Octavia Lewin

Octavia Lewin

Octavia Lewin, the daughter of Jessie Augusta Cantwell (1834–1871) and  Spencer Robert Lewin (1826–1903) was born in Widford, Hertfordshire, on 2nd February 1869. Octavia was the 8th of 9 children. Her mother died in 1871, presumably as a result of complications after giving birth to Augusta's younger sister, Jessie Augusta Lewin. Her father was a "Solicitor & Landowner ". (1)

Octavia was educated privately by a German governess before attending Girton College where she read Natural Sciences. (2) She then studied at the London School of Medicine for Women that had been established by an association of pioneering women physicians, Sophia Jex-Blake, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Emily Blackwell and Elizabeth Blackwell. (3) During this period she lived with her father and sisters at 25 Wimpole Street, Marylebone, London. (4)

Octavia Lewin continued her training at the the Royal Free Hospital and the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin and became the assistant physician at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital. She specialised in diseases of the ear, nose and throat. (5)

After her training she visited America where she had studied under James Tyler Kent. On her return in 1903 she became the first woman to read a paper to the British Homeopathic Society. This paper, inspired by Kent was titled "Cases Illustrating Constitutional Treatment," and helped bring about a revolution in British homeopathy, particularly influencing Lewin's homeopathic successors Margaret Lucy Tyler and Marjorie Blackie. (6)

Women's Freedom League

In 1907 Charlotte Despard, Teresa Billington-Greig, Edith How-Martyn, Dora Marsden, Helena Normanton, Anne Cobden Sanderson, Emma Sproson, Margaret Nevinson, Henria Williams, Violet Tillard and seventy other members of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) left to form the Women's Freedom League (WFL). Most of its members were socialists who wanted to work closely with the Labour Party who "regarded it as hypocritical for a movement for women's democracy to deny democracy to its own members." (7) Christabel Pankhurst attempted to play down the conflict. She stated, "please don't call it a split there has been no particular row... it is more of a parting of company." (8)

Octavia Lewin joined the WFL. Like the WSPU, the WFL was a militant organisation that was willing the break the law. As a result, over 100 of their members were sent to prison after being arrested on demonstrations or refusing to pay taxes. However, members of the WFL was a completely non-violent organisation and opposed the WSPU campaign of vandalism against private and commercial property. (9)

Women's Tax Resistance League

In 1909 the Women's Freedom League (WFL) established the Women's Tax Resistance League (WTRL). Octavia Lewin was the first member to take part in the campaign. It was reported in The Daily Chronicle that the "First Passive' Resister", was was to be taken to court. It was announced in the same report that "the Women's Freedom League intends to organise a big passive resistance movement as a weapon in the fight for the franchise." (10)

The Women's Franchise pointed out that the court case took place because of Dr. Lewin's refusal to take out a licence for her armorial bearings (an engraved stag's head on her teaspoons). At the Marylebone Police Court she took the opportunity to explain to the magistrate Mr Plowden "that her motive in refusing this tax was in order to protest against bearing the burdens of citizenship as long as she was denied its privileges." The magistrate described this attitude as "ineffably silly," a remark which was indignantly hissed by the members of the Women's Freedom League who were present. A fine of £10 was imposed and the newspaper commented: "To some minds it would undoubtedly seem 'ineffably silly' to part with £10 in order to uphold a principle, but it is the kind of silliness which makes for the righteousness of a people, and we hope to see more of it." (11)

The Women's Freedom League decided to ask its members to boycott the 1911 Census. The Portsmouth branch planned events, which including hiring a hall and sleeping in other members homes. All these plans were told to local reporters by the WFL branch secretary Sarah Whetton, who stated that nearly one hundred supporters were intending to resist. In Manchester sixteen houses were placed at the branch's disposal, and in Edinburgh it was reported that the numbers taking part in the protest had "reached four figures". Members later recorded some unusual methods they used to avoid detection. Octavia wrote on her census form: "I absolutely refuse to give any information", before listing her impressive academic credentials. (12)

