The Edinburgh Seven: The Story of the First Women to Study Medicine

By Janey Jones

Women have healed since the beginning of time, but accessing a formal degree in medicine was impossible for them in Britain until the late 19th century. In 1869, a group of women began arriving in Edinburgh to study at the medical faculty, led by the indomitable Sophia Jex Blake. They would eventually be known around the world as The Edinburgh Seven. They were delighted to become students of medicine and as Sophia said, they simply wanted 'a fair field and no favour'.

But some of the traditional professors at the university did not approve of women becoming practicing doctors. The medical women would soon discover that they were welcome as hobbyists but not as competitors with male students. There were legal wrangles, court cases, personal attacks and even a full blown riot - all because some male medics wanted rid of the women. And the women did leave Edinburgh - without degrees. But they finished their studies in mainland Europe and came back as fully fledged doctors.

In 2019, the University of Edinburgh awarded the Seven their degrees posthumously via current day medical students. At last, the right thing was done, but the struggles of the original Seven should never be forgotten. This is their story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen and Sword
• Release date: Jul 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781399099240

Janey Jones

Janey is a graduate of Edinburgh University where she studied English literature and language, as well as History of Art, Geography, Sociology and Philosophy. She is a trained English teacher at senior school level, but has also developed a successful writing career, initially for children and now moving into multiple genres. She lives outside Edinburgh by the sea. Janey has three grown-up sons. She has interests in women's history, film, walking, historical novels and art.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Story of the Edinburgh Seven

The year was 1869. The country was Scotland. The issue was equality. Enter centre-stage the female medical students of Edinburgh!

Seven intelligent and inspirational Victorian women made history when they linked arms and rose up together in the joint purpose of becoming fully qualified medical doctors in Scotland’s capital. They were no hobbyists. Their intention was to practise medicine ‘in a fair field and no favour’. Their destination was the historic University of Edinburgh, opened in 1583, renowned for its excellent Faculty of Medicine. From across Britain, they travelled with delighted trepidation to enlightened Edinburgh. After tentative improvements in higher education for women in the 1850s and 60s, their excitement at being accepted at last by Edinburgh’s famous medical faculty was palpable.

Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson’s earlier progress in medical training had inspired many, but disappointingly failed to clear the path for other women, because the Society of Apothecaries in London promptly blocked further women students following her success! She continued on to Paris to complete a medical degree at the Sorbonne. There were several European and American routes to becoming a qualified female doctor, but nothing in Britain.

It was time for a new approach for women in Britain with medical ambitions. Sophia Jex-Blake led the crusade valiantly. Unsurprisingly there were rejections from some of the notable British universities, but after cajoling, Edinburgh stepped up. Finally, a British university willing to train women as doctors. Good for Edinburgh! There was much to celebrate and be positive about. However, there was one critical issue: could Edinburgh University, a pillar of the nineteenth-century Scottish patriarchal establishment, truly adopt and maintain such a progressive policy?

That tumultuous passage of time in Edinburgh between 1869 and 1873 would change their lives for ever. As well as changing the course of history. Many members of the University governing bodies supported Sophia’s application wholeheartedly. Lyon Playfair, Chair of Chemistry, member of the Senatus, and first representative in Parliament of Edinburgh University, wrote: ‘I cordially concur … that Miss Blake should be allowed to attend the summer classes … there are many precedents for female graduation…’ However, certain powerful objectors in the University may have originally envisaged a cobbled together lesser version of the medical course to appease the women. But that wasn’t going to suit. Not at all.

How could the women know that their battles with established medical authorities would lead them to conflict in the highest law courts in the land? That male medics would organise a vicious riot in protest at their presence? And that even the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh would block them from essential ward rounds in a bid to undermine their chances of qualification?

These resolute medical women would become renowned internationally as the Edinburgh Seven. Septem contra Edinam; a reference to the Seven Against Thebes in Greek Mythology. Seven champions killed in their fight against the city of Thebes after the fall of its king, Oedipus.

The seven women in this story certainly went to war with Edinburgh University, or more accurately with certain reactionary professionals and managing boards there, in a just and determined fight for equal rights with male counterparts. The people of Edinburgh – and the wider world – became enthralled with the unfolding dramatic events between 1869 and 1873.

Most bystanders were in support of the women, urging their survival in the intricate spider’s web of the Machiavellian medical faculty, Senatus, university council, and university court. These interlinked governing bodies conspired to block the women from studies, classes, awards, hospital ward visits, examinations, and degrees. Such was the power of the University that it was able to ignore recommendations from the highest law lord in the land of the Scots – the Lord Advocate. Lord Young, himself a graduate of Law from Edinburgh, was appointed to this office in 1869, the year that Sophia’s great cause began, and over the intervening years he was a great supporter of the Seven. Yet even he could not keep the University in check.

