Dr Ruth Bensusan-Butt, née Bensusan, (1877-1957) was the first female medical doctor in Colchester.
Ruth Bensusan-Butt | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1877 |
| Died | 1957 (aged 79–80) |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Physician |
She was the sister-in-law of the painter Lucien Pissarro, who had married Esther Bensusan, Ruth's older sister.[1]
She was born in Anerley to a Jewish family. When the family moved to Upper Norwood she went to Sydenham High School. She trained at the University of Zurich, the Royal Free Hospital and in Dublin and qualified in 1904. She spent several years in Italy and was married in Naples in 1910.
When an earthquake struck Italy in 1907, Bensusan organised food, medical supplies and clothes for the refugees from Rome, She later sailed, along with doctors Caroline Matthews and Worthington, to the scene of the quake in Calabria.[2]
In 1909 she went to the Fabian Society summer school in North Wales and became an active suffragist, sometimes marching in her medical gown. She sold copies of the Webbs' Minority report on the Poor Law.
She and her husband, Geoffrey Crawford Butt, bought The Minories, Colchester, in 1915. She used the front rooms as her consulting rooms, and also opened Colchester's first infant nursery there.[3] She sold the building and the garden to the Victor Batte-Lay Trust in 1956.
She became an active member of the Socialist Medical Association[4] and organised a debate on "A State Medical Service" at the Colchester branch of the British Medical Association in January 1932.[5]
She had three children, John, a landscape artist, Barbara, and David Bensusan-Butt, an economist. Barbara and David were twins.[6]
A blue plaque in her memory was placed at The Minories in 2017.[7]
References edit
- ^ "Bookcase and Flowers". Art UK. Retrieved 15 November 2013.
- ^ "Heroism in Italy: how English women doctors have worked in the earthquake zone". The Daily Mirror. 16 January 1909. p. 12.
- ^ Lindsey (1987). "Dr. Ruth Bensusan-Butt 1877–1957". Essex University. History B.A. project. Retrieved 15 November 2013.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ "Socialist Doctor". Socialist Medical Association. August 1933. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
- ^ "Socialist Doctor". No. 2. 4 March 1932.
- ^ Keith Tribe, Economic careers: economics and economists in Britain, 1930-1970 (1997), p. 61
- ^ Early Fabian, Woman's Suffragist, Much Loved Colchester GP. Colchester: Colchester Fabian Society. March 2017.