Laura Margaret Hope

Laura Margaret Hope (3 May 1868 – 14 September 1952), formerly Laura Margaret Fowler, was an Australian surgeon who worked at the Adelaide Children's Hospital and the house surgeon. She served in World War I as a doctor in Serbia, before being captured and spending three months as a prisoner of war. She was awarded the Serbian Samaritan Cross. She devoted over thirty years to medical and Baptist missionary work in Bengal and Serbia. for which she was awarded the Kaisar-i-Hind medal.

Hope was the first woman to graduate in medicine and surgery at the University of Adelaide and Australia's first woman surgeon.

Early life Hope was born Laura Margaret Fowler in the Adelaide suburb of Mitcham, South Australia to Scottish born parents George Swan Fowler and Catherine Janet Lamb. As a child, she helped her father, a successful wholesale grocer, to breed leeches for sale to pharmacists on the family's estate in Glen Osmond.

Education Hope was educated privately, initially attending Madame Marval's private school in Adelaide as well as schools in England while her brother attended Cambridge University. The family returned to Adelaide in 1884 and she matriculated in 1886. Dr. Laura Hope in Scottish Women's Hospital uniform, July 1915. On 6 November, the Serbian orderlies at the new hospital they had set up at Vrinjatcha Banja fled. Four days later, during the night, Hope, Charles, and the other 32 medical staff awoke to find that the Austrian Army had quietly taken possession of the town during the night. They were now prisoners of war. Hope and Charles did mission work at the Australian Baptist Mission at Pubna, the New Zealand Baptist Misson Hospital, Chandpur, India, and the Bengal Baptist Mission at Kalimpong.

Death Hope died on 14 September 1952 in North Adelaide, South Australia and had no children.