It offered courses in midwifery and diseases associated with women and children, but failed to extend its curriculum to the full scope of medical training and closed in 1873.
The Medical Act 1858, which for the first time regulated the licensing of physicians in the UK and created the Medical Register, effectively barred women from becoming doctors in the UK by requiring physicians to pass examinations offered by any of 19 examination boards, none of which permitted the admission of women.
At its outset, the society sought to raise the status of midwifery such that it could be considered a profession for educated women; to respect the feelings of female patients who preferred to be tended by female practitioners; and to save lives, both by the effect of better training and practice, but also by reducing infections introduced by male physicians who in their wider work came into contact with disease, surgery and post-mortems.
Aspiring female physicians were concerned with access to the acquisition of credentials enabling them to be listed on the Medical Register, and these the College did not offer.
As a result, it was not supported by leading campaigners for the medical education of women such as the Edinburgh Seven nor Elizabeth Garrett Anderson.