In 1869, Sophia Jex Blake arrived in historic Edinburgh on a heartfelt mission. She wanted to study medicine at Edinburgh University and achieve a degree, allowing her to work as a medical doctor. At this time, there was not one British University willing to train women as doctors. There were eight big British universities: four in Scotland and four in England and although women were beginning to be allowed onto arts courses, Medical Faculties were closed to them. In the United States and European university cities such as Paris, Zurich and Bologna, women were being welcomed into medical faculties in good numbers. Britain was lagging behind shamefully.
Sophia, a bold and determined character, from a wealthy London family, was always an excellent networker and general charmer. She seemed to understand public relations and strategy in a thoroughly modern way. In Edinburgh, she worked the salons of Edinburgh Society and drew courage from a number of progressive men willing to back her in her campaign. (There were many women backing her too, but they were not in positions of power to enable her to progress). While some high-profile medical men were liberal and progressive, of the enlightened sort, plenty were misogynistic, patriarchal and Calvinistic in their ways, much preferring women in the home, or as it was known, the domestic sphere. The early days of the female suffrage saw rallies and campaigns brewing, but women involved were accused of being ‘unnatural’ ‘prostitutes’ and ‘men in skirts’.
At first Edinburgh said yes to Sophia. Hurrah! But this quickly turned to a no: Boo! A vote in another governing body of the university had gone against Sophia, much to her disappointment. It was thought that the efforts for accommodating one woman would be unfeasible. For example, for reasons of decency, it was apparently essential to teach women separately and alter the course for their delicate ways. To this, Sophia said: ‘I will find more women to make this worthwhile!” And she did. By advertising in the Scotsman newspaper for more women to join her on the course at Edinburgh. The editor of the Scotsman, Alexander Russel became a great champion of the Edinburgh Seven. So much so that he married one of them – Helen Evans!
Six women replied to Sophia’s advert, and Edinburgh agreed to have them on special terms from the autumn of 1869. Sir James Young Simpson, Charles Darwin, Robert Louis Stevenson and Queen Victoria’s daughters supported the women. But there were seriously aggrieved opposers too – Sir Robert Christison and Sir Joseph Lister. Christison was a respected toxicologist, pathologist and physician to the Queen. He had given compelling evidence at the trial of graverobbers, Burke and Hare. His views on women in medicine were extreme. He didn’t mind female nurses and midwives. But he thought women’s brains were too small to be medics. (It’s since been discovered that Einstein had a small brain, and it is the pathways of the brain that matter more than overall size). Christison also thought women were too fragile to cope with the gory and upsetting side of medicine. Which is ironic because women had been delivering babies and tending to battlefield wounds since time began. Two of the most potentially gruesome aspects to medical care – obstetrics and war injuries – were already proven areas of expertise for women. So, what was the real problem? Why were the misogynists so vehemently opposed?
To understand this, and how the campaign against the women grew violent, unyielding and embittered, we have to follow the stages of dissent. It was never going to be easy, trialing women on the esteemed medical course for the first time, but the extent of the battle to oust them could never have been anticipated.
The first few months on the course went quite smoothly for Sophia and her female colleagues. The women worked diligently, and some sympathetic professors taught them independently of the main course, while they also helped each other to learn at their shared Georgian townhouse in Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh. The first big exams loomed in April 1870, and something controversial happened at this point.
Edith Pechey, one of the Edinburgh Seven, achieved the top mark in the Chemistry exam. (Isobel came top in Anatomy and the women were generally in the top 4 out of around 200 students). The person who gained the top mark in Chemistry was routinely awarded the Hope Scholarship, laid down by Professor Hope forty years before. But Professor Crum Brown, advised by Professor Robert Christison decided that the award should go to the second top student – a man. So, Edith was denied the prize. At this moment, Sophia and the others began to understand what a momentous task lay ahead. Would they ever be allowed to graduate and become doctors?
After the Hope Scandal, things went downhill. The women were jeered and laughed at, blocked out of lectures and exams, and death threats were sent to their home. At times, the Edinburgh Seven required a bodyguard to get around the city and some kindly Irish students protected them. This dissent reached a peak in November 1870, when the women arrived at the daunting Surgeon’s Hall building in the Old Town of Edinburgh, to take an Anatomy exam. In the dusk of a late Autumn afternoon, they saw that a large gathering had formed, with the purpose of blocking them from entering the exam hall. The subtext was that if they did not gather certificates from exams successfully taken, then they could be denied the right to graduate. This was now the aim of the opposers – to keep them women as hobbyists instead of rival professionals.
The riot was an ugly scene – drunken singing, pelting of the women, name calling and violence. All carried out by middle class, educated students, possibly backed by senior professors and aided by ‘street rowdies’. One journalist of the time noted that: ‘In an age when chivalry towards women is the social norm, these men should be ashamed of themselves.’
Were the women daunted? Did they flee the violent scene? No. They linked arms and stood firm. After an hour of noisy demonstrating, a janitor eventually let them into the exam hall, where they calmly took the paper and passed.
You might think the University opposers would feel shame at this point and accept them women were here to stay? The opposite happened. The men who wanted to the women to leave doubled their efforts and dug in. They were looking for a way to oust the women for good and in January of 1871, Professor Christison thought he’d found a way. It was at a meeting of the board of the Infirmary that Sophia spoke up during a debate. She said that the way the Seven had been treated was appalling, especially in the riot. She went on the say that the riot had been started by Professor Christison’s assistant, Edward Cunningham Craig, and that he was drunk and used foul language. This was taken as defamation of character and Sophia was served a writ and taken to court in June 1871.
Public opinion after the riot and with regard to the court case was very much with Sophia and the other women. However, the all-male jury in the court of session decided Sophia had defamed the character of Cunningham Craig and she was the loser. That said, he was only awarded a penny, which was a way of saying what they really thought about his behaviour.
From then on, Sophia Jex Blake was an international star – a celebrity activist - and she very cleverly turned her thoughts to a London Campaign to change the law through an Act of Parliament at Westminster. Edinburgh became more and more awkward and were determined that women would not get the degree level on the course, so the women began to leave Edinburgh to qualify in Bern and Dublin. Sophia formed a training hospital for women in London along with Elizabeth Garrett Anderson.
In 1876, the law changed so that women doctors should be given equal rights as men, and in 1878, Sophia Jex Blake returned to Edinburgh as Scotland’s first woman doctor. She worked in Edinburgh until her retirement. The other members of the Edinburgh Seven also spent their life devoted to girls’ education, medical training for women and medical care for women.
Sophia Jex Blake, we salute you.
You can buy Janey's book The Edinburgh Seven: the first women to study medicine here
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