Paget, Dame (Louise Margaret) Leila Wemyss (1881-1958), hospital administrator, was born at 3 Halkin Street West, Belgravia, London on 9 October 1881, the only daughter and second of four children of Sir Arthur Henry FitzRoy Paget (1851-1928), army officer, and his wife, Mary Fiske (Minnie) Stevens (d. 1919). Her father, a grandson of the first marquess of Anglesey, rose to be general-officer-commanding the forces in Ireland (1911-17); as such, he sparked the Curragh 'mutiny' of 1914. Her American mother cut a figure in London society. They were friends of King Edward VII.

Educated by governesses, Leila became a debutante, yet an air of diffidence seemed to preclude her absorption into the smart set. On 28 October 1907 she wed her third cousin once removed, Ralph Spencer Paget (1864-1940), a diplomat who was then British minister in Bangkok. His KCMG in 1909 made her Lady Paget. She delighted in Siam, found Bavaria dull (1909-10), and encouraged her husband to accept a transfer to Serbia in July 1910.

Befriended by Mabel Grujic, American wife of the Serbian under-secretary for foreign affairs, Lady Paget volunteered to assist in the management of a military hospital in Belgrade during the First Balkan War (October 1912-May 1913). This experience had a profound effect on her; she worked so hard that her health gave way (temporarily) when the crisis was over. The Pagets returned to London, where Sir Ralph became an assistant under-secretary for foreign affairs in August 1913. Artists and musicians were often invited to their home at 32 York Terrace, Regent's Park.

The outbreak of the First World War found Lady Paget on holiday in California, but she hastily came back and immersed herself in the lord mayor's Serbian Relief Fund (SRF), which took premises in Cromwell Road, South Kensington, and purchased equipment for a war hospital. On 29 October 1914, the first SRF unit (of four doctors and sixteen nurses) sailed from Southampton, with Leila Paget in charge. They were making for northern Serbia, near the front line, but, on reaching Skoplje (modern Skopje, then still known to some by its Turkish name of Uskub) on 17 November, the SRF was invited by the Serbian Red Cross to take over the third reserve hospital in the town (a converted secondary school with 330 beds). When the first 180 casualties arrived on 22 November, nurses perceived that Serbian standards of care resembled those found by Florence Nightingale in Turkey six decades before. Lady Paget as 'head SRF Skoplje' displayed dedication and leadership of a similar order. A slender, elegant young woman, she took on the most unpleasant tasks and never asked anyone to do what she would not do herself. Dysentery, sepsis, and gangrene were rife; the water supply proved unreliable; half the staff were usually off sick. Nevertheless the SRF hospital looked after not only Serbian wounded but also Austro-Hungarian prisoners.

In February 1915 a typhus epidemic hit Skoplje. As the Serbian authorities did not seem to realize its seriousness, Lady Paget took the initiative in setting up an isolation hospital outside the town. She contracted typhus herself on 8 March and appeared near to death when Ralph Paget arrived as chief commissioner of British relief units in Serbia (which included the Red Cross and Scottish Women's Hospitals as well as the SRF). She recovered, however, and the advent of a second SRF unit at Skoplje allowed her to go to England in May 1915 for recuperation. Hailed as a heroine, she received the grand cordon of the order of St Sava from King Peter I of Serbia and a street in Belgrade was named Ledi Pazet ulica.

When Lady Paget resumed her duties in Macedonia in July 1915 the Balkan front was quiet, but all that changed when Austria-Hungary relaunched its invasion of Serbia in October and Bulgaria joined the central powers. Skoplje lay open to Bulgarian attack and Lady Paget appealed in vain for Anglo-French intervention. Instructed by her husband to evacuate the town, she judged the transport to be hopelessly inadequate for hundreds of gravely wounded men, so the SRF units decided to remain with their patients and be taken prisoner. The Bulgarians captured Skoplje on 22 October. Having nursed Bulgarians in the First Balkan War (and been received by Queen Eleanore of Bulgaria), Lady Paget seemed unafraid. Though shortages of food and fuel caused severe privation, she managed to keep the hospital open and to administer relief to thousands of refugees, while evading Bulgarian attempts to pressurize her into attesting to alleged Serbian atrocities. Her determination to supply humanitarian aid to all in need, wholly regardless of nationality, impressed the Bulgarians so much that they helped her ward off German plans to commandeer the hospital and intern the British staff, who did not leave until 17 February 1916, by which time Serbia had been overrun. The International Red Cross arranged their repatriation via Sofia, Bucharest, and Petrograd.

