This is the first I have read by Janey Jones, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, I liked her way of drawing the reader and giving the knowledge needed to learn about these women without making it feel like hard work, I felt encouraged to want to learn more - which is always a good sign of an interesting and well-crafted book!

I hadn't heard of the Edinburgh Seven before reading this, but after reading this one I will certainly be eager to learn more about the seven women who are the focus of this book!

I liked how this is written it felt quite informal to how other history books are written, it's incredibly easy to read it never felt heavy or as though you are growing in too many facts and figures the historical information is beautifully woven with opinion, insight and well researched knowledge.

A definite must-read for anyone interested in the topic!

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. As a female physician, I was very interested to read this story of the Edinburgh Seven. Unfortunately, I had a very hard time getting through the book due to the structuring of the narrative as well as the prose. It made the historical nature of this story hard to follow. This is an important history and I wish that I could have finished the story, but I ultimately gave up.

I loved learning about this lesser known piece of history. About the women who were brave enough to study medicine at Edinburgh University. It's no surprise that this was kept out of the history books.

Writing this review while on the train to Edinburgh!

The Good- I had never heard of the Edinburgh Seven and I love getting to find new historymakers, particularly those who played a big role in paving the way for women. This book is also incredibly well researched.

The Bad - it’s so well researched but that is basically all it is. There is no driving narrative, it feels like a collection of research notes. The author takes you down every research rabbit hole with her as “a note on…” I felt no connections with these impressive women just bogged down in details and minutiae.

The Edinburgh Seven tells the stories of seven women who came to Edinburgh to get medical degrees and spent the time fighting against the violent sexism of their peers.

I live in Edinburgh and knew vaguely about the Seven but hadn't ever gotten an in-depth look at their experiences, so this book looked right up my alley.

Unfortunately, it fell a bit flat for me.

I'll start with the positives. It was really easy to read. Even when Jones brought in the wider context of the time, it was distilled to be easily understood by readers with all levels of knowledge about this time period. I think that wider context was interesting too because you get a sense of how the UK and the rest of the world compare. I liked the introductions of the Seven and the narrative of how they came together.

Unfortunately, this felt like a rather shallow exploration of the Seven's experiences. There weren't many details, and the same episodes (the riot, refusing them the awards) were repeated. It felt almost like they only experienced a few instances of large-scale pushback, but obviously there had to have been more than just those moments. The Seven weren't always given equal attention, and while I understand why Jax-Blake was the main focus, it still could have used more of the others as well.

The context was interesting, but at times, I couldn't always figure out how it connected back to the Seven. It felt like it was more a book about women trying to get medical degrees generally than these Seven women in Edinburgh. Some of it needed to be better integrated into the central narrative. Also there's just no reason to use so many exclamation marks in the narration of a non-fiction book. I know that's a small thing but it pulled me out of it and made me feel like I was reading a grade school book report.

Overall, this wasn't a bad read, and if you're interested in the history of women in medicine, it's a good starting place.

Jones's work is clearly well-researched and full of informative content. I learned a bit more about the time period and what women faced in respect to the topic. What I didn't get was more about the actual Edinburgh seven. The writing also feels heavy and at times a little difficult to get through.

Readers wanting more general information about the time period will find that this is a great book to fit that role.

A very interesting history of the first seven women in Britain who attempted to study at a medical facility, i.e. University of Edinburgh. The amount of abuse these women had to endure and then were refused their degrees was infuriating. If you were so sure of your superiority show it on a even field instead sabotaging those you were so sure were inferior. Though they failed at this university, they went on to get degrees in mainland Europe and many came back to practice medicine in Britain. They also succeeded in opening the way for women in the future.

The flow was a bit disjointed jumping back and forth in history. The difficulties women faced in contemporary (mid-1800s) society and historically in a variety of areas gives context to the obstacles these women faced but it could have been organized a little better.

However, it was a very interesting read and a great introduction to these women I had not heard of before but who were true forerunners.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest opinion.

I'd never heard of the Edinburgh Seven before, so this was a very interesting find! It's sad that the stories of these trailblazing women have been somewhat lost to history, but I hope this book and others like it help to change it.

Recommended if you like reading about awesome historical women, particularly if you have interest in the medical field.

3.5

While this is a fascinating book about a subject that needs to be very much told, I felt that I didn't actually get to know any of the Women, apart from Sophia, other than small snippets of information.
They all helped Women succeed in getting an education in medicine and helped paved the way for change, facing a barrage of abuse and hindrances from the 'Gentlemen' of society, yet their stories felt a little like an afterthought as events were described.
What struck me most is that we're living over 150 years later and Women are STILL fighting for equality, for safe spaces and in many Countries are still fighting for an education and freedom from Male oppression.
In some ways we have come a long way, in others it's abundantly clear that NOTHING has changed. The language used against these Women as they were attempting to get to class is the same language used now to shame and humiliate.

