Invitation to the Unveiling of the Brighton & Hove Blue Plaque to
SOPHIA JEX-BLAKE (1840 – 1912)
Pioneer of Women's Medical Education
“All through the strenuous days [Sophia Jex-Blake] had been supported by the very poems she had repeated by the fireside in Sussex Square””
You are warmly invited to attend the unveiling of a Blue Plaque commemorating Sophia Jex-Blake. The plaque will be installed at 13 Sussex Square, Brighton, where her family lived for 25 years. Sophia spent significant time there both as a child and later in life, and its importance to her is recorded in Margaret Todd’s biography.
The ceremony takes place during the 150th anniversary year of the Medical Act 1876, for which Sophia campaigned and which enabled women to practise medicine. We will celebrate her pioneering role in medicine, including her achievements as:
the leader of the Edinburgh Seven, whose campaign at the University of Edinburgh transformed opportunities for women in medicine
Scotland’s first registered woman doctor, and
co-founder of the London School of Medicine for Women, whose legacy continues today through UCL Medical School.