Frances Hoggan

Who was Frances Hoggan?

Frances Elizabeth Hoggan MD was the first British woman to receive a doctorate in medicine from a university in Europe, and the first female doctor to be registered in Wales.

Frances Hoggan was born in Brecon, where her father was a curate. She was brought up and educated at Cowbridge and later at Windsor. During her teens, she gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, who was brought up with her mother and passed off as Frances' sister. She went on to study at Paris and Düsseldorf. She obtained her medical qualification from the University of Zurich in 1870, completing the six-year course in three years. In 1874 she married Dr George Hoggan. She later practised in London as a specialist in women's and children's diseases. Together with her husband, she opened the first husband-and-wife general medical practice in the UK. She became a campaigner and social reformer, and toured the United States lecturing. She had a particular interest in racial issues, and was a speaker at the Universal Race Congress in London in 1911.

Her cremated remains are buried, with her husband's, in Woking cemetery.