Elizabeth Garrett Anderson

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was an English physician and women's rights activist who became the first woman to qualify in Britain as a physician and surgeon, doing so in 1865 after being refused entry to medical schools and instead earning a licence through the Society of Apothecaries, which subsequently closed that route to other women. In 1866 she opened St Mary's Dispensary for Women and Children in London, which grew into the New Hospital for Women, and she co-founded and served as dean of the London School of Medicine for Women, the first British institution to train women as doctors. She went on to become the first female dean of a British medical school and, in 1908, the first female mayor in England, when she was elected mayor of Aldeburgh.