Jane Harriett Walker

Who is Jane Harriett Walker?

Jane Harriett Walker CH was an English medical doctor who first implemented the open-air method of treating tuberculosis in England. She was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1931.

Walker was born at Dewsbury in Yorkshire, one of eight children of a wool merchant. She was educated in Southport and at the Yorkshire College of Science. Determined to become a doctor, she studied at the London School of Medicine for Women in 1880 and qualified as a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in 1884.

She was the 45th woman to be included on the General Medical Register: the first was Elizabeth Blackwell in 1859. She established a private medical practice on Harley Street in London. She was interested in treating women and children. She became an outpatients physician at the New Hospital for Women in 1888, and joined the hospital's medical staff in 1895.

Walker developed an interest in the treatment of tuberculosis, and travelled to Germany in 1888 to visit Otto Walther's sanatorium in Nordrach, where he was using an open-air method of treatment.