🏥 Women's Hospital Corps
Dr Flora Murray and Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson, Elizabeth's daughter, set up hospitals for wounded soldiers in Paris and then Wimereux, France, in 1914. The French accepted their help. The British War Office had not.
Government Action and War, 1905-20 » Women in Medicine and the First World War
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: Paper 2 Section B, Breadth study B2, Key topic 4
- Why the First World War gave women new chances in medicine
- How women doctors and surgeons ran war hospitals
- The work of trained nurses and VADs
- How far the gains lasted after 1918
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Unlock This CourseWomen in medicine before the war
By 1914 women could train as doctors, but only a few did. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson had qualified in the 1860s, yet most hospitals still refused to employ women doctors, and they were rarely allowed to be surgeons. Nursing was different. It was already a respected job for women, thanks to Florence Nightingale's training schools.
The First World War (1914-18) changed this. Millions of men joined the armed forces, and thousands of male doctors were sent to the front. Britain suddenly needed medical staff. Women who had been turned away for decades now had to be taken seriously.
Key terms:
- Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC): the part of the British army that provided doctors and medical care.
- Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD): a volunteer nurse with basic training in first aid and nursing. The VADs were set up in 1909 by the Red Cross and the Order of St John.
Women doctors set up their own hospitals
At first the army would not use women doctors. The Scottish doctor Elsie Inglis offered the War Office a hospital unit staffed by women. She was told, in effect, to go home and sit still. So she raised money herself and founded the Scottish Women's Hospitals. In the end there were 14 medical units across Europe, and the first was set up at Royaumont Abbey in France.
🩺 Endell Street Military Hospital
Opened in London in May 1915, with Murray in charge and Garrett Anderson as chief surgeon. The doctors, surgeons, nurses and orderlies were all women. It had 573 beds and treated almost 50,000 soldiers before it closed in September 1919.
The War Office had first rejected these women. It then asked them to run Endell Street, because it needed the beds. Their results were good enough to win respect, and that mattered. It proved that women could run a large hospital and carry out difficult surgery on wounded men.
There were limits. When women doctors were taken on by the RAMC from 1916, they were hired on civilian contracts, as ordinary employees rather than soldiers. They were not given army commissions (officer rank) or uniforms like their male colleagues.
Nurses and VADs
Trained nurses, such as those of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, worked in army hospitals and casualty clearing stations near the front. They were the backbone of the care for the wounded.
The VADs grew in number as the war went on. Many were young women from well-off families who had never had a paid job. Some worked in hospitals in Britain, and others went to France. The writer Vera Brittain was a VAD. The work was hard and often dirty: dressing wounds, washing patients and scrubbing floors. Even so, it showed that women could do serious war work, and it opened nursing to a much wider group of women.
Did the gains last?
Some changes did last:
- The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919 said that a person could not be kept out of a profession because of their sex. This helped women who wanted to become doctors.
- The Nurses Registration Act of 1919 set up an official register of trained nurses, which raised the status of nursing.
But much stayed the same:
- Endell Street closed in 1919, and the men returned to their jobs.
- Some medical schools took women only because men were away. Many then went back to limiting the number of women.
- Women doctors were still a small minority, and top hospital jobs stayed mostly with men.
So the war was an important turning point, but it did not change everything at once. This is the kind of balance a good exam answer shows.
Common mistakes
- Saying the war "gave women equality in medicine". It opened doors, but progress was slow and uneven.
- Mixing up the nurses, who were trained professionals, with the VADs, who were volunteers.
- Writing "women helped in the war" with no named hospital, person or date.
Exam-style question
Explain TWO causes of the greater opportunities for women in medicine during the First World War. [8 marks]
Model answer
One cause was the shortage of doctors. Millions of men joined up and thousands of male doctors went to the front, so hospitals in Britain and France were short of staff just as huge numbers of wounded arrived. This meant the War Office could no longer turn women away. In 1915 it asked the Women's Hospital Corps to run Endell Street Military Hospital in London, with 573 beds and an all-female staff.
A second cause was the determination of women doctors themselves. When the War Office refused her offer, Elsie Inglis raised money and founded the Scottish Women's Hospitals, which set up 14 units, including one at Royaumont Abbey in France. Flora Murray and Louisa Garrett Anderson did the same in Paris and Wimereux in 1914. Their hospitals did good work, and this proved that women could be trusted as surgeons and so opened more doors.
This reaches the top level because each cause is backed by precise knowledge and explains how it led to the greater opportunities.
Exam tip
In a "two causes" question, one cause alone can score no more than half marks. Give two, and for each one explain how it led to the outcome.