Search Results for

First Title value, for Searching Fereday, Samuel Day (1813 - 1874)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Fitzmaurice, George Lionel (1805 - 1871)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Fitzpatrick, John (1817 - 1872)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Fitzpatrick, Nicholas ( - 1852)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Fletcher, James Ogden (1824 - 1874)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-12-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373935373935
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details Born at Prestwich, Lancashire, and served his apprenticeship with John Goodman, of Salford, with his uncle, James Ogden, one of the leading medical men in Salford, and with his uncle's successor, William B Lumb. Young Fletcher took a keen interest from the first in science, especially in chemistry and botany. He made a collection of the plants of Southern Lancashire, which was nearly exhaustive. He entered as a student at the Manchester School of Medicine, and won a prominent position by his diligence and acquirements. He settled in Manchester as a general practitioner, and was appointed Medical Superintendent to one of the temporary hospitals established to combat the very prevalent fever 'of a low type', which was probably typhoid, for while prescribing and organizing he endeavoured in fatal cases to elucidate 'the pathology of typhoid fever as it affected the intestinal canal'. He had a severe attack, but made a satisfactory recovery. He was appointed in conjunction with his brother, Dr Shepherd Fletcher, one of the Lecturers on Anatomy in the new Chatham Street School of Medicine, and continued to lecture until the two medical schools in Manchester were amalgamated, when his students presented him with a valuable testimonial. Fletcher was appointed in 1865 by the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway Company their Consulting Surgeon, and during two or three years gained a wide experience of railway injuries and travellers' injuries generally. He was for some years active in the management of the Manchester Medical Society, of which he was President in 1869, and was much interested in the Medico-Ethical Society. At the time of his death he was Medical Officer of the 'A' and 'B' Divisions of the Manchester City Police, and of the City Gaol. He was a Fellow of the Medical Society of London. His death occurred at Manchester, where his addresses were 35 Lever Street and Greenhays Lane, on September 14th, 1874. Publications: *Railways in their Medical Aspects*, 8vo, London, 1867. In this work he tabulated the more important facts relating to 175 patients injured in railway accidents, chiefly in collisions. "Sugar found in the Perspiration, Tears, and Ceruminous Matter of the Ears." - *Med. Times Lond.*, 1847, xvi, 393. "On the Treatment of the Feet and Breech Presentations." - *Ibid.*, 1849, xix, 595. "Exophthalmic Goitre." - *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1863, I, 529. This last is an interesting paper, in which five cases of recovery are related.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001752
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Denman, Eric Edward (1927 - 2009)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Rosemary Denman
Publication Date 2011-12-14 2023-02-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373938373938
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Eric Denman was a senior consultant orthopaedic and accident surgeon at the Princess Margaret Hospital, Swindon from 1965 to 1990. Eric was born to Albert Edward Denman and Gertrude Ann Harrison on 19 August 1927. His father was a civil servant; his mother was the daughter of a master mariner and was herself a Cape Horner (a sailor who has sailed round the treacherous Cape Horn). Eric was educated at Harrow Grammar School and then carried out his National Service in the airborne Royal Signals. He began his medical training at Cambridge University and then at University College Hospital. He went on to posts in Chichester and Leicester, and was a senior registrar at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. He practised for a year in the Sudan from 1964 to 1965, where his wife and children joined him. Later he worked for six months in Swaziland. In 1965 Eric was appointed as a consultant in the new hospital in Swindon. He and his team were on duty when, in 1987, a lone gunman opened fire on the people of nearby Hungerford, killing and injuring several; the victims of the ‘Hungerford Massacre’ were sent to the Princess Margaret Hospital. Eric was also a regular anatomy demonstrator at Oxford University and sat on the *viva* examination panel for the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. After retiring, he moved from Marlborough in Wiltshire to Madjeston, near Gillingham, Dorset, where he studied a variety of subjects with the Open University and gained a degree in astronomy in his late seventies. During his lifetime, his hobbies included marathon running, hill walking, squash and photography. Eric died on 22 January 2009 aged 81 after a short illness. He was survived by his wife Elizabeth Jean née Drummond, whom he married in 1955, and their two children, David and Rosemary.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001755
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Dunning, Mervyn Walter Frank (1917 - 2010)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sir Miles Irving
Publication Date 2011-12-14 2013-07-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373939373939
Occupation General surgeon
Details Mervyn Dunning was a consultant general surgeon in Shrewsbury. He was educated at Hampton Grammar School, London. He initially trained as a dentist at the Royal Dental Hospital, qualifying in 1941. He held junior posts, as a house surgeon and then senior house surgeon in maxillofacial surgery. He then took up a commission in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. The allied invasion of Europe was looming, and when D-Day occurred Mervyn was stationed at the Royal Naval Hospital in Plymouth charged with dealing with war injuries from the front line. This experience convinced him that he should gain a medical qualification so, in 1946, after serving as a surgeon lieutenant in a combined services hospital in Trincomalee (in what was then Ceylon), he went to the Middlesex Hospital Medical School. He qualified in 1950 and served as house surgeon to Rupert Vaughan Hudson, the senior surgeon at Middlesex. Mervyn subsequently held a surgical appointment at the Royal Naval Hospital in Malta. He returned to Middlesex Hospital in 1952 as a demonstrator in anatomy and then proceeded to hold appointments at senior house officer and registrar level. He obtained his FRCS in 1957. After a number of senior registrar appointments in the north of England, he was appointed in 1963 as a consultant general surgeon to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. Mervyn was a courteous and attentive surgeon well-liked by his patients. He was widely read, fond of classical music, and an accomplished artist. He and his wife Elizabeth lived in a beautiful town house dating from the 1660s, where they were welcoming and generous hosts. Towards the end of his life he was in poor health and eventually needed bilateral leg amputations. He died in August 2010 aged 93, and was survived by his wife and his daughter Penny from his first marriage.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001756
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Khan, Mohammad Zafar Ullah ( - 2009)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2011-12-15 2015-09-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373940373940
Occupation General surgeon
Details Mohammad Khan was a consultant general surgeon at East Reach Hospital, Taunton Somerset. He qualified in the Punjab in 1957 and gained the fellowship of both the College and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 1975. He died on 21 August 2009, survived by a daughter.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001757
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Griffin, Peter John Anthony (1946 - 2009)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2011-12-15 2015-03-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373941373941
Occupation Transplant surgeon
Details Peter John Anthony Griffin was a transplant surgeon at Cardiff Royal Infirmary. He was born on 19 July 1946 and studied medicine in Cardiff, gaining his MB BCh in 1970. He was a house surgeon at Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton, and a senior house officer in the accident department at Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. He then became a surgical registrar in Cardiff and was later a specialist there in transplant surgery. He was involved in the World Transplant Games Federation and, after his death on 31 May 2009 at the age of 62, the Peter Griffin award was introduced for the winning team of the men's swimming freestyle relay.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001758
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lam, Sorab Jamshed Sorabsha (1934 - 2010)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2011-12-15 2014-10-24
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373942373942
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Sorab Jamshed Sorabsha Lam, known as 'Soli', was a senior consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon in Bromley and Tunbridge Wells. He was born in Bombay, India, on 22 October 1934, the son of two distinguished lawyers, Jamshed Sorabsha Lam, a solicitor, and Mithan Lam née Tata, a barrister and one of the first women to be called to the British bar (in 1923). In 1950 Lam went to the UK, where he attended Dulwich College and then Guy's Hospital Medical School. He gained his MB BS and MRCS LRCP in 1957. He was a house officer at Guy's and then a senior house officer at Birmingham Accident Hospital. From June 1960 he was a senior house officer in surgery at Manchester Royal Infirmary. In 1961 he gained his FRCS and became a registrar in orthopaedic and general surgery at St Olave's Hospital, then annexed to Guy's. From 1962 to 1963 he was a registrar in vascular surgery at St Mary's Hospital, London. He was then a registrar in surgery at Lewisham General Hospital, and a registrar in orthopaedic surgery at Birkenhead General Hospital and Guy's. From 1965 to 1969, he was a senior registrar in orthopaedic surgery at Guy's, during which time he spent a year on a Fulbright travelling fellowship as an instructor in orthopaedic surgery at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. In 1968 he was a Hunterian Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons. In June 1969 he was appointed as a consultant to the Cray Valley and Sevenoaks Hospital Group, based at Orpington and Sevenoaks hospitals. In 1974, as a result of boundary and hospital reorganisations, he became a senior consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon to the Bromley Hospitals Trust (including Bromley, Orpington and Farnborough hospitals) and consultant orthopaedic surgeon to Tunbridge Wells Health Authority (Sevenoaks Hospital). For many years he was completely single-handed. He was particularly interested in spinal surgery, including correction of scoliosis, and in the reconstruction of knee and ankle joints. He was a fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association and the British Scoliosis Society, a member of the European Spine Society, the Société Internationale de Chirurgie Orthopédique et de Traumatologie, the British Association for Surgery of the Knee and the British Elbow and Shoulder Society, and an associate member of the British Society of Surgery of the Hand and the Scoliosis Research Society. He was also a visiting surgeon in America, Tunisia, Australia and Cyprus. He was a founder member of the British Fulbright Scholars Association and on the executive committee for five years. In his younger days he was a very active sportsman; he was ranked number four in the world at squash and was a cricketer for the minor counties. He won numerous trophies for squash, swimming and table tennis. His first marriage ended in divorce, and he had no further contact with his children. In 1980 he married Margaret. Soli Lam died suddenly on 30 November 2010, aged 75. He was survived by his stepsons, Stephen and Tim. Two British Orthopaedic Association fellowships have been set up in his memory.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001759
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gregory, Irene Dorothy Rosalie (1922 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2011-12-15 2015-04-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373943373943
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details Irene Gregory was a consultant ophthalmologist at Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup. She was born on 8 October 1922 and studied medicine at Bristol University, qualifying MB ChB in 1944. She was a house surgeon at Bristol Royal Infirmary and Bristol Eye Hospital, and went on to a senior registrar post at Guy's Hospital, London. She gained her diploma in ophthalmic medicine and surgery (DOMS) in 1946 and her FRCS in 1953. She became a part-time consultant ophthalmologist in Sidcup and to the Inner London Education Authority. She was a member of the Christian Medical Fellowship. Irene Gregory died on 8 December 2003. She was 81.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001760
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cameron, Duncan Stewart (1940 - 2010)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Neil Weir
Publication Date 2011-12-15 2013-09-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373944373944
Occupation Otolaryngologist ENT surgeon
Details Stewart Cameron was a much respected otolaryngologist at the Freeman Hospital, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, with a special interest in skull-based surgery. He was born in Newcastle on 3 July 1940 and was head boy at Dame Allan's School. A keen rugby player at school, he went on to play scrum half for the Northern Football Club. Stewart Cameron qualified from the University of Durham, having completed his clinical course on the new curriculum at the University of Newcastle. His house appointments were in and around Newcastle, after which he became an assistant lecturer in the department of anatomy at the University of Glasgow (from 1965 to 1968). After gaining his Edinburgh FRCS, he decided to start training in ENT and undertook a clinical tutorship in Edinburgh. Drawn back to Newcastle, he was successively a registrar and a senior registrar at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, before being appointed as a consultant to the Freeman Hospital. Here he developed his special interest in skull-based surgery, in particular the establishment, with his neurosurgical colleagues, of a regional acoustic neuroma service. It was perhaps as an examiner that Stewart Cameron was most admired. He served on the examining boards of both the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of Edinburgh and of England for 25 years, and was awarded the FRCS *ad eundem* by our English College. He was also regional surgical adviser for the Edinburgh College. Stewart Cameron was a person who was always positive and upbeat, and who treated everyone with the same courtesy. His decision to undergo orthopaedic surgery to ease his increasing discomfort whilst playing golf regretfully resulted in a fatal post-operative pulmonary embolus. He died on 23 January 2010, aged 69, and was survived by his wife, Gladys, and his two sons, Alasdair and Iain.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001761
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hunt, Peter Woodland (1916 - 2011)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Susan Stewart
Publication Date 2011-12-15 2014-11-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373945373945
Occupation General practitioner General surgeon
Details For most of his career Peter Woodland Hunt was one of the few surgeons in the vast country of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). There he rapidly learnt to cope efficiently with mine accidents, ophthalmics, plastics and obstetrics, in addition to a heavy general surgical workload. He was born in Dublin on 27 May 1916 and raised in Newbury, Berkshire, where his parents owned and ran two newsagents. His father died from tuberculosis when Peter was 12, possibly contracted during the First World War, but his mother continued to run both businesses successfully. Peter's secondary education was at Christ's Hospital School, in which he took a lifelong interest. He went on to study medicine at the Middlesex Hospital School of Medicine, qualifying with the conjoint examination in January 1939. He was a house surgeon and then a casualty officer at the Middlesex Hospital until he was conscripted in 1940. Wartime service with the Royal Army Medical Corps took him to many places, including Northern Ireland, Normandy, Norway and finally India. His experience resulted in a deep interest in the war and he was widely read on the subject. It was during the war that he met and married Margaret Reed, a nursing sister at the Middlesex Hospital. The needs of conscription meant that their early years of marriage were largely spent apart. In 1946 he was discharged with the honorary rank of lieutenant colonel. Following his demobilisation, Peter was firstly an orthopaedic house surgeon at Ealing Memorial Hospital. During this time he obtained his MB BS. Then, whilst a general surgical registrar at the Middlesex Hospital (from 1947 to 1950), he gained his FRCS. In 1950, with his wife and two young children, he set off for a new beginning in Northern Rhodesia. Initially he was a surgeon and general duties medical officer with the Rhodesia Broken Hill Development Company. In 1953, he was appointed as a surgeon specialist to the Rhokana Corporation Ltd, Kitwe, a large mining and ore processing company. For some years he was in private surgical practice serving all the Northern Rhodesia copperbelt towns. Following the consolidation of the mining companies after Zambia's independence, he became group medical adviser to Nchanga Consolidated Copper Mines Ltd, one of two conglomerates created to manage the copper industry. There were many challenges, not least the breadth of surgical specialties that he was required to cover and be expert in. On retirement in 1976, Peter and his family settled in the Channel Island of Alderney, where his mother had bought a house before the Second World War (she moved there permanently in the 1946, following the repopulation of the island). For the first year or so on the island he was a locum in one of the island's general practices. Sadly, in 1986, Margaret, his wife of 44 years, died. In Alderney, Peter created a fine garden and home, which was frequently visited by his son and daughter, four granddaughters and six great grandchildren. He travelled widely to visit his family in South Africa, Germany, Hong Kong, Brazil and Australia. A quiet and unassuming man, he enjoyed listening to classical music, reading widely and had an addiction to crosswords. In his final years he was well cared for in the island's care home, surrounded by family and his many friends. He died on 8 April 2011, aged 94. Peter Hunt was indeed a general surgeon in the broadest sense, working successfully in an environment and situation that would have been at the very least challenging.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001762
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Eastes, Claude Neville d'Este' (1918 - 2010)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Neil Weir
Publication Date 2011-12-16 2014-04-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373946373946
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Claude ('Petal') Neville d'Este Eastes was a consultant ear, nose and throat surgeon in Sussex. He was born in Canada and in 1942 qualified in medicine at Guy's Hospital. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps, travelling to East Africa, Madagascar, India and Ceylon. He was demobilised with the rank of captain. After the war he returned to Guy's and gained his London University MB BS qualification in 1948. His friendship with Leslie Salmon at Guy's led him to follow a career in ear, nose and throat surgery. He was a registrar at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, and then returned to Guy's as a chief assistant, by which time Salmon had been appointed to the staff. They remained close friends until Salmon's death in 2002. Claude Eastes was appointed as a consultant ENT surgeon to the Royal Sussex County Hospital, the Sussex Throat and Ear Hospital, the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital, Brighton, and the Worthing and Southlands hospitals in 1956. His interests were mainly in head and neck surgery, but he was happy to provide a general ENT service. He was much involved with the development of the postgraduate medical centre. Nothing was too much for Claude Eastes; he was always the last to leave the outpatients' and the first to offer help to anyone in need. He was a true gentleman, much respected by all as a surgeon, a keen teacher and a wise mentor. His love of France permeated his life. He drove Citroëns and Renaults, and travelled frequently and widely in that country. He retired at the age of 62 in order to care for his wife Marjorie who suffered from mitral stenosis, secondary to childhood rheumatic fever. She eventually died in 1994. Claude Eastes continued to live in Storrington, Pulborough, until his death from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on 3 February 2010 at the age of 92.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001763
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lowy, Martin (1933 - 2008)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-12-16 2014-10-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373947373947
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Martin Lowy was an orthopaedic surgeon at the Whittington Hospital, London. He was born in Aussig, Czechoslovakia, on 12 December 1933, the son of Julius Lowy, a general practitioner, and Helen Lowy née Wagner. He survived three years in a concentration camp and went to the UK at the age of 11 with his mother to join his father, who had escaped to England just before the outbreak of the Second World War. Lowy was educated at Bedford College and then Luton Grammar School. His father obtained British qualifications at the Middlesex Hospital in 1942, and Martin followed him, graduating in 1958. Martin Lowy was a house surgeon to Sir Thomas Holmes Sellors, who inspired him to take up surgery, and to Sir Herbert Seddon, who encouraged his interest in orthopaedics. After training at the Middlesex Hospital, the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, Lowy was appointed as an orthopaedic surgeon to the Royal Northern Hospital in 1972 and later to the Whittington Hospital. He was a senior lecturer in orthopaedic surgery and an examiner for the final MB BS. He retired in 1996. Martin's main interest was knee surgery: he pioneered arthroscopy in England and was a founder member of the International Arthroscopy Association. He was a member of the British Association for Surgery of the Knee, and a fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association. Outside medicine, he was interested in skiing, cricket and rugby, and enjoyed Wagner. In 1960 he married Clara Youngday, an endocrinologist. They had two sons, Jonathan Peter and Stephen Nicholas. He died on 19 December 2008, aged 75. His wife and children survived him. Sarah Gillam
Resource Identifier RCS: E001764
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Littler, John ( - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2011-12-16 2015-04-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373948373948
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Littler was a consultant general surgeon at Walton Hospital, Liverpool, and a lecturer in clinical surgery at Liverpool University Medical and Dental School. He studied medicine in Liverpool and qualified in 1942. He trained in surgery in Liverpool, at Broadgreen Hospital, and gained his FRCS in 1952. He was a member of the Liverpool Medical Institution. John Littler died on 16 July 2007.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001765
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Large, John Garner (1920 - 2008)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2011-12-16 2014-10-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373949373949
Occupation General surgeon
Details Paul Large was a general surgeon in Durban, South Africa, and then in Melbourne, Australia. He was born in Beira, Mozambique, on 12 August 1920, but was brought up in Durban. He was educated at Michaelhouse, a rural boarding school in Natal, and then, in 1938, went to the UK to study medicine at Guy's Hospital Medical School. He qualified MB BS in 1943, during the Second World War, and then became a house surgeon and house physician. In 1944 he returned to South Africa. He joined the South African Air Force as a medical officer, and was demobilised at the end of the war. He chose to return to Guy's, in 1946, to train in surgery. He gained his FRCS in 1948 and his masters degree in surgery in 1952. After a six-month fellowship in New York, Large returned to Durban in 1953 to work in private practice, and as a visiting surgeon at McCord Hospital and at the fledgling medical school based at King Edward VIII Hospital. In 1958, disillusioned with Apartheid, Large decided to move to Melbourne, Australia. He was in private practice and was also a surgeon at Western General Hospital. He worked until his early eighties. On three occasions (in 1966, 1969 and 1972) he went to South Vietnam, as part of a civilian surgical team, treating battle injuries from the ongoing war. Outside medicine, he continued his boyhood enthusiasm for dinghy sailing, and followed international rugby. He was also interested in history, and had a love and respect for the English language. In 1952 he married Susan May, a nurse from Guy's. They had five children - Peter, Susanna, Richard, Catherine and Jonathan. Paul Garner Large died on 24 October 2008, aged 88.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001766
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Kumarasinghe, Lachlan (1927 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2011-12-16 2014-11-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373950373950
Occupation Trauma surgeon
Details Lachlan Kumarasinghe was a trauma surgeon at Kettering General Hospital. He was born in Colombo, in what was then Ceylon, on 16 September 1927, the son of Cyril Mendis Kumarasinghe, an interpreter, and Florence Bridget Kumarasinghe née Fernando. Two of his brothers - Hiary and Merlyn - also became surgeons and fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons. Lachlan Kumarasinghe held his post at Kettering from 1970 until his retirement in 1992. His wife, Mrs B Kumarasinghe, informed the College of his death on 7 September 2006. He was 78.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001767
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Harrison, Richard (1922 - 2009)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2011-12-16 2015-03-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373955373955
Occupation Accident and emergency surgeon Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Richard Harrison was a consultant orthopaedic and accident and emergency surgeon in south west Cumbria. He was born on 8 July 1922 and studied medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School, London, qualifying MB BS in 1944. He was a house surgeon at the Royal Cancer Hospital, a senior registrar at the Central Middlesex and a senior orthopaedic registrar at the Royal Free prior to his appointment in Cumbria. He died on 7 December 2009, aged 87.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001772
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hudson, Horace Noble Guthrie ( - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2011-12-19 2015-06-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373956373956
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Horace Noble Guthrie Hudson was a urological surgeon for the North East Metropolitan Regional Health Board. He studied medicine at Middlesex Hospital Medical School, qualifying with the conjoint diploma in 1937. He gained his FRCS in 1942. His previous appointments included working as a surgical registrar at West London Hospital and as a senior surgical registrar at Westminster Hospital (All Saints Urological Centre). He was a member of the British Association of Urological Surgeons. He died on 14 April 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001773
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Christmas, Timothy John (1956 - 2011)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2011-12-19 2014-04-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373957373957
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Timothy (Tim) Christmas was a consultant urological surgeon at Charing Cross and the Royal Marsden Hospitals in London and, at his untimely death, was "widely regarded as one of Britains's great urological surgeons". Born in Cheltenham on 2 February 1956, he was educated at Bournemouth School. He won a scholarship to study at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School in London and stayed on after qualifying to work as house surgeon to Richard Turner Warwick. It was probably this experience that inspired him to specialise in urology. Progressing to registrar posts in Nottingham and Cambridge he spent some time assisting Sir Roy Calne before returning to London to research reconstructive urological surgery and interstitial cystitis at University College and the Middlesex. In 1992 Tim was appointed consultant urological surgeon to the Westminster and Charing Cross Hospitals. By then he was concentrating on urological oncology and reconstructive surgery and he spent 3 months at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles studying a pioneering technique in the use of orthotopic ileocystoplasty. One of his obituarists noted that "he developed a reputation for complex renal surgery, bladder reconstruction and retroperitoneal lymph node dissection, attracting referrals from all over Southern England, Wales and overseas.....many of his referrals were for difficult cases and for patients who had previously been declined surgery." It was said of him that he performed more than 1000 open radical prostatectomies in his career. In the year 2000 he was also appointed as a consultant at the Royal Marsden Hospital. He was the author of more than 100 papers (including a landmark publication on Fowler's syndrome), eight books, 20 book chapters and well over 100 printed abstracts. Colleagues remembered him for his skills and his keen sense of humour, with a wit which could be somewhat acerbic in the case of those he considered to be taking on too much private work. The other great passion of Tim's life was ornithology and he held bird ringing permits for the UK and Ireland. A member of the RSPB, the British Trust of Ornithology and Birdwatch Ireland, he travelled far and wide on bird ringing expeditions. He produced detailed documentation of these trips to places that included the Falkland Islands, Iceland, North Queensland and Guyana, and closer to home, was planning to ring a pair of peregrine falcons that had set up a nest at Charing Cross Hospital. His death at the age of 55 from a brief illness was a great shock to his family, friends and colleagues. He was survived by his wife, Dr Eithne Mannion, who was a consultant uro-pathologist at Charing Cross and his young son, Dermot.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001774
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Early, Peter Francis (1918 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2011-12-20 2014-03-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373959373959
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Peter Early was an orthopaedic surgeon. Born on 23 April 1918, he studied medicine at Cambridge University and the London Hospital and passed his MB, BChir in 1943. He worked at various hospitals in London, passing the College fellowship in 1954, before becoming an orthopaedic research fellow at the Manchester Royal Infirmary between 1956 and 1958. Later work followed as a senior research officer for the artificial Limb and Appliance Service of the DHSS in Manchester. A fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and of the British Orthopaedic Association, he contributed to various journals many papers on surgery, orthopaedics and prosthetics. He was also medical officer to the Friends Ambulance Unit. When he retired he was living in Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire and a relative notified the College that he had died in 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001776
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hodge, Raymond Carter (1930 - 2010)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2011-12-20 2015-03-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373960373960
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Raymond Carter Hodge was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Nevill Hall Hospital, Abergavenny, Wales. He studied medicine in Bristol, where he gained his MRCS LRCP and MB ChB in 1960. Prior to his consultant appointment, he was a senior house officer in plastic surgery and neurosurgery at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, and then a surgical registrar at Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport, and at Prince of Wales Orthopaedic Hospital, Cardiff. He was a fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association. Raymond Carter Hodge died on 2 September 2010. He was 80.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001777
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lasrado, Albert Francis (1904 - 2001)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2011-12-20 2013-02-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373961373961
Occupation Military surgeon
Details Albert Francis Lasrado of Karnataka State, India was born on 10 April 1904. He married Blanche Therese D'Abreu and they had five children, Germaine, Adrian, Anthony, Gregory and Christina. He ended his career as a lieutenant colonel and died in April 2001, aged 97 years.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001778
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Davies, Robert Price (1930 - 2011)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2011-12-20 2013-11-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373962373962
Occupation General surgeon
Details Robert Price Davies ("Bob") studied chemistry in Manchester after doing his National Service. Changing to medicine he did house jobs at Manchester Royal Infirmary and became an anatomy demonstrator. Awarded a Geigy research fellowship he trained both in the north west and in Bristol and passed the Manchester MD in 1962. He obtained the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1964 and the FRCS in 1966. Two years later he was appointed consultant general surgeon at the Wythenshawe Hospital where he took a special interest in paediatric surgery. He retired in 1993 after 25 years in post and began work on a history of the hospital chronicling its origin from a tuberculosis sanatorium (the Baguley) to a modern teaching hospital. The book was published in 2002 to mark the hospital's centenary after Bob had spent nine years researching the archives and carried out hundreds of interviews with former patients and staff. He was a member of the Macclesfield male voice choir, a keen golfer and a loyal Welsh rugby supporter. He died on 5 April 2011 aged 80 and was survived by his wife, Anne, children Mike, Jane, Chris and Simon, seven grandchildren and one great grandson.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001779
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Groves, Harry John ( - 2010)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2011-12-20 2018-01-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373965373965
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details John Groves was a consultant ENT surgeon at the Royal Free, Hampstead General and New End hospitals in London. He studied medicine at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, qualifying MB BS in 1947. He gained his FRCS in 1953. Prior to his consultant appointments, he was a house surgeon at St Mary’s Hospital, a senior house officer in the ENT department at Westminster Hospital, and a senior ENT registrar back at St Mary’s. He was a member of the British Association of Otolaryngologists and an examiner for the diploma in otolaryngology. With John Ballantyne he co-edited the second (1965), third (1971) and fourth (1979) editions of W G Scott’s *Diseases of the ear, nose and throat* (London, Butterworth). John Groves died on 12 July 2010.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001782
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gunning, Alfred James (1918 - 2011)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Raymond Hurt
Publication Date 2011-12-20 2012-10-31
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373966373966
Occupation Cardiothoracic surgeon
Details Alfred Gunning was a cardiothoracic surgeon in Oxford, perhaps best known for his work on replacement heart valves. He was born on 21 November 1918 in Dullstroom, South Africa, the son of George Ronald Gunning, a police sergeant, and Kathleen Gunning née Dunne, a housewife. He attended the Christian Brothers' College, Kimberly, and then the University of Cape Town Medical School, where he was a contemporary of Christiaan Barnard and came under the influence of Charles Saint at Groote Schuur Hospital. He went to England, attended the primary and final fellowship courses, and also the ear, nose and throat course at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1949. Following junior surgical posts he was appointed as a first assistant to Philip Allison in Leeds, an acknowledged expert on oesophageal surgery. In 1964 Allison was appointed Nuffield Professor of Surgery at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, and Alfred moved with him. He was soon granted consultant status and began to develop the new specialty of open-heart surgery. Alfred spent six months with Kirklin at the Mayo Clinic, and brought back an early type of heart-lung machine to replace the earlier technique of profound hypothermia for the treatment of congenital heart disease in children. In association with a Spanish surgeon, Carlos Duran, he developed a reliable method to preserve human heart valves by a freeze-drying technique. He subsequently introduced the technique to a fellow South African surgeon, Donald Ross, at the National Heart Hospital in London, where the first homograft valve replacement operation was performed in 1962. Because of the difficulty in obtaining human valves, Alfred researched the use of pig valves (identical in size to those of humans) and performed the first aortic valve replacement with a pig valve on a 56-year-old man in 1964. Alfred was later appointed to the Churchill Hospital in Oxford and developed a simple portable heart-lung machine to perform emergency pulmonary embolectomy in peripheral hospitals, an innovation subsequently adopted by Matthias Paneth at the Brompton Hospital, London. In association with Macfarlane and Biggs at the haemophilia unit, Alfred also undertook hazardous open-heart and thoracic surgery on haemophiliac patients. He was a remarkable all-round surgeon, whose operating lists often included abdominal and gynaecological surgery. Problems with funding, and therefore a failure to develop cardiac surgery in Oxford, were a major disappointment to him in the later stages of his career. He was a remarkably unassuming surgeon who nevertheless inspired dedication in those who worked with him. On one occasion he entered the ward late at night and was mistaken by the nurse for the plumber, and was asked to repair a leaking tap. He fixed the tap and then asked the nurse if he could now do his ward round! He was a member of Pete's Club, a travelling surgical club where the only rule was that 'no case that is presented shall throw credit on the presenter'. Only errors of judgement were discussed, and members consequently learnt a tremendous amount, much more than at other national surgical meetings. In 1987, on retirement from the NHS, Alfred returned to Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, where he spent five years as a senior lecturer, doing thoracic surgery. He later became acting head of the department until a full-time professor could be appointed. During his retirement he enjoyed squash and parachuting, and in South Africa bunjee jumping and white water rafting, as well as developing an interest in medical history. He was a remarkable and innovative surgeon who had an international reputation as a lecturer. Sadly, he did not receive in England the acknowledgement and recognition that was due to him, perhaps because of his somewhat unconventional attitude. He married Mary Janet ('Mollie') in 1949. She predeceased him. They had two sons, Kevin, who became director of the John Farman intensive care unit at Addenbrooke's Hospital, and Andrew, and a daughter, Peta. Alfred died on 10 August 2011.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001783
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Choi, William Hong (1968 - 2016)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2011-12-20 2017-10-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373967373967
Occupation Urologist
Details William Hong Choi, known as 'Bill', was a consultant urologist at the William Harvey Hospital, Ashford, Kent. He was born in Hong Kong, the third and youngest child of a naval officer. At the age of four the family moved to the UK, to Manchester. Choi was educated at William Hulme Grammar School in Manchester and then moved to London, where he studied medicine at St George's Hospital Medical School, Tooting. He gained his MB BS in 1991. He held junior posts in south west London and then trained in urology as a specialist registrar in the south Thames region. During this period, he spent some time at King's College Hospital researching the safety of laparoscopy. He obtained his FRCS (Urol) in 2002. He later also studied for a law degree. In 2004, he was appointed as a consultant urologist at the William Harvey Hospital, where he set up a regional centre for laparoscopic renal surgery in east Kent. He was the network lead for renal cancer and in 2014 he became the clinical lead for urology. He was a keen trainer and supervisor of specialist registrars. Bill Choi died following an accident on a family skiing holiday in La Plagne, France, on 21 March 2016. He was 48. He was survived by his partner Abbey, his two sons (Alex and Xavier) and a stepdaughter (Phoebe). His wife, Debbie, had died from breast cancer seven years earlier.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001784
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Stephens, John Pendered (1919 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-02 2012-03-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372342372342
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Stephens was a general surgeon at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. He was born on 29 March 1919 in Northamptonshire, where his father was an engineer with farming interests. Educated at Stowe School, his scholastic achievements were complimented by a flair for sport, particularly rugby. At Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, he read natural sciences, played for the University XV (winning a wartime blue) and represented the University at tennis. Clinical training followed at St Bartholomew's Hospital during the Blitz, where he captained a strong Bart's rugby XV. He held house appointments with J Basil Hume at Friern Barnet, one of the hospitals used by Bart's during its evacuation from London. On joining the RAMC in 1943, he served as regimental medical officer to the 1st Battalion Sierra Leone African Regiment in Sierra Leone, Burma and India. His release testimonial described him as "…a first class officer who fully understands the African soldier and as a result exerts an excellent influence over the whole battalion". Returning to civilian life in 1947, he passed the Cambridge qualifying examination, followed by the FRCS a year later. Further surgical experience was gained as a supernumerary registrar with J Basil Hume and Alan Hunt at Bart's, during which time he continued to play rugby for Bart's, Blackheath, Northampton and Kent. In 1952, John went to Norwich as a surgical registrar to the Norfolk and Norwich and allied hospitals, including the Jenny Lind Hospital for Children and the West Norwich Hospital. This widened an already good general surgical base, to which he added thoracic and cardiac procedures. He gained his masters in surgery in 1953 and in 1955 he was appointed as a consultant general surgeon in Norwich. He developed an interest in breast diseases and, as an enthusiastic protagonist of immunology and the use of BCG therapy for breast cancer, was ahead of his times. Sadly, he never published his results. He was a modest, charming man, with an excellent sense of humour. Despite having large hands, he was a gifted surgeon - those working with him admired his all round ability and remarkable clinical judgement. Norfolk suited his balanced life, combining medical practice with his outside pursuits. Ever a countryman at heart, he loved his thatched house at Bergh Apton, with its large garden, greenhouses and trees. He was a golfer, fly fisherman, ornithologist, skier and an excellent shot, rearing pheasants for his own shoot. Sailing was an abiding interest. In retirement he kept his boat on the west coast of Scotland. Retiring in 1984, his last few years were dogged by immobility due to spinal stenosis. John died on 11 April 2004 at the age of 85, and is survived by his wife, Barbara, two daughters and a son.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000155
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Stephenson, Clive Bryan Stanley (1933 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-02 2007-02-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372343372343
Occupation General surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details Clive Stephenson was born in Wellington, New Zealand, on 12 November 1933 and was educated at Scots College. He studied medicine at Wellington, where he qualified in 1957, held house posts and was a surgical registrar. After a year demonstrating anatomy in Otago, he went to London in 1962 to specialise in surgery and completed SHO jobs at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital for a year, and registrar posts at Bristol Royal Infirmary and Hackney General Hospital. In 1965 he was a lecturer in surgery at St Mary’s Hospital, London, where he became particularly interested in vascular surgery. He went on to be a senior registrar at Chelmsford for two further years. In 1969 he returned to Wellington as a full-time vascular and general surgeon, becoming surgical tutor in 1970, and finally visiting vascular and general surgeon at Wellington Hospital in 1971, a post he combined with that of visiting general surgeon at Hutt Hospital. He died in Lower Hutt on 3 July 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000156
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Thackray, Alan Christopher (1914 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Vaughan, Sir Gerard Folliott (1923 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-02 2006-10-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372345372345
Occupation Politician Psychiatrist
Details Sir Gerard Vaughan was a former Minister of State for Health in the Thatcher government. He was born on 11 June 1923 in Mozambique, Portugese East Africa, the son of a Welsh sugar planter who was more interested in big game hunting than sugar and was later killed in the RAF. Gerry was educated by a series of governesses, notably one Mafeta, who coached him through the matriculation at the age of 14. At first he wanted to become an artist and enrolled at the Slade and St Martin’s School of Art, but as war broke out he entered Guy’s Hospital to study medicine, helping in the casualty department during the Blitz. After qualifying, he became a house surgeon to Russell Brock, who encouraged him to become a surgeon, but suggested he learn some medicine first and take the MRCP. While doing a medical registrar job at the York clinic he became fascinated by psychiatry and went on to the Maudsley Hospital, returning to Guy’s as a consultant psychiatrist. There he became interested in the treatment of children and adolescents, particularly those with anorexia, and was responsible for the establishment of the Bloomfield clinic at Guy’s. Always interested in politics, Gerry sat on the London County Council as alderman for Streatham, becoming chairman of the strategy and planning group, and in 1970 he was elected MP for Reading. He was one of Ted Heath’s whips, and was Minister of State for Health for five years, first under Patrick Jenkin and later under Norman Fowler. He was knighted in 1984 on being dropped from the government. His views were on the extreme right, and among other things he championed homoeopathy. He died after a long illness on 29 July 2003, leaving a wife, Joyce Thurle, whom he married in 1955, and a son and daughter.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000158
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Vaughan-Jackson, Oliver James (1907 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372346372346
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Oliver Vaughan-Jackson was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at the London Hospital and a specialist in hand surgery. He was born in Berkhamstead on 6 July 1907, the eldest son of Surgeon-Captain P Vaughan-Jackson RN. He was educated at Berkhamstead and Balliol College, Oxford, where he played for the winning rugby XV, before going on to the London Hospital for his clinical studies. After completing his house jobs he specialised in surgery and passed the FRCS in 1936. Realising war was on the horizon, he joined the RNVR in 1938 and by 1939 found himself a surgeon in the Royal Naval Hospital at Chatham, where he remained for the next four years, until in 1944 he was posted to the RN Hospital, Sydney. At the end of the war, he returned to the London Hospital as consultant orthopaedic surgeon, joining the energetic new team led by Sir Reginald Watson-Jones and Sir Henry Osmond-Clarke. He was also on the consultant staff of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Rochester. At the London his particular interest was in the surgery of the hand, and especially the treatment of the complications of rheumatoid arthritis. In 1948 he published an account of a hitherto undescribed syndrome whereby extensor tendons, frayed by underlying arthritic osteophytes, rupture – a syndrome to which his name is eponymously attached. A gentle and genial man, Oliver was a popular teacher and much admired by his juniors for his patient and painstaking surgical technique. Towards the end of his career he spent a good deal of his spare time in Newfoundland, Canada, at the Memorial Hospital, where a new multidisciplinary department for rheumatology had been set up. He was appointed professor of orthopaedic surgery there. After retirement he went to live in Newfoundland, but returned towards the evening of his life to live in Cerne Abbas, Dorset, where he died on 7 November 2003. He married Joan Madeline née Bowring in 1939. They had two sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000159
