This building was the site of the Elsie Inglis Hospice, a maternity hospital created by Dr. Elsie Inglis and Dr. Jessie McLaren MacGregor in 1904. They were among the first female students of medicine in Scotland and the hospice was run by an all female staff to serve the poorest women in Edinburgh and beyond. I made a special pilgrimage here because my great-grandmother was one of those poor, unwed women who gave birth here – to a son who would only live a few weeks.
