https://indianpedia.org/index.php?action=history&feed=atom&title=Agnes_McLarenAgnes McLaren - Revision history2026-07-31T18:54:15ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.45.4https://indianpedia.org/index.php?title=Agnes_McLaren&diff=484846&oldid=prevVikiknl at 15:27, 7 February 20262026-02-07T15:27:29Z<p></p>
<p><b>New page</b></p><div>{{Short description|British doctor (1837–1913)}}<br />
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2014}}<br />
{{Use British English|date=July 2012}}<br />
{{Infobox person<br />
| name = Agnes McLaren<br />
| honorific_suffix = FRCPI, [[Third Order of Saint Dominic|TOSD]]<br />
| image = Agnes-mclaren (cropped).jpg<br />
| caption = McLaren in 1872<br />
| birth_date = {{birth date text|1837}}<br />
| birth_place = [[Edinburgh]], Scotland<br />
| death_date = {{death year and age|1913|1837}}<br />
| death_place = Antibes, France<br />
| education = Studied medicine [[University of Montpellier]]<br />
| known_for = medical work with women and children in India, and for women's suffrage activism<br />
| awards = Fellow of the [[Royal College of Physicians of Ireland]]<br />
}}<br />
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'''Agnes McLaren''' (4 July 1837 – 17 April 1913)<ref name="FOH">{{cite book | url = https://www.amazon.ca/Faces-Holiness-Modern-Saints-Photos/dp/0879739509 | title = Faces of Holiness (Dr Agnes McLaren Medicine Woman) | first = Ann | last = Ball | isbn = 978-0-87973-950-8 | publisher = Our Sunday Visitor Publishing | year = 1998 }}</ref> [[Royal College of Physicians of Ireland|FRCPI]] was a Scottish doctor who was one of the first to give medical assistance to women in India who, because of custom, were unable to access medical help from male doctors. Agnes was active in social justice causes including protests against the white slave trade.<ref name="obitbmj" /> She signed the 1866 women's suffrage petition and was secretary of the [[Edinburgh National Society for Women's Suffrage]] alongside her stepmother, Priscilla Bright McLaren.<ref name="WSM" /> In 1873 she travelled with Priscilla and [[Jane Taylour]] to give suffrage lectures in [[Orkney]] and [[Shetland]].<ref name="shetland">{{cite book|last1=Taylor|first1=Marsali|title=Women's suffrage in Shetland|date=2010|publisher=Lulu.com|location=[Great Britain?]|isbn=978-1446108543|page=48}}</ref> Her father had supported the campaign of first women who sought to study medicine at [[University of Edinburgh]] and Agnes became friends with [[Sophia Jex-Blake]], one of the [[Edinburgh Seven]]. Her father did not however support Agnes' own ambitions in this area. And as she could not graduate in medicine in Scotland, she went to study in France and later, in order to be permitted to practice at home, became a member of the Royal College of Dublin.<ref name="shetland" /><br />
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She was based with the [[Franciscans|Franciscan]] Hospital Sisters when in training,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Smitley|first=Megan K.|url=https://theses.gla.ac.uk/1488/|title='Woman's mission': the temperance and women's suffrage movements in Scotland, c.1870-1914|publisher=University of Glasgow|year=2002|location=Glasgow|pages=67|access-date=16 November 2021|archive-date=16 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211116121404/https://theses.gla.ac.uk/1488/|url-status=live}}</ref> and later converted to the [[Catholic Church|Catholic faith]] in order to carry out missionary work even though Roman Catholic law still prevented its sisters-in-vows from being doctors until 1936.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Burton|first1=Katherine|author-link=Katherine Burton|title=According to the Pattern; The Story of Dr Agnes McLaren and the Society of Catholic Medical Missionaries|date=1946|location=New York | publisher=Longmans, Green | oclc=717114660 }}</ref><br />
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==Background==<br />
McLaren was born in [[Edinburgh, Scotland]].<ref name="FOH"/> The daughter of [[Duncan McLaren]], a [[Presbyterian]] businessman and prominent liberal politician, by his second marriage. Her mother died when she was only three years old. Her father's third wife was [[Priscilla Bright McLaren|Priscilla Bright]] and in time they would work together.<br />
[[File:Agnes McLaren.jpg|thumb|Agnes McLaren]]<br />
She entered the school of medicine at the [[University of Montpellier]] in 1876, eventually becoming only the tenth woman in Britain to graduate as a doctor.<ref name="WSM">{{cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=giffod3v0FsC&q=%22Agnes+McLaren%22+1837&pg=RA1-PA397 | title = The Women's Suffrage Movement | first = Elizabeth | last = Crawford | isbn = 978-0-415-23926-4 | page=397 | year = 2001 | publisher = Routledge | location = New York}}</ref> In 1877 she sat on the governing body of the [[London School of Medicine for Women]]. She was a visiting physician at the Cannongate Medical Mission Dispensary in Edinburgh. By 1882, she was also Fellow of the [[Royal College of Physicians of Ireland]], and had a practice in [[Cannes]].<ref name="WSM"/> She would spend the summers in Edinburgh and relocate to France in the winter.<br />
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==India==<br />