Lady Paget reached England on 3 April 1916. Despite disapproval in 'jingo' circles of her co-operation with the Bulgarians, the king appointed her GBE in August 1917. Dame Leila Paget resided in Copenhagen (1916-18) and Rio de Janeiro (1919-20) during her husband's final postings. The couple, who had no children, then retired to Sittingbourne, Kent, before moving in 1929 to Warren House, her late father's mansion at Kingston Hill, Surrey. She had it turned into a convalescent home during the Second World War. She died at her final home, Soames House, Coombe Hill Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, on 24 September 1958.

Jason Tomes

Sources M. Krippner, The quality of mercy: women at war, Serbia, 1915-18 (1980) + W. Mead, 'With a British hospital in Serbia-the experiences of Lady Paget's unit at Skoplje', World's Work, 26 (1915), 243-58 + The Times (25 Sept 1958) + 'Men and women of today: Lady Paget', World's Work, 26 (1915), 204-5 + Burke, Peerage + WWW + b. cert.
Archives BL, papers, Add. MSS 51242-51262 | IWM, first and second Serbian relief fund reports
Likenesses photograph, repro. in Krippner, Quality of mercy, 45 · photograph, repro. in Mead, 'With a British hospital', 193

Awards of Outstanding International Importance to Statesmen and Heroines

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Paget

Lady Paget never forgot Serbia. When in October 1934 the Yugoslav King Aleksandar I was assassinated, she visited Belgrade and was present at his funeral. Dame Leila Paget continued to be actively interested in the Balkans. With the German invasion of Yugoslavia and the influx of Yugoslavian exiles into Britain, Dame Leila did all she could to assist those in need, including selling her estate in Surrey.

Medal 
exhibit

Mme Chiang Kai-shek, by Hulton Archives,
1939: Soong Mei-ling (1897 - 2003),
sociologist and wife of the General Chiang
Kai-shek, being presented with a medal
of honour by the New York City
Federation of Women's Clubs.

From http://www.jamd.com/image/g/3422935 . 
Notice that this medal lacks a Liberty Eagle at top)

"MRS. YAWGER HEADS CLUB FEDERATION" (New York Times, 3 Feb. 1917)

N.Y. Times,  27 Oct. 1917

See http://www.politika.rs/rubrike/Drustvo/Ledi-Pedzet-i-njeni-Srbi.lt.html  ,
"Ledi Pedzet i njeni Srbi", honoring 50th anniversary of death of Lady Paget, 24 Sept. 2008 

Incl. are dossiers of research (in English and Serbian) totaling hundreds of pages, and the following books:

Club Women of New York , 1949
                                                                                               Krippner, Monica, The QUALITY OF MERCY: Women at War, Serbia 1915-18

Paget, Lady, With our Serbian Allies: Second Report, 1916

Strong, Richard P., Typhus Fever with Particular Reference to the Serbian
Epidemic, 1921

 Ribbon is  6  1/2  x  2  1/4  inches.
 Liberty  Eagle  is  2 inches  x  1  13/16    inches (from widest to widest point)

Selling, manufacturing and unauthorized wear of the Congressional Medal of Honor, is illegal under federal law, and punishable by fines of up to $100,000 and a year in jail.

Gold Testimonial Medal of the GRAND ARMY
OF THE REPUBLIC (the Civil War veterans'
organization) the design of which inspired the
design of the NYC Women's Club Federation 
"Medal of Honor"  

New York City Federation of Women's Clubs Medal of Honor (with Liberty Eagle), 1st of eight ever issued, 14 carat gold, by C.G. Braxmar Co., New York, to "LADY RALPH PAGET"; exhibited 27 Oct. 1917, at an official Club meeting (scroll down to see NY Times article on this).
 
Subsequent recipients:

Evelyn Smalley                   1919         ?
Maud Ballington Booth                        ?
Carrie Chapman Catt         1922   lacks the Liberty Eagle
Mary Margaret Hay                             ?
Madame Curie                   1929          ?
Madame Chiang Kai-shek  1939   lacks the Liberty Eagle
Lisa Meitner                       1949          ?

1949
edition
(1918 edition also incl.)

Evolution of designs of
 American Medals of Honor:

Mme Chiang
Kai-shek