Author’s Note

Reprinted by kind permission of The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).

The hospital and refuge that Kate worked so hard to establish was indeed built in Sosnovka and opened in 1892. It was run by the Russian Sisters of Mercy, and provided care for lepers gathered from hovels such as those Kate found. For decades it was the place to where people afflicted with the disease travelled from all over Siberia. In Kate’s hospital they found treatment, companionship, and a place of safety. It closed in the 1960s once modern understanding of leprosy meant it was no longer needed.

Kate’s reputation never recovered from the scandal which dogged her footsteps wherever she went. Despite her work for the lepers in Siberia, being made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, helping to establish the Bexhill Museum, and setting up the
St Francis Leper Guild, she never found acceptance in her own society again. She died penniless in Wandsworth Asylum, her mind disturbed by dementia. Her grave in Uxbridge Cemetery has no headstone to tell of her achievements.

Her book, On Sledge And Horseback To Outcast Siberian Lepers, successfully raised both awareness of the disease of leprosy and funds for the hospital. In the town of Sosnovka there is a statue erected to her memory and a street named after her. In 1991 a 55 carat diamond found in Yakutsk was given the name ‘Sister of Mercy Kate Marsden’.