page_title: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
section_title: BMA membership
hierarchical_section_title: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson / Career / BMA membership
caption_attribution_description: English: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. Photograph by Walery, published by Sampson Low &amp; Co. in February 1889&#91;1&#93;
context_page_description: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was an English physician and suffragist. She was the first woman to qualify in Britain as a physician and surgeon. She was the co-founder of the first hospital staffed by women, the first dean of a British medical school, the first woman in Britain to be elected to a school board and, as Mayor of Aldeburgh, the first female mayor in Britain.
context_section_description: In 1873 she gained membership of the British Medical Association (BMA).  In 1878 a motion was proposed to exclude women following the election of Garrett Anderson and Frances Hoggan. The motion was opposed by Dr Norman Kerr who maintained the equal rights of members. This was "one of several instances where Garrett, uniquely, was able to enter a hitherto all male medical institution which subsequently moved formally to exclude any women who might seek to follow her." In 1892, women were again admitted to the British Medical Association. In 1897, Garrett Anderson was elected president of the East Anglian branch of the BMA.
  Garrett Anderson worked steadily at the development of the New Hospital for Women, and (from 1874) at the creation of the London School of Medicine for Women, where she served as its dean.  Both institutions were handsomely and suitably housed and equipped. The New Hospital for Women was able to commission a building in the Euston Road; the architect was J. M. Brydon, who took into his employment at this time Anderson's sister Agnes Garrett and her cousin Rhoda Garrett, who contributed to its design. The hospital was for many years worked entirely by medical women. The schools (in Hunter Street, WC1) had over 200 students, most of them preparing for the medical degree of London University (the present-day University College London), which was opened to women in 1877.
caption: Garrett Anderson circa 1889
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