Lydia Manley Henry

Lydia Manley Henry DSc (30 June 1891 – 27 March 1985) was the first female graduate in medicine from the University of Sheffield. She served with the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service during the First World War. She was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French government. For her thesis on gangrene, based on her wartime experience, she was awarded the degree of MD, the first woman to graduate with this degree from the University of Sheffield.

Early life and education Lydia Henry was born in Macduff, Scotland. She was the daughter of William Paterson Henry (1853–1894) and his wife Elizabeth Dawson Murdoch (1856–1946). Her father died of tuberculosis when she was two years old. Her mother moved to Sheffield leaving her daughter to be brought up by an aunt in Macduff. At the age of 14, she relocated to Sheffield to join her mother, who had begun work at the Day Training College for Teachers in Sheffield and in 1905, became Vice-Principal of the City Training College. At this time, she felt able to care for her daughter again.

Henry was educated at the Sheffield High School for Girls. She enrolled in the Sheffield University Medical School in 1909. In June 1916, she graduated with an MB ChB, and along with fellow student, Florence Elizabeth Millard, they were the first women to receive a medical degree from the university. The next day she became the first woman to work as a hospital doctor in Sheffield. She arrived in July 1917 and was the youngest doctor on the staff. There, as an assistant surgeon, she had charge of the Blanche de Castille ward.