As well as battles concerning the chasm between male and female rights, there was an ongoing conflict in Edinburgh between ‘Town and Gown’. The city’s council and the University were at loggerheads about where major educational decisions should be taken. Where did the power lie? Who actually knew? The Edinburgh Seven and other women who soon followed them understood all too clearly the petty political reasons for their lack of progress, but the question was always the same: how do we tackle the prejudice against us? Some advised quiet cooperation with the powerful men running the profession – the so-called ‘approach by the side door’ strategy. But others thought it was time to face the problems squarely from the front entrance.

Strategy, posturing, and publicity within the Edinburgh Seven fell mostly to the indefatigable and extremely resourceful Sophia Jex-Blake. Who were these extraordinary women who plunged fearlessly into battle with the Edinburgh old guard? The other six were: Isabel Thorne; Edith Pechey; Helen Evans; Matilda Chaplin; Emily Bovell; and Mary Anderson.

Chapter 2

Sophia Jex-Blake

‘It is a grand thing to enter the very first British University ever opened to women, isn’t it?’ So wrote Sophia Jex-Blake in a letter to her friend, the American medic, Dr Lucy Sewall.

Britain in the mid-Victorian period offered few opportunities for studious women in universities. As a result, becoming a medical doctor was still mostly a male preserve. At least, it was a male preserve in terms of the official science, status, and formal education of it; yet women had been healers, herbalists, surgeons, nurses, and midwives in communities from the beginning of time. The seven women at the centre of this story were famously brought together by The Scotsman newspaper adverts, placed by the vibrant and controversial Sophia Jex-Blake, who, in that stroke of genius, recruited other women interested in studying medicine at Edinburgh.

Intelligent, lively, ambitious, and determined, Sophia would go on to change women’s rights, along with her six fellow female medics. In fact, more women joined along the way. They were among the first women ever to matriculate at a British university. Tenacity was an essential part of Sophia; she would not retreat. She cared not for prissy appearances, opinions, and conventions. And yet she could be extremely loving and kind, often berating herself with hindsight if she’d been rash. All she did was with passion and verve. But at times, the soaring highs were followed by crushing lows and she could become depressed and dejected, and so it is to her great credit that she always picked herself up again, setting new goals, and finding her old enthusiasm once more.

After taking on the male medical establishment in her twenties, as well as the obtuse university, she also founded two medical training hospitals for women. She cleared the thorny path for those who followed. Her life story is one of extraordinary vision and unwavering application to a cause. And on a personal level, she suffered from a broken heart for twenty years.

So, how did life begin for Sophia? Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake, born in 1840, enjoyed a conventional upper-middle-class childhood in Hastings. Despite regular clashes with her wealthy though traditional and religious parents, she loved them deeply.

‘No-one ever had better parents than I,’ said Sophia, according to the biography by her eventual life partner, Margaret Todd, in The Life of Sophia Jex-Blake, written six years after Sophia’s death.

Her father was a retired lawyer, while her mother was part of the wealthy Cubitt family, headed by Baron Ashcombe. The Cubitt family had built properties in London’s Belgravia, Pimlico, and Bloomsbury, amassing a considerable fortune, but were unassuming people. Sophia, the baby, had siblings. An older sister, and a brother, Thomas Jex-Blake, future Dean of Wells Cathedral and father of Katharine Jex-Blake, classicist, and mistress of Girton College, Cambridge. As a child, Sophia longed for academic and physical outlets. She wanted to test her brain, to ride horses, to play sport. The schools she attended with an emphasis on home-making and future mothering did not ignite any passions within her. So many intellectually curious women were repressed by the system, whatever their sexuality. It was about a lack of range and rigour in what they were taught. Sophia was a mathematician and intellectual at heart, therefore sewing and piano lessons were not enough.

As she developed into a highly intelligent young woman, she saw an opportunity to gain life experience through teaching, which was one of the few stretching occupations available to intelligent and privileged women such as herself. In 1858, after a hysterical fit which persuaded her long-suffering parents to relent, she arrived at Queen’s College, London. Here, she developed her passion for maths and a skill for providing tuition in it. Sophia was able to experiment with academic options in her life due to her family’s wealth and connections, but the privilege she enjoyed was not wasted on frivolous indulgences. Ultimately, her ability to travel and afford accommodation plus school and college fees meant that her future medical career would become possible. This takes us to the side issue of class and the fact that while many women campaigned for equality between women and men, at this stage, they were not fighting to address the culturally entrenched British class system. The British class system was a fixed entity.

