- On 16 August 1766 Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne, was born in Gask, Perthshire. Although she remains little-known in Scotland today, Carolina Oliphant’s songs are second only in popularity to Burns, writing such classics as “Will Ye No Come Back Again”, “Charlie is my Darling” and “Wi 100 Pipers an’ a’”. She was born into a staunchly Jacobite family and much of her songwriting reflects the political climate of the time.
- On 16 August 1864 Scottish suffragette, Elsie Inglis, was born at Naini Tal hill station in India. Inglis was a rare female medical graduate battling prejudice all the way, and founded a maternity hospital in Edinburgh, affectionately known as ‘Elsie’s’. However, she was not onlya reformer in the field of medecine, as, in 1906, she founded the Scottish Women’s Suffrage Federation. During the First World War this Suffragette Federation organised medical teams to go to France, Serbia and Salonica as well as Russia. Inglis went to Serbia herself, where her efforts to improve hygiene reduced the typhus and other epidemics which had been raging there. In 1915 she was captured and then repatriated, but returned to work in Russia. The climate and long hours she imposed on herself led to a break down in her health and she was forced to return home to recuperate, unfortunately she was to die the day after landing at Newcastle. However ‘Elsie’s’ stayed open as a hospital until 1988. (Scotsclan)
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