Female doctor who practised in 16th century ‘ignored by history’
BRITAIN’S first “official” female doctor from Elizabethan England has been “ignored” by history, says the Royal College of Physicians.
Alice Leevers, who treated patients in the late 16th century, was the first woman knowingly permitted to practise – 300 years earlier than was believed.
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson is commonly understood to have been Britain’s first female doctor, qualifying in 1865. Eleven years later, as a result of her campaigning, women were legally permitted to enter the medical profession.
However, Leevers was granted such permission by the Royal College of Physicians in 1586. Her story could be “just the tip of an iceberg” of other hidden female doctors in Britain, a curator at the college said. Briony Hudson told The Sunday Telegraph: “I would certainly say Alice Leevers has been ignored by history.
“A lot of people know about Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, but the idea that women doctors started in the mid-19th century is just not correct. That means that a large number of women in previous centuries have been ignored.
“These women were clearly key to the health and welfare of their communities, but many have not recorded in the historical documents that have sur- vived to today.” Ms Hudson said that not many people knew about Leevers because “nobody has thought to look”, adding: “Alice Leevers wasn’t in a century or a position where she could meet the prime minister or pose for a picture with the Suffragettes.”
Leevers’ case is even more remarkable as a key reason she was allowed to practise despite it being illegal for women could have be down to a powerful royal blessing.
On March 15 1586, Leevers was called an “ignorant woman” by the authorities for carrying out her duties and threatened with prison.
However, she was allowed to continue after the Lord Chamberlain, a member of Elizabeth I’s Privy Council, intervened in her favour. “It is likely that Queen Elizabeth I was quite conscious that this was going on,” Ms Hudson said.