Edinburgh Seven
Encyclopedia
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, and to be allowed to graduate. In 1869 they were allowed to attend specially-arranged classes, but in 1873 they lost a legal challenge against the University after it had decided they could not be awarded degrees. The group may also be called Septem contra Edinam (Seven against Edinburgh).
1869-1873
Although university education for British women was barely possible in 1869, Sophia Jex-BlakeSophia Jex-Blake
Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake was an English physician, teacher and feminist. She was one of the first female doctors in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, a leading campaigner for medical education for women and was involved in founding two medical schools for women, in London and in...
was granted permission to attend lectures at the Edinburgh medical school
University of Edinburgh Medical School
The University of Edinburgh Medical School is part of the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine of the University of Edinburgh. Established nearly 283 years ago, Edinburgh Medical School is one of the oldest medical schools in Scotland and the UK...
. At first, the university's governing body upheld this decision by the Dean of the Medical Faculty, but there was strong opposition, and it was later decided that there could be neither mixed classes nor individual tuition "in the interest of one lady". Jex-Blake advertised for women to join her, realising they would have to fund their own segregated tuition. The first four to respond were:
- Isabel ThorneIsabel ThorneIsabel Jane Thorne was an early campaigner for medical education for women.Born in London, she married Joseph Thorne, a tea merchant, and went to live in Shanghai. They are believed to have had five children, including: Isobel , Mary ; and Dr...
- Edith PecheyEdith PecheyEdith Pechey-Phipson was one of the first women doctors in the United Kingdom and a campaigner for women's rights. She spent more than 20 years in India as a senior doctor at a women's hospital and was involved in a range of social causes....
- Matilda Chaplin
- Helen Evans
Thorne and Chaplin had already studied midwifery
Midwifery
Midwifery is a health care profession in which providers offer care to childbearing women during pregnancy, labour and birth, and during the postpartum period. They also help care for the newborn and assist the mother with breastfeeding....
in London, while Pechey had tried to qualify with the Society of Apothecaries, but been thwarted. The five were allowed to matriculate at Edinburgh in October 1869 and begin their studies.
They soon became seven with the arrival of:
- Mary Anderson
- Emily Bovell
Doctors, professors and the public had strong feelings about the women's medical education, about whether they should be allowed practical experience in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary
Edinburgh Royal Infirmary
The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh or RIE, sometimes mistakenly referred to as Edinburgh Royal Infirmary or ERI, was established in 1729 and is the oldest voluntary hospital in Scotland. The new buildings of 1879 were claimed to be the largest voluntary hospital in the United Kingdom, and later on...
, and whether they should be eligible for degrees. The debate spilled over from the pages of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
and The Scotsman
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
onto the streets one November afternoon in 1870. A crowd of hundreds gathered near Surgeons' Hall
Surgeons' Hall
Surgeons' Hall in Edinburgh is the home of the Surgeons' Hall Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh....
where the women were to take an anatomy
Anatomy
Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...
examination. They were heckled and had rubbish thrown at them, but Jex-Blake refused to slip away afterwards by a side door. This incident has become known as the "Surgeons' Hall Riot". Later, the Sheriff
Sheriff Court
Sheriff courts provide the local court service in Scotland, with each court serving a sheriff court district within a sheriffdom.Sheriff courts deal with a myriad of legal procedures which include:*Solemn and Summary Criminal cases...
fined three "disorderly" students £1 each for "breach of the peace". Jex-Blake said the young men had been encouraged by a teaching assistant, but lost when he sued her for defamation.
Other women had joined their classes, some doctors had taught them gladly, and supporters had formed a General Committee for Securing a Complete Medical Education for Women. Yet in the end they lost the battle to graduate. In 1873 the Court of Session
Court of Session
The Court of Session is the supreme civil court of Scotland, and constitutes part of the College of Justice. It sits in Parliament House in Edinburgh and is both a court of first instance and a court of appeal....
supported the University's right to refuse the women degrees. They also ruled, by a majority, that the women should not have been admitted in the first place. This defeat and their other struggles motivated most of them to continue, not only for personal reasons, but as part of a wider cause.
After 1873
Sophia Jex-BlakeSophia Jex-Blake
Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake was an English physician, teacher and feminist. She was one of the first female doctors in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, a leading campaigner for medical education for women and was involved in founding two medical schools for women, in London and in...
soon moved to London to campaign there. She was active in establishing the London School of Medicine for Women
London School of Medicine for Women
The London School of Medicine for Women was established in 1874 and was the first medical school in Britain to train women.The school was formed by an association of pioneering women physicians Sophia Jex-Blake, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Emily Blackwell and Elizabeth Blackwell with Thomas Henry...
