Alice Headwards-Hunter

Alice Mabel Headwards-Hunter was born in India in 1888, the daughter of Lillian Mary Headwards (née Vardon) and her husband John James Headwards, an Indian Army Officer. She received her education in England and in 1910 graduated LAH as a licentiate of the Apothecaries Hall of Ireland. == Career ==

Headwards-Hunter returned to India in 1918 and worked initially in a British troop hospital as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps. After the war she took a post at the Peshawar Municipal Hospital focusing on women and child health. She returned to Europe and in 1920, became the first woman to obtain the F.R.C.S.Ed diploma from the Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh. In 1919, the Sex Disqualification Removal Act was passed in Great Britain making it illegal to exclude any woman from employment because of her gender. In the months following the passing of this Act, Nancy Astor became the first woman to sit as Member of Parliament and, on 20 October 1920, Headwards-Hunter became the first woman to be admitted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Returning to Calcutta in 1923, she set up a private practice concerned with woman and children. She became President of the YMCA in Calcutta and later President of all India YWCA. She continued to work in India and Pakistan until her retirement in the 1950s when she and her husband moved to Ireland. == Death ==

She died in Bruntsfield Hospital, Edinburgh on 11 September 1973. == Legacy==

In 2007, the Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh awarded the first Hunter-Doig Medal. The medal is presented to a female RCSEd Member or Fellow in recognition of excellence. In 2025, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh unveiled Eleven Surgeons, a painting by Kirstin Mackinnon, which portrays the nine female surgeons who have been awarded the Hunter-Doig medal to date, seated beneath portraits of Hunter and Doig against the backdrop of an old teaching operating theatre. The surgeons depicted are Julie Brittenden, Lorna Marson, Jennifer Robson, Farhat Din, Sandra McAllister, Alice Hartley, Chloe Scott, Emma Stapleton and Beatrix Elsberger. It is only the fourth painting depicting women in their collection. == References ==