‘In the Service of Others Her Life Was Spent’: Re-Creating the Humanitarian Life of Lady Helen Munro Ferguson

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article takes the intersection of biography and humanitarianism to explore the life of Lady Helen Munro Ferguson who played a significant leadership role in women’s activism in Britain in the early twentieth century including the Red Cross in Scotland and Australia. The paper explores the problems of constructing a biographical narrative of a leading female humanitarian when there is no personal collection or memoir and limited sources. How do organisational records affect our interpretation and what role does gender play? Could speculative biography help in bringing to life a woman of note but lost to time?