For #LGBThistorymonth I will be posting an #lgbtq #womaninhistory every day. Today is Dr Louisa Martindale, a pioneering surgeon, an ardent suffragist and one of the most influential figures in Brighton in the early 20th century.

Martindale’s mother believed that girls should have the same access to education as boys, and because of this she was able to attend the London School of Medicine for Women and gained her M.D in 1906. She became the Visiting Medical Officer staff at the Lewes Road Dispensary for Women and Children, and worked her way up to become a Senior Surgeon and Physician.

Martindale specialised in the use of X-rays to cure cancer. She installed an X-ray at the New Sussex Hospital and set about treating certain cases of fibroids and breast cancer. Her pioneering work led to her association with the World Medical Association and the Medical Women’s International Federation, travelling and lecturing on the treatment of cancer with radiation.

Martindale also served as as magistrate on the Brighton bench, was a prison commissioner and a member of the National Council of Women. She promoted medicine as a career for women in her writing, and in her autobiography A Woman Surgeon she detailed her love for Ismay FitzGerald, who she lived with for three decades.