Patricia Elliott: doctor, activist, and general secretary of the Medical Practitioners’ Union

bmj;386/sep04_7/q1906/FAF1faPatricia Elliott was a doctor, activist, and socialist who became general secretary of the Medical Practitioners’ Union and drew on her expertise in industrial health to speak out against the expansion of Stansted airport in the early 2000s.Born in Southampton in March 1921 to Cyrus Lloyd, a merchant seaman, and Clemency Wharton, Patricia was only 9 years old when her mother died from tuberculosis. She was educated at a local primary school and then Southampton Girls Grammar School, where she excelled at science.Left wing activism was the seam that ran throughout her life—she got an early taste as a teenager in Southampton when she joined a demonstration against Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists.Her father later married a wealthy widow who encouraged Patricia to become a debutante and find a husband, but, spurred on by her mother’s early death, she decided to study medicine at University…
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