Obituary of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson

From The Manchester Guardian, December 18th 1917.

DR. GARRETT ANDERSON

We much regret to announce the death of Dr. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first English woman doctor.

Elizabeth Garrett, the eldest daughter of the late Newson Garrett, of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, was born in 1836, and began the study of medicine in 1860.  Miss Garrett found immense difficulty in obtaining the education necessary to prepare herself for a qualifying examination in medicine, and still greater difficulty in finding any recognised body to examine her.  She was refused admittance to the examinations of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of England, the University of St. Andrews, and many others, but eventually presented herself for examination by the Society of Apothecaries, London, the only British examination then not absolutely impossible to women.  Counsel's opinion was taken by the Society when Miss Garrett applied for admission to the examinations as to whether she could be refused on account of her sex, but the answer was in the negative, and as Miss Garrett had complied with all the conditions laid down for candidates she was admitted to examination, and, passing the tests required, became a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries in 1865.  She was thus the first woman to obtain a British medical qualification.  The Society then made a rule that no certificates of instruction would be received by them unless issued by a recognised medical school.  This rule effectually prevented other women following Miss Garrett's example, as all British medical schools refused to receive women as students.  Miss Garrett afterwards studied in Paris and took the M.D. degree of that University in 1870.

In 1866 Miss Garrett, with the cordial help of the late Dowager Lady Stanley of Alderley, the Rev. Llewellyn Davies, and other friends, opened a dispensary for women and children in Seymour Place, London.  The knowledge that they might now be medically treated by one of their own sex quickly became known among women, and after a few years patients were so numerous that larger premises were secured, where 26 beds were provided for the serious cases.  Soon an adjoining house had to be taken, and in 1887, by which time several women had been admitted to and had passed the examinations for the Licentiate of the King's and Queen's University, Ireland, the work had grown so much that Mrs. Garrett Anderson, with her usual courage, determined to raise funds to build a hospital for women, to be staffed by medical women, which should be fully equipped to deal with the rapidly advancing progress in both medicine and surgery.  The foundation-stone of the New Hospital for Women was laid by Queen Alexandra, when Princess of Wales, in 1889, and in 1890 the hospital was opened with accommodation for 42 patients, and has now been further enlarged to accommodate 60 patients.  Mrs. Anderson held the post of senior physician to the hospital from its beginning to 1890.

In 1870 Miss Garrett became a member of the London School Board, and served on it for some years.  She also took an active part with the late Mrs. Isabel Thorne and Sir James Stansfeld, M.P. in organising the London School of Medicine for Women, and for twelve years held the post of lecturer in medicine at the school.

Mrs. Garrett Anderson was the first woman admitted as a member of the British Medical Association (1892), and in 1896 she was elected president of the East Anglian branch of the Association.  At the annual meeting of the British Medical Association in 1900 she acted as vice president of the Section of Medicine.  She was instrumental in forming the Association of Registered Medical Women, and held the post of president on more than one occasion.  Retiring from practice in 1904, she was able to devote herself to her favourite recreation—gardening,—and all those who had the pleasure of being her guests at her beautiful home at Aldeburgh will recollect with gratitude her charm as a hostess and the simple joy she had in her plants.

In 1907, by the death of her husband, Mr. J. G. S. Anderson, head of the firm of Anderson, Anderson, and Co., shipping merchants, was severed one of the most perfect unions of comradeship and affection that could be known.  In 1908 Mrs. Anderson was elected mayor of Aldeburgh, and held this office for two years in succession—a position her husband had held a few years previously.  Mrs. Anderson was the first woman to be elected to this civic dignity in England.  She was much interested in women's suffrage, and for nearly 50 years worked for the extension of the suffrage.  She was a sister of Mrs. Fawcett.

To those who knew Mrs. Anderson personally the most striking points in her character were recognised to be her great courage, her absolute honesty of purpose, her keen sense of humour, and her personal charm.

[Her sister, Millicent Garrett Fawcett, was a campaigner for voting rights for women.  Their father, Newson Garrett, built the Snape Maltings.]