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Fletcher, John William (1818 - 1860)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Fletcher, William Henry ( - 1853)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Humphris, Philip Blake (1924 - 2009)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Susan Stewart
Publication Date 2011-12-16 2014-07-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373951373951
Occupation General surgeon
Details Philip Blake Humphris was a general surgeon in Sydney, Australia. He was born in Parramatta, New South Wales, on 10 June 1924, the son of Frank and Alma Humphris. He was educated in rural New South Wales and finished his schooling at Armidale School. He joined the Australian Army just weeks after his 18th birthday in 1942 and saw action in Papua New Guinea. After the end of the Second World War, he studied medicine at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1952. The next year, Philip travelled to the UK, where he worked as a surgeon in London and Scotland. He gained his FRCS in 1958. After returning to Australia in 1959, Philip practised as a visiting general surgeon in Sydney, specialising in varicose vein surgery. After retiring at 65, he worked in the medico-legal sector for 10 years, as a consultant. Philip married Margery Mosman in 1955 in England. They had three children. In retirement, they loved travelling around Australia in their caravan, and made sure they kept up to date with the medical world and world news. They also catalogued his family tree. Philip became frail in his final years and died on 24 March 2009, with his wife and children by his side. He was 84.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001768
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lund, William Spencer (1926 - 2010)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Andrew Freeland
Publication Date 2011-12-16 2022-01-31
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373952373952
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details William (Bill) Spencer Lund was a consultant ENT surgeon at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. He was born on 19 July 1926 to non-medical parents, Reginald James Spencer Lund and Beatrice Alice Lund née Cudemore. He thought he might join the Navy and was accordingly educated at Pangbourne College. Before entering National Service in the Navy, where he became a morse code expert, he decided to study medicine and subsequently enrolled at Guy’s Hospital. There he played for the first XV and developed his love of cricket. He did two preregistration house jobs at Guy’s, where he had the good fortune to meet a young nurse, Patricia Miles (Paddy), who soon became his wife. Bill decided on a career in ENT, demonstrated anatomy at King’s College, and, as a registrar at the Radcliffe Infirmary, gained his FRCS. It was at the Radcliffe that he developed his lifelong interest in swallowing and joined forces with the radiologist Gordon Ardran at the Nuffield Institute for Medical Research. Two and a half years of research work, both in Oxford and as a fellow at University Hospital, Iowa, led to some very significant findings on the mechanism of the function of the cricopharyngeal sphincter, particularly in relation to pharyngeal pouch development. For this work he gained an MS in 1963 and was appointed as an Arris and Gale lecturer at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1964. He was subsequently the author of many chapters and papers on swallowing problems. From Iowa he returned as a senior registrar at the Radcliffe Infirmary and then, in 1965, was appointed as a consultant ENT surgeon at the Middlesex Hospital. On the retirement of Ronald Macbeth from Oxford in 1968, Bill successfully moved to Oxford in December 1968. Gavin Livingstone, who pioneered congenital ear reconstruction in the UK, died within a month of Bill’s appointment, so he immediately took over this challenging area of ENT. Among the many children and adults suffering from ENT congenital defects treated by Bill Lund and his colleague Bernard Colman, were some affected by thalidomide. They introduced many new techniques to keep Oxford as the foremost department in this field. In 1987 Oxford was the first to use the new Swedish system of bone anchored osseointegrated hearing aids and ear prostheses, which revolutionised the management of those with congenital ear malformations. Bill Lund continued his interest in the management of swallowing problems and particularly pharyngeal pouch surgery. In 1987 he was elected president of the section of laryngology of the Royal Society of Medicine, where he delivered a brilliant and entertaining address on the technique of sword swallowing! He took a particular interest in teaching medical students and was named ‘His Rhinoplasty’ by the student Tingewick Society and was taken off beautifully in one of their pantomimes, where his characteristic ward round habit of putting one foot up on the patient’s bed while pinning the patient’s legs with his fine leather brief case was depicted very well! Retirement gave him more time for golf and, as a leading light and one time chairman of the Woodstock Players, he was equally happy as the pantomime dame, the spy Anthony Blunt or a bishop, which fitted his natural mannerisms! He was a true gentleman and was much loved by his patients and colleagues. His patients all considered Bill as their friend, and he was enormously popular with all who were fortunate to know him. He died on 22 July 2010 at the age of 84 and his thanksgiving service in Woodstock was packed with many friends and colleagues, all giving thanks for a man who lived life to the full and gave so much to so many. He had a very happy family life and was survived by Paddy, his adored wife of 54 years, their three children, Sarah, James and Kate, and six much-loved grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001769
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Langlais, Franz (1942 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2011-12-16 2014-11-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373953373953
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Frantz Langlais was chairman of the orthopaedic department at University Hospital Sud, Rennes, France. He was born in 1942 in Plouër-sur-Rance, Brittany, the son of a general practitioner. He trained in orthopaedic surgery in Paris under Robert Merle d'Aubigné, Jean Gossett and Michel Postel, and then joined the University Hospital of Rennes. In 1979 he became professor of orthopaedic surgery, and in 1983 he was appointed chairman of the orthopaedic and trauma department. At Rennes he encouraged younger colleagues to develop specialised areas, including bone banking, arthroscopic surgery and microsurgery. His clinical work focused on arthroplasty of the hip and knee, particularly revision arthroplasty, and also on oncological surgery and allografts. He was in charge of the laboratory of experimental surgery at the University of Rennes and scientific director of the biomaterials and biomechanics laboratory. He published widely, in English and French, and was a lecturer or visiting professor in more than 40 countries. He was a member of numerous French and international organisations, including the French Académie de Chirurgie and Académie Nationale de Médecine, the International Hip Society and the French, European and North American Societies of Musculo-skeletal Oncology and of Orthopaedic Research. He became a fellow of Royal College of Surgeons in 2003. In 1989 he was president of the International Society of Limb Salvage and of the European Association for Musculoskeletal Transplantation in 1992. When he died he was president-elect of the French Society of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery and of EFORT, the European Federation of National Orthopaedic and Trauma Associations, of which he had been general secretary and then vice president. Frantz Langlais was killed in a car accident on 16 June 2007 as he was driving home from a postgraduate teaching session in La Baule, west France. He was 65. He was survived by his wife Mireille and their two sons Jonathan and Stéphane.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001770
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lee, John Patrick (1946 - 2010)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2011-12-16 2014-11-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373954373954
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details John Lee was one of the world's most eminent ophthalmologists. A consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital for 25 years, he was also the eighth president of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists. He was particularly known for his use of 'botox' or botulinum toxin in the management of strabismus and blepharospasm (uncontrollable blinking), and started the first clinic in the UK specifically for the use of this toxin in eye disorders. He was born on 25 October 1946 in Kingston upon Thames of immigrant Irish parents, both of whom were teachers. He was the oldest of 11 siblings, and had seven sisters and three brothers. He was educated at St George's College, Weybridge, an independent co-educational Roman Catholic school, where he excelled and gained five A-levels - one of which he studied on his own, as the school did not allow pupils reading science subjects time to study English. Needless to say, he gained excellent grades in this 'extra' subject. In order to buy his school uniform and help the family finances, John Lee worked at a garage in his spare time. At the age of 17, he was accepted by University College, Oxford, for his preclinical studies. Admitting that he never took these studies seriously, he took full advantage of the many other attractions of university life. Enjoying collegiate existence, he rarely missed an undergraduate party, and it was at one of these that he met his future wife, Arabella Rose. They married in 1971 and had two sons. Strangely for someone who admitted he neglected his undergraduate studies, his depth of general knowledge was so good that he represented his college on the TV quiz *University Challenge*. He could also complete *The Times* crossword at an enviable speed, and possessed an encyclopaedic knowledge of film and music. He proceeded to the Westminster Hospital for his clinical training. After qualifying, John considered entering general medicine as a career, but after a brief spell working in infectious diseases, he changed his mind and his choice of specialties - happily for ophthalmology. So began his formal training in ophthalmology, first at the Oxford Eye Hospital, and then back in London at Moorfields, where he trained with Peter Fells. He then obtained a fellowship to study in the USA at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of the University of Florida with John Flynn. Founded by Edward W D Norton, a neuro-ophthalmologist, retinal specialist, administrator and teacher, and named after Bascom H Palmer, an ophthalmologist who settled in Miami in the 1920s, the Institute has been consistently ranked as the best eye hospital in the USA. In 1981 he visited Alan Scott at the Smith-Kettlewell Research Institute in San Francisco to study a new treatment for strabismus using botulinum toxin. He returned from California with some bottles of the toxin tucked in his hand baggage, which he then stored in his fridge at home. A friend who was invited round for a drink helped himself to a beer, but was advised not to touch nor drink from the opaque bottles! In 1983 John Lee took up a post as a university lecturer at Moorfields and the Institute of Ophthalmology, and was appointed as a consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital two years later, holding appointments at both the High Holborn and City Road branches. At Moorfields, John developed a first-class service for patients with complex strabismus problems, and he inevitably attracted patients from across the UK. In Harley Street he saw also patients from many other countries. He rapidly gained recognition in the ophthalmological world for his technical brilliance and outstanding knowledge. Easily identifiable with his unruly crop of white hair and short beard, John Lee was often referred to as 'the old fellow' by candidates at examinations, although he was much younger than his fellow examiners. This facial feature, together with his rapid speech, made him a natural and popular choice for caricature, particularly in residents' reviews and shows. He wrote over 200 papers and many chapters in books. Having championed the use of botulinum toxin in strabismus, he published 45 papers on this important topic alone. John was a brilliant and inspirational teacher, and combined technical excellence with his unique ability to communicate. In constant demand as an authoritative and entertaining speaker, his 'pearls of wisdom', mixed with many humorous asides, were always delivered at high speed with a hint of an Irish accent. He taught at the American Academy of Ophthalmology for 20 years and organised the Moorfields squint grand rounds for nearly as long. Always approachable, he was keen to encourage young doctors, and there was no trace of snobbery or 'the great man syndrome' about him. He committed himself to improving the training of ophthalmologists in underdeveloped countries, and worked with Project Orbis, the international charity which works to prevent blindness. He taught strabismus surgery in Uttah Pradesh, India, and in Bangladesh, as well as imparting his knowledge to many of the leading surgeons in Europe and North America. In 2009 he was elected president of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, the first to be elected by fellow members rather than members of council. He was already proving himself to be effective, pragmatic and well-liked. He also served as president of the ophthalmology section of the Royal Society of Medicine and of the International Strabismus Association. Held in high regard by his colleagues in the USA, he was the first European to be elected to the Association for Research in Strabismus. John Lee managed to combine a very busy and successful professional life with a wide range of interests outside medicine, including music, theatre and the arts. He attended concerts with Arabella several times a week and, although classical music was a passion, he was equally at home with rock. He became a fan of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, which plays baroque, classical and romantic music, mainly at the Southbank Centre in London. He was interested in a wide variety of literature, from James Joyce's *Ulysses* to science fiction. Proud of his Irish roots, he loved to relax and spend time in the west of Ireland, where he enjoyed fly fishing. John Lee died suddenly on 8 October 2010, aged 63, while attending a conference in the USA at Traverse City, Michigan, leaving his many friends, colleagues and patients in a state of shock. He was survived by his wife, Arabella, and their two sons. A research fellowship, organised by the Medical Research Council and the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, has been established in his honour. The fundraising events included 'John Lee quiz nights'; extremely appropriate in view of John Lee's wide general knowledge and his 'quizzical' approach to many aspects of life.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001771
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Capperauld, Ian (1923 - 2010)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by R M Kirk
Publication Date 2011-12-19 2014-03-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373958373958
Occupation General surgeon Military surgeon
Details Ian Capperauld was executive director of research and constructive surgery at Ethicon Ltd, Edinburgh, and a former major in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was born in New Cumnock, Ayrshire, Scotland, on 23 October 1933, and studied medicine at Glasgow University, qualifying in 1957. He was a resident in medicine and surgery at Ballochmyle Hospital, Ayrshire, a resident in obstetrics and gynaecology at Irvine, Ayrshire, and then a casualty officer in Kilmarnock. In 1959 he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a regimental officer. He was a surgical and then a urological specialist at Millbank, London. He was sent to Singapore in 1962, to the British Military Hospital, as a specialist in trauma surgery. During this period he served as commanding officer of the field surgical team in Borneo and as a visiting surgical specialist in Nepal. Between 1962 and 1965, he was also an honorary lecturer in physiology at the University of Singapore Medical School. Ian completed his Army career in Germany and the UK, retiring with the rank of major. In 1966 he was appointed as a consultant civilian surgeon at the Royal Herbert Military Hospital, Woolwich. In May 1968 he joined Ethicon in Edinburgh, manufacturers of surgical products, and, from 1976, was executive director of surgical research. During a period of rapid advancement in surgical knowledge and technical change, he established and maintained professional links with surgeons around the world, in particular with the Royal Colleges in the British Isles. Ian travelled widely, teaching, inspiring and innovating. His micro-surgical courses in Edinburgh were a particular success, and he was very active in supporting courses using simulations. It was increasingly recognised that the first time a surgeon performs an unfamiliar operation, it should not be on a patient. With the advent of minimal access, laparoscopic and similar modes of surgery, he brought the support of Ethicon to these introduced techniques. Ethicon was developing many of the appropriate surgical instruments and Ian supported courses with the loan of equipment so that enthusiasts were able to gain experience on simulations before embarking on minimal access procedures on patients. He encouraged those of us who feared wholesale adoption of the techniques by surgeons who were unaware of the dangers to set up courses in the British Isles and abroad. He contributed a series of research papers, particularly on wound closure and sutures, as well as chapters in books. He was a member of the International Society of Surgery and the Biomedical Engineering Society. During his career he accumulated a number of special appointments in committees at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in science, education, development and appeals. He was awarded the Sir Arthur Keith medal of the Royal College of Surgeons of England for his contribution to surgical research and training. In the light of his commercial interests, he became a member of the Institute of Directors. Those of us who had the pleasure and privilege of working with Ian remember him with pleasure and gratitude. He was a big personality, using his attributes to bring great benefits nationally and internationally to surgeons and to Ethicon. Accompanying him on British and overseas visits was always a pleasure: he brought energy and enthusiasm to all he did. Ian Capperauld died on 18 June 2010, aged 76. He was survived by his wife Wilma and their two children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001775
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brennan, Thomas Gabriel (1937 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Lessington-Smith, Caroline Mathilda (1918 - )

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Neil Weir
Publication Date 2006-06-21 2009-05-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372430372430
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Caroline Lessington-Smith was an ENT surgeon at King’s College Hospital, London. Born Caroline van Dorp on 25 May 1918, she was the daughter of a Dutch pastor based in London. She qualified at the London School of Medicine for Women in 1941 and, choosing ENT as a career, she became senior registrar to the ENT departments at the Royal Hospital, Sheffield, and the Royal Infirmary, Leicester, and senior registrar to the department of surgery of the General Hospital, Leicester. She was subsequently appointed as surgeon in charge of the ENT department of St Giles Hospital, Camberwell, and the Dulwich Hospital. She was interested in paediatric ENT and later worked at the Belgrave Hospital for Children. All three of these hospitals became part of the King's College Hospital group in the early 1960s. A highly intelligent and amiable colleague, she brought her extensive experience to the foreign body endoscopy unit at Camberwell and published a paper in the *Journal of Laryngology & Otology* (1954) entitled ‘Unusual foreign body in the maxillary antrum’, which turned out to be a flat metal ring measuring 7.7cms in diameter which had penetrated the antrum. A year earlier she wrote ‘Tonsillectomy for carcinoma of the tonsil in a dog – with survival’ in the *Veterinary Record*. Whilst at Camberwell in 1963 she met and married Hugh Sim, who had been injured at the Battle of Arnhem and was at the time a hospital administrator. They had two sons. Hugh died whilst Caroline was still working and, shortly after her retirement in the mid 1970s, she remarried and lived in her delightful cottage in Mayfield, East Sussex. She is believed to have died in late 2001 or early 2002, as noted in the *Medical Directory* 2002.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000243
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Davis, Abram Albert (1904 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Denham, Robin Arthur (1922 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Dinning, Trevor Alfred Ridley (1919 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23 2010-01-27
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372237372237
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Trevor Dinning, known since childhood as ‘Jim’, was the architect of neurosurgical services in South Australia and the creator of a very successful research foundation. He was born in Dulwich, Adelaide, on 16 February 1919, the second child of Alfred Ernest Dinning, a school inspector and later headmaster of Adelaide Boys High School, and Maud Isabel née Ridley, who died two years after his birth. He was educated at his father’s school and then went on to study medicine at the University of Adelaide, qualifying in 1942 in the top three of the year after completing a shortened wartime course. In 1943 he joined the Army, serving as a captain in the Northern Australia Observer Unit and then in the 2nd 17th Australian Infantry Battalion. He developed pulmonary tuberculosis, which incapacitated him for some two years. He was discharged from the Army in 1946. It was at this time that he decided to make a career in neurosurgery. After his recovery, he took an appointment as lecturer in anatomy at the University of Adelaide, under the brilliant neuro-anatomist Andrew Abbie. During this time he wrote a paper on healed fractures in aborigines, based on the collection of skeletons in the South Australian Museum. Work as an anatomist doubtless contributed to his success as a surgeon: as an operator he was at his best in procedures demanding exceptional anatomical skill. At that time, it was virtually impossible to train as a specialist neurosurgeon in Australia, so, on a grant from the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Jim went to the UK. He entered neurosurgical training at Guy’s Hospital under Murray Falconer. During this appointment he was first author of a paper on ruptured intracranial aneurysm as a cause of sudden death, the work being based on forensic cases. Falconer had been a pupil of Sir Hugh Cairns, who was a pupil of the pioneering American neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing. Jim was to exemplify the best qualities of the Cushing/Cairns school – great interest in the neurosciences, unhurried and meticulous operative technique and total commitment to the welfare of patients. Jim returned to Australia in 1953 and took up an appointment in the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where he was to work for the next 30 years under a variety of titles – first as a member of the honorary staff, then from 1970 as full-time director of neurosurgery. After his resignation in 1979 he remained as a visiting consultant until 1983. He was also chief of neurosurgery in what is now the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. In both hospitals he rapidly established modern neurosurgical units, with rigorous attention to quality control and case audits. He was not the first neurosurgeon to serve these two hospitals – he was preceded Sir Leonard Lindon, one of the founders of Australian neurosurgery. Sir Leonard welcomed and supported Jim, but it is true to say that the development of an integrated state-wide neurosurgical service was very largely Jim’s achievement. He gave special attention to the needs of South Australians living in country areas, and in the 1960s persuaded the then minister of health to equip country hospitals with instruments to care for head injuries. Although he was happiest in his work in public hospitals, he ran a well-organised private service, chiefly at the Memorial Hospital, where after his retirement he treated cases of intractable pain. As a consultant neurosurgeon, Jim was liked and trusted by his colleagues, and admired as a superb diagnostician. As a doctor, he was warm and compassionate. Jim planned his unit with research in mind. When he had promising trainees, he placed them in overseas units with good research facilities, where they learned the skills that have since helped to make Adelaide a leader in head injury research. Most imaginatively, he created in 1964 what is now the Neurosurgical Research Foundation (NRF) to raise funds to sustain research work. The foundation received support because community leaders knew Jim and trusted him, and it received donations from those who knew him as a good doctor. In 1988, when Jim was president of the NRF, fundraising for an academic chair in surgical neuroscience was initiated, and in 1992 the University of Adelaide established a chair of neurosurgery research. This very productive chair is one of Jim’s greatest achievements. Jim was a master of bedside teaching, and he also taught by example. No one who worked with Jim could fail to know that he practised medicine according to the highest ethical standards and expected that his pupils would do the same. His teaching was fruitful. Today, Adelaide’s neurosurgeons are all in a sense his pupils. Some were directly recruited and trained by him. Others came to him trained elsewhere but are proud to have learned from him. Even those who came after his retirement were taught by his trainees and worked in the environment that he made. On a national level, Jim was a major force in the creation of neurosurgical training systems in Australia, which began around 1970, when he was president of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia. Outside Australia, some of Jim’s pupils now hold distinguished neurosurgical positions in Scotland, England and New Zealand. One of his earliest interns, J K A Clezy, was the first professor of surgery in Papua New Guinea, and brought neurosurgery to that country. Jim married Beatrice Margaret née Hay in 1943 and they had one son, Andrew, and three daughters – Anthea, Josephine and Nadia. He had many interests outside his profession, including photography, farming, stock-breeding, bee-keeping and sailing. He died on 22 September 2003 from chronic renal failure after a long illness. He has many memorials. He is commemorated by the Dinning Science Library at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, which is appropriate – he was a very scholarly man. He is remembered in the research foundation that he created. And, lastly, his example and his teaching have entered into the fabric of Australian neurosurgery.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000050
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Doey, William David (1922 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Drew, Alfred John (1916 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Eddey, Howard Hadfield (1910 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23 2012-03-22
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372240372240
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Howard Eddey was a former professor of surgery at Melbourne University. He was born on 3 September 1910, in Melbourne. His father was Charles Howard Eddey, a manager, and his mother was Rachel Beatrice née Hadfield, the daughter of a teacher. He was educated at Melbourne High School, where he was captain of boats and featured in many winning crews. He was also in the school lacrosse team. He went on to the University of Melbourne, where he won a university blue. He was subsequently a resident at the Royal Melbourne Hospital for two years. He then went to the UK, where he studied for his FRCS, winning the Hallet prize in the process. During the second world war he served in the Australian Imperial Force with the 2/13 Australian General Hospital, becoming a Major in the Australian Army Medical Corps. He was captured by the Japanese and spent time in prisoner of war camps in Changi and then in North Borneo. While he was captured he was involved in 'kangkong' harvesting and the treating of a local wild vegetable, to produce a drink that was rich in vitamins. Howard made sure the soldiers drank this frequently, as it reduced the incidence of beriberi and pellagra. During his time in captivity Howard also wrote notes on anatomy on scrap paper. This later became a key anatomy text, used by generations of medical students. He returned to the Royal Melbourne Hospital after the war as an honorary surgeon. He was dean of the clinical school there from 1965 to 1967. As a clinician he gained an impressive reputation as a head and neck surgeon. In particular his parotid gland surgery and cancer work with radical neck dissection gained considerable prominence. In 1966 the University of Melbourne decided to establish a third clinical school at the Austin Hospital and Eddey was invited to become the foundation professor of surgery. He had no background in research, but recruited a team of young surgeons with research skills and the research reputation of the department of surgery was rapidly established. In 1971 Eddey became dean and held this position until 1975. He was a member of the board of management from 1971 to 1977, and was vice-president from 1975 to 1977. In honour of his contribution to the development of Austin as a clinical school, the new operating theatres and library have been named after him. Eddey was regarded as an outstanding teacher and, through his role with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS), helped surgical education in South East Asia. He made many visits to Asian hospitals and was involved with examinations and giving lectures. The RACS created the Howard Eddey medal in recognition of his work in Asia. He was a member of the board of examiners at the RACS from 1958 to 1973, and was chairman from 1968 to 1973. He was a member of council from 1967 to 1975 and served as honorary librarian from 1968 to 1975. He served on many other bodies, including the Cancer Institute and the Anti Cancer Council. His service to the community was recognised by his appointment as honorary surgeon to Prince Charles and he was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George. He was married to Alice née Paul from Kew, Victoria, for 30 years. They had three children - Robert Michael, Peter and Pamela Ann. Eddey died on 16 September 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000053
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Evans, Arthur Briant (1909 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372241372241
Occupation Obstetric and gynaecological surgeon Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Briant Evans was a former consultant obstetric and gynaecological surgeon at Westminster Hospital, Chelsea Hospital for Women and Queen Charlotte’s Maternity Hospital. He was born in London in 1909, the eldest son of Arthur Evans, a surgeon at the Westminster Hospital. He was educated at Westminster School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, before completing his clinical studies at the Westminster Hospital. On the day he qualified in April 1933 his father, who had a large number of theatrical clients, took him to the theatre. They went to see Sir Seymour Hicks in his dressing room in the interval. On hearing that Briant had just qualified, he asked “How do I look?” Briant said, “Very well sir.” “Good, here’s your first private fee,” he replied, handing him a £1 note from his coat pocket. Following junior appointments at Westminster Hospital, Chelsea Hospital for Women and Queen Charlotte’s Maternity Hospital, he acquired his FRCS and the MRCOG. During the war he served in the Emergency Medical Service in London and was in the RAMC from 1941 to 1946, serving in the UK, Egypt (with the 8th General Hospital, Alexandria), Italy and Austria (where he was officer in charge of the No 9 field surgical unit) and was obstetric and gynaecological consultant to the Central Mediterranean Force. He ended the war as a lieutenant colonel. He was subsequently appointed obstetric and gynaecological surgeon to Westminster Hospital, obstetric surgeon to Queen Charlotte’s Maternity Hospital and surgeon to the Chelsea Hospital for Women. He examined for the Universities of Cambridge and London, and for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Briant was much loved and respected by his patients and colleagues. He made operating appear easy. Quiet in manner and ever courteous, he loved teaching and was never happier than when accompanied by students on ward rounds and in the theatre. After retiring he bought a farm in Devon and his son Hugh was brought in to run it. He loved country life. He was a keen gardener, enjoyed sailing and had been a good tennis player in earlier days. His last home was in Buckinghamshire. In 1939 he married Audrey Holloway, the sister of David Holloway, who was engaged to Briant’s sister, Nancy. His wife died before him. They leave three sons (Roddy, Martin and Hugh), eight grandchildren and six great grandchildren. He died from a stroke on 3 March 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000054
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Falloon, Maurice White (1921 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Fiddian, Richard Vasey (1923 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23 2007-08-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372243372243
Occupation General surgeon
Details Richard Vasey ‘Dick’ Fiddian was a consultant general surgeon at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital from 1964 to 1989. He was born on 6 October 1923 in Ashton-under-Lyne in Lancashire, where his father, James Victor Fiddian, was a general practitioner-surgeon. His mother, Doris Mary née White, came from a farming family. Dick was the last of five children, and the second son. From the age of eight he attended the Old College boarding school in Windermere, and then, at 11, went to Manchester Grammar School. In October 1941 he went up to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, to read for the natural sciences tripos. In 1943 he was drafted into the Army and spent three years as a fighting soldier in the Royal Engineers, rising to the rank of captain. As well as serving in the field with the 14th Army in Burma, he also helped to oversee the rebuilding of the Burma Road with the help of Japanese POWs. In October 1946 he returned to Emmanuel College, completing his first and second MB. He was also awarded an MA in anthropology, physiology, pathology and biochemistry. Whilst at Emmanuel, Fiddian became captain of the golf team, and was awarded a Cambridge blue. After qualifying, he did two years of house appointments at Bart’s, including anaesthetics, and a further year as junior registrar (SHO) to Rupert Corbett and Alec Badenoch. He then took a year off as a ship’s doctor on the Orsova of the Orient Line, before taking his Fellowship in 1956. He then became a registrar to Norman Townsley and John Stephens at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. When the Queen came to open the new operating theatres, Fiddian escorted the Duke of Edinburgh round the male Nightingale ward and introduced him to his patients, one of whom had been operated on by Dick, but failed to recognise his surgeon. He was heard to say in a broad Norfolk accent: “Nice to meet the Duke, but who was that good-looking young man in a white coat walking with him?” Dick returned to Bart’s in 1958 as chief assistant to John Hosford, whom Dick greatly admired. He also worked with Sir Edward Tuckwell, whose rapidity as an operator was legendary. After two years he went to the North Middlesex Hospital under Basil Page, the urologist. Spending a year in Boston, Massachusetts, he worked as an assistant in surgery at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital under Francis Moore, professor of surgery at Harvard and chief surgeon at the Brigham. In 1963 he completed a Milton research fellowship in surgery at Harvard Medical School. In 1964 he was appointed as a consultant to the Luton and Dunstable Hospital. There he developed a special interest in wound infection and made some useful contributions on the use of metronidazole. He retired from the NHS in 1989. In 1985 he started learning Spanish at the local adult education college in Luton, continuing to study the language until he was 80. He visited Spain many times and often went on cultural trips, which he thoroughly enjoyed. After his retirement he studied Spanish literature at Birkbeck College, and received an award from the Institute of Linguists for his command of the language. He married twice. His first wife was Aileen, an Australian he met on board ship. They had one son, Jonathan. After her death he married Jean née Moore, a medical secretary, by whom he had a son, James, and two daughters, Emily and Sarah. They also adopted the child of one of Jean’s friends. Although they became estranged, they remained good friends and Jean cared for him in his latter days, which were marred by a degree of dementia. He died on 30 December 2004. Dick Fiddian was an extremely affable man who was everyone’s friend, not because of a wish to be universally liked, but for his capacity to see the best in people. He was a self-effacing man, describing his contributions to the literature as “numerous, none of which were important”. Conversation with him was always a pleasure, as was listening to his after-dinner speeches which were interspersed with bon mots and limericks which probed the idiosyncrasies of the company, never with malice but always with a twinkle in his eye.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000056
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Fison, Lorimer George (1920 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372244372244
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Lorimer Fison was an innovative ophthalmic surgeon who introduced a revolutionary new procedure for the repair of retinal detachment from the United States. He was born on 14 July 1920 in Harrogate, the third son of William James Fison, a well-known ophthalmic surgeon, and Janet Sybil née Dutton, the daughter of a priest. He was educated at Parkfield School, Haywards Heath, and then Marlborough College. He then studied natural sciences at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and then went on to St Bartholomew’s Hospital. After qualifying, he joined the Navy during the war as a Surgeon Lieutenant. Following demobilisation, he became a resident surgical officer at Moorfield’s, despite having caught tuberculosis. He then became a senior registrar at St Thomas’s Hospital and later at Bart’s. In 1957 Fison went to the Schepens unit in Boston in the United States, after Sir Stuart Duke-Elder, the then doyen of British ophthalmology, suggested that fellows be despatched to learn the new techniques of retinal detachment surgery. There Fison learnt the procedure of scleral explantation, and was also impressed by the ophthalmic instruments then available in the US. Back in England, Fison faced some opposition when he attempted to introduce the new procedures he had been taught in the States, but was finally given beds at Moorfield’s annexe in Highgate. With the help of Charles Keeler, he modified the Schepens indirect ophthalmoscope, which was put into production and sold around the world. Fison was also the first to introduce the photocoagulator, the forerunner of the modern ophthalmic laser, which was developed by Meyer-Schwickerath in Germany. In 1962, after a brief appointment at the Royal Free Hospital, he was appointed as a consultant at Moorfield’s. He was held in great affection by his colleagues and juniors, who remember his warmth and generosity. Fison was President of the Faculty of Ophthalmologists from 1980 to 1983 and of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom from 1985 to 1987. He was an ardent supporter of the merging of these two organisations – they became the Royal College of Ophthalmologists in 1988. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was an examiner for the FRCS in ophthalmology, Chairman of the Court of Examiners in 1978 and a member of Council. He married Isabel née Perry in 1947 and they had one daughter, Sally, who qualified in medicine. On his retirement he moved to Sidmouth, where he continued his hobbies of woodworking and sailing. He died on 12 February 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000057
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Doll, Sir William Richard Shaboe (1912 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372350372350
Occupation Epidemiologist
Details Sir Richard Doll, the most distinguished epidemiologist of his generation, established that smoking causes cancer and heart disease. Born in Hampton, Middlesex, on 28 October 1912, he was the son of Henry William Doll, a general practitioner, and Amy Kathleen Shaboe. He was educated at Westminster and St Thomas’ Hospital, doing junior jobs as casualty officer, anaesthetist and house physician. He began his research career under Paul Wood at Hammersmith, while working as a resident medical officer at the London Clinic. When war broke out he was called up into the RAMC, where he served as a battalion medical officer at Dunkirk, was posted to a hospital ship, and served in the invasion of Sicily. He contracted tuberculosis of the kidney in 1944, underwent a nephrectomy, and was discharged in early 1945. He took a course on statistics under Sir Austin Bradford Hill, who was impressed by him, and in 1948 that he went to work with Bradford Hill at the Medical Research Council. They began to study the causes of the huge increase in deaths from cancer of the lung. It was a time when smoking was regarded as normal and harmless. Their preliminary study of hospital patients with cancer of the lung and other diseases showed, to their surprise, that those with lung cancer were smokers, those with other diseases were not. This was confirmed by a prospective study on doctors’ smoking habits. At this stage Doll himself gave up smoking. Immensely distinguished, honoured by innumerable institutions, Doll was a genial and likeable man whose juniors adored him. One of his last public speeches was to a meeting of the Oxford Medical Graduates Club, where to the relief of his audience he showed that there was no statistical harm done by wine. When asked how much, he replied: “enough”. Doll married Joan Mary Faulkner in 1949. They had a son and daughter. He died on 24 July 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000163
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hardy, James Daniel (1918 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-15 2007-08-09
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372351372351
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details James Daniel Hardy was an organ transplant pioneer and the first chairman of the department of surgery and surgeon in chief at the University Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi. Board certified by both the American Board of Surgery and the Board of Thoracic Surgery and a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, Hardy worked to improve medical and surgical care in Mississippi throughout his career of teaching, caring for patients and clinical research. Over 200 surgeons trained with him during his tenure as chairman of the department of surgery from 1955 to 1987. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, on 14 May 1918, the elder of twin boys, he was the son of Fred Henry Hardy, owner of a lime plant, and Julia Poyner Hardy, a schoolteacher. His early childhood was tough and frugal, thanks to the Depression. He was educated at Montevallo High School, where he played football for the school, and learned to play the trombone. He completed his premedical studies at the University of Alabama, where he excelled in German, and went on to the University of Pennsylvania to study medicine, and during his physiology course carried out a research project (on himself) to show that olive oil introduced into the duodenum would inhibit the production of gastric acid - an exercise which gave him a lifelong interest in research. At the same time he joined the Officers Training Corps. In his last year he published research into the effect of sulphonamide on wound healing. After receiving his MD he entered postgraduate training for a year as an intern and a resident in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and also conducted research on circulatory physiology. Research became a vital part of his professional life. His military service in the second world war was with the 81st Field Hospital. In the New Year of 1945 he found himself in London, before crossing to France and the last months of the invasion of Germany. After VE Day his unit was sent out to the Far East, but when news arrived of the Japanese surrender his ship made a U-turn and they landed back in the United States. He returned to Philadelphia to complete his surgical residency under Isidor Ravdin. He was a senior Damon Runyon fellow in clinical research and was awarded a masters of medical science in physiological chemistry by the University of Pennsylvania in 1951 for his research on heavy water and the measurement of body fluids. That same year Hardy became an assistant professor of surgery and director of surgical research at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine at Memphis, later he was to become an associate professor, and continued in this position until 1955, when he became the first professor of surgery and chairman of the department of surgery at the newly established University of Mississippi Medical Center, School of Medicine, Jackson. As a surgeon charged with establishing an academic training programme, Hardy became known as a charismatic teacher and indefatigable physician. He also actively pursued and encouraged clinical research in the newly established department of surgery. His group’s years of research in the laboratory led to the first kidney autotransplant in man for high ureteral injury, and to advances in the then emerging field of human organ transplantation. The first lung transplant in man was performed at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 1963 and in 1964 Hardy and his team carried out the first heart transplantation using a chimpanzee as a donor. Hardy authored, co-authored or edited more than 23 medical books, including two which became standard surgery texts, and published more than 500 articles and chapters in medical publications. He served on numerous editorial boards and as editor-in-chief of *The World Journal of Surgery*. He also produced a volume of autobiographical memoirs, *The Academic surgeon* (Mobile, Alabama, Magnolia Mansions Press, c.2002), which is a most readable and vivid account of the American residency system and its emphasis on research, which has been such a model for the rest of the world. Over the course of his career he served as president of the American College of Surgeons, the American Surgical Association, the International Surgical Society and the Society of University Surgeons and was a founding member of the International Surgical Group and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary tract. He was an honorary fellow of the College, of the l’Académie Nationale de Médicine and l’Association Français de Chirurgie. The proceedings of the 1983 surgical forum of the American College of Surgeons was dedicated to Hardy, citing him as “…an outstanding educator, investigator, clinical surgeon and international leader.” In 1987 Hardy retired from the department of surgery and served in the Veteran’s Administration Hospital system as a distinguished VA physician from 1987 to 1990. He married Louise (Weezie) Scott Sams in 1949. They had four daughters: Louise, Julia Ann, Bettie and Katherine. He died on 19 February 2003. An annual James D Hardy lectureship has been established in his honour at the department of surgery, University Medical Center, Jackson.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000164
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ferguson, William Glasgow (1919 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-15 2014-08-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372352372352
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details William Glasgow Ferguson, or 'Fergie' as he was known, was a thoracic surgeon in Victoria, Australia. He was born in Whitley Bay, Northumberland, on 4 March 1919, the son of William and Sara Ferguson. He studied medicine at Durham, where he qualified in 1942. After four months as a house surgeon at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne, he joined the RAMC and was posted to 144 Field Ambulance, Hull, and in the following March went to Accra, where he served in 2 (WA) Field Ambulance until April 1944, when he went with his field ambulance to Burma. There he was promoted to major and, in the following year, commanded 4 (WA) Field Ambulance with the rank of lieutenant colonel, being mentioned in despatches. At the end of the war he brought his field ambulance back to West Africa and was demobilised in 1946. On his return to the UK, he became a demonstrator of anatomy at the University of Durham, did general surgical training at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, completed the Guy's course and passed the final FRCS. He then decided to specialise in thoracic surgery, undergoing specialist registrar and senior registrar posts at the Royal Victoria Infirmary and the Shotley Bridge Regional Thoracic Surgical Centre. He was awarded the American Association for Thoracic Surgery travelling fellowship in 1953 as a post-doctoral first assistant. In 1958 he moved to Australia, as staff superintendent of Sydney Hospital. Two years later, he became a consultant at Goulburn Valley Base Hospital, Victoria, where he remained until he retired in 1985. He then continued in general practice in Omeo, Victoria, until 1992. He was previously married to Helen née Cowan. He had three children - two sons (Tim and Richard) and a daughter (Lisa). He died in Omeo, Victoria, on 20 July 2005, aged 86. He was also survived by a partner, Anne.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000165
