Reflections: Celebrating the achievements of Dr. Daisy Macklin
The first woman to "take her place in this ennobling profession" in the City of Stratford
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March 8 is International Women’s Day. First held in 1911, International Women’s Day is now an annual opportunity to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women around the world. Perth County’s Dr. Daisy Mary Moore Macklin (1873-1925) certainly deserves recognition for her achievements. Seen here in a photo generously provided by Stratford General Hospital Archives, Dr. Macklin was born in Stratford, though she spent time in Toronto and Ellice Township while growing up. Her parents were William Macklin and Hester Godfrey. They had a dry-goods business in the Macklin Block on Ontario Street, later the site of the Family and Company store and now the Perth County Inn. She went to high school in Stratford and then attended the Women’s Medical College in Toronto, graduating in 1895. That was just a dozen years after Augusta Stowe-Gullen was the first woman to graduate from a Canadian medical school in 1883. Dr. Jennie Kidd Trout (née Gowanlock), who grew up in Ellice Township and taught at local public schools, was the first woman licensed to practice medicine in Canada as of 1875, but she’d had to study at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. After getting a licence from the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Trout practiced in Toronto. A few years after her death, Dr. Macklin’s life and contributions were honoured, along with others important to our local history, as part of Stratford’s 1932 Centennial celebrations. According to a story published in the Beacon Herald on July 27, 1932, Macklin was the first female doctor to practice in Stratford. She also worked as a medical missionary in China.
The article goes on to say: “the late Dr. Daisy M.M. Macklin, who practised medicine here for upwards of 25 years, held the distinction of being the first and only woman to take her place in this ennobling profession in the city. Dr. Macklin claimed Stratford as her birthplace, when her father, the late William Macklin, for 40 years one of the city’s leading dry-goods merchants, resided in the house built by him at 305 St. David St. …She received her early education in the Stratford schools and after completing her course at the Collegiate Institute (later Stratford Central), attended the Women’s Medical College Toronto, from which she graduated in 1895. During 1896 she was in New York and Stratford doing post-graduate work and later the same year joined her brother, Dr. W.E. Macklin, in Nanking, China, where he was engaged in medical missionary work.
“The ‘Boxer riots’ in China in 1900 (and possibly an injury or illness) forced her to return home and in that year, she settled in Stratford where she carried on a practice until her death in March 1925. Dr. Macklin made a specialty of the diseases of women and children. … In earlier years it took much courage and perseverance for a woman to make a success in the practice of medicine but Dr. Macklin was goaded by the fact that two of her brothers were in the same profession and in the carrying on of her work she made a place for herself in the city and throughout the district. Her sudden death seven years ago cut short her career in a rather tragic manner.”
Dr. Daisy Macklin died on March 2, 1925, after surgery at Toronto General Hospital, from which she had been expected to make a full recovery. She was survived by three brothers – Dr. William E. Macklin in China, Dr. Alfred G. Macklin in Goderich and Fred E. Macklin of Kitchener, as well as two sisters, Nora and Clara, in Toronto. The local newspaper commented that “she was not only one of the earliest women to hazard the great profession of medicine, but one of the most distinguished as well … in her death Stratford loses a daughter of whom she was justly proud.” Dr. Macklin’s house at 196 Ontario St.in Stratford is marked by a historical plaque from the Stratford Perth County branch of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario.
The Stratford-Perth Archives is open for in-person research and to discuss donations to the collection. For details, please visit www.stratfordpertharchives.on.ca, call us at 519-271-0531 ext. 259 or email archives@perthcounty.ca
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