I have been researching the incredible, but little known, family of the Reverend Benjamin Lamb.After researching two of his daughters who were nursing missionaries, I then discovered that he also had another daughter who became a missionary doctor with a life dedicated to helping the poor women of the East End and then the women of India at the beginning of the 20h C.
Jessie was born in 1877. In 1901 she was a medical student at the London School of Medicine for Women. The school was formed in 1874 by an association of pioneering women physicians Sophia Jex-Blake, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Emily Blackwell and Elizabeth Blackwell
The New Hospital for Women, London.’
In 1881, there were 25 women doctors in Britain; by 1911, there were 495. Jessie was one of them.
Jessie graduated from the hospital in 1903 and by 1905 she was the Assistant Chief Medical Officer at the Bermondsey Medical Mission in East London. The Bermondsey Medical Mission was
established in 1904 by Dr Selina Fox in what was at that time one of
the poorest districts in London.
The masonry plaque
for the Hospital was laid in October 1904
and still remains on the
front of the building
Jessie remained at the hospital until 1906 when she travelled to Amritsar in India. She was to remain based at the missionary hospital there for 25 years, returning home only to give lectures and fund raise in England. There are dozens of newspaper reports detailing her work both in India and on her trips home.
The Church of England Zenana Missionary Society (CEZMS) also known as the Church of England Zenana Mission, was a British Anglican missionary society established to spread Christianity in India via women. Women in India at this time were segregated under the purdah system, being confined to a women's quarters known as a zenana
into which it was forbidden for unrelated men to enter. The zenana
missions were made up of female missionaries who could visit Indian
women in their own homes with the aim of providing them with medical
help and education.
Advertisement for the Zenana Missionary society
Jessie helped establish a hospital for women in Amritsar where in one year alone, 18,000 outpatients were treated with 800 operations performed annually.
She was also responsible for training 100s of medical missionary staff
who travelled to India to carry out their missionary work. She bravely helped tend the wounded following the Amritsar massacre on 13 April 1919.In 1920 Jessie was awarded the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal for Public Service in India.. It was a medal awarded by the Emperor/Empress of India
between 1900 and 1947, to "any person without distinction of race,
occupation, position, or sex ... who shall have distinguished himself
(or herself) by important and useful service in the advancement of the
public interest in India. A more deserved recipient would be hard to find!
Jessie returned to the UK some time after 1920. She died on 1st May 1931 in Bath, where her family were living, following a serious operation. The number of people at her funeral are surely testament to the respect in which she was held.
Obituary 1931
While researching this truly remarkable, selfless and important doctor, I discovered a Wikipedia entry about the London School of Medicine that she attended. There was a long list of "notable alumni" . Jessie's name is not on it. Nor did she receive any official recognition for her tireless and important work. And yet surely as much, and often even more than, any other woman on that list, Dr Jessie Lamb's life perfectly encapsulates Elizabeth Anderson's words.
Every woman who undertakes the study of medicine
gains at once this
solid advantage
She puts aside frivolity and accepts for herself
a
serious aim in life.
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
.
I wonder how many more "Dr Jessie Lamb's" there are waiting to be discovered and rewarded a place in history that will doubtless be so well deserved. Thank you for your service Dr Lamb.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_School_of_Medicine_for_Women
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/about/search-faces-ucl/exposing-loophole-elizabeth-garrett-anderson-britains-first-female-doctor
https://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/bermondsey.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaisar-i-Hind_Medal
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