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Beatrice Garvie (1872–1956) was a Scottish doctor who is known for her photography on the Scottish island of North Ronaldsay. She was one of the first women to become doctors in Scotland and she worked as a missionary in India.
Garvie was born in Perth to middle-class family. Her family employed two servants.[1] She was one of the first women to train to be a doctor in Scotland by taking the Triple Qualification. The British Medical Journal reported in 1891 that she was in the list of successful students who had passed the exams of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Edinburgh.[2]
When she had qualified she went to be a missionary in Rajputana. She was able to work with women in the Zenana.[3]
In 1896 the Lancet recorded that Dr Beatrice Garvie LRCP LRCS had been appointed as clinical assistant at the Samaritan Hospital in Glasgow.[4]
In 1913 she was working in Rotherham.[5]
It was at the end of her career that she and her housekeeper, Charlotte Tulloch, and partner came to live together in "The Bungalow" on the island of North Ronaldsay in the early 1930s when Garvie was nearly sixty.[6] She was part of the community for sixteen years and in that time the transportation to the island improved when the first airstrip was built. Her transportation was a bike that frequently featured in her photographs. She took photographs and gave them to people. There are over 500 of her photos in Orkney Library.[6]
Garvie is remembered for the work that she did on the island but she has come to notice because of her skill and interest in photography. She was the island's doctor.[6]
She retired at the age of 74 and she and Charlotte Tulloch left North Ronaldsay.[6]
Garvie died in 1956. Her photographs are copyright until 2026.
In November 2022 Garvie's photograph's featured in the GLEAN exhibition at Edinburgh's City Art Centre of 14 early women photographers working in Scotland. The photographs and films that were curated by Jenny Brownrigg were by Helen Biggar, Violet Banks, Christina Broom, M.E.M. Donaldson, Dr Beatrice Garvie, Jenny Gilbertson, Isabel Frances Grant, Ruby Grierson, Marion Grierson, Isobel Wylie Hutchison, Johanna Kissling, Isabell Burton-MacKenzie, Margaret Fay Shaw and Margaret Watkins[7]