Louisa Aldrich Blake (made a Dame 1925) 1865 – 1925
Medical pioneer.
15 August 1865- 28 December 1925
Credit: Dame Louisa Aldrich-Blake. Photograph by Lafayette Ltd.
Wellcome Collection.
Education
Studied at Cheltenham Ladies College (there nicknamed ‘Harry’), was good at sports and represented her school at cricket and boxing.
Some Key Achievements and Interests
Aged 8 set up a local animal hospital where she cared for her friends’ pets.
1887 Studied at the London School of Medicine for Women graduating in 1894 with a 1st class Hons degree in Medicine and Obstetrics.
1895 First woman to obtain a Master of Surgery degree.
Worked at Royal Free Hospital, Bloomsbury, becoming 1895 first female surgical registrar and first female anaesthetist and lecturer in anaesthetics at the hospital.
First surgeon (male and female) to perform operations for cervical and rectal cancer.
1903 Published paper in the British Medical Journal on new procedure to treat rectal cancer.
1910-1925 Worked as senior surgeon at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson’s Hospital.
Volunteered while holding down a full-time job at Canning Town Women’s Settlement Hospital in London’s East End.
1906 Became Vice Dean of the London School of Medicine for Women and Dean in 1914.
Organised for women doctors on the General Medical Register to serve with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Egypt, Malta and Salonika. The women did not receive the same treatment or allowances as male doctors. The women’s dedication and skills, however, raised their public profile and inspired other women to enter the medical profession.
1915 Worked as a surgeon for the Anglo-French Red Cross near Paris. Was nicknamed Madame la Générale.
1925 Made a Dame Commander of the British Empire.
Issues
Had to fight to enter a male dominated profession at a time that women doctors had little status.
Connection to Bloomsbury
London School of Medicine for Women, Bloomsbury.
Royal Free Hospital, Gray’s Inn Road, Bloomsbury.
Female networks:
Medical fraternity.
Legacy
1926 Statue to Dame Aldrich Blake in Tavistock Square.
Aldrich-Blake Ward at the Royal Free Hospital.
Publications/Writing include:
Aldrich-Blake’s clinical notes 1887-1908 are held at the Wellcome Library – This casebook ‘provides us with a valuable lens through which to view the education of a nineteenth-century female medial student.’ Louisa Aldrich-Blake’s Casebook – British Society for the History of Medicine (bshm.org.uk)
Further reading:
Louisa Aldrich-Blake | University of London
https://camdenguides.com/dame-louisa-aldrich-blake/