Maud Chadburn died on 9 February 1972, ending a long career in medicine and surgery that spanned both World Wars.
Maud Chadburn died on 9 February 1972, closing out a life devoted to medicine, surgery, and the advancement of women within the medical profession. She lived to see enormous changes in the position of women in British medicine, many of which she herself helped bring about through decades of clinical work, wartime service, and institutional leadership.
By the time of her death, the pathways she and her contemporaries had forged — through institutions like the South London Hospital for Women and Children and organisations such as the Medical Women's Federation — had become well-established parts of the British medical landscape, offering training and professional opportunities to generations of women doctors who followed her.
Her death marked the passing of one of the last surviving members of the generation of women who trained and practiced medicine in the early twentieth century, when female doctors were still a rarity and often had to fight for recognition, hospital privileges, and equal treatment. Her legacy endures through the institutions she helped build and the archival record of her contributions preserved by the Wellcome Collection and other medical history archives.