Dr Graham’s Homes ~ Dr Graham’s Homes

Teacher, aristocrat, nurse, missionary, founder of schools, friend of royalty... Mary Scott is one of the most amazing figures in the history of Dr Graham's Homes - not to mention the eastern Himalayas.

The daughter of a Lord and granddaughter of a Prime Minister, Mary left behind a life of luxury in Scotland to spend nearly 50 years serving the people of the Himalayas. Her achievements were phenomenal - she treated the sick during a flu epidemic, founded a school for girls and a school for the blind (both of which still exist), and once went on a royal tour of India with her friend, the leader of Sikkim.

And yet, despite all this, she is little-known today. Or at least she would be, if it weren't for the work of historians Walter Scott and Anira Phipon Lepcha...

Man on a mission

Walter - who is Mary's great, great, great nephew - is on a quest to find out more about his great aunt's life. We caught up with him last year as he travelled to Kalimpong in search of information. Since then he has delved deeper into the archives, including the letters and journals by Dr Graham that are held in the National Library of Scotland. All in bid to raise awareness about Mary and make her life's work better known.

This spring, Walter is heading back out to the Himalayas to continue his investigations. We caught up with him to find out more...

Walter, can you recap Mary's story for us? Who was she and where did she grow up?

Mary was the eighth of 10 children of (the 8th) Lord Polwarth and Mary, Lady Polwarth – who was herself a granddaughter of the 4th Earl of Aberdeen, prime minister from 1852-55. She was born and brought up at Mertoun House in Roxburghshire, in the Scottish Borders, and the family were immersed in farming and in the Church of Scotland – indeed her father was a founder member of its Foreign Mission Council in 1873, established upon the death of David Livingstone to strengthen oversight of the Church’s growing industry in Africa, China and India. She was educated at home with her sisters, and loved riding in the heather hills around Mertoun.

When and why did you become interested in Mary and her time at Dr Graham's Homes?

It began in my teens, while planning a gap year after school. I had grown-up with stories of Aunt Mary, and had developed a mental picture of her touring the foothills, doling out medicine from her saddle panniers to stricken villagers, so I was eager to see where she had worked all those years ago, 1905 to 1953. When I first arrived in Kalimpong for a month of trekking – with a young Bear Grylls, no less – I had a very strong feeling of her on her pony along those steep, ancient paths connecting our village homestays. I loved everything about the region, and returned the following year (1993) to teach for four blissful months in the Blind School in Kalimpong that Mary founded in 1940. I was a regular visitor on afternoon walks to DGH, where several other UK school leavers were teaching (including Isabel Oakeshott, the political journalist!)

Last year, you visited Kalimpong and the school archives. What were you hoping to find?

I had a strong sense of Mary’s later work as lead missionary in Sikkim, and latterly as principal of the Blind School, but knew little about the circumstances of her appointment, her first years in Kalimpong, and where she lived. My understanding was that Dr Graham had ‘recruited’ Mary to help in the Homes, which of course in 1905 were growing at speed, requiring ever more childcare and teaching staff, so I imagined that a record of her appointment might be stashed in the darkest recesses of the school archives. Sadly, there was not a trace. What was it like being at DGH, treading in Mary's footsteps? The day I walked up the hill to meet with school Principal Neil Monteiro was an open day for parents, so the campus was buzzing and Mr Monteiro was in hot demand! So I was struck but what a fabulous school it is – exactly the sort to which affluent parents here in South West London aspire to send their children – but then, as I looked down from the road at some of those first cottages, I was reminded of its complex, compelling, and often sad origins, connected largely with the boom in Darjeeling tea and the presence of British planters and soldiers. I was also reminded of what a huge impact William Macfarlane, and then John and his wife Katherine Graham, had on that town.

Since then, you've been to the National Library of Scotland to see Dr Graham’s letters and journals. What did you discover?

Yes, I got back there in early September, with a laser focus on Dr Graham’s diaries, a digest of those diaries made by Aeneas Francon Williams (a DGH teacher from 1910-24), and several folders crammed with letters written between Dr Graham and Katherine during periods when they were apart. I hope Dr Graham would forgive me for saying that his handwriting is virtually illegible, but it is mitigated by Mr Francon Williams’ immaculate work. Katherine’s letters, on the other hand, are much easier to read, with frequent references to ‘Miss Scott’. It seems for the first two years, Mary lived with them on the top floor of the Mission House in the main Mission Compound.

It was quite a leap for a young aristocrat to move to an orphanage in the Himalayas. Have you discovered how Mary made that decision?

By dint of her father’s involvement with foreign mission, there were also missionaries visiting Mertoun while on furlough, including the Grahams, but I don’t sense there was any expectation that Mary and her sisters would do anything more than marry into landed gentry. So it appears that alarm bells rang at Mertoun when a teenage Mary declared – after reading a book about India – that she wanted to become a missionary there.

