“COMMITTEE FOR SECURING A COMPLETE MEDICAL EDUCATION TO WOMEN IN EDINBURGH.
“In view of the determined opposition from certain quarters which has met every effort made by ladies to obtain a medical education in Edinburgh, it was resolved, in January 1871, that a Committee should be formed, comprising all those who felt the injustice of the present arbitrary exclusion of women from the medical profession, and who desired to co-operate in the following objects:—(1.) To arrive at a thorough understanding of the real difficulties of the case, distinguishing clearly between those hindrances which are interposed by prejudice or self-interest, and the real obstacles (if any) which are inherent in the question. (2.) To secure the admission of women to Edinburgh University on the ordinary terms, though not necessarily in the same classes with men. (3.) To provide the means of qualifying Hospital instruction in Edinburgh for all ladies who are registered students of medicine.
“To these primary objects the circumstances of the case have subsequently led the Committee to add the following:—(4.) To make such temporary arrangements as may be required to provide the ladies with qualifying instruction, in accordance with the present incomplete regulations of the University, until such time as the authorities themselves may see fit to make complete and adequate arrangements. (5.) To co-operate, from time to time, with the lady students, whenever necessary, and especially to aid them in obtaining such legal assistance as may be required to ascertain and assert their rights as matriculated students of the University, and as registered students of medicine.
“Of this Committee the Lord Provost of Edinburgh consented to act as chairman; and the following ladies and gentlemen constituted the original Executive Committee: The Right Hon. The Lord Provost; Dr G. W. Balfour; Professor Bennett, M.D.; Dowager Countess of Buchan; Mrs Hill Burton; Professor Calderwood; Treasurer Colston; Andrew Coventry, Esq.; James Cowan, Esq.; Mrs Fleeming Jenkin; Mrs Henry Kingsley; Professor Lorimer; Professor Masson; Miss Agnes M‘Laren; David M‘Laren, Esq.; Dr Macnair; John Muir, Esq., D.C.L.; Mrs Nichol; Dr Niven; Alexander Nicholson, Esq.; Admiral Sir W. Ramsay, K.C.B.; Dr Heron Watson; Miss Eliza Wigham. W. S. Reid, Esq., Hon. Treasurer; Miss L. Stevenson, Hon. Secretary.”
[NOTE Q], [pp. 110, 120].
The case, drawn up by order of the Committee and submitted to Counsel, contained the facts relating to the Edinburgh lady students, which are narrated in the text, and further proceeded, as follows:—
“ ... It is stated in ‘Maitland’s History of Edinburgh’ that the first mention of erecting a College in Edinburgh was found in the will of Robert Reid, Bishop of Orkney, who, dying in 1558, bequeathed eight thousand Scottish merks towards founding a College ‘for the education of youth.’
“In the subsequent benefactions and charters granted by Queen Mary in 1566, and by King James in 1582, no stipulation is made as to the sex of the students for whose benefit the College was to be established; and in 1583 proclamation was made inviting ‘all who were inclined to become scholars therein’ to enter their names in a certain book opened for the purpose.
“The older University of Glasgow was founded under a Bull granted by Pope Nicholas V. at the suit of James II. of Scotland, and in this Bull it was expressly stated that the University of Bologna was to be followed as a model, and that the doctors, masters, and students of Glasgow were to enjoy all the privileges and rights possessed by those of Bologna. There is abundant historic evidence that women were never excluded from the University of Bologna, but frequently studied and took degrees there during the Middle Ages, and that no less than seven women at different times filled professorial chairs in this University, three of them being in the Medical Faculty, viz.:—
“Dorotea Bucca, Professor of Medicine, early in the fifteenth century; Anna Morandi Mazzolini, Professor of Anatomy, 1750; Maria Della Donne, Professor of Midwifery, 1810.
“It appears that the University of Edinburgh was founded generally on the same model, and the University Calendar states that ‘in 1621 an Act was passed by the Scotch Parliament which ratified to the University, in ample form, all the rights, immunities, and privileges enjoyed by other Universities in the kingdom.’
