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A Corresponding Community: Dr Agnes Bennett and her Friends from the Edinburgh Medical College for Women of the 1890s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2012

Barbara Brookes
Barbara Brookes
Affiliation:
Barbara Brookes, PhD, History Department, University of Otago, Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand; e-mail: [email protected]
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Information
Medical History , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , April 2008 , pp. 237 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2008. Published by Cambridge University Press

References

1 Bennett, Agnes Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand (hereafter: ATL, NLNZ). Letter from Eleanor Sproull, [17] March 1909.

2 Bennett, Agnes Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 29 Sept. 1908.

3 Bennett, Agnes Papers, MS-Papers-1346-219. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 23 Dec. 1910.

4 The standard histories relating to the British experience are Enid Moberley Bell, Storming the citadel: the rise of the woman doctor, London, Constable, 1953, and Catriona Blake, The charge of the parasols: women’s entry to the medical profession, London, Women’s Press, 1990. On the American experience, see Mary Roth Walsh, “Doctors wanted, no women need apply”: sexual barriers in the medical profession, 1835–1975, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1977, and Regina Morantz-Sanchez, Sympathy and science: women physicians in American medicine, New York, Oxford University Press, 1985.

5 Carol Dyhouse, ‘Driving ambitions: women in pursuit of a medical education, 1890–1939’, Women’s History Review, 1998, 7 (3): 321–41, on pp. 323–25.

6 Mary Ann Elston, ‘“Run by women (mainly) for women”: medical women’s hospitals in Britain, 1866–1948’, in A Hardy and L Conrad (eds), Women and modern medicine, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2001, pp. 73–108. Mary Ann Elston, ‘Women doctors in the British health services: a sociological study of their careers and opportunities’, PhD thesis, University of Leeds, 1986.

7 Irene Finn, ‘Women in the medical profession in Ireland, 1876–1919’, in Bernadette Whelan (ed.), Women and paid work in Ireland 1500–1930, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2000, pp. 102–19.

8 Virginia G Drachman, ‘The limits of progress: the professional lives of women doctors, 1881–1926’, Bull. Hist. Med., 1986, 60: 58–72.

9 Dorothy Page, ‘Dissecting a community: women medical students at the University of Otago, 1891–1924’, in B Brookes and D Page (eds), Communities of women: historical perspectives, Dunedin, University of Otago Press, 2002, pp. 111–27, p. 114.

10 Penelope Russell, ‘“Mothers of the race”: a study of the first thirty women medical graduates from the University of Melbourne’, BA Hons thesis, Monash University, 1982.

11 Louella McCarthy, ‘Idealists or pragmatists? Progressives and separatists among Australian medical women, 1900–1940’, Soc. Hist. Med., 2003, 16: 263–82.

12 Wendy Alexander, First ladies of medicine, Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Glasgow, 1987, pp. 48, 57.

13 I am grateful to Irene Ferguson, Special Collections, Edinburgh University Archives, for the following biographical information about the Edinburgh Medical College for Women graduates who are the focus of this paper: Agnes Lloyd Bennett, graduated MB, CM 1899 and MD 1911.Her thesis was entitled ‘Some observations on early lactation in the women of New Zealand’. Kate Welton Hogg graduated MB ChB 1900 and MD 1909. Her thesis was entitled ‘Some considerations on the etiology of dementia praecox’. Elizabeth Macrory graduated MB ChB 1900. Eleanor Rosina Sproull graduated MD ChB 1900 and MD 1908. Her thesis was entitled ‘Infantile mortality. A short account of preventive measures in six Yorkshire towns: a general discussion of its causes and best means of prevention’.

14 Cécile Dauphin, Opening and closing remarks at the Correspondence Colloquium, organized by Susan Foley, Kate Hunter and Charlotte Macdonald, Victoria University of Wellington, 23 and 24 June 2006. I am indebted to the organizers and all the participants at the colloquium for their most useful comments on this paper.

