Mary Hemingway Rees, or Molly as she was known[1], was one of the original seven[2] members of staff of the Tavistock Clinic and the only woman at that stage. She was one of the medical staff of the Adult Department and saw the first adult patient at the Tavistock Clinic[3]. She was the first female clinician at the Tavistock Clinic and she was also the first disabled member of staff
Mary Isobel Hemingway was born on 10 September 1887[4] in Melton Mowbray[5]. She was the second of eight children[6], the daughter of Charles Robert Hemingway[7] a railway contractor and Mary Elisabeth Hemingway (nee MacGregor)[8].
At the age of 12 Mary Hemingway began to have pain in her left hip[9]. Although it was not diagnosed at the time this turned out to be tuberculosis of the hip joint, which gradually became joined up or ankylosed leaving her permanently and painfully disabled[10].
After Cheltenham Ladies’ College Mary Hemingway went to university to study to be a doctor, a career that she had made up her mind to follow when she was four[11]. In 1908 she began the first year at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh[12],[13]. At that time women were not allowed to be members to the University of Edinburgh although they could take examinations there[14].
Doctor Elsie Inglis (the innovative Scottish doctor, suffragette, and founder of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals) persuaded a number of the young women there to go on with their studies elsewhere[15]. Mary Hemingway continued her medical studies at Glasgow University[16],[17] and then Birmingham University[18],[19], where women were given full academic status[20]. She took what was called the triple qualification, but failed[21]. She then took the London Conjoint Board examinations[22] and passed, qualifying MCRS, LRCP as a doctor in 1914[23].
After qualifying she held obstetric house posts at the Birmingham Queen’s Hospitals[24],[25]. She was the first ever woman resident at Birmingham General[26]. Then from 1916 to 1918 she was resident medical officer at Chad’s Hospital, Birmingham[27].
Mary Hemingway had met Hugh Crichton-Miller while at University working as the travelling secretary for the Student Christian Movement[28] and he had introduced her to the idea of psychological medicine[29].
At the end of the First World War Mary Hemingway decided to explore her interest in mental health[30] and took up a post as the resident medical officer at Bowden House[31], a nursing home for psychiatric patients established by Hugh Crichton-Miller in 1911[32],[33],[34].
At Bowden House Mary Hemingway was taught by Hugh Crichton-Miller himself[35] and began having personal training analysis from Dr Maurice Nicoll[36], who had studied science at Cambridge, before going to Vienna, Berlin and Zurich to study psychoanalysis, becoming close to Carl Jung[37],[38].
Hugh Crichton-Miller ‘s method of teaching was by case conferences and by discussions on diagnostic and theoretical psychopathological lines and was the method of supervising and instructing which he took with him to the Tavistock Clinic which he established in 1920[39].
While at Bowden House Mary Hemingway also met JR Rees[40], who had been visiting Hugh Crichton-Miller to ask some questions about psychiatry, a subject that Rees knew nothing about at that time[41]. Then shortly after this Mary Hemingway returned to Edinburgh to work for her higher qualifications of MB and Ch.B[42]. While she was away Hugh Crichton-Miller asked JR Rees to stand in for her. [43].
When Hugh Crichton-Miller opened the Tavistock Clinic in September 1920 he recruited a number of doctors from Bowden House[44], these included Mary Hemmingway and JR Rees as members of the founding seven[45],[46].
Mary Hemingway was very busy. She set up private practice at Harley Street[47], she was working at Bowden House[48], and at the Tavi she worked in the Adults Department[49], responsible for coaching individual students and private treatment, often late into the night to meet the needs of those who worked during the day[50]. She was dealing primarily with neurotic cases, but also occasionally the borderline psychotic[51]. By 1921 she was also responsible for delivering part of the Tavistock Clinic’s lecture series, giving seminars on the psychological aspects of nursing[52].
