“Dr. Balfour gave us a separate hour in his wards three times a week, and such chances of practical study as could be arranged from time to time. Dr. Watson’s very large practice, as the most eminent surgeon in Scotland, made it impossible for him, at whatever inconvenience, to repeat his visit in this manner, and our enemies would have gained their point, had he not, with a kindness which I find myself even now quite unable to acknowledge duly, given up for the two whole winter sessions his Sunday mornings (his one day of rest) to our instruction, while steadily refusing to accept any fees whatever for this great sacrifice of his time and strength. Few more chivalrous acts were ever done, and I only hope he found his reward in the lifelong gratitude of a dozen women, who were not at that time too much accustomed to such kindness and courtesy as his.”
To the end of her life, S. J.-B. looked upon these two men as “the shadow of a great rock in a weary land,” and another name she would have added with (in one sense) even better reason—that of Dr. Peel Ritchie, who, a strong Conservative, absolutely and avowedly at that time without sympathy for the “cause,” from a sheer sense of fair play, gave up his class of men at the Royal Dispensary in order to teach a class of women instead.
Of course S. J.-B. was a “celebrity” by this time. Here is an amusing letter from a distinguished man who had been asked to meet her and her friends at dinner:
“My dear Editor,
Wae’s me that I am engaged on Saturday! If I could on any decent pretence get off I would do it aftsoons, for apart from the pleasure of meeting yourself and Mrs. R., I would like fine to meet the other ladies in such company, especially some of them. I won’t say which!
But I accepted an invitation the other day from —— to meet a Mr. —— a very nice Irishman that’s working at our Celtic MSS., and I promised to show the Milesian the way. So though I would go far for the sake of the ladies and of you, I feel that it would be rather too flagrant a breach of faith to tell old —— that I have another engagement which I had forgotten. I wish he or his wife would take some harmless disease for a day or two and put off their dinner.
I needn’t say that I appreciate immensely the distinction of being asked as the one man in Edinburgh worthy of admission to that select company! It’s equal to the Cross of the Legion of Honour and a great deal better. There’s something in the idea too that piques the imagination. It’s as if—but far better—a favoured mortal got a special card per Ganymede, to sup quietly in Olympus with Mr. and Mrs. Jupiter and the Misses Minerva, Diana and Urania: or like being asked by a Flamen and his wife to meet three of the Vestal Virgins over a jar of Falernian; or again like an invitation from the grand Lama to have a little jollification with a few Buddhist lady abbesses in the innermost shrine of the great temple at Lassa, or from a chief of Carbonari to take a glass and pipe with Mazzini, Garibaldi, etc. There’s no end of the things it suggests.
As to your unworthy fears, fie upon them! You are more to be envied than the Sultan, the Pope or Brigham Young.
Hoping to have a chance some other time of doing homage to the Trinity, and to have the pleasure soon of calling upon Mrs. Russel.
And her fame—or notoriety—extended to the most unexpected classes of society. “Miss Jex-Blake had that house last year,” the driver of a Highland coach would say, pointing with his whip in the direction of the farm where she had stayed. Her name occurred repeatedly in that year’s pantomime, and Harlequin and Columbine had called to ask if she had any objection to this,—an incident which she always recalled with amusement and appreciation. The main reference, as it happened, was quite complimentary. A game was played on the stage in which various Edinburgh dignitaries were the cards; but “Miss Jex-Blake” took the trick.
Her dislike of publicity was great, but she had long since hardened herself to endure it in so far as was necessary for her work’s sake. Beyond that she drew the line absolutely. The press rang with her name for a few years, but she steadily refused to be interviewed. It was nothing to her that the public had not the smallest idea of the more human side of her character. “Nothing,” she wrote in response to many requests, “would induce her to consent to the sale of her photograph.” Her holidays were spent in absolute retirement, and intimate friends will never forget how, on the first day in the country, the words would rise to her lips,—
A memorandum of this period directs that, in case of her death, the funeral shall be as simple and inexpensive as possible, and that the headstone—if headstone there be—shall bear only her name, the dates, and the words,—“Then are they glad because they be quiet.”
