The following obituary of Justina Wilson was published in the British Medical Journal in 1950. Whilst incorrect in some minor areas and lacking in others, it nevertheless demonstrates her extraordinary physiotherapy and medical achievements, and tells of a life fully lived. The two most significant omissions are her Honorary Fellowship of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, and first female Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (2025).
Dr. ANNA JUSTINA AUGUSTA WILSON died on November 28 [1949] in St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, after a long and trying illness. She was believed to be about 86. She was born in India, and her father was an Army officer who later took holy orders and became the vicar of Wilton in Yorkshire. The earlier part of her life was spent in India, at first with her father and later with her brother, who was collector [administrator] of Ootacamund. When her brother was attached to the staff of Lord Wenlock, the governor of Madras, she lived for a time in Government House, where she was immensely popular, famous for her beauty and her social attainments. She would return from tiger shooting or hunting at Ootacamund to write gay social paragraphs for the Times of India or else to delight the assembled company with Chopin recitals. Incidentally, all her three brothers were killed in the Boer War, which elicited a letter of sympathy from Queen Victoria. In India she married Mr. P. R. Wilson, a well-known banker of Bombay, but her marriage did not diminish her restless energy. She started to study physical medicine [massage and gymnastics], going to Sweden first, because that country led the world in this subject at the time. While with the Swedes she added a knowledge of their language to her already perfect French and German. Back in London Justina Wilson opened a school, “The Swedish Institute” in Cromwell Road, and soon was training large numbers of physiotherapists. This school she later transferred to her niece, Mrs. Guthrie-Smith, and it is now a part of St. Mary’s Hospital. She also took charge of the physiotherapy department at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and between running her school and this department she found time to study at the Royal Free and to qualify in medicine-at the age of 53. Qualification produced a problem at St. Bartholomew’s and Dr. Wilson had to leave. She then started a new department at St. Mary’s Hospital. Working under the most primitive conditions in the basement, she soon built up a busy and efficient department. She also took the Cambridge D.M.R.E. [Diploma of Medical Radiology and Electrology] in 1920. Still this was not sufficient to keep her fully occupied, and she sat for the membership at 61 and for the Fellowship of the College of Physicians of Edinburgh at 65. From then on she developed a busy private medical practice. The keynote of this practice was her vigorous treatment, and she could mobilize in turn all the resources of physiotherapy, allopathy, and homoeopathy to help the patient. But it was really her own determination and stimulating personality which seemed to effect cure. It was as if her patients were afraid to do other than get well, and it was hardly surprising that her clientele included some of the best-known names in the land. During the [Second World] war Dr. Wilson fell in the black-out and fractured her pelvis. For two months she was in bed, but this did not deter her. Soon, in a small bedroom, she arranged the necessities of her practice, and patients arrived and were interrogated and examined by the bedside. Finally, from a sterilizer by her bed she would produce a syringe, and, with a parting shot from this, speed the patient on his or her way with a final invocation, “Mind you get well,” or, “Come back cured.” This fall unfortunately resulted in an osteoporosis of the spine, so that she lost stature and her head became very bent, but still her work went on until her husband died in February, 1948. Then the vital spark was quenched and she longed for the day when she would join him in his grave on the Sussex Downs. This came about in the presence of a group of her friends and relatives on the afternoon of December 2. As the coffin was lowered one noticed that no age was engraved upon the lid: she had kept this secret to the last.
References
British Medical Journal. (1950). Obituary. 1:129-133. Accessed online at https://www.bmj.com/content/1/4645/129.5
Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. (2025). Dr Justina Wilson – the ‘forgotten’ first female Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. Accessed online at https://www.rcpe.ac.uk/heritage/heritage-blog/dr-justina-wilson-forgotten-first-female-fellow-royal-college-physicians
