The Times Great Women's Lives

by Sue Corbett

  Altogether Miss Hill secured a distinct success in the working out of the principle on which she had started. As time went on many more blocks of dwellings came under her management in different parts of London in addition to those mentioned, and a number of ladies assisted her in her self-imposed labours. In 1887 a very practical step in this direction was made by the formation of the Women’s University Settlement in Blackfriars-road, whose members have co-operated with Miss Hill in working some dozen or more courts or streets of cottages in Southwark. In addition to this a number of blocks erected by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were put at once under Miss Hill’s care. Recognizing, however, the comparatively limited scope of such efforts as her own — inasmuch as they depended so much on individual workers — and the necessity for providing increased accommodation for the working classes generally, Miss Hill gave an active support to the Artizans’ Dwellings Act of 1874, and in 1884 she was one of the witnesses examined by the Special Commission which inquired into the question of the housing of the poor.

  Of late years this question, in its wider development as the housing of the artisan classes, has assumed proportions far greater than either Miss Octavia Hill or Mr Ruskin could have contemplated when they started joint operations as social reformers, and the action taken alike by private companies, wealthy philanthropists, and the London County Council in the provision of improved dwellings for the working classes seems to put entirely in the shade Miss Hill’s modest efforts. On the other hand, she was undoubtedly one of the first, if not actually the first, to start the general movement, and on this movement her example and her writings have had a most powerful effect, notwithstanding the fact that it has been continued along broader, more comprehensive, and much more costly lines than were within the limits of her own resources. In 1905 she was appointed a member of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and signed the Majority Report in 1909.

  Miss Hill also took part in the foundation and development of the Charity Organization Society, whose principles are so well in accord with her life-long contention that an ill-advised almsgiving merely undermines the providence of the poor. She also became an active supporter of the Commons Preservation Society as the result of an effort of her own — though an unsuccessful one — to save from the builder certain fields in the Finchley-road, which she was anxious to preserve as an open space for the enjoyment of the poorer residents of Swiss Cottage. At the instance of Miss Hill a second society, known as the Kyrle Society, was formed for the purpose of brightening in every practical way the homes of the poor, while from the Kyrle Society there was developed Lord Meath’s Metropolitan Gardens Association, which has done, and is still doing, invaluable work in the protection, provision, and improvement of open spaces. Still another organization with which Miss Hill had been actively connected from the first was the National Trust for Places of Historical Interest.

  A Correspondent writes:—If Miss Octavia Hill had cared for any appraisement of her character she would have wished it to be sought in the record of her work. But those who had the privilege of being associated with her will find the secret of her usefulness in the personality of the worker. Qualities which are commonly supposed to be distinct or incompatible were in her harmonious parts of a consistent whole. Her enthusiasm was always directed by calm inflexible reason; her sympathies were keen and many-sided, but found expression in efforts to effect the practicable good. No ideal was too high to lie beyond her range of thought; no detail was too dull or too exacting to be neglected, if it were a means to the appointed end. She threw herself with equal zeal into the long labour of providing decent accommodation for the Southwark poor and into the effort to save a fine view point in Surrey or some stretch of mountain side in the Lake Country. Her reason was in each case the same — the abiding faith that the enjoyment of beauty and the command of physical comfort were alike essential elements in happy human life.

  Her methods formed a notable contrast to much of the fashionable philanthropy of the day. She believed in quiet ways. The collection of her “Annual Letters to Fellow Workers” is a wonderful chronicle of the good that was done without any appeal to public benevolence. But her influence was even wider and more fruitful than the immediate results of her activity. At Red Cross Hall and in other departments she gathered round her a band of devoted disciples, and it was the consolation of her declining years that her work would be maintained.

  Unflinching sincerity, earnestness, and concentration were factors in her success. She steadfastly refused to give her name to movements in which she could exercise no personal control, and on points of principle she was not easily led to consent to compromise. Her sense of responsibility was acute. During the time that the Royal Commission on the Poor Law was sitting and the report was being framed, her labours were of a painfully exacting kind, and it was not without hesitation that she adopted the recommendations of the majority of her colleagues.

  A musical voice and a fine gift of literary expression rendered her a most persuasive advocate on public occasions. Few women of her time were more fortunate in the range of their friendships. But her tastes were simple. In recent years, a cottage at Toy’s Hill — commanding a beautiful view — furnished a pleasant retreat from the work-a-day cares of London. The death of her sister Miranda was a keen sorrow to one in whom family affection was the very soul of life.

  Octavia Hill, housing and social reformer, was born on December 3, 1838. She died on August 13, 1912, aged 73

  ELIZABETH GARRETT ANDERSON

  * * *

  THE FIRST WOMAN TO QUALIFY AS A DOCTOR IN ENGLAND

  DECEMBER 18, 1917

  We regret to announce that Mrs Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, MD, died at Alde House, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, yesterday. She was 81 years of age.

