Hilda Lloyd

Dame Hilda Nora Lloyd, DBE (née Shufflebotham; 11 Aug 1891–18 July 1982) was a British physician and surgeon. She was the first woman to be elected (in 1949) as president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

Personal life Lloyd was born on 11 August 1891 in Balsall Heath, Birmingham, to master grocer John Shufflebotham and Emma Amelia Jenkins. The younger of two daughters, she attended King Edward VI High School, Edgbaston, before entering Birmingham University (Interc BSc Pure Science, 1914, MBChB Medicine, 1916). In 1930, she married Arthur Lloyd, a pathologist who became a professor of forensic medicine at Birmingham University two years later; they had no children. She died on 18 July 1982 in Clent, Worcestershire, after suffering a stroke.

Career After house officer posts in London, she returned to Birmingham University as a resident in obstetrics and gynaecology, and passed her FRCS in 1920. She was particularly concerned with the problems of urban poor women, such as STDs and illegal abortions. The "flying squads" she pioneered helped to save the lives of mothers and babies who would otherwise have died. She became a lecturer in 1934, professor in 1944, and chair of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 1946. In 1950, she became the first woman on the General Medical Council. Christine Murrell was actually elected to the GMC in September 1933, but never took the seat due to her death the following month.