“There does not appear, in any of the statutes or ordinances subsequently issued, any regulation that male students alone should attend the University; nor in the recent Act of 1858 is there any such regulation. As a matter of fact, no applications for admission to the University of Edinburgh seem to have been made by women until the year 1869, as above mentioned.
“In the Universities (Scotland) Act of 1858, section 12, power was given to the University Court ‘to effect improvements in the internal arrangements of the University, after due communication with the Senatus Academicus, and with the sanction of the Chancellor, provided that all such proposed improvements shall be submitted to the University Council for their consideration.’
“By the same act (section 21), provision was made for ‘providing additional teaching by means of assistants to the Professors in any professorships already established or to be established,’ and several assistants were accordingly appointed by the Commissioners under the Act; and, subsequently, the Senatus appointed certain other assistants, and made them allowances out of the University revenues. None of these assistants have, however, hitherto delivered courses of lectures qualifying for graduation, though there does not appear to be any clause in the Act which forbids their doing so. The only course of instruction qualifying for medical graduation which is given entirely by an assistant is that of practical chemistry.
“During the illness or absence of professors, temporary substitutes to lecture in their stead have frequently been appointed by the Senatus, with the sanction of the University Court.”
The following Queries were not all asked in the first instance, but in part on a subsequent occasion (see [p. 120]); as, however, they were all submitted on the same case, and concern the same subject, I give them here consecutively, arranged in the order in which the Opinions obtained thereon were presented to the Senatus or University Court:—
“Query 1.—In the permission given to women to study ‘for the profession of medicine’ in the University of Edinburgh (bearing date November 12, 1869), was it involved in clauses 1, 2, and 6, that they should be allowed to pass the ordinary professional examinations and to proceed to the degree of M.D. in the University, subject only to the restrictions laid down in the said regulations; and is it therefore incumbent on the Medical Faculty to admit them to the necessary examinations to the extent of the subjects in which they are already qualified to pass?
“Opinion.—Reading the regulations referred to in connection with the resolutions of the Medical Faculty which were approved of by the Senatus, the University Court, and the General Council, we think that their import and meaning is that, subject to the restrictions laid down in the regulations, women shall be allowed not merely to qualify themselves for the ordinary professional examinations with a view to obtain a medical degree in the University, but also, when so qualified, to be admitted to these examinations. We are, therefore, of opinion that it is the duty of the Medical Faculty to admit them to examination accordingly.
“Query 2.—If this was not involved, is it in the power of the Senatus, either alone or in conjunction with the University Court, to accord the required permission to admit them to professional examination with a view to graduation?
“Opinion.—Upon the ground of keeping faith with the women who have, in reliance upon the regulations and in compliance with the terms thereby prescribed, qualified themselves for professional examination with a view to graduation, we are of opinion that the Senatus is entitled to direct that they shall be admitted to examination; and we also think that, without any further direction or authority than the regulations necessarily imply, the Medical Faculty is entitled to admit them to examination.
“Queries 3 and 4.—Is it competent for the Senatus, either directly or in conjunction with the other University authorities, to appoint special lecturers to deliver qualifying courses of lectures to women who are matriculated and registered students of medicine, when such instruction cannot be obtained from the professors of the special subjects in question? Is it competent for the Senatus or other University authorities so far to relax the ordinary regulations with respect to extra-mural classes as to authorise women to attend outside the University those courses of lectures which are denied to them by the Professors within the walls, such courses being held to qualify for graduation beyond the number of four, as contemplated in the present regulations?
