The Great Experiment: The Admission of Women Students to St Mary's Hospital Medical School, 1916-1925

Medical History

Volumn 42, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 68-88

  Garner, James Stuart ^a  

^a ST MARY S HOSPITAL   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; FEMALE; FEMALE PHYSICIAN; HISTORY; HUMAN; MEDICAL EDUCATION; MEDICAL SCHOOL; MEDICAL STUDENT; UNITED KINGDOM;

EDUCATION, MEDICAL; FEMALE; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HUMANS; LONDON; PHYSICIANS, WOMEN; SCHOOLS, MEDICAL; STUDENTS, MEDICAL;

EID: 0031615207     PISSN: 00257273     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0025727300063341     Document Type: Review

References (137)

1. Perhaps the first significant account is E Moberly Bell, Storming the citadel: the rise of the woman doctor, London, Constable, 1953.
2. A modern account to be framed in these terms is Catriona Blake, The charge of the parasols: women's entry to the medical profession, London, Women's Press, 1990.
3. Edythe Lutzker, Women gain a place in medicine, London, McGraw-Hill, 1969, p. 1.
4. Susan Kingsley Kent, Sex and suffrage in Britain, 1860-1914, Princeton University Press, 1987, p. 60.
5. For example, Elizabeth Blackwell, Pioneer work in opening the medical profession to women, London, Longmans, Green, 1895; Sophia Jex-Blake, Medical women: a thesis and history, Edinburgh, Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1886; Louisa Martindale, The woman doctor and her future, London, Mills & Boon, 1922.
6. For example, Elizabeth Blackwell, Pioneer work in opening the medical profession to women, London, Longmans, Green, 1895; Sophia Jex-Blake, Medical women: a thesis and history, Edinburgh, Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1886; Louisa Martindale, The woman doctor and her future, London, Mills & Boon, 1922.
7. For example, Elizabeth Blackwell, Pioneer work in opening the medical profession to women, London, Longmans, Green, 1895; Sophia Jex-Blake, Medical women: a thesis and history, Edinburgh, Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1886; Louisa Martindale, The woman doctor and her future, London, Mills & Boon, 1922.
8. This is not to suggest that feminist writers are any more prone to bias than any other kind, simply that they are no less prone either. For a reader unfamiliar with modern feminist writing, several works provide a good general introduction: Olive Banks Faces of feminism: a study of feminism as a social movement, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1986; Les Garner, Stepping stones to women's liberty: feminist ideas in the women's suffrage movement, 1900-1918, London, Heinemann Educational, 1984; Brian Harrison, Separate spheres: the opposition to women's suffrage in Britain, London, Croom Helm, 1978; Richard J Evans, The feminists: women's emancipation movements in Europe, America and Australasia, 1840-1920, London, Croom Helm, 1977.
9. This is not to suggest that feminist writers are any more prone to bias than any other kind, simply that they are no less prone either. For a reader unfamiliar with modern feminist writing, several works provide a good general introduction: Olive Banks Faces of feminism: a study of feminism as a social movement, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1986; Les Garner, Stepping stones to women's liberty: feminist ideas in the women's suffrage movement, 1900-1918, London, Heinemann Educational, 1984; Brian Harrison, Separate spheres: the opposition to women's suffrage in Britain, London, Croom Helm, 1978; Richard J Evans, The feminists: women's emancipation movements in Europe, America and Australasia, 1840-1920, London, Croom Helm, 1977.
10. This is not to suggest that feminist writers are any more prone to bias than any other kind, simply that they are no less prone either. For a reader unfamiliar with modern feminist writing, several works provide a good general introduction: Olive Banks Faces of feminism: a study of feminism as a social movement, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1986; Les Garner, Stepping stones to women's liberty: feminist ideas in the women's suffrage movement, 1900-1918, London, Heinemann Educational, 1984; Brian Harrison, Separate spheres: the opposition to women's suffrage in Britain, London, Croom Helm, 1978; Richard J Evans, The feminists: women's emancipation movements in Europe, America and Australasia, 1840-1920, London, Croom Helm, 1977.
11. This is not to suggest that feminist writers are any more prone to bias than any other kind, simply that they are no less prone either. For a reader unfamiliar with modern feminist writing, several works provide a good general introduction: Olive Banks Faces of feminism: a study of feminism as a social movement, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1986; Les Garner, Stepping stones to women's liberty: feminist ideas in the women's suffrage movement, 1900-1918, London, Heinemann Educational, 1984; Brian Harrison, Separate spheres: the opposition to women's suffrage in Britain, London, Croom Helm, 1978; Richard J Evans, The feminists: women's emancipation movements in Europe, America and Australasia, 1840-1920, London, Croom Helm, 1977.
