Royal Free Charity | Portrait of Royal Free Hospital doctor Flora…

Portrait of Royal Free Hospital doctor Flora Murray back on display

11 November 2024 
Portraits of Flora Murray and her partner, Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson, on display at the Royal Free Hospital in north London.
Portraits of Flora Murray and her partner, Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson, on display at the Royal Free Hospital. 
A portrait of Flora Murray, trailblazing doctor and suffragette and the first woman to be depicted on a Scottish banknote, has returned to the Royal Free Charity following a loan to her hometown museum in Scotland. 

The portrait formed the centrepiece of a year-long exhibition at Dumfries Museum to mark the centenary of Dr Murray’s death in 2023. Dr Flora Murray was born in Dumfries in 1869 

Her partner, Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson, was also a physician and suffragette, and together they paved the way for women in medicine and surgery. The Royal Free Charity also loaned a portrait of Dr Garrett Anderson to the exhibition. 

Judith Hewitt, museums curator, Dumfries & Galloway Council, said: Dr Flora Murray and Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson were such inspirational women – as doctors, as suffragettes and as LGBTQ+ icons. 

The loan provided us with an opportunity to celebrate their wartime contribution, which was incredible, and to bring to light a hidden history in Dumfries. We were so sad to see them go but are pleased they are back at the wonderful hospital that enabled them to train as doctors in the first place.” 

Portraits of Flora Murray and her partner, Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson on display at the Dumfries Museum to mark the centenary of Dr Murray’s death in 2023
Portraits of Flora Murray and her partner, Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson, were on display at the Dumfries Museum to mark the centenary of Dr Murray’s death in 2023. 

Jon Spiers, chief executive of the Royal Free Charity, said: We are thrilled to welcome the portraits home and to have them back on display, side by side, where staff and visitors to the Royal Free Hospital can see them. The achievements of these two Royal Free Hospital doctors paved the way for women in medicine and we’re proud to honour their lasting legacy.” 

The Royal Free Charity owns and curates the art collection on display across the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. The portrait of Dr Murray, by British artist Francis Dodd, is the image that appears on the £100 banknote unveiled by the Bank of Scotland in 2022. 

Caroline Clarke, then RFL group chief executive and Jon Spiers with a replica of the £100 Scottish banknote depicting Flora Murray.
Caroline Clarke, then RFL group chief executive and Jon Spiers with a replica of the £100 Scottish banknote depicting Flora Murray. 

What we know about Dr Flora Murray

The London School of Medicine for Women opened in 1874 to train women as doctors. While they could study medicine, they weren’t allowed to practise until the Royal Free Hospital became the first British institute to admit women, giving them valuable real-life clinical experience. 

Flora trained at the London (Royal Free Hospital) School of Medicine for Women and qualified as a doctor in 1905. She worked as a medical officer and anaesthetist and supported suffragettes recovering from hunger strikes. 

In 1912 she founded the Women’s Hospital for Children in London with Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson to provide healthcare for working class children in north west London. 

Women doctors were still excluded from many medical roles. During WW1, offers of help from female doctors were turned down by the government. Flora and Louisa founded the Women’s Hospital Corps, went to Paris and set up a hospital in the Hotel Claridge to treat wounded soldiers. 

The success of the Women’s Hospital Corps led to the British war office asking Flora and Louisa to set up a similar hospital in London to treat soldiers. They set up the Endell Street Military Hospital, the first in the UK established for men staffed entirely by women. 

The hospital, where Flora was doctor in charge and Louisa the chief surgeon, had the motto deeds not words”; in a precursor to what we now know as holistic healthcare, they sought to care for patients’ minds as well as their physical wounds. 

As well as clinical practice, Endell Street doctors carried out a significant amount of clinical and laboratory research, with seven papers being published in The Lancet. In 1917, Flora and Louisa were awarded CBEs for their work and medical efforts during the war. 

After the war, Flora and Louisa lived together in Penn, Buckinghamshire until Flora’s death in 1923 in a Hampstead nursing home. Louisa was by her side. 

Flora is buried in a churchyard in Penn. Louisa lived for a further twenty years and died in 1943 aged 70. The headstone on Flora’s grave commemorates them both and includes the declaration: We have been gloriously happy”. 

Latest news