“Opinion.—If the existing regulations with respect to graduation in medicine stand upon statutes passed by the University Commissioners, whose powers have now expired, it is competent for the University Court to alter them with the written consent of the Chancellor and with the approval of Her Majesty in Council. This is provided by section 19 of the Act of 1858. If they stand on the authority of the Court, or of any other power in the University itself, we should think that they may be altered by the University Court under section 12 of the Act, ‘after due communication with the Senatus Academicus, and with the sanction of the Chancellor,’ but with the proviso that the proposed alteration ‘shall be submitted to the University Council for their consideration.’ In one or other of these ways it appears to us that any provision which may be deemed necessary, or proper and reasonable, for enabling women to complete their medical studies, with a view to graduation, maybe made.”
“Query 5.—Whether the Senatus, University Court, University Council and Chancellor, had collectively the power of granting to women the permission to matriculate as students as they did in 1869, and whether the regulations issued officially (November 12, 1869) are valid as regards such matriculation?
“Opinion.—We are of opinion that the University Court, in virtue of the powers conferred upon it by the 12th section (2) of the Act 1858, have power, after communication with the Senatus, and with the sanction of the Chancellor, and after the University Council have considered the subject, to grant permission to women (as they did in 1869) to matriculate as students, and the resolutions of the Court in that year are valid.
“Query 6.—Whether the medical Professors are exonerated from obligation to teach, in some way or other, all matriculated students, by the fact, that, in clause 3 of the regulations quoted above, it is merely stated that they ‘shall be permitted to have separate classes for women?’
“Opinion.—The University Court having statutory powers to ‘effect’ improvements in the ‘internal arrangements of the University,’ and it being within their power, under this enactment, to allow women to be educated at the University, we are of opinion that this resolution must be carried out in good faith and obeyed by the Professors. The third resolution of the University Court of November 1869, which ‘permits’ the Professors to have separate classes for women, in no way derogates from the resolution of the Court that women ‘shall be admitted to the study of medicine.’
“Query 7.—In case such women as are matriculated students of medicine in the University are refused instruction by the individual medical Professors, what is their legal mode of redress, and against whom should it be directed?
“Opinion.—We are of opinion that the University Court can compel, by action, the medical Professors to obey the resolutions of November, 1869, by holding separate classes for the education of women. With respect to the title of the women, we think that those of them who have matriculated and passed the preliminary examinations have a title, and may enforce their rights by action. The proper form of action is, we think, a declarator against the Professors refusing to obey the resolution of the University Court, with petitory conclusions to the effect that they should be ordained to hold separate classes for the instruction of the pursuers, they receiving their due remuneration.
“Query 8.—Whether, in the first constitution or charter of the University, or in any of the subsequent statutes, there is anything which limits the benefits of the University to male students.
“Opinion.—The Charter of Erection and Confirmation of the ‘College of Edinburgh’ by King James VI., dated 14th April, 1582, granted certain lands and revenues to the Magistrates and Town Council of Edinburgh, with a license to employ those revenues, and such others as well-disposed persons might bestow on them, in the erecting of suitable buildings for the use of professors and ‘scholars’ of grammar, humanity, and languages, philosophy, theology, medicine, and laws, and other liberal sciences. The King, by this charter (as interpreted by decision of the Courts), delegated to, or conferred upon, the magistrates and Town Council the character of patron and founder of this new seminary of education. The powers of superintendence and control thus conferred upon the Magistrates and Council remained with them till the Act of 1858 was passed, by which the more important powers were transferred to the University Court. The Magistrates and Council never conferred upon the College any independent constitution, so as to enable the members of it to exercise any power of internal government. As founders, patrons, and delegates intrusted by the royal grant, the Magistrates and Council remained in the full right of management, regulation, and tutelage of their own institution.
“An Act of Parliament was passed in 1621 (c. 79), which may be considered as the charter of erection of the University. It narrates the charter of 1582, and the licence thereby given to found a College and choose Professors, and sets forth the King’s zeal for the growth of learning, and his purpose to grant the College all immunities enjoyed by other colleges. The statute then confirms the erection of the College, and ratifies all the mortifications made to the town by the King or others towards its support. It bestows on the College the name of ‘King James’ College,’ and grants to the Magistrates ‘in favour of the said burgh of Edinburgh, patrons of the said College, and of the College, and of rectors, regents, bursars, and students within the same, all liberties, freedoms, immunities, and privileges pertaining to a free College, and that in as ample a form and large manner as any College has or bruickis within His Majesty’s realm.’
