Blue Plaque Trail:

Elizabeth Blackwell

Generally acknowledged to be the first accredited woman doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell was born in Bristol in 1821 but has a strong link with Hastings where she lived for the 30 years of her retirement.

Brought up in an ardently religious and moral family environment, the third of nine surviving children, Elizabeth’s father, Samuel Blackwell, was a prominent member of Bristol society and had progressive ideals; he saw to it that his daughters had educations as good as his sons and impressed upon them their duties as future reformers of society.

Problems with his business forced Samuel Blackwell to move his family to America in 1832, but their financial affairs only got worse and when he died five years later his wife and children struggled to keep themselves, taking in lodgers and giving music lessons to local children. As the years passed Elizabeth and her sisters came of age, but showed little interest in taking husbands. Neither did Elizabeth show any interest in medical matters until in 1844 she visited a female family friend who was dying of cancer. The woman told Elizabeth of her humiliation about being examined by a male physician, and suggested that, as an intelligent and studious young woman, she would make an ideal doctor. It seems this idea took root in Elizabeth’s mind, but at that time society viewed such a thing as utterly unacceptable. Her initial enquiries about medical training were met with incredulity and disgust but, undeterred, she eventually found a teaching post in North Carolina where she was able to study privately under a local doctor. After her preparatory training she began to apply for admittance to medical colleges: sixteen turned her down before the liberal Geneva College in upstate New York put her application before their students who, probably as a joke, voted to admit her.

It must have required enormous resolve to undertake studies in an environment that was mostly hostile and disdainful of her and her efforts - far from being encouraging other women ostracised her and considered her ‘either wicked or insane’ - but she finished her studies at the head of her class and in 1849 she was the first woman ever to be granted a medical degree.

Elizabeth travelled to Paris with the intention of studying to become a surgeon but was roundly rejected by the French medical fraternity. In 1850 she left for London where, through the influence of a family friend, she was able to take a studentship at St Bartholemew’s Hospital. By 1851 she was exceptionally well-trained but no male physician would consider her for a post in medical practice. Meanwhile, back in America, her sister Emily was struggling to follow in her footsteps and find a medical training post, but meeting with even stronger resistance than Elizabeth had. Geneva College firmly refused to take another female student. Elizabeth decided to return to help her sister and continue her fight to fulfil her vocation. She famously said ‘If society will not admit of woman’s free development, then society must be remodelled’.

Taking up residence in New York City, Elizabeth scandalized local society by setting up her own practice. She struggled to find both premises and liberally-inclined patients prepared to come to her, but she persevered. Two years later, in the heart of the city’s slums, she opened the one-room Dispensary for Poor Women and Children which, despite continued fierce resistance from many quarters, gradually increased in popularity. In 1857, along with Emily who had finally gained her medical qualification in Europe, she opened her own hospital: the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, funded by various liberal and reforming groups. In 1859 she returned to Britain for a year-long lecture tour which successfully inspired several other women to take up medicine, and she became the first woman on the British Medical Register. On her return to New York she resumed work at the infirmary until, in 1868, along with Emily, she set up the first women’s medical college next door, herself taking the post of Chair of Hygiene.

By now though, Elizabeth felt the early pioneering work in America was mostly done and in 1869 she left the infirmary under her sister’s charge and returned to England where she helped to organise the National Health Society and founded the London School of Medicine for Women, as well as setting up her own private practice. She gave lectures and wrote books, mostly on social hygiene (in particular the taboo subject of sexual health) and preventative measures. But over the following years her own health gradually deteriorated and in 1880, following a fall down stairs, she retired from practice and set up home in Hastings (at Rock House in Exmouth Place). She continued to write medical texts as well as her autobiography, and regularly attended the Unitarian Church in South Terrace. She died here in 1910, at the age of 89, and is commemorated by a blue plaque on the house where she lived for 30 years.