“Partly you see, I am so tired,” she had written half to herself and half to Miss Du Pre in February,—“not physically or even mentally exactly. I could come up to any given exertion of either kind for the time being; but my whole nature is strained and wearied. I can get up energy for nothing,—can but just get through the day’s work in the day and long for rest!
No, my glory is rest!...
How strange lives are! Miss Anderson’s husband—married Oct. 5th (?), died on Monday, November 12th,—love enough to change a life for, and it,—no, not it, the marriage,—ends in 4 months!”
It was about this time that her friend Mrs. Unwin died. Up to the last she had followed the Edinburgh campaign with intense interest and sympathy. S. J.-B. had promised that, whatever the claims of her work might be, she would pay a last visit to the Yorkshire home in case of “utter need”; but Mrs. Unwin refused to make this plea. Resolutely she bore her own cross: and, with a last message of “deepest love and regard,” she passed away.
“Madam,
... I never read or heard of such a hard case as yours—and so peculiar. It might be worth while to seek the advice of a Solicitor—who would consult counsel—to find out whether you and your disappointed friends have no case at Law. I would (if it be possible) just like to know what the Court of Session would have to say, touching—not only the arbitrariness, but the gross injustice, if not absolute illegality, of the whole affair. You matriculate—get through with about half of your classes—great loss of time—money—disappointment—even exasperation or half ruin—all incurred: and are then summarily brought to—made to fairly stick—and yet no legal remedy! I can’t believe it. I would try and find out,—but yet, it is an awful prospect. The length of time, and expense that would have to be borne, ere any decision could be come to. You seem to me like one who took a leap, without seeing from the first,[97] where the leap was to land you. For surely, had you foreseen all this,—you never would have set foot in Edinburgh....
The tide is coming in and nothing can retard it,—nothing worth speaking of. And these views will be realised and acted upon some day. Depend upon it.
The day will come when women will sit cheek by jowl with men through a six months’ course of Anatomy, Physiology, Midwifery, etc., etc., right cheerfully, and neither jeering nor sneering there—nor winks nor any other impertinences—singularly misplaced and out of time—if certain important personages could only see matters rightly. Yes, and walk the Hospitals—surgical and medical—and the lying-in Hospital also, the Eye Infirmary, the Cancer one and the Consumptive one, and the Lock into the bargain. And then all these important obstructives will be dead, buried, rotten—forgotten—and their writings selling at three halfpence per lb.”
The above is quoted from the letter of a complete stranger,—the so-called “man in the street” apparently, and is a sample of many that came pouring in upon S. J.-B. during those troublous years. “Has the University any right to act like this?” friends kept asking constantly; and we know that more than one of the Professors had advised an appeal to a Court of Law.
Towards the close of 1871, S. J.-B. seems to have consulted her brother on the subject, drawing from him the following letters:
My dear Sophy,
I do not think you can gain anything by sueing the Professors or by going to Law with the University in any other shape.
It may be too late now to persuade, but it would be at all times hopeless to compel, a great University to open its doors to ladies.
I return the Queries and Opinions: and should distrust legal opinions that advised further law-suits.
It is most provoking, and your treatment has been unjust: but it comes to my mind to this, When they persecute you in one city, flee ye to another.
You can make better use of your time by getting University instruction elsewhere, than by throwing legal pebbles at the University gates of Auld Reekie: and life being short you had better gather up the net result of your Scotch experience, and go to Zürich or Paris, or wherever your own knowledge and judgment lead you.
I am exceedingly sorry for you; but I see nothing else to be done, so far as I understand the facts.
It is very tantalizing that the majorities have always been so narrow: and that there has been so much to justify sanguine friends in their advice.
I shall be glad to hear your decision, and both Hetty and I are very sorry for you.
