Son of Thomas Howitt; followed his father in general practice at Lancaster. He was Surgeon and later Consulting Surgeon to the Lancaster Infirmary, Surgeon to the Lancaster Yeomanry, and JP for Lancaster. He died in retirement at Queen Square, Lancaster, in 1886 or 1887. **See below for an expanded version of the original obituary, which was printed in volume 1 of Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows. Please contact the library if you would like more information lives@rcseng.ac.uk** Thomas Howitt was a surgeon in Lancaster. He was born on 24 March 1809 in Lancaster. His father, also Thomas, was a prominent surgeon in the city and subsequently one of the founding members of the Lancaster Medical Book Club in 1823; his mother was Nancy Howitt née Nichols. One of six children, Thomas had a brother, William, who also became a surgeon. Thomas was educated at Lancaster Boys’ Grammar School and then, on his 16th birthday, in 1825, was apprenticed to his father for five years. However, he did not complete his studies in Lancaster, and instead moved to London in 1829, where he spent most of the next two years. Howitt’s manuscript notebook, with entries from the period between 1830 and 1838, is one of the treasures of the Royal College of Surgeons of England’s archive collection and includes his notes on surgical lectures by Sir Charles Bell and Herbert Mayo. After working as Bell’s dresser at the Middlesex hospital in 1831 and early 1832, he spent June to August 1832 visiting Paris hospitals, where he observed Baron Dupuytren operating and accompanied Napoleon’s favourite surgeon, Dominique Larrey, on a Saturday morning ward round. In September 1832 he returned to Lancaster, where he joined the staff of the newly opened Lancaster Infirmary (at that time called the Lancaster House of Recovery and Dispensary). One of three surgeons, his weekly outpatient clinic took place each Tuesday at 11am. Outside the infirmary, he took an increasing interest in the development of the city and was involved in the establishment of the Literary Society, the Lancaster Athenaeum and the Royal Albert Hospital for Children. In 1839 he married Hannah Openshaw and they had three daughters: Fanny Rachael, Annie and Sarah Louisa. In 1845, he was appointed as surgeon to the Duke of Lancaster’s Yeomanry Cavalry; a post he held for over 25 years. He also served as warden of St Thomas’s Church for over 20 years and was a JP. In 1847 he was elected as mayor of Lancaster and in the same year, on February 11th, he performed the first operation in Lancaster with ether anaesthesia. The operation was an above knee amputation for ‘white swelling’ of the knee. In 1863, he became consulting surgeon to the Lancaster Infirmary. He served as president of the Lancaster Medical Book Club from 1857 to 1870, the only person to serve as president for over 10 years. He died on 29 May 1881. Bryan Rhodes and Gill Fitzpatrick