ANDERSON, ELIZABETH GARRETT English physician, and pioneer in the professional education of Englishwomen, daughter of Newson Garrett, of Aldeburgh, Suf folk. She was born in 1836, and was educated at home . and at a private school. In 186o she resolved to study medicine, an un heard-of procedure for a woman in those days, and one which was regarded by old-fashioned people as almost indecent. Miss Garrett managed to obtain some more or less irregular instruc tion at the Middlesex hospital, London, but was refused ad mission as a full student there and at many other schools to which she applied. Finally she studied anatomy privately at the London hospital, as well as with some of the professors at St. Andrews University, and at the Edinburgh Extra-Mural school. She had no less difficulty in gaining a qualifying diploma to practise medicine. London University, the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons and many other examining bodies re fused to admit her to their examinations; but in the end the Society of Apothecaries, London, allowed her to enter for the License of Apothecaries' Hall, which she obtained in 1865. In 1866 she was appointed general medical attendant to St. Mary's dispensary, a London institution started to enable poor women to obtain medical help from qualified practitioners of their own sex.
The dispensary soon developed into the New Hospital for Women, and there she worked for more than 20 years. In 187o she obtained the Paris degree of M.D. In 1871 she married J. G. S. Anderson (d. 1907), a London shipowner, but did not give up practice. She worked steadily at the development of the New Hospital, and also from 1874 at the creation of a complete school of medicine for women in London. London University admitted women to the medical degrees from 1877 onwards. Both institutions have since been suitably housed and equipped, the New Hospital, now the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital, being worked entirely by medical women, and the schools (in Hunter street, W.C.). In 1897 E. Garrett Anderson was elected president of the East Anglian branch of the British Medical Association. In 1908 she was elected (the first woman) mayor of Aldeburgh. The movement for the admission of women to the medical profession, of which she was the indefatigable pioneer in England, has extended to every civilized country. She died at Aldeburgh, Suffolk, Dec. 17 1917. Her son, Sir Alan Garrett Anderson (b. 1877), shipowner, has been a director of the Bank of England and vice-president of the International Chamber of Commerce. Her daughter, Dr. Louisa Garrett Anderson (b. 1873), continued her mother's work for the advancement of women. She took an active part in the suffrage movement. During the war she was joint organizer of the Women's Hospital Corps and (1915-18) chief surgeon of the military hospital at Endell street.
There is an excellent account of Mrs. Garrett Anderson's early struggles to secure a place in the medical profession in Barbara Stephen's Emily Davies and Girton College (1927), in which many of Miss Garrett's letters are given. But the most important source is her sister Dame Millicent Fawcett's autobiography, What I remem ber (1924) .