My dear Sophy,
There is more to be said for legal action than I knew of: for I thought Paris or Zürich degree was legal qualification in England: though of course to go abroad for degree is objectionable in several ways, and the language must slightly increase the difficulties.
Still there is nothing to be said for legal action unless it is likely to succeed: and of that your Scotch lawyers are the best judges: though their expectations hitherto have been more sanguine than accurate in your case.
I am sorry I cannot be of much use, and very sorry the Trades Union is so strong and so well organized.
It must be very annoying, and is certainly a horrible waste of time: but half of most people’s time is spent in untying the foolish knots of blind opponents.
Hetty joins in love.
My dear Sophy,
One line to wish you many happy returns of the day, and to tell you that all is going on very well here....
We were very glad that you crept into such a haven of rest as Mrs. Nichol has to offer you: and I am quite sure the strain of so much fighting and organizing must be very great.
It seems hardly possible that you should get on with your own Medical education while there is so much polemical business on hand; but if you carry the point for all women, it will be cheaply bought at the sacrifice of two or three years of individual training in books and bones.”
“When they persecute you in one city, flee ye to another.”
This was advice which S. J.-B. had always kept well in mind, though not with regard to Paris and Zürich; and enquiries as to other British Universities had been diligently prosecuted. St. Andrews was the one that most naturally suggested itself, “as a comparatively rural University, without male students of medicine, and yet with the power to grant degrees.” It is true that the Medical Curriculum at St. Andrews was—and is—very incomplete; but the deficiency might be made good by some teaching-school unable—or unwilling—to grant degrees. Professor Lewis Campbell and Mrs. Campbell had taken a deep interest in the project of making their University the Alma Mater of the women students; S. J.-B. had visited them at St. Andrews in the autumn of 1871, with Miss Massingberd Mundy[98]; and there are a number of cordial letters witnessing to the genuine desire of both the Professor and his wife for the success of the scheme.
Their enthusiasm was not typical of the University, however, though Principal Tulloch “seemed friendly in a vague way”; and all hope in this direction had, for the moment, to be given up.
Meanwhile S. J.-B., on behalf of herself and her fellow-students, had made a final appeal to the University Court of Edinburgh to provide them with the means of completing their education, and she had also forwarded to them a farther legal opinion from the Lord Advocate and Sheriff Fraser to the effect that the University authorities had full power to permit the matriculation of women in 1869; that the resolutions then passed amounted to a permission to women to “study Medicine” in the University, and that therefore the women concerned were entitled to demand the means of doing so; and finally, that if such means were persistently refused, the legal mode of redress lay in an Action of Declarator.
On January 8th the University Court resolved that it was not in their power to comply with the requirements of the women as regarded teaching: the whole question, they said, had been “complicated by the introduction of the subject of graduation, which is not essential to the completion of a medical or other education”: if the ladies would altogether give up the question of graduation, and be content with certificates of proficiency, the Court would try to meet their views.
“They forgot,” says S. J.-B., “that though a degree is ‘not essential’ to a medical education, it is absolutely indispensable to any practical use of it,—that is to any lawful practice of the medical profession.”
She offered, however, to waive the question of graduation,—pending an authoritative decision as to the powers and duties of the University,—if arrangements might meanwhile be made for the women to continue their education. To this the Court agreed. Farther correspondence, however, elicited the fact that the Court had no intention of coming to any decision with regard to its own powers, and that it did not mean to take any active steps in the matter.
“On the other hand,” says S. J.-B., “we had no less authority than that of the Lord Advocate of Scotland for believing that we were absolutely entitled to what we had so humbly solicited, and that a Court of Law would quietly award to us what seemed unattainable by any other means; we had the very widely spread and daily increasing sympathy of the community at large, and received constant offers of help from friends of every kind.... Under these circumstances we did the one thing that remained for us to do, we brought an Action of Declarator against the Senatus of the University,—praying to have it declared that the Senatus was bound, in some way or other, to enable us to complete our education and to proceed to the medical degree which would entitle us to take place on the Medical Register among the legally-qualified practitioners of medicine.”
