IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0106 7/EGA
Held at: Women's Library
Title: Papers of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
Date(s): 1871-1918
Level of description: Collection
Extent: 0.5 box
Name of creator(s): Anderson | Elizabeth | 1836-1917 | née Garrett | physician
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the daughter of Newson Garrett and Louise Dunnell, was born in London in 1836, one of twelve children. From 1851 to 1853 she was educated in Blackheath but while visiting Northumberland in 1854, Elizabeth met Emily Davies who would remain a friend and supporter for the rest of her life. Five years later Garrett met Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in the United States to qualify as a doctor, influencing the former to enter the field of medicine. Attempts to enter several medical schools failed; Garrett instead became a nurse at the Middlesex Hospital though her efforts to attended lectures for the male doctors also came to nothing. However, it came to light that the Society of Apothecaries did not specify that females were banned for taking their examinations and in 1865 Garrett sat and passed their examination before establishing a medical practice in London. That same year, she joined Emily Davies, Dorothea Beale and Frances Mary Buss to form the Kensington Society and in 1866 signed their petition for women's enfranchisement. In 1866 Garrett created a women's dispensary and four years later was appointed visiting physician to the East London Hospital where she met James Anderson, the man who was to become her husband in 1871. Though she later graduated from the University of Paris, the British Medical Register refused to recognise her MD degree. In the next few years she became the first woman elected to serve on a school board in England, the mother of three children, opened the women-run New Hospital for Women in London with Elizabeth Blackwell and helped Sophia Jex-Blake to establish the London Medical School for Women to which Garrett Anderson was elected Dean in 1884. Though she was never on the executives of any of the major suffrage societies, she did chair meetings and was a member first of the Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage and then later of the London Society for Women's Suffrage. On her retirement she moved to Aldeburgh and became mayor in 1908. Subsequently, however, she returned to suffrage politics, but left the National Union of Suffrage Societies, which her sister Millicent Fawcett dominated, and became active in the militant Women's Social and Political Union until 1911 when she objected to their arson campaign. Her daughter Louisa Garrett Anderson remained and in 1912 was sent to prison for her militant activities. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson died in 1917.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Legal papers related to the marriage of Elizabeth Garrett and James Anderson in 1871: marriage settlement, notices to insurance companies, solicitors correspondence, estate duty form, stock certificates, trustees cash accounts, memorandum.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English
System of arrangement:
Conditions governing access:
This collection is open for consultation. Intending readers are advised to contact The Women's Library in advance of their first visit.
Conditions governing reproduction:
Finding aids:
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
Received from family solicitors via the British Records Association in 1985.
ALLIED MATERIALS
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Archivist's note: Created and used with the kind permission of the Archives Hub. Amended by Genesis Project Manager.
Date(s) of descriptions: 23/10/2001