Born: 4 February 1870, Ireland
Died: 7 October 1932
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: NA
Florence Ada Stoney was an Irish medical doctor who was the first female radiologist in the United Kingdom. During World War I she served in Belgium and France as head of the X-ray department and of staff in makeshift hospitals. Stoney had 13 years of medical experience when World War I broke out in August 1914. Despite this, when Stoney and her sister Edith, a medical physicist, volunteered to assist the British Red Cross, both were rejected because they were women. Instead, Stoney prepared an X-ray installation and helped organise a unit of women volunteers along with Mrs. St. Clair Stobart, the Women’s Imperial Service League and the Belgian Red Cross to aid the Belgian soldiers in Antwerp. The team converted an abandoned music hall into a makeshift hospital; Stoney managed the surgical unit there as head of the medical staff and radiologist. The hospital later came under fire and, after 18 hours of ongoing shellfire, was evacuated. The team walked to Holland, where they crossed the Scheldt River on buses carrying ammunition, only 20 minutes before the bridge was blown up. Stoney and her unit earned the 1914 Star for bravery.
She went on to work in a hospital near Cherbourg, France, mainly dealing with compound fractures and locating bullet fragments in wounds. Stoney became experienced in recognizing dead bone and discovered that removing it would improve recovery time.
After returning to London, she began working at the 1000-bed Fulham Military Hospital, making her one of the first female physicians to serve as a full-time worker under the British War Office. She went on to receive the Order of the British Empire in June 1919. She worked as the Head of the X-ray and Electrical Department and remained there till 1918.