Born: 31 May 1872, United Kingdom
Died: 7 August 1936
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: Alexandra Mary Campbell Geddes
Bianca Taubert on the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps transcript
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women founder Allison Tyra’s book The View from the Hill: Women Who Made Their Mark After 40.
In July 1917, Mona Chalmers Watson was named the first Chief Controller of Britain’s Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) when it was formed. The thousands of WAACs worked as cooks and waitresses, clerks, communications operators, drivers, and more. The 45-year-old was already noteworthy as a suffragist, physician, and the first woman to receive her MD from the University of Edinburgh. Her aunt, Mary Anderson, had been one of the famed Edinburgh Seven—the first women to be admitted as medical students in 1869, only to be kicked out when the tide of public opinion turned against them. Most of the women, including Mary, completed their education elsewhere, and women like Watson continued widening the doorway the Seven had cracked open.
By 1916, Watson had started pushing for the creation of an organization for women volunteers to take on support duties, and her military family connections proved useful. Her brother, Brigadier-General Sir Auckland Geddes, was director of recruiting at the War Office, and arranged for Watson to make her pitch to the right people. She was successful in getting the WAAC off the ground but had to resign in 1918 when one of her sons became ill following an appendectomy. But the creation of the WAAC would lead to the formation of similar corps in other military branches, and the legacy of these groups would continue in the Second World War and eventually lead to the full incorporation of women into the British military.