THE ROYAL INFIRMARY
A year previously to the date we have reached, Robert Louis Stevenson
had written in a letter to his cousin:
“You will probably know how nicely woman’s rights were received by
some of my fellow students the other day. The female medicals were
hooted, hissed and jostled till the police interfered. My views are
very neutral. I quite believe that Miss Jex-Blake and the rest of our
fellow studentesses are the first of a noble army, pioneers,
Columbuses and all that sort of thing. But at the same time, Miss Jex-
Blake is playing for the esteem of posterity. Soit, I give her
posterity, but I won’t marry either her, or her fellows. Let posterity
marry them. If posterity gets hold of this letter I shall probably be
burnt in effigy by some Royal Female College of Surgeons of the
future.”
It was many years before this letter was brought to S. J.-B.’s notice,
and when it was, she received it with a hearty laugh of genuine
appreciation. She enjoyed R. L. S. much more than he enjoyed her, but
she had never had the smallest wish to marry him!
He was entirely wrong, moreover, in the assumption that the women
students would have to wait for posterity to marry them. This very
autumn of 1871—to the profound sorrow and discomfiture of many upholders
of the movement—saw the engagement of no less than three of them. Mrs.
Evans’ engagement has been already noted in a letter from Dr. Patrick
Heron Watson. In a characteristic passage, we learn how the news of it
came to S. J.-B.’s ears:
“After my business over with R., I rose to go.
‘Oh, sit down a minute. So your class is thinning?’ [Miss Anderson had
been married a month before].
‘Yes,’ quoth I dolorously. ‘We’ve lost one.’
‘And I hear you’re going to lose another!’
‘Oh, no,’ protestingly. ‘I hope not.’
‘But I think so.’
‘Do you? Well, have you heard who?’
‘Mrs. Evans.’
‘Oh, no,—I don’t believe it.’
‘Well, she told me so herself.’
‘_Did_ she?—and who on earth to?’
R. got red up to top of bald crown. ‘Have you no idea?’
‘No,’ (a fib by this time).
‘Really no idea?’
‘How should I?’
‘Well,—she asked _me_ to tell you about it,—does that give you an
idea?’
‘_Mr. R.!_—you don’t mean to say it’s you?’
Great redness, and ‘Yes, I do.’
‘Well!!!—I hope your treachery will go between you and your sleep!’
‘Now don’t you be hard upon her! Will you go and see her?’
‘No, certainly not. The most she can expect is that I don’t send a
policeman after her.’
‘And brand her with D?’
‘Yes. You may tell her I won’t do that,—and that’s the utmost she can
expect!’
And leaving,—‘Well, I think you’re an uncommonly lucky man, but I hope
your conscience will prevent your sleeping!’”
This was all very well, but the blow was a severe one, especially as
Miss Chaplin was married—to Professor Ayrton—a month or two later.
“I do hope you and Miss Pechey will remain firm to the end,” writes
Miss M‘Laren plaintively, “for really three marriages within six
months is quite alarming.”
How many times Miss Pechey was urged to forsake the good fight one
cannot even roughly conjecture. Certainly very often.[93]
Footnote 93:
The following scrap has been inadvertently preserved. There is not
even any certain indication to whom it is addressed:
“When I came into the Anatomical room and saw you sitting there
dissecting, I was overpowered,—utterly conquered. When I spoke to you
and you looked up at me to answer, the look you gave me was the coup
de mort!—I determined then in my own mind to seek you for my wife....
But to see you as you were then with your superlative beauty, working
so bravely, so sensibly,—all fashion, frivolity and folly cast aside,—
was to me so new, so strange and so admirable a sight, that on
considering and re-considering it, I don’t wonder at myself for
flinging aside ordinary prudence to make a snatch at a jewel of such
unusual brilliancy.”
It is almost disappointing to reflect that the recipient of this
tribute was not equally prepared to “fling aside ordinary prudence.”
There was no time, however, to weep over fallen comrades. One must just
give them decent burial, so to speak, and pass on. From this time forth
the work in hand must take a two-fold direction:
1. The struggle in Edinburgh must be carried on with unabated energy, as
if success were a matter of course.
2. Every enquiry must be made, with the utmost secrecy and discretion,
as to a more hopeful solution of the problem elsewhere.
