In the nineteenth century, many of the women who did medical work had moved into it, adding various levels and types of medical training to supplement their evangelical training and work. As the societies began to require fully-qualified doctors and nurses, they often accepted missionary applicants who expressed a desire to become doctors or nurses, and the societies often agreed to pay for part these women’s training and education. The medical course took about five years to complete, and the combination of fees and living costs amounted to a significant sum. As the WW noted, the expenditure on medical missionary candidates was always “above the receipts.” In 1919 alone, the WW spent £924 on medical candidates—a huge sum in postwar Britain.170 And, in addition to the years of medical training, the candidates also
required missionary training, which could anywhere from several months to several years of additional financial support. If the woman then served as a medical missionary for many years, this was a smart investment. But what the societies slowly learned was that the road to becoming a fully-qualified medical woman was not easy, and that many promising women failed. By the time Roberts approached the CEZMS in 1930, asking them to sponsor her application for the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SPCK) medical scholarship, which would help pay for her medical education, the committee knew that much could happen between a teenager’s application and the completion of the degree and missionary training. The CEZMS
did agree to sponsor Roberts, seeing her as brimming with potential, but remarked that “[t]hese candidates for the S.P.C. K. grant are so young that it is not easy to judge from a short interview what they really are in character.”171
As noted, societies looked primarily for suitable missionaries, not potential medical students. They therefore occasionally made mistakes, selecting women who wanted to become medical missionaries, but who could not earn their medical credentials. Winifred Kimmins was deemed to be medical missionary material, submitting good religious papers and a desire to become a doctor. The ZBMM agreed to pay for her medical training—including her fees, room, and board. Kimmins encountered one problem after another. First, her studies were temporarily derailed by ocular problems which required long periods of rest. After two years of study, she
still had not passed her first professional examination.172 Ongoing disappointments and setbacks
caused the committee to eventually doubt whether Kimmins could ever pass the required exams, let alone cope with working in India. They finally decided to cut her financial support, but stipulated that if she persisted on her own, and passed the exams, they would let the society’s Medical Referees decide “with regard to her fitness to continue the severe strain of Medical
study, and subsequently to work in a tropical climate.”173 Once there was no hope that Kimmins
would pass her preliminary medical studies exams, she was asked if she would like to train as a nurse or even as a “zenana” or “general” missionary. Similarly, when Norah Harrison faltered in her medical studies, the CEZMS concluded that she could still be a “reliable and efficient general
171 Miss Graham to Miss Roberts, received 12 December 1930; letter in Margaret Robert’s “Blue Packet,” CEZMS collection.
172 Minutes, 6 March 1895, ZBMM. Kimmins’ fees for that year were just over £23. 173 Minutes, 6 March 1895, ZBMM.
missionary.”174 Provided that her doctor would sign a certificate stating that she was medically
fit to live and work in a tropical climate, the ZBMM would attempt to find useful work for her. Less satisfactory outcomes occurred. The minutes include many stories of medical candidates who failed to serve in any missionary capacity. In late 1912, just after an anonymous donor paid off the ZBMM debt and the future seemed bright, Nellie Hughes approached the society for financial help in training as a doctor at the Liverpool University.175 Hughes’s sister had recently been accepted as a missionary candidate, and Nellie had already completed a year of missionary training, so the Committee was immediately interested in her. Hughes’s parents were “willing to keep her at home” while she studied, “paying all incidental expenses and contributing 10 pounds towards her College fees.” The Committee suggested that £25 be taken from the Candidates’ Training Fund—if a particular committee member and financial supporter agreed— and one of the aristocratic committee members offered to pay the remaining £25, “provided all
agree that she would prove a capable Medical Missionary.”176
But after such attention, effort, and investment on the part of the society, Hughes not only failed to complete her medical training, she also failed to serve as a ZBMM missionary. Perhaps she abandoned her plans for marriage, which committees knew was always a risk for young women, but when a medical candidate chose matrimony over missionary service, the disappointment was evident, even in the dry and factual writing of the committee meeting minutes. The WW recorded notes such as, “Miss Little, whose progress through medical
174 Minutes, Candidates Committee, 24 February 1904, CEZMS collection.
175 The anonymous gift came at just the right time and seemed to have solved all of the ZBMM’s financial problems. Unfortunately, more financial problems developed during the First World War.
