ANDERSON, ELIZABETH GARRETT (1836-1917), English medical
practitioner, daughter of Newson Garrett, of Aldeburgh,
Suffolk, was born in 1836, and educated at home and at a private
school. In 1860 she resolved to study medicine, an unheard-of
thing for a woman in those days, and one which was regarded
by old-fashioned people as almost indecent. Miss Garrett
managed to obtain some more or less irregular instruction at
the Middlesex hospital, London, but was refused admission as a
full student both there and at many other schools to which she
applied. Finally she studied anatomy privately at the London
hospital, and with some of the professors at St Andrews
University, and at the Edinburgh Extra-Mural school. She
had no less difficulty in gaining a qualifying diploma to
practise medicine. London University, the Royal Colleges
of Physicians and Surgeons, and many other examining bodies
refused to admit her to their examinations; but in the end
the Society of Apothecaries, London, allowed her to enter
for the License of Apothecaries' Hall, which she obtained in
1865. In 1866 she was appointed general medical attendant to
St Mary's dispensary, a London institution started to enable
poor women to obtain medical help from qualified practitioners
of their own sex. The dispensary soon developed into the
New hospital for women, and there she worked for over twenty
years. In 1870 she obtained the Paris degree of M.D. The
same year she was elected to the first London School Board,
at the head of the poll for Marylebone, and was also made one
of the visiting physicians of the East London hospital for
children; but the duties of these two positions she found to
be incompatible with her principal work, and she soon resigned
them. In 1871 she married Mr J. G. S. Anderson (d. 1907), a
London shipowner, but did not give up practice. She worked
steadily at the development of the New hospital, and (from
1874) at the creation of a complete school of medicine in
London for women. Both institutions have since been handsomely
and suitably housed and equipped, the New hospital (in the
Euston Road) being worked entirely by medical women, and the
schools (in Hunter Street, W.C.) having over 200 students,
most of them preparing for the medical degree of London
University, which was opened to women in 1877. In 1897 Mrs
Garrett Anderson was elected president of the East Anglian
branch of the British Medical Association. In 1908 she was
elected (the first lady) mayor of Aldeburgh. The movement
for the admission of women to the medical profession, of
which she was the indefatigable pioneer in
England, extended in her lifetime to every civilized country except Spain and Turkey.
Initial text from 1911 encyclopedia -- Please update as needed