Sophia Jex-Blake

"It is a grand thing to enter the very first British University ever opened to women, isn't it?"

Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake (1840 – 1912) was an English physician, teacher, lesbian, and feminist. She led the campaign to secure women access to a University education when she and six other women, collectively known as the Edinburgh Seven, began studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1869. She was the first practising female doctor in Scotland, and one of the first in the wider United Kingdom, a leading campaigner for medical education for women, and founder of two medical schools for women – the first in the UK.

Sophia Jex-Blake was born in Hastings, England, to a well educated family of doctors and lawyers. Her parents were loving but strictly religious and forbad dancing, theater-going, and other "worldly amusements". However, Sophia was an energetic and audacious child whose strong will often clashed with her parents' expectations for their Victorian daughter. Home-schooled until the age of 8, she attended various private schools in southern England until 1858 when she went against her parents wishes and enrolled at Queen's College, London. In 1859, while still a student, she was offered a post as mathematics tutor at the college where she stayed until 1861, living for some of that time with Octavia Hill's family. She worked without pay as her father refused her permission to accept a salary.

Sophia  travelled to the United States to learn more about women's education. She visited various schools and later published A Visit to Some American Schools and Colleges. She worked for some time as an assistant at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston, where she met one of the country's pioneer female physicians, Dr Lucy Ellen Sewall, who became a special and lifelong friend. This was a crucial tme for Jex-Blake as during this visit she realised that it was her vocation to become a doctor – previously she had thought only of being a teacher or a minister.

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In 1867, along with Susan Dimock she wrote directly to the President and Fellows of Harvard University requesting admission to the University's Medical School. They received their reply a month later, which bluntly read: "There is no provision for the education of women in any department of this university". The following year, she hoped to attend a new medical college being established by Elizabeth Blackwell in New York, but was forced to return to England to care for her mother after the death of her father. 

In 1869, Jex-Blake's essay Medicine as a profession for women appeared in a book edited by Josephine Butler: Women's Work and Women's Culture. Butler argued that it was in women’s nature to care for the sick and that their inability to practice medicine was a symptom of a patriarchal society not intellectual inferiority. 

Sophia Jex-Blake was determined to seek medical training in the UK and due to Scotland's already progressive attitudes towards education, decided this would be her best chance at being granted admission to a university.

In 1869, she submitted her application to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. The Medical Faculty and the Senatus Academus voted in favour of admitting her, but the University Court rejected her application on the grounds that the University could not make the necessary arrangements 'in the interest of one lady'.

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She rallied support by advertising in national newspapers for more women to join her. A second application was submitted in the summer of 1869 on behalf of the group of five women initially (with two more joined later in the year to make the Edinburgh Seven). It requested matriculation and all that that implied - the right to attend all the classes and examinations required for a degree in medicine. This second application was approved by the University Court and the University of Edinburgh became the first British university to admit women (woo!)

As the women began to demonstrate their equal capabilities, hostility towards them began to grow. They received hate-mail, were stalked, and terrorised by fireworks attached to their front door, mud thrown at them. This culminated in the Surgeons' Hall Riot on 18 November 1870 when the women arrived to sit an anatomy exam at Surgeons's Hall to be met with an angry mob of 200+ who hurled rubbish and insults at the women. The riot made national headlines, prompting an outpouring of support for the women. Nonetheless, influential members of the Medical faculty eventually persuaded the University to refuse graduation to the women by appealing decisions to higher courts. The courts eventually ruled that the women who had been awarded degrees should never have been allowed to enter the course and their degrees were withdrawn in 1873.

Many of the women went to European universities that were already allowing women to graduate and completed their studies there (wait what, Britain didn’t lead the way in human rights and civilisng the res tof the world?????? Who knew?!) Women were eventually admitted onto degree programmes at other British Universities in 1877.

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In 1874, Sophia Jex-Blake helped establish the London School of Medicine for Women but also continued campaigning and studying. The Medical Act soon followed, permitting medical authorities to license all qualified applicants regardless of gender. Jex-Blake passed the medical exams at the University of Berne and was awarded an MD in January 1877. Four months later, she qualified as Licentiate of the King's and Queen's College of Physicians of Ireland (LKQCPI) meaning she could at last be registered with the General Medical Council, the third registered woman doctor in the country.

Jex-Blake returned to Edinburgh where she leased a house and in June 1878, put up her brass plate – Edinburgh had its first woman doctor. Three months later she opened an outpatient clinic where poor women could receive medical attention for a fee of a minimal fee. Sadly, she fell into a state of depression following her mother’s death in 1881. However, by 1885 her clinic was moved to larger premises with a proper ward. The little outpatient clinic thus became the Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women, Scotland's first hospital for women staffed entirely by women.

In 1886 she established the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women. It was largely enabled by a small handful of pro-female male physicians linked to the University of Edinburgh giving extramural classes open to men and women (which the university could not prevent). The first students included Elsie Inglis, Grace Ross Cadell and her sister Georgina, but Jex-Blake's skill as a teacher did not match her role as a doctor. An acrimonious split emerged with her students culminating in an infamous court case in 1889, where Jex-Blake was successfully sued for damages. Jex-Blake's school came to an effective end in 1892 when the University of Edinburgh began taking female students.

Jex-Blake lived and conducted her practice for 16 years. When she retired in 1889 the Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children moved to this site, and became known as Bruntsfield Hospital, where it continued to function on the site until 1989.

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Jex-Blake’s primary romantic relationship was with Dr Margaret Todd. On Jex-Blake's retirement in 1899 they moved to Rotherfield, where Dr Todd worked as a successful author while Sophia remained involved in activism including the suffragette movement.  Their home became a meeting place for former students and colleagues, and she welcomed writers and acquaintances from the world over. Jex-Blake died in 1912. Todd subsequently wrote The Life of Dr Sophia Jex-Blake.

The Edinburgh Seven were awarded the posthumous honorary MBChB at the University of Edinburgh in July 2019. The degrees were collected on their behalf by a group of current students at Edinburgh Medical School.

Having lived in Edinburgh all my life and studied at the University of Edinburgh for 5 years (and about to embark on another 6 to complete a PhD), I was ashamed and saddened (but perhaps not surprised) that I had never heard of Sophia until I heard mention of her in an LGBT+ history youtube video last month. Although her campaign with the university was eventually unsuccessful, it is strange to think that the two degrees I have already obtained are rights that would have been denied to me just a century earlier and still would be were it not for the activism of feminist campaigners like Sophia. My mum is a nurse, and so I’ve always been aware of the huge role of women in the medical profession. It angers me greatly that their degrees were stripped away from the women who had fought so hard to earn them. The rebellion against their education shows how strong opinion was against women bettering themselves and society – much to society’s detriment. It betrays the vision of Britain as a forward-thinking, world-leading democracy and reminds us that in terms of women’s liberation, Britain lagged far behind many of her neighbours. Everything Sophia did was aimed at empowering and protecting women, and thus not only is she a LGBT+ icon, she is an inspiration to women everywhere, and I personally owe her a great debt for paving the way for me to become an educated woman myself. I am glad that the University eventually righted its wrong, but I am more glad that Sophia became a success despite patriarchal suppression.