Endell Street

The Suffragette Surgeons of World War One

By: Wendy Moore

Narrated by: Antonia Davies

When the First World War broke out, the suffragettes suspended their campaigning and joined the war effort. For pioneering suffragette doctors (and life partners) Flora Murray and Louisa Garrett Anderson that meant moving to France, where they set up two small military hospitals amidst fierce opposition.

Yet their medical and organisational skills were so impressive that in 1915 Flora and Louisa were asked by the War Ministry to return to London and establish a new military hospital in a vast and derelict old workhouse in Covent Garden's Endell Street. That they did, creating a 573-bed hospital staffed from top to bottom by female surgeons, doctors and nurses, and developing entirely new techniques to deal with the horrific mortar and gas injuries suffered by British soldiers. Receiving 28,000 wounded men over the next four years, Flora and Louisa created such a caring atmosphere that soldiers begged to be sent to Endell Street. And then, following the end of the war and the Spanish Flu outbreak, the hospital was closed and Flora, Louisa and their staff were once again sidelined in the medical profession.

The story of Endell Street provides both a keyhole view into the horrors and thrills of wartime London and a long-overdue tribute to the brilliance and bravery of an extraordinary group of women.

©2020 Wendy Moore (P)2020 W. F. Howes Ltd

Superb coverage of women doctors in WWI

After reading this you won't be surprised to learn that much has changed for women and, at times, surprisingly little. The women featured here are simply amazing. Anderson and Murray were the first women to run a military hospital as surgeons with military rank. What strength, what stamina! Give this to your daughters to read as an example of what women can accomplish, often despite men and not because of them!

Riveting

This is the story of the struggle by British physicians/surgeons and nurses for the right to an education/training in the field of medicine and for the right to practice their profession. Slowly they got to the point they were allow to care for women and children, but forbitten to treat men. World War One and the influenza pandemic changed their roles. This is the story of the all women run British Military Hospital called Endell Street Military Hospital.

Flora Murray and Louisa Garrett Anderson both physicians/surgeons went to France in 1914 with the British Red Cross and started an all women hospital for the care of all wounded. It was highly successful and impressed a few key British high-ranking officers. They returned to England in 1915 and built the Endell Street Hospital from an old building. It was the largest all women run military hospital. It was famous for being extremely clean (Florence Nightingale would have been proud). During the 1917-18 pandemic they had barriers between beds; staff all wore masks and gowns. The hospital was continuously scrubbed clean. Moore published a book called “No Man’s Land”, but I believe it is the same book under different title. I found this book fascinating. The treatment of not only the women in the medical field after WWI but all the women that stepped up and carried on the work was despicable, but not unexpected. Women may have been blocked again from an education or right to work, but at least they got the right to vote. I highly recommend this book. It held my attention throughout.

The book is fourteen hours and thirty minutes. Antonia Davies does an excellent job narrating the book. Davies is a British actress and audiobook narrator.