar 
. Black Hagar 
Epilogue 

Bibliography 
Index 
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2019, SPi
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2019, SPi

List of Figures

. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Hagar and the Angel, c. .

Udine, Italy. Palazzo Patriarcale. Photograph by
Wolfgang Sauber. 
. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Hagar in the Wilderness,
. Metropolitan Museum of Art. 
. Edward Sheffield Bartholomew, Hagar and Ishmael,
. The Art Institute of Chicago. Photograph by
Wuselig. 
. Edmonia Lewis, Hagar, . Smithsonian American
Art Museum. Used by permission. 
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2019, SPi
 Introduction

As a warm-up, stop reading this book for a moment and visualize

Moses from the Bible. For many of us of a certain age, we think of
Charlton Heston from Cecil B. DeMille’s  classic The Ten
Commandments. What if I ask you to visualize Pharaoh from the
Moses story? Some of you may think of an animated character and
hear the voice of Sir Patrick Stewart from the DreamWorks  film
Prince of Egypt. Biblical characters are present within our lives and our
culture, and they live in our imagination.
Now visualize Hagar of the Bible. Were you thinking of her wearing
a head covering and sandals? Were you thinking of a dark-skinned
woman? While working on this project, when I mentioned that I was
working on Black Hagar, I found that people had one of two reactions.
Either they said, “I’ve never heard of that” or “Of course, Hagar is
Black.” Among some African American Christians, Hagar is indis-
putably a Black woman. By “Black,” I mean an understanding of
Hagar as related to peoples of the African Diaspora who would be
identified as Black within contemporary racial classification schemes
in a US context. The understanding of Hagar as a Black woman may
strike some as especially curious due to the default Western identifica-
tion of most biblical characters as White or at least as non-Black. Was it
due to an old Negro spiritual? Maybe some long-forgotten early Chris-
tian commentary? Whether or not you are familiar with this particular
interpretation, the idea of a Black Hagar presents some intriguing
questions. Reimagining Hagar seeks to answer two questions: () How
did Hagar become Black? and () What purpose did or does that serve?
Hagar has become an important figure in Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam, but in many ways, Hagar is a minor character who appears in only
a few scriptural texts. We do not know her age, height, weight, skin
color, or hair curl pattern. In Genesis  and , Hagar is an Egyptian,
an enslaved woman, a wife, and a mother. She is brought into, runs away
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2019, SPi

 Reimagining Hagar

from, and is forced out of Abram/Abraham’s household.¹ In Galatians ,

she is allegorized in contrast to Sarah. In the Qur’an she does not appear
by name. Nevertheless, Hagar is a complex character. In the space of only
two chapters in Genesis, she is a surrogate to Sarah, a wife of Abraham, a
mother to Ishmael, an enslaved woman, an Egyptian woman, a pregnant
woman who is told to return to an abusive home, and a banished woman
who experiences a theophany in the wilderness.
This book offers a reception history that examines interpretations of
Hagar with a focus on treatments of Hagar as a Black woman par-
ticularly among African Americans. Reception history within biblical
studies considers the use, impact, and influence of biblical texts and
looks at a necessarily small number of points within the long history of
the transmission of biblical texts.² In particular, this book considers
how interpreters engage markers of difference, including gender,
ethnicity, status, and their intersections in their portrayals of Hagar.
Reimagining Hagar illustrates that interpretations of biblical Hagar as
Black emphasize elements of Hagar’s story in order to connect her with
or disassociate her from particular groups. In addition, it reveals that
references to Black Hagar are not always allusions to biblical Hagar.
One might think that the story of an enslaved Egyptian woman
such as Hagar would also resonate with African Americans, but
biblical Hagar is not commonly engaged in African American biblical
interpretation prior to the twentieth century. Biblical characters such
as Mary, Martha, Daniel, and even Balaam’s talking ass found their
place within this tradition, but not Hagar.³ Furthermore, other biblical
characters would seem to offer easier connections. For instance, Miriam,
a Hebrew enslaved woman born in Egypt, might provide a more
obvious link to African American women’s experiences. Yet, she is
not generally interpreted as Black.
Due to the variety of elements of her story, Hagar is an excellent
prism for interpreters who have concerns regarding inclusion and exclu-
sion. Although other biblical texts include conflict, rivalry, arguments,
and warfare, Genesis  and  includes tension between multiple
characters and highlights questions of ethnicity, age, fertility, inherit-
ance, obedience, and more. Because Hagar’s story includes so many
different issues and relationships, she has captured the imagination of
countless writers and artists, including those who identify her as Black.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2019, SPi

Introduction 

The story of Hagar as Black is not a single, linear narrative. This

book covers a limited selection of interpretations and is not intended
to be a representative sample or comprehensive collection of interpret-
ations of Hagar throughout the history of biblical interpretation. Also,
I have not attempted to construct a tradition history of biblical Hagar,
which would investigate the transmission of oral traditions and written
texts that contribute to the final canonical form of the text.⁴ Further-
more, since Hagar is a literary character, we cannot recreate a hypo-
thetical, historical Hagar in order to speculate regarding her status as
an enslaved women or the possible physical features of a Late Bronze
Age Egyptian woman.⁵ Finally, this book does not offer a reading of
the Hagar narratives from a particular contextual perspective. Instead,
I am concerned with determining how and why Black Hagar emerged
and developed. I am not attempting to establish the precise origins of
the idea of Hagar as Black as much as I want to try to untangle some of
the knots in this thread of interpretation.
As a reception history that engages African American biblical
interpretation, this book builds on the work of African American
classicists and biblical scholars.⁶ Hebrew Bible scholar Randall Bailey
outlines four major tasks of African American biblical scholarship,
including: () arguing for the African presence in biblical texts; ()
identifying and responding to White supremacist interpretations;
() cultural-historical interpretation that attends to the history of
biblical interpretation within Black communities; and () ideological
criticism that uses the African American context as a reading strategy.⁷
This book fits within his third category in that it offers a history of
interpretation, but it expands beyond interpretation among Black
communities to consider how various interpreters have identified
Hagar as Black.
Since our quest for Black Hagar is a cross-disciplinary effort that
covers a lot of ground, this Introduction supplies key information
needed as background for our quest to understand how Hagar
becomes Black and what purpose it serves. It explains key terminology
related to race, ethnicity, and color. It provides a brief discussion of
Blackness and biblical characters and describes key elements of the
African American vernacular tradition. Finally, it offers an overview of
this volume.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/4/2019, SPi

