Agnes McLaren

Agnes McLaren (4 July 1837 – 17 April 1913) FRCPI was a Scottish doctor who was one of the first to give medical assistance to women in India who, because of custom, were unable to access medical help from male doctors. Agnes was active in social justice causes including protests against the white slave trade. She signed the 1866 women's suffrage petition and was secretary of the Edinburgh National Society for Women's Suffrage alongside her stepmother, Priscilla Bright McLaren. In 1873 she travelled with Priscilla and Jane Taylour to give suffrage lectures in Orkney and Shetland. Her father had supported the campaign of the first women who sought to study medicine at University of Edinburgh and Agnes became friends with Sophia Jex-Blake, one of the Edinburgh Seven. Her father did not, however, support Agnes' own ambitions in this area. And as she could not graduate in medicine in Scotland, she went to study in France and later, in order to be permitted to practice at home, became a member of the Royal College of Dublin.

She was based with the Franciscan Hospital Sisters when in training, and later converted to Catholicism and went on to carry out missionary work even though Roman Catholic law still prevented its sisters-in-vows from being doctors until 1936.