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Octavia Margaret Sophia Lewin

(1869-1955), Physician and suffragette; daughter of Spencer Robert Lewin

Sitter in 1 portrait
The war was one of the first opportunities for female doctors to gain a wider acceptance and to demonstrate that they could work in the medical profession at a higher level than nursing. Octavia Lewin was part of a small number of pioneering women who qualified as the first female doctors in Britain. After studying at the London Free Hospital for Women, she specialised in diseases of the ears, throat and nose and worked in various London hospitals. During the war she served as assistant surgeon to the English Military Hospital at Dieppe and as chief physician at the French Military Hospital at Charenton.

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Will Morton

07 July 2020, 12:08

Octavia joined the WSPU in 1906 but left, becoming a founder member of the breakaway Women's Freedom League (WFL) in 1907. She was a keen supporter of tax resistance, refusing to pay whatever taxes she was held responsible for. In 1911, she took part, at her home at number 25 Wimpole Street, London, in the illegal suffrage boycott of the government census survey by refusing to give the required information. She wrote across her form instead: 'No Vote, No Census. I absolutely refuse to give any information.'