 Reimagining Hagar
Race, ethnicity, and color
Since race is an integral part of this project, it is important to define
key terms and provide background material that will inform our
discussion of how and why Hagar becomes Black. “Race” refers to
efforts to classify and divide humanity by physical and biological
categories that stem from one’s genetic ancestry.⁸ Despite the lack of
biological basis for racial categories, race continues to serve as a
persistent although changing social construct.⁹ Notions of race often
rely on phenotypes, which are observable physical traits such as eye
color and hair color as well as perceived behavioral traits such as
intelligence. Attempts to identify ancient peoples using modern
notions of biological race are anachronistic since race as a strict
biological category was not known in the ancient world.¹⁰ That is,
later efforts to group people into biologically-based racial categories
are not part of the ancient world’s understandings for categorizing
different groups of people.
Ethnicity refers to a dynamic and flexible group identity that
involves shared genealogy, values, beliefs, behaviors, experiences,
traits, and traditions.¹¹ Religion, language, history, customs, clothing,
and physical features are among the real and imagined social and
biological markers used in constructing boundaries that reflect notions
of “us” and “them.” In the ancient world, ethnicity, as an element of
individual and collective identity, was a recognized category for con-
structing boundaries of in-group and out-group members that distin-
guished insiders and outsiders. Part of the construction of an insider
group may require an oppositional view that supports efforts to dis-
tinguish “us” from “them.” These real and imagined ethnic differences
were not rigid but fluid and negotiated notions that changed over time.
Ancient constructions of ethnicity differed among various peoples.¹²
Neither race nor ethnicity is “natural” or neutral, and there is nothing
“natural” or neutral regarding the use of these distinctions in deter-
mining and distributing power and position.
Ancient peoples noted geographic and linguistic distinctiveness
among different ethnicities.¹³ For instance, the Egyptian hymn “The
Great Hymn to the Aten” (fourteenth century ) acknowledges
differences among peoples under the creator Aten. It reads:
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 This was nearly the last letter written by Elsie to
her father. In most of her letters during the
preceding months it was obvious Mr. Inglis’ health
was causing her anxiety, and the inquiries and
suggestions for his well-being grew more urgent as
the shadow of death fell increasingly dark on the
written pages.
Elsie returned to receive his eager welcome, but
even her eyes were blinded to the rapidly
approaching parting. On the 15th of March 1894, she
wrote to her brother Ernest in India, telling all the
story of Mr. Inglis’ passing on the 13th of that month.
There was much suffering borne with quiet patience,
‘He never once complained: I never saw such a
patient.’ At the end, he turned towards the window,
and then a bright look came into his eyes. He said,
‘Pull down the blind.’ Then the chivalrous, knightly
soul passed into the light that never was on sea or
land.
‘It was a splendid life he led,’ writes Elsie to her brother; ‘his old
Indian friends write now and say how “the name of John Inglis
always represented everything that was upright and straightforward
and high principled in the character of a Christian gentleman.” He
always said that he did not believe that death was the stopping
place, but that one would go on growing and learning through all
eternity. God bless him in his onward journey. I simply cannot
imagine life without him. We had made such plans, and now it does
not seem worth while to go on working at all. I wish he could have
seen me begin. He was so pleased about my beginning. I said it
would be such a joke to see Dr. Elsie Inglis up. Saturday afternoons
were to be his, and he was to come over in my trap.
‘He never thought of himself at all. Even when he was very ill at
the end, he always looked up when one went in, and said, “Well, my
darling.” I am glad I knew about nursing, for we did not need to
have any stranger about him. He would have hated that.’
 CHAPTER VI
POLITICAL ENFRANCHISEMENT AND
NATIONAL POLITICS
‘Well done, New Zealand! I expect I shall live to have a vote.’—
E. M. I., 1891.

‘I envy not in any mood

The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods.’

‘So the vote has come! and for our work. Fancy its having taken the
war to show them how ready we were to work! Or even to show that
that work was necessary. Where do they think the world would have
been without women’s work all these ages?’—E. M. I., Reni, Russia,
June 1917.

Mr. David Inglis, writing to his son on his marriage in

1845, says:—
‘I cannot express the deep interest, or the ardent hopes with
which my bosom is filled on the occasion, or the earnest though
humble prayer to the Giver of all good which it has uttered that He
may shed abundantly upon you both the rich mercies of His grace:
with those feelings I take each of you to my heart, and give you my
parental love and blessing. You have told me enough of the object of
your fond choice to make her henceforth dear to me, to all of us, on
her own account, as well as yours.
‘And here, my beloved David, I would turn for a moment more
immediately to yourself, as being now in a situation very different
from that in which you have hitherto been placed. As a husband,
then, it will now behove you to remember that you are not your own
exclusive property—that for a single moment you must never forget;
the tender love and affectionate respect and consideration which are
due from you to the amiable individual who has bestowed on you
her hand and heart, it will, I assure myself, be your pleasing duty to
prove, by unceasing attention to, and solicitude for, her every wish
how dearly you appreciate her worth, as well as gift; and that her
future comfort and happiness will invariably possess an estimation in
your view paramount to every feeling that can more immediately or
personally affect yourself. Let such be manifest in your every act, as
connected with every object in which she is concerned. Her love and
affection for you will then be reciprocal and pure and lasting, and
thus will you become to each other what, under God’s blessing, you
are meant to be—a mutual comfort and an abiding stay. Make her
the confidential friend of your bosom, to whom its every thought
must unreservedly be imparted—the soother of all its cares, its
anxieties, and disappointments, when they chance to arise; the fond
participator in all your happiness and joys, from whatever source
they may spring—you will thus be discharging a duty which your
sacred obligations at the altar have entailed upon you.’