Of course the news of this daring step was forthwith noised abroad, and S. J.-B. received a protesting letter from Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, urging her not to waste on an uncertain lawsuit, money that might be so much more profitably spent in some other way.
The following is S. J.-B.’s reply:
“Dear Dr. Blackwell,
I suppose rumour very seldom does report things correctly, so I do not wonder that you have been misinformed about the action which we are on the point of bringing against the Senatus. It is not one for breach of promise (what fun Punch would make of it if it were!) but simply an Action of Declarator whereby we pray one of the Judges of Session to declare that the Senatus is bound to complete our education, according to the decided opinion given by the Lord Advocate of Scotland.
In the brief space of a letter it would be impossible for me to submit to you all the facts and grounds on which our intention is based, tho’ I should be glad to explain them in detail if you were on the spot, but you will be glad to hear that not only are the whole of the students here of the same mind as myself on this point, but our determination is strengthened by the advice and concurrence of some of the wisest heads in Edinburgh, including those of friendly Professors. I hope therefore that you will believe that, though you find a difficulty at a distance from the field of action in concurring in our present step, you would probably do so if all the facts of the case were as thoroughly before you as they are before us and our counsellors.
It is just because I find that London friends are so little au courant of the facts that I am hoping to give an explanatory lecture when in town next month, and I need not say how doubly glad I shall be to give every explanation and information to you to whom [all] of us medical women owe so much gratitude and respect as our pioneer and forerunner.
Now that there was something definite to be done, S. J.-B. was in her element once more and the following letters make it very clear that her “counsellors” were working con amore.
Dear Miss Jex-Blake,
Under the dread of bringing disgrace on the whole masculine race, I applied myself today during all the time I could command to the framing of the great Summons, and I brought it up to a point at which I think nothing of importance remains to be added except the historical statement and the pleas in law, both of which you may take for granted will be made right. If I can get them done this evening I’ll send them to you.
I thought as you were in a hurry to see the thing I had better let you have what I had done at once, and so I took it to White Millar and left it with him to send you. There must be a distinction drawn between you and the other ladies who are ready for the first professional exam., and the others who are not. So you will please note on the margin of the M.S. who those are that occupy these respective positions and the exact stage at which the less advanced ones have arrived. I must also have the dates and exact terms of the several resolutions and letters referred to in the last article, so as to make the chronological statement complete and accurate. I would like before the thing is finally adjusted to consult all the available sources of information on the subject of graduation and the original constitution of the University, and also I think if Bologna was our model, as seems to be taken for granted, that it would be worth while to communicate with some one there, such as the Secretary of the Senatus, if they have one, or the Librarian, to get authoritative statistics on the subject.
I have not heard from the Dean of Faculty yet in reply to my inquiry on the point of professional punctilio involved in my undertaking the case, but another eminent legal friend whose advice I highly value thinks on the whole that I ought not to undertake it. This did not prevent me, however, from doing the Summons! Meantime you needn’t mention that I am doing it, in case of my not going on with the case, which might lead to unfavourable remarks, if it were supposed that I had begun and afterwards backed out of it. I’ll be very sorry to do so, if that is the Dean’s opinion.
Apparently the decision of the Dean was adverse to Mr. Nicolson, for the case was taken up, and very ably argued, by Sheriff Fraser and Mr. M‘Laren (afterwards Lord M‘Laren), who had been junior counsel in the libel case.
“I am quite certain,” writes Mr. Fraser to S. J.-B., “that upon a more thorough investigation it will be found that women did attend the Universities and graduated.... When you are up in London just now perhaps you would refer to some of the books in the British Museum, mentioned by Watts, which are not in the Advocates’ Library. You need not trouble yourself with the University of Edinburgh, as I have gone over the whole Records of the Council and of the Professors since the institution of the University, and I cannot find a single case of a woman being a student. The same I fear will be the result of an examination of the records of the other universities. This was natural, for, until recently, both the law and the social customs of Scotland, like those of other barbarous countries, regarded women as nothing else but domestic drudges and field hands.”
