Helen Boyle

Helen Boyle was born in County Dublin in 1869, the same year the British Empire reached its greatest extent. She later became the first female president of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association and the first woman to lead that professional body. Her life crossed borders, genders and institutions, yet every border bent around her. Dublin gave her birth; London gave her medicine; Sussex gave her practice. The world resisted her at first, then had no choice but to follow.