This letter has been quoted with its phrasing of

seventy years ago, because it shows an advanced
outlook on the position of husband and wife, and the
setting forth of their equality and the respect paid to
their several positions. It may have influenced Mr.
Inglis’ views, both in his perfect relations with his
wife and the sympathetic liberty of thought and
action which he encouraged in his own family.
This chapter is devoted to the political and public
life of Elsie Inglis. It can be written in a fortunate
hour. The ‘common cause’ to which she gave so
much of her life has now been won. The tumult and
the turmoil are now hushed in peace and security.
The age which began in John Stuart Mill’s ‘Subjection
of Women’ has ended in the Representation of the
People’s Bill. It is possible to review the political
period of the generation which produced Elsie Inglis,
and her comrades in the struggle against the
disqualification of sex, without raising any fresh
controversy.
We may safely say that Dr. Inglis was one of the
finest types of women produced by the ideals and
inspiring purposes of the generation to which she
belonged. She was born when a woman was the
reigning Sovereign, and when her influence and
power were at its height. Four years after her birth
the Reform Bill of 1868 was to make the first claim
for women as citizens in the British Parliament. The
Married Woman’s Property Act, and the laws
affecting Divorce, had recognised them as something
else than the goods and chattels or the playthings
and bondwomen of the ‘predominant partner.’ Mary
Somerville had convinced the world that a woman
could have a brain. Timidly, and yet resolutely,
women were claiming a higher education, and
Universities were slamming to their doors, with a
petty horde of maxims claimed to be based on divine
authority. Women pioneers mounted platforms and
asserted ‘Rights,’ and qualified for jealously closed
professions—always, from the first, upheld and
companied by ‘Greathearts,’ men few but chosen,
who, like John Inglis, recognised that no community
was the stronger for keeping its people, be they
black or white, male or female, in any form of
ignorance or bonded serfdom.
As Elsie grew up, she found herself walking in the
new age. Doors were set ajar, if not fully opened.
The first wave of ridicule and of conscientious
objections had spent its force. A girl’s school might
play games decorously and not lose all genteel
deportment. Girls might show a love of knowledge,
and no longer be hooted as blue-stockings. The use
of the globes and cross-stitch gave place to learning
which might fit them to be educated, and useful
members of the community. Ill-health ceased to be
considered part of the curse of Eve, to be borne with
swooning resignation on the wide sofas of the early
Victorian Age. Ignorance and innocence were not
recognised as twin sisters, and women, having eaten
of the tree of knowledge, looked round a world
which prided itself on giving equal justice to all men,
and discovered that very often that axiom covered a
multitude of sins of injustice against all womankind.
It was through Elsie’s professional life that she
learnt to know how often the law was against the
woman’s best interests, and it was always in
connection with some reform that she longed to
initiate, that she expressed a desire for the Vote.

To her Father
‘Glasgow, 1891.

‘Many thanks for your letter about women’s rights. You are ahead
of all the world in everything, and they gradually come up into line
with you—the Westminster Confession and everything except Home
Rule! The amusing thing about women preaching is that they do it,
but as it is not in the churches it is not supposed to be in opposition
to Paul. They are having lots of meetings in the hall downstairs;
every single one of them is addressed by a woman. But, of course,
they could not give the same address in a church and with men
listening! At Queen Margaret’s here, they are having a course of
lectures on the Old Testament from the lecturer on that subject in
the University, but then, of course it is not “Divinity.”’

