Linda Bryder


Linda Bryder is a New Zealand medical history academic. In 2008 she was appointed professor at the University of Auckland.

Academic career

After completing a MA at the University of Auckland, and a 1985 DPhil thesis on the social history of tuberculosis in Britain, at the University of Oxford, Bryder returned to Auckland, where she continued her research into the social history of medicine.
Bryder's highest profile work has been in relation to the Cartwright Inquiry into the 'unfortunate experiment'. Her 2009 book A History of the 'Unfortunate Experiment' at National Women's Hospital did not support one of the inquiry's central findings and attracted a great deal of attention in academia and in the popular press. In 2010 she was invited to write an editorial in the New Zealand Journal of History on her research, and in 2018 she published a letter in the New Zealand Medical Journal drawing on new relevant international research. In 2019 and 2020 studies were published in Britain validating her original findings.
Bryder has over 100 academic publications. These include a history of National Women's Hospital and a history of the Royal New Zealand Plunket Society.
In 2009, Bryder was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Selected works