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Dr Mabel Ramsay was a determined woman. She was a suffragist and a surgeon. She was also a doctor who served in France, Belgium and at home.

In 1914, she was one of only 500 female doctors in the country.

She trained at the University of Edinburgh and qualified in 1906. Following posts in Glasgow and Huddersfield, she established a practice in Plymouth in 1908, but found it difficult, as a woman, to secure a hospital post in the city.

She was determined to extend opportunities for women, so established a branch of the National Union of Women鈥檚 Suffrage Societies in Plymouth, and resisted the 1911 census. She also supported the suffrage march from Land鈥檚 End to Hyde Park in 1913.

When World War One began in 1914, she joined the Women鈥檚 Imperial Service League, serving as a doctor in Belgium under the auspices of the Belgian Red Cross. She witnessed the evacuations of Antwerp and Ostend, and was awarded the Mons Star and Bar for the care she offered under fire.

A year later, she was working as part of all-female Anglo-French team at a hospital (No.2 Chateau Tourlaville) in Cherbourg and became the hospital鈥檚 chief medical officer.

When she returned to Plymouth in 1916, she re-established her medical practice, secured a surgery post at the City Hospital and worked as a doctor in the Salisbury Road Military Hospital as well.

Her work is recorded in an unpublished autobiography (A Doctor鈥檚 Zig-Zag Road) held at the Royal College of Physicians in London.

Dr Mabel Ramsay work changed medicine in Plymouth. She was a founder member of the Medical Women鈥檚 Federation and became the first female president of the Plymouth Medical Society.

Today, she is the only woman in Plymouth to be honoured with a blue plaque.

Location: 4 Wentworth Villas, North Hill, Plymouth PL4 8HB
Image: Plymouth Mabel Ramsay, courtesy of Francesca Baseby from the University of Edinburgh

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