The opponents to Woman’s Franchise admittedly

occupied an illogical position, and Elsie’s abounding
sense of humour never failed to make use of all the
opportunities of laughter which the many absurdities
of the long fight evoked. No one with that sense as
highly developed could ever turn cynical or bitter. It
was only when cruelty and injustice came under her
ken that a fine scorn dominated her thought and
speech. She gives to her father some of these
instances:—
‘I got a paper to sign to thank the M.P.’s who voted for Sir A.
Rollitt’s Woman’s Suffrage Bill. I got it filled up in half a minute. I
wish she had sent half a dozen. There is no question among women
who have to work for themselves about wanting the suffrage. It is
the women who are safe and sound in their own drawing-rooms who
don’t see what on earth they want it for.
‘I have just been so angry! A woman came in yesterday very ill. A.
took down her case, and thought she would have to have an
operation. Then her husband arrived, and calmly said she was to go
home, because he could not look after the children. So I said that if
she went she went on her own responsibility, for I would not give my
consent. He said the baby was ill. I said, “Well, take it to a hospital.”
Then it turned out it was not ill, but had cried last night. I said I saw
very well what it was, that he had had a bad night, and had just
determined that his wife should have the bad night to-night, even
though she was ill, instead of him. He did look ashamed of himself,
selfish cad! Helpless creature, he could not even arrange for some
one to come in and take charge of those children unless his wife
went home to do it. She had got some one yesterday, but he had
had a row with her. I gave him my mind pretty clearly, but I went in
just now to find she had gone. I said she was stupid. So one woman
said, “It was not ’er fault, Miss; ’e would have it.”
‘I wonder when married women will learn they have any other
duty in the world than to obey their husbands. They were not even
her children—they were step-children. You don’t know what trouble
we have here with the husbands. They will come in the day before
the operation, after the woman has been screwed up to it, and
worry them with all sorts of outside things, and want them home
when they are half dying. Any idea that anybody is to be thought of
but themselves never enters their lordly minds, and the worst of it is
these stupid idiots of women don’t seem to think so either: “’E wants
it, Miss,” settles the question. I always say—“It does not matter one
fig what he wants. The question is what you want.” They don’t seem
to think they have any right to any individual existence. Well, I feel
better now, but I wish I could have scragged that beast. I have to
go to the wards now!
 ‘We had another row with a tyrannical husband. I did not know
whether to be most angry with him or his fool of a wife. She had
one of the most painful things anybody can have, an abscess in her
breast. It was so bad Miss Webb would not do anything for it in the
out-patients’, but said she was to come in at once. The woman said
she would go and arrange for somebody to look after her baby and
come back at six. At six appeared her lord and master. “I cannot let
my wife come in, as the baby is not old enough to be left with
anybody else.” Did you ever hear anything so monstrous? That one
human being is to settle for another human being whether she is to
be cured or not. I asked him whether he knew how painful it was,
and if he had to bear the pain. Miss Webb appealed to him, that he
was responsible for his wife’s health, for he seemed to assume he
was not. Both grounds were far above his intellect, either his
responsibility or his wife’s rights. He just stood there like an
obstinate mule. We told him it was positively brutal, and that he was
to go at once and get a good doctor home with him if he would not
let her in. Of course, he did not.
‘What a fool the woman must have been to have educated him up
to that. There really was no necessity for her to stay out because he
said she was to—poor thing. Miss Webb and I have struck up a great
friendship as the result. After we had both fumed about for some
time, I said, “Well, the only way to educate that kind of man, or that
kind of woman, is to get the franchise.” Miss Webb said, “Bravo,
bravo,” then I found she was a great franchise woman, and has been
having terrible difficulties with her L.W.A. here.’

The writer may add one more to these instances.

Suffrage meetings were of a necessity much alike,
and the round of argument was much the same.
Spade-work had to be done among men and women
who had the mental outlook of these patients and
the overlords of their destiny. Meetings were rarely
enthusiastic or crowded, and it was often like
speaking into the heart of a pincushion. To one of
these meetings Dr. Inglis came by train straight from
her practice. In memory’s halls all meetings are alike,
but one stands out, where Dr. Inglis illustrated her
argument by a fact in her day’s experience. The law
does not permit an operation on a married woman
without her husband’s consent. That day the consent
had been refused, and the woman was to be left to
lingering suffering from which only death could
release her. The voice and the thrill which pervaded
speaker and audience as Dr. Inglis told the tale and
pointed the moral, remains an abiding memory.
Her politics were Liberal, and, what was more
remarkable, she was a convinced Home Ruler. Those
who believe that women in politics naturally take the
line of the home, may find here a very strong
instance of the independent mind, producing no rift
within the lute that sounded such a perfect note of
unison between her and the prevailing influence of
her youth. Mr. Inglis had done his work in India, and
his politics were of an Imperialist rather than that of
a ‘Home Ruler All Round.’ When Mr. Gladstone
introduced his Home Rule Bill of 1893, Elsie
complains of the obstructive talk in Parliament. Mr.
Inglis gently says she seems to wish it passed
without discussion. Elsie replies on the points she
thinks salient and likely to work, and wonders why
they should not commend themselves to sense and
not words. The family have recollections of long and
not acrimonious debates well sustained on either
side.
She was a member of the W.L.F., and was always
impatient of the way Party was placed before the
Franchise.
‘I was sorry to see how the Suffrage question was pushed into the
background by Lady Aberdeen. However, I shall stick to the
Federation, and bring them to their senses on that point as far as my
influence goes. It is simply sham Liberalism that will not recognise
that it is a real Liberal question (1893).
‘That is a capital letter of Miss M‘Laren’s. It is quite true, and
women are awful fools to truckle to their party, instead of putting
their foot down, about the Franchise. You would certainly hear more
about wife murders than you do at present, if the women had a
vote.
‘Do you know what they said at the Liberal Club the other day in
answer to some deputation, or appeal, or rather it was said, in the
discussion, that the Liberal Party would do all they could to remedy
abuses and give women justice, but the vote they would not give,
because they would put a power into women’s hand which could
never be taken away. Plain speaking, was it not?
‘Did I tell you that I have to speak at a drawing-room meeting on
Woman’s Suffrage? Mrs. Elmy asked me to. I had just refused to
write a paper for her on the present state of medical education in
the country, for I thought that would be too great cheek in a house
surgeon, so I did not like to refuse the other.
 ‘The drawing-room meeting yesterday was very good. I got there
late, and found a fearfully and awfully fashionable audience being
harangued by a very smart-looking man, who spoke uncommonly
well, and was saying everything I meant to say.
‘Mrs. Elmy smiled and nodded away to me, and suddenly it flashed
on me that I was to second the motion this man was speaking to. I
was in such an awful funk that I got cool, and got up and told them
that I did not think Mr. Wilkins had left any single thing for me to
say; however, as things struck people in different ways I should
simply tell them how it struck me, and then went ahead with what I
meant to say when I got in. Mrs. Elmy was quite pleased, and
several people came up afterwards, and said I had got on all right.
Mrs. Elmy said, I had not repeated Mr. W., only emphasised him. He
was such a fluent speaker, he scared me awfully.’

