Quick Facts
Biography
Agnes Yewande Savage (21 February 1906 – 1964) was a Nigerian doctor and the first West African woman to train and qualify in orthodox medicine. Savage was also the first West African woman to receive a university degree when she graduated from medical school in 1929 at the age of 23. In 1933, Sierra Leonean political activist and higher education pioneer, Edna Elliot-Horton became the second West African woman university graduate and the first to earn a bachelor's degree in the liberal arts.
Life
Savage was born on 21 February 1906 in Edinburgh, Scotland, to Richard Akinwande Savage Sr, a medical doctor and Maggie S. Bowie, a working-class Scotswoman. Her brother was Richard Gabriel Akinwande Savage, also a doctor. Savage passed exams to the Royal College of Music in 1919 and was given a scholarship to study at George Watson’s Ladies College.
She entered Edinburgh University to study medicine, excelled in her studies, and was awarded the Dorothy Gilfillan Memorial Prize as the best woman graduate in 1929. Savage faced gender and racial institutional barriers in her career. After graduation, she joined the colonial service in the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana) as a Junior Medical Officer. Though better qualified than most of her male counterparts, she received fewer benefits.
In 1931, she was recruited by the headmaster of Achimota College. At the urging of the headmaster, Alec Garden Fraser, the colonial government gave her a better contract. She was with Achimota for four years as a medical officer and a teacher. While at Achimota, she came into contact with Susan de Graft-Johnson when the latter was the Girls' School Prefect. Johnson regularly worked with Savage at the sick bay and later went on to also study medicine at the University of Edinburgh, becoming Ghana's first female medical doctor. Another West African woman medical pioneer who studied at both Achimota and Edinburgh was Matilda J. Clerk, who became the first Ghanaian woman to win a university merit scholarship, the second female doctor in Ghana and the third West African woman to train as a physician.
After Achimota, Savage went back to the colonial medical service and was given a better concession, she was in charge of the infant welfare clinics, associated with Korle Bu Hospital in Accra. At Korle-Bu, she supervised the establishment of a training school for nurses, Korle-Bu Nurses Training College.
Savage retired relatively early in 1947 and spent the remainder of her life in Scotland raising her niece and nephew. She died of a stroke in 1964.