“The statute concludes with ordaining a new charter to issue, if need be, for erecting the College, with all such privileges and immunities. No such charter was ever issued; but the statute itself may be held equivalent to a charter. It was a charter in favour of the Magistrates and Council as founders and patrons, and in no way prejudiced, but on the contrary confirmed their power of superintendence, control, and regulation of all matters concerning the internal government of the University.
“We are of opinion that, in virtue of the powers they thus possessed, the Magistrates and Town Council could at any time, during their 266 years of University rule, have done what the University Court did in 1869—grant permission to women to be educated at the University.
“On examining the records, we find that the superintendence of the patrons was active and constant. They made, at various times during the two centuries and a half while their jurisdiction lasted, sets of laws and regulations for the College, which embrace all things connected with the duties and rights of professors and students, the series and order of studies, the days and hours of lecture, the books to be read, the conduct of students in and out of College hours, the modes of trial and graduation, the attendance of the professors at their classes, attendance at church, dress to be worn by students, fees to be paid, &c., &c. “All these regulations proceed on the footing that only male students attended the University; many of them were inapplicable to females, and we cannot find any trace of its being contemplated by the patrons that females might be students. And we do not find any evidence of a female having attended the University.
“Therefore, while we are of opinion that the Magistrates and Council had the power to pass a regulation authorising the attendance of women at the University, and to compel the professors to teach them, yet as they never passed any such regulation, no women could have insisted upon admission to University education as a legal right prior to 1869.
“The University Court, by sec. 12 (2), are now vested with all the powers of internal management and regulation formerly possessed by the Magistrates and Council; they have done what the latter never did, although they lawfully might. They have, by their resolution of November 1869, given to women the right to demand, equally with male students, admission to the University.”
[NOTE R], [p. 111],
“The extraordinary history of the vicissitudes endured by the lady students seems at last to have reached its most extraordinary phase. It appears, as stated in our columns of yesterday, that on Saturday last the Medical Faculty of the University of Edinburgh—a body which, collectively, forms one of the law-makers of the College—passed a vote by a majority whereby they instructed their Dean deliberately to break a law of the University, or rather expressly ‘interdicted’ him from complying with it. What makes the matter the more remarkable is that this special law was in the first instance inaugurated by themselves, and subsequently approved by the Senatus and other authorities, and incorporated in the official regulations published in the ‘Calendar.’ ... It would seem clear enough that a decision which had been deliberately confirmed by each university authority successively, and which had thus become law, could not be disturbed by any one except after an equally formal process of revocation. It is, however, well known that, though all the bodies enumerated passed the above regulations by a majority, there was in most cases a dissatisfied minority, who wished that all privileges should be withheld from the lady students. It would have surprised no one to hear that a formal attempt had been made to obtain the withdrawal of the privileges conferred; but the public were probably sufficiently astonished to learn yesterday that, though no such open and honourable attempt had been made, a secret coup d’état was planned, by which it was apparently hoped, at the very last moment, when no appeal to the Senatus, or other authorities was possible, to crush the hopes of the medical ladies, at least for the present year. At the Faculty meeting to which we have referred, a vote was actually passed to ‘interdict’ the Dean, whose friendliness to the ladies was well known, from giving to any women who were about to join the medical class the papers necessary to enable them to pass the preliminary examination in Arts, which is indispensable before registration—this examination having been not only previously allowed, but actually passed by numerous ladies on no less than four occasions! At this same notable meeting, a vote was also passed that the Medical Faculty should disregard alike their own previous resolutions, the official regulations of the ‘Calendar,’ and the tickets of admission already paid for and obtained by those other ladies who are now ready to proceed to their first professional examination; and, accordingly, a letter was sent to each of these three ladies, informing them that their tickets had been granted ‘in error,’ and that they could not be examined ‘without the sanction of the Senatus Academicus,’ as if that sanction had not been already given in the most emphatic manner!
