Elsie Inglis – competition for schoolchildren

August 21, 2022 1:04 pm

The campaign for A Statue for Elsie Inglis is running a Schools Competition, to celebrate the life and work of Dr Elsie Maud Inglis.

Across Edinburgh, pupils age between 4-17 will be encouraged to participate in a competition which has three sections – art, a short story and poetry. The Royal College of Surgeons are supporting the competition by donating prizes for the winners of each section of £100 plus a Book Voucher for their School Library of £50.

Team Elsie is determined to erect a statue on The Royal Mile honouring Dr Elsie Maud Inglis in November 2024, 160 years after her birth. This will be the first statue of a woman on a street which already has twelve statues – all of which are of men.

One of the aims of the school competition is teach a new generation about one of Scotland’s greatest women and certainly one of Edinburgh’s most outstanding citizens. With the support of The City of Edinburgh Council, all Edinburgh schools will have received for the start of the new term, details of how their pupils can enter the competition.

The winning drawing may be used to influence the design of the statue and the winners of the poetry and short story section will have their work included in the ceremony when the statue is unveiled.

The panel of judges includes the writer and poet Gerda Stevenson, Sara Sheridan, novelist and author of “Where are the Women” as well as Helen Bellany, writer, artist and widow of John Bellany who featured the women of Elsie Inglis’s Scottish Women’s Hospitals in some of his paintings shown at The Scottish Parliament,emt in 2016.

Edinburgh teachers are encouraged to embrace the idea of the competition and help young people capture the spirit of Elsie in their writing or artwork.

The ambitious campaign has achieved momentum recently after starting off quietly. The small group of women under the name of Team Elsie are now a registered charity. Having achieved the original target of £50,000 by hosting a two week series of fundraising events earlier this year, the team has now issued a call for a sculptor to design the statue.

A spokesperson for Team Elsie said: “Team Elsie is currently planning another series of fundraising events for next March and are grateful for the groundswell of support and enthusiasm that the campaign has gained from Elsie’s Babies to The Scottish Parliament – all in agreement that Elsie Inglis legendary and exemplary life merits the recognition of a statue.

“In the meantime, the Schools Competition is the priority of the campaign. It is vital that Edinburgh’s young people have advance knowledge and insight to the character who is going to be the centre of huge interest when her statue is unveiled in their city.”

Details of the competition: