Adelaide's Adela Knight first Australian woman medical graduate in UK; brilliant career killed in 1891 by Vienna typhus

Adela Knight from Adelaide passed her final examination, with honours, for her medical degree at the University of London .
Image courtesy victorianweb.org

Adelaide’s Adela Knight, the first Australian women in 1889 to graduate from the University of London and to gain a medical degree in Britain, suffered tragedy in triumph two years later.

The daughter of the Rev. Samuel Knight, who served in several circuits of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in South Australia for 20 years, Adela Knight entered the Advanced School for Girls in Adelaide city at 15 and matriculated first class with three honours for entry to Adelaide University in 1883.

Studying with professor Edward Stirling, Knight won the Sir Thomas Elder prize as top physiology student. She was encouraged to matriculate for the University of London, with entrance papers sent out to Adelaide.

Knight left for the United Kingdom in 1885 and the next year was awarded the histology prize at the London School of Medicine for Women and she passed the intermediate examination for a medical degree at the London University. She passed in the first division, observed as a result “creditable to her and the teaching she received at Adelaide University”.

After working in London’s principal hospitals, with further studies in Edinburgh and Paris, Knight passed her final medical degree examination with honours in 1889. She was immediately appointed resident medical office at the New Hospital for Women where she oversaw its move from Marylebone Road to larger premises on Euston Road, London.

In 1890, trustees unanimously awarded Knight the London School of Medicine for Women’s highest distinction: the Helen Prideaux prize. This allowed her to travel to Vienna for further studies in gynaecology. It was there she contracted typhus and died after a short illness in May 1891.

The Times in London commented: “Her loss will be long and deeply felt. Her power of diagnosis and success in treatment gave promise of a brilliant career as a medical woman, while she spared no pains for the benefit of her patients and endeared herself to them by her extreme conscientiousness and sympathy.”