12. The idea of unbiased history as oxymoron is cogently argued by E H Carr, What is history?, 2nd ed., edited by R W Davies, London, Penguin, 1987. See also, Isaiah Berlin, 'Political ideas in the twentieth century', in idem, Four essays on liberty, Oxford University Press, 1969, pp. 1-5.
13. The idea of unbiased history as oxymoron is cogently argued by E H Carr, What is history?, 2nd ed., edited by R W Davies, London, Penguin, 1987. See also, Isaiah Berlin, 'Political ideas in the twentieth century', in idem, Four essays on liberty, Oxford University Press, 1969, pp. 1-5.
14. Geoffrey Marks and William K Beatty, Women in white, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1972, sometimes gives this impression.
15. Carol Dyhouse, No distinction of sex?: women in British universities, 1870-1939, London, UCL Press, 1994, p. 157.
16. Thomas N Bonner, To the ends of the earth: women's search for education in medicine, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1992, p. 13.
17. Mary Roth Walsh, "Doctors wanted, no women need apply": sexual barriers in the medical profession, 1835-1975, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1977, makes this point in an American context.
18. A good general account with this theme is David Mitchell, Women on the warpath: the story of the women of the First World War, London, Jonathan Cape, 1966.
19. Hilary Bourdillon, Women as healers: a history of women and medicine, Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 40. Also, Mitchell, op. cit., note 12 above, pp. 177-87.
20. Hilary Bourdillon, Women as healers: a history of women and medicine, Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 40. Also, Mitchell, op. cit., note 12 above, pp. 177-87.
21. Flora Murray, Women as army surgeons: being the history of the Women's Hospital Corps in Paris, Wimereux and Endell Street, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1920.
22. Vera Brittain, Lady into woman: a history of women from Victoria to Elizabeth 11, London, Andrew Dakers, 1953, pp. 183-201, tends to support this view.
23. Pamela Horn, Women in the 1920s, Alan Sutton, 1995, ch. 1, takes this line of attack.
24. Sally Alexander, 'Women's work in nineteenth-century London: a study of the years 1820-50', in Juliet Mitchell and Ann Oakley (eds), The rights and wrongs of women, London, Penguin, 1976, pp. 59-111, broaches this prospect from a Marxist angle with reference to the early nineteenth century. The notion is extended to the First World War by Penny Summerfield, 'Women and war in the twentieth century', in June Purvis (ed.), Women's history: Britain, 1850-1945, an introduction, London, UCL Press, 1995, pp 307-32.
25. Sally Alexander, 'Women's work in nineteenth- century London: a study of the years 1820-50', in Juliet Mitchell and Ann Oakley (eds), The rights and wrongs of women, London, Penguin, 1976, pp. 59-111, broaches this prospect from a Marxist angle with reference to the early nineteenth century. The notion is extended to the First World War by Penny Summerfield, 'Women and war in the twentieth century', in June Purvis (ed.), Women's history: Britain, 1850-1945, an introduction, London, UCL Press, 1995, pp 307-32.
26. Ivan Illich, Gender, London, Marion Boyars, 1983, describes the replacement of vernacular gender with biological sex, which he considers a precondition for the rise of capitalism. Sexism, in other words, is a side-effect of economics. The same idea is developed by Michel Foucault in The history of sexuality, vol. 1, an introduction, transl. Robert Hurley, London, Penguin Books, 1990 (original French ed. Histoire de la sexualité I, La volonté de savoir, Paris, Gallimard, 1976).
27. Ivan Illich, Gender, London, Marion Boyars, 1983, describes the replacement of vernacular gender with biological sex, which he considers a precondition for the rise of capitalism. Sexism, in other words, is a side-effect of economics. The same idea is developed by Michel Foucault in The history of sexuality, vol. 1, an introduction, transl. Robert Hurley, London, Penguin Books, 1990 (original French ed. Histoire de la sexualité I, La volonté de savoir, Paris, Gallimard, 1976).
28. Ivan Illich, Gender, London, Marion Boyars, 1983, describes the replacement of vernacular gender with biological sex, which he considers a precondition for the rise of capitalism. Sexism, in other words, is a side-effect of economics. The same idea is developed by Michel Foucault in The history of sexuality, vol. 1, an introduction, transl. Robert Hurley, London, Penguin Books, 1990 (original French ed. Histoire de la sexualité I, La volonté de savoir, Paris, Gallimard, 1976).
29. A superlative example of modern scholarship is Mary Ann Elston, 'Women doctors in the British health services: a sociological study of their careers and opportunities', PhD thesis, Leeds University, 1987.
