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Lady Grisell Baillie who lived at Eildon Hall and Maxpoffle for many years, before she went to live at Dryburgh, was a great supporter of Bowden church, taking responsibility, with her brother, for the Sunday school education of the children of the parish. In 1888, she was ordained, in Bowden Kirk, as the first deaconess of the Church of Scotland. She was commemorated by the erection of the Lady Grisell Baillie Hospital in Edinburgh, later renamed the Deaconess Hospital.
This hospital closed in 1990, and the building renamed Deaconess House, is now the home of Lothians NHS Trust.
The Baillie Hall in Newtown St Boswells was erected by her, in 1886, in memory of her brother, with the clock being added later in memory of her other brother Admiral Baillie.
She has been described as follows:
"She was beautiful, educated, gracious and above all a woman of deep faith, dedicated to the service of others. Not content with daily visits to the sick, teaching in Sunday school, the holding of meetings for young women, the organising of bazaars to support foreign missions, and so forth; she also provided a water supply for the village of St Boswells at her own expense and paid for the building of a new bridge across the Tweed."
Back to: History of Bowden
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