First World War

Most members of the Women's Freedom League, were pacifists, and so when the First World War was declared in 1914 they refused to become involved in the British Army's recruitment campaign. The WFL also disagreed with the decision of the NUWSS and WSPU to call off the women's suffrage campaign while the war was on. Leaders of the WFL such as Charlotte Despard believed that the British government did not do enough to bring an end to the war and between 1914-1918 supported the campaign of the Women's Peace Crusade for a negotiated peace. The Vote attacked Christabel Pankhurst and Millicent Garrett Fawcett, for condemning the women's peace conference. (13)

In April 1915, Aletta Jacobs, a suffragist in Holland, invited members of the Woman's Peace Party and suffrage members all over the world to an International Congress of Women in the Hague. Some of the women who attended included Octavia Lewin, Marian Ellis, Jane Addams, Alice Hamilton, Grace Abbott, Emily Bach, Lida Gustava Heymann, Mary Sheepshanks, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Emily Hobhouse,Chrystal Macmillan, Rosika Schwimmer. At the conference the women formed the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. (14)

The First World War was one of the first opportunities for female doctors to gain a wider acceptance and to demonstrate that they could work in the medical profession at a higher level than nursing. Octavia Lewin served as assistant surgeon to the English Military Hospital at Dieppe and as chief physician at the French Military Hospital at Charenton. She later served as the Aural Surgeon to the Women's Hospital Corps at the Endell Street Military Hospital run by Louisa Garrett Anderson and Flora Murray. (15)

While working at Endell Street she experienced Spanish Flu pandemic that killed many of its younger staff, as well as patients. This gave Octavia Lewin a passion for hygiene education. Newspapers reported that she gave lectures on the subject of "Nasal Hygiene", "How to prevent diseases in the home", "The Hygienic Ladder" and "The Destructive Cold". Lewin also worked at the Central London Throat and Ear Hospital (16)

Octavia Lewin: Lecturer

Octavia Lewin remained an important member of the WFL and she held many fund-raising events in her home. On 2nd January 1920 she reported in The Vote: "Greetings of the Women's Freedom League may the New Year bring with it more than ever before a keen realisation that tyranny and repression are synonymous with the process of destruction and death; and may the long-sown seeds of freedom which are beginning to send forth shoots from long-tilled soil grow till they spread their branches into the heart and minds of all those in whose hands lie the destiny of others." (17)

In January 1922, Nottingham Journal reported that Lewin argued: "The germs of influenza, as of nearly all other diseases, are air-borne; it is, then, of primary importance that the nose, of all organs, should be in a condition to bar them; the mouth, obviously can do nothing to help. The obstinate and almost scandalous neglect of this organ is responsible for more harm than most people realise." (18)

Octavia Lewin
Octavia Lewin (c. 1925)

Octavia Lewin returned to the subject in an article in the John Bull Magazine. "The most wonderful teachers even known in any country or any age taught us a lesson which we should never forget - they emphasised the immense importance of the early years of life. Given control of a child for the first seven years, they could establish an ascendancy that was life-long. During that formative period, they were untiring in the cultivation of the habits they desired to establish. When that was done, they cared little what might happen to the child's environment... Many a promising career is ruined by ill-health, which is the direct during infancy. Broadly considered, health is necessary to success in life. Now and again we hear of individuals who, by sheer strength of will, break through their bonds and astonish the world by their achievements, but these are the exceptions." (19)

It was reported in The Scotsman on 30 April 1928, that Dr. Lewin was involved in a serious car accident: "At Colchester a car overturned after hitting a lamp standard, and Dr. Octavia Lewin, living at Wimpole Street, London, and a woman friend were taken with head injuries to the Essex County Hospital." (20)

Dr Octavia Lewin became Vice President of the Women's Public Health Officers' Association. In January 1932, she caused some controversy for a speech she made to Health Visitors at Bedford College for Women. The Times newspaper reported: "She urged that every baby should be given its own handkerchief. This was the first lesson which should be learnt by all mothers who wished their children to grow up healthy and strong. All sorts of diseases were caused by the neglect of the nose. They must not regard nasal hygiene as a local matter. It was something which affected the whole body. The more you thought about the respiratory system the more marvellous you realised it was. It was marvellously good if looked after properly, and terribly destructive if neglected." (21) At the meeting it was reported that "Dr. Lewin strongly deplored the habit of thumb sucking in children and denounced tight collars which she said, were extremely destructive if neglected." (22)

