During the First World War, Elsie Maud Inglis (a Consultant at Bruntsfield Hospital – a hospital for women and children entirely staffed by women) set up Scottish Women’s Hospitals, field hospitals with all female personnel on battle fronts in Serbia, France, Russia, Greece and Corsica. After the war, funds from the hospitals were used to establish the Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital, which was also entirely staffed by women for a long period.

In 1957, the South Eastern Regional Hospital Board advertised for a medical post working at both Bruntsfield Hospital and Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital open to applications from men as well as women. In response, a campaign was founded to keep both hospitals staffed by women, which was successful after a court ruling the same year.

As part of NHS reorganisation of services and sites in the late 1980s, Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital and Bruntsfield Hospital were threatened with closure. Although campaigns were mounted to save both institutions, Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital closed in 1988 and Bruntsfield Hospital followed in 1989. Following the loss of both hospitals, and subsequent proposal for an Elsie Inglis Care Village, heritage was central to running campaigns to remember Dr Inglis, who died in November 1917.

The papers surrounding these campaigns are believed to have been mainly collected by Jan Scott as part of the 1980s-1990s campaigns.