15 Many thanks to Annabel Cooper for this useful insight into the correspondence.

16 Cecil Manson and Celia Manson, Doctor Agnes Bennett, London, Michael Joseph, 1960.

17 M Hutton Neve, This mad folly! The history of Australia’s pioneer women doctors, Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1980, p. 57.

18 Ibid., p. 57.

19 Thanks to Cécile Dauphin for this phrase.

20 Shirley Roberts, Sophia Jex-Blake: a woman pioneer in nineteenth-century medical reform, London, Routledge, 1993, p. 179.

21 Manson and Manson, op. cit., note 16 above, pp. 34–5.

22 Anne Digby, The evolution of British general practice 1850–1948, Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 163.

23 Beryl Hughes, ‘Bennett, Agnes Elizabeth Lloyd 1872–1960’, Dictionary of New Zealand biography, Wellington, Auckland University Press/Department of Internal Affairs, vol. 3, p. 48.

24 Beryl Hughes, ‘Agnes Bennett’, in Charlotte Macdonald, Merimeri Penfold and Bridget Williams (eds), The book of New Zealand women. Ko kui ma te kaupapa, Wellington, Bridget Williams Books, 1991, p. 78.

25 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-187. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Mary Booth, 12 July 1893.

26 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-187. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Mary Booth, 19 June 1895.

27 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-187. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Mary Booth, 8 Sept. 1895.

28 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-002. Diary 1895–96. ATL, NLNZ.

29 Manson and Manson, op. cit., note 16 above, p. 31.

30 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-84. ATL, NLNZ. Undated letter to family.

31 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-84. ATL, NLNZ. Letter to family, 10 Feb. 1898.

32 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-003. ATL, NLNZ. Diary 1897.

33 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-84. ATL, NLNZ. Letter to family, 10 Feb. 1898.

34 Although never called anything other than Patrick or Paddie in the correspondence, this appears to be Miss E Macrory who was appointed as one of the two London County Council Inspectors of Midwives, July 1908. London County Council, Public Health—County of London. Report of the Public Health Committee of the London County Council, submitting the Report of the Medical Officer of Health of the County, 1908.

35 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-84. ATL, NLNZ. Letter to family, 10 Feb. 1898.

36 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-003. ATL, NLNZ. Diary 1897.

37 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-84 and 1346-003 (Diaries). ATL, NLNZ. Letter to family, 4 July 1899.

38 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-198. ATL, NLNZ. Postcard from Kate Hogg, 23 July [1897?]

39 Manson and Manson, op. cit., note 16 above, p. 32.

40 Ibid., p. 35.

41 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-84. ATL, NLNZ. Letter to family, 29 Dec. 1898.

42 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-198. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Kate Hogg, 24 Jan. 1901.

43 When the Sydney hospital was considering the appointment of a female resident in 1905, members of the Board stated that in their experience “nurses seemed to resent the authority of a lady doctor”. Hutton Neve, op. cit., note 17 above, p. 78.

44 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 4 May 1908.

45 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-198. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Kate Hogg, 20 June 1901. Mary Ann Elston records a senior consultant’s accusation of “neglecting patients and impertinence” against Eliza Dunbar Walker at the Bristol Royal Hospital for Sick Children in 1873, which she writes “was the first of many charges against medical women of breaches of professional decorum”. Elston, ‘Women doctors’, op. cit., note 6 above, p. 213, n.51.

46 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-198. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Kate Hogg, 29 Jan. 1901.

47 Russell, op. cit., note 10 above, p. 34.

48 Ibid., p. 71.

49 Ibid., pp. 34, 62, 71.

50 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-198. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Kate Hogg, 24 Jan. 1901. Ethel Williams set up in Newcastle in 1895 “on the grounds that cities with a population of over 250,000 could support a woman general practitioner”, Elston, ‘Women doctors’, op. cit., note 6 above, p. 243.

51 Hutton Neve, op. cit., note 17 above, p. 116. Hughes, ‘Agnes Bennett’, op. cit., note 24 above, pp. 78–81.

52 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-004. Diary 1900. ATL, NLNZ.