Mary Hemingway and JR Rees were married in 1921[53],[54],[55],[56] Her work at the Tavistock Clinic was interrupted by the birth of a daughter, Elisabeth[57]. Then not long after that a tubercular kidney kept her in bed for several months[58].
Throughout the thirties, under JR Rees’s direction, the Tavistock went through a significant period of expansion in treatment, training, external lecture courses and in numbers of staff and trainees[59]. During this period as throughout their marriage Mary was JR Rees’s most steadfast supporter and valued critic[60].
During World War 2 Mary Hemingway Rees remained working at the Tavistock Clinic[61], while it was evacuated to the Westfield College and her husband took up post as consultant psychiatrist to the Army at Home[62]. During the first year of the war the educational work of the Clinic was maintained and they were finally notified by the Senate of the University of London that they had been approved as an institution where teachers could be recognised for the instruction of students in advanced study and research[63].
In 1947 JR Rees resigned from the Tavistock Clinic[64],[65],[66] and began a new phase of life, first organising the great 1948 International Congress for Mental Health in London[67], from which the World Federation for Mental Health was founded. Mary Hemingway Rees was a founder member of the World Federation for Mental Health and JR Rees was appointed Director General[68]. This role meant that he frequently had to travel the world as an ‘ambassador’ for mental health. Mary often accompanied him on these duties, particularly to North America and Europe[69]. As well as this Mary Hemingway Rees hosted World Federation for Mental Health events and participated in both the scientific and social programmes of meetings[70].
In addition to being a practicing psychiatrist, Mary Hemingway Rees was an active member of the Medical Women’s Federation, and was the chairman of its committee on psychological medicine[71].
It was while accompanying her husband on a visit to Toronto for the World Federation for Mental Health in 1954 that Mary Hemingway Rees became ill and noticed a lump on her liver[72]. When she returned to England it was confirmed that she had a tumour and on 4 October she went into University College Hospital.. After a long operation she died without regaining consciousness[73].
Author: Glenn Gossling 2019
Footnotes
[1] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p5, Caravel, London 1967
[2] JR Rees, Reflections, p25, The United States Committee of the World Mental health Federation, 1966
[3] JR Rees, Reflections, p25, The United States Committee of the World Mental health Federation, 1966
[4] ‘Mary I. Hemingway-Rees’, p1233–1234, British Medical Journal, 2 (4898), 20 November 1954
[5] ‘Mary I. Hemingway-Rees’, p1233–1234, British Medical Journal, 2 (4898), 20 November 1954
[6] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p5, Caravel, London 1967
[7] ‘Mary I. Hemingway-Rees’, p1233–1234, British Medical Journal, 2 (4898), 20 November 1954
[8] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p5, Caravel, London 1967
[9] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p6, Caravel, London 1967
[10] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p8, Caravel, London 1967
[11] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p9, Caravel, London 1967
[12] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p10, Caravel, London 1967
[13] ‘Mary I. Hemingway-Rees’, p1233–1234, British Medical Journal, 2 (4898), 20 November 1954
[14] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p10, Caravel, London 1967
[15] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p10, Caravel, London 1967
[16] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p10, Caravel, London 1967
[17] ‘Mary I. Hemingway-Rees’, p1233–1234, British Medical Journal, 2 (4898), 20 November 1954
[18] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p10, Caravel, London 1967
[19] ‘Mary I. Hemingway-Rees’, p1233–1234, British Medical Journal, 2 (4898), 20 November 1954
[20] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p10, Caravel, London 1967
[21] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p10, Caravel, London 1967
[22] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p10, Caravel, London 1967
[23] ‘Mary I. Hemingway-Rees’, p1233–1234, British Medical Journal, 2 (4898), 20 November 1954
[24] ‘Mary I. Hemingway-Rees’, p1233–1234, British Medical Journal, 2 (4898), 20 November 1954
