Florence Barrett

Florence Elizabeth, Lady Barrett, CH, CBE (née Perry; 1867 – 7 August 1945) was a consultant surgeon at the Mothers' Hospital in Clapton and the Royal Free Hospital in London. She was a gynaecologist, obstetrician and eugenecist.

Lady Barrett

CH CBE
Born
Florence Elizabeth Perry

Henbury, Gloucestershire, England
NationalityBritish
EducationUniversity College, Bristol
Medical career
ProfessionSurgeon
FieldPhysician
InstitutionsLondon School of Medicine for Women (Royal Free Hospital)
Sub-specialtiesGynaecology, Obstetrics

Early and private life

Lady Barrett was born in Henbury in Gloucestershire now part of Bristol, and she was the fourth child of merchant Benjamin Perry.[1] She received little formal education in the early part of her life, she studied physiology and organic chemistry at University College, Bristol, and graduated with a first-class BSc in 1895. She received a Bachelor of Medicine (MB) in 1900 and a Doctor of Medicine (MD) in 1906 at the London School of Medicine for Women.[2]

Barrett married surgeon Frederick George Ingor Willey, the son of Josiah Willey FRCS, in 1896.

In 1916, Barrett married Sir William Fletcher Barrett FRS.[2] At the time of their marriage, Sir William, aged 72, was a former Professor of Physics at the Royal College of Science for Ireland in Dublin. His research focused on psychic phenomena, and he later founded the Society for Psychical Research in 1882. She claimed to have conversed with her husband after his death in 1925 through the help of a third-party.[3] She published an account of the sittings, entitled Personality Survives Death, in 1937.[4][2]

Medical career

Barrett joined the staff of the Royal Free Hospital in 1906,[1] which was the only hospital in England where women could train in medical practice at the time. Before World War I, she developed voluntary centres for the feeding of expectant mothers and children.[2] She was an obstetric surgeon at the Mothers' Hospital from 1913, and an obstetric and gynaecological surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital.[1] Barrett worked there as a surgeon at a time when operations were at their peak.[5]

In 1916, Barrett led a fund-raising campaign to extend the hospital, adding maternity, paediatric and infant welfare facilities. She helped to develop the London School of Medicine for Women at the Royal Free Hospital, of which she became Dean and then President in 1937.

Barrett was an active member of the Eugenics Society, and served on its council from 1917.[6] Barrett advocated for "state interference" in the sex lives of "the unfit" to implement birth control, because she believed that propaganda would be ineffective.[7] Barrett felt that contraception should be overseen by the medical profession and expressed preference for abstinence over contraception in for "normal healthy individuals".[7][8] She preferred to recommend the use of the rhythm method and condoms over other methods.[6][8]

In 1921, Barrett and other members of the Medical Women's Federation protested the decisions of Glasgow and St Pancras councils to refuse to employ medical women who were married and whose husbands had jobs, arguing that this contravened the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919.[9]

Barrett served as president of the Medical Women's Federation in 1923, and joint vice-president of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Section of the British Medical Association.[10] She was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and president of the Medical Women's International Association.

Later life

She was appointed as a CBE in the first list of awards for the Order of the British Empire in 1917, and became a Companion of Honour in 1929.[11]

She died in Maidenhead, and a memorial service was held at St Martin-in-the-Fields. Her obituary in The Times stated "She was unquestionably one of the most distinguished of medical women".[2] She left her husband’s library to the Society for Psychical Research, and also left £1,000 to endow a scholarship at the London School of Medicine for Women.[12]

References
  1. Jessop, Claudia (21 December 2009). "A most decorated lady". The Story of Healthcare in Hackney. Retrieved 11 April 2017.
  2. "Obituary". The Times. 9 August 1945.
  3. Barrett, William (1 January 2011). Deathbed visions. White Crow. ISBN 9781907661020. OCLC 930376608.
  4. Barrett, Lady Florence Elizabeth (1937). Personality survives death; messages from Sir William Barrett. London, New York Longmans, Green and Co.
  5. Brock, Claire (12 December 2017). "Women in Surgery: Patients and Practitioners". In Schlich, Thomas (ed.). The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Surgery. Springer. p. 141. ISBN 978-1-349-95260-1.
  6. Jessop, Claudia (2009). "Contraception and eugenics". The Story of Healthcare in Hackney. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
  7. Rusterholz, Caroline (1 December 2020). Women's medicine: Sex, family planning and British female doctors in transnational perspective, 1920–70. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-1-5261-5655-6.
  8. Hall, Lesley A. (11 October 2016). "A Suitable job for a Woman: Women Doctors and Birth Control to the Inception of the NHS". In Hardy, Anne (ed.). Women and Modern Medicine. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-33339-0.
  9. Sturge, Mary D. (6 December 1921). "Married Medical Women". The Times.
  10. "British Medical Association. Ninety-Eighth Annual Meeting, Winnipeg, August, 1930". The British Medical Journal. 1 (3600): 1–2. 1930. ISSN 0007-1447. JSTOR 25334850.
  11. "The New Year Honours." Times [London, England] 1 March 1929: 8. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 30 August 2013.
  12. "Wills and bequests". The Times. No. 50325. 14 December 1945. p. 8.
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