Mary was a courageous and determined lady, with a tantalising connection to Mahatma Gandhi. When she met her future husband, Dugald Revie, he was a medical student, intent on becoming a missionary in India.

She decided to train as a nurse to go with him. Her family, were not happy with the idea but she prevailed and in 1889, she married Dugald and moved to Wardha, in the Central Province of India to establish a leper hospital. They first built a house then built a proper dispensary and the hospital. In 1892 in Wardha, Mary had a daughter. Sadly, in 1895 Mary died and was buried in a graveyard near St Thomas’s Church in Wardha.

In 1936 when Mahatma Gandhi was back in India he was gifted some land by a follower, near a village now called Seevagram, close to Wardha. Family stories tell of Gandhi living in the small native style bungalow built for and by the Revies as their home many years before. David Hutton, great grandson of Mary Wishart visited Wardha several years ago, saw the mission and his great grandmother’s grave. The family are all very proud of their ancestress, and thrilled about the Gandhi connection. Fittingly, Seevagram was the home to the first rural medical college established in India. Dugald and Mary would have been proud – they had been among those who first brought medical knowledge to the area.