30. Report of the Special Committee of the University of London to Consider the Medical Education of Women in London, University of London, 1944.
31. B R Bewley, 'Women doctors: a review', J. R. Soc. Med., 1995, 88: 399P-405P.
32. Moberly Bell, op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 170-1.
33. Report of the Special Committee of the University of London, op. cit., note 20 above.
34. For a more general history of this establishment see Sir Zachary Cope, The history of St. Mary's Hospital Medical School: or, a century of medical education, London, William Heinemann, 1954. A more recent, briefer account may be found in Anne Barrett and Kevin Brown (eds), St. Mary's Hospital Medical School: an historical anthology, London, Imperial College and St Mary's Hospital Medical School Archives, 1990. A good starting point for the background to the London teaching hospitals, albeit with a slightly political bent, is Geoffrey Rivett, The development of the London hospital system, 1823-1982, London, King Edward's Hospital Fund for London, 1986.
35. For a more general history of this establishment see Sir Zachary Cope, The history of St. Mary's Hospital Medical School: or, a century of medical education, London, William Heinemann, 1954. A more recent, briefer account may be found in Anne Barrett and Kevin Brown (eds), St. Mary's Hospital Medical School: an historical anthology, London, Imperial College and St Mary's Hospital Medical School Archives, 1990. A good starting point for the background to the London teaching hospitals, albeit with a slightly political bent, is Geoffrey Rivett, The development of the London hospital system, 1823-1982, London, King Edward's Hospital Fund for London, 1986.
36. For a more general history of this establishment see Sir Zachary Cope, The history of St. Mary's Hospital Medical School: or, a century of medical education, London, William Heinemann, 1954. A more recent, briefer account may be found in Anne Barrett and Kevin Brown (eds), St. Mary's Hospital Medical School: an historical anthology, London, Imperial College and St Mary's Hospital Medical School Archives, 1990. A good starting point for the background to the London teaching hospitals, albeit with a slightly political bent, is Geoffrey Rivett, The development of the London hospital system, 1823-1982, London, King Edward's Hospital Fund for London, 1986.
37. Previous studies of women's education include Mabel Phythian Tylecote, The education of women at Manchester University, 1883-1933, Manchester University Press, 1941, and, more recently, Wendy Alexander, First ladies of medicine, University of Glasgow, Wellcome Unit, 1987.
38. Previous studies of women's education include Mabel Phythian Tylecote, The education of women at Manchester University, 1883-1933, Manchester University Press, 1941, and, more recently, Wendy Alexander, First ladies of medicine, University of Glasgow, Wellcome Unit, 1987.
39. St Mary's Hospital Medical School Committee Minutes (hereafter Committee Minutes), entry dated 22/6/1869, 1: 367, held at the St Mary's Hospital and Medical School Archives (hereafter SMHMS Archives): MS/AD1/1.
40. Margaret Todd, The life of Sophia Jex-Blake, London, Macmillan, 1918, p. 261.
41. Committee Minutes, entry dated 18/7/1906, 4: 145 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/4).
42. St Mary's Hospital Medical School Sub-Committee Minutes (hereafter Sub-Committee Minutes), entry dated 25/11/1907, 1: 50 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD5/1).
43. Committee Minutes, entry dated 6/10/1914, 4: 456 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/5).
44. Committee Minutes, entry dated 17/12/1907, 4: 253 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/4).
45. The type is parodied in Charles Dickens, The Pickwick papers, first published 1836-37, see Oxford Press edition, 1988, p. 366. Although Dickens was long dead by this time, his caricature remained largely accurate.
46. Foucault is sceptical about this "repressive hypothesis", op. cit., note 18 above, pp. 3-13.
47. Thomas Hardy, Far from the madding crowd, 1874.
48. Lutzker, op. cit., note 3 above, pp. 116-17. Before Elizabeth Garrett Anderson's admission, the BMA charter contained no mention of women, and it was through this loophole that she was able to enter. The rules were swiftly re-written to prevent any further female admissions, and these prohibitions remained in place for nineteen years. For a fuller account of this episode, see Jo Manton, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, London, Methuen, 1965.
49. Lutzker, op. cit., note 3 above, pp. 116-17. Before Elizabeth Garrett Anderson's admission, the BMA charter contained no mention of women, and it was through this loophole that she was able to enter. The rules were swiftly re-written to prevent any further female admissions, and these prohibitions remained in place for nineteen years. For a fuller account of this episode, see Jo Manton, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, London, Methuen, 1965.