It was useless, of course, to suggest the British Museum. S. J.-B. had long since exhausted that mine. And she had no great faith in the information to be derived from correspondence with foreign secretaries and librarians. She had worked that vein too. It still remained to send an emissary to examine the archives of the Italian Universities at first hand, and this was what she now resolved to do. Someone had commended to her interest about this time an able and well-educated young lady whose health was causing her friends some anxiety, and, after watching and tending her for some time S. J.-B. despatched her on the mission, duly armed with the following dossier:
“1. At each University get access, if possible, to the official archives and lists of students, and make a complete list of every woman who studied there, with date, Faculty, and other particulars.
2. If you cannot get access yourself, get the lists made by some official, and, if possible, compare it with originals or other authorities.
3. If possible get the Secretary or Librarian, or some Professor to attest the list with his signature, as truly extracted from the records.
4. Pay any necessary fees, having as far as possible arranged for these beforehand.
5. Make copies in one book of every list obtained, of name and address of each person making or attesting such lists, and of all additional information likely to be of value.
6. Send off attested lists to me in registered letters as soon as obtained, marking in your M.S. book the exact duplicate in case of loss and sending a separate letter to Miss P. to announce dispatch.
7. Do not let your own M.S. book out of your hands for any purpose.
8. Send all lists on foolscap and not on foreign paper.”
The ambassador seems to have carried through her mission most efficiently, and an imposing array of names was the result. At any rate that vein was now worked out.
In the meantime “the great Summons” was duly delivered, and on March 27th the Senatus met to consider what action they should take with regard to it. We get the following informal account of what took place from Miss Pechey:
“I could not get particulars of the Senatus meeting ... till too late to write last night, but it appears that it was first moved to defend the action; then Fleeming Jenkin proposed that an attempt should be made to have an amicable lawsuit. This was negatived by 17 to 10, and then the other motion not to defend the action being put against the first, was negatived by 22 to 5. Many of our friends voted to defend,—Wilson amongst others. He says he feels sure that the thing will never be fairly settled without a legal decision. I saw him today in his office. He is very anxious you should get some member to ask a question when the Parliamentary grant is being arranged.[99] He told me the enemy were dreadfully angry at the suit, from which he concluded that our Summons is well drawn up.”
“This was the great argument for assenting to the corporate defence,” writes Professor Masson, “i.e. that the Senatus could not possibly let judgment go by default, which would yield all your demands (compulsion of Professors, etc.) and yet not really settle the thing, inasmuch as the Professors or anyone might afterwards reopen the whole judgment. On the same ground it is that friends don’t seem to want to stir individually. They say the defence is corporately by the Senatus and everybody will understand that, and hence that individual secession is superfluous. Tait, however, said he would consult his lawyer, and Craufurd and Jenkin meditated something of the same.”
On the other hand, six members of the Senatus—anxious though they well might be to have the weary question settled one way or the other—simply could not allow the resolution to pass without protest, and the following minute is duly recorded in the books of the University:
“We dissent from and protest against the resolution of the Senatus of March 27, 1872, to undertake the defence of the action. This we do for the following reasons:—(1.) Because we see no just cause for opposing the admission of women to the study and practice of medicine; but, on the contrary, consider that women who have honourably marked out such a course of life for themselves, ought to be forwarded and aided in their laudable endeavour as much as possible, by all who have the means, and especially by those having authority in any University or other institution for education; (2.) Because, in particular, we feel such aid and encouragement, rather than opposition and discouragement, to be due from us to those women who have enrolled themselves in the University of Edinburgh, and we entirely concur, with respect to them, in the desire expressed by Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, the Rector of the University, that they should obtain what they ask—namely, a complete medical education, crowned by a degree; (3.) Because we have seen no sufficient reason to doubt the legal and constitutional powers of our University to make arrangements that would be perfectly adequate for the purpose, and we consider the public questioning of such powers, in present circumstances, by the University itself, or any of its component bodies, unnecessary, impolitic, and capable of being construed as a surrender of permanent rights and privileges of the University, in order to evade a temporary difficulty; (4.) Because, without pronouncing an opinion on the question now raised, as to the legal rights which the pursuers have acquired by matriculation in the University, admission already to certain examinations, or otherwise, to demand from the University continued medical instruction and the degree on due qualification, we yet believe that they have thereby, and by the general tenor of the proceedings, both of the Senatus and of the University Court in their case hitherto, acquired a moral right, and created a public expectation, which the University is bound to meet by the full exercise of its powers in their behalf, even should it be with some trouble; (5.) Because, with these convictions, and notwithstanding our utmost respect for those of our colleagues from whom we may have the misfortune to differ on the subject, we should individually feel ashamed of appearing as defenders in such an action, and should account any such public appearance by us in the character of opponents to women desiring to enter an honoured and useful profession, a matter to our discredit.”
