Born at Birmingham on Jan 23rd, 1815, one of seven distinguished sons, including the Mayor of Manchester, a well-known Unitarian Minister, and a well-known teacher of the deaf and dumb. Educated at King Edward's School, where he showed promise of becoming an artist, being early thrown into the company of Henshaw, Thomas Creswick, ARA, and Thomas Baker, who all distinguished themselves in the world of art. His family, however, destined him for the medical profession, and in 1882 apprenticed him to J J Ledsam, Senior Surgeon to the Eye Infirmary, Birmingham. He also became a pupil of the Old School of Medicine in Snowhill, which was the precursor of Queen's College, itself again the precursor of Mason College. He won silver medals in the classes of anatomy, surgery, materia medica, and therapeutics - a range of subjects which foreshadowed the comprehensive ability which made him one of the most accomplished practitioners that Birmingham has ever known. Baker's facility in the use of the pencil and brush led to his early introduction by Joseph Hodgson (qv) into the wards of the General Hospital for the purpose of making for him pathological drawings and sketches. In this pursuit a frequent fellow-worker was his friend Sir William Bowman (qv), who was apprenticed to the hospital and who was also, as was Mr Hodgson himself, an artist of no mean skill. Baker subsequently acted as one of Hodgson's dressers and remained his friend during the latter's Presidency of the Royal College of Surgeons. After completing his curriculum of study at Birmingham, Alfred Baker, in 1886, entered as a student at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he attended Lawrence's lectures on surgery as well as Partridge's anatomical demonstrations at King's College. He returned to Birmingham in 1837, and, having declined a partnership with J J Ledsam, his former master, went to Coventry and for a year was associated with the leading surgeon there, John Bury (qv). He then secured the appointment of House Surgeon at the Birmingham General Hospital, where he effected considerable improvements, especially in the pathological examinations and in the statistical records. He became Surgeon to the hospital in succession to Bowyer Vaux (qv), in June, 1848, and here his administrative faculties, not less than his operative skill, acquired full play. In 1846 Baker was thrown from his gig when on his rounds and fractured his femur and arm. He made a slow recovery, but this accident seriously affected him to his life's end. In 1850 he married the eldest daughter of Mr. George Armitage, manufacturing chemist, and was associated with Dr Bell Fletcher, the Elkingtons, and other leading physicians in the foundation of a new medical school, Sydenham College. There had been for some time a considerable amount of misunderstanding between the authorities of the General Hospital and Queen's College, and the object of the new school was to provide more efficient teaching, to combine in a greater degree theoretical training with practical demonstration under the same teachers, and thus to increase the value of the hospital practice. Sydenham College was eventually amalgamated with Queen's College after seventeen years of useful activity, and during the whole of its existence Baker held the post of Lecturer on the Principles and Practice of Surgery. As such and as Surgeon to the General Hospital he had necessarily to keep abreast of innovations in surgical practice, and thus he was the first to perform ovariotomy in Birmingham (1851). The case was unsuccessful, for the patient died, and Baker was assailed by a colleague possessed of a facile pen. Charges of recklessness and cruelty were brought against him, but after an exhaustive inquiry before the Hospital Committee he was completely cleared of the charge of malpraxis. Baker took an important part in the management of the Birmingham General Hospital and was warmly interested in the welfare of the institution. On his retirement from the Hon Surgeoncy in 1881, after thirty-three years' tenure of office, he was presented with a testimonial by the Committee, which consisted of his portrait by Frank Holl, RA, together with a service