Grace Ellison

Grace Mary Ellison (died 3 October 1935) was a British journalist. She wrote several books about Turkey. Though not herself a trained nurse, she was founder of the French Flag Nursing Corps during World War I.

Grace Ellison, from a 1919 publication.

Early life

Grace Mary Ellison was from Scotland,[1] the daughter of Captain John Ellison. She credited her father's stories of sailing to India as inspiring her travelling career. She was educated in England at Rochester Girls' Grammar School, and in France, and at the University of Halle.[2][3]

Career

Ellison was a journalist especially interested in Turkey. She befriended Turkish sisters Hadjidjé Zennour and Nouryé Neyr-el-Nissa, in 1905. Using their pseudonyms, she edited and co-wrote English-language books with them, Zeyneb Hanoum's A Turkish Woman’s European Impressions (1913, a memoir) and Melek Hanoum's Abdul Hamid's Daughter (1913, a novel).[4][5] Whilst travelling in Turkey in 1908-1909 and 1912-1913, Ellison wrote articles for The Daily Telegraph. She advocated for women students to gain access to college classes in Constantinople. She was awarded the Order of Charity (Şefkat Nişanı) for her efforts on behalf of women in Turkey.[6] She reported on the Second Hague Conference (1907) and was continental reporter for the Bystander.[3]

In 1914, Grace Ellison worked with nurse Ethel Gordon Fenwick to create the French Flag Nursing Corps,[7] coordinating the work of experienced nurses from the British Empire (including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) with the French Medical Corps during World War I.[8] The corps eventually became a program of the French Red Cross. Ellison fell seriously ill in 1917, and spent months recovering at a hospital in Bordeaux.[6] The French government decorated Ellison for her wartime contributions.[3]

After the war, she continued lectures in the United States on behalf of the French Ministry of War, matching French nurses to American nursing schools and expanding their opportunities for training at home.[9][10] "I am convinced that the most important factor in social reconstruction today is the trained nurse," she explained. "No child welfare work can be done without trained nurses, and the whole future of France depends on what is done for her children."[11] In 1922, she returned to Turkey to cover the Turkish War of Independence; in 1927, she was back in Ankara, reporting on the rapidly changing city.[12]

Monographs by Ellison
  • An Englishwoman in a Turkish Harem (1915)[13]
  • An Englishwoman in the French Firing Line (1915)
  • An Englishwoman in Occupied Germany (1920)
  • An Englishwoman in Angora (1923),[14]
  • The Disadvantages of Being a Woman (1924)[15]
  • Turkey To-day (1928)[16]
  • Yugoslavia: A New Country and its People (1933)[17]

She also worked on three biographical projects: Prince Nicholas of Greece's memoirs (1923), a biography of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1930), and The Authorised Life Story of Princess Marina (1934).[3]

Personal life

Grace Mary Ellison died in October 1935, in Berlin.[2]

References
  1. "Work Amongst the Wounded: Scottish Lady in the French War Zone" The Observer (December 5, 1915): 9. via Newspapers.com
  2. "Miss Grace Ellison" The Guardian (October 4, 1935): 12. via Newspapers.com
  3. Reina Lewis, Rethinking Orientalism: Women, Travel and the Ottoman Harem (I. B. Tauris 2004): 42-50. ISBN 9781860647291
  4. Reina Lewis, "Telling Tales: Harem Literature from East to West" Edinburgh Review (Issue 125).
  5. Asako Nakai, "Shakespeare’s sisters in Istanbul: Grace Ellison and the politics of feminist friendship" Journal of Postcolonial Writing 51(1)(2015): 22-33.
  6. "The French Flag Nursing Corps and its Founder" Trained Nurse and Hospital Review (September 1919): 140-142.
  7. Peter Jones, "A Thoroughly Cordial Relationship: A Narrative Account of the French Flag Nursing Corps, 1914-1919" The Bulletin of the UK Association of the History of Nursing (November 2017): 16-19.
  8. Kirstie Ross, "'Actively Engaged, Often Under Fire': Two New Zealand Nurses in the French Flag Nursing Corps" NZ at War (January 31, 2017).
  9. "Modern Florence Nightingale Enlists American Womanhood" New Era Magazine (August 1919): 442.
  10. Grace Ellison, "The Florence Nightingale School in France" American Journal of Nursing 19(7)(April 1919): 536-538.
  11. "A Nurse's Mission to the United States" The Congregationalist and Advance (July 17, 1919): 70.
  12. Davide Deriu, "A Challenge to the West: British Views of Republican Ankara" in Mohammad Gharipour, Nilay Ozlu, eds., The City in the Muslim World: Depictions by Western Travel Writers (Routledge 2015): 281-283. ISBN 9781317548225
  13. Grace Ellison, An Englishwoman in a Turkish harem (McBride Nast 1915).
  14. Grace Ellison, An Englishwoman in Angora (Cambridge University Press 2014). ISBN 9781107448810
  15. Grace Mary Ellison, The Disadvantages of Being a Woman (A. M. Philpott 1924).
  16. Grace Mary Ellison, Turkey To-day (Hutchinson & Co. Ltd. 1928).
  17. Grace Mary Ellison, Yugoslavia: A New Country and its People (John Lane 1933).
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