Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was born in London, England, and grew up in Aldeburgh. Her father, a successful businessman, supported her education and encouraged her interest in politics. Since there was no school in Aldeburgh, she was home-schooled until 13 years old and then studied at the Boarding School for Ladies in London. On her return to Aldeburgh, she continued to educate herself, studying Latin and arithmetic.
In 1859, at the age of 23, she traveled to London to meet Elizabeth Blackwell – the first female doctor in the US. After a private meeting with her, she decided to become a physician as well. With her father’s approval and financial support, she embarked on a long and challenging journey to receive a medical degree.
In the following year, she began to work as a surgery nurse at Middlesex Hospital, London. Within six months, she proved her nursing skills and was allowed to attend the hospital’s outpatients’ clinic, and soon after, she attended her first operation. Forbidden from attending medical school, she took private lessons in materia medica, anatomy, and physiology during the evenings while working as a nurse during the days. With the support of the school’s administration, she participated in the hospital’s classes, but after complaints from the all-male students, she was obliged to leave the hospital.
Afterward, she applied to several medical schools across the UK, including Oxford and Cambridge, rejected by all of them. In 1862, with a certificate in anatomy and physiology she obtained privately, Garrett found a loophole that enabled her to study at the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries since it did not specifically forbid women from taking their examinations. Three years later, at the age of 29, she passed the society’s exams, becoming the first woman in Britain to obtain an LSA certificate that enabled her to practice as a physician. As a result, the Society of Apothecaries changed its regulations to prevent other women from obtaining a license.
Even with her license, Garrett could not find a medical position, so she established her own practice in London. At first, not many patients wanted to be treated by a female physician, but soon her practice grew. Within less than a year, she opened the St Mary’s Dispensary for Women and Children, enabling poor women to receive medical care. In the following year, during the cholera outbreak in London, she admitted 3,000 new patients.
At the time, Garrett became aware that the University of Sorbonne in Paris is admitting women as medical students. She immediately began to learn French, receiving her medical degree in 1870, though the British Medical Register did not recognize her qualification.
In the same year, 34 years old Garrett was elected to the first London School Board and got nominated as a visiting physician to the East London Hospital – the first woman in Britain to be appointed to a medical post. There, she met James Anderson, and the couple married in the following year. Garrett was overstretched with her work at her practice and dispensary combined with having her first child, so she gave up her positions on the board and as a visiting physician after only three years. She expanded her dispensary, turning it into the New Hospital for Women and Children, specializing in women’s issues and gynecological conditions.
In 1874, alongside Sophia Jex-Blake, she founded the London School of Medicine for Women, the only teaching hospital in Britain to offer medical courses for women and the only one to be staffed by only women. Two years after it opened, the act that permitted women to enter the medical profession had passed, much as a result of Garrett’s campaign on the matter, and the school was recognized as a medical school, guaranteeing its students a formal medical license. When Garrett became the schools’ dean in 1883, she made history as the first female dean of a British medical school.
In 1902, Garrett retired from practicing medicine and returned to her hometown Aldeburgh. On 9 November 1908, she was elected the mayor of the city. The first female mayor in Britain.
Throughout her life, Garrett was an active supporter of the women’s suffrage movement and co-founded the Central Committee of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage in 1889. She used her platform as mayor to promote the cause, giving speeches on the matter and campaigning for women’s right to vote.
Garrett died at the age of 81.
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