Mary Chisham | The BMJ – GWC Mag

Alice Jane Mary Chisham (neé Stanbury) grew up in Wisbech, then Fen Ditton, Cambridgeshire. Her father, Frederick Elwyn Stanbury, was Canon of Ely, and her mother, May, was a nurse in the second world war. Mary, the name by which she was always known, was educated at the Perse School, Cambridge; she excelled in both classics and the sciences, and became head girl in her final year.

Mary studied medicine at Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, which was then in the Strand. After house jobs at Bromley and Charing Cross hospitals, she took up a junior obstetric post under Miss (later, Dame) Josephine Barnes, and then she entered a busy three partner general practice in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire. Mary’s years working as …