Surgeons' Hall riot

The Surgeons' Hall Riot (18 November 1870) was a defining moment in the campaign of the Edinburgh Seven, a group of women fighting for the right to train and practice as doctors.

[1] After the event, Sophia Jex-Blake was to claim that responsibility for inciting the riot lay with a student named Mr Craig, which led to his filing a defamation writ against her in January 1871.

[2] It has further been suggested that the students who instigated or took part in the riots did so with the support of medical faculty,[1] particularly from Professor Robert Christison, for whom Craig worked as class assistant and who was explicitly opposed to the presence of women in medicine.

[2] Following the riots, the media condemned the actions of the rioters, with The Scotsman writing of the event: ...a certain class of medical students are doing their utmost to make sure that the name of medical student synonymous with all that is cowardly and degrading, it is imperative upon all...men...to come forward and express... their detestation of the proceedings which have characterised and dishonoured the opposition to ladies pursuing the study of medicine in Edinburgh...[5]The riots and their negative portrayal in the national media subsequently led not only to increased awareness of the Edinburgh Seven, but to a rise in public sympathy for the women and their fight to study medicine.

[8] It was unveiled by Fiona Hyslop (Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Europe and External Affairs for the Scottish Government at the time),[9] at a ceremony which was held at the University's Anatomical Museum.