Beatrice Garvie

Biography

Beatrice Garvie was born in Perth, Scotland. 

Garvie qualified as a doctor by taking the licentiate examination, known as the Triple Qualification, of the three Scottish colleges (Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh). Garvie was one of the first women to train to become a doctor in Scotland, passing her licentiate exam in 1891.

Immediately after qualifying, Garvie went to work as a missionary in Rajputana, India.

Before moving to Orkney, she worked at the Samaritans Hospital in Glasgow and as a public health officer in Sheffield. She also worked in Fife, in Rotherham and in Islington, in London.

Garvie spent much of her career in fever hospitals, working with infectious patients. She particularly specialised in TB and she worked first in Tayside as Assistant Tuberculosis Officer before moving to Fife to take up the post of County Tuberculosis Officer.

She was an active supporter of women’s suffrage and raised funds for the NUWSS (National Union of Women Suffrage Societies).

Garvie was almost 60 when she moved to North Ronaldsay – the northernmost of the Orkney islands. She worked there as a General Practitioner until she retired aged 74. 

Garvie is best known not for her medical work, but for her photography. While living on Orkney she took over 500 photographs of everyday life - of fishermen and crofters at work, of children and families. She was known to give away copies of the photographs to the people who were in them.