In 1898 aged 61, she [[Religious conversion|converted]] to the [[Roman Catholic Church]], and later went to [[Rawalpindi]], northern India (now Pakistan) with a [[Catholic missions|Catholic mission]], she had learned of the tremendous health needs of women in India.<ref name="WSM"/> Because of India's custom of seclusion for women (''[[purdah]]''), they could not be seen by men other than their immediate family, a custom which meant they also could not receive medical care from male physicians. With so few women doctors in the early 1900s, literally thousands of women died in illness or in [[childbirth]] each year and many babies also died in infancy. McLaren responded to this problem by establishing the London Committee, a support group of women which helped finance the opening of a small hospital, St. Catherine's Hospital, in [[Rawalpindi]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=History of Medical Mission Sisters |url=https://www.medicalmissionsisters-uk.org/history-anna-dengel |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230324052548/https://www.medicalmissionsisters-uk.org/history-anna-dengel |archive-date=2023-03-24 |access-date=2023-11-19 |website=mms-uk |language=en}}</ref><br />
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During her search for women who could help run the hospital, McLaren discovered that [[Canon law (Catholic Church)|Catholic Canon Law]] prohibited [[nun#Religious Sisters|Religious Sisters]] from giving this level of medical care. She petitioned the [[Pope]] and [[Holy See]] to lift the restriction and, while waiting for a response, continued looking for women interested in health care abroad. [[Anna Maria Dengel]], an [[Austrian people|Austrian]], responded to McLaren's request, but was never able to meet McLaren, who died shortly after their correspondence began. However, before her death, McLaren encouraged Dengel to study medicine at the [[Cork University]], setting into motion Dengel's becoming a physician and, years later, her starting a new [[Church congregation|religious congregation]], the [[Medical Mission Sisters]]. They are a Catholic congregation of Sisters who are trained as doctors and nurses and other forms of healthcare professionals, dedicated to providing healthcare to women and children around the world. In 1915, after reading a biographical pamphlet about McLaren's life, Australian doctor [[Mary Glowrey]] experienced her vocation to work as a medical missionary in [[Guntur]], India. Mary Glowrey received special permission from [[Pope Benedict XV]] to work as a medical doctor and Religious Sister in 1920.<br />
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McLaren died in 1913 and was buried in [[Antibes]], France.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://newsarch.rootsweb.com/th/read/MIDLOTHIAN/2001-08/0997465980 | title = Details on monument in St. Cuthberts Churchyard, Edinburgh | access-date = 17 September 2008 | archive-date = 16 February 2012 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120216160835/http://newsarch.rootsweb.com/th/read/MIDLOTHIAN/2001-08/0997465980 | url-status = live }}</ref> Her obituary in the [[The BMJ|British Medical Journal]] describes her as "a woman of strong individuality and character, known to a large circle of philanthropic workers of many nations, many kindreds and many creeds."<ref name=obitbmj>{{cite news|title=Dr Anges McLaren|url=http://www.bmj.com/content/1/2730/917.4|access-date=19 February 2015|publisher=British Medical Journal|date=April 26, 1913|archive-date=1 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201031115/http://www.bmj.com/content/1/2730/917.4|url-status=live}}</ref><br />
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==References==<br />
{{Reflist}}<br />
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==Further reading==<br />
*The British Medical Journal: Medico-Legal, 1913 April 26. vol. 1 (2730): 917<br />
*{{Cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=LTSYePZvSXYC&pg=PA871 | title = The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science | last1 = Ogilvie | first1 = Marilyn Bailey | last2 = Harvey |first2 = Joy Dorothy |author-link = Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie |author2-link = Joy Harvey |page = 871 |publisher = Taylor & Francis | isbn = 978-0-415-92040-7 | year = 2000}}<br />
* '[http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001413842 According to the pattern; the story of Dr. Agnes McLaren and the Society of Catholic medical missionaries]', by Katherine Burton (1946)<br />
* [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/56982142 She stepped out of her class : the life and times of Agnes McLaren], by Janet Gottschalk.(2003)<br />
* The Journeying Ladies: Agnes McLaren, Elizbeth Leseur, Edith Stein, Margaret Laurentia McLachlan by Joyce Sugg (1967)<br />
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{{Authority control}}<br />
{{Women's suffrage in Scotland}}<br />
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mclaren, Agnes}}<br />
[[Category:1837 births]]<br />
[[Category:1913 deaths]]<br />
[[Category:Medical doctors from Edinburgh]]<br />
[[Category:Roman Catholic activists]]<br />
[[Category:Lay Dominicans]]<br />
[[Category:Roman Catholic medical missionaries]]<br />
[[Category:Scottish Roman Catholic missionaries]]<br />
[[Category:University of Montpellier alumni]]<br />
[[Category:19th-century Scottish medical doctors]]<br />
[[Category:19th-century Scottish women medical doctors]]<br />
[[Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Presbyterianism]]<br />
[[Category:Scottish expatriates in France]]<br />
[[Category:Scottish suffragists]]<br />
[[Category:Roman Catholic missionaries in India]]<br />
[[Category:Roman Catholic missionaries in Pakistan]]<br />
[[Category:National Society for Women's Suffrage]]<br />
[[Category:British missionaries in India]]<br />
[[Category:British medical missionaries]]</div>Vikiknl