With thanks to Historian Debbie Cameron for researching Louisa.
Louisa was brought up in Welsh Bicknor, Herefordshire, where her father was Rector of the Parish. Louisa had the following siblings: Agness B., b.1867, Annie Elizabeth, b. 1869, Margaret B., b. 1872 and Robert Charles, b. 1874.
Educated initially privately at home, Louisa went on to study at Cheltenham Ladies' College, before graduating with first-class honors with a Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Medicine, and a Degree in Medicine from the London School of Medicine for Women.
With an unimaginably intense workload at home too, Dr Aldrich-Blake travelled to France on her holidays between 1914 and 1916, where she spent her time saving and mending lives in military hospitals.
Not content with just being a ground-breaking female surgeon in her own right, Louisa also wrote to every female clinician on the General Medical Register and helped to organise overseas postings for those who replied volunteering their services.
In addition to her military aid in World War One, Dr Aldrich-Blake also worked on clinical research and helped to innovate treatments of cervical and rectal cancers, whilst working as a volunteer at the Canning Town Women's Settlement Hospital.
A memorial statue of Louisa, designed by Cenotaph designer Edwin Lutyens and unveiled in 1926, is in Tavistock Square, London WC1H.
Sources: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/who-louisa-aldrich-blake-british-18938232?fbclid=IwAR3IKI4B3Ejg31LuESd_9YXLQN5KFF6AD2QBu8zGzWFhrPd8LPZPtYc-HyI
and Find my Past
