Louisa Garrett Anderson (Louisa Garrett Anderson)

Louisa Garrett Anderson

Dr. Louisa Garrett Anderson, CBE (28 July 1873 – 15 November 1943) was a medical pioneer, a member of the Women’s Social and Political Union, a suffragette, and social reformer. She was the daughter of the founding medical pioneer Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. Her aunt, Dame Millicent Fawcett was a British suffragist. Anderson was the Chief Surgeon of the Women’s Hospital Corps (WHC) and a Fellow of Royal Society of Medicine  She was one of the three children of James George Skelton Anderson of the Orient Steamship Company co-owned by his uncle Arthur Anderson, and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson who was the first woman to qualify as a doctor, co-founder of the London School of Medicine for Women and Britain’s the first elected woman Mayor (of Aldeburgh).

She was educated at St Leonards School in St. Andrews, Fife and at the London School of Medicine for Women located at the Royal Free Hospital, where she worked as a doctor in private practice and hospitals. In 1912, she was imprisoned, briefly, for her suffragette activities. She wrote many medical articles and published a biography of her mother in 1939.  In the First World War she served in France with the Women’s Hospital Corps. Along with her friend and colleague Dr. Flora Murray, she established military hospitals for the French Army in Paris and Wimereux. Their proposals were at first rejected by the British authorities, but eventually the WHC became established at the military hospital, Endell Street Military Hospital, Holborn, London staffed entirely by women, from chief surgeon to orderlies.

She never married and is buried at the Holy Trinity Church with her friend and colleague, Dr. Flora Murray near to her home in Penn, Buckinghamshire. The inscription on her grave stone reads “Louisa Garrett Anderson, C.B.E., M.D., Chief Surgeon Women’s Hospital Corps 1914–1919. Daughter of James George Skelton Anderson and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson of Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Born 28th. July 1873, died November 15. 1943. We have been gloriously happy.”

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Born

  • July, 28, 1873
  • Aldeburgh, United Kingdom

Died

  • November, 11, 1943
  • Penn, United Kingdom

Cemetery

  • Holy Trinity Churchyard
  • Penn, United Kingdom

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