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Margaret Sophia Sharp MBE (April 1871 - 2 June 1963) was the first woman to be a General practitioner in Bradford. Her post-retirement war work leading the Women's Voluntary Service in Bradford led to her inclusion in the 1943 New Year's honours list.and the commissioning of a portrait by Joyce Platt, initially displayed in Bradford Town Hall and subsequently at.Cartwright Hall.

Career [edit]

The daughter of the Church Guardian's editor Martin Sharp, she studied first at Lady Margaret Hall and then at the London School of Medicine for Women. Sharp was house surgeon at the North Riding Infirnary, Middlesbrough before settling in Manningham, Bradford. One of a handful of women declaring themselves to be general medical practitioners in the 1911 United Kingdom census, her obituary noted that "Much of her work was of a semi-consultant nature and of a sort which is uncommon for a general practitioner at present."

She was also involved with the Eldwick Sanatorium for tuberculosis and oversaw its conversion into the Eldwick Sanatorium School. She founded the St Monica's Home for Girls, a mother and baby home, through the Bradford Church Committee for Rescue Work . Despite her original attempt to join the Bradford Division of the British Medical Association being rebuffed, she went on to be voted its Chair in 1936-1937, shortly before her retirement.

A speaker on various issues relating to the welfare of women and girls from child sexual abuse to workplace health , and cancer, her WVS service meant that she continued to be regarded as a newsworthy local character. .