Octavia Margaret Sophia Lewin died on 27th December 1955 at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, Great Ormond Street, London. She  left effects valued at £6,547. 14s 10d. (23)

Primary Sources

(1) Women's Franchise (2nd April 1908)

Dr. Octavia Lewin's refusal to take out a licence for her armorial bearings was followed by a visit, on March 27 th , to Marylebone Police Court. Here she took the opportunity to explain to Mr Plowden that her motive in refusing this tax was in order to protest against bearing the burdens of citizenship as long as she was denied its privileges. Mr Plowden characterised this attitude as "ineffably silly," a remark which was indignantly hissed by the members of the Women's Freedom League who were present. The fine of £10 which was imposed, presumely represents the damage to the state done by the appearance of an engraved stag's head on Dr Lewin's teaspoons without a licence. To some minds it would undoubtedly seem "ineffably silly" to part with £10 in order to uphold a principle, but it is the kind of silliness which makes for the righteousness of a people, and we hope to see more of it.

(2) Octavia Lewin, The Vote (2nd January 1920)

Greetings of the Women's Freedom League may the New Year bring with it more than ever before a keen realisation that tyranny and repression are synonymous with the process of destruction and death; and may the long-sown seeds of freedom which are beginning to send forth shoots from long-tilled soil grow till they spread their branches into the heart and minds of all those in whose hands lie the destiny of others.

(3) Octavia Lewin, Nottingham Journal (31st January 1922)

Influenza is on the increase, and the appalling lack of the most rudimentary knowledge as to its causes makes it surprising that the disease is not even prevalent.

The germs of influenza, as of nearly all other diseases, are air-borne; it is, then, of primary importance that the nose, of all organs, should be in a condition to bar them; the mouth, obviously can do nothing to help.

The obstinate and almost scandalous neglect of this organ is responsible for more harm than most people realise.

By permitting the nose to become stopped up it is actually turned into an incubator for germs, instead of having the properties of a sanatorium as nature intended it to have.

Proper attention to the nose and throat means keeping the passages clear and free from waste. Too much stress can hardly be laid on the danger of sniffing and drawing the germ-laden mucus back into the system, where it either remains packed up against the brain or travels down into the stomach, to interfere with appetite and digestion, or delivers up its poisons into the blood stream.   

(4) Octavia Lewin, John Bull Magazine (19th September 1925)

The most wonderful teachers even known in any country or any age taught us a lesson which we should never forget - they emphasised the immense importance of the early years of life. Given control of a child for the first seven years, they could establish an ascendancy that was life-long.

During that formative period, they were untiring in the cultivation of the habits they desired to establish. When that was done, they cared little what might happen to the child's environment.

The formation of right physical habits is just as important, and the first seven years settle them much more firmly than many people imagine. Indeed, it is true that the first seven months are responsible for some habits that are lifelong habits that can be broken – if at all – only with great difficulty.

Many a promising career is ruined by ill-health, which is the direct during infancy. Broadly considered, health is necessary to success in life. Now and again we hear of individuals who, by sheer strength of will, break through their bonds and astonish the world by their achievements, but these are the exceptions.

(5) The Scotsman (30 April 1928)

At Colchester a car overturned after hitting a lamp standard, and Dr. Octavia Lewin, living at Wimpole Street, London, and a woman friend were taken with head injuries to the Essex County Hospital.

(6) The Vote (15th January 1932)

According to The Times of January 7th, Dr Octavia Lewin, Vice President of the Women's Public Health Officers' Association, addressed the Winter School for Health Visitors and Social Nurses at Bedford College for Women on the previous day, on the importance of nasal hygiene. She urged that every baby should be given its own handkerchief. This was the first lesson which should be learnt by all mothers who wished their children to grow up healthy and strong. All sorts of diseases were caused by the neglect of the nose. They must not regard nasal hygiene as a local matter. It was something which affected the whole body. The more you thought about the respiratory system the more marvellous you realised it was. It was marvellously good if looked after properly, and terribly destructive if neglected.

