Welcome to Spotlight.
I'm Mike Proctor.
And I'm Marina Santee.
Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting.
It is easier for people to understand no matter where in the world they live.
It was July 25, 1865.
Dr. James Barry was dead.
He had been one of the best doctors in the British Army.
He had risen to a high position in the military.
Now his body would be buried.
The woman preparing his body was about to be very shocked.
When she removed his clothes, she discovered that Dr. Barry was not a man.
Dr. Barry was in fact a woman.
Today's Spotlight program is on the amazing story of Dr. Barry.
By acting like a man, she was able to become a doctor.
And as a doctor, she saved many lives and achieved great success.
So who was Dr. Barry?
She was born over 200 years ago as Margaret Bulkeley.
Her father owned a small business in Ireland.
When Margaret was young, the family began to have money problems.
Margaret's father could not pay his debts, so officials sent him to prison.
After that, Margaret and her mother had almost no money.
So, they travelled to London.
They hoped to find work and make enough money to keep them alive.
Margaret wrote letters to her mother's brother.
She asked him for help.
She hoped her uncle would help her achieve an education.
Sadly, he was not very kind to her.
But after his death, some of his friends were kind.
They helped Margaret get an education and she was an excellent student.
It is unclear exactly what happened next.
But together, Margaret, her mother, and her uncle's friends prepared a plan.
They decided Margaret would study to become a doctor.
But at that time in Britain, only men could become doctors.
So Margaret would need to make people think she was a man.
This was a major decision.
Margaret would have to lie.
She could not tell anyone her secret.
Margaret decided that being a doctor was worth it.
So Margaret put away her young woman's clothes and she began to wear the clothes of a young man.
She and her mother left London.
They sailed to Scotland where no one knew them.
Margaret would start medical school.
Margaret would no longer be Margaret Bulkeley.
Instead, she called herself James Barry, the name of her dead uncle.
Only three other people knew Margaret Bulkeley's secret, and these friends provided money and support for her medical studies.
When Margaret finished medical school, she joined the British Army.
There she became a great surgeon.
She skilfully operated on people's bodies and she saved many lives.
Around the year 1815, the army sent Dr Barry to serve in South Africa.
There, she made medical history.
She became the first British surgeon to perform a caesarean section.
Dr Barry performed this operation on a woman unable to give birth naturally.
She cut open the mother's stomach and removed the baby.
Both the mother and baby survived.
The mother named the baby boy James Barry to honour the skilled doctor.
Dr Barry also worked hard to improve living conditions wherever she served.
In South Africa, She discovered the cause of Cape Town's bad water.
And she worked to get a better water system.
Dr Barry also used her power to reform the medical system.
She made new rules so that only trained people could give out medicines to patients.
She also introduced changes for patients in hospitals, like receiving better food and fresh air.
And Dr Barry improved care for soldiers and their families.
Dr Barry cared well for sick people and soldiers.
However, she did not always have good relationships with her army chiefs.
She often got into trouble.
When war broke out in Eastern Europe, she made a request.
She asked to serve in the Crimean War.
But her chiefs said no.
However, she went without their approval.
There, she met Florence Nightingale.
Nightingale was a nurse.
She achieved great honour for her work with injured soldiers.
But James Barry and Florence Nightingale did not like each other.
Barry often got angry quickly.
And she often shouted at people.
Florence Nightingale later wrote, I say, she was the hardest creature I ever met in the whole army.
But Florence Nightingale and the army officers never imagined Dr Barry's secret.
Dr Barry had a smooth face and a high voice.
But she acted like a man.
She hid her female body under extra clothes.
And she did a job that only men did.
So no one suspected she was a woman.
She kept her secret for fifty years. until the day she died.
But even then, some mystery remained.
The woman who discovered James Barry's secret did not tell people immediately.
She waited until Dr Barry's body was buried.
So, no one could prove if she was telling the truth.
The British Army denied that James Barry was a man.
They closed Dr Barry's army records for 100 years.
They did not let anyone see them.
Many people talked about Dr Barry's story but there was no evidence.
Was the woman telling the truth?
Or had she made up the story?
No one knew for sure until 2009.
At this time, a South African doctor began researching Dr Barry.
This doctor's name was Michael Dupreez.
And he found evidence that Dr. Barry was a woman.
Dr. Dupree's found letters.
Some were written by Margaret Bulkeley, and others were written by James Barry.
These letters were tested by handwriting experts.
And the writing in all the letters was the same.
The letters proved that Margaret Bulkeley and James Barry were the same person.
Most history books state that Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was the first female doctor in England.
And they state that she became a doctor in 1865.
But Dr. Dupree's research shows that Anderson was not Britain's first female doctor.
Instead, that honour goes to Margaret Bulkeley, a poor young woman from Ireland who secretly achieved that record over 50 years earlier.
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Goodbye.
