Janet Katherine Manson Gatty (Mrs Holgate) attended the school from September 1911 until July 1915 when she matriculated and gained a place at the Royal Free Hospital to study medicine. At that time there were fewer than 500 women doctors in England and Wales and very few medical schools admitted female students. Research in the school archive shows that Janet was the first pupil from our school to gain a place to study medicine and even by 1937 only 15 other pupils had followed her lead.
Records at the Royal Free indicate that whilst she gained a place to study, she did not complete her studies there. Other sources show that she qualified from University College Hospital in 1926.
In April 1921 she married Albert William Holgate, a physician and surgeon. On the 1923, 1927 and 1931 Medical Register they are listed one after the other first at an address in Bradford and then by 1931 they are in Chester.
Janet died at The General Hospital in Nottingham in November 1931. She was only 33 years old. When Albert died in 1976 his obituary in the Cheshire Observer states that he qualified at University College London in 1918 and then worked as a house surgeon at University College Hospital. It goes on to say: “In 1921 he had married Dr Janet K Gatty, who died in 1931, and a wall tablet in the Chester Royal Infirmary states that the out patient department of that institution was reorganised in 1933 by Mr AW Holgate, honorary surgeon, in her memory.” Albert had spent 31 years working as a consultant surgeon at that hospital until he retired in 1961 so he must have passed the plaque many times.
Further reading:
“Women in medicine: historical perspectives and recent trends”, Laura Jefferson, Karen Bloor, Alan Maynard, British Medical Bulletin, Volume 114, Issue 1, June 2015, Pages 5–15.
