Patient Voices: autumn lectures
Join us for an online lectures evening exploring examples of voices of both visible and marginalised female patients featured in exhibition ‘Patient voices: power, truth, understanding’.
We are delighted to be hosting three expert speakers to give us more insight into some of the voices of women shared in our new exhibition, exploring themes of agency, trust and power.
Book now
Tickets £5
Two images. Top image is an engraving of Princess Amelia, 1810, photo by John Chase. Bottom image a handwritten extract from case notes of the Lock hospital, Image provided by the Archives of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Talks
Patient voices: power, truth, understanding
An introduction from senior curator, Liz Douglas to the RCP’s most recent exhibition, exploring the lived experiences of healthcare. Developed in partnership with a patient advocacy steering group.
The Cordon Bleu of Physicians: Medical Conflict, Agency, and the Illness of Princess Amelia
Carolyn Day, William Montogomery Burnett Professor of History at Furman University
Join Professor Carolyn Day as she explores the unique ‘patient voice’ of Princess Amelia, the youngest and favourite daughter of King George III and Queen Charlotte.
This lecture examines Amelia’s complex relationships with the royal physicians, uncovering both the power and limits of her agency. Set against the backdrop of late Georgian medicine, Professor Day highlights the often brutal treatments for tuberculosis endured by Amelia.
The Women of the Lock
Patrick Wallis, Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics, and Alexandra Foulds, Archives Manager at the Royal College of Surgeons of England
The Lock Hospital was founded in 1746 as a charity to treat poor people with syphilis who could not gain help elsewhere. Who did it help? And how had they been infected? We explore the lives of several of the women admitted in the late eighteenth century to see how poverty, bad luck and exploitation exposed them to syphilis, and how they came to gain the assistance of the Lock.
About the speakers
Carolyn Day is the William Montogomery Burnett Professor of History at Furman University. She received a Bachelor of Arts in History and Bachelor of Science in Microbiology from Louisiana State University, an M. Phil in the History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine from Cambridge University, and a Ph.D. from Tulane University in British History. She is the author of Consumptive Chic: A History of Beauty, Fashion and Disease (2017), which focuses on material culture and the social space occupied by tuberculosis in the late 18th and first half of the 19th century, investigating the relationship between fashionable women’s clothing, beauty, and illness. She is also the author of Remembering Anne Beach: Love, Scandal and Sickness in 18th Century Britain (2025) which examines the social uses of illness in 18thcentury Britain.
Patrick Wallis is Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the current president of the Economic History Society. He has a BA in History from the University of York and an MSc in Economic and Social History and a D.Phil in History from the University of Oxford. His research explores the medical, social and economic history of early modern and modern Europe, particularly histories of pharmacy, epidemics, and hospitals. He is the editor of Medicine and the Market in England and its Colonies, 1450-1850 (2007), Quackery and Commerce in Seventeenth Century London (2005), and Apprenticeship in Early Modern Europe (2009). His most recent book is The Market for Skill: Apprenticeship in early modern England, 1500-1800 (Princeton University Press, 2025), which explores the ways in which young people gained skills developed between 1500 and 1800 and the consequences this had for society and economy.
Alexandra Foulds is the Archives Manager at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. She holds an MA(Hons) in English Literature, an MLitt and PhD in Victorian Literature, and an MSc in Information Management and Preservation, all completed at the University of Glasgow. Her PhD thesis explored the effect the discovery of cells and germs and changing understandings of the nervous system had on late nineteenth-century Gothic fiction. Since starting her career in Archives, she has held positions at St George’s University of London and Gladstone’s Library, and she has also served as the Chair of the Archives and Records Association for Wales and Archives Liaison for the British Association for Victorian Studies.
Photographs from left to right of Carolyn Day, Patrick Wallis and Alexandra Foulds