Mary H J Henderson (born 1874 – 6 November 1938) was an administrator with Elsie Inglis's Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service in the Balkans in World War I,[1] earning five medals.

[7] She was later to write more about her encounters with Queen Victoria, who presented her with a portrait photograph in 1887, and about John Brown, the Scottish manservant, whom Henderson thought was rude.

She was presented to the King and Queen at Buckingham Palace for her war service, when His Majesty shared with Henderson, his condolences for the loss of Dr. Elsie Inglis, founder of SWH.

[16] In 1913, whilst Henderson was honorary secretary of the Dundee Women's Suffrage Society (which was non-militant and non-party), the group gained 40 new members, reaching a total of two hundred and five.

Henderson claimed 'increased public support' would eventually bring about enfranchisement of women, but the national (NUWSS) policy review would need to move from having 'educated individual members' to having to 'educate the parties'.

[17] That year Henderson held a cafe chantant, which hosted suffragist Alice Crompton, who described the growth of the non-militant movement to '60 branches, and almost 40,000 members across Scotland'.

She had become Parliamentary Secretary of the Scottish Women's Suffrage Societies, and the speaker Ethel Snowden held a large audience in 'rapt attention'.

[20] She informed the Dundee WSS in August 1916 that their branch had raised the largest contribution to the work of the Scottish Women's Hospitals 'of any individual Suffrage Society in the United Kingdom'.

[26] The women's paid work was seen as a 'nucleus' of a viable industry for employing unemployed girls, offering training in typing and dressmaking, and the toys made were to be sold.

July 1915 £1,500 The Courier noted in October 1914, that '15,834 pairs of socks, over 200 shirts, cholera belts, mitts, cuffs, mufflers and helmets' had been reported by Henderson as sent to the front.

[33] Her committee had another novel idea for Primrose Day i.e. charging for a 'charming girl' to pin a 'beautiful blossom' onto lapels to raise funds 'for providing soldiers with shirts, socks and other comforts.

[35] Henderson was a keynote speaker after thousands of women and supporters had paraded through Dundee promoting temperance , demanding a war-time alcohol prohibition, which she said would be 'a patriotic act'.

Lady Baxter, Salvation Army and Girl Guides and temperance organisations led with banners and a plea for non-abstainers to give up alcohol during the war.

Henderson said that (as a non-abstainer herself) she had been convinced 'by incontrovertible facts' that 'it was best for the country' for alcohol manufacture and sales to be banned during the war and for 'a period of demobilisation''.

[37] Henderson's interest in the welfare of mothers and children included supporting a social event for the families attending the Blackscroft Clinic in Dundee.

[43] Having returned from visiting SWH units in France, Henderson gave lantern talks and presided over an entertainment for the wives and children of the active service troops.

[31] Later that year Henderson spoke in Brechin,[45] and at the local suffrage society in Cupar, who sponsored a 'Cupar-Fife' bed (in SWH Serbia); Dr. Inglis was herself a Scottish suffragist.

[50][10] In August 1916, the Dundee Women's War Relief Executive Committee gave Henderson practical gifts: an attache case, tartan blanket, pens and paper, as well as flowers.

[54] A more detailed account of the mishaps of Henderson and SWH's journey, the feelings of fear of capture by the Bulgars and of responsibility for the girls under her care, were related to Common Cause, the suffragist journal, as the next episode of her war experiences.

[55] Henderson had left the group with a small team to find Dr Chesney's unit but the women got separated from the Serbian forces, sleeping in the open air, before reaching 'civilization' with the Russian authorities, at Reni.

[54] Henderson's stories about the Serbian (Rumanian) retreat were featured in The People's Journal and she said that in grey khaki uniforms, and with a military demeanour it was 'almost impossible' for local 'peasants.. at first glance to guess their sex.'

[57] In November 1917, Henderson gave another lecture in Dundee and 'held the attention of a large audience' with her 'power of description' and images of the work of the hospitals, and she emphasised the importance of the allies in Belgium, Serbia and Rumania to the overall war effort.

In another poem she dedicated 'to the rank and file of the Elsie Inglis Unit', titled Like That, based on a quote from the Prefect of Constanza: 'No wonder Britain is so great if her women are like that' ,[68] Henderson writes of the war nurses as being as heroic as the men under fire,[67] in November 1916I've seen you kneeling on the wooden floor, Tending your wounded on their straw-strewn bed, Heedless the while, that right above your head The Bird of Menace scattered death around.

She gave her political opinion that 'the strength of Russia' lay in M. Kerensky, their Minister of War and her view that the sheer size of the country was a challenge to alliance to the new regime, but that she was convinced 'the women do not fail' in understanding patriotism in its widest sense.

She felt that 'civic consciousness or communal sense was simply an expression of the home-making instinct - the widening of womanliness - to include not only the individual roof-tree but the home life of the city and the State'.

[74] In its second year, Steeple Club was deemed a success,[75] with 58 meetings or events, an exhibition of women artists work, in aid of the Dundee Prisoners of War Fund.

[79] When she died her twin brother was living in Wales;[79] and her nephew Alexander Whyte Henderson was a pall-bearer at her funeral in Clova chapel, preceded by a Requiem Mass.

[84] She recognised the long term impact on women of the 'lost generation' of men in World War I as a form of 'desolation' in another poem, A Grave in France.