Frances Elizabeth Hoggan (''née'' Morgan; 20 December 1843 – 5 February 1927) was a Welsh doctor and the first British woman to receive a doctorate in
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
from any university in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
. She was also a pioneering medical practitioner, researcher and social reformer – and the first female doctor to be registered in
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
. She and her husband opened the first husband-and-wife medical practice in Britain.
Early life and education
Frances Hoggan was born in
Brecon
Brecon (; cy, Aberhonddu; ), archaically known as Brecknock, is a market town in Powys, mid Wales. In 1841, it had a population of 5,701. The population in 2001 was 7,901, increasing to 8,250 at the 2011 census. Historically it was the coun ...
,
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
, where her father, Richard Morgan, was a curate. She was brought up and educated at
Cowbridge
Cowbridge ( cy, Y Bont-faen) is a market town in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, approximately west of the centre of Cardiff.
The Cowbridge with Llanblethian community and civil parish elect a town council.
A Cowbridge electoral ward exists for e ...
in Glamorgan and later at
Windsor
Windsor may refer to:
Places Australia
* Windsor, New South Wales
** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area
* Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland
**Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...
. During her teens, she gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, who was brought up with her mother and passed off as Frances' sister. She went on to study at
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
and
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...
.
Upon the exclusion of women by the Council of the
Worshipful Society of Apothecaries
The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London is one of the livery companies of the City of London. It is one of the largest livery companies (with over 1,600 members in 2012) and ranks 58th in their order of precedence.
The society is a m ...
from its professional exams in 1867, Morgan sought her medical education at the
University of Zurich
The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 f ...
, whence
Nadezhda Suslova
Nadezhda Prokofyevna Suslova (russian: Надежда Прокофьевна Суслова; 1 September 1843 – 20 April 1918) was Russia's first woman medical doctor and the sister of Polina Suslova. She worked as a gynecologist in Nizhny No ...
, Russia's first woman physician, had received her degree in December 1867. There, Morgan completed the medical course in three years rather than the expected five, and in March 1870, became only the second woman to gain an MD (with a thesis on progressive muscular atrophy) at Zürich University. Afterwards, at a clinic in Vienna she undertook study on operative midwifery and became a pupil of surgeon Gustav Braun.
She obtained her medical doctorate from the
University of Zurich
The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 f ...
in March 1870, completing the six-year course in three years, becoming the first British woman to obtain a European MD degree.
Career
Following her graduation, Frances did post-graduate work at top medical schools in Vienna, Prague and Paris before returning to Britain. She spent several years as a medical practitioner working with
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (9 June 1836 – 17 December 1917) 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, ...
at the
New Hospital for Women
The Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Obstetric Hospital and its predecessor organisations provided health care to women in central London from the mid-Victorian era. It was named after Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, one of Britain's first female physi ...
in London. She also helped to found the National Health Society with
Elizabeth Blackwell
Elizabeth Blackwell (3 February 182131 May 1910) was a British physician, notable as the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council for the United Ki ...
in 1871. Its purpose was to "promote health amongst all classes of the population."
In 1874, she married Dr George Hoggan. She obtained her licence to practice in the UK from
The King’s and Queen’s College of Physicians of Ireland in February 1877.
Together with her husband, she opened the first husband-and-wife general medical practice in the UK. They both wrote medical research papers over the next decade, some of which were co-authored.
In 1882, she called for a publicly funded women's medical service for female patients in India. This helped pave the way for the
Dufferin Fund. In the same year she became medical superintendent at the
North London Collegiate School
North London Collegiate School (NLCS) is an independent school with a day school for girls in England. Founded in Camden Town, it is now located in Edgware, in the London Borough of Harrow. Associate schools are located in South Korea, Jeju I ...
, one of the first rigorously academic secondary schools for girls. She held this role for six years.
She wrote a paper, in 1884, called 'The Position of the Mother of the Family', using the latest understanding about conception and reproduction to argue that mothers should have more rights over their children.
Frances and her husband George were
anti-vivisectionist
Vivisection () is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure. The word is, more broadly, used as a pejorative catch-all term for experiment ...
s and opponents of
compulsory vaccination
A vaccination policy is a health policy adopted in order to prevent the spread of infectious disease. These policies are generally put into place by State or local governments, but may also be set by private facilities, such as workplaces or sc ...
. In an article for the ''
Vaccination Inquirer'' in September 1883 they both argued against compulsory vaccination. Frances' husband George became ill in 1885 and the couple moved to the south of France. George died of a cerebral tumour in 1891.
Hoggan became a campaigner and social reformer, and toured the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
lecturing. She had a particular interest in racial issues, and was a speaker at the Universal Race Congress in London in 1911.
Death and legacy
Frances died in 1927. Her cremated remains are buried, with her husband's, in
Woking
Woking ( ) is a town and borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in northwest Surrey, England, around from central London. It appears in Domesday Book as ''Wochinges'' and its name probably derives from that of a Anglo-Saxon settlement o ...
cemetery.
The
Learned Society of Wales
The Learned Society of Wales ( Welsh: Cymdeithas Ddysgedig Cymru) is a learned society and charity that exists to "celebrate, recognise, preserve, protect and encourage excellence in all of the scholarly disciplines", and to serve the Welsh natio ...
awards the ''Frances Hoggan Medal'' to outstanding women connected with Wales in the areas of science, medicine, engineering, technology or mathematics.
Frances Hoggan Medal
LearnedSociety.wales, Retrieved 26 June 2017
Selected works
*''Education for Girls in Wales'' (1882)
*''American Negro Women During Their First Fifty Years of Freedom'' (1913)
See also
*Elizabeth Blackwell
Elizabeth Blackwell (3 February 182131 May 1910) was a British physician, notable as the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council for the United Ki ...
*Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (9 June 1836 – 17 December 1917) 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, ...
*Nadezhda Suslova
Nadezhda Prokofyevna Suslova (russian: Надежда Прокофьевна Суслова; 1 September 1843 – 20 April 1918) was Russia's first woman medical doctor and the sister of Polina Suslova. She worked as a gynecologist in Nizhny No ...
*Edinburgh Seven
The Edinburgh Seven were the first group of matriculated undergraduate female students at any British university. They began studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1869 and, although the Court of Session ruled that they should neve ...
References
Bibliography
* M. A. Elston, "Hoggan, Frances Elizabeth (1843–1927)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
'', Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 4 May 2007
*McIntyre, N. "Britain's first medical marriage: Frances Morgan (1843–1927), George Hoggan (1837–1891) and the mysterious "Elsie"." ''Journal of Medical Biography'', 12:2 (2004), 105–14. Publisher: Royal Society of Medicine
The Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) is a medical society in the United Kingdom, headquartered in London.
History
The Society was established in 1805 as Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, meeting in two rooms in barristers’ chambers ...
. .
External links
Biography at BBC Wales
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hoggan, Frances
1843 births
1927 deaths
19th-century Welsh medical doctors
Welsh women medical doctors
People from Brecon
20th-century Welsh medical doctors
Anti-vivisectionists
British social reformers
Burials in Surrey
20th-century women physicians
19th-century women physicians
19th-century British non-fiction writers
20th-century British non-fiction writers
19th-century British women writers
20th-century British women writers