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Goodwin, Harold (1910 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Jagose, Rustom Jamshedji (1918 - 1991)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2005-11-23 2014-07-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372354372354
Occupation General practitioner
Details Rustom Jamshedji Jagose, known as 'Rusty', passed the fellowship in 1957 and emigrated to New Zealand, where he was a general practitioner in Cambridge, in the Waikato region of the North Island. Although he did not continue to practise surgery, he regularly attended grand rounds at Waikato Hospital. He died on 16 September 1991 and was survived by his wife Anne and their five children - Pheroze, Maki, Annamarie, Una and Fiona.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000167
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hooton, Norman Stanwell (1921 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-28 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372262372262
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details Norman Stanwell Hooton was a consultant thoracic surgeon in the south east Thames region. He was born in Warwick on 8 November 1921, the only child of Leonard Stanwell Hooton, a land commissioner, and Marion Shaw Brown née Sanderson. He was educated at Oundle School and then went on to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and King's College Hospital, where he won the Jelf medal in 1944 and the Legg prize in surgery in 1949. He was house physician to Terence East at the Horton Emergency Medical Service Hospital, Epsom, in 1945, and subsequently a registrar in the thoracic surgical unit. In 1950 he was a resident surgical officer at the Dreadnought Seaman's Hospital and from 1951 to 1955 a senior surgical registrar at Brook Hospital in south London. He was subsequently appointed as a consultant thoracic surgeon to the South East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board, working at Brook Hospital, Grove Park Hospital, at Hastings, and at Kent and Sussex Hospital, Tunbridge Wells. He married Katherine Frances Mary née Pendered, the daughter of J H Pendered, a Fellow of the College, in 1951. They had two sons and five grandchildren. Norman Hooton died on 6 September 2004 after a long illness.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000075
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Horton, Robert Elmer (1917 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-28 2007-08-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372263372263
Occupation General surgeon
Details Bob Horton was a consultant surgeon at the United Bristol Hospitals. He was born in south London on 5 July 1917, the son of Arthur John Budd Horton, a schoolteacher, and Isabel Horton née Cotton, the daughter of a master mariner. He was educated at the Haberdashers’ Aske’s School, and studied medicine at Guy’s Hospital. He volunteered for the RAMC after completing his house posts. During the London Blitz he showed outstanding courage in rescuing casualties from a bombed building, which earned him the MBE. He was sent to India and Burma, to the Arakan campaign, where he initially commanded a frontline surgical unit, subsequently leading a surgical division at the General Hospital, Rangoon. He served for six years and was raised to the rank of colonel. He returned to Guy’s to complete his surgical training under Sir Russell Brock, and was then appointed senior lecturer and consultant at Bristol Royal Infirmary under Robert Milnes Walker. At Bristol he pioneered vascular surgery at a time when it was an uncertain specialty to pursue. He had a special interest in post-traumatic vascular injuries resulting from industrial and motorcycle accidents, publishing surgical articles and a textbook on the subject. On Milnes Walker’s retirement he joined Bill Capper to create a very popular firm. He also worked at the Bristol Homeopathic surgical unit. A pioneer of day case surgery, he was for a time clinical dean. His writings brought him international recognition. In 1977 he held a one-year appointment as foundation professor of surgery at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah. He found the post challenging (the hospital building was not even completed when he arrived), but he did establish undergraduate teaching, regular conferences and a Primary FRCS course. In January 1980 he was asked by the Minister of Health in Libya to carry out a cholecystectomy on the wife of Colonel Gaddafi. He was encouraged to go by the British ambassador in Tripoli, who was concerned that the colonel would call in a surgeon from Eastern Europe if he declined. Horton carried out the operation in Benghazi and returned home in five days. Horton was a loyal member of the Surgical Travellers and travelled widely with them. He was an examiner for the Primary and Final FRCS and became chairman of the Court of Examiners in 1972. He was a Hunterian Professor in 1974, and was a valuable member of the Annals editorial team, in association with the then editors, his longstanding friend Tony Rains and R M (Jerry) Kirk. Apart from his surgical career, he studied painting in oils and frequently exhibited at the Royal West of England Academy. He was a member of the Bristol Shakespeare Club, the Hawk and Owl Trust, and was a member of council and later president of the Bristol Zoo. He married Pip Naylor in 1945 and they had two sons, John and Tim. His wife predeceased him in 1985. He died on 2 January 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000076
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching House, Howard Payne (1907 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-28 2013-10-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372264372264
Occupation Otolaryngologist ENT surgeon
Details Howard Payne House was a pioneering ear specialist. During his long career he treated thousands of patients, including Howard Hughes, Bob Hope and the former President, Ronald Reagan. A graduate of the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine, House perfected the wire loop technique to replace the stapes bone of the middle ear and developed procedures to reconstruct middle ear parts. In 1946 he established the House Ear Institute as a research facility dedicated to the advancement of hearing research and education. A year later, he was appointed Chairman of the subcommittee on noise and directed the national study on industrial noise that set the Occupational Safety and Health Administration hearing conservation standards in use today. House was head of the department of otolaryngology at University of Southern California School of Medicine from 1952 to 1961 and served on the faculty as clinical professor of otology. House received numerous awards and honorary degrees. He served as President of many professional associations in the US, including the American Academy of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery and the American Otological Society. He was awarded the University of Southern California's outstanding career service award, and was named a physician of the year by the California Governor's committee for employment of the handicapped. House died from heart failure on 1 August 2003 at St Vincent Medical Center, Los Angeles. He is survived by his sons, Kenneth and John, and his daughter Carolyn, and nine grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000077
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Howkins, John (1907 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-28 2007-08-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372265372265
Occupation Gynaecologist
Details John Howkins was a gynaecological surgeon at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. He was born in Hartlepool, County Durham, on 17 December 1907, the son of John Drysdale Howkins, a civil engineer, and Helen Louise née Greenwood, the daughter of a bank manager. He was educated at Cargilfield Preparatory School and was then a scholar at Shrewsbury, where he was a prefect, and developed a lifelong interest in fast cars. This led to a temporary set-back: he was spotted driving a girl in his Frazer-Nash, reported to the headmaster, and expelled. This did not prevent him winning an arts entrance scholarship to the Middlesex Hospital, where he fell under the spell of Victor Bonney. After qualifying, he did junior jobs at the Middlesex and the Chelsea Hospital for Women, and then became resident assistant physician-accoucheur at Bart’s. He also gained his masters in surgery, his MD (with a gold medal) and his FRCS. At the outbreak of war he joined the RAF, rising to Wing-Commander and senior surgical specialist, eventually becoming deputy chief consultant to the WAAF. At the end of the war he returned to Bart’s, where a post was created for him. He was subsequently appointed to the Hampstead General and the Royal Masonic Hospitals. He was a prolific writer, talking over *Bonney’s Textbook of gynaecology* as well as Shaw’s textbooks of *Gynaecology* and *Operative gynaecology*. He was Hunterian Professor of the College in 1947 and was awarded the Meredith Fletcher Shaw memorial lectureship of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1975. Small in stature, he was an accomplished skier, and chairman of the Ski Club of Great Britain, and had a memorable sense of humour. He enjoyed salmon fishing and renovating old houses. In retirement he took up sheep farming in Wales. He married Lena Brown in 1940. They had one son and two daughters. He died on 6 May 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000078
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Rajani, Manohar Radhakrishnan (1935 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-23 2012-03-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372359372359
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 19 January 1935, Manohar Rajani qualified in Bombay and after junior posts went to England to specialise in surgery. After passing the FRCS he did a series of training posts, before going to Canada in 1965, where he passed the Canadian FRCS and settled down in practice in Toronto. He died on 13 April 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000172
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Williams, Robert Edward Duncan (1927 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-23 2006-12-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372360372360
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Bob Williams was a distinguished urological surgeon based in Leeds. He was born on 18 December 1927 in Motherwell, Lanarkshire, the son of Robert Williams, a steelworker, and Janet McNeil. He was educated at Dalziel High School, Motherwell, and Glasgow Medical School. After house jobs in Glasgow he did his National Service in the RAMC, serving as resident medical officer to the Northumberland Fusiliers in Hong Kong. On his return, he received his general surgical training under Sir Charles Illingworth in Glasgow and John Goligher in Leeds, before deciding to specialise in urology, which in those days was emerging as a separate entity. He became senior registrar to Leslie Pyrah in Leeds, who had set up a pioneering stone clinic. There he carried out a painstaking and far-reaching study of the natural history of renal tract stone, which won him his MD. After this he went to work with Wyland Leadbetter at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, in 1964, where he carried out research on total body water and whole body potassium, which was to win him a commendation for his MCh thesis. On his return he was appointed to the consultant staff of the University of Leeds urological department in 1966. He had many interests which were shown in his numerous publications, most notably on urinary calculi, bladder cancer and lymphadenectomy. He followed Leslie Pyrah in the energetic pursuit of the establishment of urology as a separate discipline in the British Isles, which won him the admiration and respect of his colleagues. Bob was president of the section of urology of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1989 and a very active member of BAUS, of which he was president from 1990 to 1992. He was awarded the St Peter’s medal of the Association in 1993. He examined for the Edinburgh and English Colleges, and was an invited member of Council of our College from 1989 to 1992. In 1958 he married Lora Pratt, an Aberdeen graduate who was a GP and part-time anaesthetist. They had a son (Duncan) and two daughters (Bryony and Lesley), all of whom became doctors. A genial, cheerful and amusing colleague, Bob was struck down by renal failure caused by polycystic disease of the kidneys, but continued with great courage to work and publish and play an active part in BAUS, despite the need for regular dialysis. A renal transplant unfortunately underwent rejection, and he was, reluctantly, obliged to retire in 1991. He died on 26 August 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000173
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Grimley, Ronald Patrick (1946 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2007-02-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372439372439
Occupation General surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details Ron Grimley was born in Birmingham on 21 February 1946 and was educated at grammar school in Small Health and Birmingham University. After junior posts, mainly at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, he was a lecturer on the surgical unit under Sir Geoffrey Slaney. He was appointed vascular and general surgeon to the Dudley Health Authority in 1983, where he developed a busy vascular and endocrine practice, as well as a special interest in melanoma of the lower limb. He published extensively and was a keen teacher of young surgeons. He was an examiner for the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Intercollegiate Board, and a member of the Specialist Accreditation Committee in General Surgery and the first clinical sub-dean. He was a prime mover in the foundation of the undergraduate teaching centre which was opened and named after him on 14 March 2006. He died from a myocardial infarct on 26 September 2005. He was married to Penny and they had three children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000252
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Johnston, James Herbert (1920 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372440372440
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Herbert Johnston was a pioneer of paediatric urology, determined to make what had been a peripheral interest a specialty in its own right. Appointed first as a general surgeon to a leading children’s hospital, Alder Hey in Liverpool, he soon saw that the urogenital problems required a much closer attention than had been accorded them, and by years of dedicated practice and research he built for himself an international reputation and inspired a succession of young disciples. James Herbert Johnston, known to his intimates as ‘Herbie’, was born on 26 February 1920 in Belfast. His father, Robert Johnston, was in the linen business, his mother, Mary née McCormack, a science teacher. He was always destined for a career in medicine and distinguished himself as an undergraduate by gaining several surgical prizes. He graduated from Queens University, Belfast, in 1943, and after a house job became assistant to the professor of surgery at the Royal Victoria Hospital and at the Children’s Hospital. After military service, from 1946 to 1948, he returned to Belfast, taking the FRCS Ireland in 1949 and the English Fellowship in the following year. He then crossed the Irish Sea, theoretically for a short spell, but actually for the rest of his life, taking up senior registrar posts in Liverpool. There he came under the powerful influence of Charles Wells, who not only trained his registrars but directed them to their consultant posts. Thus it was that in 1956 Herbert was appointed surgeon to the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. Although Charles Wells was much concerned with urology, Herbert had had no specialist training and, curiously, he was at first given responsibility for the management of burns. With this in mind he went to a famous burn unit in Baghdad, but this venture was abruptly ended by the Suez War. At Alder Hey Isabella Forshall and Peter Rickham were making great strides in neonatal surgery, but had no particular interest in urology and Herbert saw both the need and the opportunity to make that field his own. As Hunterian Professor in 1962 he lectured on vesico-ureteric reflux, the topic then exciting all paediatric urologists, and went on to produce a long series of papers illuminating important, or neglected, aspects of children’s disorders. He joined with Innes Williams in writing the standard British textbook on this subject and his published work soon brought him an international reputation, with invitations to deliver eponymous lectures in the USA and elsewhere. In 1980 he was awarded the St Peters medal of the British Association of Urological Surgeons in recognition of his many contributions. In spite of all this evidence of enthusiasm Herbert did not at first acquaintance give an impression of liveliness. Deliberate in speech, he could at times look positively lugubrious. However, he became a popular lecturer, making his points with logic and a clarity laced with dry wit and self deprecating humour. To those who knew him well he was a delightful companion who could make fun of all life’s problems. His hobbies were few, though he was a keen golfer if not an outstanding performer in this field. In 1945 he married Dorothy Dowling, who made a happy home for him and their son and daughter, who are now in the teaching profession. His retirement was marred by a stroke which left him with considerable disability, but he was lucky to have Dorothy to look after him so well. He died on 4 February 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000253
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Jones, Geoffrey Blundell (1915 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Cutler, Geoffrey Abbott (1920 - 2000)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-05-10
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372529372529
Occupation General surgeon
Details Geoff Cutler was a surgeon in New South Wales, Australia. He was born on 29 February 1920 in Manly, a suburb of Sydney. He was the second of the three sons of Arthur and Ruby Cutler. Their father was a sales representative for Remington, who had been a crack shot and twice winner at Bisley. He was killed in a car accident in 1935 and Geoffrey left school at 17 to work in a bank, whilst studying for a degree at night. When the war came he was keen to enlist, but his mother would not sign the papers as his elder brother, later to become Sir Roden Cutler, future diplomat and Governor of New South Wales, had been seriously wounded in Syria, winning the VC, but losing his leg. Geoff joined the RAAF when he was 21. While he was learning to fly he became bored during a long formation flight to Goulbourn and decided to slip away to do a few loops and rolls, and then found to his consternation that he was quite alone and not sure where he was. He landed his Tiger Moth in a suitable field, but was quickly surrounded by a group of men in uniform, who told him that he was in the middle of a prison farm. Undeterred, on getting directions for Goulbourn, he persuaded them to hang on to his plane’s tail until he had sufficient power to take off. (He kept this story secret for many years.) Later he became a test and ferry pilot, and saw enemy action in Burma and New Guinea. After the war he was able to enrol in medicine, his first love, through the repatriation arrangements provided for ex-servicemen. Enrolling with 726 other students, they were warned that 50 per cent of their year would be failed at the end of the year. He graduated with honours in 1952 and did his house appointments at Manly Hospital, having been attached to the Royal North Shore Hospital as a student. He went to England in 1954, intending to specialise in gynaecology and obstetrics, but changed to surgery, and did junior jobs in Middlesex, Northampton, Guildford and Oldchurch Hospital, Romford, as well as attending courses at the College. After passing the FRCS he returned to Australia in 1957 to a registrar position at the Royal North Shore Hospital, and started in private practice in 1958. Among his other interests were reading history, and breeding Hereford cattle on his farm, which he owned for 25 years. He had met Dorothy Arnold, another Australian, when she was nursing in London. They married in 1959 and had three children, two boys and a girl. Stephen, the eldest, represented Australia at rugby for ten years, before going to the USA to work for the pharmaceutical firm Quintiles. Anne became a physiotherapist and Rob became a solicitor in Sydney. Geoff Cutler died on 20 October 2000 from carcinoma of the colon.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000343
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Goodall, Peter (1927 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Keast-Butler, John (1937 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Lange, Meyer John (1912 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching MacFarlane, Campbell (1941 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-05-10 2008-12-12
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372533372533
Occupation Trauma surgeon
Details Campbell MacFarlane was a trauma surgeon who served with distinction in the Royal Army Medical Corps, before emigrating to South Africa, where he became the foundation professor of emergency medicine at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. He was born on 16 October 1941 in Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland, the son of George MacFarlane and Anne Christessen Gove Lowe, and was educated at Webster’s High School, Kirriemuir. He gained a Kitchener scholarship and attended the University of St Andrews, graduating with commendation in 1965. While at university he gained several distinctions and medals, including a student scholarship to Yale University for the summer term of 1964. After house jobs he joined the RAMC, where he won medals for military studies, military surgery, tropical medicine, army health and military psychiatry from the Royal Army Medical College. He was then posted to Singapore, where, in 1971, he was the first westerner to obtain the MMed in surgery from the University of Singapore. He passed the FRCS Edinburgh in the same year. Over the next decade he worked in civilian and military hospitals in Catterick, Eastern General Hospital (Edinburgh), Musgrave Park Hospital (Belfast), Cambridge Military Hospital (Aldershot), Birmingham Accident Hospital, Guy’s Hospital (London), Queen Alexandra Military Hospital (Millbank), Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital (Woolwich), Westminster Hospital, St Mark’s Hospital (London), as well as the British military hospitals in Rinteln, Berlin, Hannover and Iserlohn in Germany. He saw active service in Oman, Belize and Belfast while commanding a parachute field surgical team. In Northern Ireland he performed life-saving surgery not only on soldiers but also on members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The parachute unit was also deployed on NATO exercises in the UK, Germany, Norway, Denmark and Turkey. Finally, he was appointed senior lecturer in military surgery at the Royal Army Medical College, Millbank, where his lectures were avidly attended. He was a contributor to the *Field surgery pocket book* (London, HMSO, 1981) and carried out research at the Porton Down Research Establishment, which benefitted from his extensive battle surgery experience. He retired as a lieutenant colonel after 16 years active service. He was appointed chief of surgery at the Al Zahra Hospital in the United Arab Emirates in 1981 and there proceeded to set up its first private hospital. In 1984 he accepted the position of chief of surgery and director of emergency room services at the Royal Commission Hospital in Saudi Arabia. Two years later, in 1986, he moved to Johannesburg to become senior specialist in the trauma unit at Johannesburg Hospital and senior lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, as well as principal of the Transvaal Provincial Administration Ambulance Training College. A decade later he became head of emergency medical services training for the Gauteng Provincial Government, South Africa, and in 2004 he was appointed to the founding Netcare chair of emergency medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand. Campbell maintained his international contacts and visited the UK regularly. After gaining the diploma with distinction in the medical care of catastrophes from the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London, he lectured on their course and became an examiner. Campbell was a member of the editorial boards of *Trauma*, *Emergency Medicine* and the *Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps*. In 1999 he was the Mitchiner lecturer to the Royal Army Medical Corps and in 2000 gave the Hunterian lecture at the College on the management of gunshot wounds. He was a founder member and chairman of the Emergency Medicine Society of South Africa. He was elected as a fellow of the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine, a fellow of the Faculty of Emergency Medicine (UK) and a founding fellow of the Faculty of Pre-hospital Care at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. His many outside interests included scuba diving, military history, languages (Afrikaans, French and Spanish), martial arts and sailing. He married Jane Fretwell in 1966, by whom he had two daughters (Catriona and Alexina) and a son (Robert). They were divorced in 1986. He died unexpectedly at JFK Airport in New York on 7 June 2006 while returning from representing South Africa at a meeting of the International Federation for Emergency Medicine in Halifax, Canada.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000347
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching McNeill, John Fletcher (1926 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-05-10
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372534372534
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Fletcher McNeill, always known as ‘Ian’, was a surgeon at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle. He was born on 15 March 1926 in Yoker, near Glasgow, the youngest of the five children of John Henry Fletcher McNeill, a teacher, and Annie McLachlan, a housewife. The family moved from Glasgow to Newcastle when he was a baby and there he attended Lemington Grammar School. He entered King’s College Medical School, Durham University, a year younger than he should in 1943. There, in addition to serving in the Home Guard, he won the Tulloch scholarship for preclinical studies, the Outterson Wood prize for psychological medicine and the Philipson scholarship in surgery. He qualified in 1949 with honours. After house posts at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he did his National Service in the RAF with Fighter Command. In 1952 he returned to the professorial unit at the Royal Victoria Infirmary as a senior house officer. A year later he was demonstrator of anatomy and then completed a series of registrar posts at the Royal Victoria Infirmary and Shotley Bridge, before returning to the surgical unit as a senior registrar. From this position he was seconded as Harvey Cushing fellow to the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston, from 1961 to 1962, where he carried out research on the effects of haemorrhage and cortical suprarenal hormones on the partition of body water, which led to his MS thesis. He returned to Newcastle as first assistant, until he was appointed lecturer (with consultant status) at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in 1963, as well as honorary consultant in vascular surgery, consultant in charge of the casualty department and honorary consultant to the Princess Mary Maternity Hospital. He was one of the first to restore a severed arm, and he developed a g-suit to control bleeding from a ruptured aorta. He wrote extensively, mainly on vascular and metabolic disorders. In 1957 he married Alma Mary Robson, a theatre sister at the Royal Victoria Hospital. He had many interests, including Egyptology, art, swimming, cricket, woodwork and travel. He died on 8 March 2006 from cancer of the lung, and is survived by his daughter Jane.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000348
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Nixon, John Moylett Gerrard (1913 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Rowntree, Thomas Whitworth (1916 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-05-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372536372536
Occupation General surgeon
Details Tom Rowntree was a consultant surgeon in Southampton. He was born at 9, Upper Brook Street, London, W1 on 10 July 1916. His father, Cecil Rowntree, was a consultant surgeon at the Cancer (now Royal Marsden) Hospital, London, and held several other honorary posts in and around the city. His mother was Katherine Aylmer Whitworth Jones, the daughter of an opera singer. After his preparatory education, Tom went to Radley, where he passed the Higher School Certificate and matriculated for St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1933. He went up in the autumn of 1934 after an agreeable intervening six months in Rome – where he became fluent in Italian and attended anatomy classes at the university. He graduated from Cambridge in 1937 with a 2:1 degree in the natural sciences tripos (gaining a first in anatomy). He then went to St Bartholomew’s Hospital for his clinical training, where he also joined the Territorial Army (as a second lieutenant). At Bart’s he won the Matthews Duncan prize and qualified in 1941. At the outbreak of the Second World War Bart’s was moved to Hill End Hospital and there Tom was appointed house surgeon to James (later Professor Sir James) Paterson Ross, and then to John O’Connell, neurosurgeon. He then got a job demonstrating anatomy at Cambridge and passed the final FRCS in 1942. He returned to Hill End as chief assistant and was commissioned as a full lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps. 1942 was a landmark year for Tom for another very particular reason; it was while back at Cambridge that he met his future wife, Barbara – Dr Barbara Sibbald as she then was. They became engaged that year and married the next. They had four children, a boy and three girls. Their son became an orthopaedic surgeon and one of their daughters qualified at Bart’s, like her father, and became a general practitioner. In 1944 Tom was posted to India as a captain in the RAMC. He was released from the Army with the rank of major in 1947. After various jobs, including accident room surgeon at Reading, a registrarship at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and an honorary post at the Italian Hospital in London, he successfully applied for a consultant general surgical job in Southampton and started there in 1951. Tom was the quintessential general surgeon, the very embodiment of the best. He emphasised the importance of a detailed history, taken patiently, claiming it made up some 80 per cent of a diagnosis. He advocated, for instance, that the clinician sit at the bed/couch-side when examining the abdomen, the better to ensure, through the examiner’s bodily ease, that the examination is both gentle and unhurried; just one valuable lesson amongst many others. He independently discovered the curious phenomenon of abdominal wall tenderness in patients with non-specific abdominal pain, an immensely valuable physical sign. Tom’s clinical honesty demanded a searching but always kind and constructive analysis of any complication. His surgical technique was superb, always anatomical and scrupulously protective of vital structures. This manual felicity transferred readily to a long-time recreational interest, cabinet making, at which he excelled. He worked extraordinarily long hours at the hospital. His, too, was a most intelligent and enquiring mind. Its rigour – a notable characteristic – found expression in his concern that words, the vehicles of thought, be appropriate and joined in clear, simple, sentences. His intelligence, too, dominated the newly formed Southampton medical executive committee, of which he was the first Chairman, and through it deftly managed the birth of the Southampton Medical School. Tom’s surgical standing was recognised in his presidency of the surgical section of the Royal Society of Medicine. His presidential address was constructed from his large personal series of parathyroidectomies. He retired in 1981 to fish, make beautiful desks for each of his grandchildren and to interest himself in almost anything; it seemed, as with Dr Samuel Johnson, that there was no fact so trivial that he would rather not be in possession of it. Two weeks before he died he won the *Times Literary Supplement* crossword puzzle. On top of all this it should be added that Tom was a fair man, a good companion and had a lovely sense of humour. In short, he was quite a chap. He died on 26 February 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000350
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Salz, Michael Heinz (1916 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Scott, James Steel (1924 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Till, Anthony Stedman (1909 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Walt, Alexander Jeffrey (1923 - 1996)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-05-10 2022-02-03
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372540372540
Occupation General surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Alexander Walt was a former president of the American College of Surgeons. He was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1923 and went to school and university there. After qualifying in 1948 he completed his house jobs at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, before winning a Dominion studentship to Guy’s Hospital in 1951. He then completed a surgical residency in the USA, at the Mayo Clinic, from 1952 to 1956. He returned to the UK, as a surgical registrar at St Martin’s Hospital, Bath, where he remained until 1957. He then went back to Cape Town, to the Groote Schuur Hospital, as an assistant surgeon for the next four years. He was subsequently appointed to Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan, USA, where in 1966 he became professor and chairman of the department of surgery. He was recognised by his peers by his election to the presidency of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma in 1997, the presidency of the Western Surgical Association in 1987, and the presidency of the American College of Surgeons in 1995. **See below for an additional obituary uploaded 8 October 2015:** Alec Walt was born in Cape Town in 1923, the son of Isaac Walt, a wholesale grocer who had emigrated to South Africa from Lithuania to escape the pogrom. When only two and a half years of age, his mother, Lea, née Garb, and two sisters were killed in a train crash, but his father was determined that all three sons be educated – and all three became doctors. At Grey High School in Port Elizabeth he distinguished himself as a sportsman and formed a lifelong friendship with Bill (later Sir Raymond) Hoffenberg. Together they entered the University of Cape Town as medical students in 1940, but an acute sense of patriotism led them to volunteer for service with the army medical corps – which was approved only at the third attempt. They served for three and a half years with the 6th SA Armoured Division and 5th US Army in Egypt and Greece, and throughout the whole of the Italian campaign, during which time they spent many hours planning how to fail trivial army examinations so that they could remain together as privates in the same unit. It was service with a surgical team in the field which instilled a long-abiding interest in trauma and served him well in later years during his time in Detroit. He played rugby for the Mediterranean forces, and was disappointed that circumstances did not allow him to accept a place in the army team in London where he hoped to see his brother after a 25 year absence. With army planning at the time, he also missed the appointment for an interview for a possible Rhodes scholarship. On demobilisation in 1945, Alec Walt returned to medical school, graduating in 1948 and serving his internship in Groote Schuur Hospital. In 1947 he married Irene Lapping, with whom he had been close friends since boyhood, and they went abroad for his surgical training, firstly to attend the basic science course for the primary fellowship of the College, and then to undertake residency training at the Mayo Clinic. While there he qualified FRCS Canada in 1955 and MS Minnesota in 1956. Returning to England as surgical registrar at St Martin’s Hospital, Bath, he took his final FRCS in 1956 before returning to Groote Schuur with his wife and three children – John Richard, born in 1952, Steven David, born in 1954, and Lindsay Jane, born in 1955 – as an assistant surgeon and lecturer. However, he became increasingly concerned that his family should not be brought up in the political climate of South Africa and in 1961 left a flourishing practice to return to the United States and an appointment with the Veterans Hospital in Detroit. His abilities were clearly recognised, for in 1965 he was appointed Chief of Surgery at Detroit General (later Receiving) Hospital, and the following year Chairman of Surgery and Penerthy Professor of Surgery of the Wayne State University School of Medicine, from which he retired in 1988. He was assistant and, from 1968 to 1970, associate dean of the medical school. As Professor of Surgery, Alec Walt gained recognition as a superb teacher and distinguished academic. He was designated ‘clinical teacher of the year’ on no fewer than three occasions and in 1984 received the Lawrence M Weiner award of the Alumni Association for outstanding achievements as a non-alumnus. On his retirement in 1988, he was a visiting fellow in Oxford with his old friend Bill Hoffenberg, then President of Wolfson College and also of the Royal College of Physicians. He was elected to the Academy of Scholars and was designated Distinguished Professor of Surgery of Wayne State University. Alec Walt’s avid thirst for knowledge made him an active and prolific clinical investigator, his 165 published papers and reviews concentrating on the surgery of trauma and of hepatobiliary disease which, along with breast cancer, were his prime interests. His army experience, which endowed him with unusual skills in the organisation of trauma services, stood him in good stead during the Detroit riots in 1967, when his paper on the anatomy of a civil disturbance and its impact on disaster planning was a classic. On four occasions he took surgical trauma teams for training in Colombia, whose government presented him with the Jorge Bejarano medal in 1981 Principal author of the first paper describing the prognostic value of oestrogen receptors in breast cancer, he was an active participant in therapeutic trials in this disease and latterly became a strong proponent of the need for multidisciplinary care. His final contribution to Detroit surgery was his development of the Comprehensive Breast Center in the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, now named the Alexander J Walt Center. Alec Walt had a distinctive clarity of writing and speaking which led to his appointment to the editorial boards of several medical journals, including the <i>Archives of surgery</i> and the <i>Journal of trauma</i>. He was in great demand as a lecturer, honouring numerous prestigious national and international commitments. He was Hunterian Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1969 and Moynihan Lecturer in 1988, and in 1995 gave a keynote address at the 75th Anniversary Meeting of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. He held leadership positions in many North American surgical organisations, including the Presidency of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, the American Board of Medical Specialties and was Vice-President of the American Surgical Association. He was elected an honorary Fellow of the College of Surgeons of South Africa in 1989, and of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of Edinburgh and Australasia in 1993 and 1995 respectively. A keen contributor to the affairs of the American College of Surgeons, Alec Walt served as a Regent from 1984 to 1993 and as Chairman of the Board of Regents from 1991 to 1993. He was elected 75th President in 1994, an office to which he immediately brought great panache. Unfortunately, during his presidential year he developed a massive recurrence of a bladder cancer, first treated twelve years previously. With typical courage he elected to have chemotherapy ‘spaced’ so that he could preside over the Annual Clinical Meeting, at which his successor was to be inaugurated. The attributes which contributed to Alec Walt’s great distinction as an academic surgeon were a keen intelligence, capacity for hard work, absolute integrity, a deep concern for all people, particularly the young, and, greatest of all, a deep and sincere humility. He did not suffer fools gladly and had no hesitation in attacking the uncritical, unscientific or badly presented paper with a characteristic irony; but he would always have a kind congratulatory word for those who had given of their best. A top sportsman – champion hurdler at school, captain of cricket and an athletic Blue at university – he led by example, not dictate. Realising a boyhood dream of climbing to 17,000 feet in Nepal with one of his sons and his daughter at the age of 62 while recovering from treatment of his bladder cancer, he took with him Tennyson’s Ulysses, a favourite poem, passages from which he would loudly declaim. He was devoted to his wife Irene, his three children, his son-in-law and his 20 month old granddaughter Eve Lenora, all of whom gave him the love and respect which nourished him throughout his professional life, and supported him during his final illness. Alec described his mother as a ‘homemaker’, and his wife had been no less. From the earliest days of his marriage Irene provided a home with an ever-open door, a kindness which endeared her to impoverished and hungry British fellows at the Mayo Clinic, of which I was one. Vivid personal memories of Alec Walt are firstly early days together in Rochester, Minnesota when, as the deluded captain of the first and only Mayo Clinic cricket team which lost their match in Chicago he chastised us for our dismal performance and undisciplined behaviour on the previous night; later, when as visiting professor to his department in Detroit, joint discussions with his students revealed the depth of his feelings for the inequalities of care for women with breast cancer which, later on at midnight in the emergency room, was extended to all of those others whom society had deprived; then at the Asian Association of Surgeons when, as President of the American College of Surgeons he gave a masterly address on surgical training, during which his deep sense of responsibility for the future of young surgeons was only too evident; and finally, on the beach in Bali, when we shared our feelings of good fortune to have had a job in life which had provided us both with such great fulfilment, pleasure, and even fun. Shortly before his death he advised his son John to ‘work hard, be honest, and the rest will take care of itself’ – advice which is exemplified by the life he led. He died on 29 February 1996 aged 72, survived by his wife Irene and his children – John, a lawyer, Steven, a professor of law, and Lindsay Jane, a sculptress. Sir A Patrick Forrest with assistance from Mrs Irene Walt
Resource Identifier RCS: E000354
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Langstaff, Joseph (1778 - 1856)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-02-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372636372636
Occupation General surgeon
Details Joined the Bengal Army as Assistant Surgeon on Sept 18th, 1799, being promoted to Surgeon on March 5th, 1813, and to Superintending Surgeon on June 24th, 1826. He became a member of the Calcutta Medical Board on July 23rd, 1833, and President on Feb 25th, 1834. He saw active service in the Third Maratha or Pindari or Dekkan War in 1817-1818. Through his many years of active service in the East he proved an energetic and valuable public servant. He played his part as a medical officer in Indian affairs. Thus he was Medical Attendant to Lord Metcalfe’s Embassy, to Runjeet Singh, ruler of the Punjab and annexor of Cashmere, and personally received many evidences of his chief’s esteem. In the campaign in 1817 he was attached to the Army under the command of the Marquis of Hastings, when the cholera is said to have made its disastrous appearance. He retained to the last a vivid recollection of all the circumstances connected with the onset of this pestilence, which has since then devastated large areas. Langstaff returned to England in good health, having retired on July 23rd, 1838, and lived for many years in the bosom of his family. At the time of his death he was one of the oldest medical officers of the Bengal Presidency. He died of apoplexy at his house, 9 Cambridge Square, on Dec 6th, 1856.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000452
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Al-Sheikhli, Abdul Raazak Jasim (1936 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-07-25 2008-11-28
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372561372561
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Abdul Razaak Jasim Al-Sheikhli was an ENT consultant at the Mayday Hospital, Croydon. He was born on 20 November 1936 in Baghdad, the son of Jasim Al-Sheikhli, an Imam, and his wife, Sabria. He was educated at the Al-Risafa Intermediate School and Adhamiya Secondary School, in Baghdad, before going on to Baghdad Medical College. During his residency period at the Republic Teaching Hospital of Baghdad he witnessed and treated the victims of revolutions, and saw the body of the recently murdered president, General Kasim, and his body guards, lying in the mortuary. After doing his National Service as a lieutenant in the Iraqi Air Force, where he served in Basra, he went to England with a scholarship from the Iraqi Ministry of Health, to train in surgery. He was a senior house officer at Ipswich and Clare Hall, and was subsequently a registrar at Southampton Chest Hospital. In 1970 he returned to Iraq, as a general and thoracic surgeon in the Hilla district and Mirjan, Al-Shaab, Al-Tuwithw and Labourers hospitals. He returned to England in 1973 to specialise in ENT, becoming a senior house officer at Farnborough Hospital and registrar at Ipswich and the Royal Ear Hospital, where he was greatly helped by Bill Gibson. He was then a senior registrar at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary for nearly two and a half years. In 1981 he was appointed ENT consultant at the Mayday Hospital. He published on talc granuloma of the vocal cords following intubation, pain in the ear, and the microbiology of the adenoids. He married Sheila née Page, a nurse, in 1968. They had two sons, Peter, an artist, and Stephen, a musician. He died on 4 February 2007 of acute myeloid leukaemia.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000375
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Buck, John Edward (1915 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-08-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372562372562
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details John Buck was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in the Woolwich and Greenwich area. He was born in Hove, Sussex, on 30 October 1915, the son of Arthur Herbert Buck, a general surgeon, and Lilian Maude Bligh, a theatre sister who was a direct descendant of the captain of the Bounty. John was brought up in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and was educated at St Michael’s School and Brentwood College. He then went to Edinburgh University to read medicine. There he won a blue for rowing, and swam and sailed for the university. He was springboard diving champion for Scotland in 1937 and 1938, and remained a keen sportsman for the rest of his life. After qualifying, he became house surgeon to the surgical outpatients at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, house physician to the Deaconess Hospital and then house surgeon to the orthopaedic department at the Royal Infirmary. He listed David Wilkie, John Fraser, Walter Mercer, Ian Smellie and Ritchie Russell among his memorable teachers. At the outbreak of the second world war he was house surgeon at the Sussex County Hospital in Brighton. On completion of this appointment, he was commissioned into the RAMC, serving first in 180 Field Ambulance. In 1941 he was promoted to Captain and posted to the Military Hospital in Delhi. He then joined the 151/156 Parachute Regiment as its regimental medical officer, accompanying them to Egypt and later to Europe, where he was taken prisoner at Arnhem. Released in 1944, he returned to the UK, as a trainee surgeon at the Royal Herbert Hospital at Woolwich. Following demobilisation, he returned to the Royal Sussex Country Hospital, as a resident surgical officer, acquiring the Edinburgh FRCS in 1946. He later trained in orthopaedic surgery, at the Royal National Orthopaedic and Charing Cross hospitals. In 1951 he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Woolwich, Greenwich and Deptford hospital group. He retired in 1984. John was a member of the Royal Society of Medicine, the British Association of Sports Medicine, and was a fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association. He had a special interest in sports injuries and in the lumbar spine, developing an original operation (Buck’s fusion) for spondylolysis and published several papers on these topics. He was surgical adviser to Charlton Athletic Football Club for many years. He was a life member of the United Hospitals Sailing Club and a member of the Bexley Sailing Club, only giving up at the age of 83. He remained a parachutist and skydiver until the age of 64. He married his former ward sister, Dorothy Maud Kench, in 1995. He died on 30 March 2006, aged 90.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000376
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Duthie, Robert Buchan (1925 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-08-15 2007-08-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372563372563
