As a child, she helped her father, a successful wholesale grocer, to breed leeches for sale to pharmacists on the family's estate in Glen Osmond.

[1] The couple frequently treated cases of typhoid, cholera and malaria and Charles became well known for his expertise in performing eye surgery.

On the first day in the new hospital, set up in artillery sheds, Hope observed the procedure for amputating limbs in surgery, and by the end of the week she had attended to 180 patients.

On the final day of October, Hope decided to join Charles and his unit, as they evacuated to Vrinjatcha Banja.

Had she stayed with her unit, she would have had to decide whether to join the Great Serbian Retreat, evacuating patients across freezing Mule tracks through the snowy Albanian and Montenegrin mountains, or to join Inglis and other staff who stayed with the patients too unwell to be moved, becoming prisoners of war.

They were initially provided with an empty barracks and told to create a hospital, however, they were transported again just a few days later at 4 am on 4 December.

They were loaded into a cattle truck for a bumpy thirty-six hour drive with no food, and little sleep, and when they arrived in Semendria they were jeered at by German soldiers while they waited to cross the Danube river to Hungary.

They spent Christmas and New Years here, with a insufficient ration of coffee, watery soup, and sour bread.

Following a period of respite in England, Hope was offered the role of heading another SWH unit as the Chief Medical Officer, which would be deployed to assist the Serbian Army.

[4][2] Prior to moving back to Adelaide with her husband for retirement, Hope received the Kaisar-i-Hind medal for her missionary work.