Dr. Lewin strongly deplored the habit of thumb sucking in children and denounced tight collars which she said, were extremely destructive if neglected.

(7) Sylvia Pankhurst, The History of the Women's Suffrage Movement (1931)

Tax resistance and resistance to enumeration under the Census of that year were mild forms of militancy now in vogue. The Women's Freedom League had hoisted the standard of "no vote, no tax" in the early days of its formation, and Mrs. Despard and others had suffered a succession of distraints, to the accompaniment of auction sale protest meetings. In November, 1910, the WSPU first adopted the same policy, and the Women's Tax Resistance was formed about this time. In May, 1911, two women were imprisoned for refusal to take out dog licences. A little later, Clemence Housman, sister of the author-artist, Laurence Housman, was committed to Holloway till she should pay the trifling sum of 4s. 6d., but was released in a week's time, having paid nothing.

(8) Claire Louise Eustace, The Evolution of Women's Political Identities in the Women's Freedom League (1993)

This was manifested through the practice of tax resistance which was first publicly linked with modern suffrage protest in the latter months of 1907 and in early 1908, although it was not until 1909 that members in regional branches began to resist certain taxes in any significant numbers. One of the earliest references to this policy was made in November 1907 under the heading of "New Suffragist Scheme of Passive Resistance", where it was reported that women tax payers were being asked to resist income tax, property tax and inhabited house duty.' In March the following year, the Daily Chronicle, a regular reporter of suffrage activities, reported that the "First 'Passive' Resister", WFL member Dr Octavia Lewin, was to be taken to court. It was announced in the same report that "the WFL intends to organise a big passive resistance movement as a weapon in the fight for the franchise."

(9) Queen's College, Octavia Lewin (Summer 2020)

Octavia qualified in Medicine at the London School of Medicine for Women (founded by Sophia Jex-Blake, another Old Queen), the Royal Free Hospital and the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin and became the assistant physician at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital. She specialised in diseases of the ear, nose and throat.

World War I was one of the first opportunities for female doctors to gain a wider acceptance and to demonstrate that they could work in the medical profession at a higher level than nursing. Octavia served as assistant surgeon to the English Military Hospital at Dieppe and as chief physician at the French Military Hospital at Charenton.

Later in the war, she worked at "Endell Street" in London, the only British army hospital to be staffed and run entirely by women for the duration of the war. In an unnerving parallel to current events, the team at Endell Street that had saved thousands during the war had no effective weapon against the "Spanish" ‘flu that killed many of its younger staff, as well as patients. Perhaps this explains Octavia's lifelong passion for hygiene education.

After the military hospitals closed in 1919, the UK's medical schools returned to barring female students, and female doctors were sidelined once again. Octavia – who sounds from her prolific letters to the newspapers like someone not easy to sideline – joined the Central London Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital. She became an advocate of breathing exercises for children and visited schools as a rhinologist for London County Council.

She was also a campaigner for female suffrage. The 1911 census was conducted at the time the Votes for Women campaign was growing vigorously. Suffrage organisations decided to boycott the census in protest at women's exclusion from the franchise. The Women's Tax Resistance League achieved considerable success in encouraging its small but determined membership to rebel. Octavia wrote on her census form: "I absolutely refuse to give any information", before listing her impressive academic credentials.

Octavia was in practice at 25 Wimpole Street, London in 1911, and at 8 Manchester Square, London in 1948 (the year Girton was granted full status by Cambridge University). She died in 1955.

(10) Hahnemann House Trust, Octavia Margaret Sophia Lewin (March, 2011)

Octavia Margaret Sophia Lewin MB, BS (London) 1896, MD (Chicago) (2 February 1869 – 27 December 1955) was a Registrar and Assistant Physician at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital (RLHH) and an active suffragist.

Lewin was a colleague of Andrew Tocher Cunningham and Dudley d'Auvergne Wright at the Hopital de L'Alliance in France from 1914-1915.

Lewin practiced at 25 Wimpole Street, London in 1911, and at 8 Manchester Square, London in 1948.

