Born: 17 January 1837, United Kingdom
Died: 1910
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: Mary Adamson Anderson
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
When no English medical school would accept women, Sophia Jex-Blake went to Scotland in 1869 to plead her case to the University of Edinburgh. Even once the faculty and academic senate voted to allow her in, the university court overruled them, claiming the university could not make the necessary arrangements “in the interest of one lady.” So, she went to The Scotsman newspaper, where her advertisement led to six more women—Mary Anderson, Emily Bovell, Matilda Chaplin, Helen Evans, Edith Pechey and Isabel Thorne—joining her cause. The university court reluctantly gave in to the “Edinburgh Seven,” becoming the first university in Britain to admit women.
But the women were barred from the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, where they would have gotten valuable practical experience. And that’s not even getting into the harassment they faced, not least was one professor absurdly suggesting to the press that women pursuing medical careers might be “basely inclined” or “Magdalenes” (reformed sex workers). On November 18,1870, the women faced a literal riot blocking them from taking an anatomy exam.
In 1872, the university court decreed that even if the women passed all their courses and exams, they would not be granted degrees. Jex-Blake sued in the Court of Session, Scotland’s highest civil court, which not only supported the university’s decision, but maintained that the women should never have been admitted in the first place. Five of the women—Bovell, Chaplin, Jex-Blake, Anderson and Pechey—earned their medical degrees abroad, in Bern and Paris. They also worked to establish the London School of Medicine for Women, which opened in 1874. Thorne set aside her own medical career to run the school for more than 30 years.