We have been lucky to receive the papers of the MWF: SEB,
dating from approximately 1917 – 2006 (Acc 12/030). The collection contains Advisory Council Papers, minutes, syllabus cards, financial papers,
correspondence, campaign papers, newspaper clippings, and MWF historical papers.
They are therefore a rich and comprehensive source of information on this branch,
part of the Scottish region of the MWF, a UK-wide organisation founded in 1917 with the intention of promoting
female doctors, and women’s health.
The minutes of MWF: SEB Council meetings from the 1920s and 1930s illustrate the breadth of
areas in which these female doctors were engaged and reflect the concerns of
the MWF at a national level: the scale
of salaries for public health officials (especially with regard to equal pay),
ante-natal care, work with other national organisations such as the British
Medical Association, and birth control. The latter had become a contentious
issue in the wake of Marie Stopes’ work and the minutes of February 1928
indicate that the members of the Medical Women’s Students Association had asked
the MWF for a lecture on the subject as there was no official teaching. The
Council reflected that it “might be helpful for the Final Year students also to
have a talk from someone engaged in active practice”; presumably they meant
from a doctor engaged in prescribing birth control, rather than using it!
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| MWF: SEB Advisory Council Minutes, February 1928 |
As well as their campaigning and education focus, the branch
produced an annual syllabus; monthly meetings with speakers which also served
as social functions. Together these records show the interconnectedness of many Scottish doctors, their interests and associations, valuable information for researchers.
The accession will complement existing collections relating to eminent
Edinburgh-based female doctors, such as Helen Millar Lowe , whose names appear within the records as active members of the MWF: SEB.
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| MWF: SEB Syllabus, 1961 - 1962 |
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