The decade that saw the controversy of Home

Rule for Ireland, was the first that brought women
prominently into political organisations. Many
women’s associations were formed, and the religious
aspect as between Ulster and the South interested
many very deeply. Elsie was not a Liberal-Unionist,
and, as she states her case to her father, there is
much that shows that she was thinking the matter
out for herself, on lines which were then fresher than
they are to-day.
From Glasgow, in 1891, she writes:—
‘I have spent a wicked Sunday. I read all the morning, and then
went up to the Infirmary to bandage with Dr. D. Dr. T. says I am
quite sure to be plucked, after such worldliness. I have discovered
he is an Australian from Victoria. Dr. D. is an Aberdeen man and a
great admirer of George Smith. Also, a violent Home Ruler. Never
mind about the agricultural labourer, Papa dear! I am afraid
Gladstone’s majority won’t be a working one, and we shall have the
whole row over again in six months. Dr. D. says every available voter
has been seized by the scruff of his neck and made to vote this time.
And, six months hence there’ll be no fresh light on the situation, and
we’ll be where we are now. I should not wonder if the whole thing
makes us devise some plan for one Imperial Parliament and local
government for Ireland, Scotland, and the Colonies, ending in
making the integrity of the Empire “and unity of the English speaking
race” more apparent than it is now, and with the Irish contented and
managing their own affairs in their own mad way. Our future trouble
is with the Labour Party.
‘Mr. Gladstone has been so engrossed with his H.R. measure that
he does not seem to have noticed these other questions that have
been quickly growing, and he has made two big blunders about
Woman’s Suffrage and the Labour question. I have no doubt these
men are talking a lot of nonsense, and are trying for impossibilities,
but there is a great deal of sense in what they say. It is no good
shutting our eyes to the facts they bring forward.
‘As to Mr. D., I am very much afraid you would not agree with him.
He is a rank Socialist. The only point in which he agrees with you is
that he would make everybody do what he thinks right. Only his
ideas of right are very different from yours. He believes in an eight-
hour day, local option, and State-owned mines. His chief amusement
at present is arguing with me. He generally gets angry, and says, “I
argue like a woman,” but he always pluckily begins again. He was a
tradesman, and gave it up because he says you cannot be an honest
tradesman nowadays. He is studying medicine; the last day I worked
at “brains” he rampaged about the room arguing about the
unearned increment. I tell him he must come and argue in
Edinburgh—I have not time at present.
‘I will tell you what I think of the Home Rule Bill to-morrow—that
is to say, if I have time to read it. It is really a case of officers and
men here just now. I can’t say “go on” instead of “come on.” I
cannot order cold spongings and hot fomentations by the dozen and
then sit in my room and read the newspapers, can I?’

‘Glasgow, May 1892.

‘What do you think of Lord Salisbury’s speech, inciting to rebellion
and civil war? Now, don’t think of it as Lord Salisbury and Ulster, but
think of it as advice given by Mr. Gladstone to the rest of Ireland. If
you like to take the lead into your own hands and march on Dublin; I
don’t know that any Government would care to use the forces of the
Crown against you. You will be quite justified because the
Government of your country is in the hands of your hereditary foes.
There is only one good point in Lord Salisbury’s speech, and that is
that he does not sham that the Ulster men are Irishmen. He calls
them a colony from this country. Lord S. must have been feeling
desperate before he made that speech.’

‘1894.

‘I think Mr. Chamberlain’s speech was very clever. It was this

special Home Rule Bill he pulled to pieces, and one could not help
feeling that that would have been the result whatever the Bill had
been, if it had been introduced by anybody but Mr. C. His argument
seemed to be in favour of Imperial Federation, as far as I could
make out. I have no doubt the Bill can be very much improved in
committee, but the groundwork of it is all right. The two Houses and
the gradual giving over of the police and land, when they have had
time to find their feet. As to the retaining the Irish members in
Parliament being totally illogical, there is nothing in that; we always
make illogical things work. And the Irish members must stay.
‘I do like Mr. Balfour. He is so honest. I expect he hates the Irish
Party as much as any man, but he spoke up for them all the same. If
he had not, I don’t believe Mr. Chamberlain and some of the others
would have spoken as they did. The Conservative Party was quite
inclined to laugh at the paid stipendiaries until Mr. Balfour spoke.
 ‘I have been reading up the Bishop of Chester’s scheme and the
Direct Veto Bill. I don’t like his scheme. It would be very nice to turn
all the pubs into coffee-houses, but a big company over whom the
ratepayers have no control would be just as likely to do what would
pay best, as the tramway companies now, who work their men
seventeen hours and their horses three, at a stretch. It would be
quite a different thing to put the pubs under the Town and County
Councils. As to this Bill it is not to stop people drinking, but simply to
shut up pubs. A man can still buy his whisky and get drunk in his
own house, but a community says, “We won’t have the nuisance of a
pub at every corner,” and I am not sure that they have not that
right, just as much as the private individual has to get drunk if he
chooses. A great many men would keep straight if the temptation
were not thrown in their faces. The system of licences was instituted
for the good of the public, not the good of the publican.
‘The Elections will be three weeks after my exam. Dearest Papa!—
There is as much chance of Mr. Gladstone being beaten in Midlothian
as there is of a Conservative majority.’

Another friend writes:—

‘I should like to send you a recollection of her in the early Nineties.
My friend, Dr. Jessie MacGregor, wrote to my home in Rothesay,
asking us to put up Dr. Inglis, who was to give an address at a
Sanitary Congress to be held there. It was, I believe, her first public
appearance, and she did do well. One woman alone on a platform
filled with well-known doctors from all parts! Her subject was
advocating women as sanitary inspectors. She was one of the
pioneers in that movement also. I can well remember her, a slim
little girl in black, fearless as ever, doing her part. After she had
finished, there was a running criticism of her subject. Many against
her view, few for the cause on which she was speaking. It was an
unique experience. The discussion got quite hot. One well-known
doctor asked us to picture his dear friend Elsie Inglis carrying out a
six-foot smallpox patient.
 ‘I think she was the first lady medical to speak at a Congress. It
was such a pleasure to entertain her, she was so quiet and
unobtrusive, and yet so humorous. I never met her again, but I
could never forget her, though we were just like ships that pass in
the night.’