The following are the names of the six[100] Professors who felt bound thus to stand out against the arguments of their colleagues.
John Hughes Bennett, M.D., Professor of the Institutes of Medicine,
David Masson, M.A., Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature,
Henry Calderwood, LL.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy,
James Lorimer, M.A., Professor of Public Law,
Archibald H. Charteris, D.D., Professor of Biblical Criticism and Biblical Antiquities,
William Ballantyne Hodgson, LL.D.,[101] Professor of Political Economy.
“Did you advertise your lecture in the Lancet? I expect you will have a lot of blackguardly doctors there in consequence. Don’t have any libel cases, and don’t be hard on the students. They’re very bad, but they’re not so bad as the Professors.[102] I know you are very busy writing and so on, and that there would be plenty of copying for me to do if only I were at hand. Don’t you want me to bully and be bullied by?
How I wish I could be in the gallery to make faces at you and throw peas!”
An admirable and characteristic letter, this, from Miss Pechey. Was a bracing message of warning and sympathy to a senior and chum ever more tactfully and lightly delivered?
On April 25th, after some days in the country, S. J.-B. went to London and was met by Miss Du Pre and Miss M‘Laren, who “heard and finally polished up the lecture,” which was delivered the following day at St. George’s Hall in the presence of a large and curiously assorted audience. The Earl of Shaftesbury, who occupied the chair, was supported by Professor Lewis Campbell, Rev. Dr. Martineau, Mrs. Garrett Anderson, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the Dowager Countess of Buchan, and other well-known folk, and among the general public were a number of girlhood’s friends, including Miss Ada Benson, Miss Miranda Hill, and many “modern women,”—with a sprinkling of Norfolk cousins. In the course of his
address the Chairman made a shrewd remark, of which time has proved the truth:
“The argument that women were not wanted in the medical profession struck him as very singular. He was old enough to remember when railways and electric telegraphs were not wanted for the simple reason that they were not known. When they became known and tried, we could not do without them, and in all probability it would be the same with reference to ladies in the medical profession.”
In many ways the lecture was a success, and it was largely quoted and referred to in the press; but, for the ordinary hearer, it was overloaded with statistics, and—with a view to that ever-possible action for libel—the lecturer kept herself too well in hand. It is amusing to find The Christian World hinting a regret that she “had not really worked herself up into a passion” in narrating the injustice and vexations to which she had been exposed.
On the other hand, Mrs. Priscilla Bright M‘Laren, an unbiassed expert, expressed the wish that the lecture should be delivered throughout the length and breadth of the land. The publication of a pamphlet, she said, would not have the same effect, because most people never have their sympathies thoroughly roused unless they come face to face with the person who has been persecuted. “If you could be seen and heard” she wrote, “you would produce a wonderful effect in favour of the cause you have at heart.”
S. J.-B. had serious thoughts of carrying out this suggestion, but—in the interests of her own health—one is glad to record that wiser counsels prevailed.
