author
Dorothy Josephine Collier
1894–1972
A pioneering British surgeon, social reform writer, and traveler, she moved easily between medicine and public life. Her work ranges from an early study of girls in factory labor to firsthand writing about the Spanish Civil War.
1 Audiobook
The Girl in Industry
by Dorothy Josephine Collier
About the author
Born on March 8, 1894, Dorothy Josephine Collier was educated at the Convent of Notre Dame in Southport, the University of Oxford, and University College Hospital, where she qualified in medicine in 1922. She went on to become an aural surgeon and later served as consultant surgeon in ear, nose, and throat departments at the Royal Free and South London hospitals.
Alongside her medical career, she also wrote for a wider audience. Her best-known book, The Girl in Industry (1918), examined the health and working conditions of adolescent girls in British factories during the First World War. She also wrote The Catholic Doctor in Catalonia, reflecting her time in Spain and her involvement in helping refugees from the Spanish Civil War.
Collier's life suggests a rare mix of professional discipline and practical compassion: a surgeon deeply involved in public questions, and a writer interested in how work, war, and social change shaped ordinary lives. She died in 1972.