Anderson's requests to study at medical schools were denied. As a default, she enrolled as a nursing student at Middlesex Hospital and went to the classes intended for male doctors. When she was found to be the only student in the class able to answer the professor's question, her jealous classmates had her barred from the lecture hall.
Elizabeth Garrett was now a dedicated feminist and in 1865 she joined with her friends Emily Davies, Dorothea Beale and Francis Mary Buss to form a woman's discussion group called the Kensington Society. The following year the group organised a petition, asking Parliament to grant women the vote.
Although Parliament rejected the petition, the women did receive support from Liberals such as John Stuart Mill and Henry Fawcett. Elizabeth became friendly with Fawcett, the blind MP for Brighton, but she rejected his marriage proposal, as she believed it would damage her career. Fawcett later married her younger sister Millicent Garrett.
In 1865, Anderson also passed the Society of Apothecaries exam. As the regulations never stated a woman couldn't take the test, she went ahead and sat it. Her certificate granted, the Society changed their rules and forbade further women from the qualification.
A year later, Anderson established a dispensary for women in London (where she also taught medical courses for women), and in 1870 was made a visiting physician at East London Hospital.
She remained determined, however, to get herself a medical degree, so she taught herself French and went to the University of Paris, where she successfully earned her degree. However, the British Medical Register refused to recognize her MD degree.
The 1870 Education Act allowed women to vote and serve on School Boards. Garrett stood in London and won more votes than any other candidate.
She married in 1871, and had three children with James Anderson (died 1907), a successful businessman and the financial adviser to the East London Hospital. Like other feminists at the time, Elizabeth Garrett retained her own surname. Elizabeth had three children, Louisa, Margaret who died of meningitis, and Alan. Although James Anderson supported Elizabeth's desire to continue as a doctor the couple became involved in a dispute when he tried to insist that he should take control of her earnings.
In 1872, she founded the New Hospital for Women in London, a hospital staffed entirely by women. In a return of favour, Anderson appointed Elizabeth Blackwell, to be the professor of gynaecology there.
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson also joined with Sophia Jex-Blake to establish a London Medical School for Women. Jex-Blake expected to put in charge but Garrett believed that her temperament made her unsuitable for the task and arranged for Isabel Thorne to be appointed instead. In 1883 Garrett Anderson was elected Dean of the London School of Medicine. Sophia Jex-Blake was the only member of the council who voted against this decision.
Her determination paved the way for other women, and in 1876 an Act was passed in Parliament, which permitted women to enter all of the medical professions.
Elizabeth continued her interest in politics, and on the 9th of November 1908, she was elected mayor of Aldeburgh – the first woman mayor in England. The movement for the admission of women to the medical profession, of which Dr Anderson was the untiring pioneer in England, extended in her lifetime to every civilised country except Spain and Turkey.
At 72, she became a member of the militant Women’s Social and Political Union. In 1908, she was lucky to not have been arrested, after members of the WSPU stormed the House of Commons. However, she left the union in 1911 as she objected their arson campaign. Her daughter, Louisa, remained in the WSPU and was sent to prison in 1912 for her militant activities.
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson died on the 17th of December 1917.
