CHAPTER XIX

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.