Alumnae Spotlight: Dame Edith Mary Brown

Edith Brown Class of 1882

Dame Edith Mary Brown, DBE LRCP was born in Cumberland in 1864.  Her father died when Edith was five and in 1874 her mother and five daughters, including Edna, returned to the maternal home in London. Edith and her sister Lucy were amongst the first pupils at Croydon High School.

Her vocation as a medical missionary was clear to her from the age of seven when she first heard accounts of the suffering of Indian women, because of their lack of medical care.

After leaving Croydon High in 1882, Edith gained a scholarship for Girton College as one of the first women to be admitted to the University of Cambridge, where she took the Natural Science Tripos in 1885. After graduating, she studied medicine and qualified as a doctor in 1891.

That same year The Baptist Missionary Society sent Edith to India and in 1894, she helped open the North Indian School of Medicine for Women, aiming to train Indian women to serve in the field of Medical Education and Health Care Services. With no more than £50 a year donated to her, she rented a school building and took in four Indian female students to train and work in the 30-bed hospital in Ludhiana. It was the first medical school in Asia to care for women by women. “Miss Brown’s Hospital” as it was known became famous far and near and it was officially renamed Christian Medical College Ludhiana in 1911. By 1916, the Punjab government officially recognised the college, which was by then training more than 300 women in its medical, nursing, pharmacy and maternity schools.

In 1932, Edith was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and was awarded the Gold Kaiser-i-Hind Medal by the Indian Government for Public Service in India. Edith officially retired in 1942 aged 76, but still lectured in surgery in her 80s. During Partition in 1947, the hospital became an emergency centre for the seriously injured. Dame Edith, at 81, was seen as a tower of strength in a disintegrating world. It was said that despite violent street fighting, she would always walk to the hospital bearing her trademark sun-helmet and umbrella. Shooting ceased and a hush fell until she reached the safety of the hospital door. Once, a wild mob demanded that all Muslim women be handed over or everyone would be attacked. It was reported that Edith rebuked them gently and sent them shamefacedly away. By the 50th anniversary of Edith’s arrival in India, the College had graduated 411 doctors, 143 nurses, 168 pharmacy dispensers and more than 1,000 midwives.

Edith died in December 1956 in Srinagar, India, aged 92.

School Magazine 1943: On July 22, 1942, we celebrated the Jubilee of Dame Edith Brown’s medical work among the women of India. We devoted the day to exhibitions, plays and talks about India. In the morning Dr. Margaret Balfour gave us an account of the founding of the Ludhiana Hospital and Medical School for Women. Just over £50 was made, which was sent as a jubilee gift to Ludhiana College, and is to be used for some special purpose after the war is over.

School Magazine 1957: From the beginning, Croydon High School had always been intensely interested in Ludhiana, and the Guild sent a regular annual subscription to the Christian Medical College, and gave special contributions to the funds for the extensions to the College and Hospital. Miss Adams (Headmistress 1936-1960), present and past members of the Staff, the Head Girl and the Senior prefect attended a Memorial Service of Thanksgiving which was held in London.  

Edith’s College still operates today; an acclaimed and accredited international centre of academic medicine, which now trains postgraduates in medicine. The College is situated on a large campus, not far from Ludhiana Railway Station, on both sides of Brown Road.

Sources: Dr Christine A Joy, School Archivist, Manchester High School for Girls; Women Humanitarians, A Biographical Dictionary of British Women, Active between 1900 and 1950, Sybil Oldfield; Miss Brown’s Hospital by Francesca French;

Mrs Roe

Alumnae Relations Manager