The Edinburgh Seven – Greenside @ Riddle’s Court
The Edinburgh Seven were the first women to go to medical school in Scotland - and indeed the whole UK. But they faced discrimination from the University of Edinburgh, ridicule from male lecturers, criticism in some newspapers, and insults and even violence from male students.
Their story began in the 1860s long before women (or even most men) had the vote. In 1869 Sophia Jex-Blake applied to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. Then in her late twenties, she had been born and educated in England. She lived for a while in the USA and applied to Harvard University for a place in their medical school, but her application was declined because she was a woman. On returning to England Jex-Blake wrote an essay, entitled ‘Medicine as a profession for women’ in which she argued that w...