Agnes McLaren

Agnes McLaren (4 July 1837 – 17 April 1913) was a respected Scottish doctor who was the first to give medical assistance to women in India who, because of custom, were unable to access medical help from male doctors. Agnes was active in social justice causes including protests against the white slave trade. She signed the 1866 women's suffrage petition and was secretary of the Edinburgh National Society for Women's Suffrage alongside her stepmother, Priscilla Bright McLaren. In 1873 she travelled with Priscilla and Jane Taylour to give suffrage lectures in Orkney and Shetland. Her father had supported the campaign of first women who sought to study medicine at University of Edinburgh and Agnes became friends with Sophia Jex-Blake, one of the Edinburgh Seven. Her father did not however, support Agnes' own ambitions in this area. She left Scotland to study in France and later, in order to be permitted to practice in Scotland became a member of the Royal College of Dublin.

She converted to the Catholic faith in order to carry out missionary work even though Roman Catholic law prevented women from becoming doctors until 1936.

McLaren was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. The daughter of Duncan McLaren, a Presbyterian businessman and prominent liberal politician, by his second marriage. Her mother died when she was only three years old. Her father's third wife was Priscilla Bright and in time they would work together.

She entered the school of medicine at the University of Montpellier in 1876, eventually becoming only the tenth woman in Britain to graduate as a doctor. In 1877 she sat on the governing body of the London School of Medicine for Women. She was a visiting physician at the Cannongate Medical Mission Dispensary in Edinburgh. By 1882, she was also fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, and had a practice in Cannes. She would spend the summers in Edinburgh and relocate to France in the winter.

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