176 Minutes, 4 December 1912, ZBMM. I cannot find any evidence that Nellie Hughes ever completed her medical training or became a missionary. The Kinnaird family formed part of the core of the ZBMM. Lady Mary Jane Kinnaird had been its founder—as well as the founder of the YWCA—and her daughters, Emily and Gertrude, neither of whom married, continued the work of both societies, with Gertrude’s special work being the ZBMM. At any time, several other aristocrats served on the committee and were often relied upon to help support special needs.
training has been followed, has decided to marry instead of wait for 5 years”; other candidates “married without having written at all.”177 Over the next few years a spate of broken
commitments due to engagements, the WW considered appointing a special woman tutor at
Kingsmeade to keep close tabs on the women students.178 The ZBMM lost many medical
women before they ever sailed for India, and eventually stopped accepting those who needed extensive financial support to become qualified. When Katherine Harbord, a young woman with strong family connections to the ZBMM “made enquiries about our work [in 1915] …it was suggested to her that a medical career would be most valuable”—but no financial support was offered. Taking this advice to heart, six years later Harbord returned to the committee as a qualified doctor, and the committee, satisfied, asked her to “fill in the necessary papers.”179 The WW had always been cautious. When a Miss Lowe was recommended to the WW in 1902, with a request for financial support for medical school, the WW replied that its funds did not allow for long and expensive training that involved “taking the risks” of never getting the investment back.180
When societies helped finance medical training, they felt entitled to decide how far and what type of training a candidate would pursue. For example, when the ZBMM agreed to support Hughes, at the end of her first year of medical school they required a letter from her professor to help determine whether she would continue in her medical studies or to end with the
B.Sc.181 Sarah Smith also caused her committee to wonder if she could pass her exams, so the
committee debated whether to require her to only get the Apothecaries license (L.S.A.), as this
177 Minutes, 18 January 1910, WW; 8 April 1902, WW. 178 Minutes, 13 May 1919, WW.
179 Minutes, 2 March 1921, ZBMM. Harbord had taken the committee’s advice and obtained her M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. qualification, with plans to take the London M.B., B.S. (the actual degree) within a few months. 180 Minutes, 10 June 1902, WW. Dr. Lowe did eventually serve for the WW.
credential allowed her to do significant medical work at the turn of the twentieth century. But Smith surprised everyone by earning the “Triple Qualification” in medicine and surgery, so had the committee decided on the L.S.A., they would have done both her and their work a
disservice.182
Monitoring a candidate’s progress for so many years could prove not only financially expensive, but also ate up committee members’ time and resources. Although some young women were still accepted as potential medical workers prior to completing or at least making good headway in their medical or nursing training, by the 1920s, this practice was the exception
rather than the rule.183 Doreen Parks was a teenager working as a nursery maid when she
discovered her calling to missionary work. She was encouraged to consider nursing as a good route to acceptance, but was cautioned that “the nursing profession is not one to rush into!” Since Parks was so young, the society recommended she try a short nursing course first, as it
would “give [her] some idea of whether she could manage the work, and the exams.”184 In order
to complete the nursing or medical training, applicants had to possess certain intellectual and academic abilities, aptitudes, and stamina. And there was still the question of whether the
applicant would remain dedicated to her missionary dreams during the years of medical training. Societies therefore tried to comprehensively assess applicants’ character and abilities.
182 The Triple Qualification examination given by the three Scottish medical colleges was established in 1884, and bestowed status equivalent to the medical qualifications of the universities and other medical colleges.
183 This appears to have been the practice in the three missionary societies featured in this study; it is possible that other societies might have had different policies.
184 Gertrude Hooton to Miss Smith, 24 February 1936, in Doreen Parks’ “Blue Packet,” CEZMS collection. Parks followed this advice and began her nursing career by spending 19 months training in a London fever hospital.
2.3 Evaluating Potential Missionaries: Backgrounds, Parentage, and Homelife