Sophia Seekings Friel

Sophia Seekings Friel (3 December 1873 – 17 July 1954) was an English doctor, and maternity & child welfare campaigner,

Life Sophia Seekings was born in Gloucester on 3 December 1873, to Joseph John, an engineer, and Mary Seekings. She obtained a diploma in public health in 1908.

Once qualified, she worked towards the development of a state medical service, pioneering projects with Tottenham Council, acting as School Medical Officer and Assistant Medical Officer of Health.

In 1911, Seekings became secretary of the newly formed Quakers' Suffrage Society, which sought to tackle women's suffrage 'from the more Quakerly point of view'.

In the same year, Seekings put forward the idea of a 'school for mothers', and in 1912 she and Jessy Kent-Parsons (1882?- 1966) Seekings married Alfred Richard Friel, also a doctor. In the same year, she published The Baby, second in a series of health manuals published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

In 1921, she contributed an article on breast feeding to Maternity and Child Welfare. In Louisa Martindale's The Woman Doctor (1922), she as listed as working as a clinical assistant in the throat, nose, and ear department of the Royal Free Hospital.

Sophia Seekings Friel died in Sidmouth, Devon on 17 July 1954.