THE RUSSELL GURNEY ENABLING ACT
It was at this stage that Mrs. Anderson’s help was so invaluable to the
great venture. She had an assured position—social and professional—in
the metropolis; and her name carried the weight that belongs to a sane
and shrewd and able personality. It is impossible to over-estimate the
good she had done to “the Cause” by simply showing that a woman _can be
a reliable and successful practitioner_. She had founded a small
hospital for women; but she still thought that the time for the creation
of a good medical school for women had not come,—that it would have been
better to wait till public opinion was more distinctly in favour of
women doctors: and she would have fostered the growth of public opinion
by encouraging women to obtain foreign degrees, and to practise in
England as unregistered physicians and surgeons.
She was strengthened in this position by the fact that S. J.-B. was not
the Founder she would have chosen: she judged the Edinburgh campaign by
its net result as regarded the immediate object at which it had aimed,
and, so far as Edinburgh University was concerned, that net result was
failure. There were those, moreover, who assured her, not without a
measure of truth, that Miss Jex-Blake’s impulsiveness (“want of
judgment,” “want of temper,” she told S. J.-B.) had done great harm in
Edinburgh. She and her informants alike failed, perhaps, at the moment
to realize how that same impulsiveness (mistakes and all) had formed the
picturesque element that made the popular appeal,—how that same
impulsiveness had roused and had borne the brunt of the latent
opposition which must have manifested itself sooner or later under the
wisest management.
There is abundant contemporary evidence to this effect. Dr. Mary Putnam
Jacobi wrote from America:
“You have fortunately been able to interest a much larger and better
class of people than have ever bestirred themselves in the matter
here. The list of governors of your School is quite imposing. You at
least have had the advantage attaching to a conspicuous battle with
real and dignified forces engaged on each side; whereas here,—this
question, as so many others, has rather dribbled into the sand.”
Miss Pechey, too, after delivering a lecture in Yorkshire a year later,
wrote:
“I couldn’t conclude without saying that all we had done towards
opening up the medical profession to women was due mainly to Miss Jex-
Blake, who had got all the abuse because she had done all the work,—in
fact all along she had done the work of three women or (with a grin at
the phalanx of men behind)—of ten men! This brought down the house.”
“Mrs. Garrett Anderson is a fine instance of an individual success,”
said one of the physicians who assisted the movement in those early
days; “but Miss Jex-Blake fights the battle, not for herself, but for
all.”
Of course an individual success cannot but assist a movement of the kind
quite as surely as any other contribution.
One thing the two pioneers had in common,—a fine honesty and
truthfulness: much plain speaking passed between them: and, if it had
been possible for two such different natures to see things eye to eye,
no want of candour or breadth of view on either side would have
prevented it. Here is a sample of their correspondence:
“Hampstead.
21st August, 1874.
DEAR MRS. ANDERSON,
If I kept a record of all the people who bring me cock and bull
stories about you, and assure me that you are “greatly injuring the
cause,” I might fill as many pages with quotations as you have
patience to read, but, beyond defending you on a good many occasions,
I have never thought it needful to take much notice of such incidents,
still less to retail them to you.
Nor do I much care to know whether or no certain anonymous individuals
have confided to you that they lay at my door what you call “the
failure at Edinburgh,”—inasmuch as the only people really competent to
judge of that point are my fellow-workers and fellow-students, such as
Professor Masson, Professor Bennett, Miss Stevenson, Mrs. Thorne, Miss
Pechey, Dr. Watson, and Dr. Balfour, and I do not fancy that it is
from any of these that you have heard the comments in question.
It can, as I say, serve no purpose whatever to go into this sort of
gossip which is very rarely indeed founded on any knowledge of facts;
but, quite apart from any such discussion, I am more than willing to
say that if, in the opinion of a majority of those who are organizing
this new school, my name appears likely to injure its chances of
success, I will cheerfully stand aside, and let Mrs. Thorne and Miss
Pechey carry out the almost completed plans.
