This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Helen Andrews. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Born: 13 July 1866, Ireland
Died: 19 January 1944
Country most active: Ireland, United Kingdom
Also known as: Emily Martin
Dickson, (Emily) Winifred (1866–1944), doctor, was born 13 July 1866 in Dungannon, Co. Tyrone, one of three daughters and three sons of Thomas Alexander Dickson (1833–1909), linen manufacturer, who was elected MP for Dungannon (1874–80; re-elected 1880, but unseated on petition), for Co. Tyrone (1881–5), and for Dublin St Stephen’s Green (1888–92), and was made a PC (1893), and Elizabeth Greer Dickson (née McGeach). She was educated at the Ladies’ Collegiate, Belfast (1879–81), Harold House School, London (1881–2), and Miltown House, Dungannon (1882–4).
After nursing her mother, and with the encouragement of her father, she became one of the first women to study medicine, entering RCSI in 1887, the college having admitted women students in 1885. A brilliant student, she won medals, and was admitted licentiate (1891) of the RCPI and of the RCSI, and licentiate in maternity, having trained at the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin. Discovering the ease with which she could study, she applied to TCD to study medicine but although supported by the medical faculty she was rejected by the theologians. She graduated MB, B.Ch., BAO with first-class honours and gold medal (1893) from RUI. In 1893 she was the first woman to be elected fellow of the RCSI, or indeed of any college of surgeons in Britain and Ireland.
Awarded a six-month travelling scholarship by the RUI, she studied at the General Hospital of Vienna, and later in Berlin, where she encountered obstruction since many clinics refused to admit women. Unsuccessful in her application for a resident post at the Rotunda Hospital because of her sex, she established a practice at 78 St Stephen’s Green, and later at 18 Upper Merrion St. On the opening of the Extern Department for Diseases of Women at the Richmond Hospital, Dublin, she was appointed as its first gynaecologist (1894–9) and served as assistant master (1895–8) and as supernumerary assistant (1898–9) at the Coombe Lying-in Hospital, Dublin. Graduating MD and MAO (1896) with first-class honours from RUI, she was the first woman to be appointed examiner (1896) in midwifery and gynaecology at the RCSI (and the first in the British Isles), which caused a mass protest from its students and from those at the Catholic University Medical School on account of her sex, though she retained her position. In 1897 she was elected FRAMI.
A pioneering figure in the history of women’s entry into the medical profession, she informed the British Medical Association of the position of women in Irish colleges, having obtained signatures from her teachers confirming that no difficulty had been encountered in teaching men and women together; she was, however, unsuccessful in her application for membership, which was confined to men till 1892. She encouraged other women to enter the profession and wrote ‘Medicine as a profession for women’ (Alexandra College Magazine, xii (June 1899), 368–75). A committee member (1896–8) of the Irish Women’s Suffrage and Poor Law Guardians Local Government Association, she wrote ‘The need for women as poor-law guardians’ (Dubl. Jn. Med. Sc., xcix (April 1895), 309–14), arguing that women’s particular skills had been employed to great effect in England since 1875; she also served as honorary secretary for the Committee for the Promotion of the Professional Education of Women. She published papers in professional journals, and wrote and lectured on a variety of topics including dress reform.
Believing that marriage and motherhood are women’s most important profession and incompatible with the exacting demands of the medical profession, she retired temporarily from medicine on her marriage (1899) to Robert Macgregor Martin, a Scottish businessman. She was honoured by the Richmond Hospital with the presentation of a silver tea set (1899).
After moving to England (c.1915), her husband having enlisted in the army and subsequently being unable to keep a job, she became the breadwinner (1916) as assistant medical officer at Rainhill Mental Hospital, Lancashire, practising as Emily Winifred Dickson Martin, and was able to finance the education of her children, three of whom went to university. She subsequently worked in general practice and as medical officer of health, visiting local service convalescent homes in Ellesmere, Shropshire, and later worked in a number of places including London; Tunbridge Wells, Kent; and a mining community in south Wales.
Small and red-haired, she had a strong personality and was outspoken in her views. Her vitality continued into old age; despite the likelihood of war and hating the sea, she visited her son in New Zealand and in 1939 another son in Vienna. She returned to the staff of Rainhill Mental Hospital (1940–43), and though suffering from an incurable carcinoma, she did not mention it to her family; worked till a few weeks before her death on 19 January 1944, at the home of her youngest son in Whitecraigs, Renfrewshire, Scotland; and was cremated in Glasgow. In 2000 the Winifred Dickson Ultrasound Department in the Coombe Hospital was named after her.