Partner Elsie Knocker,
Edith May Davidson
Queer Places:
Manor Cottage on The Green, 11 Datchet Rd, Old Windsor, Windsor SL4 2RJ, UK
Cnoc an Fhurain, A828, Rhugarbh, Barcaldine in Argyll
Hotel Ariane, Slachthuisstraat 58, 8900 Ieper, Belgium
Mairi
Lambert Gooden Chisholm of Chisholm, MM, OStJ (26 February 1896 – 22 August
1981), known as Mairi Chisholm, was a Scottish nurse and ambulance driver in
the First World War. She, together with her friend Elsie
Knocker, won numerous medals for bravery and for saving the lives of
thousands of soldiers on the Western Front in Belgium. Dubbed "The Madonnas
of Pervyse" by the press[1][2] the
two were among the most photographed women of the war.[3]
Contemporary commentators referred to the women in their outfits of khaki
breeches, flannel shirts and fur coats as like splendid young airmen, while
the novelist May Sinclair described watching
Mairi Chisholm strolling about the seat of War with her hand in her pockets,
as if a battle were a cricket match... and yet there isn't a man in the Corps
who does his work better or with more courage and endurance than this 18 years
old child. Mairi Chisholm and Baroness de T'Serclaes (formerly Mrs Elsie
Knocker) shared a private bedroom and double bed for four years while
stationed at Pervyse. Elsie Knocker donated the diary in which she recorded
her four years in Pervyse with Mairi Chisholm to the Imperial War Museum with
no apparent sense that their relationship might be interpreted in sexual
terms.
Chisholm was born on 26 February 1896 in Datchet, into a rich merchant family. She was the second child of Captain Roderick Gooden-Chisholm, Chief of Clan Chisholm, and Margaret Fraser, daughter of Colonel William Fraser of Colbokie and Guisachan.[5] Kelly’s Local Directory 1895 records the family at Manor Cottage on The Green. Their first child, a boy named Uailean Hamish McUistean was born in Datchet in 1894 but by 1906, when their third child, Lucy Margaret, was born, the family had moved to Dorset. Her
family was independently wealthy and owned a plantation in Trinidad.
As a teen, she witnessed her older brother, Uailean, who owned a Royal
Enfield 425cc motorcycle, competing at rallies and at the Bournemouth speed
trials. Around this time, and against his wife's wishes, her father bought her
a Douglas motorbike.
Chisholm spent hours in the family stables stripping down the bikes and
repairing them. She was just 18 years old when, while roaring round the Hampshire and
Dorset lanes, she met thirty-year-old Elsie Knocker, a divorcee and mother of
a young son. They became fast friends and soon began competing in motorcycle
and sidecar trials together.
Knocker and Chisholm in their converted Wolseley Ambulance, Pervyse, Belgium, c. 1916
Knocker and Chisholm pose in the ruins of a church in Pervyse, Belgium for "Illustrated War News", 22 April 1917
Chisholm and Knocker wearing their Tommy helmets. Pervyse, Belgium, c. 1917
Chisholm and Knocker display their Order of Léopold II, medals. On their headscarves is the insignia of the Belgian Army's 3rd Division, c. 1918
Knocker and Chisholm on the cover of "Home Chat" magazine, 11 April 1918
Knocker and Chisholm outside their advanced dressing station, Pervyse, Belgium, c. 1918
Elsie and Mairi
When war was declared in 1914, Knocker wrote to Chisholm that there was
"work to be done",[6] and
suggested they go to London to become dispatch
riders for the Women's
Emergency Corps.[7] Chisholm
rode her motorbike all the way from Dorset to the capital. It was while acting
as a courier in this way that she was spotted making hairpin corners in the
city by a Dr. Hector Munro. Munro was setting up a Flying
Ambulance Corps to help the Belgians who had been caught unawares by the
German invasion and invited her to join his team, as she describes in a June
1976 interview: “[Munro] was deeply impressed with my ability to ride through
the traffic. He traced me to the Women's Emergency Corps and... said, 'Would
you like to go out to Flanders' and I said 'Yes, I'd love to'."[8]
Both she and Knocker ended up in Belgium as part of the corps which included Dorothie
Feilding and May
Sinclair. Initially quartered at Ghent,
the unit relocated to Veurne at
the end of October where the women worked tirelessly, picking up wounded
soldiers mid-way from the front and transporting them back to their field
hospital at the rear. After the beds ran out, the wounded were laid on the
floor or propped up against the wall. As the dead piled up, the two nurses
were told to remove them to the mortuary. Chisholm wrote in her diary:[9]
“No one can understand...unless one has seen the rows of dead men laid out.
