Dr Rosa Bale (1864-1941)
A Devon-born woman, she was Plymouth’s first woman GP. She was one of the early female entrants into medicine. She was trained at the London School of Medicine for Women, but also obtained qualifications in Glasgow, at a time when it was difficult for women to become fully qualified in England. Her move to Plymouth, in 1895, was almost certainly dictated by a belief that a woman doctor would be more accepted (and needed) there than in other places. But Plymouth already had a tradition of support for women as activists and pioneers, as its longstanding support for suffrage indicated. She set up her practice at 24 Portland Square, the first woman to set up a medical practice in the West Country, and with a particular focus on the health of women and girls. She rapidly became part of the Town’s civic landscape, serving on the local School Board, while working to improve the health and nursing services of the Three Towns. She encouraged Mabel Ramsay to return to Plymouth and set up a complementary medical practice in 1908, and was a dedicated enthusiast for women’s suffrage, regularly working for the cause. A Wesleyan Methodist and ardent supporter of total abstinence, she rapidly became part of Nancy Astor’s circle. Bale was an activist in a number of issues, including working for the Female Penitentiary for the Three Towns, as well as the Girls’ Evening Club, and promoted the cause of women police officers, as a moral issue. She continued her activities in the interwar years, even when she had largely retired from her GP work, and was only driven out of Plymouth by the Blitz there, when – aged 77 – she returned to the family home in Barnstaple, where she died in November 1941. Her legacy is substantial – especially in terms of the model of improved secondary education for girls and for the early return, in WW2, of women police in Plymouth.