Her ambition constantly drove her forward, and after her heart was broken following a failed relationship with Octavia Hill, who had taught Sophia bookkeeping skills at Queen’s, Sophia was downcast. Octavia found her too exhausting, and went her own way, going on to become a social reformer. A forlorn Sophia headed to Edinburgh for the year of 1862, then to Germany where she planned, somewhat ambitiously, to open a university. There were many tortuous letters home to her worried mother, especially when Sophia was misunderstood and teased by some of those she taught in Germany.

Sophia was interested in religion at this point of her life, and she even considered becoming a missionary, but over time, her interest in education prevailed. With each new location she experienced, Sophia’s thinking broadened further. She met people who affected her; she learned subjects which enthralled her. She was in a searching phase, looking for a channel for her great waves of energy, enthusiasm, and intellect. Her wanderlust led her to beg her parents to allow her to book a passage to the United States where she planned to study their progressive education system, arguing it was safe to go now the American Civil War was over. Eventually, they agreed – perhaps relishing the thought of a break from her energies! Sophia could be persuasive to a fault when she wanted something or had to defend herself, as she would go on to do in Scotland’s highest legal court. And lucky that her parents could afford this elaborate trip. She arrived there in 1865, visiting many schools and colleges on a pre-planned tour around Boston, writing and publishing papers about what she saw in the spirit of Benjamin Franklin. As ever, writing and communicating her views was a great salvation for Sophia and one of the ways she reached the hearts and minds of others so effectively.

The excitement of a new world order was palpable stateside in the 1860s. America was a forward-looking, dynamic country, and although there were pockets of conservatism, classism, and elitism, it was far more liberal and less class-conscious than Britain in general. The attitudes to women were enlightened in the university cities. This was inspiring to Sophia, who thrived in the atmosphere of equality and meritocracy. It was during this period that Sophia developed joint interests in feminism and medicine, especially through her friendship with Dr Lucy Sewall, a physician at the New England Hospital for Women and Children. This rich and exciting period in Sophia’s young life shaped her views on female suffrage, education of women, medicine as a career for women – and somewhat put her religious thoughts to the back of her mind. There were those who thought she would have had more luck in Edinburgh if she’d adopted a religious stance, but she refused to be a hypocrite as the religious phase passed over and gave way to her medical quest.

Working as the New England Hospital pharmacist and bookkeeper, Sophia learnt much about medical practice and diseases while there. Bookkeeping was one of her specialisms and something she’d learned in her Queen’s College days. As she went on to run hospitals and have her own practice in later life, this expertise with arithmetic and bookkeeping, plus purchase and application of medicines, gave her a good business grounding. There was no NHS funding for Sophia’s hospitals and the balance sheets had to add up.

While in Boston, she became inspired along with a friend, Susan Dimock, to apply to Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to study medicine. This application was unsuccessful, but she did achieve a place at the New York Infirmary Medical School, run by another of her heroines, Dr Elizabeth Blackwell, America’s first female doctor – born in Bristol.

It seemed Sophia had found her calling. She was delighted. Training as a medic in New York was a thrilling thought.

But sad news arrived before she could take up this opportunity.

Sophia’s beloved father, who had been ailing, had died. She returned to Britain on that weeklong voyage, bereft. Family meant more to her than ambition. She decided she didn’t want to be an ocean voyage away from her beloved mother so turned her thoughts about medical training closer to home.

Early in 1869, Sophia wrote an essay entitled ‘Medicine as a Profession for Women’, which later appeared in a book called Women’s Work and Women’s Culture, edited by Josephine Butler. The suggestion to create an anthology of essays on feminism was put to Josephine Butler by the respected publisher, Macmillan. Josephine thought it important to include an essay on medical women, such was the topicality of this theme. Sophia wrote many essays and later a book on the subject of women in medicine. The Practice of Medicine by Women was an essay written by Sophia Jex-Blake in collaboration with her Edinburgh peers, Edith Pechey and Isabel Thorne.

Chapter 3

Isabel Thorne

This gentle member of the Seven was born Isabel Jane Pryer in London in 1834. An all-round bright and able person, she attended Queen’s College, London in the early 1850s, where she studied many subjects, leading to her work as a governess following her father’s death. She married Joseph Thorne at St Pancras parish church. He was a tea merchant based in China, and they headed for Shanghai as newlyweds and started their family there. Isabel lived there during the Taiping Rebellion. The civil war raged between the Qing dynasty and the theocratic Taiping Heavenly Kingdom between 1850 and 1864. It is often considered the most ferocious civil war in history, with many millions of deaths.

Isabel, always a compassionate, dutiful, and resourceful woman – a mild-mannered rebel – became convinced during her extensive travels that just as women