Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Victory Medal awarded to Hospital Orderly Miss Elsie E. Bowerman, Scottish Women’s Hospital Unit, who was a prominent member of the Women’s Social and Political Union and served as Christabel Pankhurst’s Political Agent in the 1918 General Election- six years earlier she had survived the sinking of the Titanic

Victory Medal 1914-19 (E. E. Bowerman); together with the recipient’s Scottish Women’s Hospitals Medal 1914, bronze, the edge engraved ‘Mess Ord. Elsie E. Bowerman’, good very fine (2) £600-£800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Fine Collection of Medals to Female Medics.

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Elsie Edith Bowerman was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, on 18 December 1889, and was educated at Wycombe Abbey and Girton College, Cambridge. Whilst at Girton she joined the Women’s Social and Political Union in 1909, and the following year established a branch in the College. Her mother, Edith, was also a member of the W.S.P.U., and was one of the ten members chosen to accompany Emmeline Pankhurst on her deputation to the House of Commons on ‘Black Friday’, 18 November 1910; she also went on the next deputation three days later, when she was dealt a severe blow on the head by a policeman and her coat was torn to pieces.

In 1912 Elsie Bowerman and her mother embarked for America on the Titanic, and were aboard her when she sank during her maiden voyage on 15 April 1912. She later wrote: ‘The silence when the engines stopped was followed by a steward knocking on our door and telling us to go on deck. This we did and were lowered into life-boats, where we were told to get away from the liner as soon as we could in case of suction. This we did, and to pull and oar in the midst of the Atlantic in April with ice-bergs floating about is a strange experience.’

On the outbreak of the Great War Elsie Bowerman supported the decision of the W.S.P.U. to help Britain’s war effort. She took part in the Women’s War Procession in July 1916 and was then asked by Evelina Haverfield to go out to Serbia as a Hospital Orderly with the Scottish Women’s Hospital Unit. According to Elizabeth Crawford in her book The Women’s Suffrage Movement, ‘In September 1916 Elsie Bowerman sailed to Russia as an Orderly with the Scottish Women’s Hospital Unit. With this unit she travelled via Archangel, Moscow, and Odessa to serve the Serbian and Russian armies in Romania. The women arrived as the allies were defeated, and were soon forced to join the retreat northwards to the Russian frontier.’ While awaiting her passage home, she witnessed the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II in St. Petersburg.

Returning home, she joined the Women’s Party, an organisation established by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst. Following the passing of the Qualification of Women Act 1918, Christabel Pankhurst became one of the 17 female candidates who stood in the 1918 General Election, and Elsie Bowerman was appointed her political agent. Contesting the Smethwick seat, she lost narrowly to the Labour candidate by 775 votes.

In 1922 Elsie Bowerman established, with Flora Drummond, the Women’s Guild of Empire, a right-wing league opposed to communism, the campaigns of which culminated in 1926 in a great procession in London and a meeting at the Royal Albert Hall demanding an end to the General Strike and the abolition of trade unions. Called to the Bar in 1924, as one of the first female barristers, she practised on the the south-eastern circuit until 1938 when she joined the Marchioness of Reading in starting the Women’s Voluntary Service. During the Second World War she worked for the Ministry of Information (1940-41) and as a Liaison Officer for the B.B.C.s North American Service (1941-45). After the War she spent one year at the United Nations in New York where she was in charge of the Status of Women section. She died in Eastbourne, Sussex, on 18 October 1973.