Elizabeth Garrett Anderson 1836 – 1917

original drawing by Anne Sassoon

Campaigner for medical education for women and medical facilities for women.

9 June 1836 – 17 December 1917

See: Medical Women and Female Patients in the 1890s by Dr Claire Brock: Medical Women and Female Patients in the 1890s – Pascal Theatre Company (pascal-theatre.com)

Education

Home schooled by a governess then private school till teens.

Some Key Medical Achievements and Interests

1865 Obtained a licence to practise from the Society of Apothecaries (her father threatened legal action if she was not allowed to take the exams).  The Society then closed its doors to women until 1888.

1866 Entered her name on the Medical Register, the second woman after Elizabeth Blackwell.

1866 Opened St Mary’s Dispensary for Women in Seymour Place, Marylebone, staffed by women.

1870 Gained MD at the Sorbonne in (first woman to qualify in Paris).

1870 Appointed Visiting Medical Officer East London Hospital for Children.

1870 Elected to the first London School Board representing Marylebone, serving on it for three years. She and Emily Davies, representing Greenwich, were the only women on the Board.

Active in fundraising for Girton College.

Became a founder member of the National Women’s Suffrage Society (NUWSS).

1872 Founded the New Hospital for Women above the Dispensary in Seymour Place staffed by women. This hospital could treat serious medical and surgical cases. The success of this hospital led to a purpose-built hospital on the site of Somers Place West, Bloomsbury, off the Euston Road in 1890 (later renamed the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital). This building also contained the Women’s Medical Institute.

1874 Elected to the British Medical Association (BMA). The Association then closed admittance to women until 1892, members voting three to one against the admission of more women.

1874 Refused membership of the Obstetrical Society.

Involved in the founding of the London School of Medicine for Women (LSMW).

1883 Elected Dean of the London School of Medicine for Women.

1898 Elected President of East Anglian branch of the BMA.

1902 Elected President of the London (Royal Free Hospital) School of Medicine for Women, the first president of the School. (The LSMW was granted a Royal Charter in 1898 and renamed.)

1908 Elected mayor of Aldeburgh of Suffolk, the first woman to be elected mayor in England.

Broke convention when she continued her career after marriage to Skelton Anderson in 1871 and raised children. (As a condition of her marriage, she insisted on taking legal control of her income as a medical practitioner. The law of the land at that time would make a woman’s income on marriage belong to a husband.)

Proved a woman could be a wife and mother and be a successful doctor.

Issues

Battled against male opposition to women training, qualifying, practising in the medical world throughout her life.

Had to overcome her father’s resistance to become a physician but won him over.

When offered to teach physiology at Bedford College in 1865 the Council decided it was an unsuitable subject for women*.

*E Cresy wrote to Emma Darwin seeking her support in recommending to her brother-in-law Mr Erasmus Darwin, Chairman of the Council of the Bedford College for Girls, that Elizabeth Garrett Andreson’s application for the position of Professorship in Physiology be considered favourably. Read here by Matilda Russell:

From Edward Cresy to Emma Darwin   20 November 1865

Metropolitan Board of Works | Spring Gardens

My dear M^rs Darwin,

Permit me to awaken your feminine sympathies in behalf of a very admirable young lady & dear friend of ours Miss Elizabeth Garrett who has, after encountering an amount of opposition which few men would have had the courage to encounter, succeeded in obtaining the diploma of the Apothecaries Company, & has started in practice—¹

Your brother in law M^r Erasmus Darwin is Chairman of the Council of the Bedford College for Girls² & Miss Garrett is a candidate for their Professorship of physiology applications for which are to go in on Wednesday next— I have no doubt that if a properly qualified lady can be obtained that the council would be disposed to consider her as possessing many advantages for instructing girls, especially in that particular branch—³ I cannot of course ask you to urge the claims of one who is a stranger to you—but if you could say to M^r Erasmus Darwin that you believe that my recommendation would not be lightly given and that I have had the opportunity of watching Miss Garretts career closely & of frequently observing & testing her scientific acquirements and know them to be of a high order—& also that her industry & zeal are beyond all praise, I think possibly that even at second hand such testimony might do her good service— She is frequently at our house & my wife⁴ & I both entertain the greatest regard for her—

I may add what I know will interest you although it cannot help her in the matter now under consideration, viz that the very special career to which she has devoted herself has nothing impaired the charm of her manner or her social converse   she is neither masculine nor pedantic & except you knew her intimately you would only recognise a well bred English Lady— I hope you will be able to give me a more favorable account of M^r Darwin than the last.⁵ pray remember us both most kindly to him—

Yours very truly | E Cresy

M^rs Darwin

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4940,” accessed on 6 September 2023, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4940.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 13

In 1872 when married James G Skelton Anderson called herself Mrs Garrett Anderson rather than Dr Garrett Anderson knowing her medical title could arouse hostility.

When opening the New Hospital for Women was not against men working in the hospital but did not employ men knowing credit would go to the men and the women remain unrecognised.

Connection to Bloomsbury

The London School of Medicine for Women. Initially she disagreed with the opening of a school only for women as argued that women should fight for equal rights to what was accessible to men.

Female networks

Many in the medical profession, particularly inspired by Elizabeth Blackwell.

Joined the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women (SPEW) and mixed with like-minded women.

Closely networked with the Garretts’ circle.

Suffrage associates such as Emily Davies.

Legacy

Many clinical establishments are named after her eg the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Wing of UCH, the Garrett Anderson Centre at Ipswich Hospital, the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson secondary school in Islington.

NHS Leadership Academy runs a master’s degree called the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson programme.

An example of her fighting spirit:

EGA took on Dr Henry Maudsley who published an article in Fortnightly Review 1874 reinforcing the standard view that women’s physiology made them unsuitable for university level education and ‘male’ professions:

‘Is it true, or is it a great exaggeration, to say that the physiological difference between men and women seriously interferes with the chances of success a woman would otherwise possess? We believe it to be very far indeed from the truth. When we are told that in the labour of life women cannot disregard their special physiological functions without danger to health, it is difficult to understand what is meant, considering that in adult life healthy women do as a rule disregard them almost completely. It is, we are convinced, a great exaggeration to imply that women of average health are periodically incapacitated from serious work by the facts of their organisation. Among poor women, where all the available strength is spent upon manual labour, the daily work goes on without intermission, and, as a rule, without ill effects.  For example do domestic servants, either as young girls or in mature life, show by experience that a marked change in the amount of work expected from them must be made at these times unless their health is to be injured? It is well known that they do not.’    EAG in Fortnightly Review 1874 Vol 15 responding to ‘Sex in Mind and Education’ Maudsley.

Further reading:

Crawford, E. Enterprising Women  The Garretts and their Circle: London 2002