> Thematic History

> 1850-1901:
Education for Women
- Victorian Ideals
- Woman Physician
- Ladies College

> 1902-1913:
Education & Vocation
- Learning at ELC
- The Westfield Way

> 1914-1945:
War & Circumstance
- The Great War
- WWII Evacuation
- Learning & Leisure

> 1946-1959:
Peace & Acceptance
- Restoration
- Medicine & Dentistry

> 1960-present:
Change & Opportunity
- Women in Science
- Creativity & Diversity
- Then & Now

St Bartholomew's Medical Committee Minutes, 23 May 1850.
Courtesy of St Bartholomew's Hospital Archives.

The minutes here show the decision to admit Elizabeth Blackwell as a student. The committee "resolved that permission be granted to Miss Blackwell to visit at the wards appropriated to females" and that "Miss Blackwell be permitted to visit such cases in the wards appropriated to males (excepting the syphilitic wards) as the Physicians and Surgeons may from time to time deem advisable".

After Blackwell completed her training in 1851, there was another female medical student admitted to Barts, Ellen Colborne admitted in 1865. Colborne was not as fortunate as Blackwell, and her admission to study medicine at Barts was met with strong protest. She withdrew from her course after a few months, and, thereafter, no women students were admitted to St Bartholomew's until 1947 when the University Senate required all London medical schools to be coeducational.

St Bartholomew's Medical Officers and Lecturers Minutes, 14 Oct 1865. Courtesy of St Bartholomew's Hospital Archives.

Listen: Henry Butlin recalls the opposition to the admission of Ellen Colborne to Barts.(dramatisation) Listening Help

These notes above confirm the committee decision to admit Miss Ellen Colborne to study medicine. Unfortunately, Miss Colborne faced vehement responses against her attendance, including a petition to ban the 'lady student' and jeers directed at her during lectures. After her initial determination and resilience to endure these responses and continue her studies, Miss Colborne finally gave in to the pressure and withdrew.

The London was also opposed to the admission of female students. In 1876, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson made such a proposal and she received a negative response from the Hospital's House Committee.

London Hospital House Committee Minutes, 7 July 1876.
Courtesy of Royal London Hospital Archives.

These committee minutes reveal the response to Elizabeth Garrett Anderson's proposal to admit female students to train at The London Hospital Medical School. Her proposal was rejected:

"After the expression of opinion by the Medical and Surgical Staff, adverse to the admission of Lady pupils to the Wards of the Hospital, on the ground that they consider that such admission would prove highly injurious to the interests of the Hospital, and would probably lead to the breaking up of the Medical School, the House Committee were compelled with great regret to decline Mrs Garrett Anderson’s application and liberal offer".