Matilda Chaplin Ayrton

Matilda Charlotte Ayrton (née Chaplin; 22 June 1846 – 19 July 1883) was an English physician.

She studied medicine in London, Edinburgh and Paris, pursuing higher studies at the latter's universities, and is one of the Edinburgh Seven, the first seven matriculated undergraduate female students at a British university. She travelled to Japan, where she opened a school for midwives, and was an author of anthropological studies.

Early life

Matilda Charlotte Chaplin was born at Honfleur, France, the daughter of English parents John Clarke Chaplin, a solicitor from Watlington, Norfolk, and Matilda Adriana Ayrton from Chelsea, London. The family lived in Edgbaston, where several of her elder siblings were born, and returned to England shortly after her birth. She was baptised at St George's Church, Edgbaston in December 1846 before the family moved to Kensington.

Education and career

After beginning her studies in art she commenced the study of medicine in 1867, and continued to do so until her death. She spent two years at the Ladies' Medical College, and having passed the preliminary examination at Apothecaries' Hall in 1869, she presented herself for the later examination, but was refused admission on the ground of her gender.

Recognised as one of the heroic 'seven against Edinburgh' women, also known as the Edinburgh Seven (Mary Anderson, Emily Bovell, Helen Evans, Sophia Jex-Blake, Edith Pechey, Isabel Thorne as well as Chaplin), she eventually matriculated at the University of Edinburgh, but was barred from instruction in higher branches of medicine. Legal intervention allowed her to gain high honours in anatomy and surgery at the extramural examinations held in 1870 and 1871 at Surgeons' Hall, Edinburgh, before a judgment in 1872 finally prohibited women students.