Blue plaque for Britain’s first female neurosurgeon – South London News

Britain's first female neurosurgeon was awarded a blue badge99 years after he became a doctor.

The English Heritage A memorial plaque dedicated to Diana Beck was unveiled yesterday at her former home and practice in Wimpole Street, Marylebone.

Mrs Beck lived at 53 Wimpole Street from 1948 to 1954 and spent most of her time at the Middlesex Hospital, where she set up and headed a neurosurgical department, becoming the first female neurosurgeon to do so.

Mrs Beck achieved many other pioneering achievements in her career. She was one of the world's first female neurosurgeons and was said to have been “very conscious and proud” of being the first woman to be appointed to a senior clinical position at one of London's major teaching hospitals.

Dr Susan Skedd, Blue Plaques historian at English Heritage, said: “When Diana Beck specialised in neurosurgery, it was a completely new and revolutionary field of medicine.

“For a woman, it was even more groundbreaking. It seems very fitting that she is honoured at her home in Wimpole Street, where she lived at the height of her career, just half a mile from Middlesex Hospital.”

While living in Wimpole Street, Mrs Beck also operated on her most famous patient, Winnie the Pooh author and fellow Blue Plaque winner AA Milne, who had suffered a stroke in 1952.

Her former home is part of the Harley Street conservation area in Westminster, which has been a prime medical district since the mid-19th century.

Although there are already six memorial plaques in Wimpole or Upper Wimpole Street, only one of them is dedicated to a woman – Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, later Browning.

Picture above: Britain's first female neurosurgeon, Diana Beck (Image: The Medical Women's Federation)

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