Occupation Physician Name Constance Stone | Role Medical Doctor | |
Born 4 December 1856 ( 1856-12-04 ) Hobart, Tasmania Alma mater University of Trinity College Died December 29, 1902, Melbourne, Australia Education Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania | ||
Emma Constance Stone (4 December 1856 – 29 December 1902) was the first woman to practice medicine in Australia. She played an important role in founding the Queen Victoria Hospital in Melbourne.
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Early life
Stone was born December 4, 1856 in Hobart, Tasmania to William and Betsy Stone. The family eventually moved to Melbourne. In 1882, Stone met the Rev David Egryn Jones, who had emigrated from England. Moved by the poverty of the parish in which he preached, he decided to study medicine. Stone, inspired by his commitment, decided to also pursue medicine. She was forced to leave Australia to study medicine since the University of Melbourne would not admit women into the medicine course. She graduated from the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, and was awarded her MD from the University of Trinity College, Toronto in 1888. Jones followed her to Canada to earn his MD.
Career
Stone went on to London where she worked in the New Hospital for Women and qualified as a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries in 1889. It was her time at the New Hospital which was her inspiration to one day found a hospital that was run 'by women, for women'.
In 1890, after she returned to Australia, she became the first woman to be registered with the Medical Board of Victoria. Her sister Clara Stone followed her into medicine. Clara Stone had been allowed to study in Australia and was one of two women who graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1891. Constance and Clara went into private practice together and both worked at the out-patients' dispensary in La Trobe Street. Stone married Jones in 1893.
In 1895, the first meeting of the Victorian Medical Women's Society convened in Constance's house, with Clara taking up the presidency. In September 1896 eleven of Melbourne's women doctors decided to found the Queen Victoria Hospital for women. Construction of the hospital was funded by a jubilee shilling fund appeal, it officially opened in July 1899.
Stone gave birth to her only child in 1899, a daughter, Constance Bronwen.
Death
In 1902, Stone fell ill with tuberculosis and died on the 29th of December, aged 45. Her husband Rev David Egryn Jones MD, and daughter Bronwen, who also became a doctor in London, survived her.