A pioneering doctor has been honoured at the site of her former hospital in Bristol. Dr Eliza Walker Dunbar was a surgeon at Bristol Children’s Hospital and the first female doctor to work in the city. A blue plaque has been put up in her honour at the Bristol Private Hospital for Women and Children in Berkely Square to commemorate her work in medicine and women’s activism.
Dr Eliza Walker Dunbar, born in 1845 in Scotland, was Bristol’s first female doctor when she became a surgeon at Bristol Children’s Hospital in 1873. Her appointment was met with great disapproval, and she was later forced to resign following a walkout by the hospital’s male physicians. Despite this, Walker Dunbar continued practicing medicine and went on to pave the way for future female doctors through her clinic and activism.
Dr Walker Dunbar was one of the “Zürich Seven”, the first women in the world to complete a formal medical degree at the University of Zürich in Switzerland. At the time, Zürich was the only university to allow women to undertake a degree in medicine.
Shortly after her resignation from Bristol Children’s Hospital, she set up a private practice in Clifton as well as establishing the Read Dispensary for Women and Children in 1876, an outpatient clinic in Hotwells that offered minor surgeries and GP consultations.
The success of this clinic paved the way for Walker Dunbar to open the Bristol Private Hospital for Women and Children in 1895 in Berkeley Square. She remained senior surgeon at the hospital until her death in 1925. The site of the hospital is now part of the University of Bristol’s School of Education.
Now, the University of Bristol has honoured Walker Dunbar in her former workplace by installing a plaque in Berkeley Square along with a replica of her brass doctor’s name plate.
Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the university, Professor Judith Squires described Dr Eliza Walker Dunbar as a “a pioneering woman who made an incredible difference to the people of Bristol.” She also explained that the idea behind honouring Walker Dunbar’s legacy came from a group of students who used her as a case study for a local history project.
Dr Evan Jones explained the significant of Dr Walker Dunbar’s name plate, stating that,
“In the course of looking into her history, we discovered that she used to unscrew her brass doctor’s name plate from the hospital door each night in case it was stolen or defaced. The students wanted to give her plate back to her and we are very pleased to do so.”
Students and staff of the university gathered outside the Berkely Square building to commemorate the occasion and the legacy of such an influential woman.
Alongside her pioneering medical career, Dr Walker Dunbar also became involved in Bristol’s Suffragette Movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was a member of the Bristol Working Women’s Union and one of the founders of the National Union of Working Women which was established in Bristol in 1878.
