Jane Elizabeth Waterston

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Jane Elizabeth Waterston (1889)

Jane Elizabeth Waterston (* 1843 in Inverness ; † December 7, 1932 in Cape Town ) was a Scottish educator and doctor who was active in the fields of education, medicine and social work in southern Africa . Based on the experiences from her work at the mission school in Lovedale , she made an early contribution to equal rights for women in what will later become South Africa .

Life

Her parents lived in Inverness, Scotland. The father, Charles Waterston, was an employee of the Caledonian Banking Company . Her mother's name was Agnes Webster. Jane Waterston received her education through private tuition and at the Inverness Royal Academy .

With the help of the Free Church of Scotland , she traveled to Africa on a mission and worked as a teacher from 1866. Together with James Stewart , she opened a boarding school for girls on July 23, 1868 at the Lovedale Mission in the Chumie (Tyhume) settlement near Alice . From 1868 to 1873 she was the Lady Superintendent of Girls' School in charge of this facility. The teaching program consisted primarily of practical work such as general housekeeping , sewing, cooking and laundry. Several missionaries had already been employed here with school lessons for Xhosa girls before they began their work .

In 1874 she went to London and began studying medicine at the recently opened London School of Medicine for Women . She was one of the first female students at this school. She received her first degree in this field in 1878 with a licentiate from the King and Queen's College of Physicians of Ireland . After spending five years abroad, she returned to South Africa.

In 1879 and 1880 Jane Waterston worked for about six months at the Livingstonia Mission , founded in 1877 by James Stewart. This phase of life turned out not to be very satisfactory for her because the local conditions seemed unbearable to her. Therefore she went again to the Cape Colony in Lovedale, founded and took over the management of the medical department in this mission school between 1880 and 1883.

In 1888 she obtained a second degree from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and in the same year received a doctorate in medicine (MD) in Brussels, because that was not possible in England at the time. She returned to Cape Town at the end of 1888. In recognition of her doctorate from Brussels, the University of the Cape of Good Hope confirmed her doctorate in 1889 .

Since that time, Waterston has been a medical practitioner in Cape Town and the first registered doctor in South Africa with a British medical degree. Here she tried to improve the hygienic and medical conditions for women and children. This situation, as well as her views on women's and civil rights, generated resistance against her in her professional environment. Nevertheless, she achieved great recognition through her medical and social work.

In 1905 she was elected to the office of president of its Western Cape Section of the British Medical Association , which she held until 1906. Her growing public reputation brought her many requests for participation in public bodies. So she was asked to work for the South African Native Affairs Commission (1903-1905). After founding the Union of South Africa , she was a member of the Cape Provincial Hospital Board , the hospital committee in the Cape region. In 1916, Waterston was appointed to the Advisory Board of Valkenberg Mental Hospital , the advisory board of this neurological clinic in Cape Town.

Jane Waterston expressed by their impressions of the so-called Anglo-Boer wars public criticism of the Boers . This position had developed with her through the knowledge of the mistreatment of the black population in the Boer republics . Her entire professional life has been connected with concern for the well-being of Africans, and from this Jane Waterston developed a solidarity attitude towards this population group. Around 1890 her pedagogical and medically determined commitment changed into an increasingly political work.

Merits and appreciations

Jane Waterston campaigned for the rights of indigenous people in southern Africa, preferably in the fields of education and social welfare. In old age she was one of the most honored women in South Africa and because of her work as a doctor and social worker in Cape Town, she had become a national symbol.

  • She was elected a Fellow at the College of Physicians of Ireland with effect from October 19, 1925 .
  • In 1929 the University of Cape Town awarded her a doctorate in law. The university recognized her contribution to the impact of women on medical and social issues in the country.
  • For over thirty years she was out and about in the slums of Cape Town with a black medicine bag every day. In St Monica's Maternity Hospital for colored women on the Signal Hill , a bronze plaque was erected to commemorate that bears the inscription: "In Memory of Dr Jane Waterston, Pioneer of Maternity Service in this City. A Friend of the Poor. ”(German for example: In memory of Dr. Jane Waterston, a pioneer of maternal care in this city. A friend of the poor.).

Web links

Commons : Jane Elizabeth Waterston  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

literature

  • Lucy Bean & Elizabeth van Heyningen (Eds.): The Letters of Jane Elizabeth Waterston 1866-1905 . Cape Town (Van Riebeeck Society) 1983, ISBN 0-620-07375-6 ( digital version on Google ).
  • Robert HW Shepherd: Lovedale. South Africa. The Story of a Century 1841-1941 . Lovedale (1940).
  • E. van Heyningen: Jane Elizabeth Waterston - Southern Africa's first woman doctor . In: Journal of medical biography (1996) Nov., Volume 4, pp. 208-213

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Letters of Jane Elizabeth Waterston. 1983, p. 254
  2. ^ Shepherd, Lovedale [1940], pp. 153, 473-474, 521
  3. ^ The Letters of Jane Elizabeth Waterston. 1983, pp. 213-214
  4. ^ The Letters of Jane Elizabeth Waterston. 1983, p. 252
  5. ^ Shepherd, Lovedale [1940], p. 474
  6. ^ The British Medical Journal (31) 1925, p. 820
  7. ^ UCT: Celebrating 125 years of women on campus . on www.news.uct.ac.za (English)
  8. ^ UCT: All honorary graduates . on www.uct.ac.za (English)
  9. ^ The Letters of Jane Elizabeth Waterston. 1983, p. 253
personal data
SURNAME Waterston, Jane Elizabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish educator and medical doctor
DATE OF BIRTH 1843
PLACE OF BIRTH Inverness , Scotland
DATE OF DEATH December 7, 1932
Place of death Cape Town , South Africa