Octavia Lewin was born in Widford, Ware, Hertfordshire, in February 1869, the daughter of Spencer Robert Lewin, a solicitor, and Jessie Augusta Cantwell. She was educated privately by a German governess, and at the Frances Holland School, Queens College in Harley Street and then at Girton College, Cambridge, where she read Natural Sciences.

Lewin qualified in Medicine at the London School of Medicine for Women and became Assistant Physician at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital.

A committed suffragist, in 1906 she joined the Women's Social and Political Union. The following year, in 1907, Lewin became a founder member of the Women's Freedom League, active between 1907 and 1961, and was a militant, non-violent women's suffrage society formed by dissidents from the WSPU. She would have met Jane Addams and Helena Swanwick at the International Women's League of Peace and Freedom in 1915, and known many of the women in the movement.

Lewin was also a supporter of the Tax Resistance League, the second annual meeting of which was held at her home.

It is not clear when Lewin chose to practice homeopathic medicine but shortly after qualifying in 1901 she joined the British Homeopathic Society.

In 1903, on her return from America, where she had studied under James Tyler Kent, Lewin became the first woman to read a paper to the British Homeopathic Society. This paper, inspired by Kent was titled "Cases Illustrating Constitutional Treatment," and helped bring about a revolution in British homeopathy, particularly influencing Lewin's homeopathic successors Margaret Lucy Tyler and Marjorie Blackie.

During World War I, Lewin worked in France alongside fellow suffragist, old Girtonian, and homeopathic physician, Mabel Hardie. Lewin was appointed Assistant Surgeon at the Military Hospital in Dieppe and at the French Military Hospital in Charenton. She later served as the Aural Surgeon to the Women's Hospital Corps at the Endell Street Military Hospital run by Louisa Garrett Anderson and Flora Murray.

After the war Lewin continued in practice. She was Resident Medical Officer at Chorlton Union Infirmary and the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin. She was an Assistant Anaesthetist at the Royal Free Hospital, specialising in Rhinology, and she was Rhinologist for the Almeric Paget Corps, Medical Advisor to the Westminster Health Society and Rural Surgeon to the WAAC. Lewin was also the Clinical Assistant at the Central London Throat and Ear Hospital and Honorary Rhinologist for the Society of Women Journalists.

In the 1930s, she was a member of the Council of Management of Bedford College.

Student Activities

The Middle Ages

The Normans

The Tudors

The English Civil War

Industrial Revolution

First World War

Russian Revolution

Nazi Germany

United States: 1920-1945

References

(1) David Simkin, Family History Research (8th November, 2022)

(2) Elizabeth Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928 (2000) page 343

(3) Octavia Wilberforce, The Autobiography of a Pioneer Woman Doctor (1989) page 57

(4) Census Data (1891)

(5) Queen's College, Octavia Lewin (Summer 2020)

(6) Hahnemann House Trust, Octavia Margaret Sophia Lewin (March, 2011)

(7) Martin Pugh, The Pankhursts (2001) page 167

(8) The Daily Chronicle (13th September 1907)

(9) Sylvia Pankhurst, The History of the Women's Suffrage Movement (1931) page 265

(10) The Daily Chronicle (28th March 1908)

(11) Women's Franchise (2nd April 1908)

(12) Claire Louise Eustace, The Evolution of Women's Political Identities in the Women's Freedom League (1993) page 175

(13) Rachel Holmes, Sylvia Pankhurst: Natural Born Rebel (2020) page 442

(14) Elizabeth Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928 (2000) page 168

(15) Hahnemann House Trust, Octavia Margaret Sophia Lewin (March, 2011)

(16) Queen's College, Octavia Lewin (Summer 2020)

(17) Octavia Lewin, The Vote (2nd January 1920)

(18) Octavia Lewin, Nottingham Journal (31st January 1922)

(19) Octavia Lewin, John Bull Magazine (19th September 1925)

(20) The Scotsman (30 April 1928)

(21) The Times (7th January 1932)

(22) The Vote (15th January 1932)

(23) David Simkin, Family History Research (8th November, 2022)