The following letters indicate some of the influences at work:
“13 Sussex Square,
Brighton.
1. November.
DARLING,
You must not think I don’t sympathize with you, but I am so
vexed and perplexed really I don’t know what to say. I always hope you
can see the next step in a clearer and brighter light than I do, and,—
you are sure you have my best wishes. I am rather uneasy about you,
being sure you must be worn and harassed, and can hardly know what to
do next.
I am very glad the examinations were successfully passed....
Your loving,
M. E. J.-B.”
“Trinity College,
Cambridge,
Oct. 18. 1871.
DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,
Mr. Sidgwick has shown me in “the Scotsman” a notice to the
effect that they are attempting to exclude you from paying the fees at
Edinburgh.
Are they making a final effort to reject you? Will it be successful?
If so, have you any plan of action.
Please let us know, for Mr. Sidgwick and I have been consulting
together, and have made up our minds that we will try all that we can
now for your admission to this university, and we are ready to begin,
if you feel that this is your best place to turn to, and if you need
it. Let us know then.
We feel quite sure of ultimate success here in the matter of full
admission of women to the whole benefits of the university.
Still we do not know how distant ‘Ultimate’ may be. We are not
_sanguine_ of success at present in your cause. Still we think it
worth while trying, if it would materially help you.
I am,
Yours truly,
JAMES STUART.”
So there were very brave people in Cambridge as well as in Edinburgh:
for Mr. Stuart as well as Mr. Sidgwick knew all about that unfortunate
speech and the lawsuit to which it led. S. J.-B. had scrupulously sent
them the records; and, as a matter of fact, Mr. Sidgwick had been one of
the many distinguished people who subscribed to the Fund for defraying
the expenses of the lawsuit.
If only the struggle had ended here: if only the University had
consented to give the women the little ledge they coveted on its
precipitous wall: or, failing that, if some young, enlightened
university had said, “Come to us!”—the story would be in all ways a
pleasanter one to tell. But that is not how things happen in life.
Removal to another university at this stage would simply have meant
beginning the fight all over again; and Edinburgh—blundering old
Edinburgh—was so kind, so homelike, with its great army of friends, many
of them convinced that victory lay within sight, that the inducement to
stay in spite of all was great. The very next turn of the wheel might
revolutionize all things.
Meanwhile the protagonist had been on the strain for nearly three years,
and she was growing very weary of the struggle: she was losing a little
of the verve that had carried her on hitherto. The incessant canvassing,
organizing and writing had developed her inherent business capacity to
the last point, and was making her a little intolerant of unbusinesslike
ways in other people. It was more difficult than formerly in journalism
and in verbal argument to show herself all things to all men as she had
done so finely in those first calls on the Professors. But she had not
the smallest idea of giving in: like a strong man lost in the snow, she
was conscious mainly of a resolute determination to keep going on
somehow.
“Your cause is sure to win,” Dr. Guthrie said to her about this time;
“but a cause may be won at the cost of a life.”
“I know,” she replied, “I am prepared to give it mine.”
But she did not mean to die if she could help it until the work was
done.
In any case the next move was fairly clear. The Annual Meeting of
Contributors to the Royal Infirmary was coming round once more, and
again the election turned on the question of the admission of the women
to the wards. S. J.-B. went doggedly on with her canvassing, but the
outer public was getting a little bored with the whole subject, and she
herself had no longer the attraction of freshness and novelty. In those
days perseverance was not reckoned a special virtue in a woman, and
persistence was a positive vice. She received one nasty snub (conveyed
through the office-boy) from one who had been almost a friend, and, in
order to understand what this meant to her, we must remember that family
tradition was strong in her still. Pelted with peas or pursued by a mud-
throwing mob, she never for a moment forgot that she was, in her own
way, _grande dame_. And now she was too tired to brush the little insult
off. “I was fool enough to go out with eyes so full of tears that I
doubted being fit for my next call.”
But the moral thews and sinews were in fine fighting form, and the
ideals of youth were as fresh as ever. The very words of the old
inspiring quotations rose to her mind. How surprised the old managers
would have been if they had heard them! They thought it was only that
weary question of Miss Jex-Blake and the Infirmary.