So much for your second objection [to joining the Council of the
School] which I have taken first, because I feel that the other is for
your own consideration and Dr. Anstie’s, and that it is needless for
me to say anything on the point.
In conclusion let me say that I never said it ‘did not signify’
whether you joined the Council (though I _did_ say that I believed the
School was already tolerably secure of ultimate success.) I think it
of very great importance, both for your credit and ours, that there
should, as you say, be no appearance of split in the camp, and I
should greatly prefer that your name should appear on the Council with
Dr. Blackwell’s and those of the medical men who are helping us.
Believe me,
Yours truly,
SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE.”
So Mrs. Anderson joined the Council, taking no part in the daily life
and work of the School, but bringing to the new venture excellent
qualities in which S. J.-B. was lacking, among them the valuable gift
for bearing in mind who are the people worth conciliating,—the people
with whom one simply must not quarrel.
S. J.-B., on the other hand, brought an amount of practical capacity and
experience which the reader can estimate for himself. We have seen what
she expected—and got—from her solicitor in the matter of the draft of a
Parliamentary Bill: it is not to be supposed that she was less
successful with printers, nor with plumbers, carpenters and others. She
knew exactly how quickly a proof might be expected in an emergency, and
she knew what the printing ought to cost. If there was anything about
the printed page that struck the eye as “odd,” she had her finger on the
technical defect in a moment, and saw that it was put right. She loved
drawing up specifications for tanks, etc., and making her drawing to
scale: carpentry was an unfailing joy,—nuts, bolts, staples, screws were
as familiar to her as were bourgeois, pica, leads, and other mysteries
of the printer’s craft. “I like working for the Doctor,” an Edinburgh
joiner said in later years, “she knows what she wants, and she knows
when it is well done”; but of course it was only a competent and
conscientious workman who could rise to this view of the case.
Fortunately life provides a good many of these: when S. J.-B. met one,
she valued him as he deserved.
Recalling the early days of the School at a meeting of the Governing
Body more than twenty years later, Mr. Norton said:
“Miss Jex-Blake had come to him in 1874 after leaving Edinburgh, and
he had then expressed the opinion that if funds were raised and a
school established of which all the teachers were recognized by the
Examining Boards,—the Apothecaries’ Society would be obliged to admit
its students to examination. By the middle of October Miss Jex-Blake
had succeeded in obtaining £1300 and in renting 30 Handel Street for
the purposes of a School of Medicine for Women. It was her great
energy which succeeded in so promptly carrying out the work of
starting the School.”
“Mrs. Anderson said she recollected that in those early days she had
been timid and had considered the time had not yet arrived for
establishing a separate School of Medicine for Women. To organize a
School on the slender sum of money raised by Miss Jex-Blake required
great optimism....”
So it did. It required much more than optimism. It required a unique
capacity for directing and supervising every atom of work done, a unique
capacity for getting a full and fair penny’s worth out of every penny, a
unique capacity for finding workers who would put their shoulder to the
wheel, and do things for love. Chief of these workers always was
herself.
After the first Prize-giving Miss M‘Laren writes:
“L[ouisa] S[tevenson] and I have just been saying that no one but you
could have done all that work on Wednesday. But indeed there is almost
nothing that you don’t do better than everyone else.”
Few even of S. J.-B.’s opponents would have denied that this was true.
In everything connected with Board and Business meetings she was an
expert. To say one had been trained under her was for many years an
invaluable testimonial among those who knew. Her enthusiasm was combined
with a clear-sighted grasp of every detail of the situation. Repeatedly
one finds Cabinet Ministers and other busy people saying,—“I won’t look
at the documents till you come and give me the thread,” “I can’t begin
to write the paper till you come and talk me into it,” or words to that
effect.
Valuable qualities these: but not necessarily the qualities that create
the pleasantest possible atmosphere for those who have been in the habit
of slipping through life easily. There must have been a good many then
as later who would have been glad on occasion to deal with someone a
little less business-like.