50. Tara Lamont, 'The Amazons within: women in the BMA 100 years ago', Br. med. J., 1992, 305: 1529-32.
51. Moberly Bell, op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 85, 90.
52. Todd, op. cit., note 27 above, p. 447.
53. Cope, op. cit., note 24 above, p. 192.
54. Committee Minutes, entry dated 27/10/1874, 1: 488 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/1).
55. Committee Minutes, entry dated 6/12/1915, 5: 69 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/5).
56. Munk's roll of the lives of the fellows of the Royal College of Physicians, 1826-1925, London, RCP, 1955, vol. 4, pp. 475-6.
57. Ibid., p. 553.
58. Committee Minutes, entry daled 18/7/1906, 4: 145 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/4).
59. St Mary's Hosp. Gaz., 1914, 16: 7.
60. Indeed, Blake, op. cit., note 2 above, pp. 140-4, makes the same point in reference to Edinburgh.
61. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Peter Bell the Third, pt. 3, 'Hell', first stanza.
62. Octavia Wilberforce, Octavia Wilberforce: the autobiography of a pioneer woman doctor, ed. Pat Jalland, London, Cassell, 1989, pp. 51-2.
63. Committee Minutes, entry dated 5/3/1909, 4: 319 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/4).
64. Even the redoubtable Sophia Jex-Blake had found this prospect unnerving twenty-five years earlier, op. cit., note 5 above, pp. 156-7.
65. Committee Minutes, entry dated 14/3/1900, 3: 210 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/3).
66. An interesting essay which explores the consequences of the First World War for women at large is Françoise Thébaud, 'The Great War and the triumph of sexual division', transl. Arthur Goldhammer, in Georges Duby and Michelle Perrot (eds), A history of women in the west, vol. 5, Towards a cultural identity in the twentieth century, Cambridge, Mass., Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1994, pp. 21-75. Thébaud is one of several recent historians to cast doubt on the liberating effects of the First World War.
67. 'St. Mary's and the War', St. Mary's Hosp. Gaz., 1914, 20: 113.
68. A fact loudly trumpeted in A hospital which has accomplished something new!, a fund-raising pamphlet from the mid-1920s (SMHMS Archives: SM/MX4/15).
69. Committee Minutes, entries dated 6/10/1914 to 4/5/1915, 5: 16-49 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/5).
70. Kevin Brown, 'Another day, another war', St. Mary's Hosp. Gaz., 1991, 97 (2): 35-7.
71. Idem, 'Contact with the seamy side of life', St. Mary's Hosp. Gaz., 1990, 96 (3): 38-9.
72. 'St. Mary's and the war', St. Mary's Hosp. Gaz., 1914, 20: 113.
73. Committee Minutes, entry dated 2/2/1915, 5: 38 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/5).
74. Ibid.
75. St. Mary's Hosp. Gaz., 1916, 22: 88.
76. Ibid., p. 45.
77. Finance Sub-Committee Reports (SMHMS Archives: MS/FD2/1).
78. Report of Staff Sub-Committee upon economies to be effected during the war and upon the proposal to admit women students, dated 29/11/1915 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD44/1).
79. Sub-Committee Minutes, entry dated 2/3/1916 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD5/2).
80. Committee Minutes, entry dated 7/3/1916, 5: 82 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/5).
81. St. Mary's Hosp. Gaz., 1916, 22: 47.
82. Committee Minutes, entry dated 1/5/1916, 5: 84 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/5).
83. 'Place aux dames', St. Mary's Hosp. Gaz., 1916, 22: 41.
84. Ibid.
85. These figures are based on computer analysis of Student Record Cards (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD28/1-2207). A card was maintained for each student, and they contain various details including date of birth and date of admission.
86. Ibid.
87. Ibid.
88. Ida Mann, MS of autobiography, p. 126 (SMHMS Archives: DP21). This autobiography was later published as The chase: an autobiography, ed. Ros Golding, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1986. The MS was substantially edited before publication, and that part of its contents referring to St Mary's was largely excised. For this reason, I have used the MS version on two of the three occasions in which I refer to Professor Mann's work.
89. Ida Mann, MS of autobiography, p. 126 (SMHMS Archives: DP21). This autobiography was later published as The chase: an autobiography, ed. Ros Golding, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1986. The MS was substantially edited before publication, and that part of its contents referring to St Mary's was largely excised. For this reason, I have used the MS version on two of the three occasions in which I refer to Professor Mann's work.
90. 'Annual entry of students since the beginning of the Medical School', loose-leaf document (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD39/1).
91. Lean Leneman, 'Medical women at war, 1914-1918', Med. Hist., 1994, 38: 160-77, takes a dim view of the women's job prospects after qualification. At St Mary's, however, the positions of house physician and house surgeon, at least, were available on an egalitarian basis.