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Robert Duthie was Nuffield professor of orthopaedic surgery at Oxford University. He was born in Detroit, USA, on 4 May 1925, the second son of James Andrew Duthie, an engineer with the Ford Motor Company, and Elizabeth Jean née Hunter. He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and King Edward VI Grammar School Chelmsford, Essex, before reading medicine at Edinburgh University, where he won the Robert Jones prize. After qualifying in 1948, he spent a year as orthopaedic house surgeon to Sir Walter Mercer, which determined his decision to follow an orthopaedic career. Following National Service as a captain in the RAMC in Malaya he returned to Edinburgh as an orthopaedic registrar at the Royal Infirmary, before becoming a senior registrar at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in London. Then followed two years as the Crichton research scholar in Edinburgh, researching the histochemistry of osteogenesis, for which he was awarded the ChM with gold medal. Duthie was appointed chairman of orthopaedic surgery at the University of Rochester, New York, and surgeon in chief at the Strong Memorial Hospital. In 1966 he returned to the UK on his appointment to the Nuffield chair of orthopaedics in Oxford, with a professorial fellowship at Worcester College. There he developed structural undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and training programmes, and encouraged active participation in research, establishing collaborative clinical and research units in the management of haemophilia, arthritis, metabolic bone disease and bioengineering. His textbook on haemophilia was widely recognised and *Mercer’s Orthopaedic surgery* under his editorship retained its place as a leading orthopaedic textbook. In addition he published many papers in collaboration with his juniors and served on the editorial boards of the *Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery* and the *British Journal of Surgery*. In 1971 he was appointed adviser in orthopaedics and trauma surgery to the Department of Health and Social Security, and in 1973 chairman of the advisory committee for research into artificial limbs and was appointed a member of the Royal Commission on Civil Liability and Personal Injury. Duthie believed that the English College had undue influence when compared with its counterpart in Edinburgh, to which he devoted lifelong loyalty, encouraging Oxford trainees to take the Edinburgh rather than the English fellowship. When he became president of the British Orthopaedic Association in 1984 he promoted a fundraising campaign, which afterwards became the Wishbone Trust, to raise money for the funding of a separate College of Othopaedic Surgery, an aspiration with recurs from time to time in some quarters. In 1956 Robert Duthie married Alison Ann Macpherson Kittemaster, a nurse to whom he remained devoted, both occupying the same old people’s home towards the end of their lives. They had two sons and two daughters. He included tennis, gardening and sailing among his recreations. He died on Christmas Day 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000377
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Roaf, Robert (1913 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-08-16 2007-12-12
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372564372564
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Robert Roaf was a distinguished orthopaedic surgeon and one of the few remaining pre-war Himalayan climbers. He was born into a Canadian academic family in Golders Green, London, on 25 April 1913, the second son of Herbert Eldon Roaf, professor of physiology at Liverpool, and Beatrice Sophia, the daughter of Sir William Herdman, foundation professor of zoology at Liverpool University. The Roaf family hailed from Kent, and one had been a ships’ carpenter at Trafalgar. Pneumonia in childhood left Robert with asthma, but this did not stop him from winning a scholarship to Winchester, or later on the Frazer scholarship and domus exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford. There he gained a first in the final honour school of physiology and biochemistry, though in later years he confessed to finding the lectures boring. He spent his vacations climbing in the Alps. In 1933 a chance encounter with the mountaineer and writer Marco Pallis was to have a lasting influence on Roaf’s life. Two years later Roaf was delegated to a conference in the Soviet Union and, just before his departure, Pallis invited him to join his next climbing expedition in Sikkim and Tibet. The Himalayan expedition, which included the explorer Freddie Spencer Chapman, was modest, but Roaf, as medical officer, had to learn Tibetan in order to cope with the patients he was invited to treat, many of whom suffered from disorders long since extinct in England. He returned to Liverpool to complete his training. Although he was by now a Quaker and a pacifist, the air raids on Liverpool made him decide that he could not eat food that had been brought to England at the expense of so many sailors’ lives. He joined the Merchant Navy as a ship’s surgeon, but undulant fever invalided him out in 1943 and he moved to the emergency hospital in Winwick, Cheshire. In 1946 he was appointed as an assistant surgeon at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary. The following year he moved to the Orthopaedic Hospital, Oswestry. There he developed new methods for treating scoliosis. In 1952 he set up a training programme in Delhi, as part of the Colombo Plan, and on his return, in 1955, was appointed director of clinical studies and research at Oswestry. In 1963 he became professor of orthopaedics in Liverpool. There he encouraged his students to do something adventurous and imaginative during their electives. He continued to make overseas trips, especially to the Himalayas, long after he retired. He published extensively, including *Scoliosis* (Edinburgh/London, E & S Livingstone, 1966), *Spinal deformities* (Tunbridge wells, Pitman Medical, 1977), *Textbook of orthopaedic nursing* (Oxford, Blackwell Scientific, 1971) and *The paralysed patient* (Oxford, Blackwell Scientific, 1977). He married Ceinwen Roberts in 1939, who predeceased him by one week. They had two sons and two daughters. Roaf died aged 93 on 16 February 2007.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000380
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Pearson, John Roy (1927 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2012-01-11 2015-04-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001800-E001899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374028374028
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details John Roy Pearson was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Birmingham General Hospital, the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital and Birmingham Accident Hospital. He studied medicine in Birmingham, qualifying MB ChB in 1950. Prior to his consultant appointments, he was a registrar at the General Hospital, Birmingham, and then a senior registrar at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital and at Manchester Royal Infirmary. He was a fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association and held their North America travelling fellowship. He also wrote a textbook *Accident surgery and orthopaedics for students* (London, Lloyd-Luke Medical Books, 1973). John Roy Pearson died on 10 March 2007 aged 80. Predeceased by his wife Beryl, he was survived by their three children, Sara, Ian and Kay, and one grandchild.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001845
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Sharpe, John Leonard ( - 2010)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2012-01-11 2014-06-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001800-E001899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374029374029
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Leonard Sharpe was a surgeon in Nova Scotia, Canada. He qualified MB BS in 1956 and gained his FRCS in 1964. He died on 7 November 2010.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001846
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Rees, Neville Clark (1922 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Raffle, Philip Andrew Banks (1918 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 2012-03-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372302372302
Occupation Occupational physician
Details Andrew Raffle, former chief medical officer of London Transport Executive, was an expert on medical standards for driving. He was born on 3 September 1918 in Newcastle upon Tyne, where his father, Andrew Banks Raffle, a barrister and a doctor, was medical officer for health for South Shields (he was later divisional medical officer to the London County Council). His mother was Daisy née Jarvis, the daughter of a farmer. His two uncles were both doctors. He studied medicine at Middlesex Hospital, qualifying in 1941, and was subsequently a house surgeon at Cheltenham. He then spent five years with the RAMC, becoming a specialist in venereology in Egypt during the North African campaign with the rank of Major. After demobilisation, he was a medical registrar in Bristol and then took the diploma in public health at the London School of Hygiene. In 1948 he joined London Transport under the aegis of Leslie Norman, whom he succeeded in 1969 as chief medical officer. There he carried out research to find evidence of the relationship between exercise and heart disease, by comparing the health of drivers and conductors. He also worked on the medical aspects of fitness to drive, becoming an acknowledged expert in this field. He advised the Department of Transport and other organisations on safe levels of alcohol in the blood, and the effects of diabetes and various medications on the ability to drive. He edited *Medical aspects of fitness to drive: a guide for medical practitioners* (London, Medical Commission on Accident Prevention, 1976), which became a key text for doctors to use when assessing patients. He was a member of the Blennerhasset committee on drinking and driving legislation. He continued to write papers on health standards for drivers up to 1992. He gave the BMA McKenzie industrial health lecture in 1974 and the Joseph Henry lecture at the College in 1988. He wrote many chapters in textbooks and was co-editor of *Hunter's diseases of occupations* (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1987). He taught occupational medicine to postgraduates and was an examiner, and later convenor, for the diploma in industrial health at the Society of Apothecaries. He became chief medical officer of the St John Association and masterminded the Save-a-Life campaign, to teach resuscitation to a wider public. He was a fellow of the BMA and deputy Chairman of the occupational health committee. He was President of the Society of Occupational Medicine in 1967, and treasurer and subsequently vice-president of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was a member of the standing committee which led to the establishment of the new Faculty of Occupational Medicine in 1978. He was a founder fellow and served on the first board of the new faculty. He married Jill, the daughter of Major V H Sharp of the Royal Horse Artillery, in 1941. They had no children. In 1982 they retired to an isolated Oxfordshire village, where he took up gardening. He died of heart failure on 23 January 2004 and is survived by his widow.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000115
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Rees, Richard Lestrem (1916 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Richards, Brian (1934 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Rickham, Peter Paul (1917 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372305372305
Occupation Paediatric surgeon
Details Peter Rickham was one of a small group of pioneering surgeons who helped to establish the specialty of paediatric surgery in the UK. He was born in Berlin on 21 June 1917, where his father, Otto Louis Reichenheim, was professor of physics at Berlin University. His mother was Susanne née Huldschinsky. Peter was educated at the Kanton School and the Institute Rosenberg, St Galen, Switzerland. He then went to Queen’s College, Cambridge, and on to St Bartholomew’s for his clinical training, where he won the Butterworth prize for surgery. After junior posts, he joined the RAMC, where he had a distinguished career, taking part in the Normandy invasion and the war in the Far East, reaching the rank of Major. On demobilisation, he trained in paediatric surgery under Sir Denis Browne at Great Ormond Street and Isobella Forshall at the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool. After a year as Harkness travelling fellow, spent in Boston and Philadelphia, he was appointed consultant paediatric surgeon at Alder Hey in 1952. He became director of paediatric surgical studies in 1965 and in 1971 was appointed professor of paediatric surgery at the University Children’s Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland, where he remained until his retirement in 1983. He was intensely involved with research. His MS thesis concerned the metabolic response of the newborn to surgery. Later he devised the Rickham reservoir, an integral part of the Holter ventricular drainage system for hydrocephalus. His textbook, *Neonatal surgery* (London, Butterworths, 1969), remained the standard text for many years. At Alder Hey, he set up the first neonatal surgical unit in the world. It became a benchmark for similar units around the world, and resulted in an improvement in the survival of newborn infants undergoing surgery from 22 per cent to 74 per cent. He was Hunterian Professor at the College in 1964 and 1967, was honoured with the Denis Browne gold medal of the British Asosciation of Paediatic Surgeons, the medal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Chevalier Legion d’Honneur in 1979 and the Commander’s Cross (Germany) in 1988. Peter was a founder member of the Association of Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus, the European Union of Paediatric Surgeons and of the British Association of Paediatric Surgeons, serving as its President from 1967 to 1968. He was a cofounder and editor for Europe of the *Journal of Pediatric Surgery*. Innovative, forceful and outspoken, he was passionately involved with his specialty. Shortly after his appointment in Liverpool he became so exasperated by the local paediatricians’ use of barium to diagnose oesophageal atresia that at Christmas 1954 he sent each one a card enclosing a radio-opaque catheter with which to make the diagnosis safely. He took great pride in the achievements of his many pupils who went on to become leaders in their specialty. He married Elizabeth Hartley in 1938 and they had a son, David, and two daughters, Susan and Mary-Anne. Elizabeth died in 1998 and he married for a second time, to Lynn, who nursed him through his final long illness. He had five grandchildren. He died on 17 November 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000118
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Roddie, Robert Kenneth (1923 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Ross, Sir James Keith (1927 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 2007-09-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372307372307
Occupation Cardiac surgeon
Details James Keith Ross was a leading cardiac surgeon, and one of the team that performed the first cardiac transplant in Britain. He was born in London on 9 May 1927. His father, Sir James Paterson Ross, was later to become professor of surgery at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Surgeon to the Royal Household and President of the College. His mother, Marjorie Burton Townsend, had been a surgical ward sister at Bart’s. Keith was profoundly influenced by his maternal grandfather, Frederick William Townsend, who taught him to work in wood, a practical education in hand-eye coordination, which laid the foundation of his exceptional surgical skill. Another influence was his godfather, Sir Thomas Dunhill, who, whilst recuperating from a hernia repair, gave Keith a trout rod and insisted on demonstrating it whilst in his pyjamas in the middle of Harley Street. Keith attended the Hall School, Hampstead, and then St Paul’s, where he was the senior scholar. He went on to Middlesex Hospital medical school, where he won the Asher scholarship in anatomy and the Lyell medal in surgery. Qualifying in 1950, he became house surgeon to Thomas Holmes Sellors, won the Hallet prize in the primary FRCS and then did his National Service in the Royal Naval Reserve, mostly at sea. On returning to the Middlesex, he passed the FRCS in 1956 and began a training in cardiothoracic surgery at the Brompton Hospital and as a Fulbright scholar with Frank Gerbode in San Francisco, where his research into the fate of grafts in the heart led to a thesis for his masters in surgery and a Hunterian professorship. He was promoted to senior registrar in 1961 at the Middlesex and Harefield hospitals, and to part-time consultant at Harefield in 1964, and later at the Central Middlesex and Middlesex hospitals. In 1967, he gave up these posts, which involved a good deal of stressful travelling, to join Donald Ross at the National Heart Hospital. He was by now at the top of the tree, recognised both in Britain and abroad. His personal series of 100 consecutive homograft aortic valve replacements with only two hospital deaths was, at the time, unrivalled. It was with surprise that his contemporaries learned that he had moved to Southampton, though those who knew him better understood that he felt he was needed there, and it was his duty to go. Arriving in Southampton in 1972, he was joined the following year by James Monro, who had just returned from a year with Barrett-Boyes in New Zealand, and brought expertise in paediatric cardiac surgery. Together they built up a first rate team, accepting only the highest standards and insisting on a strict audit, both of the short-term results and of quality of life after cardiac surgery. The reputation of the department attracted young surgeons from abroad, in particular from Boston, to work in his unit and to support this he organised a cardiac surgical fellowship. Once the unit was well established, he started a second open heart programme at King Edward VII Hospital, Midhurst. He was postgraduate dean and then President of the Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons. He was elected to the Council of the College in 1986. He was awarded a fellowship in 1989 and the Bruce medal of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He succeeded his father to the baronetcy in 1980. Keith was a man of great personal charm, with a high sense of duty, fortified by a solid faith. He was perhaps at his happiest whilst fishing, be it on a Highland salmon river or on the Test. He was also a keen sailor and woodworker, and a talented artist – painting took up much of his time once he had retired. Twice he had pictures accepted for the Royal Academy summer exhibition and, to his glee, sold them both. In 1956, he married Jacqueline Annella Clarke, a Middlesex Hospital nurse. They had four children – a son, Andrew Charles Paterson, an officer in the Royal Marines who succeeds him as third baronet, and three daughters (Susan Wendy, Janet Mary and Anne Townsend). There are eight grandchildren. In 2000, he underwent an operation by his old team to replace his aortic valve. Ironically, it was a procedure he had pioneered. He made an excellent recovery, but nearly a year later developed a dissecting aneursym of the aortic arch: this too was treated with initial success, but he died suddenly on 18 February 2003 in his old hospital.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000120
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Roy, Arthur Douglas (1925 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372308372308
Occupation General surgeon
Details In the course of his career, Douglas Roy held appointments as a professor of surgery on three continents. He was born on 10 April 1925, the son of Arthur Roy and Edith Mary (née Brown). Educated at Paisley Grammar School, he went to Glasgow University to study medicine. After house appointments, he was joined the RAMC in 1948 for his National Service. From 1950 to 1954 he distinguished himself in registrar posts in Glasgow and Inverness. He then went south of the border, to become senior surgical registrar in Oxford and Aylesbury. Returning to Scotland in 1957, he became consultant surgeon, honorary lecturer and first assistant to Sir Charles Illingworth and subsequently to Sir Andrew Watt Kay in the department of surgery at the Western Infirmary, Glasgow. In 1968, he was appointed foundation professor at the newly opened faculty of medicine at the University of Nairobi. As well as running a busy department, promoting both undergraduate and postgraduate education, he flew with the flying doctor service, visiting remote areas of the country. In 1973, he became head of Queen’s University department of surgery in Belfast, where he remained for 12 years. Here he stimulated, encouraged and wisely delegated responsibilities in administrative, clinical and research fields. A fine technical surgeon and a dedicated trainer, he was widely respected for his work in gastro-intestinal, breast and endocrine surgery, as well as the management of trauma. He was Chairman of the surgical training committee of the Northern Ireland Council for Postgraduate Medical Education for 11 years. He was on the council of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh from 1979 to 1985, as well as serving on many other committees and advisory bodies. In 1985, he moved to the Sultanate of Oman, where he was chief of surgical services to the Ministry of Health and professor of surgery at the Sultan Qaboos University for three years. In Oman Roy was instrumental in planning a surgical training programme in the newly opened university medical school. Roy published papers on gastro-enterology, endocrine surgery and also wrote a supplement on tropical medicine in *Lecture notes in surgery*. He retired to Honiton, Devon, where he was a non-executive director of a community health trust and President of the Devon and Exeter Medical Society from 1994 to 1995. He was able to enjoy sailing and gardening. He also took up gliding, sharing a glider with a local general practitioner. He went solo on his 65th birthday. He was married twice, first in 1954 to Monica Cecilia Mary Bowley, by whom he had three daughters, and secondly, in 1973, to Patricia Irene McColl. There are three grandchildren. He died from Parkinson’s disease on 21 July 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000121
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ruddick, Donald William Hugh (1916 - 1997)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Rue, Dame Elsie Rosemary (1928 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 2012-03-09
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372310372310
Occupation Civil servant Physician
Details As regional medical officer for Oxford Regional Health Authority Rosemary Rue pioneered part-time specialist medical training for women doctors. She was born in Essex on 14 June 1928, the daughter of Harry and Daisy Laurence. The family moved to London when she was five, and during the Blitz she was sent for safety to stay with relatives in Devon, where she contracted tuberculosis and peritonitis, an experience which determined her to be a doctor. She was educated at Sydenham High School and entered the all-women Royal Free Hospital. In 1950 she married Roger Rue, an instructor in the RAF and was told by the dean that she could not stay on at the medical school if she were married. She was however accepted at Oxford, but took the examinations of London University. Her first job was at a long-stay hospital on the outskirts of Oxford, but was sacked when it was revealed that she was married and had a newborn son. She moved into general practice in 1952, and there contracted poliomyelitis from a patient in 1954, the last person in Oxford to catch the illness. This left her with one useless leg, which made it impossible to carry a medical bag. For a time she taught in a girls' school. By 1955 she and her husband had separated and she went to live in Hertfordshire with her parents, whose GP needed a partner. This was a success, and she combined the practice with being medical officer to the RAF, Bovingdon. In 1960 she became assistant county medical officer for Hertfordshire and five years later assistant senior medical officer for the Oxford region, proceeding to become regional medical officer in 1973 and regional general manager in 1984. She oversaw the building of new hospitals in Swindon, Reading and Milton Keynes, designing basic modules that could be incorporated into every hospital, so obviating architects' fees. Her most important contribution however was to set up a part-time training scheme for women doctors who wanted to become specialists. She discovered 150 women doctors in the Oxford region who were insufficiently employed. She sought them out, interviewed them and found jobs for 50 within a few months, and went on to set up a scheme for training part-time married women. This was a great success and spread from Oxford all over the country, and it was with Rosemary's active help that our College set up the Women in Surgical Training scheme. In 1972 she became one of the founders of the Faculty of Community Health (now the Faculty of Public Health). She was a founding fellow of Green College, Oxford, a President of the BMA and was awarded the Jenner medal of the Royal Society of Health. Small, birdlike, with an intense interest in everything and everybody, she had great charm as well as a formidable intellect. She died of bowel cancer on 24 December 2004, leaving two sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000123
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ryan, Peter John (1925 - 2002)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 2016-05-12
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372311372311
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details Peter John Ryan was a pioneer in colorectal surgery. He was born, the eldest of four boys, on 25 November 1925 in Dookie, Victoria, Australia, to farming parents. He was dux of Assumption College, Kilmore, and then went on to study medicine at Melbourne University. He graduated in 1948 and was a resident medical officer at St Vincent's Hospital. From 1953 to 1954 he served as a Major in the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps in Japan and Korea, and then worked for a number of years in England. After obtaining his Fellowship of the College, he spent three years at Leicester General Hospital. Following his return to Australia in 1960, he joined the surgical staff at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne. In 1972, the Ryan unit was established, with Ryan as the inpatient surgeon. It later became the department of colon and rectal surgery, with Ryan as its first director. He retired from St Vincent's in 1990. His laboratory work included studies of the effects of a proximal colostomy on bowel anastomoses. In 1986, his Hunterian address to the College was on diverticular disease. He was the first to advocate immediate resection (with anastomosis) in selected cases of diverticular perforation. He was keen to share Australian surgical expertise with medical colleagues in Asia. From 1965 to 1966 he led a St Vincent's surgical team to Long Xuyen, in Vietnam. He also established a programme of visiting fellows from Japan and Indonesia, and lectured in Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta. He was the first honorary fellow of the Indonesian Surgical Association. Ryan was President of the International Society of University Colon and Rectal Surgeons from 1986 to 1988, and an original member of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons' road trauma committee, which was responsible for the introduction of compulsory car seatbelts. His knowledge of anatomy and ability to sketch clearly made him a popular teacher. He was proud of his small red book entitled *A very short textbook of surgery* (third edition, London, Chapman & Hall Medical, 1994), which ran to several editions and was translated and widely used in China. He was an author of over 50 journal articles. In 1950 he married Margery Manly. They had 10 children, three of whom - Rowena, Jeremy and Roderick - followed him into medicine. He was awarded the medal of the Order of Australia in 2002, shortly before his death on 3 June 2002. The following is an amended version of this obituary, based on updated information. Peter Ryan was a consultant surgeon in Melbourne. He was born on 25 November 1925, in Shepparton, Victoria, the eldest of a farming family: his father was also Peter Ryan, his mother was Mona née McGuinness, a secretary and aspiring actress. From the Dookie State School, Peter went on to Assumption College in Kilmore, where he was *dux* in 1941. He studied medicine at Melbourne University, where he met Margery Manly, an arts student, whom he married in 1950. He was involved in theatre, writing, and the Newman and Campion societies, at one stage considering joining the Catholic commune, Whitlands. During his studies he contracted tuberculosis from a patient and took a year to recover. After qualifying, he did resident posts at St Vincent's Hospital. He passed the MS in 1953 and, partly to fund his future studies, joined the RAAMC and served in a field ambulance unit in Korea, where he averaged six operations a day, seven days a week. At the end of the Korean war he moved to London in 1954, passed the FRCS, and became registrar at Leicester General Hospital. On returning to Melbourne in 1957, he was appointed to St Vincent's, where he was a general surgeon, but gradually became more interested in colorectal surgery, receiving the Sir Alan Newton essay prize for a paper on diverticular disease. In 1965 St Vincent's asked Peter to organise civilian surgical teams to work in Vietnam. He led the first of these to Long Xuyen. He later learned that the cook and several of the other staff were Viet Cong. From then on he pioneered a programme for trainee surgeons from Indonesia and Japan, many of whom became firm friends. For this work he was honoured by being made the first honorary Fellow of the Indonesian Surgeons Association. In 1978 he set up a colorectal unit at St Vincent's and a few years later his own successful private service. He was one of the first to learn laparoscopic techniques, and to advocate resection and anastomosis in selected cases of perforation, for which he was awarded an Hunterian Professorship in 1986. He was President of the International Society of University Colon and Rectal Surgeons from 1987 to 1988. A prolific author of more than 50 research papers, Peter was a gifted teacher and produced a popular work *A very small textbook of surgery* (London, Chapman & Hall Medical, 1988) which was translated into Mandarin and Indonesian. In 1996, the Peter Ryan prize in surgery for final year students was established in his honour. He and his wife had 10 children, 3 of whom - Rowena, Jeremy and Roderick - followed him into medicine. He was awarded the medal of the Order of Australia in 2002, shortly before his death on 3 June 2002.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000124
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Scales, John Tracey (1920 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372312372312
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details John Tracey Scales was a distinguished professor of biomechanical engineering at the Institute of Orthopaedics, University of London, who pioneered the use of biologically inert plastic materials in orthopaedic surgery. He was born an only child, in Colchester, on 2 July 1920. His family later moved to Stanmore, and he was educated a Haberdasher’s Aske’s School. He then went on to King’s College, London, before proceeding to Charing Cross Hospital for his clinical studies. He held junior appointments at Charing Cross Hospital and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, before spending two years in the National Service as a captain in the RAMC. He then held further junior posts in London. He managed to convince H J Seddon, director of the Institute of Orthopaedics, of the need to develop biologically inert plastic for use in orthopaedic surgery, and a department of plastics was established under his direction. In November 1954 a knee prothesis made of stainless steel and acrylic polymer was successfully used to replace the diseased joint of a 20-year-old woman, the first operation of its kind in the world. Scales went on to develop the first Stanmore total hip replacement, made in collaboration with J N Wilson. With Alan Lettin he developed replacements for the knee, elbow and shoulder. In 1974 the department became the first university department of biomedical engineering in Britain, with Scales as its first professor. He also developed porous wound dressings, and created a low air loss mattress for use in the treatment of severe burns and severe pressure sores. This work led to his appointment as honorary director of research at the RAFT Institute for Plastic Surgery at Mount Vernon Hospital, Northwood. He continued his research work at the RAFT Institute after his retirement. From 1997 to 1998 he was a visiting professor at Cranfield University. Scales contributed 175 articles to professional journals and books. He was a member of various committees and professional bodies, including the European Society of Biomechanics and the Society for Tissue Viability. In 1986 he was awarded the OBE for his work, and was made a freeman of the City of London in 1995. He died in a nursing home on 30 January 2004. His wife died in 1992. They had two daughters. He is survived by his daughters and his partner, Phyllis Hampson.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000125
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Shaw, Hugh Michael (1919 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 2007-08-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372313372313
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Hugh Michael Shaw was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Prince Henry Hospital, Melbourne. He was born on 18 January 1919, in London, the son of Charles Gordon Shaw, a consultant surgeon who had commanded the First Australian Field Ambulance in the First World War, was mentioned in despatches and had won the DSO. His mother was Rachel née Champion. Michael was educated at Geelong Grammar School, and then at Melbourne University, where he graduated with first class honours in surgery in 1943. He was a junior resident and then a registrar at Royal Melbourne Hospital, Victoria, from 1943 to 1945. He then enlisted, becoming a Captain in the Australian Army Medical Corps 23rd Training Battalion, based in Greta, New South Wales, and then in the 111th Australian General Hospital, Tasmania, and the 115th Australian General Hospital, based at Heidelberg, Victoria. He left the Army in January 1947. From 1947 to 1950 he was a surgical resident at Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital. He was then appointed as an associate surgeon at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, a post he held for two years. In 1953 he travelled to the UK, where he was a surgical registrar at Essex County Hospital, Colchester. On his return to Australia in 1954 he was appointed to the staff of Prince Henry Hospital, Melbourne, as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon. He retired in 1978. From 1954 to 1957 he was also a consultant for the Australian Department of Veteran’s Affairs. He enjoyed golf, carpentry, photography and music. He married Joan Fraser née Craigie. They had two children, Jennifer Joan and David Michael (who predeceased him). Hugh Michael Shaw died on 6 January 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000126
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Silva, Joseph Francis (1915 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Smiddy, Francis Geoffrey (1922 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372315372315
Occupation General surgeon
Details Geoff Smiddy was a senior surgeon at Leeds General Infirmary and a prolific author. He was born in Kendal on 4 January 1922. His father was a hotelier and his mother looked after a haberdashery shop. His was not an easy childhood – his father left the family home shortly after he was born and his mother had difficulties making ends meet. He entered Leeds Medical School in 1939, where he won the Brotherton senior award, was President of the union, and served on the medical school council. He was a house surgeon to George Armitage, whom he regarded as his surgical mentor. He spent three years in the RAMC, mostly in India. During this time he developed rheumatic endocarditis, which damaged his aortic valve. On his return from India, he became a surgical registrar, then a senior registrar and later a tutor at Leeds Infirmary. In 1957, he won a research fellowship to Harvard Medical School, where he worked under Jacob Fine, a pioneer in the care of the critically ill, carrying out research into the significance of enteric bacteria as a cause of mortality in haemorrhagic shock, which led to his ChM. On his return from America, he was senior lecturer to J C Goligher, and in 1961 was appointed consultant surgeon at Leeds General Infirmary, as well as to Seacroft and Clayton Hospitals. He was deeply committed to teaching and training. He was a true general surgeon and an excellent and enthusiastic clinical teacher, preferring the bedside to the lecture theatre. He was elected to the Court of Examiners in 1967 and became a fine ambassador for the College. He was the first regional adviser for surgery in Yorkshire and in 1978 became an examiner in pathology for the primary. He was the author of several surgical textbooks, including *The medical management of the surgical patient*t (London, Edward Arnold, 1976) and a series of books entitled Tutorials in surgery. He retired in 1987, but remained active in local surgical circles, regularly attended weekly surgical meetings and was a staunch supporter of the Leeds Regional Surgical Club. He was a keen golfer, bridge player, and a student of needlework, silver-smithing and computing. He married Thelma (‘Penny’) Penfold, a radiographer at Leeds Infirmary, in 1951. They had a son (Paul) and a daughter (Clare), and four grandchildren. He underwent an aortic valve replacement in 1975. He died on 8 March 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000128
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Fergusson, Sir William (1808 - 1877)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-01 2012-03-22
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URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372383372383
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Prestonpans on March 20th, 1808, the son of James Fergusson. He was educated at Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire, at the High School, and at the University of Edinburgh. He was placed by his own desire in a lawyer's office at the age of 15, but finding the work uncongenial he changed law for medicine when he was 17. He became a pupil of Robert Knox, the anatomist, then at the height of his reputation, who appointed him demonstrator in 1828, when the class consisted of 504 students and the lectures had to be repeated thrice daily. Fergusson quickly became a skilled anatomist, and it is said that he often spent sixteen hours a day in the dissecting-room, and he soon began to lecture in association with Knox. He was elected Surgeon to the Edinburgh Royal Dispensary in 1831, and in that year tied the third part of the right subclavian artery for an axillary aneurysm, an operation which had been published only twice previously in Scotland. He described the appearances seen at the post-mortem examination in the *London and Edinburgh Journal of Medical Science* (1841, i, 617). In 1855 he employed the dangerous method of direct compression of a subclavian aneurysm (*Lancet*, 1855, ii, 197). He married Helen Hamilton Ranken on Oct. 10th, 1833. She was the daughter and heiress of William Ranken, of Spittlehaugh, Peebleshire, and the marriage at once placed Fergusson in easy circumstances. He continued zealous in his profession, and in 1836, when he was elected Surgeon to the Royal Infirmary and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, he shared with James Syme (q.v.) the best surgical practice in Scotland. In 1840 Fergusson accepted the Professorship of Surgery at King's College, London, with the Surgeoncy to King's College Hospital, which was then situated in the slums of Clare Market. He settled at Dover Street, Piccadilly, whence he removed in 1847 to George Street, Hanover Square. His fame brought crowds of students to King's College Hospital to witness his operations. He became Member of the College of Surgeons in 1840, Fellow in 1844, was a Member of Council from 1861-1877, and of the Court of Examiners from 1867-1870, Vice-President in 1869, President in 1870, and Hunterian Orator in 1871. As Arris and Gale Lecturer he delivered two courses on "The Progress of Anatomy and Surgery during the Present Century", in 1864 and 1865. In these lectures Fergusson mentioned three hundred successful operations for hare-lip performed by himself. In 1849 he was appointed Surgeon in Ordinary to Prince Albert, and in 1855 Surgeon Extraordinary to H. M. the Queen. He was made a baronet in 1866, and Serjeant-Surgeon in 1867. The occasion of his receiving a baronetcy was seized upon to make a presentation of a dessert service of silver plate which was subscribed for by three hundred of his old pupils. He was elected F.R.S. in 1848, President of the Pathological Society in 1859-1860, and of the British Medical Association in 1873, and Hon. LL.D of Edinburgh in 1875. He resigned the office of Professor of Surgery at King's College in 1870, but retained the post of Clinical Professor of Surgery and Surgeon to the hospital until his death. He invented the term 'conservative surgery', by which he meant the excision of a joint rather than the amputation of a limb. He introduced great improvements in the treatment of hare-lip and cleft palate, and his style of operating attracted general attention and admiration. As an operator, indeed, he is justly placed at the pinnacle of fame. Lizars said he had seen no one, not even Liston himself, surpass Fergusson in a trying and critical operation, and his biographer, Mr. Bettany, says in the *Dictionary of National Biography*: "His manipulative and mechanical skill was shown both in his mode of operating and in the new instruments which he devised. The bulldog forceps, the mouth-gag, and various bent knives for cleft palate, attest his ingenuity. A still higher mark of his ability consisted in his perfect planning of every detail of an operation beforehand; no emergency was unprovided for. Thus, when an operation had begun, he proceeded with remarkable speed and silence till the end, himself applying every bandage and plaster, and leaving, as far as possible, no traces of his operation. So silently were most of his operations conducted, that he was often imagined to be on bad terms with his assistants." Fergusson was celebrated as a lithotomist and lithoritist, and it was said that to *wink* during one of his cutting operations for stone might involve one's seeing no operation at all, so rapidly was the work performed by that master hand. On one occasion when performing a lithotomy the blade of the knife broke away from the handle. He at once seized the blade in his long deft fingers, finished the operation, and quietly told the class: "Gentlemen, you should be prepared for any emergency." He died in London of Bright's disease on Feb. 10th, 1877, and was buried at West Linton, Peebleshire, beside his wife, who died in 1860. He was succeeded in the title by his sons, James Ranken; a younger son, Charles Hamilton, entered the Army, and there were three daughters. Fergusson's personality was marked. Tall and of fine presence, with very large and powerful hands, he was genial and hospitable. He was beloved by hosts of students whom he had started in life, and of patients whom he had aided gratuitously. Those who could afford to pay sometimes gave him very large sums for an operation. Like John Hunter, he was a good carpenter, and had besides a number of social pursuits and accomplishments. He was a staunch friend, forgiving to those, such as Syme, who opposed him, and his best monument is the life and work of the many pupils whom he influenced and stimulated as few have ever done. He made many contributions to surgical literature, and wrote a *System of Practical Surgery*, of which a fifth edition appeared in 1870. An expressive and nearly full length oil painting of Fergusson by Rudolf Lehmann hangs in the Secretary's office at the College, and there are numbers of portraits in the College Collection. The portrait was painted in 1874, and a replica hangs in the Edinburgh College of Physicians. He was extremely social and given to kind and friendly hospitality in private life. He sometimes invited a small circle of friends to dine at a well-known city hostelry, The Albion Tavern. On one of these occasions he invited the then Editor of *Punch*, who responded in these terms: "Look out for me at seven, look after me at eleven. - Yours, Mark Lemon." PUBLICATIONS:- *A System of Practical Surgery*, of which the first edition in 18mo was published in London, 1842; 2nd ed., in 12mo, 1846; 3rd., 1852; 4th ed., 1857; 5th ed., 1870. The work deals with the art rather than the science of surgery, and was a good text-book for medical students. Paper on lithotrity in the *Edin. Med. and Surg. Jour.*, 1835, xliv, 80. Paper on cleft palate in the *Med.-Chir. Trans.,* 1845, xxviii, 273. The Hunterian Oration, 8vo, 1871, is chiefly remarkable for the generous eulogium of James Syme, his former colleague, with whom relations had been somewhat strained.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000196
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Busk, George (1807 - 1886)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-01 2012-03-22
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Occupation Biologist Naval surgeon
Details Born at St. Petersburgh on August 12th, 1807, the second son of Robert Busk (1768-1835), merchant, and a member of the English colony there, by his wife Jane, daughter of John Westly, Custom House clerk at St. Petersburgh. His grandfather, Sir Wadsworth Busk, was Attorney-General of the Isle of Man. Hans Buck (1772-1862), scholar-poet, was his uncle; Hans Busk the Younger (1816-1862), a principal founder of the Volunteer movement in England, was his cousin. George Busk was educated at Dr. Hartley's School, Bingley, Yorkshire, and seved a six years' apprenticeship to George Beaman, being articled at the Royal College of Surgeons. He was a student at St. Thomas's Hospital, and for one session at St. Bartholomew's. In 1832 he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to the *Grampus*, the Seamen's Hospital Ship at Greenwich, and afterwards to the *Dreadnought* which replaced it. He served in this capacity for twenty-five years. During his service he worked out the pathology of cholera and made important observations on scurvy. In 1843 he was one of the first batch of Fellows of the College; from 1856-1859 he was Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology; from 1863-1880 a Member of the Council; a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1868-1872; Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1870; Vice-President for the year 1872-1873, and again in 1879-1880; President in 1871; and Trustee of the Hunterian Collection from 1870-1876. He was a Member of the Senate of the University of London, and was for a long period an Examiner for the Naval, Indian, and Army Medical Services. He was also a Governor of the Charterhouse, Treasurer of the Royal Institution, and the first Home Office Inspector under the Cruelty to Animals (Vivisection) Act. The last office he held until 1885, performing the difficult and delicate duties with such tact and impartiality as gained him the esteem both of physiologists and of the Home Office. When he resigned his post of Surgeon to the *Dreadnought* in 1855, Busk retired from the active practice of his profession and turned to the more congenial subject of biology. In this department he did excellent work, more especially in connection with the Bryozoa (Polyzoa), of which group he was the first to formulate a scientific arrangement which appeared in 1856 in his article in the *English Cyclopaedia*. His collection is now in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington. The name *Buskia* was given in his honour to a genus of Bryozoa by Alder in 1856, and again by Tenison-Woods in 1877. The Royal Society elected him a Fellow in 1850, and he was four times nominated a Vice-President, besides often serving on the Council. He received the Royal Medal in 1871. He was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in December, 1846, acted as its Zoological Secretary from 1857-1868, served frequently on the Council, and was Vice-President several times between 1869 and 1882. He joined the Geological Society in 1859, served twice on the Council, was the recipient of the Lyell Medal in 1878, and of the Wollaston medal in 1885. He became a Fellow of the Zoological Society in 1856, assisted in the formation of the Microscopical Society in 1839, and was its President in 1848 and 1849. He was one of the Editors of the *Quarterly Journal of Microcopical Science*. In 1863 he attended the conference to discuss the question of the age and authenticity of the human jaw found at Moulin Quignon. His attention being thus drawn to palaeolontogical problems, he visited the Gibraltar Caves in company with Dr. Falconer, and henceforth devoted much time to the study of cave fauna and later to ethnology. He was President of the Ethnological Society before it was merged in the Anthropological Institute, of which he was President in 1873 and 1874. One result of his visit to Gibraltar was his gift of the Gibraltar Skull to the Museum of the College. He died at his house, 32 Harley Street, London, on August 10th, 1886. He married on August 12th, 1843, his cousin Ellen, youngest daughter of Jacob Hans Busk, of Theobalds, Hertfordshire, and by her had two daughters. Busk was full of knowledge, an unwearying collector of facts, a devoted labourer in the paths of science, and cautious in the conclusions he drew from his observations. He wrote but little in surgery, though his surgical work at the Dreadnought was altogether admirable and he was an excellent operator. He was a man of unaffected simplicity and gentleness of character, without a trace of vanity, a devoted friend, and an upright, honest gentleman. A good portrait painted by his daughter, Miss E. M. Busk, hangs in the Meeting-room of the Linnean Society at Burlington House. It was presented by the subscribers in 1885. There is a fine engraved portrait by Maguire and a large photograph of him as an old man. Both are in the College collection. PUBLICATIONS:- *A Catalogue of Marine Polyzoa in the British Museum*, 3 parts, London, 1852-75. Report on the Polyzoa collected by H. M. S. Challenger, 4to, 2 vols., London, 1884-6. An article on "Venomous Insects and Reptiles" in Holmes's *System of Surgery*, 1860. He was a joint translator with T. H. Huxley of Von Kölliker's *Manual of Human Histology* for the Sydenham Society, 2 vols., London, 1853-4, and he translated and edited Wedl's Rudiments of Pathological Histology also for the Sydenham Society in 1855. Buck was editor of the *Microscopical Journal* for 1842, and of the *Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science* from 1853-1868; of the *Natural History Review* from 1861-1865; and of the *Journal of the Ethnological Society* for 1869-70. Notable amongst his papers in the *Philosophical Transactions* are: (1) "Extinct Elephants in Malta", and (2) "Teeth of Ungulates".