In any case the thing was launched, Mr. Norton accepted the office of
Dean[128]; there was a staff of able lecturers; and twenty-three
students joined during the first year. Mrs. Anderson and others brought
much needed financial help; Lord Shaftesbury distributed the prizes at
the end of the first winter session; and Lord Aberdare presided at the
first meeting of the Governing Body. So far all went well.
Footnote 128:
To the great loss of the medical women—as to many besides—Dr. Anstie
died suddenly on September 12th.
Many were the congratulations from Edinburgh and St. Andrews, mingled
naturally with regrets that the little social centre at 15 Buccleuch
Place seemed permanently broken up. Professor Lewis Campbell and
Principal Tulloch were sure the situation as regarded their University
had been greatly simplified by the creation of a good School; and Dr. G.
W. Balfour wrote:
“I only regret that you will be so far beyond my reach that it will be
impossible for me to coöperate actively in your future education,—
though I shall always be very glad to do anything I can for you.”
This was one of the rare blank cheques on futurity that are destined to
be redeemed to the last farthing.
Professor Masson, too, was keen as ever.
“10 Regent Terrace, Edinr.
Oct. 23, 1874.
DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,
I had purposed when in London to give myself the pleasure of a
visit to the new premises, and to hear from yourself all about the
school and its prospects; but I was up on the business of some
researches, and had to spend my days, almost to the last, at the
British Museum or Record Office. One day I had a glimpse of you in a
cab passing the British Museum gate, but too fast and too far off to
be stopped. Mrs. Masson who is to be in London for a few days more
will certainly make her way to Henrietta Street.
I was very glad indeed to hear of so much success in organizing the
new School, and glad also to hear several medical men I met in London
speak of it not only approvingly on their own account, but also with a
kind of conviction that it would settle matters. Are there not several
rocks ahead however? And what about the Apothecaries and their
disposition? May they not be acted upon by those opponents in the
profession whose opposition is now likely to take the form of
permitting women to qualify themselves under a different title to that
given to men. The conservatives of the University of London Senate
will probably promote this current of opinion.
With best regards to all Edinburgh friends with you,
Believe me,
Yours very truly,
DAVID MASSON.”
Dr. Masson had put his finger precisely on the difficulty. It was still
necessary to secure two indispensable conditions of success,—1.
Qualifying Hospital Instruction, and 2. Recognition by some Examining
Board. It is clear that even Mr. Norton had no idea when he first
espoused the cause how great this double difficulty would prove.
Application was made to every one of the nineteen Examining Boards, and
to every one application was made in vain. The Hospitals proved equally
obdurate. “Why should _this_ University be the _corpus vile_?” Dr. Lyon
Playfair had asked in Parliament the year before: and this very human
and comprehensible cry was doubtless echoed by every Examining Body in
the land.
S. J.-B. was determined not to let the public forget the question, and
in March 1875 she had an article in the _Fortnightly_, which Mr. Morley
(now Lord Morley) had accepted very cordially.
“It will give me the most entire satisfaction,” he wrote, “to join the
Governing Body of the New School of Medicine for Women, and I shall not
grudge whatever time may be necessary for taking part in its
proceedings. I thank you for your invitation.”
Once more the hopes of the women centred in Parliament. On March 3rd,
1875, Mr. Cowper Temple again brought forward his Enabling Bill, and a
long debate ensued, but the Bill was lost by 196 votes to 153. On March
25th he returned to the charge with a Bill to permit the registration of
the degrees of the Universities of France, Berlin, Leipzig, Berne and
Zurich, where such degrees were held by women. This was simply an
extension of a concession in the Medical Act of 1858, by which any
persons in practice in England with foreign degrees _at that date_ were
allowed to register. It was found impossible, however, to obtain the
support of Government to this measure, and no day could be secured for a
second reading, so the matter was again deferred.
It was not to be expected that the students would go on indefinitely
taking theoretical classes that led to nothing, and the future was
beginning to look dark when at last a step forward was made.
