Jane Elizabeth Waterston

Jane Elizabeth Waterston (1843 – 7 December 1932) was a Scottish teacher and the first woman physician in southern Africa. Inspired by David Livingstone she trained to become a physician and missionary. Prejudice led her to leave the mission in Livingstonia and to work with the poor in South Africa.

Life Waterston was born in Inverness in 1843. Her father ran the Caledonian Bank in Inverness. She was a Scottish teacher who was given the job of the first Superintendent of a new girl's section at the Lovedale Missionary Institute in South Africa. She arrived in South Africa in January 1867 to work for Dr James Stewart who led the mission. The Lovedale Girls' Institution opened on 23 August 1868.