That being said, it's a easy to read book and it's given me the names of women and places I shall research and perhaps visit.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for allowing me to read and review this ARC.

Janey Jones’s The Edinburgh Seven: The Story of the First Women to Study Medicine is about seven trailblazers. Sophia Jex-Blake wanted to be a doctor and applied to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh in March 1869. Although the medical faculty and the university Senatus approved her application, the university court did not, on the grounds that it was, effectively, too difficult to make all the arrangements “in the interest of one lady”. Sophia promptly put adverts in national newspapers, inviting other women to apply too. The university reluctantly accepted Sophia, Mary Anderson, Emily Bovell, Matilda Chapman, Helen Evans, Edith Pechey and Isabel Thorne onto the relevant courses.

Although the seven did very well, with Pechey getting first place in the Chemistry exam, entitling her to the Hope Scholarship, the professor awarded the prize to the man who came second instead. Although many men supported the Seven, a few were vehement in their antagonism, with Professor Robert Christison leading the mob. And “mob” is the word: when the seven arrived at Surgeons’ Hall on 18 November 1870, around 200 people were gathered. They shouted abuse and threw rotten vegetables and mud at the women – a terrifying experience for anybody. A janitor eventually managed to open a door for them to enter, although what they were capable of doing productively after that ordeal is anyone’s guess. Newspapers and journals such as the BMJ and the Spectator universally condemned the University of Edinburgh, appalled at the way the great and the good allowed women to be treated.

Eventually, despite the seven passing all the exams they sat, the university eventually refused further tuition and would not allow them to graduate. The university eventually tried to make amends by awarding posthumous honorary medical degrees upon the seven in 2019. Yes, that’s right – about 150 years too late.

This book gives brief biographies of each of the seven as well as copious notes on various other parties such as Christison. I’m truly delighted that Janey Jones has raised the profile of the seven women – the ability of a vociferous minority of bigots to influence so many intelligent people who should have known better should have a higher profile. I was really pleased that, although Sophia Jex-Blake was the instigator and was generally the spokesperson for the group, the author covers the other six women in detail too. I did like the short chapters (there are 35 in this 165-page book) – the punchy, bite-size chunks work well.

However, I do have a few gripes. I felt the book jumped forwards and backwards too much and a more chronological narrative might have worked better for this subject matter. The author sometimes states “As we know…” and I wondered “Do we know? Has this book told us yet or is the author presuming prior knowledge?”. If I read this book without any knowledge of the subject at all, I think I would have been confused. The flow of succession (for want of a better word!) from their predecessors such as Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Dr Elizabeth Blackwell and Dr “James Barry”, via the seven, to their successors such as Sophia’s nieces; and how progress was achieved in each generation, isn’t obvious from the narrative. The episodic nature of the book, with its many “Notes on…” doesn’t lay bare how the world did improve vastly in only 2-3 generations. I also felt there was some repetition of how lucky the seven were to have enlightened, supportive (often wealthy) fathers.

I primarily regret the lack of references. The author suggests that Jex-Blake placed adverts in the Scotsman, although my understanding is that she simply wrote an article, following which some women wrote to her. I would love to see that article but there is no footnote giving us the reference.

Overall, though, I do commend this book to anyone who wants to know more about women’s education.

#TheEdinburghSeven #NetGalley

Women have been healers and midwives for eons but England didn’t allow them to be doctors or even the privilege to go to medical school until 1869. Even then they would an allowed them to do a resident term and see real patients in the infirmary what’s most ironic is that they claimed women didn’t have the constitution nor intellect due to their fragile and feeble nature to view the gross and disgusting sites they see daily as doctors yet to stop them they called them ugly names threw vegetables at them and got drunk before going with almost 200 people to keep them from entering to take their final exams. The seven women were determined however in splattered with mud and bruises from old vegetables they went in and took the test and although the fight wasn’t over because if they couldn’t work on real patients then they couldn’t have a full doctorate and that is what this book is about their fight to become legitimate doctors from the advertisement asking for women wanting to study medicine to the conclusion of their fight to be legitimate and I found it all so interesting. I thought Janie Jones did a wonderful job telling the story of their plight and it’s all in this book The Edinburgh Seven. I loved the intricate details of all the stories that lead to the books awesome conclusion and it seems like Mrs. Jones has a great grasp on the subject it’s a book I highly recommend. I received this book from NetGalley and The publisher but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

I want to thank Netgalley and Pen & Sword for an uncorrected copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis: This book explores the life and times of seven women attempting to obtain medical degrees from the University of Edinburgh in the late Victorian period.

Thoughts:

Things I loved about this book:

Jones clearly has a great deal of admiration for the subjects of this book and it is always lovely to read something you can tell the author is passionate about, particularly in nonfiction.