Mr. Stansfeld, Mr. Cowper Temple, and Mr. Russell Gurney were all the
kind of friends with whom one would go tiger-hunting, and no one of the
three showed any intention of backing out. On the 16th of June, in
answer to a question of Mr. Stansfeld’s, Lord Sandon admitted in the
name of the Government that the subject of the medical education of
women, only very lately submitted to Government, demanded their
consideration; and he undertook that it should be carefully considered
by the Government during the recess, so that they should be enabled to
express definite views with regard to legislation upon it in the next
session.
In the meantime Mr. Simon, in the name of the President of the Privy
Council, had addressed a letter to the President of the General Medical
Council requesting the observations of that Council on Mr. Cowper
Temple’s Bill, and indeed on the whole subject of the admission of women
to the medical profession.
The General Medical Council took up the question at last in all
seriousness, and the discussion lasted three days, during which many
remarkable things were said on both sides. Finally a report was adopted
and presented to the Privy Council to the effect that,
“The Medical Council are of opinion that the study and practice of
Medicine and Surgery, instead of affording a field of exertion well
fitted for women, do on the contrary, present special difficulties
which cannot be safely disregarded; but the Council are not prepared
to say that women ought to be excluded from the profession.”
In the autumn of 1875 a fresh hope was raised, owing to a really
brilliant suggestion of Mr. Simon’s. He bethought himself that those
doctors who wished the women to have a different qualification from that
of men might be willing to allow them to enter for the Licence in
Midwifery of the College of Surgeons. Now this Midwifery Licence,
strangely enough, was a regular qualification, involving the same
medical curriculum as the M.R.C.S., and entitling those who held it to
put their names on the Medical Register, and to practise legally with
full rights as doctors. There was no reason why those women who had a
complete set of certificates from Edinburgh should not go in for it at
once, and forthwith become qualified general practitioners. It was not a
very dignified way of entering the profession, but it did seem to be a
way.
“Thursday, Nov. 11th. Today saw Simon again. He thinks they would
admit us for Midwifery Licence with present certificates,—not for
M.R.C.S.—though expressly same [certificates] required in Regulations.
Better to get on the Register _anyhow_ it seems to me?
Only, could it choke off anything better? Hardly. If told that was
open and refused, half our case gone. Besides any _existing_ Exam.
better than a special one.
Shall ask K[ing] Ch[ambers] tomorrow.
Nov. 12th. Homme propose! K[ing] Ch[ambers] out of town....
To see Sir J. Paget tomorrow.
Bertie[129] been here today. Quite agrees, get anything you can,—ask
for more by and bye.
In fact one’s position would be far stronger after one’s certificates
had been accepted for the one,—when identical are required for the
other. Ah, well! Qui vivra verra—many things!...
Saturday, Nov. 13th. Sir J. Paget this morning,—with Dr. A. He very
kind and courteous, infinitely more of a gentleman than most.
He decidedly of opinion that we could not get admitted to the
M.R.C.S., but probably might to the L.M. He at least evidently thought
we ought, and thought most of the Council would think so too. They
meet apparently on Dec. 14th, and he advises us to send in application
before that, and then, if granted, we can be examined by end of
December.
Fancy an Exam. in Midwifery _only_ putting one on the Register!...
Tuesday, 16th. Saw Sir James Paget again at his request. He thinks we
had better not apply before the meeting, but give application to
Critchett to present, if desirable at the time....
Wednesday 17th. Saw Critchett. Most friendly and wholehearted—willing
to raise the question of M.R.C.S. if we liked, but I advised one step
first, then leverage for next....
Chambers not quite satisfied about L.M. but thinks it on the whole
best for the cause (‘perhaps not for yourselves,’) to take it if we
can.”
Footnote 129:
Miss Bertha Cordery, now Mrs. S. R. Gardiner.
So those three brave women, Mrs. Thorne, Miss Pechey and S. J.-B.
proceeded to rub up their Midwifery, and meanwhile the authorities of
the College took the opinion of counsel as to their legal power to grant
or refuse the application. If no one else prospered by that long and
wearing struggle, certainly the lawyers did! On this occasion they
earned their salt by declaring “that the College had power to admit
women under its supplemental charter, and could be compelled by legal
process so to examine and grant certificates, ... that the Medical Act
clearly considered a holder of such certificates a licentiate in
midwifery, and as such entitled to register.”