  Mrs Garrett Anderson was one of the pioneers of that phase of the movement for the “emancipation” of women which aimed at throwing open to them the profession of medicine, and was herself the first woman to secure a medical diploma in this country. The world has, by this time, become familiar with the idea of women doctors, alike as private practitioners and as the holders of public appointments, and the war has made them as necessary at home as they have been for years in India, where the Countess of Dufferin’s Fund has conferred an incalculable boon on native women. Yet when Miss Elizabeth Garrett and a few others endeavoured to devote their lives to this work, and sought to obtain the necessary qualifications for so doing, they had to endure for many years an amount not only of prejudice, but of direct and sometimes violent hostility, which would have broken down the courage of persons of less determined spirit and less convinced than they were that their cause was the cause both of justice and of humanity.

  Elizabeth Garrett, known after her marriage as Mrs Garrett Anderson, was the daughter of Mr Newson Garrett, of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, and was born in London in 1836. Her attention was attracted to medicine by Miss Elizabeth Blackwell, an English woman who had emigrated with her parents to the United States, and, after many fruitless attempts to enter various medical schools there, was permitted to graduate MD of the University of Geneva, USA, in 1849. Ten years afterwards, on the strength of this foreign qualification, and of her having prescribed for friends during a visit to England, she was put on the British Medical Register; so that, while, as already stated, Miss Garrett was the first woman to secure an English diploma, Miss Blackwell had precedence of her as regards registration. Miss Garrett made Miss Blackwell’s acquaintance in 1858, and resolved to follow in her friend’s footsteps, but to get an English qualification instead of a foreign one. She began her medical studies in earnest in 1860. There were, however, two great difficulties before her. In the first place, there was no school where she could be received, and, in the next place, there was no examining body willing to admit her to its examinations. At Middlesex Hospital the male students presented a memorial against the admission of women, and though she made repeated attempts elsewhere, she met for some years with effectual repulse in every dir
ection. In these attempts she had the cordial support of her father, to whose sympathy and courage she afterwards attributed the success she secured.

  After a time the Society of Apothecaries was advised by its counsel, Mr (afterwards Lord) Hannen, that as the purpose of its charter was to enable it to sell drugs, and as there was no legal ground for refusing to allow a woman to sell drugs, the society could not refuse to admit a woman to the examination imposed on candidates for its licence. Thereupon the society authorized Miss Garrett to get her education privately from teachers of recognized medical schools, and finally gave her, in 1865, the desired qualification of LSA. In 1866 she opened a dispensary near Lisson-grove, Marylebone, for the benefit of poor women and children, and for some years she was the only medical officer there. The Society of Apothecaries had adopted a new rule which refused recognition of certificates granted for private studies; there was no medical school in England that would admit women, and the struggle carried on by the late Miss Jex-Blake and others at Edinburgh University had been in vain. But medical degrees were to be had abroad; Miss Garrett herself passed the examinations, and took the MD of Paris in 1870; and, others taking similar steps, she secured assistants at her dispensary, which was subsequently converted into a small hospital, and after various changes developed into the “New Hospital for Women” in the Euston-road. It was during the period of these early struggles that a woman pamphleteer, writing in opposition to “women’s rights” in general, said of Miss Garrett:—

  “Miss Garrett possesses a superior mind as well as superior attainments, and her character appears to correspond to her intellectual qualities. She has great calmness of demeanour, a large amount of firmness, usually a good deal of fairness and coolness in argument, a pleasant countenance, a decided but perfectly feminine manner, and attire at once apart from prevalent extravagance and affected eccentricity.”

  In November, 1970, Miss Garrett became a candidate at the London School Board election, and was returned at the head of the poll for Marylebone with no fewer than 47,858 votes. In 1871 she married Mr J. G. S. Anderson, of the Orient line of steamships to Australia, but she lost none of her zeal for the profession she had adopted, and continued it as actively as before, devoting herself especially to the diseases of women and children. In October, 1874, Miss Jex-Blake returned from Edinburgh vanquished in her attempts to secure admission to the medical schools in that city, the male students having carried their opposition so far as to mob her and her friends. Mrs Garrett Anderson thereupon joined with Miss Jex-Blake and other ladies in establishing the London School of Medicine for Women. But the General Medical Council of England stipulated that only a general hospital having 150 beds could be recognized as adequate for the purposes of teaching, and the hospital which Mrs Garrett Anderson was carrying on had then only 26 beds. The larger hospitals were appealed to, but in vain, until at last, in 1877, an alliance was formed between the Women’s School and the Royal Free Hospital, Gray’s-inn-road, which met all requirements in respect to teaching.