“Thank you very, very much, darling, for your telegram,” writes Mrs. Jex-Blake, the day after the lecture. “I thought if you knew how anxious I had been the last few hours, you would send one, but I did not at all expect it.”
“I have not known where to direct to keep adding my rejoicing at the many accounts of the success of your lecture. Well, I am very very glad for you and with you, and I pray things may somehow take a fresh start. How very nice of some medical students to come and officiate. I wish Professor Masson could have been there.”
“I am very glad to think of you as once more snug at home and I hope with less work in view and some anxieties abated.... I am very glad indeed you have given up going about lecturing.... Tom, too, thinks you very wise to give it up: he was struck with your looking so worn, and very vexed to see you so.”
It is interesting to note that S. J.-B. had taken an invalid friend home with her to recruit! At the same time she is writing to a protégée:
“I have seen Dr. Blackwell, and think she is rather disposed to give you the work.... I think you should go in your bonnet, and look sage, and not seem too eager for the work, and put a good price on yourself,—say £2 a week, or, oh, you would accept £40 for the 6 months, etc. And be very confident you can do it all, if she asks you to call on her.”
This is really the most worldly letter that S. J.-B. ever wrote!
In all these later happenings, one misses the name of Mrs. Butler, who had stood by S. J.-B. so enthusiastically in the day of small things. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Butler was now fully embarked on her own heroic campaign, and both Mrs. Garrett Anderson and S. J.-B. had failed to give her their support. Thinking differently from each other on many points, characterised indeed by a fundamentally different way of looking at life, the two medical women alike realized the complications of modern civilization too profoundly to add the stupendous question that occupied Mrs. Butler to a programme that was already involved and difficult enough. Mrs. Butler felt their attitude keenly, and it was evidently with mingled feelings that she received a letter from Miss Pechey about this time, asking the privilege of adding her name and that of Canon Butler to the ever-growing Committee.
“My dear Miss Pechey,” she writes, “You are welcome to use my own and my husband’s names if you think they will do your cause any good. We cannot conceive that they would, and, on that ground alone, we should be as glad that you should not use them. It had better be left to Miss Jex-Blake’s judgment.
“All the world knows that we are on opposite sides on one of the most vital questions of the day, and that the Medical ladies have no sympathy with the efforts being made to get rid of the scandal of a great State system of legalised Prostitution, and therefore it appears to Mr. Butler and me an inconsistency that our names should appear in any such adverse connexion, deeply as we desire the prosperity and success of the medical woman movement....”
“Dear Mrs. Butler,” writes S. J.-B. in reply,—“As Miss Pechey tells me that you leave me to decide whether or no to place on our Committee your name and Mr. Butler’s, I write to say that I shall most gladly avail myself of your permission so to use your names.
I am glad to say that our Committee is made up of over a thousand friends who not only differ widely on the point to which you refer, but among whom differences no doubt exist on almost every other question, social, political and religious.
As we cannot hope that even the most conscientious among us will always agree on matters of judgment, I am sure that the only wise rule is to keep each question distinct by itself, and to welcome for it the support of all who care for its success, whether or no they agree on other points.
With kind regards to Mr. Butler, believe me,
The breach was never quite healed. When people care more for great causes than for personal pleasure and satisfaction, the loss of a friend must sometimes be taken as part of the day’s work. Sunt lachrymae rerum.
Meanwhile the work of propaganda was going on steadily, and, as S. J.-B. had given up the idea of lecturing in the great towns, she proceeded, as the next best thing, to publish her lecture, in conjunction with her historical researches on the subject of Medical Women, in the form of a small volume.
Just as she was seeing this through the press, news came of the illness of her Mother, who was visiting the cousins at Bylaugh Park.
Darling Mother,
I am very sorry to hear that you have had such an attack again. I should be really unhappy if I did not believe and trust in you that you would telegraph for me if you at all wished for me, or if you felt really seriously ill. Am I right in so trusting you?
