Pethick, Marie Louise (1875-1917), medical officer

Marie Pethick, the daughter of Henry and Fanny Pethick, was born at Clifton, near Bristol, on 3 July 1875 and baptised at Trinity Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Bristol on 29 September.

In 1881 she was living with her family at 'Trewartha', Bristol Road, Weston-super-Mare (census, 1881, where her first name is given as Maria).

After attending Cheltenham Ladies' College, she took a Preliminary Examination in Arts and matriculated at the University of London in January 1895. She began her medical studies at the London School of Medicine on 1 October, and registered there on the 7th. She passed the University of London Intermediate Examination in Medicine (excluding Physiology) in January 1899 and the Physiology part in July 1900. At the time of the 1901 census she was living with other medical students at 7-11 Hunter Street, St Pancras. She was awarded a Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries (LSA) by the London School of Medicine for Women in 1903, and became a member of the Association of Registered Medical Women.

She began her career as a Clinical Assistant at Menston Asylum and an Assistant Medical Officer at the Canning Town Med. Mission Hospital and Dispensary.

In 1904–5 she accompanied her sister Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence on a trip to Egypt (PETH 7/147-64).

She visited Emmeline in prison in 1909 (PETH 7/167) and was herself arrested for suffragette activity on 1 December 1911.

By 1910 she was working as an Assistant Medical Officer at the Kingwood Sanatorium at Peppard Common in Oxfordshire (Medical Directory), while the Post Office Home Counties Directory, 1912, lists her as working for the firm of Gilford & Pethick at Norton Way, Letchworth. The Medical Directory of 1915 lists her again as Assistant Medical Officer at the Kingwood Sanatorium. It is unclear whether this indicates a return to that establishment, or whether the entry was simply out of date.

She died on 4 February 1917 at 21 Somerset Terrace, Duke's Road, London, W.C. (British Medical Journal, 10 Feb. 1917, p. 28).