Kindly folk were many, however, and every now and then she met an
unexpected tribute of appreciation or respect; and sufficient votes were
gained to make the dreary proceeding worth while.[94]
Footnote 94:
It was at this Christmas season that Miss Miranda Hill sent to her old
friend, in the form of a brooch, a “winged Victory,”—meaning, she
said, “many things,”—“the victory of a stedfast noble purpose over
outward obstacles, of love over time.”
Sometimes she would return from these missions to find herself called
out to a slum maternity case undertaken through the mediation of a
friendly doctor. Then,—
“Home after 10 p.m. Then to write leader for Monday. Done about 12.15.
Then to relight fire and get warm,—then bed!”
“Sunday, [Dec.] 31st. Wrote paragraphs and finished article. Went down
to Scotsman Office....
Oh, dear, I hope the things will be in right tomorrow,—and oh, _how_ I
hope we may win!
We have 296 votes more or less promised. _We ought._
Now,—‘ring out the old, ring in the new’—Ah, that it may be so in some
things,—‘Ring out the care that frets the mind’[95]—Ring in quiet and
peace and liberty,—‘leave to toil’.”
Footnote 95:
“Ring out the grief that saps the mind,” is Tennyson’s line. S. J.-
B.’s version needs no explanation.
Next day the great meeting took place, and this time a large hall had
been taken for the purpose.
As before, six candidates were proposed by those in power, and six by
those in favour of the women. The task of the latter was made easier by
the fact that the suggestion of mixed classes had been given up some two
or three months before, the Committee for Securing a Complete Medical
Education for Women in Edinburgh having undertaken to guarantee the
payment of teachers, and to provide suitable rooms and accommodation for
the classes, if the University should find this latter an insoluble
problem.
Professor Christison pointed out incidentally that 80 beds at £40 a bed
would be one item in the reckoning.
When the votes were counted there were:
For the Women, 177
For the Powers, 168
“The result was received with great cheering and waving of handkerchiefs
from the ladies’ party.”
Professor Masson then proceeded to move:
“That henceforward all registered students of Medicine shall be
admitted to the educational advantages of the Infirmary without
distinction of sex,—all details of arrangements, however, being left
to the discretion of the managers.”
The hostile party raised an objection to this on the ground of want of
adequate notice—though Professor Masson had, as a matter of fact,
advertised it in the public papers as required—and, through an
indescribable hubbub, the proposer stood his ground, ably supported by
Professor Calderwood and by Mr. M‘Laren, M.P. When it became clear that
they were going to carry their point, the opposing party rose and left
the hall almost _en masse_; and it was then that Dr. Guthrie made what
proved to be his last public speech, in support of Professor Masson’s
motion. At the close of his peroration, with a wave of his hand towards
the door through which the great retreat had taken place, he concluded
with the lines S. J.-B. had quoted in her diary the night before,
“Ring out the old, ring in the new, ...
Ring out the false, ring in the true!”
The motion was then put to the meeting and carried unanimously.
“I, oh _so_ tired!” says S. J.-B.,—“hearing voices round me in a sort of
swoon.”
Her letter-bag for the next few days was enough to put new life into
anyone.
“24 Hill Street,
Edinburgh.
“My dear Miss Blake, and all your brave sisterhood, Three cheers for
you and one cheer more! My husband has just come back and told me of
your victory.
May this be an augury of future success in every direction.
Ever very truly yours,
E. H. S. BLACKIE.”
A lawyer who had strenuously opposed the idea of mixed classes writes,
“For your sake, I shall make my first charity this year £5 _to the
Infirmary_.”
And no one was more enthusiastic than the young man who was demonstrator
of Anatomy at the time of the riot:
“It would be almost a mockery to wish you all a Happy New Year after
such success. It is enough to turn one’s head, but only, I suppose,
the heads which hammered on so hard in defeat, or rather repulse, are
not to be turned with victory.”
It would have been almost a mockery, certainly, though not in the sense
he meant.
“Sunday, Jan. 7th. Hear that the doctors are going about getting their
patients to sign papers,—exact tenor unknown.”
True enough, here were already the first mutterings of a fresh storm,
and indeed, most people must have been rather uneasy at so terrifying a
victory.