, which opened in autumn 1874 with twelve of its fourteen students having previously studied in Edinburgh. Six of the original "Seven" attended the School. Isabel Thorne was an asset to its smooth running since she was more diplomatic than Jex-Blake. She became the honorary secretary of the School, but gave up her own plan to practise as a doctor.
Five of the original seven - Bovell, Chaplin, Jex-Blake, Marshall, Pechey - were granted MD
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
s abroad in the later 1870s, either in Bern or Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. In 1876 new legislation enabled, but did not compel, examining bodies to treat candidates of both sexes equally. The Irish College of Physicians was the first to start granting medical practice licences to women: an opportunity for four of the newly-qualified women.
In 1878 Jex-Blake returned to Edinburgh and set up at Manor Place in the New Town
New Town, Edinburgh
The New Town is a central area of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. It is often considered to be a masterpiece of city planning, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site...
as the city's first woman doctor. She also established a clinic for poor patients which was the forerunner of Bruntsfield Hospital
Bruntsfield Hospital
Bruntsfield Hospital was an Edinburgh hospital which started in 1878 as a women's dispensary opened by the city's first female doctor, Sophia Jex-Blake. It soon added some beds for in-patients, and moved from a busy, central area to the more peaceful Bruntsfield before the turn of the century...
. Once Scotland started licensing women doctors, Jex-Blake helped found the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women
Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women
The Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women was founded by Dr Sophia Jex-Blake in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1886, with support from the National Association for Promoting the Medical Education of Women....
, with clinical practice taking place at Leith Hospital. Edith Pechey practised in Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
before becoming senior medical officer at the new Cama
Grant Medical College and Sir Jamshedjee Jeejebhoy Group of Hospitals
The Grant Medical College, Mumbai is a medical school affiliated to the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences, Nashik. Founded in 1845, it is one of the premier medical institutions in India and is one of the oldest institutions teaching Western medicine in Asia.The Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy...
women and children's hospital in Bombay (now Mumbai). Bovell and Marshall worked at the New Hospital for Women
New Hospital for Women
The Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Obstetric Hospital was a hospital in Bloomsbury, London in the United Kingdom. It was operated by the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.-History:...
in London. Chaplin founded a midwifery school in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, but later returned to private practice in London.
Edinburgh University and the other Scottish universities eventually admitted women undergraduates in 1892 after the Universities (Scotland) Act of 1889 established a legal framework for this. All classes were co-educational except for medical classes.
In fiction
In Charles ReadeCharles Reade
Charles Reade was an English novelist and dramatist, best known for The Cloister and the Hearth.-Life:Charles Reade was born at Ipsden, Oxfordshire to John Reade and Anne Marie Scott-Waring; William Winwood Reade the influential historian , was his nephew. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford,...
's novel, A Woman-Hater (1877), Rhoda Gould tells the story of the Edinburgh Seven in some detail, as if she had been one of them: "We were seven ladies, who wished to be doctresses, especially devoted to our own sex . . .". While the 'woman-hating' character of Vizard has to be persuaded of Rhoda's potential to do good, Reade's own attitude is sympathetic: " . . . it matters greatly to mankind whether the whole race of women are to be allowed to study medicine and practice it".
Sources
- Elston, M.A. The Edinburgh Seven in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2006)
- Roberts, S. Sophia Jex-Blake: a woman pioneer in nineteenth century medical reform (1993)
- Ross, Margaret The Royal Medical Society and Medical Women
- The Scotsman archives
- The Female Students at Surgeons' Hall in The Scotsman (23 Nov 1870)
- Scottish Law Reporter (1873)
- Charles Reade, A Woman-Hater (1877), Chapter XIII
See also
- Edinburgh Association for the University Education of WomenEdinburgh Association for the University Education of WomenThe Edinburgh Association for the University Education of Women , originally known as the Edinburgh Ladies' Educational Association , campaigned for higher education for women from 1867 until 1892 when Scottish universities started to admit female students...
- Elsie InglisElsie InglisElsie Inglis was an innovative Scottish doctor and suffragist.-Education:She was born in the hill station town of Naini Tal, India, to John Forbes David Inglis who worked in the Indian civil service as Chief Commissioner of Oudh...
- Louisa StevensonLouisa StevensonLouisa Stevenson was a Scottish campaigner for women's university education, women's suffrage and effective, well-organised nursing.-Family:...
- Elizabeth Blackwell
- Emily BlackwellEmily BlackwellEmily Blackwell was the second woman to earn a medical degree at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and the third openly identified woman to earn a medical degree in the United States.-Biography:...
- Maria ZakrzewskaMaria ZakrzewskaMaria Elizabeth Zakrzewska was a German-born physician of Polish descent who made her name as a pioneering female doctor in the United States....
- Constance EllisConstance EllisConstance Ellis was the first woman to graduate from the University of Melbourne as a Doctor of Medicine in 1903.As a young lady she attended Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne.-References:...