One of her Suffrage organisers, Miss Bury, gives a

vivid picture of her work in the Suffrage cause:—
‘It was Dr. Elsie Inglis who brought me to Scotland, and sent me
to organise Suffrage societies in the Highlands. I speak of her as I
knew her, the best of chiefs, so kind and encouraging and
appreciative of one’s efforts, even when they were not always
crowned with success. I remember saying I was disappointed
because the hall was only about three-quarters full, and her reply
was, “My dear, I was not counting the people, I was thinking of the
efforts which had brought those who were there.”
‘Her letters were an inspiration. She gave one the full responsibility
of one’s position, and always expected the best. Resolutely direct,
and straightforward in her dealings with me as a subordinate worker,
she never failed to tell me of any word of appreciation that reached
her, as she also told me candidly if she heard of any criticism. She
had such a big, generous mind, even condescending to give an
opportunity for argument when there was any difference of opinion,
and absolutely tolerant and kind when one did not agree with her.
‘She was always considerate of one’s health, and insisted that the
hours laid down for work were not to be exceeded, or, if this was
unavoidable, that the time must be taken off as soon as possible
afterwards. She only saw difficulties to conquer them, and I well
remember in one of her letters from Lazaravatz, she wrote so
characteristically—“the work is most interesting, bristling with
difficulties.”
‘My happiest recollection is of a visit to the Highlands, to speak at
some Suffrage meetings I had arranged for her. In the train she was
always busy writing, in that beautiful clear characteristic hand, like
herself, triumphing over the jolting of the Highland Railway, as she
did later in Serbia. In the early morning she had to catch a train at
Inverness, and we went by motor from Nairn. For once the writing
was laid aside, and she gave herself up to the enjoyment of the
sunrise, and the beautiful lights on the Ross-shire hills, as we
travelled along the shores of the Moray Firth. When the car broke
down, out came the despatch case again, while the chauffeur and I
put on the Stepney. There was no complaining about the lost train, a
wire was sent to the committee apologising for her absence, and
then she immediately turned her attention to other business.’

One who first came under her influence as a

patient, and became a warm friend, gives some
reminiscences. Her greeting to the elect at the
beginning of the year was, ‘A good new year, and the
Vote this year.’
‘I remember once, as we descended the steps of St. Giles’ after
attending a service at which the Edinburgh Town Council was
present, she spoke joyfully of the time coming when we, the women
of Edinburgh and of Scotland, would “help to build the New
Jerusalem, with the weapon ready to our hand—the Vote.”’