Resource Identifier RCS: E000197
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Hamerton, George Albert ( - 1920)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-01 2012-03-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372387372387
Occupation General surgeon
Details Hamerton, George Albert (d.1920). MRCS July 23rd 1874; FRCS June 14th 1894; LSA 1873; LM 1875; LRCP Lond 1880; MD (Hons) Brussels 1878; DPH RCPS 1892. Studied at St Thomas's Hospital; was Resident Medical Officer at the Lambeth Infirmary; Medical Officer of the Inland Revenue Office, Somerset House; to the Bow Street and to the Thames Divisions of the Metropolitan Police; Examiner for the Civil Service Widows' and Orphans' Fund; Medical Officer of the General Post Office Life Insurance, and of other insurance companies. His addresses were 57 Russell Square, and 26 Southampton Street, Strand. He died of pneumonia on Jan 11th, 1920. Publication:- "Cases of Sternoclavicular Disease with Operation for Removal of the Sternal End of Clavicle."- *Lancet*, 1876, ii, 748.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000200
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Paget, Sir James (1814 - 1899)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-13 2012-03-13
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Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Great Yarmouth on Jan. 11th, 1814, the eighth of seventeen children of Samuel Paget by Sarah Elizabeth, his wife, daughter of Thomas Tolver, of Chester. Sir George Edward Paget (1809-1892), Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge, was a brother. The father was a brewer and a shipowner who served the office of Mayor of Great Yarmouth in 1817. He got into financial difficulties when shipping fell away after the Napoleonic Wars, and incurred debts which were afterwards honourably discharged by the self-denying efforts of George and James Paget. James Paget went to a private school in Yarmouth, and subsequently extended his education, which included a knowledge of German, by private study. He was apprenticed in 1830 to Charles Costerton, who had been educated at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, was admitted a Member of the College of Surgeons in 1810, and was Surgeon to the Yarmouth Hospital and Dispensary. During his apprenticeship James Paget found time to write, with his brother Charles, *A Sketch of the Natural History of Yarmouth and its Neighbourhood, containing Catalogues of the Species of Animals, Birds, Reptiles, Fish, Insects and Plants at present known,* printed by F. Skill at Yarmouth in 1834 and sold at the price of half a crown. It was written in the hope of making a little money for current expenses, but it had the good fortune of bringing the authors under the notice of Sir William Hooker, the Regius Professor of Botany in Glasgow, who had been educated in Norfolk. Paget came to London and entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital as a medical student on Oct. 1st, 1834. Whilst dissecting on Jan. 2nd, 1835, his attention was drawn to numerous gritty specks in the muscles of the subject. He took some of the tissue to John George Children, principal Keeper of the Zoological Department at the British Museum, who sent him on to Robert Brown, Keeper of the Botanical Collection, as Children did not own a microscope. Paget made a careful study of the parasite, and his original sketches are preserved in the Library of the Royal College of Suregons. The preparation was examined by Richard Owen (q.v.), who determined the nematoid nature of the worm, named it *Trichina spiralis*, and took the credit. In 1835-1836 Paget acted as Clinical Clerk to Dr. Peter Mere Latham (1789-1875), because he could not afford the 'dressing fee' payable to the Surgeons of the Hospital, and he therefore never became a house surgeon. He was admitted a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in the spring of 1836, and after a short visit to Paris settled in London and supported himself by teaching and writing. He was sub-editor of *The Medical Gazette* from 1837-1842, and in 1841 he was elected Surgeon to the Finsbury Dispensary. At St. Bartholomew's Hospital Paget was appointed Curator of the Museum in succession to W. J. Bayntin in 1837, and in 1839 he was chosen Demonstrator of Morbid Anatomy. He proved himself so good a teacher that on May 30th, 1843, he was promoted to be Lecturer on General Anatomy and Physiology. On Aug. 10th, 1843, he was elected Warden of the College for Resident Students, then newly established at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, a post he resigned in October, 1851. In 1846 he drew up a catalogue of the anatomical and pathological museum of the Hospital, which showed evidence of the careful descriptions and literary excellence which marked his later work at the Royal College of Surgeons. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to the Hospital on Feb. 24th, 1847, after a severe contest. The opposition was based on the ground that he had never filled the office of dresser or house surgeon, posts which had always been considered essential qualifications in every candidate for the surgical staff. Paget, however, came out at the top of the poll with 142 votes - Andrew Melville Mcwhinnie (q.v.), who was Demonstrator of Anatomy and Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy, receiving 78, and Robert Rainey Pennington, nephew of a well-known and fashionable apothecary, 22 votes. He lectured on physiology in the medical school from 1859-1861; became full Surgeon in 1861; held the Lectureship on Surgery from 1865-1869, and resigned the office of Surgeon in May, 1871, although he gave an occasional lecture as Consulting Surgeon. He was Surgeon to the Bluecoat School (Christ's Hospital), then situated in Newgate Street, from 1862-1871. At the Royal College of Surgeons he prepared the descriptive catalogue of the pathological specimens contained in the Hunterian Museum, which appeared at intervals between 1846 and 1849. He was Arris and Gale Professor of Anatomy and Surgery from 1847-1852; a Member of the Council from 1865-1889; a Vice-President in 1873 and 1874; Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1874; and President in 1875. He was also the representative of the College at the General Medical Council from 1876-1881; Hunterian Orator in 1877; the first Bradshaw Lecturer in 1882, when he took as his subject "Some New and Rare Diseases"; and the first Morton Lecturer on cancer and cancerous diseases in 1887. Paget was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria in 1858, when he was only Assistant Surgeon at his Hospital. He attended Queen Alexandra, when Princess of Wales, during a long surgical illness, and was gazetted Surgeon to King Edward VII, whom as Prince of Wales he attended during the attack of typhoid fever in 1871. From 1867-1877 he held the office of Sergeant-Surgeon Extraordinary, and in 1877 he became Sergeant-Surgeon on the death of Sir William Fergusson (q.v.). He was created a baronet in August, 1871. He was President of the three chief medical societies of his time in London. He filled the chair of the Clinical Society in 1869, of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society in 1875, and of the Pathological Society in 1887. He acted as President of the International Medical Congress of Medicine held in London in 1881 with conspicuous success. In 1860 he became a member of the Senate of the University of London, and in 1883 he acted as Vice-Chancellor on the death of Sir George Jessel. He was elected F.R.S. in 1851, and held honorary degrees at Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Dublin, Bonn and Würzburg. He married in 1844 Lydia, daughter of the Rev. Henry North, domestic chaplain to the Duke of Kent and master of a private school at 1 Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park, which was affiliated to King's College, London. She died in 1895, having made his home ideally happy. The family consisted of four sons and two daughters. The eldest son, John, was a barrister and inherited the title; the second son, Francis, was successively Dean of Christ Church and Bishop of Oxford; the third, Henry Luke, became Bishop of Chester; Stephen (q.v.) inherited much of the talent of his father as a very skilful writer and an excellent speaker. The elder daughter married the Rev. H. L. Thompson, Warden of Radley College and afterwards Vicar of St. Mary's (the University) Church, Oxford; the younger daughter, Mary Maude, remained unmarried. Paget after leaving the Warden's house at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where his children were born, moved to 24 Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, in 1851, and in 1858 to 3 Harewood Place, Hanover Square, then shut off from Oxford Street by locked gates. Here he spent all his professional life, the accommodation for patients consisting of a single waiting-room which served as the dining-room, and a small consulting-room looking out on to a tiny garden; yet through these two rooms passed nearly all the interesting cases and many of the nobility of England. After he retired from practice he lived at 5 Park Square West, Regent's Park, and here he died peacefully of old age on Dec. 30th, 1899. He was buried in the Finchley Cemetery after the funeral service in Westminster Abbey. There is a tablet to his memory on the west wall of the church of St. Bartholomew-the-Less. A bust of Paget by Sir V. Edgar Boehm, Bart., R.A., is on the College staircase. It is a good likeness and there is a replica in the Museum at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. A three-quarter-length in oils by Sir John Everett Millais, R.A., of which there is an engraving, represents Paget lecturing at the age of 57, and hangs in the Great Hall at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. The portrait is a telling likeness, but shows signs of his recent recovery from a severe attack of blood poisoning caused by a post-mortem wound. It represents him with a sad expression, which was not usual with him. An admirable caricature by 'Spy' appeared in *Vanity Fair*; the likeness is poor, but the attitude is characteristic and perfect. It is reproduced in the *St. Bartholomew's Hospital Journal* (1925, xxxiii, frontispiece). He also appears in Jamyn Brooke's portrait group of the Council, 1884. Paget occupied a prominent position in the surgery of his day. He founded a school which would have been larger and more influential had it not been almost immediately eclipsed by the birth of bacteriology and the teaching of Lister. It is the peculiar merit of Paget that he made use of the microscope to elucidate the true nature of morbid growths. He was a good and efficient but not a great operating surgeon; his strength lay in diagnosis, which was perfected by his robust common sense, and in later life by his unrivalled experience. His sound knowledge of morbid anatomy, gained partly in museums and partly in the more perilous field of the post-mortem room, where he twice nearly lost his life, made him a link connecting the surgery of John Hunter with that of the present day. His perfect tact, his courtesy, and his real eloquence gave him ready access to the best circles in the Victorian era. The position he occupied as a teacher at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and the classical English of his writings, enabled him to exercise a much wider influence than would have been expected from his modest demeanour and somewhat retiring disposition. He was a great teacher because he was able to grasp principles and clothe them briefly and clearly in exquisite language. Those who will read aloud his Hunterian oration can still hear the cadences but not the actual tones of the orator. The influence of heredity was well shown in each of his distinguished sons, who reproduced quite unconsciously his attitude, his facial appearance, and many of his traits of character. Scrupulously honest and fair-minded, he acquired the chief surgical practice in London. During the busiest period of his life he was never outwardly in a hurry nor was he ever unpunctual in keeping an appointment. He had strong religious convictions and was always careful in the religious observances of the Church of England. In person he was slightly built and a little above medium height, his face rather long, his cheeks somewhat flushed, and his eyes bright. His voice was soft and musical; he spoke quietly, fluently, and apparently extemporaneously. His public utterances were carefully prepared beforehand, and were given an air of spontaneity by slight pauses, as though hesitating for an instant in the flow of thought. They were in reality flawless and were delivered without gesture of any sort. W. E. Gladstone thought so highly of his public speaking that he said he divided people into two classes, those who had and those who had not heard Sir James Paget. It was his habit to write in his carriage short paragraphs on torn pieces of paper, which, being placed together, formed a lucid and continuous statement. The names of Sir James Paget is associated with a chronic eczematous condition of the nipple associated with cancer of the breast, and with a chronic inflammation of the bones to which the name osteitis deformans has been given. A bibliography is given in the *Index Catalogue of the Surgeon General's Library* (series I and ii). The most interesting, and perhaps the most lasting, of his writings are *Studies of Old Case Books*, published in 1891.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000201
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Hewett, Sir Prescott Gardner (1812 - 1891)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-01 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372389372389
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details Born on July 3rd, 1812, the son of William N. W. Hewett, of Bilham House, near Doncaster, by his second wife. His father was a country gentleman whose fortune suffered from his love of horse-racing. Prescott Hewett received a good education and passed some years in Paris, where he acquired a perfect mastery of French, and learnt to paint in the studios, having at first intended to become a professional artist - a notion which he relinquished on becoming intimate with the son of an eminent French surgeon. He thus became inspired with a love for the surgical profession, and remained always an admirer of the French school of surgery. He never abandoned the practice of art, and his "delightful and exquisitely elaborate drawings" were exhibited, shortly before his death, in the Board Room at St. George's Hospital, "where one of these charming pictures now hangs near Ouless's portrait of its painter". He learned anatomy in Paris and became thoroughly grounded in the principles of French surgery. On his return to England he entered at St. George's, where he had family influence, his half-brother, Dr. Cornwallis Hewett, having been Physician to the hospital from 1825-1833. The excellence of his dissections recommended him to Sir Benjamin Brodie, and he was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy and Curator of the St. George's Hospital Museum when he was on the point of accepting a commission in the service of the H.E.I.C. He became Curator of the Museum about 1840, the first record in his handwriting being dated Jan. 1st, 1841. Here he began in 1844 the series of post-mortem records which have been continued on the same pattern ever since, and constitute a series of valuable pathological material which for duration and completedness is perhaps unmatched. Many of Brodie's preparations in the Museum of St. George's were put up by Hewett. He was appointed Lecturer on Anatomy in 1845 and Assistant Surgeon on Feb. 4th, 1848, becoming full surgeon on June 21st, 1861, in succession to Caesar H. Hawkins (q.v.), and Consulting Surgeon on Feb. 12th, 1875. He was elected President of the Pathological Society of London in 1863, and ten years later occupied the Presidential Chair of the Clinical Society. He was admitted F.R.S. on June 4th, 1874. He was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria in 1867, Sergeant-Surgeon Extraordinary in 1877 on the death of Sir William Fergusson (q.v.)., and Sergeant-Surgeon in 1884 in succession to Caesar Hawkins (q.v.). He also held from 1867 the appointment of Surgeon to the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII, and on Aug. 6th, 1883, he was created a baronet. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was Arris and Gale Professor of Human Anatomy and Physiology from 1854-1859, a Member of the Council from 1867-1883, Chairman of the Board of Examiners in Midwifery in 1875, Vice-President in 1874 and 1875, and President in 1876. Prescott Hewett married on Sept. 13th, 1849, Sarah, eldest daughter of the Rev. Joseph Cowell, of Todmorden, Lancashire, by whom he had one son, who only survived his father a few weeks, and two daughters. He died on June 19th, 1891, at Horsham, to which place he had retired on being created a baronet. As a teacher Hewett was admirable, for he could make his pencil explain his work. Gradually - for he was of a shy and retiring disposition - he became known first in professional circles as a first-rate anatomist and one of the best lecturers in London, then as an organizer of rare energy and power; lastly, as a most accomplished surgeon and an admirable operator. He was equally skilful in diagnosis, and his stores of experience could furnish cases in point in all medical discussions. Hewett, when Professor at the College of Surgeons, delivered a course of lectures on "Surgical Affections of the Head" which attracted the universal admiration of all surgeons; their author could never be persuaded to publish them, though when his friend and pupil Timothy Holmes (q.v.), afterwards edited a *System of Surgery*, Hewett embodied their contents in the exhaustive treatise on "Injuries of the Head" which forms part of that work. His fastidious taste made him shrink form authorship, as indeed he shrank from all forms of personal display, for he had much professional learning which was always ready at command, and an easy lucid style. Lecturing he loved, and few lectured better. "He was," said one who knew him, "one of the fittest men in the world to instruct students, for he had all the clearness of expression which is required to impart knowledge of subjects teeming with difficulties of detail, his ready pencil would illustrate the most complicated anatomical descriptions, and his stores of experience could furnish cases in point in all discussions; the clinical instruction which he was wont to give in the wards was equally admirable. He was one of the most trustworthy of consultants, never failing to point out any error in diagnosis, yet with such perfect courtesy and delicacy that it was a pleasure to be corrected by him." He presided over the Clinical and Pathological Societies, but his increasing engagements prevented him from allowing himself to be nominated for the Presidency of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society, though he was deeply interested in its work, and had enriched its *Transactions* with some papers which became standard authorities on their respective subjects. Hewett started life as a poor man, and had every reason to feel the truth of the line, "Slow rises worth by poverty opprest". But he did rise gradually to eminence and distinction among the surgeons of London, and few men were more beloved by those who were connected with him in practice, whether as pupils or patients. "The reason", as one of his old pupils said, "was that he was emphatically a gentleman - a man who would not merely scorn a base action, but with whom anything base would be inconceivable." Hewett's collection of water-colour sketches was presented to the nation after his death, and were exhibited at the South Kensington Museum at the beginning of 1891. A half-length subscription portrait painted by W.W. Ouless, R.A., hangs in the Board Room at St. George's Hospital, and there is a photograph in the Council Album.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000202
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Erichsen, Sir John Eric (1818 - 1896)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-08 2012-03-22
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URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372393372393
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Copenhagen on July 19th, 1818, the eldest son of Eric Erichsen, banker at Copenhagen by his wife, who belonged to the Govett family of Somerset. The Erichsens are a well-known Danish family and the 'Palais Erichsen' in Copenhagen perpetuates the name. Eric Erichsen received his early education at the Mansion House School, Hammersmith, and studied medicine first at University College, London, where he was a pupil of Robert Liston (q.v.), and afterwards in Paris, where Amussat invited him to witness his first colotomy. He then returned to London and served as House Surgeon at University College Hospital. He bought on July 9th, 1843, a half-share in the lectureship on anatomy at the Westminster Hospital Medical School, his colleague being Dr. Robert Hunter, of Glasgow, who had paid £100 for the post in 1841. The lectures, which dealt with physiology as well as with anatomy, were given conjointly until 1846, when Erichsen bought out Hunter. The result was unsuccessful financially, as the Westminster authorities obtained the premises by compulsory purchase for city improvements and the school was discontinued from October, 1847, till 1849. In 1844 he acted as Secretary of the Physiological Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and was afterwards appointed a member of a small committee to undertake an experimental inquiry into the mechanism and effects of asphyxia and to suggest methods for its prevention and cure. He drew up a report published in 1845 under the title "An Essay on Asphyxia", and was rewarded, on the recommendation of Sir Benjamin Brodie, by the Royal Humane Society with its Fothergillian Gold Medal. Erichsen was appointed Assistant Surgeon to University College Hospital in 1848 in succession to John Phillips Potter (q.v.), the promising young surgeon who died of pyæmia contracted in dissecting a pelvis for Robert Liston, whose House Surgeon he had been. John Marshall (q.v.) was elected Assistant Surgeon on the same day to a vacancy arising by Syme's return to Edinburgh disgusted with life in London. Moncrieff Arnott succeeded Syme but quickly resigned, and in 1850 Erichsen became full Surgeon to the hospital at the age of 32. The appointment carried with it the Chair of Surgery at University College. Erichsen resigned the professorship on his becoming Holme Professor of Clinical Surgery in 1866. The office of Surgeon he retained until 1875, when he was elected Consulting Surgeon. At the College of Surgeons he served as a member of the Council from 1869-1885, a member of the Court of Examiners from 1875-1879, Vice-President 1878-1879, and President in 1880. He was a busy reformer at first in College politics, but later he opposed the democratic demands of the Members on the ground that the Fellows, as an aristocracy of intellect, should have a monopoly of the College franchise. He put forward this view in a pamphlet, but it was on his motion that the first meeting of the Fellows and Members was called in 1870. Erichsen was President of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society from 1879-1881, and in 1881 he was President of the Surgical Section at the meeting in London of the International Medical Congress. As a Liberal he contested unsuccessfully in 1885 the parliamentary representation of the United Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews. He was elected F.R.S. in 1876, and the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by the University of Edinburgh in 1884. The Royal University of Ireland elected him an honorary M.Ch. in 1887 and in the same year he was made an honorary F.R.C.S.I. In 1887 he was appointed the first Inspector under the Vivisection Act (39 & 40 Vic., c. 77), and in the same year he was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to the Queen. He was created a baronet in January, 1895 - but the honour which he chiefly prized was his election in 1887 to the important and dignified post of President of the Council of University College, an office he held until his death. He married in 1842 Mary Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Captain Thomas Cole, R.N.; she died in 1893. There were no children. He died at Folkestone on Sept. 23rd, 1896, and was buried in Hampstead Cemetery. As a surgeon Sir John Erichsen's reputation was world-wide. His strong faculty was his sound judgement ripened by a vast experience which gave him an almost unrivalled clinical insight. There was no man in the profession whose opinion in a difficult case was more justly held to be of great weight. He was especially interested in the results of railway accidents, and wrote a treatise on Concussion of the Spine which caused him to be a principal witness in cases brought against railway companies at a time when less was known about malingering and obscure nervous conditions than at present. He had, in his earlier days at least, no English superior as a clinical teacher. Lord Lister, Sir Henry Thompson, and Marcus Beck were amongst his house surgeons, and he may be looked upon as one of the makers of modern surgery. As a man he possessed a most attractive character. He was honourable and candid in all the relations of life, a generous friend, a gentleman in every sense of the word, of peculiar affability and courtliness of manner. Richard Quain had long refused to speak to him on the ground that he, although senior, had been passed over in favour of Erichsen, a junior, in the appointment to the Chair of Surgery at University College, but Sir John Erichsen's patience and conduct at length convinced Quain of the injustice of his attitude, To everyone's surprise the two men one day entered the hospital arm-in-arm. He was very successful in his profession and he owed much of this to a happy combination of good qualities. His work occupied a high place in surgical literature, and he was always ready to accept the surgical advances of younger men. He was a distinguished teacher in a school where many distinguished surgeons had preceded him. If he did not strike out any new path in the field of surgery, he possessed a sound judgement enlightened by a long experience, had much administrative talent, a wise eloquence, dignity of presence, and elevation of view. A bust by Hamo Thornycroft, R.A., presented to Erichsen on his retirement from the hospital stands in the Museum of University College. A replica is in the hall of the Royal College of Surgeons. It is a good likeness. He appears in Brookes's portrait group of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons and there is a lithograph portrait dated 1853 by Hullmandel and Walton after Baugnut. PUBLICATIONS: - Erichsen wrote a widely read and very excellent text-book on *The Science and Art of Surgery*. The 1st edition was published in 1853 in one volume of 950 pages with 250 illustrations. The 5th edition was issued in 1869 in two volumes. The 8th and 9th editions were edited by MARCUS BECK (q.v.), who brought it up to date as regards Listerian surgery; the 10th edition appeared under the supervision of RAYMOND JOHNSON. Editions from the 2nd London edition were published by Blanchard & Lea, of Philadelphia, in 1859, and again in 1860, and a copy was issued by the American Government to every medical officer in the Federal Army during the American Civil War. *The Science and Art of Surgery* was translated into German by Dr. Thudicum, of Halle; into Italian by Dr. Longhi, of Milan; and into Spanish by Drs. Benavente and Ribera. Parts of it also appeared in Chinese.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000206
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Wilson, Sir William James Erasmus (1809 - 1884)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-22 2014-07-23
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Occupation Dermatologist
Details William James Erasmus Wilson, generally known as Erasmus Wilson, was the son of William Wilson, a native of Aberdeen, who had been a Surgeon in the Navy and had settled as a parish surgeon at Dartford and Greenhithe in Kent. He afterwards opened a private asylum at Denham in Buckinghamshire. Erasmus was born on November 25th, 1809, in High Street, Marylebone, the house of his maternal grandfather, Erasmus Bransdorph, a Norwegian. He was educated at the Dartford Grammar School and afterwards at Swanscombe in Kent, but was soon called upon to help in his father's practice. At the age of 16 he became a resident pupil with George Langstaff (qv), Surgeon to the Cripplegate Dispensary, and began to attend the anatomical lectures given by John Abernathy at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. At his master's house he became acquainted with Jones Quain, Sir William Lawrence, and Thomas Wakley, whilst his skill in drawing and his neat dissections soon attracted general attention. Wilson was one of the first students at the Aldersgate School of Medicine, and won prizes for surgery and midwifery in the session 1829-1830. In 1831 he was asked by Jones Quain, Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at the London University, to become his Assistant. He accepted the post and was soon afterwards appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy. He filled this post until Jones Quain retired from the London University in 1836, when Wilson established a School of Anatomy, called Sydenham College, which proved unsuccessful. In 1840 he lectured upon anatomy and physiology at Middlesex Hospital, and in the same year he became assistant editor of the *Lancet* under Thomas Wakley, whose son, Thomas Henry Wakley (qv), he had 'coached'. He was also Consulting Surgeon to the St. Pancras Infirmary, and on Feb 20th, 1845, he was elected FRS. Erasmus Wilson began to devote himself more particularly to dermatology about 1840, largely, it is said, at the suggestion of Thomas Wakley, who advised him to link himself so closely with skins that when he entered a room the company would scratch themselves. He did so with such success that he left a fortune of £200,000. At the Royal College of Surgeons Erasmus Wilson sat on the Council from 1870-1884, was Vice-President in 1879 and 1880, and President in 1881. In 1870, at an expense of £5,000, he founded the Chair of Dermatology, of which he was the occupant till 1878. The Trust was varied in 1879, in 1881, and in 1908. The Professorship has now become the "Erasmus Wilson Lectureship". In 1870 he presented to the Museum his very extensive and valuable collection of drawings and models illustrative of diseases of the skin. In 1883 he gave to the Museum a valuable collection of anatomical specimens. The College marked its appreciation of these benefactions by presenting him with the Honorary Medal, which has only been bestowed thirteen times since it was instituted in 1802. Wilson was particularly fond of foreign travel. He visited the East to study leprosy, Switzerland and the Vallais to examine goitre, and Italy to become more closely acquainted with tinea pellagra and other diseases of the skin in the underfed and dirty vegetarian peasantry. He became particularly interested in the study of Egyptian antiquities, and in 1877 he paid the cost (about £10,000) of the transport of 'Cleopatra's Needle' to London. He was President of the Biblical Archæological Society and was President of the Medical Society of London in 1878 after he had given the Oration in 1876. One of the most notable incidents of Wilson's career occurred on the occasion of an inquest taking place at Hounslow upon the body of a soldier who had died from the effects of a regimental flogging. Owing greatly to Wilson's evidence a final verdict was returned by the jury, after ten adjournments, to the effect that the man had really died of his injuries. The coroner on this occasion was Wakley, and the result of the inquest was a Parliamentary inquiry, which led to the abolition of flogging in the army. He married Miss Doherty in 1841. She survived him, but there were no children. He died on August 7th, 1884, at Westgate-on-Sea, after two years of ill health. Erasmus Wilson ranks as one of the first and best of English specialists in diseases of the skin. He found the field of dermatology almost virgin. To his teaching we owe in a great measure the use of the bath which has since become a conspicuous feature in the life of our upper and middle classes, and to his advocacy is to be attributed the spread of the Turkish bath in England. Skillful investments in the shares of gas and railway companies made him a rich man, and he devoted his wealth to various charitable objects, for he was a prominent Freemason. He restored Swanscombe Church; he founded a scholarship at the Royal College of Music; and was a large subscriber to the Royal Medical Benevolent College at Epsom, where he built a house for the head master at his own expense. At a cost of nearly £30,000 he built a new wing and chapel at the Sea-Bathing Hospital at Margate, where diseases of the skin were extensively treated, and in 1881 he founded the Erasmus Wilson Professorship of Pathology at the University of Aberdeen in memory of his father. The bulk of his fortune reverted to the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1884 on the death of Lady Wilson. A bust by Thomas Brock, RA, stands in the Library of the College. It was ordered by the College on May 14th, 1885. A three-quarter-length portrait in oils in the robes of a Lecturer at the College of Surgeons is in the possession of the Medical Society of London. The Silver Medal presented to him by the Royal Humane Society is in the possession of the College. It was awarded for saving the life of Olivia Green, who attempted to commit suicide by jumping into the Regent's Park Canal on April 22nd, 1857. Publications: It is unquestionable that Wilson knew more about skin diseases than any man of his time. He identified the dermatological terms used by Celsus (vi, i-v) and thereby showed himself to be a learned as well as a practical physician. Hs works on dermatology, though they met with pretty searching criticism at the time of their appearance, have nearly all maintained their position as text-books. These works were: - *Diseases of the Skin*, 1842; 4th ed., Philadelphia, 1857. *On the Management of the Skin as a Means of Promoting and Preserving Health. Ringworm*, 8vo, London, 1847. *Atlas of Portraits of Diseases of the Skin*, folio, London, 1848-55. *The Anatomist's Vade Mecum*, 8vo, London; 2nd ed, 1842; 11th ed, 1892. "Skin" in Cooper's famous *Surgical Dictionary*. He also prepared elaborate anatomical plates in conjunction with Jones Quain, and published various articles and reports in the scientific journals. *History of the Middlesex Hospital during the First Century of its Existence*, 8vo, London, 1845. In 1867 he established the *Journal of Cutaneous Medicine and Diseases of the Skin*, and acted as editor until 1870.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000207
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Wells, Sir Thomas Spencer (1818 - 1897)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-22 2012-03-14
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Occupation General surgeon Obstetric and gynaecological surgeon Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Born at St. Albans, Hertfordshire, on February 3rd, 1818, the son of William Wells, a builder, by his wife Harriet, daughter of William Wright, of Bermondsey. He soon showed a marked interest in natural science and was sent as a pupil, without being formally apprenticed, to Michael Thomas Sadler, a general practitioner at Barnsley in Yorkshire. He afterwards lived for a year with one of the parish surgeons at Leeds, where he attended the lectures of William Hey II (q.v.) and Thomas Pridgin Teale the elder (q.v.), and saw much practice at the Leeds infirmary. In 1836 he went to Trinity College, Dublin, where he learnt more surgery from Whitley Stokes, Sir Philip Crampton, and Arthur Jacob. In 1839 he entered St. Thomas's Hospital, London, to complete his education under Joseph Henry Green (q.v.), Benjamin Travers, senr. (q.v.), and Frederick Tyrell. Here, at the end of the first session, he was awarded the prize for the most complete and detailed account of the post-mortem examinations made in the Hospital during the time of his attendance. He joined the Navy as an Assistant Surgeon as soon as he had qualified, and served for six years in the Naval Hospital at Malta. He combined a civil practice with his naval duties, and was so highly spoken of that the Royal College of Surgeons of England elected him a Fellow in 1844. His term of service at Malta being completed, he left the Navy in 1848, having been promoted Surgeon on Feb. 3rd of that year. He then proceeded to Paris to study pathology under Magendie and to see the gunshot wounds which filled the hospitals after the struggle in June, 1848. He afterwards accompanied the Marquis of Northampton on a journey to Egypt, where he made some valuable observations on malarial fever. Wells settled in practice at 30 Brook Street, London, in 1853 and devoted himself at first to ophthalmic surgery. In 1854 he was elected Surgeon to the Samaritan Free Hospital for Women and Children, which was then an ordinary dwelling-house - 27 Orchard Street, Portman Square - with hardly any equipment. It had been established for seven years and was little more than a dispensary, as there was no accommodation for in-patients. About the same time he was editor of the *Medical Times* and *Gazette* for seven years (1851 ?-1858). Wells temporarily abandoned his work in London on the outbreak of the Crimean War, volunteered, and was sent first to Smyrna, where he was attached as Surgeon to the British Civil Hospital, and afterwards to Renkioi in the Dardanelles. He returned to London in 1856, and in 1857 lectured on surgery at the School of Anatomy and Medicine adjoining St. George's Hospital, which was commonly known as 'Lane's School'. Wells did an unusual amount of midwifery in his youth, but never thought seriously about ovariotomy until one day in 1848 when he discussed the matter at Paris with Dr. Edward Waters, afterwards of Chester. Both surgeons came to the conclusion that, as surgery then stood, ovariotomy was an unjustifiable operation. Spencer Wells and Thomas Nunn (q.v.) of the Middlesex Hospital assisted Baker Brown (q.v.) in his eighth ovariotomy in April, 1854. This was the first time that Wells had seen the operation, and he admitted afterwards that the fatal result discouraged him. The ninth ovariotomy was equally unsuccessful, and Baker Brown himself ceased to operate on these cases from March, 1856, until October, 1858, when Wells's success encouraged him to recommence. The experience of abdominal wounds in the Crimea had shown Wells that the peritoneum was much more tolerant of injury than was generally supposed. He therefore proceeded to do his first ovariotomy in 1858 and was not disheartened although the patient died. He devoted himself assiduously to perfect the technique, and the rest of his life is practically a history of the operation from its earliest and imperfect stage, through its polemical period, to the position it now occupies as a well-recognized and most serviceable operation, still capable perhaps of improvement, but advantageous alike to the individual, the family, and the State. It has saved many lives throughout the world, has opened up the field of abdominal surgery, and has thereby revolutionized surgical practice. Wells completed his first successful ovariotomy in February, 1858, but it was not until 1864 that the operation was generally accepted by the medical profession. This acceptance was due chiefly to the wise manner in which Wells conducted his earlier operations. He persistently invited medical men in authority to see him operate. He published series after series of cases, giving full accounts of the unsuccessful as well as the successful cases, until in 1880 he had performed his thousandth ovariotomy. He had operated at the Samaritan Free Hospital for exactly twenty years when he resigned his office of Surgeon in 1878 and was appointed Consulting Surgeon. He frequently modified his methods throughout the whole of this time, and always towards greater simplicity. The hospital never contained more than twenty beds, and of these no more than four or five were ever available for patients needing ovariotomy. At the Royal College of Surgeons Spencer Wells was a Member of Council from 1871-1895; Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology, 1877-1888, his lectures dealing with "The Diagnosis and Surgical Treatment of Abdominal Tumours"; Vice-President, 1880-1881 ; President, 1882 ; Hunterian Orator, 1883 ; Morton Lecturer "On Cancer and Cancerous Diseases", 1888 ; and Bradshaw Lecturer "On Modern Abdominal Surgery" in 1890. He received many honours, acting as Surgeon to the Household of Queen Victoria from 1863-1896 ; he was created a baronet on May 11th, 1883, and he was a Knight Commander of the Norwegian Order of St. Olaf. He married in 1853 Elizabeth Lucas (*d*. 1886), daughter of James Wright, solicitor, of New Inn and of Sydenham, by whom he left five daughters and one son, Arthur Spencer Wells, who was Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1893-1895. Spencer Wells's operations were models of surgical procedure. He worked in absolute silence, he took the greatest care in the selection of his instruments, and he submitted his assistants to a rigorous discipline which proved of the highest value to them in after-life. At the end of every operation he personally superintended the cleaning and drying of each instrument. He was an ardent advocate of cremation, and it was chiefly due to his efforts and to those of Sir Henry Thompson (q.v.) that this method of disposing of the dead was brought into early use in England. Almost to the last Wells had the appearance of a healthy, vigorous country gentleman, with much of the frankness and bonhomie of a sailor. He was an excellent rider, driver, and judge of horseflesh. Besides his London residence, 3 Upper Grosvenor Street, he owned the house and fine gardens at Golder's Green, Hampstead, which were bought for public recreation in 1898. He drove himself daily in a mail phaeton with a splendid pair of horses down the Finchley Road from one house to the other, dressed in a grey frock-coat with a flower in the buttonhole and a tall white top hat. A half-length oil painting by Rudolph Lehmann executed in 1884 represents Wells sitting in the robes of a President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. It was bequeathed to the Royal College of Surgeons at his death. A bust executed in 1879 by Oscar Liebreich is in possession of the family. He appears in Jamyn Brookes's portrait group of the Council. PUBLICATIONS:- *The Scale of Medicines with which Merchant Vessels are to be Furnished…with Observations on the Means of Preserving the Health and Increasing the Comforts of Seaman*, 12 mo, London, 1851 ; 2nd ed., 8vo, 1861. *Practical Observations on Gout and its Complications,* 8vo, London, 1854. *Cancer Cures and Cancer Curers*, 8vo, London, 1860. *Diseases of the Ovaries : their Diagnosis and Treatment,* 8vo, London - vol. i, 1865 ; vol. ii, 1872. It was also issued in America, and was translated into German, Leipzig, 1866 and 1874. *Note-book for Cases of Ovarian and other Abdominal Tumours*, 8vo, London, 1865 ; 2nd ed., 1868 ; 7th ed., 1887. Translated into Italian, Milan, 12mo, 1882. *On Ovarian and Uterine Tumours, their Diagnosis and Treatment*, 8vo, London, 1882. Translated into Italian, 8vo, Milan, 1882. *Diagnosis and Surgical Treatment of Abdominal Tumours*, 8vo, London, 1885. Translated into French, 8vo, Paris, 1886.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000208
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Marshall, John (1818 - 1891)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-22 2012-03-13
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URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372396372396
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Ely in Cambridgeshire on Sept. 11th, 1818, the second son of William Marshall, solicitor, an excellent naturalist. John Marshall's elder brother, William (d. 1890), sometime Coroner for Ely, was an enthusiastic botanist, who first elucidated the life-history of the American pond-weed, *Anacharis alsinastrum*, which had been accidentally introduced into this country and had done much damage to the waterways. John Marshall was educated at Hingham, Norfolk, under J. H. Browne, uncle of Hablot K. Browne ('Phiz'), and was apprenticed to Dr. Wales in Wisbech. He entered University College, London, in 1838, where William Sharpey was lecturing on physiology. He was on terms of intimacy with Robert Liston for many years, acting for a time as his private assistant and beginning to practise at 10 Crescent Place, Mornington Crescent. He succeeded Thomas Morton (q.v.) about 1845 as Demonstrator of Anatomy at University College, and in 1847, by the influence of Quain and Sharpey, he was appointed an extra Assistant Surgeon at University College Hospital. The appointment caused considerable surprise, for Marshall was looked upon as an anatomist, who had never held the office of house surgeon, and had shown no special surgical aptitude. He moved to George Street, Hanover Square, and in 1854 to Savile Row, where he remained until his retirement to Cheyne Walk, Chelsea - the west corner house overlooking the bridge. On June 11th, 1857, he was elected F.R.S., after presenting in 1849 a valuable piece of original work "On the Development of the Great Anterior Veins in Man and Mammalia" (*Phil. Trans.*, 1850, cxl, 133). In 1866 he was appointed Surgeon and Professor of Surgery at University College in succession to John Eric Erichsen (q.v.), and in 1884 he retired with the rank of Consulting Surgeon to the Hospital. Many thought at the time of his appointment as Professor of Surgery that the post should have been offered to Lister. At the College his career was extremely active. He became a Member in 1844, a Fellow in 1849, was a Member of Council from 1873-1890, of the Court of Examiners from 1873-1881, was representative of the College on the General Medical Council from 1881-1891, Vice-President in 1881 and 1882, President in 1883, Bradshaw Lecturer in 1883, his subject being "Nerve-stretching for the Relief or Cure of Pain", Hunterian Orator in 1885, and Morton Lecturer in 1889. He was official representative of the College at the Tercentenary of the University of Edinburgh, on which occasion he was created LL.D. He acted as President of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society of London in 1882-1883, and in 1887 he replaced Sir Henry Acland as President of the General Medical Council. For four years he held the Chair of Fullerian Professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution. Marshall adopted the galvano-cautery, and the operation for the excision of varicose veins. This operation was at first violently assailed; it is now accepted. He was one of the first to show that cholera might be spread by means of drinking water, and issued an interesting report on the outbreak of cholera in Broad Street, Soho, in 1854. He also advocated the system of circular wards for hospitals, and to him are largely owing the details of the modern medical student's education. He also tried hard to establish a teaching University in London. He gave his first course of lectures on anatomy to the art students at Marlborough House in 1853, a course which he repeated when the art schools were removed to South Kensington. On May 16th, 1873, he was appointed Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy. This office he held until his death, and his great facility in drawing on the blackboard gave additional attraction to his lectures. He died at his house in Cheyne Row, after a short illness from bronchitis, on New Year's Day, 1891, survived by his wife, one son, and two daughters. A bust of him by Thomas Thornycroft, dated 1852, is in the possession of the family; another, by Thomas Brock, R.A., dated 1887, was presented to University College by Sir John Tweedy (q.v.) on behalf of the subscribers to the Marshall Memorial Fund. A replica is in the College Hall. He appears in Jamyn Brookes's portrait group of the Council. Marshall was a good surgeon of the old school, who failed to appreciate the new surgery introduced by Lister, which was enthusiastically taken up by the younger men at University College Hospital. He was a somewhat slow operator and an uninspiring teacher. Verbatim notes of his lectures taken by James Stanton Cluff are preserved in the Library of the College, to which they were presented to Sir John Tweedy after passing through the hands of Marcus Beck.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000209
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Forster, John Cooper (1823 - 1886)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-22 2012-03-22
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Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details Born in Mount Street, Lambeth, where his father and grandfather had carried on a successful practice. The house was at the junction of the Westminster Bridge Road with Kennington Lane. It had a large garden, which Forster tended as a boy, and thus gained his lifelong love for flowers and ferns. He was educated at King's College School, then under the headmastership of Dr. Major, and entered Guy's Hospital in 1841. He acted as dresser for Aston Key (q.v.), and was captain and trainer of the Guy's Hospital Boat Club, which he raised to a high state of efficiency. He graduated M.B. at the University of London in 1847 after gaining the Gold Medal in Surgery. Between 1844 and 1850, whilst waiting for an appointment at Guy's, he held the post of Surgeon to the Surrey Dispensary, and was one of the very first to administer anaesthetics in the hospital. He was also Surgeon to the Royal Hospital for Women and Children in the Waterloo Bridge Road, a position he held for many years. In 1848 he visited Paris to study gunshot wounds. He was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy at Guy's Hospital in 1850, and in the same year married Adela, the only daughter of Munden Hammond, of Kennington, by whom he had seven children. At this time he was living at 11 Wellington Square, the back of his house looking on to St. Saviour's Church, and the front into the large square of St. Thomas's Hospital. He was bequeathed a considerable fortune in 1859, and in 1864 he moved to 10 St. Thomas's Street, where two of his children died of diphtheria, and later in life he lived at 29 Upper Grosvenor Street. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to Guy's Hospital in 1855, and in 1870 he succeeded John Hilton (q.v.) as full Surgeon. This post he resigned in 1880, when Senior Surgeon, the occasion being an unfortunate dispute with the Treasurer and Governors of the hospital caused by some necessary changes in connection with the nursing staff introduced by a new matron somewhat untactfully. Dr. Habershon, the Senior Physician, resigned at the same time. Their action met with the sympathy of many former members of the school, four hundred of whom subscribed to a testimonial and a presentation of silver plate. Cooper Forster was a member of the Council of college from 1875-1886, of the Court of Examiners from 1875-1884, Vice-President in 1882-1883, and President in 1884. During his year of office he did much to promote the establishment with the Royal College of Physicians of a Conjoint Examining Board for England which enabled students to be examined satisfactorily both in medicine and surgery. On the day he ceased to be President he ceased to practise, although for many years his easy circumstances had led him not to desire private patients. He died of an obscure illness, which was not elucidated by a post-mortem examination, at his house in Upper Grosvenor Street on March 2nd, 1886, and was survived by his wife, one son and three daughters. Cooper Forster had a good, bold, and neat hand, which made him a skilful operator. When Dr. Habersohn, his medical colleague, proposed that he should follow Sédillot in opening the stomach in the case of cancer of the œsophagus in 1858 he did so readily, and thus performed what was practically the first gastrostomy in England. The operation was undertaken too late and the patient died forty-five hours after its completion. He went to Aberdeen in 1867 to study Pirie's methods of arresting hæmorrhage by acupressure, practiced it enthusiastically for a few months, and then returned to torsion of the arteries, known as 'the Guy's method' of stopping bleeding during amputations. He is described as quick in forming an opinion and in deciding upon a line of treatment, impatient of 'fads', deficient in scientific knowledge, and essentially a practical surgeon. His clinical lectures were noted for their decisiveness, terseness, and abounding common sense ; but he disliked lecturing, and having been appointed Lecturer on Surgery in succession to John Poland (q.v.), he soon resigned. Personally as well as socially he was a striking figure : considerably over six feet in height and of a commanding presence, he had a handsome expression ; his head was covered with bushy black hair ; quick and lively in manner, always courteous, he was, as he seemed, a great gentleman. He loved rowing, and his dinghy and four-oared boat manned by his family were well known on the Thames from Richmond to Oxford. When rowing became too strenuous for him he took to fly fishing, and later still in life he was accustomed to take a country walk on every fine Sunday. He carefully ascertained the direction of the wind before starting, took the train against it, and walked back with the wind behind him. He was a keen horticulturist, and his house in Grosvenor Street contained one of the best ferneries in London. After his death Mrs. Forster gave his *Trichomones reniforme* to the Conservatory at Kew Gardens. Cooper Forster was also a gourmet, and nothing pleased him more than to entertain his friends either at home or at Greenwich with a very carefully chosen bill of fare and the most choice wines. He is the central figure as President in Jamyn Brookes's portrait group of the Council, which hangs in the Hall of the College, and there is a portrait in the Council Album. Both are good likenesses.
