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Elizabeth Garrett Anderson

1836–1917 · English

Medicine — women in medicine

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was the first woman to qualify in Britain as a physician and surgeon, gaining a licence from the Society of Apothecaries in 1865 through a loophole that was promptly closed. She founded a dispensary for women that grew into the New Hospital for Women, later renamed the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital, and was dean of the London School of Medicine for Women. In 1908 she became the first woman mayor in England, at Aldeburgh.

How to spot them

▸First woman to qualify as a doctor in Britain (Society of Apothecaries, 1865)
▸First woman mayor in England: Aldeburgh, Suffolk, 1908
▸Sister of the suffragist Millicent Garrett Fawcett
▸MD from the University of Paris (1870); first female member of the British Medical Association (1873)
▸Inspired by Elizabeth Blackwell

Key discoveries & works

First woman to qualify in Britain as a physician and surgeon (1865)

Licence of the Society of Apothecaries (LSA); the Society then barred women from its exams

St Mary's Dispensary for Women, London (1866)

Became the New Hospital for Women and later the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital

MD from the University of Paris (1870)

Earned a medical degree abroad as British universities would not award one to a woman

First woman member of the British Medical Association (1873)

Remained its only woman member for about 19 years after it voted to exclude women

Dean of the London School of Medicine for Women (1883)

Led the school founded by Sophia Jex-Blake and others

First woman mayor in England (1908)

Elected Mayor of Aldeburgh, Suffolk

Key ideas

Showed that women could qualify and practise as doctors, opening the medical profession to them
Medical care of women by women, through hospitals staffed by women

Quick-fire facts

•Born in Whitechapel, London, in 1836, and grew up in Aldeburgh, Suffolk
•Her decision to study medicine was inspired by meeting Elizabeth Blackwell, first woman on the British Medical Register, in 1859
•Trained as a nurse at the Middlesex Hospital while attending lectures, until male students objected
•In 1870 was one of the first women elected to the London School Board
•Her sister was the suffragist Millicent Garrett Fawcett; her daughter Louisa Garrett Anderson was also a doctor and suffragette
•Married James Skelton Anderson, a shipowner, in 1871

Drill it — 6 cards

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Sources

Oxford University Press — Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Anderson, Elizabeth Garrett
Jo Manton — Elizabeth Garrett Anderson