Dr. Frances Morgan Hoggan
#2 of 7
University of Zurich
1867 - 1870
Thesis: Progressive Muscular Dystrophy
Frances The Popular
Wales, England
1843
Frances was born the oldest of 5 children to Richard Morgan and his wife Georgiana Catherina of wales. Her father died when she was 8, by 10 she was sent Windsor to stay with a friend of the family and to attend school. At 15 she went to Paris for 3 years and then on to Dusseldorf for 5 years. (there is some question as to if Elsie – was the sister or daughter of Frances born while in Europe)
1865
In London, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was the first woman able to register as a doctor by taking the Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries (LSA), the only licensing body not forbidding women to take the registration exam [LITL, 171].
Now 23, Frances returned to London set to follow Elizabeth Garrett’s path.
1866
She began studies with private tutors to prepare for the professional licensing examinations administered by the Society of Apothecaries. The controversy around “another lady doctor” referring to Dr. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson inspired the society to amend their rules to expressly prohibit women from the professional examination.
In the UK, the Apothecaries’ Hall (the society that permitted Elizabeth GA to sit for the exams) closed it’s exams to anyone who had not studied at a “recognized medical school.” Foreign schools were not recognized.
There were no longer any open routes to medicine for women in the United Kingdom. What formed was “the quiet route” to medicine. Traveling abroad to get a degree and returning to practice without a formal registration. This was the path both Frances Morgan Hoggan and Louisa Atkins would take, followed by Eliza Walker Dunbar.
Zurich, Switzerland
1867
NEWS FROM ZURICH – FIRST WOMEN PASSES QUALIFYING EXAM, EXPECTED TO DEFEND BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR
When Frances was denied permission to take the apothecaries’ exam, she left for Zurich saying she was: “hoping to breathe freer and purer air than seemed possible in England, where the medical profession was heaping its anathemas…on those women who chose the profession of medicine as a career.”
Frances arrived in Zurich that autumn and matriculated along with Louisa Atkins. In the anatomical laboratory, famed anatomist Hermann von Meyer, in an attempt to protect the modesty of the young lady, suggested certain demonstrations were not decorous or respectable for a lady… her response “Herr Professor, it is much more shocking and improper to make exceptions here.”
She was described as calm and self-confident with a cool intelligence and an aristocratic manner. She was a hard worker, putting in 60 hours a week at the university.
Nadezhda Suslova would go on to defend her theses and receive her degree in December (she marries and returns to Russia)
1868
Summer Maria Bokova and Eliza Walker arrive in Zurich.
1870
March. One half hour before Frances thesis defense, the exam room was full. The administrators were forced to move the location of her thesis defense to the “Aula” to accommodate over 400 attendants, including at least 50 women who showed up see the event and provide moral support.
Frances presented her thesis on progressive muscular atrophy and was sharply attacked by Dr Biermer for at least 25 mins.
“…but I didn’t react. I held my breath steady and took notes to keep me focused and countered all of his points with ease.”
Part of the excitement in the room was caused because the young students results did not agree with the material previously published by her director. There was clear tension in the space as the two worked through their differences, the main cause being the young student incorporated additional research from Britain and American that Biermer had not taken into consideration. At the conclusion he remarked:
“You have, honored Fraulein, an important role in the solution of the great social problem that has occupied us here in Zurich. By your scholarly earnestness and zeal, you have become a worthy model for the women studying here.
I greet you for the first time as a colleague. I cannot refrain from expressing to you out of a full heart my appreciation for your efforts and your tact. I am glad to confirm…that you have given a new guarantee of the success of the social experiment being made quietly here in Zurich, an experiment that affects…the whole world.”
European Tour - Post Doc
1870
Frances travels to Vienna where she worked under the surgeon Gustav Brann learning about operative midwifery. She then goes onto Prague and Paris [LITL, 171] with no other information yet.
Return to London
1871
March - Worked for Elizabeth Garrett at St. Mary’s Dispensary for Women and Children
Frances, along with Elizabeth Blackwell, Barbara Bodichon, Ernest Hart and others founded the National Health Society, Frances was the first Honorary Secretary. “Prevention is Better than Cure” it’s aim: to assist in the formation of local societies, to induce schools to include sanitary instruction in their teachings, to form an office for answering questions, from private individuals and others, as to the proper modes of procedure in case of sanitary difficulty, and to establish a reference library, with plans, models, and papers.
Frances was appointed assistant to Elizabeth Garrett Anderson at the New Hospital For Women (Prior known as the St. Mary’s Dispensary for Women and Children in 1866)
There was a strong hostility to women by the male doctors within the profession. The Obstetrical Society of London felt especially threatened because they feared the competition.
1874
In April, married George Hoggan, a working class Scottsman who started started studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh in the late 1860s where he was a supporter of women’s admission to medical school.
1875
still unregistered – was elected to the British Medical Association, presented a paper at the Edinburgh meeting, during the meeting members were unhappy about female membership, called for a vote ¾ opposed the admission of women. In 1878 Special meeting of British Medical Association voted “no female be eligible as a member of the Association” Frances’s membership was declared invalid (though Elizabeth Garrett was not expelled)
1876
In August, the Enabling Act made it clear there were no legal impediments to universities allowing women to take the exams if they wished. The King’s and Queen’s College of Physicians of Ireland was the first to be persuaded to allow women to sit for the exam. The women showed up:
Eliza Walker Dunbar (#6 of 7) Jan 77
Frances Hoggan (#2 of 7) and Louisa Atkins (#3 of 7) Feb 77
1877ish
Frances complains about the poor skills by Elizabeth Garrett Frances eventually resigns [BWSATP, 29]
Further Reading:
[BWSATP] Brock C. British women surgeons and their patients, 1860-1918. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press; 2017.