Elizabeth Garrett Anderson entered British medicine through a route its established schools had tried to close. Refused admission to medical schools, she studied privately, secured a licence from the Society of Apothecaries in 1865 and became the first woman to qualify in Britain as a physician and surgeon. She then helped build institutions where women could train and receive medical care—turning an individual breach in the barriers into a wider opening.

A family background in Suffolk

Garrett was born in Whitechapel, London, on 9 June 1836, the second of eleven children of Newson and Louisa Garrett. Her father, who had moved from Suffolk to London, established a business and later returned the family to the county, where his barley and coal business expanded. By 1850 he had built Alde House, a mansion behind Aldeburgh. This was not a story of rising from poverty: the family’s growing means and Newson’s support would help Elizabeth pursue an education and a profession unusual for women.

There was no school in Aldeburgh, so her mother taught her reading, writing and arithmetic before the family employed a governess. At 13, Elizabeth and her sister went to a private boarding school in Blackheath. Its curriculum included languages and literature, but she later criticised its lack of science and mathematics. After leaving school, she spent several years on domestic duties while continuing to study Latin and arithmetic and read widely.

In 1854, a visit to friends in Gateshead brought her into contact with Emily Davies, who would become a close friend and fellow campaigner for women’s education. Garrett later encountered the example of Elizabeth Blackwell, the American physician who had qualified in the United States. When Blackwell visited London in 1859, Garrett travelled there to hear her lecture on medicine as a profession for women. The meeting helped turn an ambition into a practical course of action. Her father initially opposed the idea, but later agreed to support her.

Finding a way into medical training

Garrett first approached doctors in Harley Street, then began work as a surgery nurse at Middlesex Hospital in 1860. Her aptitude brought access to an outpatient clinic and, eventually, private tuition in subjects including Latin, Greek and pharmacology. She also studied anatomy and physiology with a tutor. Although she gained some access to lectures and the dissecting room, male students objected to her presence. She left with an honours certificate in chemistry and materia medica, but applications to several medical schools and other institutions were refused.

The Society of Apothecaries offered another route. Garrett privately obtained certificates in anatomy and physiology, and in 1862 the Society admitted her to its examinations. Its charter did not allow it to exclude her on the grounds of sex. She took the examination in 1865, gaining a licence to practise medicine—the first woman in Britain to qualify openly in this way. She passed with the highest marks among the seven candidates who succeeded that day.

The achievement exposed the limits of a route won through a loophole. The Society promptly changed its rules to prevent other privately educated women following the same path. Garrett, meanwhile, could not take a hospital medical post as a woman. She opened a private practice in London in 1865 and began building services of her own. In 1870 she obtained a medical degree from the University of Paris, after learning French to apply. The Medical Act of 1876 later allowed British medical authorities to license qualified applicants regardless of gender; Garrett’s earlier qualification had been secured in a system that did not yet offer that general route.

A dispensary, a hospital and a medical school

Garrett wanted women to be able to consult a qualified female practitioner, particularly those who could not afford private care. In 1866 she opened St Mary’s Dispensary for Women and Children in London. Its first year brought 3,000 new patients, making 9,300 outpatient visits. In 1872 the dispensary became the New Hospital for Women and Children, extending the work beyond her own practice. The hospital treated women from across London, including those seeking care for gynaecological conditions.

She also helped create a route into the profession for the next generation. In 1874, Garrett co-founded the London School of Medicine for Women with Sophia Jex-Blake. It was the first medical school in Britain to train women as doctors. Garrett lectured there and served as its dean from 1883 to 1902. The school prepared students for medical degrees at the University of London, which opened its degree examinations to women in 1877. This work complemented the hospital: one institution trained women to practise, while the other gave them a place to care for patients.

Her progress did not remove institutional resistance. Garrett joined the British Medical Association in 1873. After she and Frances Hoggan were elected, a motion to exclude women was proposed in 1878. Women were readmitted in 1892 following a long campaign by Garrett and others; she attended the association’s meeting in Nottingham with Sarah Gray and Eliza Walker Dunbar to press their case. In 1897 she became president of the BMA’s East Anglian branch.

Public service and suffrage

Garrett’s public work extended into local government and women’s suffrage. In 1870 she was elected to the first London School Board, the newly created body that allowed women to stand. She received the highest vote of all the candidates. She also became a visiting physician at the East London Hospital for Children, the first woman in Britain appointed to a medical post. The commitments proved difficult to combine with her practice, dispensary and family life, and she resigned from those positions by 1873.

In 1866 Garrett and Emily Davies presented petitions seeking votes for female householders, and Garrett joined the first British women’s suffrage committee. She was less active in the movement than her sister Millicent Garrett Fawcett, a leading campaigner, but later joined the central committee of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage. After her husband’s death in 1907, Garrett became more active in the cause. She spoke for suffrage as mayor of Aldeburgh, though she withdrew from the movement in 1911 as militant activity increased.

Garrett married James George Skelton Anderson in 1871 and continued her medical practice. They had three children: Louisa, who became a doctor and feminist activist; Margaret, who died of meningitis in infancy; and Alan. The couple retired to Aldeburgh in 1902. On 9 November 1908, Garrett was elected mayor there, becoming the first female mayor in England. She died in Aldeburgh on 17 December 1917 and was buried in the churchyard of St Peter and St Paul’s Church.

Institutions that carry her name

The New Hospital for Women was renamed the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in 1918. After later amalgamation and relocation, it became the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Wing at University College Hospital. The former hospital buildings are now incorporated into the headquarters of the public service trade union UNISON; the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Gallery there presents her story alongside the history of the hospital and women’s struggle for equality in medicine.

Her name also marks the Garrett Anderson Centre at Ipswich Hospital, reflecting her connection with Suffolk, and a girls’ secondary school in Islington. The archives relating to her life are held at the Women’s Library at the London School of Economics, while hospital records are held at the London Metropolitan Archives. These memorials preserve different parts of her story: the medical work, the institutions she helped establish and the wider struggle to make professional life accessible to women.

Why Elizabeth Garrett Anderson deserves a place in British Legacy

Garrett Anderson’s place in British history rests on more than being first. Her qualification in 1865 challenged the assumption that women could not enter medicine, but the Society of Apothecaries’ immediate rule change showed how readily institutions could close a route once one woman had passed through it. She responded by helping create alternatives: a dispensary that grew into a hospital, and a medical school that trained women to become doctors. The scale of the dispensary’s first-year work—3,000 new patients and 9,300 visits—also shows that this was practical healthcare, not simply a campaign for professional recognition.

Her achievements linked education, clinical care and public life. Women trained at the school could pursue medical degrees; women patients could seek care from female practitioners; and Garrett’s work within the British Medical Association and local government challenged exclusion in other institutions. Her connection to Britain is specific and substantial: she changed the terms on which women could enter its medical profession and helped build enduring British organisations to support that change. The hospital, school and professional milestones she shaped make her legacy visible not only in commemoration, but in the opportunities and services her work helped establish.

Sources

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson — Wikipedia, revision 1362023373

Adapted in part from Elizabeth Garrett Anderson by Wikipedia contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Text has been edited and combined with the existing article; this adapted text is shared under the same licence. Contributor history.