One sees men with their jaws blown off, arms and legs mutilated.” Chisholm and
Knocker soon came to the conclusion that they could save more lives by
treating the wounded directly on the front lines. In November, they decided to
leave the corps and set up their own dressing
station five miles east in a town named Pervijze,
north of Ypres, just one
hundred yards from the trenches.
Here, in a vacant cellar which they named "Poste de Secours Anglais"
("British First Aid Post"),
the two would spend the next three and a half years tending to the wounded. No
longer affiliated with the Belgian
Red Cross, they began acting completely as free agents and had to support
their work by raising their own funds. Through sheer perseverance Knocker was
able to arrange for the two of them to be officially seconded to the Belgian
garrison stationed there. In January 1915, they were both decorated by King
Albert I of Belgium with the Order
of Léopold II, Knights Cross (with palm)[6] for
their courageous work on the front lines. They were also awarded the British Military
Medal and both made Officers of the Most
Venerable Order of St. John of Jerusalem.[6] Chisholm
was also decorated with the Queen
Elisabeth Medal of Belgium and the British campaign medals, including the 1914
Star.[5] The
two became instant celebrities earning the distinction of being among the most
photographed women of the war. In 1916, Chisholm became engaged to a Royal
Naval Air pilot named Jack Petrie, who died a year later during flying
practice. In 1918, both women were badly affected by a massive bombing raid
and gas
attacks on their makeshift field hospital. Chisholm recovered enough to
return to the front, before being forced to abandon her post just months
before the end of the war. She returned to Britain, where both she and Knocker
saw out the rest of the war as members of the newly formed Women's
Royal Air Force.[10] Chisholm
became engaged for the second time in August 1918 to Royal
Air Force Second
Lieutenant William Thomas James Hall whom she had met while training in
the WRAF, but the engagement was subsequently called off.
Following the end of the war, the two nurses continued to be feted by the
public and the press. Eventually they went their separate ways when Chisholm
learned the truth about Knocker's divorce to her first husband. The two barely
spoke again. The war had taken its toll on Chisholm's health. She had been
poisoned, contracted septicaemia,
and had a weak heart. She did, however, continue to live her life at a fast
pace. After her brief stint in the WRAF, she took up auto
racing. On one occasion, she was scheduled to take part in a race at Brooklands but
had to withdraw because of a fainting episode the evening before.
Partly on doctors' advice, Chisholm returned to Nairn, where, it was hoped,
she would lead a quieter life. There she became a successful poultry breeder
with her childhood friend, Edith May Davidson on the Davidson's family estate. In
the 1930s they relocated their business to Jersey.[11].
Her final move was to Cnoc an Fhurain, Rhugarbh, Barcaldine in Argyll where
she, May, Catherine Bridget "Bird" Partridge and
Grace Barbara "John" Johnstone, ran a poultry farm for
decades. In her later years she spent much time corresponding with The Clan
Chisholm Society.[11],
which she established in 1972.[12] Mairi
Chisholm died on 22 August 1981 of lung cancer aged 85 in Perth Hospital.[13]
National Library of Scotland holds five volumes of papers and photographs
that belonged to Chisholm. The photographs are a valued source of information
as they give a candid portrayal of the wartime experiences of Chisholm and
Knocker in contrast to the official photos of the period, which tend to avoid
scenes that might challenge the 'official' account of the war.[18]
The Imperial War
Museum holds Chisholm's diaries along with recordings and transcripts of
interviews.[18]
In November 2014 a statue of Chisholm and Elsie Knocker was unveiled in the
garden of the Hotel Ariane in Ypres, Belgium.[19]
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