“The story is not a pleasant one. That a minority, obliged to acquiesce in an act of liberality on the part of the majority, should, when unable to prevail by fair means, endeavour to compass their end by a side-wind and in an underhand manner, is sufficiently discreditable; but that, rather than relinquish their own dogged resolution to obstruct the ladies, these Professors should deliberately abstain from all previous warning of the means they intended to employ—should allow many months of severe study to be passed with a definite aim and hope, and should then silently dig a pitfall at the very threshold of the door through which the ladies must pass, and hope, by an arbitrary exercise of authority against a few wholly unprepared women, completely to destroy their prospects, for the present year at least—is something almost too monstrous to be believed, did the circumstances admit of any doubt in the matter. Whether these medical gentlemen really supposed that, by their unsupported fiat, they could set aside all the existing regulations of the University, or whether they trusted to the ladies’ want of knowledge in legal matters not to challenge their authority, it is of course impossible to say, but one would rather believe in the ignorance of law implied by the former alternative, than in the lamentable want of honourable feeling that would be conveyed in the latter. Be this as it may, it is not easy to exaggerate the damaging effect that a story of this kind is likely to have on the minds of the public. That such a line of conduct could be planned and carried out by a body of men claiming the name of gentlemen, and belonging to a profession that calls itself ‘liberal’ and ‘learned,’ is perhaps as striking a proof as could be given of the fatally blinding influence of professional prejudice and unreasoning trades-unionism.”
Scotsman, Oct. 20, 1872.
“We confess that the conduct of the medical faculty amazes us. Can they suppose that such obstructions are calculated to stop the movement? Why should they not show a little practical sense, and choose their fighting-ground with reasonable judgment? A single Professor, whose classes must be attended according to present regulations, might have hoped successfully to resist the demand that he should teach mixed classes. There are many people who do not look with particular complacency upon the efforts of a few ladies to obtain a place in the medical profession; but paltry persecutions like these, and little dodges sprung upon them suddenly, will assuredly turn the popular tide in their favour. The medical profession seem to think that they have only got to get behind these too devoted students, and shout ‘bo!’ loud enough to frighten them out of their five wits. They might surely have known Miss Jex-Blake better by this time. Are the Edinburgh Medical Faculty really afraid of the competition of the ladies? Do they look upon them as ‘knobsticks,’ against whom the doors must be closed in spite of law, reason, and liberty? They are welcome to their fears—narrow as they are—and to their opinions on the question of lady doctors; but we trust that the University of Edinburgh will see that its regulations are maintained. Having given permission to females to study medicine under conditions which are strict enough, and even somewhat hard, the University must prevent any combination of Professors from taking the matter into their own hands, and debarring the ladies from the privileges for which they have so gallantly fought. In the meantime, we congratulate the five ladies on the prompt spirit in which they have repelled the insidious attempt of a majority of the medical faculty—we believe only a very small majority—to cut their studies short. We need not urge them to persevere, for they seem to have that ‘faculty’ in predominance, but we think we can assure them that every victory that they gain, and every defeat that they suffer, adds to the number of their sympathisers, and breaks down no inconsiderable portion of the mountain of prejudice that they had to face when they commenced their career as students. If the Medical Professors want to defeat them, they must get better advisers, and not court humiliation. Their present counsellor is like Adversity, ugly and venomous in appearance only. Without the ‘precious jewel,’ the treasure of ill-judged and unreasonable persecutions, which he carries in his head, the little forlorn hope of courageous ladies, whose ranks are thinned from time to time by marriage and other maladies, would hardly be so likely to plant their triumphant flag on the top of the Castle rock at last.”
Glasgow Herald, October 20, 1871.