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university. Dunbar had received private medical tuition from Elizabeth Garret-
Anderson and had hoped, like Garret-Anderson, to take the examinations of the
Apothecaries’ Hall. However, after the Apothecaries’ Hall revised its regulations so
that women could not be admitted to its examinations, Dunbar went to the
University of Zurich to study and was soon followed by two other British women,
Louisa Atkins and Frances Hoggan. Dunbar spent four years in Zurich, qualifying
with a distinction in her MD degree in 1872 and undertaking postgraduate study in
Vienna, before returning to England. After qualifying from the KQCPI, she worked at
the Bristol Hospital for Sick Children. 44
Table i: First ten female licentiates of the King and Queen’s College of Physicians in
Ireland
Year Name Previous qualification
1877 Eliza Louisa Walker Dunbar MD Zurich
1877 Frances Elizabeth Hoggan MD Zurich
1877 Louisa Atkins MD Zurich
1877 Mary Edith Pechey MD Bern
1877 Sophia Jex-Blake MD Bern
1878 Annie Reay Barker MD Paris
1878 Ann Elizabeth Clark MD Paris
1878 Agnes McLaren MD Montpellier
1878 Anna Dahms MD Paris
1879 Jane Elizabeth Waterson MD Brussels
Source: Roll of Licentiates of the KQCPI
In contrast, the majority of British universities did not open to women until the 1890s
and 1900s, with the exception of the University of London which decided to admit
women to take medical degrees from 1878. Thus, there were no graduates from the
university until 1882 when Mary Ann Scharlieb and Edith Shove graduated through
the London School of Medicine for Women. 45 The women who took their medical
degrees at the University of London had trained at this school which had been
established by Sophia Jex-Blake in 1874 and they attained their practical
experience at the Royal Free Hospital. 46 Despite the opening up of examinations at
44 M.A. Elston, ‘Eliza Louisa Walker Dunbar’, ODNB.
45 List of graduates of the University of London.
http://www.shl.lon.ac.uk/specialcollections/archives/studentrecords.shtml. With thanks to
Richard Temple, archivist at Senate House Library, University of London.
46 Negley Harte, The University of London 1836-1986, (London: Athlone Press, 1986),
p.128.
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