of silver plate. The portrait was hung in the board room, and the students at the same time presented him with an illuminated address expressive of their admiration for his skill as an operator and teacher. His surgical skill was, indeed, of a high order. He was learned, dexterous, of sound judgement, and careful in arriving at conclusions. As Chairman of the General Hospital Committee in 1885, he received the Prince of Wales when he came to Birmingham to open the Suburban Branch Hospital for Chronic Diseases. This institution was built, furnished, and presented to the General Hospital by a prominent Birmingham citizen - Sir John Jaffray, Bart - but its inception was due to Baker's fertile brain. Baker was one of the founders of the Birmingham Medical Institute and at various times President of each of the local medical societies of Birmingham. He served for eight years on the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons (1852-1860). At the time of his death he was Senior Vice-President of the British Medical Association, and had been intimately associated with its reorganization after it changed its name from 'Provincial' to 'British' and removed the editorial offices of the Journal to London. He was President of the Association at its meeting in Birmingham in 1872, and exhibited an admirable collection of his pathological drawings in the 'Museum'. In addition to his other offices he was Surgeon to the Asylum for Deaf and Dumb at Edgbaston, and, at the time of his death, was Consulting Surgeon to the General Hospital and the General Dispensary, Birmingham. His death occurred at Birmingham on Jan 12th or 13th, 1898. His funeral service would have been taken, but for his absence on the Continent, by his nephew, Dr Benson, then Archbishop of Canterbury, whose mother was a sister of the deceased and of Sir Thomas Baker, Mayor of Manchester. He was survived by a widow, four daughters, [1] and three sons [2]. A good portrait of him accompanies his biography in the British Medical Journal. His Birmingham addresses were 3 Waterloo Street and The Bracken, Augustus Road, Edgbaston. He was both a general practitioner and a consulting surgeon. [3] Publications:- "A Case of Intestinal Obstruction from Disease of the Rectum treated successfully by opening the Descending Colon in the Left Loin." - Med.-Chic. Trans., 1852, xxxiv, 226. "Case of Transposition of Colon." - Brit. Med. Jour., 1880, ii, 803. "On the Difficulties of Hernia." - Assoc. Med. Jour., 1856, 599. "On Pyaemia" - Brit. Med. Jour., 1866, ii, 629. "President's Address delivered at the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association held in Birmingham in August, 1872." 8vo, London, 1872; Brit. Med. Jour., 1872, ii, 141. [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] *The Times* 4 May 1940 "HEATON. - On May 1, 1940, at St Godwald's Finstall, CHARLOTTE ELLEN, daughter of the late Alfred Baker, F.R.C.S., and widow of HARRY HEATON, jun., of Birmingham and Manchester, aged 81 years."; *The Times* 24 Sept 1952 "ADAMS. - On Sept. 22, 1952, at St Godwald's, Finstall, HARRIET ISABEL, wife of the late PERCY CROFTON DE LACY ADAMS (PADDY) in her 90th year, youngest and last remaining child of Alfred Baker, F.R.C.S., of Birmingham and his wife Emmeline Bethune. Cremation at Lodge Hill, 12 noon Friday, Sept. 26"; [2] *The Times* 4 Dec 1944 "BETHUNE-BAKER. - On Dec 1, 1944, at 6, Compton Place Road, Eastbourne, GEORGE THOMAS BETHUNE-BAKER, F.Z.S., F.R.E.S., late of Birmingham, beloved husband of Berthe, second son of the late Alfred Baker, F.R.C.S, of Birmingham, in his 88th year"; *The Times* 15 January 1951 p.1A & (above) p.69 "BETHUNE-BAKER. - On Jan. 13. 1951, JAMES FRANKLIN BETHUNE-BAKER, D.D., F.B.A. of 7, Chaucer Road, Cambridge, Fellow of Pembroke College, sometime Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, youngest son of the late Alfred Baker, F.R.C.S., of Birmingham, in his 90th year. Funeral service at Pembroke College Chapel on Wednesday, Jan. 17, at 2.45 p.m."; [3] Portrait (1) by Frank Holl RA in the General Hospital (ii) in "Edgbastonia" for May 1891 From 18th Birmingham Houses by Benj. Walker *Trans. Birm. Archaeol. Soc.* ? 1932, p.6]