Emily Hobhouse receives a reply to her request to be included in the Ladies Commission

On 26 July 1901 Emily Hobhouse wrote a second letter to St John Rodrick asking for reasons for the War Department's refusal to include her in the Ladies Commission. If she cannot go, "it was due to myself to convey to all interested that the failure to do so was due to the Government". St John Rodrick replied to Emily Hobhouse's letter saying; "The only consideration in the selection of ladies to visit the Concentration Camps, beyond their special capacity for such work, was that they should be, so far as is possible, removed from the suspicion of partiality to the system adopted or the reverse." Emily Hobhouse (April 9, 1860 - June 8, 1926) was a British welfare campaigner, who is primarily remembered for bringing to the attention of the British public, and working to change, the appalling conditions inside the British concentration camps in South Africa built for Boer women and children during the Second Boer War.