  In the meantime there had been proceedings in the Law Courts and attempts at legislation in the House of Commons in the interests of the would-be women doctors; and at last, thanks to a more enlightened public opinion and to the abundant proofs of the excellent work which Mrs Garrett Anderson and her sister practitioners were doing, a Bill introduced in the House of Commons in 1876 by Mr Russell Gurney was passed “enabling” the British examining bodies to extend their examinations to women as well as men. The King and Queen’s College of Physicians in Ireland was the first to take advantage of this enactment, and a number of other bodies afterwards adopted the same course. But in 1878 the feeling in the medical profession against women doctors was still strong, and Mrs Garrett Anderson remained the only female member of the British Medical Association until 1892, when the Nottingham meeting, on the proposal of Dr S. H. Galton, carried by a large majority the repeal of a rule which he described as “a blot on the association’s fair fame, a stain left from the high tide of prejudice.” Mrs Garrett Anderson, who was present at this meeting, had thus the satisfaction of seeing the victorious end of the campaign on which she had started in 1860.

  For 23 years Mrs Garrett Anderson was Lecturer on Medicine at the London School of Medicine for Women, and for 10 years its Dean. For 24 years she was Senior Physician of the New Hospital for Women. In 1896-97 she was President of the East Anglian branch of the British Medical Association, and in 1908 she was elected Mayor of Aldeburgh, where she had her home, being the first woman made a Mayor in England. Her interest in sanitation and housing here made itself felt to good practical effect. In the following year she was re-elected. Of such a woman as Dr Garrett Anderson it need scarcely be said that she believed that women ought to have Parliamentary votes, and that she worked to that end in the years preceding the war. Recently her powers were failing; but she was fond of going to London stations to bid God-speed to soldiers starting for the front.

  Mrs Garrett Anderson’s sister is Dr Millicent Garrett Fawcett, to whose husband, the blind Postmaster-General, she acted as medical adviser. Her son, Sir Alan Garrett Anderson, last August succeeded Sir Eric Geddes as Controller of the Navy; and the first list of appointments to the new Order of the British Empire, which we published last August, contained not only his name among the Knight Commanders, but that of his sister, Dr Garrett Anderson, among the Commanders, as “organizer of the first hospital run by women at the front.” Dr Garrett Anderson is now head of the military hospital in Endell-street.

  The entrance of women into the medical profession was one of those events that would certainly, in any case, have been brought about sooner or later, but it was none the less to the credit of Mrs Garrett Anderson that she recognized the desirability and the justice of this step at a time when few other persons did, and that she herself fought so valiantly against prejudices so strong and interests so powerful as those confronting her in that “fiery ordeal” from which it was her happy lot to emerge not only successful but still a “womanly woman.”

  The funeral will be at Aldeburgh on Friday, at 2.30pm, and there will be a memorial service at Christ Church, Endell-street (Military Hospital) on Saturday, at 11am.

  Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, pioneering physician, was born on June 9, 1836. She died on December 17, 1917, aged 81

  LADY RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

  * * *

  DAZZLING SOCIAL FIGURE, WRITER AND MOTHER OF WINSTON CHURCHILL

  JUNE 30, 1921

  The sudden death yesterday morning of Lady Randolph Churchill is announced on another page.

  Those who have known London life for three or four decades will realize that in Lady Randolph Churchill a once brilliant and high-stepping figure has passed away. Jeannette, daughter of Leonard Jerome, of New York, had all the dash and her full share of the various talent for which American young womanhood is remarkable. She flung herself ardently into many occupations and amusements: Literature, hunting, drama, politics, marriage. And sometimes she combined two or more of them, as when, after reading Renan, she named her black mare (by Trappist out of Festive) L’Abbesse de Jouarre.

  She was 19 when, in 1873, at a dance given by the officers of the cruiser Ariadne in honour of the Cesarevitch, she first met Lord Randolph Churchill. Three days later he proposed to her. In the following year they were married. She was already a woman of the world. Some of her childhood had been spent in Trieste, where her father was American Consul; some of her girlhood in Paris, whence she escaped in the last train that left before the siege of 1870 began. Lord Randolph was a man of many interests, and she shared most of them. She hunted with him; she entertained with him, the charm of her society, her wit, and her French cook making her dinner-table grateful to King Edward (then Prince of Wales) and many another good judge. On Lord Randolph’s visits to Russia and to Germany she “went down” notably well at the Imperial Courts. At electioneering she shone. In 1885 she helped her husband so dashingly that Lord James of Hereford wrote to her:—
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br />   “But my gratification is slightly impaired by feeling I must introduce a new Corrupt Practices Act. Tandems must be put down, and certainly some alteration, a correspondent informs me, must be made in the means of ascent and descent therefrom; then arch looks have to be scheduled, and nothing must be said ‘from my heart.’ The graceful wave of a pocket-handkerchief will have to be dealt with in committee.”

  And in later years, while canvassing for Mr Burdett-Coutts, she made a famous repartee. When a waverer observed slyly, “If I could get the same price as was once paid by the Duchess of Devonshire for a vote, I think I could promise.” “Thank you very much,” she replied, “I’ll let the Baroness Burdett-Coutts know at once.”