In Ardrossan cemetery there is a headstone with the inscription “Mary Thomson Kerr died 17 January 1915 in her Country’s service at the 2nd Scottish General Hospital, Craigleith.” It made us wonder who Mary Thomson Kerr was?
Mary Thomson Kerr was born 19 April 1884 in Highbury, London, to parents Alexander Kerr, a banker with the Clydesdale Bank, and Mary Aitken. During World War One, Mary worked as a Staff Nurse with the Territorial Nursing Service (TFNS) stationed at the 2nd Scottish General Hospital, Craigleith, Edinburgh, a military hospital set up in the hospital wing of the Craigleith Hospital and Poorhouse in August 1914.
The Territorial Force Nursing Service was formed in July 1908. At the outbreak of World War One, over 2,784 trained nurses were commissioned to staff the new military hospitals, including the one at Craigleith. The trained nursing staff at the military hospitals were reinforced with nurses from the Voluntary Aid Detachments (VAD’s).
Sadly after suffering from influenza for two weeks, Mary died from cardiac failure on 17 January 1915, aged 30, at the Military Hospital, Craigleith. The 2nd Scottish General Hospital, Craigleith closed in the spring of 1919. Mary Thomson Kerr’s name also appears on a WW1 Scottish nurses memorial in St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, which was unveiled on 03 November 1921, and on the memorial to nurses who served in both world wars at the National Memorial Arboretum, Lichfield, Staffordshire, which was unveiled in 2018. The new nursing memorial takes the form of a stone globe supported by two open hands.