Physician & Surgeon

46

Single

102 Beverley Road, Hull, Yorkshire

WSPU

Complies

Mary Charlotte Murdoch was born in Elgin in 1864, daughter of Jane and solicitor William Murdoch and was the youngest of six children. She started her education in Elgin before attending Manor Mount Girls' Collegiate School at Forest Hill in south London, before moving to Lausanne in Switzerland. She returned to Elgin in 1883 and, after her mother's death, she attended the London School of Medicine for Women in 1888. It was during her studies in London, that she started attending meetings about the women’s suffrage cause. Mary finished her qualifications in Scotland in 1892 and completed a midwifery course at the Maternity Hospital in Brighton. Her first professional experiences were in London as clinical assistant under Helen Webb in the New Hospital for Women and under Helen Mackenzie's outpatient department at Brompton Hospital. In 1893, Mary was appointed house-surgeon at the Victoria Hospital for Children in Hull; in 1895 she became assistant medical officer at the Tottenham Fever Hospital, where she gained experience with infectious diseases; and in 1896 she returned to Hull and became the first woman to practice medicine there. Eventually, Mary set up a private practice in Hull, bringing suffragist Louisa Martindale into the partnership in 1900, and she was also appointed honorary assistant physician to the Victoria Hospital for Children becoming in 1910 , honorary senior physician. She had been a member of the British Medical Association since 1894; took an active role in the Association of Registered Medical Women; and as a lecturer at the London School of Medicine for Women. Mary Murdoch was well-known and respected as a good diagnostician, and researcher of pericarditis as well as vaccine treatments. In addition, Mary had not forgotten those early suffrage meetings and became a very active public speaker for the cause of women’s suffrage; fearless despite the risk to her professional reputation. In 1904, she founded and chaired the Hull Women’s Suffrage Society, affiliated to the NUWSS. However, after the NUWSS publicly rejected militant tactics in 1909, Mary resigned and joined the WSPU instead, although she remained critical of its autocratic structure and the progression of more violent militancy. Despite her departure from the NUWSS, Mary continued as one of its leader, Millicent Fawcett’s, close friends. In 1911, she even represented her at the meeting of the International Council of Women (ICW) held in Stockholm and in 1913 at the meeting of the standing committee of the ICW at the Hague. She complied with the 1911 census, despite belonging to the WSPU who encouraged its boycott. It is not clear what informed her decision, but perhaps as a clinician, she recognised the potential value of gathering census population statistics on issues relating to health and social conditions such as infant mortality rates, to argue for reform. Sadly, Mary Murdoch died at home in 1916, following a short illness after attending an emergency call in difficult, snowy conditions.' Sources: K. Cockin (2005) entry - Murdoch, Mary Charlotte (1864–1916), physician and suffragist, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography;
Elizabeth Crawford (1999) The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928 (London: Routledge); Jill Liddington (2014) Vanishing for the Vote: Suffrage, Citizenship and the Battle for the Census, (Manchester: Manchester Uni Press). Contributed by Oihane Etayo (Warwick University).