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Lydia Datt
College Role:
Licentiate
Courtesy SOAS, University of London
Notable Achievements
Twice awarded the Cropper Scholarship.
Biography
Lydia Datt studied medicine in the Indian city of Agra, before working for three years at the mission hospital there.
In 1895 she came to Edinburgh to study medicine at the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women. This school had been established just nine years earlier by the physician and campaigner Sophia Jex Blake.
Once Blake had decided to set up the school she undertook an intensive programme of fundraising. Financing the buildings, lecturers and resources for students was a daunting task. Blake was especially keen to encourage international students to attend the school and in order to do this she asked Mr James Cropper to financially support the education of Indian women. Datt was a recipient of the resulting Cropper scholarship in both 1895 and 1897.
Datt graduated as a licentiate in 1899. After returning to India, she took up work with the London Missionary Society at the Asylum for Lepers in Almora.
