Mary Edith Pechey (October 7, 1845 - April 14, 1908) was a pioneering physician and a prominent member of the "Edinburgh Seven," the first group of female undergraduate
students to matriculate at a British university.Queer Places:
University of Bern, Hochschulstrasse 4, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
Cheriton Road Cemetery, Cheriton Rd, Folkestone CT20 1DF, United Kingdom
Mary Edith Pechey (October 7, 1845 - April 14, 1908) was a pioneering physician and a prominent member of the "Edinburgh Seven," the first group of female undergraduate
students to matriculate at a British university.
In 1869, Pechey joined Sophia Jex-Blake and others in their historic campaign to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. Despite facing intense hostility and discrimination—including being denied a Hope Scholarship she had earned through top academic performance and enduring the "Surgeons' Hall Riot"—she persisted in her medical studies. Since the University of Edinburgh eventually denied the women the right to graduate, she obtained her M.D. from the University of Berne in 1877 and subsequently qualified as a doctor in Ireland.
In 1883, Pechey moved to Bombay (now Mumbai) to become the Senior Medical Officer at the Cama Hospital for Women and Children, which was the first hospital in the world to be staffed entirely by women for women. During her 22 years in India, she campaigned for women’s rights, including equal pay for female doctors, girls' education, and the protection of widows.
Pechey was a committed suffragist who remained active in the movement throughout her life, famously participating in the "Mud March" in London in 1907 despite being seriously ill.
In March 1889, Edith Pechey married Herbert Musgrave Phipson, a wine merchant and naturalist who supported her work and the "Medical Women for India" fund.
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