The Women's Victory—and After: Personal Reminiscences, 1911-1918 — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Women's Victory—and After: Personal Reminiscences, 1911-1918
John Stuart Mill · en
On the next day—Sunday, July 27th—many hundreds of the pilgrims,
wearing their badges and colours, assembled in Trafalgar Square and
walked in procession, but without banners, to St. Paul's to attend
the afternoon service. A large number of seats had been courteously
reserved for them under the dome, and a sermon appropriate to the
occasion was preached by Canon Simpson. We thought it just like
our good luck that the first Psalm for the evening service on the
twenty-seventh day of the month was the absolutely appropriate one:
"When the Lord turned again the captivity of Sion, then were we like
unto them that dream.... They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He
that goeth on his way weeping, and bearing forth good seed, shall
doubtless come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him." A deep
sense of peace and of absolute confidence in our ultimate triumph came
upon us. We were as certain of it as if it had already been in our
grasp.
It may not be inappropriate here to add a few words about Mrs. Harley,
who originated the Pilgrimage. She was a woman of great originality
and imagination. The widow of a soldier, and sister of General French,
she had lived most of her life among military people and in a military
atmosphere. She was the life and soul of the suffrage movement in
Shrewsbury and the neighbourhood, where her fine character has left a
lasting impression. In December, 1914, she joined the first unit of the
Scottish Women's Hospitals for foreign service under Dr. Elsie Inglis,
and acted as administrator of the great hospital, afterwards so famous,
which was opened in the Abbaye de Royaumont. Mrs. Harley took her young
daughter with her as one of her orderlies. On one occasion, when this
gently nurtured girl was scrubbing a ward, a sick French soldier asked
her if it were true that she was the niece of Lord French. When she
replied in the affirmative, the poilu rejoined: "I don't think General
Joffre's niece would scrub our ward." These little things made a deep
impression, and, I am told, puzzled our French friends not a little.
When the French Government asked the S.W.H. for a second hospital, one
was opened at Troyes, and Mrs. Harley accompanied it, again acting as
administrator. It was the first open-air hospital ever seen in France.
The soldiers nursed in it were enthusiastic in their praise. When the
French Expeditionary Force was sent to Salonica the French Government
asked the Scottish Women's Hospitals Committee to allow this unit to go
with it, a request which was, of course, willingly granted. While at
Salonica Mrs. Harley received from the French military authorities the
Croix de Guerre avec Palme, a decoration which she brought to show us
at our suffrage office in the summer of 1916, when she was in London
for a short time arranging for the transport to Serbia of a couple of
motor ambulances. This was the last time we saw her, for she was killed
by Bulgarian shell-fire at Monastir on March 7th, 1917. Her works do