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Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Savory, Sir William Scovell (1826 - 1895)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-22 2012-03-09
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Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Monument Yard, London, on Nov. 30th, 1826. His father, William Henry Savory, a surgeon long resident at St. Mary-at-Hill, was churchwarden of the parish ; his mother was Mary Webb, the second wife. The younger son, Charles Tozer Savory (1829-1913), who was M.D. St. Andrews, practised in Canonbury. His father dying young, both children were brought up by their mother and appear to have been educated privately. William entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1844 and distinguished himself by winning the chief prizes. He served temporarily as House Surgeon to Edward Stanley (q.v.), and afterwards won the Scholarship and Gold Medal in Comparative Anatomy and Physiology in 1848 ; the Gold Medal in Surgery ; the Gold Medal in Midwifery, and honours in medicine at the London University. At St. Bartholomew's Hospital he was appointed a Demonstrator of Anatomy and Teacher of Operative Surgery in 1849, posts he held until June 21st, 1859. It was resolved by the Committee of the Medical School on Sept. 21st, 1850, that a tutor should be appointed to supervise the studies of students reading for degrees in the University of London. Savory was chosen and retained office until 1859. In 1859 he was appointed Lecturer on General Anatomy and Physiology in succession to Sir James Paget (q.v.). The post carried with it the Curatorship of the Museum, to the enrichment of which he especially devoted himself, adding many pathological specimens and leaving everything in admirable order when he resigned it in 1869. Eusebius Lloyd (q.v.) resigned the office of Surgeon of the Hospital in 1861. He was succeeded by Thomas Wormald (q.v.), and Savory was elected Assistant Surgeon, becoming Surgeon in 1867 on the retirement of Wormald. He followed Paget as Lecturer on Surgery in 1869, at first jointly with Holmes Coote (q.v.), then with George William Callender (q.v.) ; finally from 1879-1889, and at the special request of his colleagues, he remained the sole Lecturer, worthily maintaining and even enhancing the reputation made by his predecessors Abernathy, Lawrence, and Paget. The emoluments which he received for his clinical duties in the hospital and for his lectures in the medical school during the year 1881-1882 exceeded £2000 exclusive of 'dressers' fees', and was probably the largest income ever received for surgical teaching in London. He resigned all his appointments in 1891 on reaching the age limit of 65, when he was elected Consulting Surgeon and a Governor of the Hospital. Early in his career he was Surgeon to the Royal General Dispensary, and for many years was Surgeon to the Foundling Hospital. At the Royal College of Surgeons Savory was Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology from 1859-1861, a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1870-1884, and of the Dental Board, 1873-1878. Elected a Member of the Council in 1877, he was Vice-President in 1883 and 1884 ; President for the years 1885, 1886, 1887, and 1888, a sequence which had never before occurred ; and a Trustee in 1893. He delivered the Bradshaw Lecture, "On the Pathology of Cancer", in 1884, and was Hunterian Orator in 1887. His oration was as unique in its style as in its substance. It was an admirable exposition of Hunter's work and character, delivered without a note, in faultless periods, in the presence of those who were themselves masters of oratory. He was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria in 1887, and in 1890 he was created a baronet. Savory wrote little. He read a paper at the Royal Society on Dec. 18th, 1851, on "The Valves of the Heart" (published 8vo, London, 1852), in which he explained thoroughly the structure, connections, and arrangements of the valves. He also contributed papers to the *Proceedings of the Royal Society* "On the Development of Striated Muscular Fibre in Mammalia" (1854-5, vii, 194), and in 1857 an account of experiments "On the Relative Temperature of Arterial and Venous Blood", and was elected F.R.S. in 1858. He published in 1863 (8vo, London) four lectures on *Life and Death*, which had been delivered before the Royal Institution. He lived at first at 13 Charterhouse Square - a house on the east side - because the unwritten rule of the hospital required the Assistant Surgeons to live within a reasonable distance, which was interpreted as a mile. Most of his professional life was spent at 66 Brook Street, Grosvenor Square. Shortly before his death he bought Woodlands, Stoke Poges, Bucks, where he had intended to spend the evening of his life. He married on Nov. 30th, 1854, Louisa Frances Borradaile (*d.* 1868), by whom he had one child, Borradaile (*d.* 1906), who became M.A. Cantab. and Rector of St. Bartholomew's-the-Great adjoining the hospital in West Smithfield. Savory died at 66 Brook Street on March 4th, 1895, of a cardiac attack associated with influenza, shortly after the death of his friend, J. Whitaker Hulke (q.v.), which had greatly affected him. A marble bust of Savory was executed by Hope Pinker, R.A., in 1888. It was subscribed for by his thirty-five house surgeons, each of whom received a terra-cotta miniature. The original is in the possession of his grandson, Sir William Borradaile Savory, Bart., at Stoke Poges. A replica stands in the Council Room at the College of Surgeons in Lincoln's Inn Fields and is a very striking likeness. A seated portrait by Walter Ouless, R.A., hangs in the Great Hall at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. It was painted for his colleagues and friends in 1891 and has been engraved. It is a fair likeness, but is wanting in the forceful character which was always expressed in Savory's face. He appears as a Vice-President in Jamyn Brookes's portrait group of the College Council in 1884. Savory was an outstanding figure in the surgical world of his time. A clear thinker and a great orator, he dominated every assembly in which he took a part, and he did this by sheer force of character, for he never raised his voice nor did he lose his temper. At the College of Surgeons he was masterful, and as President guided its fortunes through several perilous years. As an examiner he was just, critical, and sufficiently sarcastic to be a terror to the idle and ignorant, though he honours candidate had nothing to fear. At St. Bartholomew's Hospital he upheld the great surgical traditions of the school, which taught that each should act to the best of his ability, be scrupulously honest in word and deed, fear no one, and act together for the good of the Institution. In the operating theatre he showed himself to be a great surgeon of the old anatomical school. He was ambidextrous, and performed the classic operations of amputation, lithotomy, and the ligature of arteries in their continuity with great skill and extraordinary rapidity ; but he struck out no new line, was averse to opening the sac in operations for strangulated hernia, and viewed interferences with the venous system with horror. These limitations led him to oppose the teaching of Lister in his celebrated address at the Cork Meeting of the British Medical Association in 1879, when he uttered the last formal pronouncement against Lister. The address is in perfect good taste, but shows that he was quite unable to follow advances which had been made in the science he had taught so long. Savory was a born orator. He spoke without notes and without preparation, in full rounded periods and with slight but appropriate gesture to emphasize the point he was making. He thus differed entirely from Paget, after whom he usually spoke at hospital meetings. It was of the greatest interest to compare the two - the one suave, fluent with a cadence in his sentences which could be recalled ; Savory more rugged, with a deeper voice, arresting by the matter as well as the delivery, and without compromise - yet both great speakers and remarkably fluent. As a man Savory was considerably above middle height, loosely built, somewhat shambling in gait - for he was flat-footed - clean-shaven, with sharp-cut features, and hair that curled slightly at the end. His face was expressive and marked him out at once as a man beyond the ordinary. He had various little mannerisms which betrayed his state of mind to those who knew him best - the working of his masseters when he was out of humour, the scratching of is right ear when he was pleased or puzzled. He never laughed, and rarely smiled. He made no pretence of clinical teaching, but he inspired all his house surgeons with respect, and they learnt from him the art of so treating patients after operation as to ensure a speedy convalescence. In private life he was wholly different. He was a lover of home, and, belonging to a generation which played no games, he spent much of his life in his study. A lonely man, who felt keenly the loss of his wife, he was cared for at first by Miss Borradaile, his sister-in-law, and afterwards by his daughter-in-law, Florence Julia (*d.* 1902), the daughter of his old friend Dr. F. W. Pavy. To his friends, like Hulke (q.v.) and Henry Power (q.v.), he was as true as steel. Throughout his life he showed evidence of his Cockney upbringing, for he systematically failed to pronounce the aspirate *h*. He was conscious of the omission, but took no steps to amend it, and showed no feeling except that of amusement when his son used to go round the room with a hearth-broom and fire-shovel, saying, "Father, I am sweeping up the *h*'s you have dropped."
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First Title value, for Searching Hutchinson, Sir Jonathan (1828 - 1913)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-04 2012-03-22
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Occupation Dermatologist Ophthalmologist Pathologist Venereologist
Details Born on July 23rd, 1828, the second son of Jonathan Hutchinson and Elizabeth Massey, both members of the Society of Friends, at Selby, Yorkshire. Hutchinson continued throughout life to exhibit some of the external characteristics of a Quaker. After an education at Selby, he was early apprenticed to Caleb Williams (q.v.), Lecturer on Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the York School of Medicine, and he attended the York Hospital. At this very small York School of Medicine he received individual instruction from Dr. Thomas Laycock - later Professor of Medicine in Edinburgh - which made a life-long impression, on the importance of heredity, and of physiognomy in diagnosis. He passed on to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where Sir James Page's influence was dominant; he studied under him, including the subject of syphilis, and qualified M.R.C.S. in 1850. He then pursued the post-graduate study of which he became afterwards such a strong advocate. He acted as Assistant Physician at the City of London Hospital for Diseases of the Chest; Surgeon to the Metropolitan Free Hospital; Surgeon to the Royal Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields (1862-1878), where he had Edward Nettleship (q.v.) as Assistant; Surgeon to the Blackfriars Hospital for Diseases of the Skin; and Assistant Surgeon to the Lock Hospital for a while from 1862. He continued Surgeon to the Moorfields and Blackfriars Hospitals for many years. He was appointed Assistant Surgeon to the London Hospital in 1860; and after passing the F.R.C.S. examination in 1862 became Surgeon until 1883, then Consulting Surgeon. From 1862 he lectured on the principles and practice of surgery, from 1863 on medical ophthalmology, and in that year gained the Guy's Hospital Astley Cooper Prize for his essay "On Injuries of the Head". After 1883 he gave an annual course of lectures as Emeritus Professor of Surgery. A Triennial Prize for an essay was instituted to commemorate his services and teaching. He was an active member of various London medical societies and served as the President of five of the most important. At the meeting called to wind up the old Sydenham Society he proposed a continuation as the New Sydenham Society, of which he was Secretary from 1859-1907. The translations from the chief writings of Continental authorities constitute an extraordinarily well-selected collection. The publications especially due to him in the New Sydenham Society were the *Atlas of Skin Diseases* and *The Atlas of Drug Eruptions.* At the Royal College of Surgeons he was Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology, 1879-1883; Member of Council, 1879-1895; Member of the Court of Examiners, 1880-1887; Bradshaw Lecturer, 1888; President, 1889 (returning to the previous custom of holding office for one year, broken by the four years' tenure of his predecessor, W. S. Savory); Hunterian Orator, 1891; Trustee of the Hunterian Collection, 1897. He sat on the Royal Commission on Small-pox and Fever Hospitals, 1881, and that on Vaccination, 1890-1896; his demonstration of vaccino-syphilis as a possible consequent of arm-to-arm vaccination put a stop to that method of vaccinating. As Hunterian Professor he gave six lectures on "Neuropathogenesis, chiefly with reference to Diseases of the Eye, Skin, Joints, etc.", four lectures "On Some of the Surgical Aspects of Gout and Rheumatism", and two lectures "On the Etiology of True Leprosy". His Bradshaw Lecture dealt with "Museums in reference to Medical Education and the Advance of Knowledge". Jonathan Hutchinson, as a clinical diagnostician by naked-eye observations, was one of the great medical geniuses of his time, and there is no one superior in the history of medicine, whether in the diagnosis of cases in surgery, ophthalmology, dermatology, or syphilology. This was conjoined with a peculiar strain of philosophy. He was a colleague of another extraordinary genius in neurology and philosophy - Hughlings Jackson - and the interest of the two met over the ophthalmic side of neurology, and the general use of the ophthalmoscope as an instrument of diagnosis. His remarkable talent was exhibited in the discovery of syndromes; his audience supposed he was exhibiting a rare case, but after listening to him they discovered that they were able to recognize such cases, and his syndromes have now become commonplaces in the text-books. Examples are his 'triad' in inherited syphilis - deformity and notching of the teeth, labyrinthine deafness, and interstitial keratitis; defects in children's teeth, associated with infantile convulsion and lamellar cataract; the peculiar physiognomy in ophthalmoplegia and tabes dorsalis; the inequality of the pupils in cerebral compression; gout and haemorrhages; tobacco amblyopia; and idiosyncrasies of many kinds. He had, too, a remarkable fund of illustration and simple comparison - the 'apple-jelly' appearance of some forms of lupus; the imitative characteristics of the superficial appearances of syphilis. He had a slow and precise delivery, with eyes turned to the ground. An endless series of cases were stored in his memory, recalled by the initial of the patient's name and the outstanding feature presented. His broad-minded philosophy made him hold, as to his rare cases, that they afforded clues to the pathology of the class, links between some one already recognized group and another. His crowded audiences listened intently as he passed, by some ingenious connection, from one subject to another - a custom defended by him on the plea that, for the attention of his audience, a 'mixed diet' was needed. At the hospital one lecture had as title, "On Fairy Rings and Allied Phenomena". From fairy rings in fields, he passed on to ringworms and herpes, phenomena he held to be allied. One lecture at Haslemere commenced with the earth's crust, passed to elephants, and ended on John Wesley; another, on whales, tailed off to Wordsworth's poetry, and then to social questions relating to tuberculosis and leprosy. No one of his colleagues equalled him in a 'spotting diagnosis', for he was nearly always right, very exceptionally wrong. A young surgeon who had married and was beginning surgery broke out into a rash all over, which rapidly became nodular. Several who saw him murmured, "Syphilis, however acquired", until 'Jonathan' at once said, "General sarcomatosis", and this was confirmed in a few weeks. In another case, however, he diagnosed syphilis, in spite of the patient's protests that he had not undergone exposure, and in a couple of days small-pox was evident. His genius in diagnosis and his philosophy were remarkably combined in all he wrote and said on syphilis. At the discussions on the pathology of syphilis at the London Pathological Society in 1876 (*Pathol. Soc. Trans.*, 1876, xxvii, 341) he held that the condition was due to a specific and living microbe, contagious and transmissible only so long as the microbe retained its vitality. "Someone will see it one day, for it is beyond doubt that it must be there" (p. 446). With this should be compared Moxon's sarcasms whilst avoiding question of causation (pp. 403-410), the gibe by Gull - "Well, I think syphilis is a flesh and blood disease" (p. 415). He taught the treatment of early syphilis by long persistence in the administration of metallic mercury by the mouth, very finely divided as 'grey powder', the course being interrupted at increasing intervals, for two to three years, but always short of salivation. He made but little use of arsenic, for he was impressed by it as a cause of cancer. In 1855 he began to observe cases of leprosy from the East End in the London Hospital, and thus called attention to a number of instances wandering about and mixing with the general populace in many cities of the world. He took up the view that in Norway and elsewhere lepers persisted owing to the custom of eating stale fish. Until he stirred up inquiry the subject leprosy was in a state of stagnation. After the discovery of the bacillus he made further observations in South Africa and India, in which he grafted to his first theory the transference of the bacillus by contact and contamination of food - but it continued until the end of his life a non-proven thesis. In 1868 he suggested that a museum illustrating the progress of medicine and surgery during the past year should be instituted at the Annual Meetings of the British Medical Association; this came into force. His houses at Nos. 14 and 4 in Finsbury Circus and in Cavendish Square, one after the other, became filled by a vast collection of specimens, coloured drawings, and charts used by him for his clinical lectures and demonstrations, until he collected them in the clinical museum attached to his son's house, 1 Park Crescent, Regent's Park. For years he was making provision for post-graduate instruction, and in 1899 he instituted a Medical Graduates' College and Policlinic at 22 Chenies Street, of which he was at once the life, the soul and the financier. He made exhibitions for short periods of illustrations he had collected on various subjects, and, through his persuasion, lectures and demonstrations were given by a great number of members of staff of hospitals, and by special practitioners. The history of Hutchinson's Policlinic will form an important chapter when systematic post-graduate instruction becomes definitely established in London; it came to an end after his death and the outbreak of the War. All that is of special and permanent value has been collected and preserved in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, including MSS., such as his research on the arthritic diathesis. The abundance of his collections was so great that duplicates of illustrative material were dispersed and in part taken over to the United States. There was yet another remarkable endeavour. At his country house at Haslemere, Surrey, he set up an educational museum and library, a miniature of the Natural History Museum in London, and a library providing an outline of history, for the benefit of the population of the locality. The museum displayed rocks, fossils, plants, flowers, preserved as well as freshly gathered, birds' eggs, an aviary and vivarium exhibiting natural objects of the neighbourhood, including the common viper. The library contained charts of figures tabulating events from antiquity to the present day. King Edward VII knew of him as the surgeon who had a hospital for animals on his farm. Lectures and addresses were given - including Sunday afternoon addresses - on the potato, tuberculosis, poetry, the inner life, and new birth. This 'home university' published a monthly journal, which includes features of a school book, encyclopaedia, and a journal of science and literature. After his death the executors handed it over, pruned of its diffuseness, to Haslemere. Hutchinson also started a somewhat similar museum at his birthplace, Selby, but that did not excite so much local interest. The object of the museum was to establish evolution as a motive for right living in place of personal immortality as usually taught. Throughout his life he jealously retained his membership of the Society of Friends, although he accepted 'evolution' as a renaissance of religion. Hutchinson was a good walker, fond of shooting and riding; he swam in a cold-water pool in his grounds until nearly the end of his life. He died at his house, The Library, Inval, Haslemere, on June 23rd, 1913, and was buried at Haslemere. By his orders there was inscribed on his gravestone, "A Man of Hope and Forward Looking Mind". Portraits accompany his obituary notices, and there are several in the College Collection. He figures in the Jamyn Brookes portrait group of the Council, 1884. His wife died in 1886; their family included six sons and four daughters. One son, Jonathan, F.R.C.S., followed his father as Surgeon to the London Hospital; another, Proctor, a laryngologist, died early ; Roger Jackson was in practice at Haselemere; and H. Hutchinson became an architect. PUBLICATIONS: - Hutchinson's publications were very numerous; the chief works are: - *The Archives of Surgery*, 10 vols., 1889-1900. His archives include what Hutchinson deemed of importance from among his previous publications, together with notes and additions. "Syphilis, the Discussion at the London Pathological Society, 1876." - *Trans. Path. Soc.*, 1876, xxvii, 341. *Notes about Syphilis*, 1887; new. ed., 1909. The introduction to the *System of Syphilis*, by D'Arcy Power and J. Keogh Murphy, in 6 vols., 1908, pp. xvii-xxxv. Hutchinson Collection in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. Illustrations, notes and MSS.
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First Title value, for Searching Bryant, Thomas (1828 - 1914)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Hulke, John Whitaker (1830 - 1895)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Heath, Christopher (1835 - 1905)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching MacCormac, Sir William (1836 - 1901)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-04 2012-03-13
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URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372403372403
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Belfast on January 17th, 1836, the elder son of Henry MacCormac, a physician at Belfast, and Mary Newsham his wife. The younger son, John, became a director of the Northern Linen Company. His father gained notoriety in the North of Ireland as a strenuous advocate of the fresh-air treatment of phthisis. William was educated at the Belfast Royal Academical Institution and afterwards studied at Dublin and Paris. He entered Queen's College, Belfast, in October, 1851, as a student of engineering, and gained scholarships in engineering during his first and second years. He then turned aside to the arts course, graduated B.A. at the Queen's University in 1855, and proceeded M.A. in 1858. He won the senior scholarship in natural philosophy in 1856 and was admitted M.D. in the following year. The honorary degree of M.Ch. was conferred upon him in 1879, and the D.Sc. in 1882 with the Gold Medal of the University. The honorary degrees of M.D. and M.Ch. were also bestowed upon him by the University of Dublin in June, 1900. After graduation MacCormac studied surgery in Berlin, where he made lasting friendships with Langenbeck, Billroth, and von Esmarch. He practised in Belfast from 1864-1870, becoming successively Surgeon, Lecturer on Clinical Surgery, and Consulting Surgeon to the Belfast General Hospital. MacCormac volunteered for service on the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, undertook hospital duties at Metz, was treated as a spy and was returned to Paris. Here he joined the Anglo-American Association for the care of the wounded, and with others arrived at Sedan on the night of August 30th, 1870, bivouacking in the waiting-room at the station. MacCormac wandered up and down the platform until 2 am, when an engine with a single cattle-truck stopped and Napoleon III stepped out with two attendants. MacCormac followed the party and was the sole spectator of the Emperor's hardly gained admission to the town, which he left soon afterwards as a prisoner. The Battle of Sedan began at 4 a.m. on Sept. 1st, and during the first day more than a thousand soldiers were brought for treatment to the Caserne d'Asfeld, a deserted infantry barracks on the ramparts which MacCormac and his companions had hastily converted into a hospital of 384 beds. Some attempts were made to follow out the new Listerian methods, but for the most part the old rates of mortality prevailed. Returning to London at the end of the war, he settled at 13 Harley Street, where he died more than thirty years afterwards. MacCormac was admitted in 1871 to the rare distinction of an ad eundem Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and in February of the same year was elected, after a sharp contest, Assistant Surgeon to St. Thomas's Hospital, which had just moved to the new buildings on the Albert Embankment. He became full Surgeon in 1873 on the resignation of Frederic le Gros Clerk (q.v.) and lectured on surgery for twenty years. He was elected Consulting Surgeon to the hospital and Emeritus Lecturer on Clinical Surgery after resigning his active posts in 1893. In 1876 MacCormac was present at the Battle of Alexinatz as chief surgeon of the National Aid Society for the Sick and Wounded in the Turco-Servian Campaign. He contributed largely to the success of the brilliant Seventh International Congress of Medicine which was held in London in 1881, when he was General Secretary and Editor of the *Transactions*. For his services in this capacity he received the honour of knighthood on Dec. 7th, 1881. He was President of the Medical Society of London in 1880, and of the Metropolitan Branch of the British Medical Association in 1890. He was Surgeon to the French, Italian, Queen Charlotte's, and the British Lying-in Hospitals, and was an Examiner in Surgery at the University of London and for Her Majesty's Naval, Military, and Indian Medical Services. He was created a baronet in 1897, was appointed Surgeon-in-Ordinary to the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII, and was decorated K.C.V.O. on September 27th, 1898, in recognition of services rendered to the Prince when he injured his knee. At the Royal College of Surgeons MacCormac was elected a Member of the Council in 1883, and of the Court of Examiners in 1887. He served as President during the years 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899, and 1900, being specially re-elected on the last occasion that he might occupy the Chair at the centenary of the College. He delivered the Bradshaw Lecture in 1893, and was Hunterian Orator in 1899. War claimed him again in 1899-1900, when he was appointed Consulting Surgeon to the South African Field Force, and in this capacity visited military and civil hospitals in Cape Colony and Natal, going to the Front on four occasions. For these services he was created K.C.B. in 1901, and was gazetted Hon. Serjeant Surgeon to King Edward VII. He abducted and married in 1861 Katherine Maria, daughter and heiress of John Charters, of Belfast. She survived him, but there were no children of the marriage. He died at Bath on December 4th, 1901, and was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery. MacCormac was a strikingly handsome man, standing six feet two inches in height and being proportionally well built. He was soft-voiced, singularly courteous in manner, and apparently - but only apparently - inattentive to what was being said to him. His industry, mastery of detail, rapidity of work, and Irish bonhomie made him a first-rate organizer. He was as widely known on the Continent of Europe as he was in England and Ireland, and he did much to break down the insularity which militated so long against the progress of British surgery, for he learned and taught what was done at home and abroad. MacCormac was the best decorated practising surgeon of his generation. He was, in addition to the honours already mentioned, an Hon. Member of the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg; an Hon. Fellow or Member of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland, Paris, Brussels, Munich, and Rome; a Commander of the Legion of Honour; of the Orders of Dannebrog of Denmark, of the Crown of Italy, and the Takovo of Servia; of the Crown of Prussia, St. Iago of Portugal, North Star of Sweden, Ritter-Kreuz of Bavaria, Merit of Spain, and the Medjidie. An oil painting of MacCormac by H. Harris Brown was presented to Queen's University, Belfast, on March 9th, 1897. There are two oil paintings by the Russian painter, Prince Troubetskoi; the better of these was presented to the College on the death of Lady MacCormac in 1923. Another oil painting hangs in the Medical Committee Room at St. Thomas's Hospital. A marble bust by Alfred Drury, A.R.A., is in the Central Hall at St. Thomas's Hospital; a replica in white marble was presented to the College by subscribers in 1903. A caricature by 'Spy' in *Vanity Fair* in 1906 gives a good idea of MacCormac's height. PUBLICATIONS:- *Notes and Recollections of an Ambulance Surgeon, being an Account of Work done under the Red Cross during the Campaign of 1870*, London, 1871. This was translated into German by Professor Louis Stromeyer, Hanover, 1871, and into Italian by Dr. Eugenio Bellina, Florence, 1872. *Surgical Operations*, Part I, 1885; 2nd ed. 1891. Part II, 1889. *On Abdominal Section for the Treatment of Intraperitoneal Injury*, 1887; translated into German, Leipzig, 1888. The most noteworthy of his occasional publications is "Some Observations on Rupture of the Urinary Bladder, with an Account of Two Cases of Intraperitoneal Rupture Successfully Treated by Abdominal Section and Subsequent Suture of the Hernial Rent." - *Lancet*, 1886, ii, 1118. (The accident is uncommon, attracts little notice at the moment, and is followed by a latent period until fatal peritonitis sets in.) Recovery followed in both instances, the first on record so far as is known. *An Address of Welcome on the Occasion of the Centenary Festival of the Royal College of Surgeons of England,* 1900; with the biographical accounts, often with portraits, of the sixty-one Masters or Presidents. There are two issues of this work, which was presented to the distinguished delegates attending the Centenary Meeting - the first in July (220 pp.); the second, with additional matter and illustrations (232 pp.), at Christmas, 1900. MacCormac was materially helped in its preparation by Victor G. Plarr, M.A., Librarian of the College, and by D'Arcy Power, F.R.C.S. He also published an illustrated Souvenir of the Centenary of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 4to, London, November, 1900.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000216
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Borland, James (1774 - 1863)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372587372587
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Ayr on April 1st, 1774, and entered the Army Medical Department as Surgeon's Mate in the 42nd Highlanders in 1792. He was promoted to the Staff in 1793, and made two campaigns in Flanders under the Duke of York. He then proceeded to the West Indies with the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers and did duty at St Domingo from 1796-1798. In 1799 he accompanied the expedition to the Helder, and was sent by the Duke of York with a flag of truce to the French General, Bruns, to arrange for the exchange of the wounded. He was promoted for this service to the newly-made rank of Deputy-Inspector of Army Hospitals. He was also attached to the Russian troops which had co-operated with the British in North Holland, and had been ordered to winter in the Channel Islands until they could return home when the ice broke up in the Baltic. He was thanked for his service, but declined the offer of imperial employment in Russia. He was Chief Medical Officer of the Army in the Southern Counties of England at the time of the threatened French invasion, and in 1807 he became Inspector-General of Army Hospitals. He volunteered with Dr Lemprière and Sir Gilbert Blane to inquire into the causes of the deaths and sicknesses in the unfortunate Walcheren expedition, and the report of these Commissioners was ordered to be printed in 1810. From 1810-1816 Borland was Principal Medical Officer in the Mediterranean; he retired on half pay in 1816. He was appointed Hon Physician to HRH the Duke of Kent and received the order of St Maurice and St Lazare of Savoy. He retired to Teddington, Middlesex, and died there on Feb 22nd, 1863. Borland was an excellent administrator and a man of sterling character. Many improvements in army hospital organization were tried whilst he was at headquarters in London in 1807. During his service in the Mediterranean he reconstituted the hospitals of the Anglo-Sicilian contingent with such efficiency and economy as earned him a special official minute. He received the highest praise from Admiral Lord Exmouth for his services during an outbreak of plague at Malta. He accompanied the force sent to assist the Austrians in expelling Murat from Naples, and he was with the troops which held Marseilles and blockaded Toulon during the Waterloo campaign.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000403
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Williams, Thomas Meurig (1910 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2008-08-21 2010-02-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372729372729
Occupation General surgeon
Details Thomas Williams was a consultant general surgeon at the West Suffolk General Hospital, Bury St Edmunds. He was born into a medical family in Canterbury, Kent, on 6 May 1910, the son of Moses Thomas Williams FRCS. Tom’s schooling was first at Sir Roger Harwood’s Grammar School, Sandwich, and then Rugby School, from which he entered Oriel College, Oxford, and gained a BA degree before going on to St Thomas’ Hospital for his clinical training. After qualifying, he became a casualty officer and later a house surgeon at St Thomas’, working with Philip Mitchiner and Oswald Lloyd Davies, both of whom influenced him greatly. Later he was a resident surgical officer to St Mark’s Hospital. He had the highest regard for Norman Tanner and visited him frequently, as did many aspiring gastric surgeons. During the Second World War he served in India with the RAMC, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel. His wide general experience did not extend to vascular surgery and in later years at Bury St Edmunds he referred these cases to a newly appointed surgeon who had a wide experience in this field. Tom was a good golfer, and went abroad on regular skiing trips in his early days. He married a Miss Thomas in 1943: they had two daughters. He re-married and his second wife, Chrissie, cared for the two daughters and her own son. Retiring in 1975 to live first in Great Barton, Bury St Edmunds, he later moved to Winchester to be near his family. He died on 31 August 2007.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000545
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Nisbet, Norman Walter (1909 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-08-21 2009-05-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372730372730
Occupation General surgeon
Details Norman Walter Nisbet was a former director of research at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Hospital, Oswestry. He was born in Edinburgh on 23 March 1909, the son of a science master. He first qualified as a dentist, but abandoned dentistry in favour of medicine. After completing his training in general surgery in Edinburgh and Birmingham, he began his orthopaedic career. In 1938 he was appointed as a house surgeon at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital, Oswestry, where at the outbreak of the Second World War he became resident surgical officer. During the war years, the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt was virtually a military hospital. Nisbit was responsible for the surgical care and rehabilitation of many war casualties. One German airman crashed not far from the hospital. Norman treated his serious fractures by standard methods and his burns with ‘Tannifax’, which turned the burnt area black. When the airman saw the black area he was horrified, thinking that he had been deliberately painted black as a distinguishing mark - what the English do to their prisoners - according to German propaganda. He was only reassured by seeing a British soldier, similarly treated, peeling away the black tan on his own injury to reveal healthy skin underneath. Of the hundreds of war wounded Nisbet treated, the German patient was the only one who sent him a letter of thanks. During this time, he had an unrivalled opportunity of learning all aspects of orthopaedic and fracture surgery under the influence and guidance of Sir Harry Platt, Sir Reginald Watson-Jones and Sir Henry Osmond-Clarke, amongst others. He also worked closely with Dame Agnes Hunt, the founder of the hospital. Between 1946 and 1947 he served in the Royal Air Force as a senior orthopaedic consultant with the rank of wing commander, in charge of the orthopaedic unit at the RAF Hospital, Wroughton, Wiltshire. On demobilisation, he became a consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital, Coventry. He also held the posts of orthopaedic surgeon to the Paybody Orthopaedic Home and the Coleshill Orthopaedic Hospital for Children. Nisbit was in New Zealand from 1950 to 1962 as associate professor in orthopaedic surgery at the University of Otago and director of the orthopaedic and fracture department of the Dunedin Hospital. The University of Otago later created a personal chair of orthopaedic surgery for him, its first personal chair. He always had a keen interest in medical research. While he was in Dunedin, spurred on by the then professor of surgery, Sir Michael Woodruff, he began working on the biology of transplantation with special reference to immunology and genetics. He returned to the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hosptial in 1964 as the first director of the purpose-built Charles Salt Research Centre. He continued his work in immunology and published extensively. He retired as director of research in 1983, at the age of 74. However, having received a personal MRC grant to further his work into the origins of osteoclasts, he stayed on for another three years. With his wife, Mary, he retired to the south coast of England. His passion had always been shooting. He maintained a gun in a shoot in Sussex until the age of 93. Thereafter he continued shooting clay pigeons. Mary, who had been in declining health for many years, died in 2005. They had been married for 60 years. Nisbet, having looked after Mary for many years, continued to live completely independently. He swam daily, shopped, cooked and cleaned for himself and carried on driving his car until, at the age of 95, his health slowly went down hill and he began to depend on others. He died on 25 September 2007 at the age of 98 and is survived by his daughter, Lesley, son-in-law St John and grandchildren, Katherine and Tom.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000546
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching O'Malley, Eoin (1919 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-08-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372731372731
Occupation Cardiac surgeon
Details Eoin O’Malley was a cardiac surgeon and a past president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He was born on 5 April 1919 in Galway, where his father was professor of surgery. From Clongowes Wood College he went to medical school, at first in Galway and later at University College, Dublin, where he proved himself a formidable debater and rugby football player, and won prizes and distinctions in every subject. He completed house appointments in the Mater Misericordiae Hospital and went on to specialise in surgery at Southend General Hospital and the Lahey Clinic in Boston. He was appointed to the consultant staff of the Mater Hospital as a general and cardiac surgeon in 1950 and became professor of surgery in 1958. At first an all round general surgeon, he was one of the first to specialise in cardiac surgery and succeeded in setting up a specialist unit, which was later named after him. As a teacher he was noted as a skilled and thoughtful lecturer and a sympathetic examiner. As a trainer of young surgeons he took care to see that his pupils expanded their vision by going abroad to other centres for clinical experience and research. Indeed, to encourage his colleagues to travel, he founded the Irish Surgical Travellers Club. Together with other Irish professors of surgery, Eoin organised a national surgical training programme, a planned rotation scheme, entry to which was to be by competitive examination. He soon became involved in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, was elected to its council in 1965 and became president in 1983. His presidency was marked by the celebration of the bicentenary of the college. His interests outside surgery included fishing, meteorology, literature, theatre, history and politics. Eoin married Una O’Higgins, a young solicitor, in 1952. Una was the daughter of the Irish national hero Kevin O’Higgins, the hard man of the liberation movement and first minister of justice in the new republic, who was assassinated when Una was only five months old. Later Una became a nationally celebrated poet, whose verse sang of peace and forgiveness. Una was a prime mover in the reconciliation movement and a founder of the Glencree Reconciliation Centre. They had six children, of whom Kevin has followed his father and grandfather into surgery. A man of great dignity, utterly without bombast or arrogance, Eoin was the recipient of numerous honorary degrees and distinctions, including the honorary Fellowship of our College. Enid Taylor
Resource Identifier RCS: E000547
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Barton, Rex Penry Edward (1944 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-08-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372732372732
Occupation Otolaryngologist ENT surgeon
Details Rex Barton was a former otolaryngologist, head and neck surgeon at the Leicester Royal Infirmary. He was born in Carmarthen, Wales, on 3 May 1944, the eldest son of Lieutenant Colonel Edward Cecil Barton of the Royal Sussex Regiment and Gwendolen Margaret Gladwys née Thomas, who qualified at the Royal Free Hospital and became a pathologist in Salisbury. Her father, David J Thomas, was formerly medical officer of health for Acton. Educated at the Cathedral School, Salisbury, Harrow School (where he received the Exeter prize for biology) and University College, London, Rex Barton qualified from University College Hospital Medical School, where he was both house surgeon and house physician. After senior house officer posts in Bristol, he elected to pursue a career in ENT and was subsequently appointed registrar and later senior registrar (with plastic surgery) to St Mary’s and the Royal Marsden hospitals, London. Here he was much influenced by Ian Robin and Anthony Richards. During this period he spent four months at the Victoria Hospital, Dichpalli, India, sponsored by the Medical Research Council and LEPRA, where he researched into the ENT manifestations of leprosy. This led to a number of landmark papers and a continued interest in the subject. Appointed consultant head and neck oncologist and ENT surgeon to the Leicester Royal Infirmary and Loughborough General hospitals, Rex Barton was instrumental in establishing a multidisciplinary head and neck oncology service. Sadly because of ill health he was obliged to retire early in 1994. Rex Barton had a firm Christian faith and always resolved to live accordingly. In 1969 he married Nicola Margaret St John Allen, a state registered nurse. They had three children, Thomas, Jennifer and Samuel. Rex Barton died on 18 June 2006. Neil Weir
Resource Identifier RCS: E000548
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hankinson, John (1919 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-08-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372733372733
