Edinburgh Seven - After 1873

After 1873

Sophia Jex-Blake soon moved to London to campaign there. She was active in establishing the London School of Medicine for Women, which opened in autumn 1874 with twelve of its fourteen students having previously studied in Edinburgh. Six of the original "Seven" attended the School. Isabel Thorne was an asset to its smooth running since she was more diplomatic than Jex-Blake. She became the honorary secretary of the School, but gave up her own plan to practise as a doctor.

Five of the original seven - Bovell, Chaplin, Jex-Blake, Marshall, Pechey - were granted MDs abroad in the later 1870s, either in Bern or Paris. In 1876 new legislation enabled, but did not compel, examining bodies to treat candidates of both sexes equally. The Irish College of Physicians was the first to start granting medical practice licences to women: an opportunity for four of the newly-qualified women.

In 1878 Jex-Blake returned to Edinburgh and set up at Manor Place in the New Town as the city's first woman doctor. She also established a clinic for poor patients which was the forerunner of Bruntsfield Hospital. Once Scotland started licensing women doctors, Jex-Blake helped found the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women, with clinical practice taking place at Leith Hospital. Edith Pechey practised in Leeds before becoming senior medical officer at the new Cama women and children's hospital in Bombay (now Mumbai). Bovell and Marshall worked at the New Hospital for Women in London. Chaplin founded a midwifery school in Tokyo, but later returned to private practice in London.

Edinburgh University and the other Scottish universities eventually admitted women undergraduates in 1892 after the Universities (Scotland) Act of 1889 established a legal framework for this. All classes were co-educational except for medical classes.