The year 1906 brought the Liberals into political

power, and with the great wave of democratic
enthusiasm which gave the Government of Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman an enormous majority there
came other expressions of the people’s will.
The Franchise for women had hitherto been of
academic interest in the community: a crank, many
thought it, like total abstinence or Christian Science.
The claims of women were frequently brought before
Parliament by private members, and if the Bill was
not ‘talked out,’ it was talked round, as one of the
best jests of a Parliamentary holiday. The women
who advocated it were treated with tolerance, their
public advocacy was deemed a tour de force, and
their portraits were always of the nature of
caricatures, except those in Punch, where the
opponent was caricatured, and the women
immortalised.
The Liberal party found its right wing mainly
composed of Labour, and Socialist members were
returned to Parliament. From that section of thought
sprang the militant movement, and the whole
question of the enfranchisement of women took on a
different aspect.
This chapter does not attempt to give a history of
the ‘common cause,’ or the reasons for the rapid way
it came to the front, and ranked with Ireland as
among the questions which, left unsettled, became a
thorn in the side of any Government that attempted
to govern against, or leaving outside the expressed
will of the people.
This is no place to examine the causes which,
along with the militant movement, but always
separated from them, poured such fresh life and
vigour into the old constitutional and law-abiding
effort to procure the free rights of citizenship for
women.
The pace quickened to an extent which was
bewildering. Where a dozen meetings a year had
been the portion of many speakers, they were
multiplied by the tens and scores. Organisations had
to be expanded. A fighting fund collected, meetings
arranged, debates were held all over the country and
among all classes. A press, which had never written
up the subject while its advocates were law-abiding,
tumbled over each other to advertise every
movement of all sections of suffragists. It must be
admitted the militants gave them plenty of copy, and
the constitutionalists had an uneasy sense that their
stable companions would kick over the traces in
some embarrassing and unexpected way on every
new occasion. Still the tide flowed steadily for the
principle, and those who had its guidance in
Parliament and the country had to use all the
strength of the movement in getting it well organised
and carefully worked. Societies were federated, and
the greatly growing numbers co-ordinated into a
machine which could bring the best pressure to bear
on Parliament. The well-planned Federation of
Scottish Suffrage Societies owed much to Dr. Inglis’
gift of organisation and of taking opportunity by the
hand. She was Honorary Secretary to the Scottish
Federation, and in those fighting years between 1906
and 1914 she impressed herself much on its policy.
In the early years of her professional life, she used
gaily to forecast for herself a large and paying
practice. Her patients never suffered, but she
sacrificed her professional prospects in a large
measure for her work for the Franchise. She gave
her time freely, and she raised money at critical
times by parting with what was of value and in her
power to give. Perhaps, the writer may here again
give her own reminiscences. Her fellowship with Dr.
Inglis was all too rarely social; they met almost
entirely in their suffrage work. To know Dr. Inglis at
all was to know her well. The transparent sincerity
and simplicity of her manner left nothing to be
discovered. One felt instinctively she was a comrade
one could ‘go tiger-hunting with,’ and to be in her
company was to be sustained by a true helpmate.
We were asked to speak together. Invited by the
elect, and sometimes by the opponents to enjoy
hospitality, Dr. Inglis was rarely able to come in time
for the baked meats before we ascended the
platform, and uttered our platitudes to rooms often
empty woodyards, stuck about with a remnant of
those who would be saved. She usually met us on
the platform, having arrived by the last train, and
obliged to leave by the first. But she never came
stale or discouraged. There was always the smile at
the last set-back, the ready joke at our opponents,
the subtle sense that she was out to win, the
compelling force of sustained effort that made at
least one of her yoke-fellows ashamed of the faint
heart that could never hope to win through.
Sometimes we travelled back together; more often
we would meet next day in St. Giles’ after the daily
service, and our walk home was always a cheer.
‘Never mind’ the note to discouragement. ‘Remember
this or that in our favour; our next move must be in
this direction.’ And the thought was always there (if
her unselfconsciousness prevented it being spoken—
as one wishes to-day it had been)—‘The meeting
went, because you were there and set your whole
soul on “willing” it through.’
She had no sympathy with militantism. There was
no better fighter with legitimate weapons, but she
saw how closely the claim to do wrong that good
might come was related to anarchy, and her sense of
true citizenship was outraged by law-breaking which,
to her clear judgment, could only retard the ultimate
triumph of a cause rooted in all that was just and
righteous. She was not confused by any cross-
currents of admiration for individual courage and
self-sacrifice, and her one desire was to see that the
Federation was ‘purged’ of all those who belonged to
the forces of disintegration.
She had the fruit of her political sagacity, and her
fearless pursuit after integrity in deed and in word.
When the moment came when she was to go to the
battle fronts of the world, a succourer of many, she
went in the strength of the Suffrage women of
Scotland. They were her shield and buckler, and their
loyal support of her work and its ideals was her
exceeding great reward. Without their organised
strength she could never have called into existence
those units and their equipment which have justly
earned the praises of nations allied in arms.
With the rise of the militant movement, the whole
Suffrage cause passed through a cloud of
opprobrium and almost universal objurgation.
Women were all tarred with the same stick, and fell
under one condemnation. It is now of little moment
to recall this, except in as much as it affected Elsie
Inglis. The Scottish Suffrage societies, who gave
their organisation and their workers to start the
Scottish Women’s Hospitals, found that the
community desired to forget the unpopular Suffrage,
and to remember only the Scottish Hospitals.
Speakers for the work that Dr. Inglis was doing were
asked to avoid ‘the common cause.’ No one who
knew her would consent to deny by implication one
of the deepest mainsprings of her work. The
Churches were equally timid in aught that gave
comfort or consolation to those who were loyal to
their Christian social ideal for women. No organised
society owes more to the administrative work of
women than does the Christian Church throughout
the world. No body of administrators have been
slower to perceive that women in responsible
positions would be a strength to the Church than
have been the clergy of the Church. The writer of
Uncle Tom’s Cabin puts into the mouth of the clerical
type of that day the argument that the Old
Testament gave an historic basis for the enslavement
of races, and St. Paul had sanctioned slavery in the
New Testament. The spirit of Christianity has raised
women from a ‘low estate,’ and women owe
everything to the results of Christianity; but the
ecclesiastical mind has never shaken off the belief
that they are under a special curse from the days of
Eden, and that St. Paul’s outlook on women in his
day was the last revelation as to their future position
in a jealously-guarded corporation. Which of us,
acquainted with the Church history of our day, but
remembers the General Assembly when the women
missionaries were first invited to stand by their
fellow-workers and be addressed by the Moderator
on their labours and sufferings in a common cause?
It was a great shock to the fathers and brethren that
their sex should not disqualify them from standing in
the Assembly, which would have more democratic
weight in the visible Church on earth if some of its
elected lay members were women serving in the
courts of the Church. In this matter and in many
others concerning women, the Church is not yet
triumphant over its prejudices bedded in the
geological structure of Genesis.
In all periods of the enfranchisement struggle
there were individual clergy who aided women with
their warm advocacy and the helpful direction of
thought. Elsie Inglis was a leader of this movement
in its connection with a high Christian ideal of the
citizenship of women. To those who gathered in St.
Margaret’s, the church of Parliament in history, to
commemorate all her works begun and ended as a
member of Christ’s Church here on earth, it was
fitting that Bishop Gore, who had so consistently
upheld the cause, should speak of her work as one
who had helped to win the equality of women in a
democratic, self-governing State.
This memoir would utterly fail to reproduce a
picture of Dr. Inglis if it did not emphasise how her
spirit was led and disciplined, tempered and steeled,
through this long and fiery trial to the goal of a
leading ideal. The contest trained her for her
splendid achievements in overcoming all obstacles in
ministering to the sufferings of nations, ‘rightly
struggling to be free.’ Her friend, Miss Wright, says:—
‘We did not always agree. Many were the arguments we had with
her, but she was always willing to understand another point of view
and willing to allow for difference of opinion. She was very fair-
minded and reasonable, and deplored the excesses of the militant
suffragettes. She was in no sense a man-hater; to her the world was
composed of men and women, and she thought it a mistake to exalt
the one unduly over the other. She was never embittered by her
struggle for the position of women. She loved the fight, and the
endeavour, and to arrive at any point just meant a fresh setting
forward to another further goal.
‘From her girlhood onward, her effort was to free and broaden life
for other women, to make the world a better place to live in.
‘I had a letter this week from Annie Wilson, Elsie’s great friend.
She says, “It seems to me Elsie’s whole life was full of championship
of the weak, and she was so strong in maintaining what was right. I
feel sure she has inspired many. I remember once saying in
connection with some work I was going to begin, ‘I wonder if I shall
be able,’ and Elsie saying in her bright way, ‘What man has done
man can do.’ I am so glad that she had the opportunity of showing
her great administrative capacity, and that her power is known and
acknowledged. She is a great woman. I cannot tell you what it will
be not to have her welcome to look forward to when I come home.”
‘Elsie had in many respects what is, perhaps wrongly, called a
man’s mind. She was an Imperialist in the very best sense, and had
high ideals for her country and people. She was a very womanly
woman, never affecting mannish ways as a pose. If she seemed a
strong-minded woman it was because she had strenuous work to do.
She was never “a lone woman.” She was always one of a family, and
in the heart of the family. Elsie always had the lovingest appreciation
and backing from her nearest and dearest, and that a wide and
varied circle. So, also, she did not need to fight for her position; it
has been said of her, “Whenever she began to speak her pleasant
well-bred accent and manner gained her a hearing.” She was ever a
fighter, but it was because she wanted those out in the cold and
darkness to come into the love and light which she herself
experienced and sought after always more fully.
‘We looked forward to more frequent meetings when working days
were done. Now she has gone forward to the great work beyond:

‘“Somewhere, surely, afar

In the sounding labour home vast
Of being, is practised that strength—
Zealous, beneficent, firm.”’
 CHAPTER VII
THE PROFESSION AND THE FAITH
‘Run the straight race through God’s good grace,
Lift up thine eyes and seek His face;
Life with its way before us lies,
Christ is the path, and Christ the prize.’

‘Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.’

Elsie Inglis took up practice in Edinburgh, and worked

in a happy partnership with the late Dr. Jessie
MacGregor, until the latter left Scotland for work in
America.
When the University of Edinburgh admitted women
to the examinations for degrees in medicine, Dr.
Inglis graduated M.B., C.M. in 1899. From that date
onwards her practice, her political and suffrage work,
and the founding of the Hospice in the High Street of
Edinburgh, as a nursing home and maternity centre
staffed by medical women, occupied a life which
grew and strengthened amid so many and varied
experiences.
Her father’s death deprived her of what had been
the very centre and mainspring of her existence. As
she records the story of his passing on, she says that
she cannot imagine life without him, and that he had
been so glad to see her begin her professional
career. She was not one to lose her place in the
stream of life from any morbid inaction or useless
repining. She shared the spirit of the race from which
she had sprung, a reaching forward to obtain the
prize of life fulfilled with service, and she had
inherited the childlike faith and confidence which
inspired their belief in the Father of Spirits.
Elsie lost in her father the one who had made her
the centre of his thoughts and of his most loving
watchfulness. From the day that her home with him
was left unto her desolate, she was to become a
centre to many of her father’s wide household, and,
even as she had learnt from him, she became a stay
and support to many of his children’s children.
The two doctors started practice in Atholl Place,
and later on they moved into 8 Walker Street, an
abode which will always be associated with the name
of Dr. Elsie Inglis.
Mrs. M‘Laren says:—
‘My impressions of their joint house are all pleasant ones. They
got on wonderfully together, and in every thing seemed to
appreciate one another’s good qualities. They were very different,
and had in many ways a different outlook. I remember Jessie saying
once, “Elsie is so exceptionally generous in her attitude of mind, it
would be difficult not to get on with her!” They both held their own
opinions on various subjects without the difference of opinion really
coming between them. Elsie said once about the arrangement, “It
has all the advantages of marriage without any of its disabilities.” We
used always to think they did each other worlds of good. I know
how I always enjoyed a visit to them if it was only for an afternoon
or some weeks. There was such an air of freedom in the whole
house. You did what you liked, thought what you liked, without any
fear of criticism or of being misunderstood.
‘I do not know much about her practice, as medicine never
interested me, but I believe at one time, before the Suffrage work
engrossed her so much, she was making quite a large income.’

Professionally she suffered under two disabilities:

the restricted opportunities for clinical work in the
days when she was studying her profession,
combined with the constant interruptions which the
struggle against the medical obstructionists
necessitated; secondly, the various stages in the
political fight incident to obtaining that wider
enfranchisement which aimed at freeing women from
all those lesser disabilities which made them the
helots of every recognised profession and industry.
When in the Scottish Women’s Hospitals abroad,
Dr. Inglis rapidly acquired a surgical skill, under the
tremendous pressure of work, which often kept her
for days at the operating-table, which showed what a
great surgeon she might have been, given equal
advantages in the days of her peace practice.
Dr. Inglis lost no opportunity of enlarging her
knowledge. She was a lecturer on Gynecology in the
Medical College for Women which had been started
later than Dr. Jex Blake’s school, and was on slightly
broader lines. After she had started practice she
went to study German clinics; she travelled to
Vienna, and later on spent two months in America
studying the work and methods of the best surgeons
in New York, Chicago, and Rochester.
She advocated, at home and abroad, equal
opportunities for work and study in the laboratories
for both men and women students. She maintained
that the lectures for women only were not as good
as those provided for the men, and that the women
did not get the opportunity of thorough laboratory
practice before taking their exams. She thus came
into conflict with the University authorities, who
refused to accept women medical students within the
University, or to recognise extra-mural mixed classes
in certain subjects. Step by step Dr. Inglis fought for
the students. ‘With a great price’ she might truly say
she had purchased her freedom, and nothing would
turn her aside. If one avenue was closed, try
another. If one Principal was adamant, his day could
not last for ever; prepare the way for his successor.
Indomitable, unbeaten, unsoured, Dr. Inglis, with the
smiling, fearless brow, trod the years till the
influence of the ‘red planet Mars’ opened to her and
others the gate of opportunity. She had achieved
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