“Dear Miss Jex-Blake,” writes Dr. Heron Watson on January 5th, “See to
it that there is a full representation on behalf of the ladies on
Monday week at the adjourned meeting, as I expect foul play!...”
And another lawyer writes:
“DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,
I don’t know whether you are taking any means to secure a muster
of your friends at the Infirmary meeting on Monday week; but I think
it would be worth while to do so. I am afraid our opponents may
attempt a surprise for the purpose of rescinding the Statute passed at
last meeting as to the admission of Lady Students. I have not heard
that they have any such plan on foot; but as no notice requires to be
given of any such motion, they may not improbably try it, trusting to
our being off our guard.
Yours truly,
WILLIAM ROBSON.”
A fortnight after the Annual Meeting, the Contributors met to hear the
result of a scrutiny of the votes, and it was then that the following
unexpected issue—quite distinct, of course, from the immediate object of
the scrutiny—was thrust upon them:
On the side of the women had voted,
28 firms,
31 ladies,
7 doctors.
On the side of the powers,
14 firms,
2 ladies,
37 doctors.
It was now claimed that the votes of firms were incompetent, at the
majority really lay on the other side.
“It mattered nothing,” said the _Scotsman_,[96] “that firms had voted
ever since the Infirmary was founded; that contributors qualified only
as members of firms had, as has now been ascertained, sat over and
over again on the Board of Management, and on the Committee of
Contributors. It was of equally slight importance that the firms whom
it was now sought to disqualify had been among the most generous
benefactors of the charity, and that, with the imminent prospect
before them of great pecuniary necessity, it would probably be
impossible, without their aid, to carry out even the plans for the new
building. The firms had voted in favour of the ladies, and the firms
must go, if at least the law would (as it probably will not) bear out
the medical men in their reckless endeavour to expel them.”
Footnote 96:
January 29, 1872.
An appeal to law, however, is a slow affair, and on this occasion there
was obviously no inducement for the law to bestir itself unduly. It was
not till July 23rd that Lord Jerviswoode pronounced the votes of firms
to be perfectly valid.
The case was appealed to a higher court, where it did not come on for
trial till the end of October: it was then again postponed and judgment
was not given till December.
“Dec. 7th. Saturday. Judgment from Second Division in our favour on
all points.”
The Annual Meeting was now once more at hand, however, when new managers
might be elected who were unfriendly to the women. Needless to say the
woman’s party lost no time. A Contributors’ meeting was called for
December 16th, and another for December 23rd, when a vote was passed
admitting the women to the Infirmary on condition that their visits were
to be separate from those of the men, and that they were to go only to
those wards where their presence was invited by the physicians.
So at last they got their tickets, and began an attendance which was to
“qualify” for graduation.
“Qualify” in the technical sense; assuredly not in any other. What the
girl graduate of the present day would say to such qualification, one
need scarcely ask. Here is S. J.-B.’s account of it:
“Dr. Balfour gave us a separate hour in his wards three times a week,
and such chances of practical study as could be arranged from time to
time. Dr. Watson’s very large practice, as the most eminent surgeon in
Scotland, made it impossible for him, at whatever inconvenience, to
repeat his visit in this manner, and our enemies would have gained
their point, had he not, with a kindness which I find myself even now
quite unable to acknowledge duly, given up for the two whole winter
sessions his Sunday mornings (his one day of rest) to our instruction,
while steadily refusing to accept any fees whatever for this great
sacrifice of his time and strength. Few more chivalrous acts were ever
done, and I only hope he found his reward in the lifelong gratitude of
a dozen women, who were not at that time too much accustomed to such
kindness and courtesy as his.”
To the end of her life, S. J.-B. looked upon these two men as “the
shadow of a great rock in a weary land,” and another name she would have
added with (in one sense) even better reason—that of Dr. Peel Ritchie,
who, a strong Conservative, absolutely and avowedly at that time without
sympathy for the “cause,” from a sheer sense of fair play, gave up his
class of men at the Royal Dispensary in order to teach a class of women
instead.
* * * * *
Of course S. J.-B. was a “celebrity” by this time. Here is an amusing
letter from a distinguished man who had been asked to meet her and her
friends at dinner:
[Letter undated.]