Did her parents try to persuade her not to go?

They sent her to Deaconess House in Edinburgh, established by her aunt Grisell Baillie (the Church of Scotland’s first ordained deaconess) a few years before to train young women as home missionaries, hoping that that might divert Mary from India. However, it had also started to provide training for "zenana" – mission work specifically with women in India – so, if anything, Deaconess House heightened her resolve! She then met Katherine Graham through her work running a local group in the Borders raising money for zenana work, and thus the die was cast.

You've also been working with Dr Anira Phipon Lepcha at Sikkim University. Is that research still progressing?

Yes, our research is progressing at pace. I have made several further forays to the National Library of Scotland (NLOS), and other institutions where there are collections that are tangential to the work of Mary and her colleagues, and Anira continues to work with a network of contacts in the Himalayas. We have now published articles in Life and Work, the magazine of the Church of Scotland (Dr Graham was on its editorial committee while at Edinburgh university; sadly it was wound up last year, after 146 years), and Discover, the NLS magazine of the National Library, in which we discussed Mary as a crusader for gender equality in the region.

What else are you working on together? We have also just submitted a 5,000-word paper discussing Mary’s working friendship with the Maharaja of Sikkim to the Bulletin of Tibetology, and we have more outputs planned. As an area of history, it has not been coherently documented or preserved, so we are continually unearthing new insights – such as an image of Mary in a village applying a dressing to a man’s leg, or scenes of Nehru’s visit to Kalimpong in April 1952 (which included the Colonial Homes and Aunt Mary’s blind school). Joining up our research from opposite sides of the world is highly satisfying. What would you most like to find out about Mary next? The letters from Katherine Graham to John have triggered various questions for me. For example, in March 1915 Katherine reported that Mary had come for dinner, and declared she wanted to move out of Lal Kothi, the accommodation in the Mission Compound for the female missionaries, and live in her own quarters so she could entertain local people – so where did she move to? I would love to find that place. Secondly, it seems that while managing the accommodation facilities for the Kalimpong Girls' School and Industrial Training School, Mary worked closely with Katherine, and was clearly fond of her - so was Katherine’s untimely death in 1919 a game-changer for Mary, and did it influence her decision to volunteer a move to Sikkim? I am also interested in her friendship with Mr and Mrs Aeneas Francon Williams, who taught at the Colonial Homes from 1910 – they were among many colourful characters who visited Mary in Gangtok between 1923 and 1939. Aeneas was a prolific writer, so I feel he might have something to offer!

If our supporters were to look through their own family archives, what names, dates, or details should they look out for to help you?

Anything that shines a light on Mary’s life and work would be welcome. Even when her focus moved to the Industrial Training School, she was forever trudging up the road to the Colonial Homes, where Katherine was also in charge of the children’s cottage homes. Beyond that, any autobiographical material about Aeneas Francon-Williams, and then from 1940 any insights into the Blind School. (In passing, your supporters may know of John Dick Khawas, and his wife Diana who worked at DGH – John was a pupil at the blind school and latterly its headmaster, and I had the privilege of being a volunteer in his team in 1993!) I would also like to hear anything about the Nehru visit of April 1952.

You're heading to the Himalayas again in April. What are you hoping to explore this time?

Yes, I am heading back partly for more voluntary teaching at the Blind School, and more primary research. However I am also in the early stages of setting up a small enterprise to promote the Eastern Himalayan region, including offering various themed ‘immersive’ tours for small groups from the UK, to enable them to go beyond the well-trodden tourist paths, so I will also be using my time to make preparations for that. One of the tours in development is themed around the Eastern Himalayan Mission, so I would be very keen to speak to anyone who might be interested in forming a small group of “test clients” for that!

👉 Can you shed any light on Mary Scott? 👈

If you know anything about Mary's life and work at Dr Graham's Homes, Walter would love to hear from you. Drop us a line here at DGHUK and we'll put you in touch with him.

Mary Scott: A Life in Brief

Aristocratic roots: Born in 1877 to Lord and Lady Polwarth, she dreamt of becoming a missionary in India. Arrival in India: Moving to Kalimpong in 1905, she taught, nursed, managed the hostel, and ran a bookshop. Community champion: She famously travelled miles across mountainous terrain on her pony to support local village women. Award-winning care: Mary set up emergency medical camps during the Spanish Flu, winning the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal. Sikkim pioneer: Moving to Sikkim in 1923, she befriended royalty and founded the Paljor Namgyal Girls’ School. A new mission: Retiring in 1940, she immediately established the Mary Scott Home for the Blind in Kalimpong. It still exists. Lasting legacy: After nearly 50 years of devoted Himalayan service, she returned to Scotland, passing away in 1963.

There's something about Mary (Scott)