Things that I liked about this book:

A wide array of figures to which I was introduced throughout the book that I look forward to learning more about.

Things I did not like about this book:

There were really great snippets of information about The Edinburgh Seven and their contemporaries throughout the book, but I really wanted more of a focused narrative. The last fourteen chapters really focused more on the history that led to the sociocultural environment The Edinburgh Seven were raised and attempted in which to make medical careers. Context is great, but it just felt so disconnected from one chapter to the next and the way these events impacted the central characters of this book was not well integrated. For instance, why in the chapter "Women, Marriage, [and] Society" did Jones not use Isabel Thorne's narrative to frame the information? She was a woman who due to familial obligations was not able to move as freely as some of her colleagues.

I also did not walk away from this book with any real sense of the seven women as a group or as individuals, except maybe Sophia Jex-Blake. I felt that a vast majority of this book was focused on events and people around The Seven rather than the women themselves. For instance, James Young Simpson's section, which the author describes as a "note" is longer than the biographical section of two of the women who are part of The Seven. Also, Helen Evans, Emily Bovell, and Mary Anderson really are not presented with any great detail in this book. Although, Jones does cite primary sources including letters or comments made by some of the women these feel very few and far between and often focus on Jex-Blake. As I was reading I had hoped that there would be a further expansion on the other women, but that was not the case.

Furthermore, there were several important events in the story of these women that I really felt did not get enough attention a fact that I was frustrated by especially later when it was mentioned that newspapers at the time were keeping records of the events. Why were there no more citations or references to contemporary sources? There was a riot and a court case and after reading the entire book I feel that there was way more to those two events than was discussed in the book.

In addition to the narrative issues in this book, one of my greatest complaints was that there was no sense of time or structure. The early chapters of the book introduce the eponymous seven but give brief descriptions of these women's whole lives. While later chapters reiterate information about their lives. For example, in one section of the book, one of the seven gets married and in the next paragraph her husband is dead, but he reappears in later chapters. As I was reading I was not at all sure when in time I was. This was not helped by the fact that sometimes we were moving from the 19th century back to the 16th century. Again, I have no problem with historical context, but in a lot of chapters, it felt more like random facts than something that tied together cohesively.

Another major complaint I had while reading this book is that there were so many times when Jones said things along the lines of what great feminists The Seven were. However, I remain unconvinced of this argument. I am not arguing one way or the other about the feminism of these women, but simply because they pursued an education does not in and of itself indicate feministic tendencies. In fact, one of their contemporaries is described by Jones as being criticized because she simply sought advancement for herself and given that Jex-Blake needed a group of women to start her courses I am not entirely sure given the evidence that she was motivated to open doors either. Jones does detail how Jones worked hard for reforms later in life, but I was also a little unclear if this was a motivation based on a desire for female advancement or because events had not necessarily turned out how she would have liked. And even if Jex-Blake could be described as a feminist no evidence was given for the other women.

There is a difference between the patriarchal society in which these women lived and being a person who was enslaved. It is true that women did not have equal rights but I do not agree nor think it is accurate to equate gender disparity with the horrors of enslavement.

Although this book introduced me to several new historical figures I had never heard of, in my opinion it only serves as a brief introduction to these women and does not provide enough information to satisfy a curious, newcomer to the subject.

The history of the Edinburgh Seven is really interesting - and an important history to know. While Jones is clearly very knowledgeable and researched this topic and time period well, unfortunately the execution didn't work for me. THE EDINBURGH SEVEN reads more like a paper for a college class than a nonfiction book which made it a bit of a slog to get through (the writing didn't flow). I could only read about 30 minutes at a time before my attention wandered.

I think this book needs some more editing, there weren't many (if any) transitions to link paragraphs together and sometimes the jump from one topic to a next felt abrupt and slightly confusing. I could never hit a rhythm when reading this. There is a great book here, for me it just needed to be taken a little bit further.

Specifically for the ARC: hopefully someone doublechecks the dates before publishing because a few aren't correct (the introducing two of the Edinburgh Seven their birth years were listed as later than the years they were trying to study medicine in Edinburgh). The formatting was horrible as well but that's something I accept when reading a digital ARC.

Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by NetGalley, Pen & Sword, and Pen & Sword History in exchange for an honest review.

Despite living in Scotland and having studied history until the end of high school I had never heard of the Edinburgh Seven before reading this book. The Edinburgh Seven were the first women to study for medical degrees (at the University of Edinburgh hence their name). They were a varied group of women, some married, some with informal medical experience and others who had spent time living in different parts of the world. All however faced many and varied barriers to study medicine, not only had it not been done in the U.K. before but they faced a lot hostility in trying to make it possible. This book is mainly about the seven women and their challenges but also provides a brief background overview to rights, especially those of women, up until the 20th century, and also less formal roles of women in medicine prior to the first entering university.