“Friday, 21st. Jan. My 36th birthday. Just half my life since I began
independently. So curious to look back on cogitations of 18th
birthday! But even then I had a presentiment of ‘sunshine and storm.’
It seems as if this year was really to gain (tho’ in rather mesquin
shape) what I have been fighting for in England for 7 years—
Registration.
College of Surgeons on 7th Jan. decided on advice of their counsel,
Mr. Beaver, that they could not exclude women from the licence in
Midwifery,—so we three seniors have sent in our certificates, etc.—
given to Critchett on application on Dec. 4th,—presented by him on
Jan. 7th.”
On March 17th, the women were told that their certificates had been
accepted, but, on the public announcement of this fact, the whole board
of examiners resigned. In relating the circumstances a year later, Mr.
Stansfeld wrote that “since then there had been no examiners and no
examination.”
“Perhaps after all it is as well,” wrote Miss Pechey from Birmingham,
where she now held a post at the Women’s Hospital under Mr. Lawson
Tait,—“perhaps after all it is as well, as it gives us a stronger case
for Parliament, and that licence would have been a sorry thing to
practise upon....”
After suggesting a great scheme of a new “National University,” she
concludes,—
“I suppose you can’t think of any way in which I could earn some
money? I am beginning to wonder what I shall do when I leave here: I
can’t begin to practise till I have had more midwifery.
* * * * *
“I have only one other resource to suggest now this College of
Surgeons has failed, viz., that I should go over to Ireland, take that
Licence in Midwifery and then try to force the Registrar to register
it,—if he would not do so at once, by legal measures. _Qu’en pensez-
vous?_
Yours aff.
E. P.”
This is simply quoted to show the state—not indeed of despair, but of
desperation, which these gallant women had reached. One can sympathize
with this _cri du coeur_ from S. J.-B.’s diary:
“Here comes Miss Irby’s note this morning,—wanting a hospital for the
wounded at Serajevo.... Oh, dear, how I should love to go! It would
probably be just the making of me as a surgeon,—and I have such a sort
of wild feeling of wanting to ‘break out,’—of having been sair hadden
doun by many bubbly jocks,—by the constant fighting, by Mother’s
frequent illnesses, etc., etc. I feel as if it would be an intense
relief to break right away into half savage parts and do hard rough
work—and breathe!
And then how nice it would be with Miss Irby.... I want to get away
from mental strain and excitement,—to bodily hard work.
And what magnificent practice it would be!”
* * * * *
“U. D. P. against Serbian idea. Thinks my Mother would die in my
absence and I never forgive myself.
Also I should hurt ‘the cause’ by doctoring men.
I doubt both propositions, but can’t disprove either.
My brain is in a sort of dull ‘waiting’ condition,—‘quo Deus vocat.’
Well, isn’t that best? Yes, if _thoroughly_ honest.
I suppose the constant worry and constant thwarting have made me
almost wild to break away for a bit. I feel somehow as if my mind were
all strained, and this better than anything would give it back its
tone.”
Miss Irby’s idea came to nothing for lack of funds, but in any case, of
course, S. J.-B. could not have gone. It was she who held in her hands
all the parliamentary threads, and she was looking anxiously for some
practical outcome from Lord Sandon’s promise of the year before. On
January 14th, however, Mr. Cowper Temple wrote:
“DEAR MISS BLAKE,
The Government are not prepared to tell me whether they will
introduce any Bill next session on the subject of the medical
registration of women, and therefore it will be necessary for me to
bring in my Bill again at the commencement of the session....”