I am sure they will take all the care they can of you, and I hope you will be good and wise enough to eat all you can, broth at first, and then as much meat and vegetables as possible—and lots of strawberries!—are they ripe yet at Bylaugh?
You know that I am doing Dispensary work now, and have several patients of all kinds to look after, but I envy the doctor that has my old lady instead of me.
If you decide against going to Wales, suppose you come up here straight from Norfolk, and we have a quiet month quite alone together?—somewhere in the Highlands—if I have to give up Brighton.
Of course I shall send you your own copy of my new book myself, but Miss Pechey will send any quantity more that you may order for giving away, etc.
How good of dear old Auntie to write!
The illness, however, rapidly assumed a dangerous character, and S. J.-B. was telegraphed for next day.
“Luckily was up,” she says [she had been ill herself], “and received the telegram by 9.50 a.m. Got things packed and off by 10.25 train. Thunder and lightning whole way up. Reached Peterbro about 6.30,—Lynn 9.15. Got a carriage and drove to Swaffham ...—thence to Bylaugh, arriving at 2.45 a.m. Crept up to Mother’s room,—she, ‘My darling!’—She had been nervous and restless, but slept, holding my hand.
Oh, the horror of seeing her all shrunk together in bed, hardly articulate,—I thought dying.
And had been very nearly....”
As usual when life was doing its worst, there follow a few blank pages in the diary,—pages that were to be filled in some day! “I am so glad,” wrote Miss Jane Cubitt from Fritton,—Miss Cubitt was the “sensible cousin” of the childhood, who could do equations—“I am so glad that you have arrived at Bylaugh. I feel now that all that can be done will be done.” And fortunately on this occasion recovery came more rapidly than the doctors had thought possible.
S. J.-B. returned to Edinburgh on the 8th July, not a moment too soon. She was called out to a case the evening of her arrival—having travelled north by day—and she proceeded forthwith to finish seeing her book through the press. Law business, too, was urgently claiming her return. On Wednesday, the 17th July, the historic lawsuit came on before Lord Gifford.
It must be understood that this lawsuit, though of almost infinite importance to the women, was in no way a dramatic affair like the last. In the nature of the case it afforded no sensations to provincial papers. An Action of Declarator is “for a decree defining and declaring the right of the pursuer,”[103] and the evidence in Court was given by Counsel only.
The women repeated in effect the requests they had so often made to the University, viz. that the Professors should either receive them as members of their classes, or else appoint (or recognize) other lecturers who would. The defence consisted substantially of two pleas: 1. that all parties are not called (see below); and 2. that the Senatus has not the power to do what it is asked to do; in other words, (a) that the University existed for men only, and, (b) that the University authorities in making this experiment, had never intended to admit women to graduation. If they did so intend, the intention was ultra vires; and indeed they probably went beyond their powers when in 1869 they framed regulations admitting women to share their privileges at all.
The hearing of the case lasted two days, and it was fully reported in the Scottish daily papers of July 18th and 19th. Much of it, of course, consisted of sheer technical detail that has long since lost interest, but Lord Gifford’s judgment—delivered eight or nine days after the hearing of Counsel—was characterized by a grip of the whole situation and enlivened by a warmth of human interest that make it a landmark in the history, not only of medical women, but of the whole Feminist movement. If he allowed his sympathy with the pursuers to appear rather too clearly, this was surely a fault that, in view of all the circumstances, may well be reckoned to him for righteousness. The gist of the judgment is contained in the following sentences:
“The Lord Ordinary finds that, according to the existing constitution and regulations of the said University of Edinburgh, the pursuers are entitled to be admitted to the study of medicine in the said University, and that they are entitled to all the rights and privileges of lawful students in the said University, subject only to the conditions specified and contained in the said regulations of 12th November 1869: Finds that the pursuers, on completing the prescribed studies, and on compliance with all the existing regulations of the University preliminary to degrees, are entitled to proceed to examination for degrees in manner prescribed by the regulations of the University of Edinburgh.”
In the “Note,” the Lord Ordinary discusses the case in detail: