Ivy Evelyn HaslamMDMRCP was a British medical practitioner. In 1909 she became the first female member of the Royal College of Physicians. Born in Kent, the eldest of six children, Woodward was educated in Bromley before studying medicine at the London School of Medicine for Women. After gaining her membership of the RCP in 1909, she continued posts at the Royal Free Hospital, including assistant pathologist. In 1915, she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. Her last known appointment was as Clinical Assistant, Children’s Outpatient Department, West London Hospital. Woodward married surgeon Arthur Charles Haslam and they had five children. In 2018, she was featured in the RCP exhibition "This Vexed Question: 500 years of women in medicine".
Early life and education
Ivy Evelyn Woodward was born on 30 May 1877 in Foots Cray, Kent. Her parents were Elizabeth Woodward , born in Plymouth, Devon, and Harry Woodward, a solicitor from March, Cambridgeshire. She was the eldest of six children, with sisters Dorothy May, Marjory, Cicely Ravenscroft, and brothers, Henry and Harry, all born between 1878 and 1886. She matriculated in January 1895 at Bromley High School, gaining her Intermediate Examination in Arts certificate in 1896. She registered as a medical student on 13 May 1897, having started her studies at the London School of Medicine for Women on 3 May 1897. She passed her Intermediate Science and Preliminary Science examination in 1898 from Bedford and University Colleges and went on to gain her Intermediate Medicine qualification in July 1900. She passed her M.B. in 1903, B.S. in 1904, and gained her M.D in 1908, alongside Dorothy Christian Hare. She obtained the London University M.D. Gold Medal, still awarded for the best performance by a final year medical student.
Medical career
Woodward was admitted as the first womanMember of the Royal College of Physicians in July 1909. In 1905, she is listed in the Medical Directory as house physician at the Royal Free Hospital, while living at 12 West Cromwell Road, London. In 1910, she is listed in the Medical Directory as medical registrar, Royal Free Hospital, having previously been its museum curator, demonstrator in morbid histology, clinical assistant, and assistant clinical pathologist. She also worked in this period as clinical assistant then senior clinical assistant in the Children’s Department at the New Hospital for Women, assistant schools medical officer for London County Council and medical examiner for Kensington High School and Notting Hill High School. Her recent posts also included clinical assistant at the Royal Hospital of Diseases of the Chest, and senior and junior resident medical officer at the Belgrave Hospital for Children. Her entry in the Medical Directory in 1915 lists her as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, and a Member of the Association of Registered Medical Women. In addition to her previous roles at the Royal Free Hospital, earlier posts as joint pathologist at the New Hospital for Women and honorary pathologist at Warneford Hospital, Leamington are included. In 1930, she is listed as house physician at the Royal Free Hospital, and resident medical officer at the Belgrave Hospital for Children. By 1935, she was medical officer for Cambridge House and Southfields Infant Welfare Centres, and local medical inspector at Wycombe High School. In 1940, she was listed in the Medical Directory as clinical assistant, Children’s Outpatient Department, West London Hospital.
Personal life
In 1910, she married surgeon Arthur Charles Haslam, FRCSEng in Kensington, London. After their marriage, they lived in Bromley, Kent. They had five children: Richard Frederick, George Melvill, Margaret Elizabeth, Katherine Alice, and Ruth Maria. After being widowed in 1927, Ivy Haslam moved to Gerrards Cross. In the 1939 National Register, she is recorded as living with her son Richard, daughter-in-law Cathleen, and daughter Katherine in Eton, Buckinghamshire.