92. Finance Sub-Committee Reports (SMHMS Archives: SM/FD2/1).
93. Committee Minutes, entry dated 3/12/1918, 5: 189 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/5).
94. 'On artificially contracted heads', St. Mary's Hosp. Gaz., 1917, 23: 29.
95. 'St. Mary's Musical and Dramatic Society', St. Mary's Hosp. Gaz., 1922, 28: 21.
96. 'Co-education at St. Mary's', St. Mary's Hosp. Gaz., 1916, 22: 16.
97. 'First impressions', in ibid, p. 80.
98. 'A word in season', in ibid, p. 97.
99. Committee Minutes, entry dated 4/7/1916, 5: 89 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/5).
100. Committee Minutes, entry dated 6/2/1917, 5: 112 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/5).
101. St Mary's Hospital Medical School Prospectus, 1918.
102. Report of the Special Committee of the University of London, op. cit., note 20 above.
103. An excellent account of the changes wrought by the First World War can be found in Arthur Marwick. The deluge: British society and the First World War, London, Bodley Head, 1965. Of particular interest is ch. 3, which considers the effects on the social status of women. Although some of the underlying theory has been superseded by modern gender studies, this remains a very worthwhile account.
104. V H H Green, A history of Oxford University, London, B T Batsford, 1974, p. 188.
105. Committee Minutes, entry dated 2/3/1920, 5: 246 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/5).
106. Ida Mann, MS of autobiography, op. cit., note 74 above, p. 154.
107. St. Mary's Hosp. Gaz., 1919, 25: 72.
108. Ibid., p. 81.
109. Committee Minutes, entry dated 7/12/1920, 5: 292 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/5).
110. Richard Lovell, Churchill's doctor: a biography of Lord Moran, London, Royal Society of Medicine Services, 1992, p. 197.
111. Lord Moran, The anatomy of courage, London, Constable, 1945.
112. Richard Lovell, 'Choosing people: an aspect of the life of Lord Moran (1882-1977)', Med. Hist., 1992, 36: 442-54, p. 447.
113. Leonard Colebrook, Almroth Wright: provocative doctor and thinker, London, William Heinemann, 1954, p. 46.
114. Sir Zachary Cope, Almroth Wright: founder of modern vaccine-therapy, London, Thomas Nelson, 1966, p. 40.
115. A good account of the Inoculation Department's inner workings can be found in Gwyn Macfarlane, Alexander Fleming: the man and the myth, London, Chatto & Windus, 1984, pp. 59-61.
116. L J Ludovici, Fleming: discoverer of penicillin, London, Andrew Dakers, 1952, pp. 131-4.
117. For example, the flyleaf of Cope's hagiography states "This is the portrait of a genius . . .".
118. Colebrook, op. cit., note 98 above, p. 195.
119. Sir Almroth E Wright, Prolegomena to the logic which searches for truth, London, William Heinemann, 1941.
120. Idem, The unexpurgated case against women's suffrage, London, Constable, 1913.
121. Cope, op. cit., note 99 above, p. 168.
122. Wright, op. cit., note 105 above, p. 5.
123. Mann, The chose, op. cit., note 74 above, p. 61.
124. Petition requesting exclusion of women students (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD46/1-4).
125. Ibid.
126. These statistics are collected from the sporting pages of contemporary issues of the St. Mary's Hospital Gazette, and must be considered only as accurate as the Gazette itself. Although therefore somewhat dubious, they probably provide a good overall sense of rugby performance.
127. St. Mary's Hosp. Gaz., 1911, 17: 41.
128. Recorded telephone conversation with the author, dated 23 March 1994.
129. André Maurois, The life of Sir Alexander Fleming: discoverer of penicillin, transl. Gerard Hopkins, London, Jonathan Cape, 1959, p. 105.
130. Confidential Report, by Colonel Walter Parkes, regarding the consequences of ceasing to admit women students, dated 19/3/1924 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD46/5).
131. Committee Minutes, entry dated, 1/4/1924, 5: 428 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/5).
132. Sub-Committee Minutes, entry dated 7/4/1924, 3: 73 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD5/3).
133. Committee Minutes, entry dated 28/4/1924, 5: 433 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD1/5).
134. Sub-Committee Minutes, entry dated 20/5/1924, 3: 76 (SMHMS Archives: MS/AD5/3).
135. M H Kettle, 'The fate of a population of women medical students', Lancet, 1936, ii: 1370-4.
136. Isobel Allen, Doctors and their careers, London, Policy Studies Institute, 1988.
137. The Times, 15 October 1993.