The first home of the Medical School in Coupland Street, Chorlton on Medlock (as seen in 1908 looking west)[4]
Medical teaching in Manchester began when Charles White founded the first modern hospital in the Manchester district, the Manchester Infirmary (later theManchester Royal Infirmary), in 1752. He was followed byJoseph Jordan, who opened a School of Anatomy in 1814. In the intervening 60 years more than one private medical school existed in Manchester: the most successful was thePine Street medical school, not far south of the Infirmary. A faculty of medicine opened in 1873 (atOwens College), andmedical degrees were awarded by theVictoria University from 1883. The school was made co-educational in 1899 after a long and contentious debate about whether women could be members of the College at all.[5] The first female medical student to qualifyCatherine Chisholm practised as a paediatrician after graduating.[6] The success of the school meant that the building needed to be extended twice, in 1883 and 1894. From 1903/04 degrees were awarded by the Victoria University of Manchester.
A considerable space was allocated to the library of the Manchester Medical Society (founded 1834) which until 1930 remained in their possession while accommodated in the University. The library became part of the university library at that time and remained in the building until 1981 when it was transferred into the present Main Library building of theUniversity of Manchester Library (part of the rare books went to theJohn Rylands Library).[7][8] On the centenary of the medical society in 1934 the medical library was enriched by the Manchester Collection of E. Bosdin Leech relating to the medical history of the Manchester district. From 1919 theDeaf Education collection was established and was significantly enlarged by Abraham Farrar's bequest.[9][10][11]
Additional departments were added from time to time: chronologically these were pharmaceutics, dentistry, and public health.[12] Adental hospital was associated with the department of dentistry.
Until 1908 theManchester Royal Infirmary was atPiccadilly a mile away from the school but in 1908 it moved to a new site on Oxford Road much nearer the medical school and the two institutions were interdependent. The medical school expanded greatly in the 1950s, culminating in the opening of theStopford Building in 1973 and additionally accepting medical students fromUniversity of St Andrews (who have completed their pre-clinical course atSt Andrews) andInternational Medical University, for their clinical studies.
Julius Dreschfeld, leading British physician and pathologist at the end of the 19th century.
John Haggie, President of the Canadian Medical Association 2011-2012. Minister of Health and Community Services, Newfoundland and Labrador December 2015 – present.
Ian Jacobs, gynaecologist and former vice-president of the University of Manchester.
Ralph Kohn, British medical scientist and founder of the Kohn foundation. He was knighted in the 2010 New Year Honours for services to science, music and charity.
David H.H. Metcalfe, academic general practitioner, Professor Of General Practice University of Manchester, President Royal College of General Practitioners.
Herchel Smith, a researcher at the University of Manchester, developed an inexpensive way of producing chemicals that stop women ovulating during their monthly menstrual cycle in 1961.
^The part in the foreground is the extension of 1894, to the left is the part added in 1883, further left the original buildings of 1874 (mostly out of view)
^Fiddes, Edward (1941) "Admission of Women to Full University Status", in: Tylecote, Mabel.The Education of Women at Manchester University 1883 to 1933; reprinted in Charlton, H. B. (1951)Portrait of a University. Manchester: U. P.; pp. 153–162
^Brockbank, E. M. (1929) "The Manchester Medical Society", in:The Book of Manchester and Salford; written for the British Medical Association. Manchester: George Falkner & Sons, 1929; pp. 229-32
^Isherwood, Ian & Mohr, Peter (2000)Medical Men and Medical Science: a history of the library of the Manchester Medical Society 1834-1998. Manchester : Portico Library
Elwood, Willis J. & Tuxford, A. Felicité (eds.) (1984)Some Manchester Doctors: a biographical collection to mark the 150th anniversary of the Manchester Medical Society, 1834-1984. Manchester: Manchester University Press
Peters, James & Gow, Elizabeth (2007) "The medical archive collections of the John Rylands University Library", in: Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester; vol. 87, no. 1 (2005)
Mohr, Peter & Jackson, Bill (2007) "The University of Manchester Medical School Museum ...", in: Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester; vol. 87, no. 1 (2005)