S. J.-B. thought it worth while, however, to remind the Government
tactfully of their promise, and she had learned by bitter experience to
keep every possible iron in the fire. So a deputation from the London
School of Medicine for Women, headed by Lord Aberdare, and including
herself and Mrs. Anderson, waited on the Duke of Richmond and Gordon,
Lord President of the Privy Council. The mission was ably voiced by Lord
Aberdare, Mr. Stansfeld, and Mr. Forsyth, M.P., Q.C., whose name now
appeared on the back of Mr. Cowper Temple’s Bill; but, although
courteously received, the deputation elicited no farther encouragement.
In these circumstances, Mr. Cowper Temple again introduced his “Foreign
Degrees” Bill, but fortune did not favour him in the matter of the
ballot for dates, and, in the meantime, S. J.-B. writes in her diary:
“Saturday, May 13th. Saw Russell Gurney [who was now Recorder of
London]. Found Government had intimated to him that he should bring in
Bill _enabling_ all nineteen bodies,—to be shown to General Medical
Council on 24th.
_If_ this passes!
Might graduate at Edinburgh after all.”
On the 5th of July Mr. Cowper Temple’s Bill came on for second reading,
but was withdrawn after debate upon a statement from Lord Sandon that
the Government were prepared to support the Recorder’s Bill. Even then
anxiety was by no means at an end, for the Government were not prepared
to make the Bill their own and find a day for it, and any persistent
opposition would have been almost necessarily fatal to its passing at so
late a time. One can picture the surprise with which S. J.-B. received
the following letter:
“8 Palace Gardens, W.
21 July, [1876].
DEAR MISS JEX-BLAKE,
I saw Lord Shaftesbury yesterday and he intends to give notice
on Monday to move the second reading on Tuesday.
The third reading will probably follow in a day or two.
All that we shall then have to wait for will be the Royal Assent.
Always sincerely yours,
RUSSELL GURNEY.”
On August 12th the Bill became law. Henceforth no University nor
Examining Board could be in any doubt at all as to its own powers. Those
mysterious depths were at least no longer “an uncharted sea.”
On August 7th Miss Pechey writes:
“Has our Bill received the Royal Assent? If so, I suppose Mrs. Thorne
and I might apply any time to Edinburgh, though I don’t suppose she
would consent to say what I intend to. I mean simply to ask them
whether now they have the power, they intend honourably to fulfil the
contract they made with me in 1869. It does not matter to me when I
send in the question, as we can’t be examined, I believe, till next
April. Isn’t it so? But of course we had better not apply till the
Arts Professors are back.
Ever yours affect.
E. P.”
Edinburgh, however, did not prove encouraging even to its own
matriculated students, so Miss Pechey—accompanied by Miss Shove—went to
Ireland in September to see what could be effected there. She was very
cordially received, though many with whom she had to deal were quite
unaware of the existence of the all-important Baby Act; and one can
imagine the joy with which, after much labour, she wrote to report that
both the Queen’s University and the King’s and Queen’s College of
Physicians had consented to examine women, subject only to their
complying with the ordinary regulations. “Miss Pechey has done wonders,”
wrote Mrs. Thorne.
The University regulations required attendance at four courses of
lectures in one of the Queen’s Colleges (at Cork, Belfast and Galway),
and four professors at Galway agreed to deliver these; but, owing
mainly—as happened so often!—to the opposition of one influential man,
the Council of the College interposed and vetoed the arrangement.
Fortunately the Irish College made no difficulties, and to that body
belongs the credit of being the first to grant to women—and above all,
to _these_ women—the long-deferred privilege of Registration. “I cannot
realize,” wrote Mrs. Thorne to S. J.-B. a few weeks later, “that an
examining body is absolutely open to us.” “You have been the mainspring
of the seven years’ struggle, and to you we are all deeply indebted for
the result.”
* * * * *
Before passing on, we must record one pleasant distraction which that
summer had afforded in the appearance of Mr. Charles Reade on the scene,
deeply interested in “the fight,” and very anxious to obtain materials
for his _Woman Hater_. There are numerous letters from him to S. J.-B.,
asking information about this happening and that: and he spent many
mornings at her house, studying the archives. The novel achieved no
small success by running its course in _Blackwood’s Magazine_, within
the very gates, so to speak, of the enemy’s citadel.