Quaker Alphabet Blog 2015 - C for Annie Elizabeth Clark

Annie Clark was born in 1844, fifth of the twelve children of James and Eleanor Clark of Street, Somerset. Annie's father was one of the founders of the firm C & J Clark and it was his idea to make slippers out of the offcuts left from the sheepskin rugs which were the original goods made by the firm. These proved so popular that the business switched to producing them and later other types of shoe.

The Clark family dressed in 'free-labour' cotton in 1858. James and Eleanor (1st and 3rd from left), Annie (8th from left).

Annie was educated privately at a girl's school in Bath and then lived at home, taking her full share in the work and duties necessary to her large family circle. Her mother was active in good causes, supporting the Abolition movement by selling and dressing her family in 'free-labour' cotton, produced by freed slaves. Annie did social service among the girls employed in the family factory, worked for the Bible Society and espoused the cause of temperance. From the mid 1860s she was an ardent supporter of Womens Suffrage, although in common with most Quaker women of her time she was a suffragist rather than a suffragette, seeking to advance the cause through argument rather than through confrontation.

It was not until Annie was in her late twenties that she began to study for a university entrance examination with a view to taking up a medical career. At that time no hospital or medical school in England would admit women as students. There was however an open door in Scotland at Edinburgh and Annie Clark was one of the small band of women students who entered. Their only possible route to qualification was by way of the licentiate examination of the Society of Apothecaries.

Sophia Jex-Blake

Suddenly, in 1874, the hospital authorities changed their policy, deciding that women should no longer be permitted to share in the teaching, and at the end of that year they were obliged to leave. Sophia Jex-Blake, who had been a pioneer at Edinburgh in 1869, organised the Women's School of Medicine in London and Annie Clark went there. It was, however, still impossible for a woman to obtain a medical degree from any British university, so Annie was compelled to turn to Europe and to pursue her studies in a foreign language. She selected the University of Berne, which was German speaking, and after a two-year course she took her MD in 1877.

It was still impossible for her to practice in the British Isles but just then Dublin adopted a more liberal view and she and twelve other women took the membership examination of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. Annie then spent some time in postgraduate work in Paris, Vienna and America before returning to England in 1878 to take up an appointment as house surgeon at the Birmingham and Midland Hospital for Women which had just moved to extended premises in Yardley. She remained associated with this hospital and with the Children's Hospital for the rest of her working life. She also built up a large private practice, gaining to a special degree the friendship and regard of  a wide circle of patients, to whom she was affectionately known as 'Dr Annie'.

Hilda Clark

The causes she had worked for when she was young remained important to her throughout her life. Annie Clark was convinced that the scientific truth about alcohol showed that its use as a drug was harmful. She recognised it as a depressant which lessened the chance of recovery in dangerous illness and so, in defiance of much criticism, she refused to order alcoholic treatment, a pioneering stance at the time. She also continued to support the suffragist movement in different ways and encouraged younger women, including Hilda Clark, her niece, and Maida Sturge, her cousin, to follow her into the medical profession.


Quakerism was always an important part of Annie's life. She was described as 'an earnest Friend, laying stress on the value of regular attendance at meetings for worship and discipline. Except in cases of urgent necessity she never saw her patients until the hour of worship was over'.

Maida Sturge

Annie Clark was nearly seventy years old when she retired in 1913. For many years travelling was one of her greatest pleasures and she made frequent journeys to Switzerland and the Tyrol. In 1920 her cousin Maida Sturge had set up a Birmingham Children's Home in the healthy air of the Tyrol and it is possible that Annie Clark took as much of an interest in that as she did in the rarer alpine flowers that were always an absorbing delight to her. She died in 1924 in her eightieth year.

Quaker Alphabet Week 7 - D for May Drummond

George Drummond Provost of Edinburgh

May Drummond was born about 1710 in Edinburgh. She came from an eminent family, her eldest brother George (1687-1766) being lord provost of Edinburgh six times and another brother, Alexander, consul in Aleppo. In 1731, when she was only 21, her curiosity led her to attend Yearly Meeting in Edinburgh with her society friends. Here May was convinced by the travelling minister Thomas Story. Her family were very much against her choice but she persevered and was soon recognised as a minister. She began to travel extensively in the ministry in Scotland and then, about 1735, moved to England where she created a stir among the general public.

May Drummond aged about 25

May was a tall handsome woman who spoke very eloquently and drew large crowds, on much the same scale as John Wesley, from all social classes. She was even granted an audience by Queen Caroline, which increased her fame. She was particularly appealing to young women, for whom she held special, often very emotional, meetings. A poem by ‘a young lady’ published in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1735 gives some idea of her impact:-

          “No more O Spain! thy saint Teresa boast, 
           There's one out shines her on the British coast...                                                     

           Too long indeed, our sex has been deny’d,

           And ridiculed by mens’ malignant pride...

           That woman had no soul was their pretence,

           And woman’s spelling past for woman’s sense

           ’Til you, most generous heroine, stood forth,

           And shew’d your sex’s aptitude and worth...”

May travelled widely in England and visited Ireland in 1738 and again in 1753. Some Friends, however, distrusted her eloquence and popularity, fearing that she was in danger of acting for her own glory rather than God’s.

May Drummond

William Cookworthy (1705-1780) of Plymouth met her in 1744 and was kinder in his estimation of her. Writing to a friend he said that she was “one of a surprising genius, her apprehension being quick, lively, penetrating...a great connoisseur of the human heart in all its emotions, passions and foibles, her own open, generous, tender and humane..’Tis a strange phenomenon our young folks take a particular liking to her....I had forgotten her person which seems contrived to enforce and embellish truth, not excite desire. Her face and gesture are aimed at the mind.” He approved the religious content of her speech but was critical of her style, “rather too learned; her epithets rather swell too much. There is something too in the management and tone of her voice when she exerts it, a little too theatrical.” “But”, he adds, “I really believe all this to be owing to her education and not to any affectation or want of simplicity.”

May continued to travel but gradually more doubts were raised about her ministry. Her habit of often mentioning her noble relations and acquaintances made Friends uneasy and there was a feeling that she demanded too much attention for herself. In the late 1750s May Drummond returned to Scotland, but she was not welcomed in her own country. Edinburgh Quakers felt that she spoke in Meeting too often and refused to accept their discipline. Rumours circulated that May, having fallen upon hard times financially, had stooped to pilfering food from the houses of Friends she visited. It was also insinuated that she had become a drunkard. Eventually, in 1764, she was officially requested not to preach and her certificate as a minister was withdrawn.

May Drummond returned to England and continued to travel, becoming a shadow of her former self. Friends treated her kindly but could not acknowledge her ministry. In May 1772 she was in London, but later that year she made her way back to Edinburgh where she died aged 62. Her family forgave her sufficiently to allow her to be buried in the family vault. Her story was seen among Quakers as a fall from grace and a dreadful warning about the perils of popularity and spiritual pride, but only the impressions of others, some of them very partial and prejudiced, remain for history to assess.