53 My thanks to Mary Ann Elston for this observation.

54 Alexander, op. cit., note 12 above, p. 43.

55 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-219. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, [1911?].

56 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-005. Diary 1900. ATL, NLNZ.

57 Rosamond Benham who graduated from Adelaide in 1902, tried to set up a general practice in Melbourne in 1918. When she was unsuccessful, she worked at Sunbury Asylum and later Kew Asylum. See South Australian Medical Women’s Society, The hands of a woman: stories of South Australian medical women and their society, Kent Town, South Australia, Wakefield Press, 1994, p. 26. Elston’s British study estimated that it took women three to four years in general practice before recovering costs; ‘Women doctors’, op. cit., note 6 above, p. 241.

58 Finn, op. cit., note 7 above, p. 111.

59 Alexander, op. cit., note 12 above, p. 43.

60 Diana Gittins, Madness in its place: narratives of Severalls Hospital, 1913–1997, London, Routledge, 1998, p. 122.

61 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-198. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Kate Hogg, 24 Jan. 1901.

62 Daily Telegraph, 7 Jan. 1905, reprinted in Hutton Neve, op. cit., note 17 above, pp. 80–1.

63 The story is recounted in ibid., pp. 84–102.

64 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-223. ATL, NLNZ. Letters from Isabel Watson, 5 Oct. 1904; 20 April 1905.

65 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-223. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Isabel Watson, 20 April 1905.

66 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-223. ATL, NLNZ. Letters from Isabel Watson, 5 Oct. 1904; 20 April 1905.

67 Charlotte M Parkes, ‘The medicalisation of New Zealand’s maternity services, 1904–1937’, in Linda Bryder (ed.), A healthy country: essays on the social history of medicine in New Zealand, Wellington, Bridget Williams Books, 1991, pp. 165–80, p. 166.

68 Philippa Mein Smith, Maternity in dispute: New Zealand 1920–1939, Historical Publications Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1986, p. 117.

69 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-177. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Bennett to Ada Patterson, 14 July 1925.

70 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-219. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, July 1910.

71 Cited in Manson and Manson, op. cit., note 16 above, p. 63.

72 Barbara Brookes, ‘Frederic Truby King’, Dictionary of New Zealand biography, Wellington, Bridget Williams Book/Department of Internal Affairs, 1993, vol. 2, pp. 257–8. Mary King, Truby King, the man, London, Allen and Unwin, 1948.

73 Cited in Manson and Manson, op. cit., note 16 above, pp. 62–5.

74 Margaret Tennant, ‘Elizabeth Gunn, 1879–1963’, in Macdonald, et al. (eds), note 24 above, p. 267.

75 Margaret Tennant, ‘“Missionaries of health”: the School Medical Service during the inter-war period’, in Bryder (ed.), op. cit., note 67 above, pp. 128–48, p. 130.

76 Derek Dow, Safeguarding the public health: a history of the New Zealand Department of Health, Wellington, Victoria University Press, 1995, p. 79.

77 See Philippa Mein Smith, Mothers and king baby, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1997, pp. 111–13.

78 Manson and Manson, op. cit., note 16 above, pp. 68–9.

79 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 31 July [1909?].

80 Elston, ‘Women doctors’, op. cit., note 6 above, p. 185.

81 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 8 July 1907.

82 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 13 June 1911.

83 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-219. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 1909[?].

84 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 5 April 1909.

85 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-219. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, c.1914[?].

86 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 14 June 1909.

87 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 31 July 1909.

88 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-219. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 7 Sept. 1910.

89 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-219. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 1911.

90 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-219. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 17 Aug. [1914?].

91 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 24 May [1907?].

92 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 10 April [1907?].

93 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 8 July 1909.

94 Leah Leneman, In the service of life: the story of Elsie Inglis and the Scottish Women’s Hospitals, Edinburgh, Mercat Press, 1994, p. 1.

95 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-197. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Mary Gordon, 8 Dec. 1925.

