Esther Rickards

Esther Rickards (13 July 1893 – 9 February 1977) was a British surgeon and politician.

Born in the Paddington area of London, Rickards' family were Jewish. In 1913, she, her sister and her cousin protested at the New West End Synagogue in support of women's suffrage.

Rickards' father was a veterinary surgeon, and she hoped to follow him into the profession. However, at the time, women were not permitted to train as vets, so she instead trained in medicine at the Regent Street Polytechnic, Birkbeck College, London School of Medicine and St Mary's Hospital, London. In 1923, she obtained her Master of Surgery qualification, an unusual achievement for a woman at the time, and in 1924 she was one of the first women accepted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. During this period, she was influenced by Clayton Greene, Zachary Cope and C. A. Pannett. She next became an assistant medical officer for London County Council, covering Paddington.

Rickards was a socialist, and in 1930, she chaired the founding meeting of the Socialist Medical Association. The following year, the organisation affiliated to the Labour Party, and played a key role in establishing the party's policy of creating the National Health Service (NHS). Rickards personally focused on policy relating to maternity, in particular hoping to reduce the rates of mortality around childbirth, and sat on the party's Public Health Advisory Committee. She also worked on embroidery, making a presidential gown for the Royal College of Surgeons, and together with her sister Phoebe, amassed a large collection of recordings of Mozart and Haydn.