This book is written in a chatty, informal and easy to read manner, rather like listening to someone give a talk on the subject. This makes it a great starting point to learn more and select what areas might make for further research and discovery after finishing this book. I feel this book is especially suited to a young adult audience as well as anyone who would like an informative yet fairly light read.

I did at times feel the book was disjointed as it moved between the Edinburgh seven, to discussing challenges, back to the seven before looking at women in medicine in other forms (nurses, informal midwives, herbalists, many of those who were accused and trialled as witches). While all the information given was in some way relevant, I felt that the argument could have been better made if instead of going between time periods, the book had begun with the background to the seven to show the history, challenges and what they were up against and then introduced them. This would have emphasised what a courageous decision they had made and the challenging environment they were up against.

Overall an interesting book about something I would like to learn more about.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Edinburgh Seven
The Story of the First Women to Study Medicine
by Ms Janey Jones
Pub Date 30 Apr 2023
Pen & Sword, Pen & Sword History
Biographies & Memoirs | History | Nonfiction (Adult)



I am reviewing a copy of The Edinburgh Seven through Pen & Sword , Pen & Sword History:


Women have been healing since the beginning of time, but accessing a proper medical degree was impossible for them in Britain until the late 19th century. In 1869, a group of women began arriving in Edinburgh to study at the medical faculty, led by the indomitable Sophia Jex Blake. They would come to be know as The Edinburgh Seven. They were delighted to become students of medicine and as Sophia said, they simply wanted 'a fair field and no favor.



Unfortunately not all of the traditional professors of the University approved of women becoming doctors. The medical women would soon discover that they were welcome as hobbyists but not as competitors with male students. There were legal wrangles, court cases, personal attacks and even a full blown riot - all because some male medics wanted rid of the women. And the women did leave Edinburgh - without degrees. But they finished their studies in mainland Europe and came back as fully fledged doctors.



It wasn't until 2019, that all Seven women receive their degrees posthumously via current day medical students. At last, the right thing was done, but the struggles of the original Seven should never be forgotten. This is their story.



I am reviewing a copy of The Edinburgh Seven five out of five stars!



Happy Reading!

In The Edinburgh Seven, Jones brings the seven women who attempted to earn medical degrees from the University of Edinburgh to life. Jones’s attention to the historical record is apparent throughout the book, and she also provides “notes” about key contextual information (which allows the reader to better understand the historical context and significance of the Edinburgh Seven). Her book is highly readable for historians and non-expert readers alike thanks to her accessible prose and word choice and the good organization and length of the chapters. Jones is clearly familiar with the Edinburgh Seven and the nineteenth-century women’s rights movements in the United Kingdom and the United States, and her ability to make this information accessible is one of the many strengths of the book. The historical information is well-supported by primary source evidence and quotes, and Jones clearly introduces and brings the whole cast of characters to life. She uses her familiarity with the era to analyze the significance of the Edinburgh Seven and bring them to their rightful place in history. The book is easily readable and a great introduction to the Edinburgh Seven, especially since they have been historically marginalized within the larger historical narrative.

The book tells the story of inspirational seven women who fight to enter Edinburgh University to study medicine. In Victorian times women work mostly as midwives, healers, herbalists and nurses. The medical faculty was reserved for men. Becoming a female doctor was easy in Europe and America but not in Britain in the 1850s-60s. All the seven women were brought together by an advert placed by one of them in a Scottish newspaper ’The Scotsman’. Their determination changed women’s rights that other women followed. A very inspirational read - Highly recommended.

This was very interesting and such a thorough job on these women and what all they went through. I knew that there had been some struggle but this really shows just how much. I Highly recommend this.
I just reviewed The Edinburgh Seven by Ms Janey Jones. #TheEdinburghSeven #NetGalley
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The Edinburgh Seven were a group of seven women who began studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1869. These were all women interested in treating other women, because many women would often suffer in silence rather than be examined by a male doctor. But getting admitted to medical school was another matter.

The author tells the story of these brave pioneering women who broke the medical glass ceiling, but she does it with a rather large amount of hyperbole, hagiography, and a great deal of exclamation marks: “Enter centre-stage the female medical students of Edinburgh!” “This was an incredible development!” “But remarkably, the early vote went in her favour!” And so on.

The florid style of writing along with the practical elevation to sainthood of these women made it difficult for me to take the content of this book as seriously as it deserves. Today, more than half of all U.S. medical school students, for example, are women. This reality was made possible in part because of the determination of these seven pioneers, as well as those who joined them. I wish the author used a tone more befitting of the subject matter, and a more realistic assessment of who these women - human beings, after all, actually were.