96 Mary Louisa Gordon, Chase of the wild goose: the story of Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby, London, Hogarth Press, 1936; reissued as The Llangollen ladies: the story of Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby, London, John Jones, 1999.

97 Elston, ‘Women doctors’, op. cit., note 6 above, p. 170.

98 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 9 Feb. [1908?].

99 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 26 June 1910.

100 Elston’s study indicates this was certainly the case in England. More work needs to be done to see if this was the case in New Zealand and Australia. Elston, ‘Women doctors’, op. cit., note 6 above, p. 258.

101 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 10 April [1907?].

102 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 19 March [1908?].

103 Bernard Harris, The health of the schoolchild: a history of the School Medical Service in England and Wales, Buckingham, Open University Press, 1995, p. 2.

104 Steven Taylor, ‘The development of the School Medical Service and the decline of the half-time system, 1880–1920’, PhD thesis, Education, University of Manchester, 1996, p. 228.

105 Harris, op. cit., note 103 above, p. 56.

106 Bennett, Agnes Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 7 July 1908.

107 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 18 Aug. [1909?].

108 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-219. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 7 Sept. 1910.

109 J I Rose, ‘Mary Booth’, Australian dictionary of biography, Melbourne University Press, 1979, vol. 7, pp. 345–6.

110 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-201. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Kate Hogg, 24 Jan. 1901.

111 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 9 June [1914?].

112 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 8 July 1910.

113 Sister Imelda, ‘Contribution of the Sisters of Mercy to nursing’, History of Nursing Society Journal, 1994/5, 5: 128–32, p. 129.

114 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-219. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, [1916?]

115 Finn, op. cit., note 7 above, p. 107, n.33.

116 Ibid., p. 112; Digby, op. cit., note 22 above, p. 162.

117 Wendy Mitchinson, The nature of their bodies: women and their doctors in Victorian Canada, University of Toronto Press, 1991, p. 28.

118 Digby, op. cit., note 22 above, p. 30.

119 Cited in ibid., p. 163.

120 Manson and Manson, op. cit., note 16 above, p. 29.

121 Elston, ‘Women doctors’, op. cit., note 6 above, pp. 203, 258.

122 Mary Ann Elston’s study suggests that women qualifying before 1886 were quite often married or widowed. It was the “second generation” of medical graduates, entering medical training relatively young, who were to face formal marriage bars, and were less likely to marry. Elston, ‘Women doctors’, op. cit., note 6 above, p. 170.

123 Digby, op. cit., note 22 above, pp. 169–72.

124 Martha Vicinus, Independent women: work and community for single women, 1850–1920, London, Virago, 1985, explores the world of the women’s colleges in ch. 4.

125 Esther Pohl Lovejoy, Women doctors of the world, New York, Macmillan, 1957, p. 97, cited in Drachman, op. cit., note 8 above, p. 71.

126 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-187. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Mary Booth, 10 Aug. 1893.

127 Cécile Dauphin, ‘The power of writing and women’, in Bharati Ray (ed.), Women and politics: France, India and Russia, Calcutta, K P Bagchi, 2000, pp. 56–68, p. 63.

128 This paragraph is indebted to the discussions at the Correspondence Colloquium, Victoria University of Wellington, 23 and 24 June 2006.

129 Digby, op. cit., note 22 above, ch. 7, contains an excellent discussion of women and general practice.

130 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Letter from Eleanor Sproull, 9 Sept. 1909.

131 Bennett, Agnes. Papers. MS-Papers-1346-218. ATL, NLNZ. Agnes Bennett to Ada Patterson, 1 June 1925.

132 The influence of Garrett Anderson as a role model is mentioned by Moana Gow who enrolled at Otago in 1916. Dorothy Page, ‘Dissecting a community: women medical graduates at the University of Otago, 1891–1924’, in Brookes and Page (eds), op. cit., note 9 above, p. 114.

133 Elston, ‘Women doctors’, op. cit., note 6 above, p. 261.

134 Frances Porter, Home away from home: the story of Victoria House, Wellington, Bridget Williams Books, 2002, pp. 6–7.