Marion Oliver

Marion Oliver (May 4, 1853 – May 23, 1913) was a Canadian physician, who graduated in 1886 from the Women’s Medical College at Queen's University, in Kingston, Ontario, the first university women's medical school in Canada. She was the second female medical missionary sent by the Canadian Presbyterian Foreign Missionary Society, sailing to India on October 7, 1886. Oliver worked with and studied under both Emily Stowe and Jennie Trout the first licensed female physicians in Canada. Oliver co-founder and later superintendent of a medical missionary hospital for women in Indore, India.

Early life Oliver was born in 1853 in Downie, Perth County, Canada West, (now Ontario) to immigrant parents, Adam Oliver and Marion Elliot. Coming from Langholm, Scotland in 1842, Oliver's parents were early European settlers in Perth County, first in the town of Avonton, Canada West, (now Ontario) and then on a homestead near St. Marys, ON.

Oliver was the seventh of ten children. Her childhood was spent working on the family's homestead, where she was described by her sister: "She delighted, for the spice of danger, in walking the rafters of the barn and the railings of bridges. When driving the cattle to and from the pasture, she used often to mount an old white steer." She "resolved that her life also should emulate Mary Lyons', and be spent in noble service for others, and should count for truth and righteouness [sic], and for the uplift of womankind." she applied and was accepted to the medical school at Kingston.

In 1882, with tuition of approximately $55.00, Oliver was accepted into the medical school at Queen's University, Kingston. On arriving at Kingston on October 7, 1882, an instructor, Elizabeth Smith, describes her impression of Oliver: "Miss Oliver is excellent & I foretell a good student..." and recorded in the diaries of Elizabeth Smith, Oliver participated in the protests along with her fellow students and female faculty against the institutional misogyny and segregation. In December 9, 1882, "the ladies" rose up as "a group" and left the classroom in protest, and Smith and the other female faculty began "boycotting their lectures, and a standoff ensued." Here, the female students were segregated from the main lectures and teaching. Though Oliver graduated from this new college in 1886, the school was eventually forced to close in 1894 due to a lack of funding. Female student were not again admitted to the Queen's medical school until 1943.

In 1884, Oliver was given the school's McNee's Scholarship, the awarding of which said, "the same marked success that attended Miss Oliver for several years as a teacher characterizes her efforts in her new sphere. Natural ability, ambition, and concentration of effort must succeed."

Missionary work In 1886, Oliver sailed for India with the intention of working as a missionary in Indore, India.

Elizabeth Rabb Beatty The Canadian Presbyterian mission in Indore had been established in 1877, with its first female physician, Elizabeth Rabb Beatty (1856-1939) arriving in 1884. Beatty and Oliver were students together at Queen's medical school, with Beatty graduating in 1883. By a student at Queen's she was described as, "largest in size, determination in every feature, good nature sparkling in her eyes casts a protecting shade on us in her stately size something like the fighting editor." Her husband, Earl of Dufferin, was a Governor General of Canada (1872-1878). Women's Hospital in Indore, India, c. 1888Beatty first work was to establish a dispensary in Indore, which, at the arrival of Oliver, consisted of a "big waiting room where the women who came for medicine assembled" with "djoining the waiting room were other smaller rooms for consulting, dispensing medicine, etc."

Around 1890, Beatty and Oliver established a medical dispensary in Ujjain, India, "about three hours" away by train. Oliver survived, uninjured.

Later life and death In 1904, Oliver was transferred to work in Ujjain and then again to Indore in 1906, and then back to Ujjain in 1907. In 1911, after 25 year in India, Oliver returned the Canada, expecting to stay for a year. She was 60 years of age.