Matilda Chaplin Ayrton

[4][5] The family lived in Edgbaston, where several of her elder siblings were born, and returned to England shortly after her birth.

Legal intervention allowed her to gain high honours in anatomy and surgery at the extramural examinations held in 1870 and 1871 at Surgeons' Hall, Edinburgh, before a judgment in 1872 finally prohibited women students.

[citation needed] In 1871, when she found the chief medical classes in England and Scotland closed to her, she resolved to complete her education at Paris, where every facility was afforded her.

[10] While in Japan, she pursued anthropological researches, and opened a school for Japanese midwives, in which she lectured with the aid of an interpreter.

The Dictionary of National Biography records: "From the time of her journey to Japan Mrs. Ayrton contributed to The Scotsman and other periodicals a large number of articles on very various topics, including Japanese politics and customs, and the educational problems of the West.

She became more and more interested in the home life of the Japanese and in the pictures and stories which delighted the children of the Mikado's Empire.

Ayrton always took a lively interest in attempts to improve the educational opportunities and social position of women.