Oct 05, 2010
— read in fullFamous doctors: Elizabeth Garrett
In 1836, Elizabeth Garrett was born in Whitechapel, London. Years later, Britain witnessed as she overcame the barriers in her way to become the country’s first ever female doctor.
“He said the whole idea was so disgusting that he could not entertain it for a moment,” writes a 24-year old Elizabeth Garrett, explaining her father’s response to her decision to be a doctor.
“I asked, what there was to make doctoring more disgusting than nursing, which women were always doing, and which ladies had done publicly in the Crimea. He could not tell me.” This was a small victory for Garrett, which she writes in this letter to Emily Davies, the soon to be influential feminist.
Now, it seems hard to imagine parents being annoyed by their daughters wanting to become doctors just because of their gender. In fact, women doctors are expected to outnumber men within a decade in the UK.
But Garrett lived in Victorian Britain and ambitions for women were more about marriage than medicine. There were no women doctors at all then, and in her bid to be the first, Garrett had to encounter and overcome numerous challenges of which her father was the first.
Early ambitions
Ironically, it was her father who took the unusual decision to educate his daughters as well as his sons, and in 1850 he sent Garrett to boarding school. After just two years, Garrett’s schooling had come to an end, but her ambitions had just begun.
The turning point came in 1859 when Davies introduced Garrett to Elizabeth Blackwell, America’s first female doctor. The meeting cemented Garret’s medical ambitions and with passionate persistence she finally received her father’s consent.
Overcoming challenges
But Garrett encountered yet more resistance. She applied to several medical schools and all refused to admit a woman. When she was finally allowed to train in 1861 at Middlesex Hospital, she was banned from lectures after showing that she could answer more questions than her male counterparts.
Despite these setbacks she continued to study privately and received tutoring in anatomy and general medicine. However, to practice as a doctor Garrett needed to be certified and most examining bodies banned women.
Garrett eventually found the Society of Apothecaries, which had no ban. In 1865, she passed all her exams and by the following year she had opened the St Mary’s Dispensary for Women.
More study and more work
Not fully satisfied and determined to obtain the medical degree that had been refused to her in Britain, Garrett taught herself French and studied with great success at the University of Paris, gaining an MD degree.
By 1871 she also gained the name Anderson by marriage. James Anderson supported his wife’s career and they had three children, one of whom, Louisa, became a prominent figure in the suffragette movement (which campaigned to give women the right to vote).
Anderson established other hospitals and medical schools, and was key to the British Medical Association finally admitting women. In 1902 she retired from medicine but not from pioneering and in 1908 she was elected mayor of Aldeburgh in Suffolk, the first woman mayor in England.
She died in 1917 and to honour her, the St Mary’s Dispensary for Women was renamed Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital, which is today part of the University College London’s network of hospitals.
In 1870, a fellow trainee doctor, Sophia Jex-Blake congratulated Anderson on achieving her degree stating, “We desire to express also our appreciation of the example you have afforded to others, and the honour you have reflected on all women who have chosen medicine as their profession.”
Thanks to women like Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, careers in medicine are now much more accessible to everyone. Browse through some of the links below for more insight into becoming a doctor.
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