Emily Hancock Siedeberg

Emily Hancock Siedeberg-McKinnon (17 February 1873 – 13 June 1968) was a New Zealand medical practitioner and hospital superintendent. She was also the country's first female medical graduate.

Early life Siedeberg was born in 1873 in Clyde, Otago, New Zealand. She was the third child of Irish Quaker Anna Thompson and Franz David Siedeberg, a German Jewish architect who had emigrated to New Zealand in 1861 and taken up mining. When Emily was three the family settled in Dunedin, her father becoming a successful building contractor. Emily was educated at the Normal School and at Otago Girls' High School, where she held a board scholarship. From an early age she accepted her father's dictum that she should train as a doctor.

Career Encouraged by her father, she studied medicine, becoming the first woman to enter medical school in 1891, at the University of Otago Medical School. Although the dean, John Scott, was reluctant to admit Siedeberg, the university council decided that the school was open to men and women. The opposition Siedeberg faced was minor compared to that received by women trying to enrol in medical degrees overseas. Siedeberg's experience was made easier when she was joined in her second year by Margaret Cruickshank.

Siedeberg graduated from the University of Otago Medical School in 1896. She did her post-graduate studies in obstetrics, gynaecology and children's diseases at the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, and in Berlin. After postgraduate training and work experience overseas, she eventually registered as a medical practitioner and set up a private practice in Dunedin, with financial help from her father. New Zealand Medical Women's Association founder (1921) and first president Otago Pioneer Women's Memorial Association

Personal life Siedeberg married James Alexander McKinnon in Los Angeles on 8 October 1928 and would be known as E.H. Siedeberg McKinnon and Emily H. Siedeberg-McKinnon. They had no children. He died in 1949.

Siedeberg died in the Presbyterian Social Service Association home at Oamaru, New Zealand, on 13 June 1968, aged 95.

The street Emily Siedeberg Place in Dunedin was named in her honour in 1993, as part of Suffrage Centennial Year. Siedeberg Drive in Flat Bush, Auckland, was also named in her honour. In 2017, Siedeberg was selected as one of the Royal Society Te Apārangi's "150 women in 150 words", celebrating the contributions of women to knowledge in New Zealand.

Siedeberg's residence in York Place, Dunedin, has been classified by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga as a Category 1 Historic Place.