Louisa Garrett Anderson
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Dr. Louisa Garrett Anderson (b.July 28th 1873 - d.November 11th 1943), C.B.E., M.D., Chief Surgeon Women's Hospital Corps, a Fellow of Royal Society of Medicine (RSM). She was a medical pioneer, a member of the Women's Social and Political Union, a suffragette, and social reformer. She was the daughter of the founding medical pioneer Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. Her aunt, Dame Millicent Fawcett was a British suffragist.
Louisa was educated at St Leonards School in St. Andrews, Fife and at the London School of Medicine for Women located at the Royal Free Hospital.
She was one of the three children of James George Skelton Anderson of the Orient Steamship Company co-owned by his uncle Arthur Anderson, and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson who was the first woman to qualify as a doctor, co-founder of the London School of Medicine for Women and Britain's the first elected woman Mayor (of Aldeburgh).
Louisa worked as a doctor in private practice and hospitals. In 1912, she was imprisoned, briefly, for her suffragette activities. She wrote many medical articles and published a biography of her mother in 1939.
In the First World War she served in France with the Women's Hospital Corps (WHC). Along with her friend and colleague Dr.Flora Murray, she established military hospitals for the French Army in Paris and Wimereux. Their proposals were at first rejected by the British authorities, but eventually the WHC became established at the military hospital in Endell Street, Holborn, London staffed entirely by women, from chief surgeon to orderlies.
She never married and is buried at the Holy Trinity Church with her friend and colleague, Dr. Flora Murray near to her home in Penn, Buckinghamshire. The inscription on her grave stone says Louisa Garrett Anderson, C.B.E., M.D., Chief Surgeon Women's Hospital Corps 1914-1919. Daughter of James George Skelton Anderson and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson of Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Born 28th. July 1873, died November 15th. 1943. We have been gloriously happy. [1]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
- BBC page on Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
- Pictures at the National Portrait Gallery
- Biog and image of her gravestone. Ian MacFarlaine
- Women in the Great War - Women's Organisations in the British Army]
- Wellcome Trust - Military Hospital at Endell Street
- PubMed Central - Deeds and Words in the Suffrage Military Hospital in Endell Street - including photographs
