Employment of Women Pharmacists

The girls who take up the profession are principally doctors daughters, or other relatives, those who have some means, and yet want something to do. A great many nurses also take it up, for the dispensing certificate is a valuable asset to the trained nurse. It is, however, generally suitable for the well-educated of the middle classes.30 

Women pharmacists usually ended up in the worst-paid and most demanding areas of pharmacy. By 1908, there were still only 160 women registered as pharmacists, while only about two thirds were practising pharmacists.6 Of those who had abandoned their careers, some had married (and often had been forced to resign), others had emigrated, and the remainder had changed careers (for example, to medicine). Of those in the profession of pharmacy, over 60% were working in hospitals and institutions about 20% were in retail pharmacy, most often as assistants 12% were dispensers to doctors in private practice a few were employed by wholesale pharmaceutical houses and still fewer were analysts, lecturers, or researchers. 

Those women in institutions or working for medical practitioners were particularly disadvantaged financially, as they were competing with the lowly paid ranks of the male dispensers who held the Assistants Certificate of the Society of Apothecaries.37 Women who attempted to practise in the retail trade found that they were not always welcome, as Emily Forster (see Chap. 3), Lecturer at the Westminster College of Pharmacy, described in 1916  

Where to settle . .. The woman pharmacist has something else to weigh besides expense it is the question of her sex, and the fact that at present she is a pioneer in her profession, and 

Though the hospital work was simply routine dispensing, the women pharmacists did make their mark, as Margaret Buchanan commented In such a position the orderliness and attention to detail, the tact and desire to please, which are supposed to be natural to most women, are the most necessary parts of their stock-in-trade, and there have been not a few instances, where women s business capacity and an up-to-date knowledge of drugs and economical methods have led to practical appreciation on the part of committees. 39 

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