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Hankinson, known as ‘Hank’, was a consultant neurosurgeon at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne, and professor of neurosurgery at the University of Newcastle. He was born in Ramsbottom, Lancashire, on 10 March 1919, the son of Daniel Hankinson, a company director, and Anne née Kavanagh. He described himself as half-Irish, from Kilkenny, and half-English, from Cheshire. He was educated at Thornleigh College, Bolton, and entered the medical school of St Mary’s Hospital, London, in 1941. He edited the St Mary’s Hospital *Gazette* and, in 1945, was a member of the London University medical group which visited Belsen, an experience of which he later spoke little, though it affected him markedly. The group helped to care for the survivors, many of whom suffered from typhus, tuberculosis or other serious diseases. After qualifying in 1946, he held house appointments at St Mary’s, with Arthur Dickson Wright and John Goligher, the Seaman’s Hospital, Greenwich, the Middlesex Hospital, and Harold Wood Hospital. Dickson Wright, though a general surgeon, included neurosurgery in his wide practice and it was while working with him that Hankinson’s interest in this specialty developed. In 1951 he became a house surgeon to Wylie McKissock and Valentine Logue at the neurosurgical unit of St Georges’s Hospital at Atkinson Morley’s Hospital, Wimbledon. He progressed to registrar and senior registrar, interrupting this with a year in the USA, at the Children’s Memorial Hospital, Chicago, with Luis Amador and as research assistant at the neuropsychiatric institute, University of Illinois, with Ralph Gerrard, returning as senior surgical registrar to Atkinson Morley’s Hospital in 1955. In 1954 he developed diabetes, requiring insulin for its management. McKissock encouraged him to continue in neurosurgery in spite of this, which he did, without difficulty. He spent 1956 and 1957 at the National Hospital, Queen Square. In September and October 1956 he was clinical assistant in Lund to Lars Leksell, an early exponent and developer of stereotaxic surgical technique. While at Queen Square he frequently met Sir Geoffrey Jefferson, who was carrying out research for his centenary lecture on Sir Victor Horsley, given at BMA House. In 1957 Hankinson was appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon to the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne, and to the Regional Neurosurgical Centre. He came into contact with G F Rowbotham, who had set up neurosurgery in that city. He also held an academic post as senior lecturer in neurological surgery at the University of Newcastle. In 1972 he was appointed to a chair of neurosurgery, which he held until his retirement in 1984. Hankinson’s main interests were stereotaxic functional neurosurgery and the surgical treatment of syringomyelia, upon both of which he wrote a number of papers and chapters. He was secretary of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons from 1972 to 1977, president from 1980 to 1982 and, from 1977 to 1983, neurosurgical adviser to the Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health and Social Security. Hankinson married Ruth Barnes, a theatre sister at St Mary’s, in 1948. There were two daughters of the marriage (Barbara and Elizabeth). His first wife died in 1982 and he married Nicole Andrews, a radiographer and later a managing director of a plastics engineering works. He was a keen yachtsman and also played the organ at the local church. Hankinson was a popular figure in neurosurgery. He had a droll sense of humour and was an amusing and entertaining conversationalist. He died suddenly on 9 March 2007. T T King
Resource Identifier RCS: E000549
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Brown, John Andrew Carron (1925 - 2008)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2008-08-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372734372734
Occupation Obstetric and gynaecological surgeon Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details John Carron Brown, known to his colleagues as ‘JCB’, was a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist in Norwich. He was born in Sutton, Surrey, on 29 June 1925, the older son of Cecil Carron Brown, a general practitioner, and Jessamy Harper, a solicitor. Educated first at Homefield Preparatory School in Sutton, in 1939 he went to Oundle School for four years, before entering the Middlesex Hospital Medical School for his medical training, where he captained the cricket team. He felt fortunate to have as basic science teachers John Kirk in anatomy, Sampson Wright in physiology and Robert Scarff in pathology. He was greatly influenced in his clinical training by Richard Handley and Charles Lakin. Qualifying in 1949, he became house surgeon to Sir Gordon Gordon-Taylor and then to the obstetric and gynaecology unit, before becoming house physician at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in 1952. General surgical training continued at St John and Elizabeth’s Hospital and at Redhill and Reigate Hospital, and at the Middlesex Hospital under David Patey and L P LeQuesne, colo-rectal experience being obtained with O Lloyd Davies. His training in gynaecology and obstetrics was at the Chelsea Hospital for Women under Sir Charles Read, John Blakeley and R M Feroze, at the Middlesex Hospital under W R Winterton and as a senior registrar at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge. Following his appointment as consultant in Norwich in 1963 he led a busy life in clinical practice. He led the development of maternity services and specialised in gynaecological malignancy. He was a great supporter of Cromer and District Cottage Hospital, where he held weekly clinics and operating sessions until he retired in 1990. Described as “a superb clinician and teacher of medical students, midwives and doctors”, his enthusiastic approach led many into careers in obstetrics and gynaecology. He also worked with physiotherapists in the prevention and treatment of stress incontinence. He examined for the universities of Cambridge and Birmingham in obstetrics and gynaecology, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) and the Central Midwives Board. In East Anglia he was a member of the regional advisory committee for eight years, being chairman for two years, and a member of the subcommittee making a confidential enquiry into maternal deaths. For RCOG he was elected member’s representative on council for six years, and served on the finance and executive and the hospital recognition committees. He was made an honorary fellow of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists in 1995. He served on the Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine (CPSM) and the Physiotherapy Board, and was vice chairman of CPSM. In Norwich he became chairman of the consultant staff committee and was very involved with the planning of the new hospital. Throughout his schooldays and in medical school he played cricket, tennis and soccer. Carron Brown started playing golf at the early age of six and resumed this once he became established in his chosen career. He enjoyed shooting and in retirement took up fly fishing. He was interested in history, especially of Napoleon and the Indian Empire. Gardening was an abiding passion, particularly the cultivation of roses. He married Marie Mansfield Pinkham, a Middlesex nurse, in 1952. They had three daughters (Susan Margaret, Elizabeth and Jane) and one son (Charles). Following his wife’s death in 1970, he married Susan Mary Mellor, sister of the special care nursery in Norwich, and they had two daughters (Helen Mary and Sarah Louise). He died on 27 May 2008 in the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital after a ruptured aortic aneurysm. A thanksgiving service was held at Norwich Cathedral, where he worshipped. Sue survives him, as do the children and 16 grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000550
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Shaw, Henry Jagoe (1922 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Neil Weir
Publication Date 2008-08-28
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372735372735
Occupation Head and neck surgeon Otolaryngologist ENT surgeon
Details Henry Shaw was a pre-eminent otolaryngologist and head and neck surgeon. He was born in Stafford on 16 March 1922, the son of Benjamin Henry Shaw, a physician, psychiatrist, artist and fisherman, and Adelaide née Hardy, who became a JP and Staffordshire County councillor. His father came from a distinguished Anglo-Irish family with one relative an army surgeon at Waterloo, another in the 32nd Foot in the same campaign; George Bernard Shaw was an ancestor. Educated at Summer Fields School, Oxford, and Eton College, Henry Shaw read medicine at Oxford University and the Radcliffe Infirmary, where he held junior appointments. Perhaps influenced by R G Macbeth and G Livingstone, otolaryngologists at Oxford, he became registrar and senior registrar at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear (RNTNE) Hospital and Guy’s Hospital, London. He was appointed to a Hunterian professorship at the College (1951). After a fellowship and residency at the Sloan Memorial Hospital, New York (1953 to 1954), Henry Shaw was appointed assistant director of the professorial unit and senior lecturer at the RNTNE Hospital and the Institute of Laryngology and Otology. During this time he spent a further year in New York as senior resident at the Bellvue Hospital. In 1962 he was appointed consultant ENT surgeon to the RNTNE Hospital. This appointment was combined with a consultancy at the Royal Marsden Hospital, an honorary consultancy to St Mary’s Hospital and the post of ENT surgeon to the Civil Government and St Bernard’s Hospital, Gibraltar. In addition he was civilian consultant ENT surgeon to the Royal Navy. He retired in 1988. Henry Shaw’s professional life was devoted to the care of those suffering from cancer of the head and neck. His appointments at the Royal Marsden and RNTNE Hospital enabled him to lead the field in this aspect of otolaryngology. He wrote many publications, lectured nationally and internationally, and became a founder member and treasurer of the Association of Head and Neck Oncologists of Great Britain, president of the section of laryngology, Royal Society of Medicine, member of council, executive committee and professional care committee of the Marie Curie Cancer Care Foundation and a member of the Armed Services Consultant Appointment board. During the Second World War Henry Shaw served as a surgeon lieutenant in the RNVR. He continued in the Royal Naval Reserve, advancing to surgeon lieutenant commander. He was awarded the Volunteer Reserve Decoration in 1970. Henry Shaw was a gentlemanly person who achieved a great deal in a quiet way. He was never happier than when sailing boats of any kind. His long family association with St Mawes in Cornwall (where he eventually retired) enabled him to indulge fully in this hobby. He married Susan Patricia Head (née Ramsey) in 1967. They had no children of their own, but he gained a stepson and stepdaughter. The marriage was dissolved in 1984 and he married Daphne Joan Hayes (née Charney) in 1988, from whom he gained a further two stepdaughters. He died on 1 August 2007.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000552
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Anikwe, Raymond Maduchem (1935 - 2008)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by John Blandy
Publication Date 2008-09-11
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372736372736
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Raymond Anikwe was a leading urological surgeon in Nigeria. He was born on 5 June 1935, the son of Chief Lawrence Akunwanne and Helen Oyeigwe Anikwenze in Nnobi, Anambra State, Nigeria. He was educated at St Mary Primary School, Umulu, and St Joseph Primary School, Onitsha. In 1951 he entered the Government College, Umuahia, where he excelled at sports, as well as his studies, winning a Nigerian Central Government scholarship to the Nigerian College of Technology, Ibadan. After two years there he won a scholarship from the Government of Italy to study medicine at the University of Rome. He learnt Italian, and obtained the degree of MD in July 1964. After qualifying he served as a pre-registration house officer and senior house officer in general surgery in Turin, and then went to the UK as a senior house officer at Dudley Guest Hospital. He was later a registrar in surgery (urology) at the Central Middlesex Hospital. From there he went to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary as a research fellow, studying urodynamics with a special interest in urethral resistance. In 1973 he returned to Nigeria as a lecturer at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and consultant surgeon at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu. He rose through the academic ranks to become professor of surgery (urology) in 1978. He served on numerous committees: he was chairman of the medical advisory committee, director of clinical services and training at Enugu (from 1978 to 1980), chief executive and medical director (from 1982 to 1985), provost of the college of medicine and medical sciences and deputy vice chancellor of the University of Nigeria Enugu campus in 1986. In 1987 he went to Saudi Arabia as professor of urology and consultant urologist at the King Faisal University and King Fahd Hospital. In 1999 he returned to Nigeria to the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, until he established his own private hospital, the Galaxy Urology Specialist Hospital, Enugu, which was equipped with the latest endoscopic facilities. He published extensively and was a member of numerous learned societies. In 2007 he received the prestigious D’Linga gold award by Corporate and Media Africa Communications Ltd for his contribution to nation building through the medical profession. In 1974 he married Gladys Ngozi (née Ojukwu) and they had six children, of whom two became doctors. He died on 17 May 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000553
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Davis, Neville Coleman (1924 - 2008)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by John Blandy
Publication Date 2008-09-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372737372737
Occupation General surgeon
Details Neville Coleman Davis was a leading surgeon in Queensland. He was born in Newcastle, New South Wales, on 30 January 1924, the son of Clyde Davis, a medical practitioner, and Vera née Phillips. He was educated at Sydney Grammar School and the University of Sydney, qualifying in 1945. He completed house posts at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, and the Royal Hobart Hospital in Tasmania, before going to England in 1949 as a senior house officer at the City General Hospital in Sheffield. After passing the FRCS, he went on to Sheffield Royal Infirmary for two years and then served in the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps as a lieutenant colonel in Korea, where he commanded the British Commonwealth General Hospital in Japan from 1951 to 1952. He returned to Australia as surgical supervisor and part-time lecturer in clinical surgery at Brisbane General Hospital. In 1957 he was appointed visiting surgeon at Princess Alexandra Hospital. He was co-ordinator of postgraduate surgical education from 1980 to 1986 and was visiting surgeon at the Wesley Breast Clinic from 1982. A truly general surgeon, his main interest was in colorectal surgery, but he was one of the founders and later chairman of the Queensland Melanoma Project. He served in Vietnam as surgical specialist to No 1 Australian Field Hospital in 1969 and was honorary colonel of the RAAMC 1st Military District from 1987 to 1991. At the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, he was a member of council from 1975 to 1979, honorary librarian and a member of the board of general surgery until 1982, and chairman of the section of colorectal surgery. Many public offices came to him including membership of the council of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research and of the medical and scientific committee of Queensland Cancer Fund. He was a member of the council of the Australian Medical Association and was made a fellow in 1979. He served on the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Menzies Foundation of Queensland, and was president of the Queensland Gastroenterological Society. Among his many awards was a Churchill fellowship in 1968, the Henry Simpson Newland medal in 1958, the Justin Fleming medal in 1977 and the John Loewenthal clinical medal in 1978. He was a member of the James IV Association of Surgeons, was the Bancroft orator of the American Medical Association in 1979, gained the Hugh Devine medal of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1988, and was an honorary member of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons and of the Colorectal Society of Australasia. Neville married Lois Tindale, a medical practitioner, in 1954. They had two daughters (Prudence and Catherine) and a son (Roger). He died on 6 March 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000554
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brun, Claude (1917 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-09-11 2009-01-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372738372738
Occupation General surgeon
Details Claude Brun was a consultant surgeon in Blackburn. He was born on 23 August 1917 in Mauritius. His father, René Brun, was a bank clerk in Port Louis who was descended from a captain in the Napoleonic navy. His mother, Jeanne Brun, was also of French descent. Claude was the eldest of six children. His early schooldays were with the Loreto nuns in a boarding school in St Pierre (which he hated). He was then educated at the Royal College in Curepipe. At the age of 17 he won a British Government scholarship which took him to England in 1934, where he was sponsored by Sir Percy Ezekiel. Having had a classical education, he had to study the necessary basic sciences before going to the London Hospital in October 1936 to study medicine. At the outbreak of the Second World War as a student he was sent to Poplar, Mile End and Highwood hospitals during the Blitz. After qualifying, he did house appointments at the Northern Fever Hospital and King George V Hospital, Ilford, before joining the RAMC in 1942. He was posted to Drymen on Loch Lomond, where he met a nurse named Barbara Limpitlaw, who later became his wife. He spent most of the war on a hospital ship in the Mediterranean. On demobilisation he returned to the London Hospital as a supernumerary registrar in the accident and emergency department and completed registrar posts at King George’s Hospital, Ilford, and then specialised in orthopaedics. For ten years he worked under John Charnley at the Salford Royal Hospital, during which time he passed the MS. He returned to Mauritius in 1957 as a surgeon in the Colonial Medical Health Service, where he developed an interest in anthropology and wrote Les Ancêtres de l’homme (Port Louis, 1964). He returned to England as a consultant surgeon in Blackburn in 1965, where he worked until his retirement in 1982. There he set up a mobile breast screening service, before the advent of mammography. He had many hobbies. In retirement he continued to paint and held several exhibitions, and read widely in the classics. At the age of 88 he taught himself Spanish. He was a keen bookbinder, botanist, woodworker and numismatist. He died peacefully in his sleep on 25 May 2007 leaving his widow, two daughters (Anne and Pauline), a son, Robert, who also became a doctor, and nine grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000555
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Birbara, George (1928 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-09-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372739372739
Occupation General surgeon
Details George Birbara was a general surgeon in Leeton, New South Wales. He was born in Sydney on 16 August 1928. His parents, Anis, a tailor, and Amanda (née Diab) had emigrated from Lebanon. George went to Sydney Boys’ High School and Sydney University. After house appointments, he went to England in 1954 to specialize in surgery, working at the Royal Masonic, Whipps Cross, St James’s Balham, St Cross Rugby, St Luke’s Bradford and Southampton Chest hospitals. Having passed the FRCS, he returned to Leeton, New South Wales in 1959. He married Hazel, a school teacher, in 1956. They had two sons (Nicholas and Andrew) and two daughters (Rosemary and Helen), none of whom followed him into medicine. He died on 17 January 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000556
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Moffoot, Alexander Gordon (1923 - 2008)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-09-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372740372740
Occupation General surgeon
Details Alexander Gordon Moffoot was a general surgeon in British Columbia, Canada. He was born in Edinburgh on 24 April 1923, the son of George Roberston Moffoot, a dental surgeon, and Doris Hilda née Jobey. His brother followed in his father’s footsteps to become a dentist, but after attending Yarm Grammar School in Yorkshire, Alexander went to Edinburgh to study medicine, where he qualified in 1945. After junior posts he served in the RAMC with the 6th Airborne Division in Palestine. On demobilization he decided to specialize in surgery, took the FRCS course at Guy’s Hospital and passed the FRCS in 1952. In 1955 he moved to Alberta, Canada, and worked for the next five years in the Innisfail Municipal Hospital, moving to British Columbia in 1960, where he worked at the Saanich Peninsular Hospital, combining general surgery with general clinical practice in a group of six. He married Ruth Hugill, a speech therapist, in 1953. They had one son Jonathan and a daughter June Ruth, who became a nurse. He died on 5 January 2008 in Sidney, British Columbia.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000557
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hill, Ian Macdonald (1919 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-09-11 2008-10-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372741372741
Occupation Cardiothoracic surgeon
Details Ian Hill was a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. He was born on 8 June 1919. When he was only five he developed diphtheria and was admitted to an isolation hospital for many weeks. There he was allowed no visits from his family and witnessed at close quarters the frequently unsuccessful attempts of surgeons to save the lives of other children with that terrible disease. This dreadful experience gave him the emotional drive to overcome disease and save lives, although later he maintained that he went into medicine because it was his father Tom’s own unfulfilled wish: indeed their house in Palmers Green was chosen to be near the railway that would eventually take him to Bart’s. His mother Annie was a gifted teacher and helped him with his homework, passing on to him the skills of patient and supportive clarity he used in his own teaching. He was educated at the Stationers’ Company School and St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he had a brilliant career as a student, qualifying with honours in 1942. He was house surgeon to (later Sir) James Paterson Ross, whose testimonial stated “his academic record has been one of rapid and uninterrupted success, winning most for the prizes for which he was eligible. He is honourable, forthright, diligent and utterly trustworthy. He absorbs knowledge readily and applies theory to practice with good judgement and effect. He is a skilful, safe, and resourceful operator who can win the confidence of his patients, his colleagues and his students”. After serving as a demonstrator of anatomy he married Agnes Paice in 1944, having met her when both their hospitals had been evacuated. He joined the RAF medical branch in 1945 and was wing commander in command of the surgical division of No 1 RAF Hospital. He then specialized in cardiothoracic surgery, becoming senior registrar to Russell Brock at Guy’s Hospital in 1947, where he carried out experimental work on cardiopulmonary bypass and became surgical chief assistant at the Brompton Hospital. He returned to St Bartholomew’s as consultant surgeon in 1950 at the early age of 31, as second in command to Oswald Tubbs, where he continued to build up its cardiothoracic unit. He was a skilled operator who had ‘green fingers’. He was often described by his junior staff as a one-man band, for, apart from his operative ability he typed his own operation notes and wrote summaries of the patient after each operation. Surprisingly these records were never analysed and sadly they were destroyed after his death: they would have made a fascinating contribution to cardiothoracic archive material. He cared deeply about the training of his young doctors and for eight years served as sub-dean of the medical college (from 1964 to 1972). He was prodigiously well organised, kept meticulous records and was obsessed by time. He was both scrupulously logical and persistent in trying to solve problems. For several years he owned a vintage Rolls Royce car, which he maintained himself, having taken a course on its maintenance. When his junior staff telephoned his home for advice they were frequently told by his wife “I’ll get him from under his car!” Ian’s 40 years as a consultant surgeon were a period of explosive development in cardiothoracic surgery, but despite his brilliant mind and ability he wrote very little, and he made no definitive contribution to his specialty. He had a poor relationship with Oswald Tubbs, his senior consultant, who was disappointed in his subsequent career and thought that he had not fulfilled the potential implied in Ross’s glowing testimonial. He was a cutting surgeon rather than a writing surgeon and was, as many have said, an enigma. After he retired he continued to serve on the board of governors of St Bartholomew’s. Ian retired with Agnes to Fernham in 1984, where he lived the life he had always dreamed of in the countryside, creating his garden, running a prodigiously productive allotment, and indulging his fascination for fine engineering, old clocks, the fine arts, good food and wine. He upset his allotment neighbours by giving away much of his produce in competition to the many who sold for profit. Despite being an agnostic, he served as clerk to the parish council. Predeceased by his wife, he died on 22 September 2007 leaving three sons and a daughter, Alison, who is a general practitioner in London.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000558
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ball, John Robert (1934 - 2008)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2008-09-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372742372742
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Ball was a true general surgeon, having spent his entire consultant career in practice on the isolated Scottish island of Skye, where he established a first-class surgical reputation, as well as becoming a much loved and hugely respected local figure. His reputation on the island was such that in 1995 he received the rare distinction of being made a Freeman of Skye and Lochalsh; less than half-a-dozen individuals have been so honoured. John Ball was born on 28 October 1934 Port Talbot, south Wales, the second son of William James Ball, a grocer, and Eleanor née Lewis. He was educated at Aberafan Grammar School, Port Talbot, and at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London, where he won two prizes. He also excelled at sport, especially rugby and cricket, and was a member of the cricket and rugby sides that won the London Hospitals Cup in 1958, the year he qualified. After house jobs at St Mary’s, he spent two years National Service in the RAMC in Hong Kong. He then returned to become a senior house officer at St George’s Hospital, London, and then St James’ Hospital, Balham. From 1966 he was a surgical registrar at Paddington General Hospital. In these training posts he was greatly influenced by Norman Tanner, Rodney Smith, Victor Riddell and Sir Arthur Porritt. In 1970 he became a locum consultant at the Central Middlesex Hospital, but this appointment was short-lived as the following year he moved to the Dr Mackinnon Memorial Hospital in Broadford, Skye, where he practised for the rest of his career. This was the island where Ball and his wife had spent their honeymoon. There he carried out a broad range of surgery, but was especially interested in biliary disease. He was a founder member the Viking Surgical Club, which consisted of single-handed surgeons who practised throughout the United Kingdom and beyond. He was a very successful host of the third annual meeting of the Club. He was also an outstanding fundraiser especially from grateful American tourists who became his patients. By this means he was able to acquire up-to-date scanning equipment for the hospital. After his retirement in 1999 he worked as a ship’s surgeon on the Fred Olsen Cruise Line, before moving to live in Inverness. In private life John Ball was hugely knowledgeable about music and possessed a fine baritone voice. He was a member of the Broadford Church choir and an elder of that church. He also enjoyed sailing, hill walking and golf. Happily married to Adrianne since 1965, herself medically qualified, and with three children, Helen, Joanna and Jonathan, and eight grandchildren, John Ball was a man of enthusiasm, humanity, loyalty and deep Christian faith. He died on 9 February 2008 after a short illness, aged 73, in Inverness.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000559
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Denny, William Roy (1921 - 2008)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Cartwright, Richard ( - 1854)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Beckett, Thomas (1773 - 1856)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Woolriche, Stephen (1770 - 1856)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Annesley, Sir James H [1] (1774 - 1847)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18 2016-01-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372595372595
Occupation General surgeon
Details Son of the Honourable Marcus Annesley, born in County Down, Ireland, about 1774, and educated at Trinity College and the College of Surgeons in Dublin, also at the Windmill Street School in London. On April 29th, 1799, he received a nomination in the medical service of the HEIC on the Madras side from Sir Walter Farquhar, and arrived in India in December, 1800. He was at once appointed to the Trichinopoly Corps and saw hard fighting with the field force in Southern India during the whole of the year 1801. He served with a battalion of native infantry at various stations from 1802-1805, when he was invalided home. Two years later he returned from England and was appointed Garrison Surgeon at Masulipatam, where he made himself well acquainted with native diseases and their treatment. He took careful notes of every case which came under his care, recording the symptoms, the remedies used, and the results. Annesley was placed in medical charge of the 78th British Regiment during the Java expedition in 1811. He had the satisfaction of landing 1070 men fit for duty out of a strength of 1100, and the field hospital at Cornalis being in an unsatisfactory condition, Annesley, although the junior officer, was ordered to take command, and it is on record that in ten days he had the hospital in proper order, with its 1400 or 1500 patients clothed, victualled, and treated. He was soon ordered back to Madras to superintend a field hospital established by Government for the native troops who had lost their health in the expedition to the Isle of France and Java. His administration proved so successful that he was publicly thanked by the Commander-in-Chief for "the ability, exertion and humane attention displayed by Surgeon Annesley, equally honourable to his professional talents and public zeal, which His Excellency trusts will entitle him to the good opinion and favourable notice of government". Native troops had been employed upon foreign service, and as a result of Annesley's treatment the Madras Sepoys were said to be willing to volunteer for any service in any part of the world. In 1812 Annesley joined the Madras European Regiment, with which he remained until 1817, when the last Mahratta and Pindaree War began. Annesley was appointed Superintending Surgeon to the advanced divisions of the Army and served in the field until the end of 1818, being repeatedly mentioned in general orders for his zeal and ability. He was appointed Garrison Surgeon at Fort St George on his return to Madras, and placed in charge of the General Hospital, where he remained until he was invalided home in 1824. On leaving India on furlough the Admiralty presented him with a piece of plate of the value of one hundred guineas "as a mark of the sense their Lordships entertained of his gratuitous medical attendance on the officers and men of His Majesty's ships in Madras Roads, 1823". Annesley returned to India in 1829, and was immediately appointed to examine the Medical Reports of former years with the view to selecting such cases as might tend to throw light upon the diseases of India. He made a digest of the Reports from 1786 to 1829, and also reported upon the climate, healthiness, and production of the hills in the Madras presidency. The digest occupied twelve volumes and was accompanied by four volumes of medical observations, all of the highest value. The digest had been made without cost to the Government, but on its completion the Court of Directors of the HEIC voted Annesley an honorarium of 5000 rupees. He was appointed a member of the Medical Board in 1833, and in 1838 was permitted to retire from the Honourable Company's service on the pension of his rank, having served in India for the long period of thirty-seven years. On his return to England he received the honour of knighthood in [2] 1844; he was also elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. During his later years he lived at 6 Albany, Piccadilly. He died at Florence on Dec 14th, 1847. Annesley did good service to the medical profession by his zeal, tact, and administrative ability, for he founded the tradition upon which was built the high reputation afterwards gained by the Indian Medical Service both amongst the Europeans and the native population of India. Publications:- Sketches of the Most Prevalent Diseases of India, Comprising a Treatise on Epidemic Cholera of the East, London, 1825, 2nd ed., 1828 [3]. Annesley discusses cholera with extensive first-hand information and makes some inquiries on the historical side in regard to the disease. The sketches include "Topographical, and Statistical Reports of the Diseases most prevalent in the different stations and divisions of the Army under the Madras Presidency", and "Practical Observations on the Effects of Calomel on the Mucous Surface and Secretions of the Alimentary Canal; and on the Use of this Remedy in Disease, more Particularly in the Diseases of India". For these sketches he received the Monthyon Prize, and the section on cholera was translated into German by Gustav Himly, Hannover, in 1831. Researches into the Causes, Nature and Treatment of the more Prevalent Diseases of India, and of Warm Climates Generally, 4to, 2 vols., with 40 coloured engravings, London, 1828. The work is rendered unwieldy by its wealth of detail. [4] [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] The 'H' is deleted and the following added - *Crawford's Roll of I.M.S;* Madras list no 435; [2] Crawford says knighted 13 May 1844 'F.R.S. 1840'; [3] 3rd edition 1841; [4] *Digest of Madras Medical Reports* 1788-1829 (Crawford) & ? above p.29; Portrait in College Collection]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000411
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Albert, George Frederick (1771 - 1853)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18 2016-01-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372596372596
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born Dec 18th 1771, and became an army surgeon. He was gazetted Staff Surgeon on Aug 30th, 1799, was placed on half pay in 1802, and restored to full pay on March 17th, 1803, when he exchanged to the cavalry depot at Maidstone. He was promoted Deputy Inspector of Hospitals on Nov 4th, 1813, and was put on half pay on Nov 25th, 1815. Practised at Cheltenham and at various times at St George's Terrace, Hyde Park, and in the Isle of Wight. He died on April 5th, 1853. Albert's thesis for the Edinburgh MD may have been [1] *Quœdam de Morbis Ætatum* (8vo, Edinburgh, 1823), but he is not given credit for it as a thesis in the Index Catalogue, USA Army. [Amendment from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] 'may have been' deleted and 'was' added]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000412
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Parkin, Henry (1779 - 1849)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Rodriguez, Roshun (1918 - 2012)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Plaut, Gustav Siegmund (1921 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Peel, Sir John Harold (1904 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372490372490
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Sir John Peel was perhaps the most celebrated obstetrician and gynaecologist of his era. Born in Bradford on 10 December 1904, he was the son of the Rev J E Peel. From Manchester Grammar School he went to Queen’s College, Oxford, going on to his clinical studies at King’s College Hospital where, after junior posts in surgery and obstetrics and gynaecology, he was appointed to the consultant staff in 1936, and to Princess Beatrice Hospital the following year. During the Second World War he was surgeon to the Emergency Medical Service, and in 1942 was put on the staff of Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead. Together with Wilfred Oakley, he studied the management of women with diabetes, research that led to a reduction in maternal and infant mortality. A council member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1955, he was president in 1966, when he chaired a debate on reform of the abortion law, driven by his anxiety to reduce the morbidity of illegal abortion. In 1971 he was the author of a report that recommended that all women should give birth in hospital and remain there for several days, a report which wrought a great change in maternity practice, though it did not go unchallenged. Peel assisted at the birth of Prince Charles and Princess Anne, and in time succeeded Sir William Gilliatt as surgeon-gynaecologist to the Queen, in which capacity he delivered Prince Andrew and Prince Edward (all these, paradoxically, being home deliveries). A quiet, unflappable Yorkshireman, Peel was unfazed by media interest in his royal patients. He married Muriel Pellow in 1936, and divorced her in 1947, to marry Freda Mellish, a ward sister. Their long and happy marriage was terminated by her death in 1993. He married for the third time in 1995, to an old family friend, Sally Barton. He died on 31 December 2005, leaving her and a daughter by his first marriage.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000303
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Rennie, Christopher Douglas (1948 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372491372491
Occupation Urologist
Details Christopher Rennie was a consultant urologist at Bromsgrove. He was born in Port Dixon, Malaysia, on 10 April 1948, the first son of Douglas David and Kathleen Mary (Dinah) Rennie. Douglas was an insurance underwriter for Manufacturers Life for the majority of his working life and Dinah was a GP in the same practice as her father, James Alexander Brown. She later worked in family planning in the Birmingham area. Chris was educated at Edgbaston Preparatory School and at King’s School in Canterbury. Influenced by his grandfather, whom he frequently accompanied on rounds from the age of five, he decided on a medical career. He went to medical school in Birmingham, obtained a BSc in anatomy in 1969 and graduated in 1972. He gained his FRCS in 1977, and initially trained as a general surgeon in the West Midlands, switching to urology as his chosen specialty in the early eighties. Chris became the sole urologist in Bromsgrove in 1985 and, before his early death, was instrumental in the transition to an amalgamated unit of five consultants. He was programme director for the West Midlands training programme in urology and was keen on expanding all aspects of training. Chris married twice, to Bridget (née Main) and Yvette (née Downing). He leaves a partner, Helen Kingdon, and a son, Alexander Harry James. Chris died suddenly from a heart attack on 14 September 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000304
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ward, David Michael (1932 - 2012)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2012-07-12 2014-07-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002600-E002699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374833374833
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details David Michael Ward, known as 'Mike', was warden of St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital and, before that, a consultant ophthalmologist at Torbay Hospital, Torquay. He was born in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, and studied medicine at Birmingham, qualifying MB ChB in 1955. He carried out his National Service in Cyprus and Aqaba, and then briefly became a GP. Deciding to become an ophthalmologist, he was a senior registrar in Sheffield Royal Infirmary and at Bristol Eye Hospital. He then spent a year in Kingston, Jamaica. He returned to the UK and was appointed as a consultant at Torbay Hospital, where he remained for 25 years. From 1990 to 1995, he was chief surgeon and warden of St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital, a period which included the first Gulf War. As part of his role, he raised large amounts of money for the hospital, and lectured extensively abroad. Mike Ward died from cancer of the prostate on 1 January 2012 and was survived by his wife Sonia, whom he married in 1963, and their two children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002650
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Manifold, Michael Fenton (1822 - 1897)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-07-31
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002600-E002699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374834374834
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Arklow, Ireland, on March 27th, 1822, was gazetted Assistant Surgeon to the 77th Foot on May 22nd, 1846, joined the Staff on August 18th, 1848, and the 67th Foot on March 18th, 1853. He was promoted Staff Surgeon (2nd Class) on December 8th, 1854, joined the 34th Foot on December 31st, 1858, rose to Surgeon Major on May 22nd, 1866, and was transferred to the Staff on April 7th, 1870. He was gazetted Deputy Surgeon General on February 28th, 1876, and Surgeon General on May 21st, 1881. He retired on May 27th, 1882. Manifold was one of the first to advocate women nurses for the Army, and obtained permission for their employment during a severe epidemic of small-pox among the garrison in Ireland in 1847, the great famine year. During the Crimean War he was in charge of the Officers' Hospital at Scutari, and Miss Florence Nightingale found in him a warm supporter of her nursing reforms. His unvarying kindness and unwearying attention made all the sick and wounded his friends. He served through the Indian Mutiny with the 34th Regiment, and was present at the defeat of the rebels near Bootwal on the Nepal Frontier on March 28th, 1859, for which he received the Medal. He died in retirement at Putney on January 6th, 1897. His son became Major-General Sir C C Manifold, KCB, IMS, the Chinese traveller.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002651
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Mann, George Smyth (1816 - 1864)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Manning, Guy Eugene ( - 1920)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Mann, Robert James (1817 - 1886)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-07-31
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002600-E002699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374837374837
Occupation Educationalist Meteorologist
Details Born at Norwich, the son of James Mann, and was educated at University College, London. He practised for some years in Norwich and Buxton, but weak health led him to give up medicine. He published in 1845 *The Planetary and Stellar Universe*, which was followed by a long series of text-books on astronomy, chemistry, physiology, and health, designed to popularize science. He graduated MD at St Andrews in 1854, and in 1857 he left England for Natal on the invitation of Bishop Colenso, and lived in the Colony for the next nine years. He was appointed to the newly established office of Superintendent of Education two years after his arrival, and established the system of primary education which long remained in force. He also made a careful and valuable record of the meteorology of Natal. He returned to London in 1866 with a special appointment as Emigration Officer for the Colony, and became President of the Meteorological Society, a post he held for three years. He was also, for the same length of time, one of the Board of Visitors of the Royal Institution. From 1874-1886 he was Secretary of the African and the Foreign and Colonial sections of the Royal Society of Arts. He took an active part in the organization of the scientific apparatus at the South Kensington Exhibition in 1876, having superintended the collection and dispatch of the Natal collections to the Great Exhibition of 1862. He also compiled the catalogue of the Natal Court at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886. He died at Wandsworth on August 8th, 1886, and was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002654
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Fixott, Charles ( - 1864)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Fletcher, Hubert Middlecott ( - 1904)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Drain, Andrew John (1974 - 2010)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2011-12-20 2014-02-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373963373963
Occupation Cardiothoracic surgeon
Details Andrew Drain was a cardiothoracic surgeon who was born in Northern Ireland on 9 June 1974. In 2006 he worked in the department of cardiothoracic surgery at Papworth Hospital, Cambridge. He was working at a prestigious New York hospital and about to return to the UK as a consultant when he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, aged 33 in September 2007. He was given chemotherapy and returned to Ireland - to Broughshane, near Ballymena - to have a bone marrow transplant. Initially he was thought to have been cured and preached a series of sermons on the book of Job. When he relapsed in June 2009 he wrote a book *Code red* about his sufferings and how his Christian faith had helped him to accept his fate, an obituarist commented "he found through Job that he could face death with confidence because 'I know that my Redeemer lives'". He died on 3 July 2010 survived by his wife, Ruth and children Josh, Conor and Olivia. Publications:- Pride or prejudice: an insight into surgical mentality. *Ulster med j* 2006 75 (3) p 174 *Code red *Christian Medical Fellowship, 2010.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001780
