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MercurysBall2 ago

UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 746-i - https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmsctech/uc746-i/uc74602.htm

Science and Technology Committee

The role of the Chairman of the MRC

Wednesday 20 June 2007 - SIR JOHN CHISHOLM

Witness: Sir John Chisholm, Chairman, Medical Research Council, gave evidence.

Members present : Dr Evan Harris

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chisholm_(executive)

Sir John Alexander Raymond Chisholm FREng CEng FIEE FRAeS FInstP[1] (born 27 August 1946) is a British engineer who was chairman of the Medical Research Council and QinetiQ

Chisholm was born in India of Scottish parents, Ruari Ian Lambert Chisholm and Pamela Harland Frank, and brought up in Calcutta. Mairi Chisholm was his great-aunt.[2][3] He was educated at Worth School, and later attended Cambridge University, reading Mechanical Sciences on a scholarship from General Motors.

MercurysBall2 ago

Mairi Chisholm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mairi_Chisholm

Mairi Lambert Gooden-Chisholm of Chisholm, MM, OStJ (26 February 1896 – 22 August 1981), known as Mairi Chisholm, was a Scottish nurse and ambulance driver in the First World War. She, together with her friend Elsie Knocker, won numerous medals for bravery and for saving the lives of thousands of soldiers on the Western Front in Belgium. Dubbed "The Madonnas of Pervyse" by the press[1][2] the two were among the most photographed women of the war.

Chisholm was born on 26 February 1896 in Buckinghamshire [4]to Captain Roderick Gooden-Chisholm and Margaret Fraser.[5] Her family was independently wealthy and owned a plantation in Trinidad. .. When war was declared in 1914, Knocker wrote to Chisholm that there was "work to be done",[6] and suggested they go to London to become dispatch riders for the Women's Emergency Corps. Chisholm rode her motorbike all the way from Dorset to the capital. It was while acting as a courier in this way that she was spotted making hairpin corners in the city by a Dr. Hector Munro. Munro was setting up a Flying Ambulance Corps to help the Belgians who had been caught unawares by the German invasion and invited her to join his team.. Both she and Knocker ended up in Belgium as part of the corps which included Dorothie Feilding and May Sinclair.

Chisholm and Knocker soon came to the conclusion that they could save more lives by treating the wounded directly on the front lines. In November, they decided to leave the corps and set up their own dressing station five miles east in a town named Pervyse, north of Ypres, just one hundred yards from the trenches. Here, in a vacant cellar which they named "Poste de Secours Anglais" ("British First Aid Post"), the two would spend the next three and a half years tending to the wounded. No longer affiliated with the Belgian Red Cross, they began acting completely as free agents and had to support their work by raising their own funds. Through sheer perseverance Knocker was able to arrange for the two of them to be officially seconded to the Belgian garrison stationed there. In January 1915, they were both decorated by King Albert I of Belgium with the Order of Léopold II, Knights Cross (with palm)[6] for their courageous work on the front lines. They were also awarded the British Military Medal and both made Officers of the Most Venerable Order of St. John of Jerusalem.[6] Chisholm was also decorated with the Queen Elisabeth Medal of Belgium and the British campaign medals, including the 1914 Star.[5] The two became instant celebrities earning the distinction of being among the most photographed women of the war.