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Royal College of Physicians

WEBB, Martha Beatrice (1863-1951)


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 0113 MS-WEBBM

Held at: Royal College of Physicians

Title: WEBB, Martha Beatrice (1863-1951)

Date(s): 1903-1924 [lacking 1910-1923]

Level of description: Collection (fonds)

Extent: 6 volumes; 1 file

Name of creator(s): Webb | Martha Beatrice | 1863-1951 | medical educator

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

Martha Beatrice Webb was born on 20 October 1863 in Furness Vale, Cheshire. She was educated at a private school in Stockport until the age of 16. After a four-year period of ill health, she entered Newnham College, Cambridge, where she studied natural sciences. She began the study of medicine relatively late in life, having worked for ten years as a teacher at Edgbaston High School, Birmingham. In 1902, at the age of 38, she attended the Birmingham Medical School, as one of the first female students. Part of her education included clinical training at the General Hospital and Queens Hospital. Both in the classroom and in the wards she experienced discrimination due to her sex from her male colleagues, teachers, and some patients. She graduated MB ChB at Edinburgh in 1907, proceeding MD in 1909.

Webb practiced medicine in Birmingham, where she held the post of lecturer in personal hygiene at Birmingham University, and later became the medical officer for the Department of Education. She created the Women's University Club, a social gathering for professional women, and the Women's Medical Society.

During World War One, 1914-18, Webb studied the conditions affecting the health of working girls for the Ministry of Munitions. She published two books on the subject, entitled Health of Working Girls and On Keeping Well.

During Webb's life there were great advances in women's higher education and their establishment as professionals. Webb was a pioneer in social medicine, and played her part in making this progress possible. From 1923-25 she was a member of the council of the British Medical Women's Federation. She also became president of the Birmingham Association of Medical Women, vice-president of the Birmingham Medical Institute, and a founder member of the Birmingham Soroptimists. She actively supported the British Medical Association's (BMA) campaign for equal pay and conditions for men and women.

Webb retired from medical practice and teaching in 1932. She lived to see Cambridge University admit women to full membership in the late 1940s. She died in Birmingham on 14 February 1951.

Publications:
Health of Working Girls (London, 1917)
On Keeping Well
Teaching Children as to Reproduction

Publications by others about Webb:
`To Live History: the Letters of Martha Beatrice Webb, an Edwardian Medical Student', Katharine Appleton Downes (Harvard University BA thesis, 1989)

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

Webb's letter books compiled whilst a medical student, 1903-1909, containing letters from Webb to her friends, Mrs Annie Lancaster, Mrs Eliza Romiley, and Miss Christabel Cadbury, describing her life as one of the first women students at Birmingham Medical School, including newspaper cuttings regarding Edinburgh University's graduation ceremony, 1907. Webb prefaced each volume with an explanatory note dated 1924.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: English

System of arrangement:

Conditions governing access:

Unrestricted

Conditions governing reproduction:

All requests should be referred to the Archivist

Physical characteristics:

Finding aids:

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:

Accruals:

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Donated to the Royal College of Physicians by Miss Margaret C.M. Salman, a friend of Webb's, in January 1972

ALLIED MATERIALS

Existence and location of originals:

Existence and location of copies:

Related material:

Publication note:

Webb's letters were the subject of the following thesis and article published subsequently,
`To Live History: the Letters of Martha Beatrice Webb, an Edwardian Medical Student', Katharine Appleton Downes (Harvard University BA thesis, 1989) and `The Medical Student Days of an Edwardian Lady', Katharine Appleton Downes, Journal of the American Medical Association, 1 March 1995, vol. 273, no. 9, pp.748-49 [JAMA, 1995, pp.748-49]

DESCRIPTION NOTES

Note:

Archivist's note: Sources: `Obituary - Dr Martha Beatrice Webb' - British Medical Journal, vol. I, 17 March 1951, pp.590-91 [BMJ, 1951, pp.590-91]; `The Medical Student Days of an Edwardian Lady', Katharine Appleton Downes, Journal of the American Medical Association, 1 March 1995, vol. 273, no. 9, pp.748-49 [JAMA, 1995, pp.748-49]; `To Live History: the Letters of Martha Beatrice Webb, an Edwardian Medical Student', Katharine Appleton Downes (Harvard University BA thesis, 1989).
Compiled by Katharine Williams

Rules or conventions: Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives, Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: Compiled June 2003; Modified September 2003


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
Discrimination | Social problems
Equal opportunity | Social and economic rights
Medical education | Higher science education
Women physicians | Physicians | Medical personnel | Medical profession | Medical sciences
Womens education | Educational systems
Personnel

Personal names
Cadbury | Christabel | fl.1903-1909 | correspondent of Martha Beatrice Webb
Lancaster | Annie | fl.1903-1909 | correspondent of Martha Beatrice Webb
Romiley | Eliza | fl.1903-1909 | correspondent of Martha Beatrice Webb
Webb | Martha Beatrice | 1858-1943 | née Potter | social reformer and historian x Potter | Martha Beatrice x Webb | Beatrice

Corporate names
Birmingham General Hospital
Birmingham Medical Institute
Queens Hospital | Birmingham
University of Birmingham Medical School
University of Edinburgh x Edinburgh University

Places
Birmingham | Warwickshire | England | UK | Western Europe | Europe
Edinburgh | Midlothian | Scotland | UK | Western Europe | Europe
London | England | UK | Western Europe | Europe