[BITList] Kabul, 1894

[John Feltham]

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Hamilton,  Lillias Anna  (1858-1925), physician and writer, was born on 7 February 1858 at Tomabil station, New South Wales, Australia, the eldest of four daughters and the third of the eight children of Hugh Hamilton (1822-1900), a farmer from Ayrshire, Scotland, and his wife, Margaret Clunes, nee Innes (1829-1909), daughter of George Innes of Yarrow, New South Wales.

Little is known about Lillias's childhood except that she was two when the family left Australia and settled, nominally, in Ayr, Scotland. The Hamiltons continued to travel extensively and it was not until they finally moved to Cheltenham in 1874, where Lillias attended the Ladies' College for four years, that she received a real education. Travelling and a brief spell as a teacher followed, but neither satisfied her craving for independence and in 1883, defying family opposition and convention, she began training as a nurse at the Liverpool workhouse infirmary. She took another pioneering step in 1886 when she decided to become a doctor, enrolling at the London School of Medicine for Women. Coincidental to her obtaining her LRCP and LRCS (Edinburgh) in 1890 she met Colonel Joubert of the Indian Medical Service who introduced her to the opportunity of working abroad. In contrast to the prejudice against female physicians practising at home, there was a desperate need for female doctors in India, where religious custom and practice deprived many women of proper medical care. Displaying her characteristic spirit of adventure, Lillias hurriedly acquired her MD in Brussels and undaunted by the prospect of working in a foreign country, promptly left for Calcutta.

With introductions from Colonel Joubert, but without a government appointment or the support and protection of any missionary or philanthropic society-unlike the few other foreign women doctors in the country-Lillias established a successful private medical practice, and for a period held the post of medical officer at the Lady Dufferin Zenana [women's] Hospital in Calcutta. Her career altered dramatically in spring 1894 when she moved to Kabul, Afghanistan. This was prompted by poor health and an insatiable appetite for adventure, for Lillias had already been invited by the amir, who paid her expenses, to spend six months in Kabul showing his queen how English ladies amused themselves. The visit actually lasted for nearly three years, for after she successfully treated the amir in October 1894, Lillias became his personal physician.

Geopolitically Afghanistan was of great significance to Britain, for it acted as a buffer between India and Russia. It was also an inhospitable place for a European, especially a woman, to be. The British government refused to afford Lillias any protection-considering her conduct foolhardy-but she did alert them, certainly on one occasion, through Salter Pyne, their secret news-gatherer in Kabul, to potential hostilities. Although her published writings-she was a prolific journalist and author of two books of fiction-gave the impression that she agreed with the official view of the amir's rule (generously described as severe but just), her unpublished work, 'The power that walks in darkness', presented a different picture, in which she expressed her serious reservations about his often muddled reforms and his 'iron rule'. Even with the amir's protection, she often feared for her life, knowing that a loss of favour or wrong move could result in her execution. She was also the envy of the amir's wives, so had a personal food-taster to ensure she was not poisoned by them. In terms of her medical work, Lillias made a significant impact on the health of the Afghan population. Not only did she establish a hospital in Kabul, but she was also responsible for introducing vaccination into the country.

By late 1896 the strain of working in Afghanistan, allied with the constant danger, became too much for Lillias, and she fled the country. Once home in England she diverted her attention to the plight of homeless women, co-founding the Victoria Women's Settlement in Liverpool in 1897. Her interest in this project quickly waned, and she returned to private practice, setting up a nursing home in London. After two trips to the Transvaal, where she and a brother established a farm, Lillias gave up active medical practice, and travelled again. But in 1908 she applied for and was accepted as warden of Studley College, Warwick (established in 1898 to train women for careers in agriculture and horticulture). Her tenure lasted until her retirement in 1924, interrupted for a brief period in 1915 when she volunteered her medical services to the Wounded Allies Relief Committee, and ran a hospital in Podgoritza, Montenegro. During this period she was also an active member of the Women's Freedom League (founded in 1907, to obtain votes for women under thirty).

Lillias's complex personality meant that she was not universally popular, being variously described as brilliant, ambitious, interesting, humorous, assertive, domineering, and unpredictable. She expected to be treated with deference, but was often disappointed, and not infrequently came into conflict with those in authority. Her appearance became more eccentric in later life, making her the object of ridicule among some of her students at Studley College. Some even speculated that she possessed supernatural powers, acquired from spending too long in the 'mystical' East. Besides being a highly accomplished photographer and talented needlewoman, Lillias enjoyed music, painting, and the theatre. She never married. Lillias Hamilton died on 6 January 1925 at the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital, Nice, France, and was buried in the English cemetery there on the Saturday after her death.

Susan L. Cohen 

Sources  Wellcome L., Lillias Hamilton MSS, PP/HAM + C. L. C. Hamilton, 'Lillias Hamilton', Cornhill Magazine, [3rd] ser., 58 (1925), 538-48 + The Cheltenham Ladies' College Guild leaflet, 84 (1925), 53-4 + J. Lee, 'Abd al-Rahman Khanand the Maraz ul-Muluk', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 3rd ser., 1 (1991), 209-40 + J. Chapman, Quest for Dion Fortune (1993) + Magazine of the London (Royal Free Hospital) School of Medicine for Women (March 1925), 41-3 + The Times (9 Jan 1925) + Women's Employment (16 Jan 1925) + J. Gordon, The luck of thirteen: wanderings and flight through Montenegro and Serbia (1916) + Cheltenham Ladies' College Magazine (1891-1911) + women's service records for First World War, TNA: PRO + personal knowledge (2004) + press cuttings collection, archives of the Royal Free Hospital, London + Magazine of the Studley College Guild (April 1925), 442 + CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1925)
Archives Cheltenham Ladies' College, corresp. + Wellcome L., MSS | Cheltenham Ladies' College, letters of Miss Beale, college magazines
Likenesses  J. P. Quinn, oils, 1924, Wellcome L. [see illus.] · portraits, Wellcome L., Lillias Hamilton MSS
Wealth at death  £5047 10s. 6d.: resworn probate, 28 April 1925, CGPLA Eng. & Wales



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