Octavia Ritchie

Octavia Grace Ritchie England (16 January 1868 – 1 February 1948) was a Canadian physician and suffragist. In 1891 she became the first woman to receive a medical degree in Québec.

Octavia Ritchie
Born
Octavia Grace Ritchie

(1868-01-16)January 16, 1868
Montreal, Canada
DiedFebruary 1, 1948(1948-02-01) (aged 80)
NationalityCanadian
Alma materKingston Women's Medical College
Bishop's College
Occupation(s)Physician, Suffragist
Spouse
Frank Richardson England
​
​
(m. 1897)​

Early life and education

Octavia Grace Ritchie was born in Montreal, the daughter of Thomas Weston Ritchie and Jessie Torrance Fisher. Her father was a lawyer.[1] She attended the Montreal High School for Girls. In 1888, she was the first woman valedictorian at McGill University.[2] She wanted to continue into medical school at McGill, but was denied admission on the basis of gender.[3] Instead, she attended Kingston Women's Medical College, then transferred to Bishop's College, where she completed her studies in 1891, becoming the first woman to earn a medical degree in Québec.[4]

As medical students at Bishop's, Octavia Grace Ritchie and Maude Abbott formed an organization, Association for the Professional Education of Women, to advocate for other women seeking medical or other advanced degrees.[5]

Career

Ritchie was appointed a Demonstrator in Anatomy at Bishop's College, and assistant gynaecologist at Western Hospital. After she married, she turned more to advocacy work, supporting causes for women's rights and public health. She was president of the local Council of Women from 1911 to 1917; she was also president of the Montréal Women's Liberal Club, from 1921, and vice-president of the National Council of Women of Canada.[6]

She represented Canada at the 1914 International Council of Women meeting in Rome;[7] in 1922, she once again represented Canada, this time at the Pan-American Conference of Women in Baltimore.[8] She was active with La Ligue des Droits de la Femme, which sought the vote for women in Québec provincial elections. In 1930, she ran for a seat in the Canadian Parliament as the Liberal candidate from Mount Royal.[9] A collection of her original letters is conserved at the Osler Library of the History of Medicine at McGill University.[10]

Personal life

Octavia Grace Ritchie became the second wife of a fellow doctor, Frank Richardson England, in 1897.[11] They had a daughter, Esther Ritchie England.[12] Octavia Grace Ritchie England died in 1948, aged 80 years.[13] In 1979, McGill Alumnae established an Octavia Grace Ritchie England Scholarship in her memory. The home on Bishop Street where the Englands lived, designed by architect Robert Findlay, is now a pub.[14]

References
  1. John Douglas Borthwick, History and Biographical Gazetteer of Montreal to the Year 1892 (John Lovell 1892): 484.
  2. Fred Dayton, "Honors Won by Women" Topeka State Journal (July 27, 1891): 3. via Newspapers.comopen access
  3. Joseph Hanaway and Richard L. Cruess, McGill Medicine: The Second Half Century, 1885-1936 (McGill Queens University Press 2006): 106. ISBN 9780773573161
  4. Margaret Gillett, "Octavia Grace Ritchie" The Canadian Encyclopedia (Historica Canada 2008, 2013).
  5. Christopher Nicholl, Bishop's University, 1843-1970 (McGill Queens University Press 1994): 336. ISBN 9780773511767
  6. Claude Belanger, "Dr. Octavia Grace Ritchie England" L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia (Marianopolis College 2006).
  7. Rupp, Leila J. Worlds of Women: the making of an International Women's Movement, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.
  8. "Pan-American Women" Oakland Tribune (April 23, 1922): 50. via Newspapers.comopen access
  9. "Men Favor Woman" Montreal Gazette (August 27, 1935): 4.
  10. "Margaret Gillet fonds". McGill Archival Collections Catalogue. Retrieved 23 November 2018.
  11. William Henry Atherton, Montreal from 1535 to 1914: Biographical (S. J. Clarke 1914): 132-133.
  12. John William Leonard, ed., Woman's Who's Who of America (American Commonwealth Publishing 1914): 277.
  13. Mary R. S. Creese and Thomas M. Creese, Ladies in the Laboratory III: South African, Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian Women in Science (Scarecrow Press 2010): 171. ISBN 9780810872899
  14. "Our History" McKibbins Irish Pub.
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