Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 July 15

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July 15

Lady Wimborne's Hospital at Uskub

Our article Lancelot Barrington-Ward says that in the First World War he was Surgeon-in-Chief to Lady Wimborne's Hospital at Uskub. I would like to know more about Lady Wimborne and her hospital, thank you. DuncanHill (talk) 00:29, 15 July 2019 (UTC) - I've just changed Wimburne to Wimborne, there was a typo in our article. DuncanHill (talk) 00:34, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

I suspect this is Lady Cornelia Henrietta Maria Guest, Baroness Wimborne, 1847-1927. She was born Cornelia Henrietta Maria Spencer-Churchill, and married Sir Ivor Bertie Guest (1st Baron Wimborne) in 1868. She set up a Serbian Relief Fund in 1915. - Nunh-huh 01:40, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, yes that must be her - mentioned here in the National Archives ("Members of Serbian Relief Fund Units sent to Serbia (including Lady (Ralph) Paget's Hospital; Cornelia Lady Wimborne's Hospital; Mrs Stobart's Hospital; 1st British Farmers' Hospital; 2nd British Farmers' Hospital)"), and here with a portrait. She had already set up a hospital in Poole. DuncanHill (talk) 08:42, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

More details of the organisation (mainly Lady Paget's) at Great War Forum - Serbian Relief Fund Hospital. Alansplodge (talk) 09:10, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

The Serbian hospital is also mentioned in this book: "...the second Serbian Relief Fund Unit, the Winborne unit--so named because Lady Cornelia Wimborne had raised the funds for it--had already gone out to Skoplje..."

Lots of her letters reprinted in various biographies of Winston Churchill, and she seems to have written to the editor lots too, about church issues - she had a "league for combating the introduction of ritualism into English Church"[1]. This one has a bit about her personality; she is portrayed as kind, generous and a peacemaker.

Brief biography in [2] if you can get WP:RX to access full version for you. Here's Burke's Peerage entry (mother of nine). She lived at Canford Manor until 1923 [3] and she had built 111 cottages for estate workers there [4] [5].

Also keep seeing her in agricultural news, in some of those random bits that make historical research so fun: enthusiastic about rabbits and "has several greenhouses filled with hutches". Her herd of cows wins a trophy from the Dorset Milk Recording Society in 1921. Her husband had donated the trophy. Wasn't that a Downton Abbey plot? 70.67.193.176 (talk) 18:32, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Splendid work again! Very much appreciated. DuncanHill (talk) 20:30, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

You ask the most fun questions :) 70.67.193.176 (talk) 13:53, 16 July 2019 (UTC)