Orkney Women Doctors Project (1894 to 1948)

One of the ways we hope to tell the story of our Orkney women doctors is through small exhibitions within Orkney and possibly beyond.  Fiona suggested embroidering a quilt, as a ‘thinking piece’, to bring the names of all the women doctors together with a map to pinpoint where they worked across Orkney. It will show links and similarities between them as well as differences.  It provides us, as a group, with a connection to them, through the creation of the quilt, as we speak about their lives on the islands while we plan and sew. Some of the women doctors were skilled sewers, most would have had to make or mend their own clothes. We hope the quilt will provide a tactile artefact that will raise questions and spark discussions among those viewing. Christine was fortunate to find our quilt at a local vintage sale. It was originally from a box bed in the parish of Birsay, from around the 1930s. To begin with Fiona embroidered an outline of the Orkney Mainland and surrounding isl...

This was a request made by Dr Jeannie Newton to the Medical Committee and Parish Council on the Orkney island of Papa Westray in October 1902, as a condition for staying longer in her post as Resident Medical Officer and Public Vaccinator. It indicates one of the challenges facing the doctors working on the island at the time and the problems which faced the island committees in appointing and retaining a resident doctor on the island. CO6/11/1: Public Assistance Papa Westray Parochial Board/Parish Council Minute Book, 1895-1903, Orkney Library and Archive In December 1896, it was recorded that the Parish Council had received a “numerously signed petition” from rate payers and others asking for a Resident Medical Officer to be appointed for the island (population at the time 337). Until this time, Papa Westray   (or Papay as it is known locally) was served by the Resident Medical Officer from the nearest island of Westray. However, the distance between the two islands is 4 miles an...

As Fiona mentioned in her first post, in the Winter of 2023 we began our research into early women doctors in Orkney. [Read her post here] This project followed on from Fiona’s Beatrice Garvie research. We began our searches in 1894, when the first women doctors were allowed to graduate in Scotland. Our end date was 1948, when the NHS came into being and many things in healthcare changed. We had no expectation of what we might find. To date we have discovered fifty-one women who were born or worked in Orkney between 1894 and 1948.   Yes FIFTY-ONE!   As you can imagine we are astonished, thrilled, and feeling a little overwhelmed. Here is one of the earlier Orkney women doctors, Mary Baird Hannay who was a Doctor on the island of Flotta from 1897 to 1901.  This is a photo of Mary Hannay taken in 1897, before she arrived on the island.  She is the only woman taking part in a Post Graduate Class at the new Pathology Institute at the University of Glasgow.  Photo ...