[25] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p4 (Corrgenda), Caravel, London 1967
[26] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p11, Caravel, London 1967
[27] ‘Mary I. Hemingway-Rees’, p1233–1234, British Medical Journal, 2 (4898), 20 November 1954
[28] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p10, Caravel, London 1967
[29] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p11, Caravel, London 1967
[30] ‘Mary I. Hemingway-Rees’, p1233–1234, British Medical Journal, 2 (4898), 20 November 1954
[31] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p15, Caravel, London 1967
[32] Hugh Crichton-Miller 1877 – 1959, A personal Memoir, p28, The Friary Press, 1961
[33] ‘Obituary’,p116, British Medical Journal, 10 Jan 1959
[34] Doris Odlum, ‘Bowden House, Harrow, for the Treatment of Neuroses and Mild Psychoses’,p1, 1968, https://dlcs.io/pdf/wellcome/pdf-item/b18717512/0
[35] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p26, Routledge, 1970
[36] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p15, Caravel, London 1967
[37] JR Rees, Reflections, p24, The United States Committee of the World Mental health Federation, 1966
[38] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p23, Routledge, 1970
[39] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p26, Routledge, 1970
[40] ‘Obituary, John Rawling Rees’, The Lancet, volume 1, p844, 19 April 1969
[41] JR Rees, Reflections, p22, The United States Committee of the World Mental health Federation, 1966
[42] JR Rees, Reflections, p23, The United States Committee of the World Mental health Federation, 1966
[43] JR Rees, Reflections, p23, The United States Committee of the World Mental health Federation, 1966
[44] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p26, Routledge, 1970
[45] JR Rees, Reflections, p25, The United States Committee of the World Mental health Federation, 1966
[46] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p15, Caravel, London 1967
[47] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p16, Caravel, London 1967
[48] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p15, Caravel, London 1967
[49] Tavistock Clinic, Report for the period 1st April, 1929, to 31st March, 1930, p4
[50] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p16, Caravel, London 1967
[51] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p16, Caravel, London 1967
[52] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p30, Routledge, 1970
[53] JR Rees, Reflections, p23, The United States Committee of the World Mental health Federation, 1966
[54] ‘Obituary, John Rawling Rees’, The Lancet, volume 1, p844, 19 April 1969
[55] Royal College of Physicians, ‘Lives of the fellows, John Rawlings Rees’, http://munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk/Biography/Details/3726, 1 April 2019
[56] ‘Mary I. Hemingway-Rees’, p1233–1234, British Medical Journal, 2 (4898), 20 November 1954
[57] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p16, Caravel, London 1967
[58] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p16, Caravel, London 1967
[59] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p3, Routledge, 1970
[60] ‘Obituary, John Rawling Rees’, The Lancet, volume 1, p844, 19 April 1969
[61] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p118, Routledge, 1970
[62] ‘Obituary, John Rawling Rees’, The Lancet, volume 1, p844, 19 April 1969
[63] The Tavistock Clinic (Institute of Medical Psychology), Report for the year 1940, p5
[64] The Tavistock Clinic (The Institute of Medical Psychology), Report for the year 1947, p2
[65] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p173, Routledge, 1970
[66] ‘Obituary, J.R. Rees’, British Medical Journal, p253, volume 2, 26 June 1969
[67] Royal College of Physicians, ‘Lives of the fellows, John Rawlings Rees’, http://munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk/Biography/Details/3726, 1 April 2019
[68] Royal College of Physicians, ‘Lives of the fellows, John Rawlings Rees’, http://munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk/Biography/Details/3726, 1 April 2019
[69] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p17, Caravel, London 1967
[70] ‘Mary I. Hemingway-Rees’, p1233–1234, British Medical Journal, 2 (4898), 20 November 1954
[71] ‘Mary I. Hemingway-Rees’, p1233–1234, British Medical Journal, 2 (4898), 20 November 1954
[72] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p21, Caravel, London 1967
[73] JR Rees, Mary Hemingway Rees, a Memoir, p22, Caravel, London 1967