Description:The Conservatory at the General Hospital circa 1900. Image from the WPS wk-b11-1312
During Martha's lifetime there were great developments in women’s higher education and in the role of women in the medical profession in particular. Martha Beatrice Webb played her part in this making this progress possible. Dr Webb’s clinical and research studies during the 1900s are described in a series of letterbooks that are to be found in the Royal College of Physicians in London. Written to three close friends, these books record her many thoughts on daily life, including the obstacles Webb faced in establishing the role she sought in the male dominated medical society of the day. Webb undertook ward and clinical duties at both The General Hospital and the Queen’s Hospital in Birmingham whilst a medical student. At the former, under the direction of Dr Thomas Wilson, Officer of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, she undertook an analysis of the recovery rates from gynaecological operations. Whilst the main thrust of Webb’s career as a general practitioner in the city remains unexplored, her publications and membership of many local committees indicate that her interests were many and wide-ranging. During the First World War Webb acted as an investigator for the Ministry of Munitions into the health of women munitions workers and published two books on this subject entitled ‘Health of Working Girls’ and ‘On Keeping Well’. Dr Webb was also a member of the British Medical Women’s Federation from 1923-25, an active supporter of the British Medical Association in support of equal pay and conditions for men and women, vice-president of the Birmingham Medical Institute, and a founder member of the Birmingham Soroptimists. In 1917 she produced an address for mothers of girls attending High and Secondary Schools in Birmingham, later published as ‘Teaching Children as to Reproduction of Life’; a thorough and sensible contribution to the subject.
Sources:
Royal College of Physicians: Martha Beatrice Webb (1863-1951); Letterbooks (6) compiled by MBW whilst at Birmingham Medical School and in her further career. Date: 1903-1925. [MS-WEBBM/79-84]
‘To Live History: The letters of Martha Beatrice Webb’: BA thesis, Harvard, 1989, Katherine Appleton Downes
Obituary: British Medical Journal, 1951, pp 590-91
Obituary: The Birmingham Post and the Birmingham Mail, 15 February 1951