Explore Your Archives 2015 - RCPI's First Female Fellow
We are delighted to take part in this year's Explore Your Archives campaign. This campaign aims to highlight the myriad of fascinating documents and stories waiting to be found and studied in archives throughout the country. You can view a collection of 'Story Boxes' from archives around Ireland highlighting items form their collections on the learn about archive website.
Our story box looks at a decision made by the College one hundred years ago to admit women to the Fellowship of the College.
RCPI Archive Story Box – Mary Hearn, our first female
Fellow
In early 1915 the Royal College of
Physicians of Ireland (RCPI) submitted a case to Mr Garrett William Walker,
K.C., to establish if the College had the power to admit women to its order of
Fellowship. Fellowship of RCPI has existed since the foundation of the College
in the seventeenth century, and the Fellows are the body corporate of the
College, making decisions on the running of the College.
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| Letter and case for Council submitted in 1915 (RCPI/5/4/4/5) |
Just under 40 years before RCPI had become
the first medical licensing body in the British Isles to allow women to take
their medical exam (you can find out more about this here). RCPI had also allowed
women to become Members of the College, since the order of Membership was
created in 1879.
Despite their early support of women’s
access to medical education RCPI were unsure in 1915 if women could be
nominated for Fellowship, and decided a clear answer must be found. In a
lengthy response Mr Walker suggested that as things stood women were not eligible
for nomination to Fellowship, hardly surprising as the conditions for
nomination for Fellowship were covered by the 1692 Royal Charter, granted at a
time when no one would have imagined that a woman could become a doctor. In response to the conclusions of Mr Walker
the College made changes to their by-laws to make it clear that women could be
nominated for Fellowship, and these were submitted to the Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland for approval as required by the Royal Charter of 1692.
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| Article from The Medical Press, 6 October 1915 (RCPI/5/4/4/5) |
In October 1915 The Medical Press reported on the steps
taken by the College to make it ‘plain
that a women member possesses the same right as a man member to be nominated
for Fellowship’. They went on to
state that ‘There are some women of high
professional standing among the members, and we hope that it will not be long
before one of them is successful in attaining to the high honour.’
Sadly, however, The Medical Press’s hopes were somewhat premature, as it would be
another 9 years before a woman was admitted to the Fellowship of RCPI.
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| Mary Hearn (VM/1/2/H/12) |
The first female Fellow of the College Mary
Hearn was admitted a Fellow on 18th October 1924, St Luke’s Day. Born
Mary Cummins in 1891, she was studying medicine at University College Cork when
she met Rev Robert Hearn, and discontinued her studies to marry him. Mary would
later return to her studies and graduate as a doctor, she becoming a Member of
RCPI in 1922 and a Fellow two years later.
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| Letter sent to Dr Hearn, caught in a fire at the GPO in 1922 and returned to RCPI (RCPI/5/3/5/3/2) |
During her career she worked at the
Victoria Hospital Cork and the Lapp’s Charity, Cork. Her husband became Church
of Ireland archdeacon and later bishop of Cork. Mary Hearn died in 1969; today RCPI’s
study and research room in 6 Kildare Street is named for the Hearn Room in her
memory.
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| Fellowship certificate of Mary Hearn, 18th October 1924 (MS/48) |