“By casual acquaintances she was regarded as somewhat cold and reserved, but her friends and patients found in her a ready sympathy – devoid of sloppiness – a staunch loyalty and a keen sense of humour.”^[1] This is how in its obituary notice the Journal of Mental Science described Anna Leila Muncaster who died aged forty five on the 26^th September 1930 in Pietermaritzburg South Africa.

Born on the 20^th January 1885 at Beauly near Inverness, Anna studied medicine in Edinburgh, graduating in 1909 with first class honours. On graduating from medical school Anna like many young doctors found her first professional job as an assistant medical officer at an Asylum, in her case Bangour outside Edinburgh. Asylum medical officers had a low status so the post functioned as a first step into the medical profession especially for women. From Bangour she moved to Bucknall in Staffordshire and then to the Cheshire Lunatic Asylum in Chester.

In 1915 her life changed irrevocably when she left Chester to work for the Serbian Relief Fund, in a unit set up by Mrs Stobart. Serbia where the assassination which triggered the outbreak of war had taken place was fighting to maintain its independence from the onslaught of the Austrians. The Serbian Relief Fund had established a hospital in Kragujevatz and in the summer of 1915 Mrs Stobart was extending this service by the creation of a number of dispensaries in surrounding towns to serve the civilian population. Each dispensary was staffed by a woman doctor, two nurses, cook, interpreter. Anna when she arrived in Serbia in the summer of 1915 worked at one of these dispensaries, in the town of Rudnik.

However the dispensary system did not operate for long as Germany sent forces to assist the Austrians in their invasion of Serbia. The Serbian army withdrew, dispensaries were closed and all staff concentrated in Kragujevatz. Soon this city was no longer safe and Mrs Stobart’s volunteers joined the Serbian army in their desperate retreat. As winter drew in thirty doctors and nurses from the Serbian Relief Fund and Scottish Women’s Hospitals joined the army and refugees who trudged across the Kosovo plain. This convoy of Serbians and medical staff had to cross the inhospitable and wild Montenegrin mountains in order to reach the safety of the ports of the Adriatic Coast. It was December and winter had set in complete with thick snow, ice and cold. Eventually they reached San Giovanni de Medua on the coast, to be rescued by ship and taken to Brindisi and the route home to Britain.

Despite this experience eight months later Anna was back in the Balkans, this time with the Scottish Women’s Hospitals in northern Greece. The so called “American Unit” situated at Ostrovo, ninety miles inland from Salonika, was run by Dr Agnes Bennett. Here the enemy was not the Austrians but their ally Bulgaria. Fighting took place in the Kamalchalan mountains and casualties had to be transported over rocky roads for two hours to Ostrovo, The hospital contained four surgical and one medical ward each containing forty beds. As a bacteriologist Anna had responsibility for a well equipped laboratory housed in a seven foot tent as well as half of a ward. Fierce fighting by late 1916 meant that the hospital was very busy with the three surgeons, Anna, Lilian Cooper and Sybil Lewis operating all day and in to the night. In his evocative painting Travoys with Wounded Soldiers at a Dressing Station at Smol Macedonia the artist Stanley Spencer who served with 68^th Field Ambulance unit in Macedonia gives a visual impression of a field hospital like Ostrovo. A journey of two hours from the battlefield was too long for many casualties so a casualty clearing station was established at Dobreveni, high in the mountains close to the front line. This was manned by two doctors, four sisters and two orderlies on a  six week rota and Anna’s calmness under fire was noted by both staff and troops.

Even a unit situated as close to the front line as Ostrovo had quieter periods. In her lively diary Ishobel Ross records Christmas celebrations, visits to the nearby Russian camp and riding in the countryside, activities in which Anna was a keen participant. No wonder when Joan Rose arrived to work at Ostrovo in 1917, she wrote admiringly of Anna who was by then the longest serving doctor at the Unit, “therefore speaks with authority – and with a good deal of common sense: reported to be engaged to a Serb, fraternises with the more lively section of the shovers ( chauffeurs ), likes bathing and riding and other energetic pastimes.”^[2] It was this seniority of experience that led her into conflict with Dr Mary de Garis, the successor to Agnes Bennett, early in 1918 over her unwillingness to move the hospital nearer to the then front line.

Anna terminated her contract with the Red Cross in May 1918. For her work at Ostrovo she received the 4^th Order of St Sava from the King of Serbia. After the War she held a number of posts in Britain before sailing to South Africa in January 1922. She worked in Asylums in Cape Town, Blomfonteim and Pietermaritzburg in the years prior to her death from a cerebral embolism in 1930, following seven months illness.

Carol Coles is an amateur historian. She first came across reference to Anna Muncaster when she was researching the impact of World War 1 on the Cheshire County Lunatic Asylum.

^[2]   Leah Lenman, In the Service of Life p.133