“MY DEAR EDITOR,
Wae’s me that I am engaged on Saturday! If I could on any decent
pretence get off I would do it _aftsoons_, for apart from the pleasure
of meeting yourself and Mrs. R., I would like fine to meet the other
ladies in such company, especially _some_ of them. I won’t say which!
But I accepted an invitation the other day from —— to meet a Mr. —— a
very nice Irishman that’s working at our Celtic MSS., and I promised
to show the Milesian the way. So though I would go far for the sake of
the ladies and of you, I feel that it would be rather too flagrant a
breach of faith to tell old —— that I have another engagement which I
had _forgotten_. I wish he or his wife would take some harmless
disease for a day or two and put off their dinner.
I needn’t say that I appreciate immensely the distinction of being
asked as the one man in Edinburgh worthy of admission to that select
company! It’s equal to the Cross of the Legion of Honour and a great
deal better. There’s something in the idea too that piques the
imagination. It’s as if—but far better—a favoured mortal got a special
card per Ganymede, to sup quietly in Olympus with Mr. and Mrs. Jupiter
and the Misses Minerva, Diana and Urania: or like being asked by a
Flamen and his wife to meet three of the Vestal Virgins over a jar of
Falernian; or again like an invitation from the grand Lama to have a
little jollification with a few Buddhist lady abbesses in the
innermost shrine of the great temple at Lassa, or from a chief of
Carbonari to take a glass and pipe with Mazzini, Garibaldi, etc.
There’s no end of the things it suggests.
As to your unworthy fears, fie upon them! You are more to be envied
than the Sultan, the Pope or Brigham Young.
Hoping to have a chance some other time of doing homage to the
Trinity, and to have the pleasure soon of calling upon Mrs. Russel.
I rest,
Ever Yours,
——.”
And her fame—or notoriety—extended to the most unexpected classes of
society. “Miss Jex-Blake had that house last year,” the driver of a
Highland coach would say, pointing with his whip in the direction of the
farm where she had stayed. Her name occurred repeatedly in that year’s
pantomime, and Harlequin and Columbine had called to ask if she had any
objection to this,—an incident which she always recalled with amusement
and appreciation. The main reference, as it happened, was quite
complimentary. A game was played on the stage in which various Edinburgh
dignitaries were the cards; but “Miss Jex-Blake” took the trick.
Her dislike of publicity was great, but she had long since hardened
herself to endure it in so far as was necessary for her work’s sake.
Beyond that she drew the line absolutely. The press rang with her name
for a few years, but she steadily refused to be interviewed. It was
nothing to her that the public had not the smallest idea of the more
human side of her character. “Nothing,” she wrote in response to many
requests, “would induce her to consent to the sale of her photograph.”
Her holidays were spent in absolute retirement, and intimate friends
will never forget how, on the first day in the country, the words would
rise to her lips,—
“The pulse of dew upon the grass kept his within its number,
And silent shadows from the trees refreshed him like a slumber.”
A memorandum of this period directs that, in case of her death, the
funeral shall be as simple and inexpensive as possible, and that the
headstone—if headstone there be—shall bear only her name, the dates, and
the words,—“Then are they glad because they be quiet.”
“Partly you see, I am so tired,” she had written half to herself and
half to Miss Du Pre in February,—“not physically or even mentally
exactly. I could come up to any given exertion of either kind for the
time being; but my whole nature is strained and wearied. I can get up
energy for nothing,—can but just get through the day’s work in the day
and long for rest!
‘Hades must rest us for ages,
Ere we can glory see.’
No, my glory _is_ rest!...
How strange lives are! Miss Anderson’s husband—married Oct. 5th (?),
died on Monday, November 12th,—love enough to change a life for, and
it,—no, not _it_, the marriage,—ends in 4 months!”
It was about this time that her friend Mrs. Unwin died. Up to the last
she had followed the Edinburgh campaign with intense interest and
sympathy. S. J.-B. had promised that, whatever the claims of her work
might be, she would pay a last visit to the Yorkshire home in case of
“utter need”; but Mrs. Unwin refused to make this plea. Resolutely she
bore her own cross: and, with a last message of “deepest love and
regard,” she passed away.