Edinburgh Seven

They began studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1869 and, although the Court of Session ruled that they should never have been admitted, and they did not graduate or qualify as doctors, the campaign they fought gained national attention and won them many supporters, including Charles Darwin.

[1] Sophia Jex-Blake applied to study medicine in March 1869 and although the Medical Faculty and the Senatus Academicus voted in favour of allowing her to study medicine, the University Court rejected her application on the grounds that the university could not make the necessary arrangements 'in the interest of one lady'[2] Jex-Blake then advertised in The Scotsman and other national newspapers for more women to join her.

Edith Pechey's letter read: Do you think anything more is requisite to ensure success than moderate abilities and a good share of perseverance?

I am afraid I should not without a good deal of previous study be able to pass the preliminary exam.This modest letter did not do justice to her intellectual ability; see § The Hope Scholarship below.

In all other respects the women were to be treated exactly as the men were, 'subject to all the regulations now or at any future time in force in the University as to the matriculation of students, their attendance on classes, examinations or otherwise.'

Edith Pechey, who had written the humble letter to Sophia Jex-Blake (see above), had won first place amongst the candidates sitting the exam for the first time and so had first claim on a Hope Scholarship.

This scholarship had been instituted 40 years previously by the Professor of Chemistry, Thomas Charles Hope, and was awarded to the first four of those students who were sitting it for the first time.

Dr Crum-Brown, the current Professor of Chemistry, had at first been pleased to help the women students, but had observed growing resentment towards them from colleagues in the Medical Faculty, in particular the influential Sir Robert Christison.

A debate was held in April 1870 by the University Court to decide on whether the women should be allowed in mixed classes (and thereby be fully equal to the male students, reducing the significantly higher fees they were paying and making them eligible to win prizes too).

During this debate, Prof. Robert Christison and Prof. Laycock expressed views that gained the attention of the national press, which came down in support of the women.

She catalogued the abuse: her doorbell was "wrenched off" and her nameplate damaged five times; a Catherine wheel was attached to her door; smoke was blown in their faces; filthy letters were sent; they were waylaid in quiet streets; obscenities were shouted at them in public.

The women began to take precautions, such as walking only as a group, but none of them were prepared for the events that took place on Friday 18 November 1870.

At four o'clock in the afternoon of Friday 18 November 1870 the women were due to sit an anatomy exam at Surgeons' Hall.

When the women were seen approaching, a large number of the crowd began pelting them with rubbish and mud as well as shouting abuse and insults at them.

[5] The Surgeons' Hall Riot, as it has now become known,[6] was a landmark in the history of the medical women's campaign and attracted widespread publicity.

The supportive students began to act as bodyguards to the women, escorting them back to 15 Buccleuch Place at the end of the examination that day.

It also discussed the monetary considerations for professors' remuneration and the lack of beds in the Edinburgh Infirmary to be shared with the male students.

It concludes that: "Let us here, however, simply in self-defence state our firm belief that it is a sign not of advancing but of decaying civilisation when women force themselves into competition with the other sex.

She was active in establishing the London School of Medicine for Women, which opened in autumn 1874 with twelve of its fourteen students having previously studied in Edinburgh.

Five of the original seven – Bovell, Chaplin, Jex-Blake, Marshall and Pechey – were granted MDs abroad in the later 1870s, either in Bern or Paris.

Edith Pechey practised in Leeds before becoming senior medical officer at the new Cama women and children's hospital in Bombay (now Mumbai).

In Charles Reade's novel, A Woman-Hater (1877), Rhoda Gould tells the story of the Edinburgh Seven in some detail, as if she had been one of them: "We were seven ladies, who wished to be doctresses, especially devoted to our own sex .