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bultitude, Michael Ian (1936 - 2011)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2011-12-20 2015-06-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373964373964
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Michael Bultitude was a much respected urologist at St Thomas' Hospital who helped set up the first public lithotripter service in the UK for renal stones and also made significant contributions to the study of urodynamics. He was born on 29 September 1936 in Withernsea, Yorkshire, the only child of Frank and Millicent Bultitude. When only a few months old his father, a serving Army officer, was posted to India and for the next several years the family lived in that country. Sadly, his father died when Michael was only seven years old and so the family returned to England and Michael attended the Royal Masonic School, where he excelled academically, winning a place at Trinity College, Cambridge, to study medicine. He was a keen oarsman, and in later years would proudly still display his oar from his Cambridge days. He proceeded to London for his clinical studies at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, qualifying in 1965. House appointments were at Shoreham Hospital and Worthing Hospital, before he became a senior house officer on the urological unit at St Peter's Hospital, Chertsey. A rotating registrarship on the Wolverhampton circuit was followed by a seminal year as a resident surgical officer at St Peter's Hospital for Stone, London, which was the acknowledged centre for postgraduate urology. After a research urology post back at St Thomas' he was appointed as a senior registrar in urology and, in 1977, consultant urologist at both Lewisham Hospital and St Thomas', where he worked with Kenneth Shuttleworth and Wyndham Lloyd-Davies as colleagues. He left Lewisham in 1981 to work exclusively at his alma mater. Michael set up a urodynamics unit developing and equipping a cystometrogram unit for the investigation of functional disorders of micturition. He pioneered the use of prostaglandins in the atonic bladder and the use of sub trigonal injections of phenol for urge incontinence, publishing a number of papers on these areas. Other areas of research interest were urinary tract infection in relation to prostatectomy and the use of capsaicin for patients with chronic renal pain. This latter subject unusually resulted in a paper where the authors were father and son (for his son Matthew was then a medical student at St Thomas' and helped his father in the research) ('Loin pain haematuria syndrome: distress resolved by pain relief.' *Pain*. 1998 May;76[1-2]:209-13). In the early 1980s St Thomas' was the first NHS hospital in the UK to install an extracorporeal shock wave lithotripter for the treatment of urinary calculi and Michael was closely involved with the development of this service. In 1986 he was a co-author of a paper detailing the treatment of the first 1,000 patients by this machine ('Report on the first 1000 patients treated at St Thomas' Hospital by extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy.' *Br J Urol*. 1986 Dec;58[6]:573-7). Outside of urology his interests included sports cars and especially boating. His motor boat named *Shockwave* (after the lithotripter) was moored near Rochester and many a weekend was spent with his family either sailing it or tinkering with it. Holidays were spent in the sunshine of Lanzarote, where he owned a villa for some 20 years. Happily married to Margaret, a former radiographer, they had four children, three sons (the eldest Matthew, who also became a consultant urologist, Sam and Richard) and a daughter (Jessica). Retiring from St Thomas' in 1999 because of ill health, he moved from the London suburb of Dulwich to the sea air of Worthing, where he enjoyed a relaxed life despite battling with various illnesses which he bore with stoicism and fortitude. He died on 19 February 2011, aged 74.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001781
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Collis, John Leigh (1911 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372229372229
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details Jack Collis was a pioneering thoracic surgeon. He was born in Harborne, Birmingham, on 14 July 1911, the son of Walter Thomas Collis, an industrial chemist, and Dora Charton Reay. His choice of medicine was greatly influenced by his local GP and his two medical uncles, one of whom was a professor of medicine at Cardiff. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and studied medicine at Birmingham. There he was a member of the athletic club and captained the hockey team. He was equally outstanding as a scholar, winning the Queen’s scholarship for three years running, and the Ingleby scholarship and Priestley Smith prize in his final year, together with gold medals in clinical surgery and medicine. He graduated in 1935 with first class honours. He was house physician to K D Wilkinson at Birmingham General Hospital and then house surgeon to B J Ward at the Queen’s Hospital. He went on to be surgical registrar to H H Sampson at the General Hospital, before becoming a resident surgical officer at the Brompton Chest Hospital in London under Tudor Edwards and Clement Price Thomas. The outbreak of war saw him back in Birmingham as resident surgical officer at the General Hospital. By July 1940 he was surgeon to the Barnsley Hall Emergency hospital, which received Blitz casualties from Birmingham and Coventry. He was in charge of the chest unit for the next four years, during which time he wrote a thesis on the metastatic cerebral abscess associated with suppurative conditions of the lung, where he showed the route of infection via the vertebral veins. This won him an MD with honours, as well as a Hunterian professorship in 1944. In February 1944 he joined the RAMC to command the No 3 Surgical Team for Chest Surgery, taking his team through Europe into Germany shortly after D-day, for which he was mentioned in despatches. From Germany he was posted to India to receive the anticipated casualties in the Far East. He ended his war service as a Lieutenant Colonel. At the end of the war he applied to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, from his posting in India, with a glowing reference from Tudor Edwards. He was appointed initially as a general surgeon, though he was soon engaged mainly in thoracic surgery, especially thoracoplasty for tuberculosis, and spent much time travelling between sanatoria in Warwick, Burton-on-Trent and Malvern. With the advent of cardiac surgery, Jack was responsible for a successful series of mitral valvotomies and was one of the first to remove a tumour from within the cavity of the left atrium, using a sharpened dessert spoon and a piece of wire gauze. Later he withdrew from open heart surgery to concentrate on the surgery of the oesophagus. He became celebrated for three advances in the surgery of the oesophagus – the Collis gastroplasty for patients with reflux, the Collis repair of the lower oesophagus and, above all, a successful technique for oesophagectomy. In this his mortality and leakage rates were half those of his contemporaries. He attributed his success to the use of fine steel wire: his assistants attributed it to his outstanding surgical technique. He was Chairman of the regional advisory panel for cardiothoracic surgery, an honorary professor of thoracic surgery at the University of Birmingham, and was President of the Thoracic Society and the Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons. He was Chairman of the medical advisory committee at the Birmingham United Hospitals from 1961 to 1963, and Chairman of the planning committee from 1963 to 1965. He trained a generation of thoracic surgeons whose friendship he retained, along with those medical orderlies who served with him during the war. Vehemently proud of Birmingham, he devoted much of his retirement to promoting the city. He married Mavis Haynes in 1941. They had a holiday bungalow in Wales, where he enjoyed walking, gardening and fishing. They had four children, Nigel, Gilly, Christopher and Mark, two of whom entered medicine. He died in Moseley, Birmingham on 4 February 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000042
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Shaw, Denis Latimer (1917 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Gillingham, Francis John (1916 - 2010)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Angus E Stuart
Publication Date 2011-12-20 2013-11-15
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373969373969
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Gillingham was professor of neurosurgery at the University of Edinburgh. He was born in Dorchester, Dorset, on 15 March 1916, the son of John Herbert Gillingham, a businessman, and Lily Gillingham née Eavis. He was educated at the Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester, and then studied medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School, where he won prizes in surgery and obstetrics. After graduation and house posts with Sir James Patterson Ross and Ronald Christie, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was deployed for 18 months in Sir Hugh Cairns' 'crash course' at Oxford on all aspects of neurological trauma. Gillingham later became commanding officer of the number 4 neurological surgical unit in the Middle East and Italy - the 'nomadic surgeons'. His unit chased after the 8th Army in the desert for some two months during the huge battle of El Alamein and then to Sicily. During this time Gillingham contracted poliomyelitis, which left him with a paralysed jaw. He ate slops for three months, but, in his own words, he eventually 'cheeked' his way back to command the unit. After the war he became a senior registrar in general surgery and then in neurosurgery at Bart's, and in 1950 he was appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon and a senior lecturer in surgical neurology at the University of Edinburgh. Gillingham spent 12 years working alongside Norman McOmish Dott, one of the great triumvirate of neurosurgeons that also included Cairns in Oxford and Sir Geoffrey Jefferson in Manchester. In 1962 Gillingham became a reader and, in 1963, professor of surgical neurology at Edinburgh. Gillingham's experiences during the Second World War gave him an understanding of, and a lasting interest in, head injuries. He kept meticulous notes on how bullets entered, traversed and often exited soldiers' brains, and correlated these injuries with any abnormal central nervous system signs or behavioural and emotional aberrations. He later described an area now known as the reticular activating system, noticing that injuries to this part of the brain always resulted in total loss or serious loss of consciousness. Gillingham regarded this area as the seat of the conscious mind, an analogy being the central processing unit of the computer. In recognition of this work he was awarded the medal of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons (in May 2009). When his colleague in Edinburgh, David Whitteridge, described the use of microelectrodes in distinguishing between grey and white matter, Gillingham immediately saw their usefulness in distinguishing deep brain structures. From these first microelectrode recording studies, fundamental insights were gained which improved the accuracy of locating lesions within the brain, including the observation that spontaneous rhythmical discharge from the thalamus was synchronous with tremor. However, the main emphasis of his work in Edinburgh was on stereotaxis (or the use of three-dimensional coordinate systems to locate and operate on targets in the body), which he used as an aid to localising brain lesions. He was introduced to stereotactic surgery by Gérard Guiot, who had visited Edinburgh to learn aneurysmal surgery from Dott and Gillingham. Gillingham's wealth of experience in aneurysmal surgery led him to adapt Guiot's stereotactic method. Over the years he refined his procedures, targeting the cerebellum, brain stem and cervical spine to help patients with chronic pain and dystonias. Results from 60 patients with Parkinson's symptoms showed that electrocoagulation of lesions in the globus pallidus, internal capsule and thalamus, either separately or in combination, reduced tremor and rigidity in 88% of cases. In this era predating MRI scans, stereotactic neurosurgery proved to be one of the most important developments in 20th century brain surgery. Gillingham's interest in the nature of memory and evolution never diminished. One day, discussing Marcel Proust's *In remembrance of times past*, he remarked that Proust may have had temporal lobe epilepsy. Gillingham pointed out that temporal lobectomy on the left side had to carefully done, lest damage to the superior temporal gyrus caused loss of cognitive memory. He added that the hippocampus, amygdala and the wider functions of the temporal lobe are concerned with memory, both long- and short-term. Gillingham was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1970. In 1980 he became president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, where he vigorously pursued and established fellowships in surgical sub-specialties. Education was a primary interest, and he supported the use of television and other visual aids. After he retired from Edinburgh, Gillingham was professor of neurosurgery at the King Khalid University Hospital in Riyadh - at that time a veritable nest of distinguished medicos. Gillingham's services were in demand during the planning of a new medical school and I remember him insisting on a helicopter pad being built. With great gusto, he improved training and skills in the neurosurgery section, which soon began to flourish. In 1945 Gillingham married Judy (Irene Jude), who was a constant support. Cairns, a brilliant administrator, arranged their wedding locally in Oxford, followed by a reception in his house. After the war they settled in a splendid house overlooking the Forth, where Judy was a sparkling hostess, entertaining guests with tales of their many tours abroad. They had four sons (Jeremy, who predeceased him following a skiing accident, Timothy, Simon and Adam) and many grandchildren. John Gillingham died on 3 January 2010, at the age of 93. His modesty and kindliness were apparent throughout his life; all who met him admired him. Once, walking through the main corridor of the King Khalid Hospital in the company of a Syrian surgeon, we encountered John, advancing towards us with his entourage. As they passed by, the Syrian doctor lent over and whispered in my ear: 'Do you see that man? I would never tell him so, but I would do anything for him!'
Resource Identifier RCS: E001786
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Folker, William Henry (1826 - 1912)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-12-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373974373974
Occupation General surgeon Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Born at Brighton, and received his education at New College School, Oxford. He was then apprenticed to James Fernandez Clarke, the well-known medical biographer attached to the staff of the *Lancet*, and afterwards completed his professional training at Charing Cross Hospital, where, among other prizes, he gained the final Silver Medal for Clinical Work. Eventually he studied in Paris under such masters as Trousseau, Velpeau, Nélaton, Malgaigne, Ricord, and Dubois. After qualifying he was elected, in 1853, House Surgeon of the North Staffs Infirmary, but resigned in three years' time and started in general practice at Hanley. In 1858 he was elected to the visiting staff of the Infirmary as Hon Surgeon, and held this post till 1890, when he became Surgeon to the New Ophthalmic Department, and held office till 1892, when he was elected Consulting Surgeon on his retirement. He continued, however, to be actively interested in the administrative work of the hospital, and was Vice-President in 1904-1905, and President in 1906. In 1899 he had given the first impulse to the movement for the erection of the King Edward VII Nurses' Home, and saw his project realized three years later in the fine building wherein the hospital nursing staff is accommodated. He was one of the first batch of certifying surgeons to be appointed by the Home Office under the Factory Act, and held the post to within a few years of his death, when his son succeeded him. Folker served enthusiastically in the Volunteers, which he joined in 1859. In 1860 he was appointed Battalion Surgeon to the 1st Battalion Staffs Volunteer Rifles, and retired with the Long Service Decoration in 1886. He was a Conservative in politics, and a Past Master of the Sutherland Lodge of Freemasons, 451, and held provincial rank in the Godefroi de Bouillon Preceptory. A dinner was given in his honour by his many friends in 1903, to celebrate the jubilee of his connection with the North Staffs Infirmary. A placid geniality of disposition, an unswerving steadfastness in friendship, and an invincible optimism were his main characteristics, and this combination of qualities inspired him with a well-nigh perpetual youth. His popularity among his younger colleagues was based on his power of giving advice as a senior and of sympathizing as a contemporary. He was a complete invalid for three years before he died at his residence, Bedford House, Hanley, on March 20th, 1912. He married in 1857 Ellen Jane, daughter of George Henry Fourdrinier, the well-known paper-maker, and was survived by four children, of whom the eldest son, Herbert Henry Folker, was Surgeon to the Ophthalmic Department at the North Staffs Infirmary. Folker's year of Presidency of the Staffordshire Branch of the British Medical Association was signalized by an address on the "Surgery of the Extremities", in which he compared the results of the many changes and advances in technique with which he had been personally associated. He wrote also on his own modifications of the operations for the cure of haemorrhoids and varicose veins, which involved specially devised instruments which carried his name. Publications: "Case of Tumour of the Tongue successfully Operated on." - *Lancet*, 1863, ii, 445. "Successful Ligature of the External Iliac." - *Ibid.*, 1864, ii, 89. "Secondary Haemorrhage - Successful Ligature of the Subclavian." - *Ibid.*, 1868, I, 313.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001791
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Foster, John ( - 1897)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Foster, John Frederick (1810 - 1880)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Jay, Barrie Samuel (1929 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Enid Taylor
Publication Date 2011-12-21 2013-02-20
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001800-E001899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373986373986
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Barrie Samuel Jay was professor of clinical ophthalmology at the Institute of Ophthalmology, University of London. He was born in London on 7 May 1929, the son of Maurice Bernard Jay, a medical practitioner, and Julia Sterling Jay, a housewife. He attended Perse School and then Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and University College Hospital, London. He trained in ophthalmology at Moorfields Eye Hospital and the London Hospital. He was a Shepherd research scholar at the Institute of Ophthalmology from 1963 to 1964. In 1965 he became a consultant ophthalmic surgeon to the London Hospital. Four years later, in 1969, he was also appointed to Moorfields Eye Hospital. He was dean of the Institute of Ophthalmology from 1980 to 1985 and professor of clinical ophthalmology from 1985 to 1992. In 1992 he was appointed as an emeritus professor and as an honorary consultant surgeon to Moorfields Eye Hospital, London. Barrie Jay was much respected as a clinician and for his research work, especially in paediatrics and genetics, in both of which fields he was honoured. His scientific contributions were considerable, with a large body of peer-reviewed publications, book chapters and books. He also showed considerable foresight in embracing information technology at an early stage, and created the first database of ophthalmic training facilities in the UK. With other far-sighted colleagues he was instrumental in setting up the Royal College of Ophthalmologists and was a senior vice-president of the college. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was an examiner for the diploma in ophthalmology from 1970 to 1975, a member of the Court of Examiners from 1975 to 1980, and a co-opted member of the Council from 1983 to 1988. In 2004 he was the first recipient of a lifetime achievement award, presented by the European Paediatric Ophthalmological Society. He had many interests outside ophthalmology. His greatest passion, or obsession as he himself described it, was British postal history. He claimed that his wife said it was more important to him than his work! He wrote a standard history on the subject and over the years amassed an internationally known collection which sold at auction in the year 2000 for a considerable sum. He was president of the Royal Philatelic Society in 1998. He was also a keen gardener with a particular interest in dwarf irises. He was master of the Society of Apothecaries in 1995. He married Marcelle Ruby Byre, a geneticist, in 1954. They had two sons, Robert Maurice, a barrister, and Stephen Mark, an accountant. Barrie Jay died on 10 March 2007, at the age of 77, after a short illness.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001803
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cummins, Brian Holford (1933 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372232372232
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Brian Cummins was a consultant neurosurgeon at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol. He was born in Somerset on 10 March 1933, the son of Peter Cummins (known as ‘Cecil’ or ‘Pop’) and his wife, Rita. His early years were spent in Bath, but he moved to Edmonton, Alberta, in 1946, when his family emigrated to Canada. At the age of 16 he entered the University of Alberta to study classics and modern languages, at the same time as helping his father build the family home. He spent his vacations working as a foreman in pipeline construction in Manitoba. He graduated with honours in 1953. A chance encounter with a book on the surgery of epilepsy by Wilder Penfield, director of the Montreal Neurological Institute, raised in him an ambition to become a neurosurgeon and he spent two years on the medical course at Alberta, before returning to England to complete his studies at Bristol in 1961, when he won a gold medal. After qualifying, he held a junior post in neurosurgery in Oxford under Joe Pennybacker and John Potter, where he developed his interest in head injury management, brain tumour and spinal injury. He returned to Bristol in 1968 as senior registrar. He became a consultant neurosurgeon at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, in 1973. He retired in 1999. Cummins’ interests in neurosurgery were wide, encompassing tumours, spinal surgery and head injuries. He was instrumental in bringing the main technological advances in neurosurgery to Bristol and pioneered teleradiology. He was involved in improving the standards of head injury care in the region by education and guidance on management, and helped the College and the Society of British Neurological Surgeons in producing their booklet on the topic. He was an advocate of multidisciplinary clinics and this, plus his interest in the rehabilitation of head injuries, led to his setting up a head injury unit at Frenchay in 1992, of which he was director for three years. He also took part in the charity Headway which sought to help these patients. He also established a combined clinic for managing brain tumours. In spinal surgery he developed a steel prosthetic joint for implanation into the cervical spine. He was an enthusiastic and patient teacher of junior staff and would spend much time supervising them in operations. Consultant surgeons from at least half the neurosurgical units in the UK trained with him at some stage. He was an adviser on head injury to the Department of Health, the Royal Colleges, and to the World Health Organization in Bosnia. He advised on neurosurgical services in India and South East Asia, and raised funds for a children’s unit. His character was enthusiastic and extroverted. Love of outdoor activities resulted in him breaking both hips rock climbing in 1970. He was so grateful for the help he received from the mountain rescue team that he joined the organisation to advise and teach. He enjoyed skiing, canoeing, hill-walking and travel to remote places, and he was an extremely knowledgeable gardener, studying for a degree in botany during his early retirement. He married Annie in 1961 and they had two sons, Sean and Jason. He died on 16 August 2003 after a short illness of carcinoma of the pancreas.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000045
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Darné, Francois Xavier ( - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Davey, William Wilkin (1912 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372234372234
Occupation General surgeon
Details Will Davey wrote the first textbook on surgery in tropical countries. He was born on 28 February 1912 in Dunmurry, near Belfast, in Northern Ireland. His father, Robert, was a minister of religion. His mother was Charlotte née Higginson. One of a family of five, he studied medicine at Queens University, graduating in 1935. During his studies his mother gave him a copy of *For sinners only*, which led to his involvement in Moral Rearmament, an international movement for moral and spiritual renewal. During the second world war he joined up, but was given time to complete his exams, and became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland. He was then assigned to the RAF as a medical officer to a number of operational squadrons. In early 1944 he was part of a medical team assisting the Normandy landings. After the war he trained in gastroenterology at St James's Hospital, Balham, and subsequently became a consultant at the Whittington Hospital, where he ran a gastroenterological unit covering the whole northern area of London. In 1958 he was a Hunterian professor at the College. He ran courses to prepare students for the FRCS. His skills as a teacher led to an invitation from London University to go to Nigeria to become professor of surgery at University College, Ibadan, an offshoot of the British University. The first 14 doctors ever to graduate in Nigeria were among his students. Returning to London, Will wrote *Companion to surgery in Africa, etc*, (Edinburgh and London, E & S Livingstone, 1968), the first textbook on surgery for tropical countries. In 1969 he decided to settle in Australia, and set up as a surgeon in general practice in Portland, where he was also the port and quarantine officer, and medical officer to the town's large meatworks. In his later years he made several visits to India and four to Papua New Guinea, where he was pleased to find his book on tropical surgery being used. He was a past President of the Australian Provincial Surgeons Association. He retired in 1984. He played tennis into his 80s, took on computers at 90 and, latterly, the intricacies of digital cameras. He married Gill née Taylor in Reading, in 1950, after meeting her in the hospital laboratory where she worked. They had five children, ten grandchildren and a great grandson. He died on 30 May 2004 in Altona in Melbourne, Australia.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000047
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ellis, Wray (1925 - 2010)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2012-01-05 2013-11-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001800-E001899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374001374001
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Wray Ellis was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the North and South Tees Health Districts. At Liverpool University, where he trained, he was demonstrator in anatomy and then he became orthopaedic registrar to the Alder Hey Children's Hospital and the Liverpool United Hospitals. A fellow of both the Royal Society of Medicine and of the British Orthopaedic Association, he was living in Sedgefield, Stockton-on-Tees when his death was reported as having occurred in December 2010. Publications: Severe septic shock treated successfully with sodium bi-carbonate. (Jointly). *Jl bone and joint surg* 1964. Multiple bone lesions caused by Avian-Battey mycobacteria. *Ibid* 1974
Resource Identifier RCS: E001818
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hulbert, Kenneth Frederick (1912 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372267372267
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Ken Hulbert was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Dartford, Sydenham Children’s Hospital and Chailey Heritage Hospital. He was born on 24 December 1912, the son of a Methodist minister, and was educated at Kingswood School, Bath. He went on to Middlesex Hospital to study medicine. His special interest was in paediatric orthopaedics, especially in improving the quality of life of those affected by spina bifida. He maintained close links with Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, having been a senior registrar there. Although, because of a speech impediment, he was retiring in manner, he wrote fluently and excellently, and compiled commentaries about his time as a house surgeon with Seddon at Stanmore at the outbreak of the second world war. He was married to Elizabeth and they had two daughters, Anne and Jane (who predeceased him), and a son, John, who is a urologist in Minneapolis. He died on 25 May 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000080
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jonas, Ernest George Gustav (1924 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Jones, Bruce Victor (1919 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372271372271
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Surgeon captain Bruce Jones RN was born on 26 June 1919 at Ringwood, Hants, the first son of Ernest Victor Jones, a dental surgeon, and Gladys Maud Jones née Sloper. He was educated at Great Ballard School near Hilton, Hants. He then moved on the Sherborne School. Initially, he started dental training at the Royal Dental Hospital in 1938 and was awarded certificates of honour, but did not qualify as a dental surgeon. In 1939, because of the war, he transferred to Charing Cross Medical School which had been evacuated to Glasgow. After qualifying MRCS in 1943 and MB in 1944 he joined the Royal Navy, serving as a surgeon lieutenant at sea, on HMS Aberdeen. In 1947, after demobilisation, he did a good surgical rotation at Poole and Hertford General Hospitals and the old Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, passing his FRCS in 1949. Orthopaedics fascinated him: he had appointments at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in London and Heatherwood Orthopaedic Hospital in Ascot. The Royal Navy called, so in 1954 he rejoined on a permanent commission as surgeon lieutenant commander, specialist in orthopaedics. There followed the normal service rotation of orthopaedic jobs in RN hospitals in Chatham, Kent, Hong Kong and HMS Ganges, the RN boys training establishment in Shotley, Suffolk. The Armed Services Consultant Approval Board at the RCS appointed him as a consultant in orthopaedic surgery in 1959. Bruce was then posted to Mauritius to establish joint services medical facilities. He returned to the UK in 1961, to the RN Hospital Stonehouse, Plymouth, Devon, then to RN Hospital Haslar as senior consultant in orthopaedics and later adviser to the medical director general of the Royal Navy. During this time he was delighted to be seconded on an operational posting to the aircraft carrier HMS Albion, the task to cover HM forces’ withdrawal from Aden. He was promoted to surgeon captain during this voyage whilst en route to Singapore. From 1968 to 1976 he was an honorary surgeon to HM the Queen. Later he was a brother of the Knights of Malta. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine for over 50 years and a fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association. Bruce was very keen on inter-service cooperation and initiated the Joint Services Orthopaedic Club. He was a keen and stimulating chairman who encouraged surgeons from the Army and RAF to take a full part in its activities. After retiring in 1976, he became a civil consultant to the RAF Hospital Wroughton, finally retiring in 1984. He was a keen sailor and photographer, and developed a productive interest in beekeeping. Fly fishing and entomology were other interests. Bruce married Sheila Ray Hogarth – a descendent of the painter – in May 1954 and they had two sons. James Victor Hogarth Jones was born in 1955 and is now head of farm business management at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. Bruce Jonathon Hogarth Jones, born in 1959, is now a lawyer with Citibank London. Bruce was an excellent orthopaedic surgeon with a keen interest in the correction of recurrent shoulder dislocation, a common service problem, and hand surgery. When asked how he would like to be remembered, he stated: “conscientious and thorough and unsparing attention to patients’ needs”. That summed up his life as a naval surgeon. He died on 28 February 2005 after many years of infirmity, patiently borne.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000084
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jones, Rhys Tudor Brackley (1925 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372272372272
Occupation General surgeon
Details Air Vice Marshal Rhys Tudor Brackley Jones was born on 16 November 1925 in Middlesex, the son of the late Sir Edgar and Lady Jones. He studied medicine at St Mary’s Hospital, where he qualified MRCS LRCP in April 1950 and became a house surgeon there. His surgical training rotation continued at Harold Wood Hospital, becoming a junior surgical registrar, before call up for National Service by the Royal Air Force in September 1952. He married Irene Lilian Henderson in August 1953. He was rapidly promoted to squadron leader in 1954 whilst serving at the RAF Hospital Wroughton. Typical service annual moves to RAF Hospitals Nocton Hall, Weeton, Uxbridge, Ely and Wegberg happened until 1960, when he passed his FRCS and was posted on active service to the RAF Hospital in Aden. This was a period of terrorist activity and he rapidly gained extensive experience in battle surgery. After returning to the UK, he continued as a general surgeon, gaining the wide experience the service required, before being promoted to wing commander in 1963. He had a sabbatical year and was appointed as a consultant by the Armed Services Consultant Approval Board at the College in 1967. An overseas posting to RAF Hospital Changi soon followed, where a wide range of general surgery was undertaken. After returning to the UK he had a further period of external study before being promoted to group captain. He was soon posted to the RAF Hospital Wegberg as the senior consultant. This hospital was at the western end of British Forces Germany and he was responsible for the surgical treatment of the Army as well as the RAF. He was a very capable surgeon and this was soon recognised by the Army surgeons, with whom he established an excellent working relationship. In 1978 he went to the senior RAF Hospital the Princess Mary’s and was in charge of the Stanford Cade unit, where all the RAF cases of malignant disease were treated. In 1982 he was appointed as a consultant adviser in surgery and was soon promoted to air commodore. This was a busy and difficult period following the Falklands war, and included the dissolution of all military hospitals. In 1987 he was promoted to air vice marshal, with responsibility for all postgraduate training of RAF medical officers. He rapidly became the senior consultant of the RAF and honorary surgeon to the Queen. He retired in 1990 and died suddenly on 8 December 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000085
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Kell, Robert Anthony (1939 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12 2006-12-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372273372273
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Robert Anthony Kell, known as ‘Robin’, was a consultant ear, nose and throat surgeon at the Victoria Infirmary and Southern General Hospital, Glasgow. He was born in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, in 1939, the son of William Kell, a colliery manager and Lilian. His mother died from leukaemia when Robin was only seven, and he was brought up by his father and stepmother, Ann, in Acomb. He was educated at the Friends’ School, Brookfield, Wigton, a co-educational boarding school, where his report reads: “he will develop not only into a first class scientist but also a man of wide sympathies and a strong social conscience”. He had hoped to follow in his father’s footsteps, but failed the coal board medical due to his eyesight. After graduating from St Andrews in 1963, he trained at Dundee Royal and the department of anatomy, Dundee. He began his ENT training in Dundee, but then moved to the Liverpool ENT Hospital to develop this interest further. He was appointed to his consultant posts in Glasgow in 1972. He was the clinical director for ENT at the Victoria Infirmary and Southern General Hospital for many years. His main interests were in audiology, the middle ear, and head and neck oncology. Robin served on the council for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, was President of the Scottish ENT Society and was an examiner for the intercollegiate board. He married Babs Scorgie, whom he met while working in Dundee. An expert pianist, he enjoyed music, playing the fiddle, and played with the Strathspey and Reel Society. He was also a keen traveller, particularly enjoying visiting Italy, the Lake District and west Cork. He died from metastatic prostate cancer on 17 December 2003, leaving a daughter, Valerie, and two sons, Alistair and Malcolm Kell, a general surgeon and a Fellow of our College. There are two grandchildren, Ruby and Genevieve.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000086
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Kenyon, John Richard (1919 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Ketharanathan,Vettivetpillai (1925 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372275372275
Occupation Vascular surgeon
Details Vettivetpillai Ketharanathan or ‘Nathan’ was a senior research associate at the vascular surgery unit at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Victoria, Australia. He was born in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, on 25 November 1935 to Appiah Ketharanathan and Rukmani Nama (Sivayam) Ketharanathan, who were both teachers. He attended Jaffna Central College, but from the age of 14, when his father died, he had to shoulder the burden of family responsibilities. He studied medicine in Colombo, qualifying in 1960. After house jobs in Colombo and four years as a registrar at the General Hospital, Malacca, he went to Melbourne in 1966, as a registrar on the cardiothoracic unit at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, where he came under the wing of Ian McConchie. He became an Australian citizen, and was encouraged by McConchie to go to London, where he completed registrar posts in Hackney and the Brompton Hospital. He returned to Melbourne, where he began to carry out research into improved biomaterials for replacing cardiac valves and blood vessels, research he continued whilst he was working as a consultant thoracic surgeon at Ballarat. This work took him later to Portland, Oregon, as an international fellow in cardiopulmonary surgery. A number of new materials were patented by him and in 1990 he set up two companies, BioNova International and Kryocor Pty, to exploit them, whilst he was appointed senior research associate at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. An indefatigable investigator, he was an inspiration to many young surgeons. Among his many interests were cooking, and he was a regular client at the Queen Victoria market, seeking the freshest produce, rewarding his friends with examples of Sri Lankan fare. He died on 3 March 2005, leaving his wife Judith, and four children, of whom his eldest daughter, Selva, is an infectious diseases specialist at Sir Charles Gardiner Hospital in Perth. His second daughter, Naomi, is about to qualify at Amsterdam.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000088
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching King, Philip Austin (1918 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372276372276
Occupation General surgeon
Details Philip King was a consultant surgeon at St Stephen’s Hospital, Chelsea, and honorary consultant surgeon at the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth. He was born in 1918, the son of an obstetrician and gynaecologist. He was educated at Stonyhurst, and went on to read medicine at Sheffield, but the loss of some of his friends in the second world war made him interrupt his studies and join the RAF, where he served as a pilot. After the war, he completed his medical degree and then did house jobs at Sheffield and became resident surgical tutor. He then came to London as senior registrar to Sir Clement Price Thomas, Charles Drew and Frank d’Abreu at the Westminster Hospital, where he was one of the team that introduced the artificial kidney and cardiac bypass machines. He was then appointed general surgeon to St Stephen’s Hospital in Chelsea, part of the Westminster group. At this time he began his long association with the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, where Sister Pauline of the Sisters of Mercy, remembered him as a “faultless charismatic performer who cared deeply for his patients”. There he served as chairman of the medical staff committee and continued to serve the hospital long after he retired. He was admitted to the Order of Malta, first as a Knight of Grace and Devotion and later as a Knight of Obedience, and served the order with distinction, acting regularly as chief medical officer to their annual pilgrimage to Lourdes. Ironically, he developed a carcinoma of the oesophagus, a condition he had studied and written about. He underwent oesophagectomy and made a remarkable recovery. A keen sailor, for a time he owned a small island in the Menai Straits. He died of cardiovascular disease in the Hospice of St John and St Elizabeth, which he had helped established, on 7 June 2004, leaving his wife Gabrielle and three children, one of whom qualified at Westminster and became a consultant radiologist.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000089
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Leighton, Susanna Elizabeth Jane (1959 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12 2011-07-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372279372279
Occupation Paediatric otolaryngologist
Details Susanna Elizabeth Jane Leighton née Hurley was a consultant paediatric otolaryngologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London. She was born in Kobe, Japan, on 20 January 1959. She qualified at St Thomas's Hospital, London, where she completed an intercalated BSc in anatomy, and was vice-president of the Amalgamated Clubs and secretary of the Medical and Physical Society. After house jobs, she decided to train as a surgeon, and became the lead surgeon on the cochlear implant team at Great Ormond Street. She also developed an interest in airway management in craniosynostosis and wrote extensively on the subject, producing guidelines. She married Barry and had a daughter (Claudia) and two sons (John and Finn). She died from metastatic breast cancer on 6 August 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000092
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Porter, Richard William (1935 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-21 2012-03-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372431372431
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Richard William Porter was a distinguished orthopaedic surgeon in Aberdeen. He was born on 16 February 1935 in Doncaster, the son of J Luther Porter, a china merchant and Methodist minister, and Mary Field. He was educated at Oundle and Edinburgh University, and completed his surgical training at Edinburgh. Following house appointments he became a ships' surgeon for three months before returning to Edinburgh as a senior house officer and passing the FRCS Edinburgh and the DObstRCOG. He began his surgical training as a registrar in Sheffield and after obtaining the FRCS England in 1966 he became a senior registrar on the orthopaedic training programme at King's College Hospital, where he was much influenced by Hubert Wood and Christopher Attenborough. He returned to Doncaster as consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Royal Infirmary and soon took an interest in low back pain, a common problem among the coal miners. He set up a research programme and established a department of bioengineering which attracted postgraduate students from home and abroad. He became an authority on the use of ultrasound in the investigation of back pain published papers and a book on the subject and was awarded an MD in 1981 for this work. His reputation resulted in the presidency of the Society for Back Pain Research and a founder membership of the European Spine Society. He was also on the council of the British Orthopaedic Association and the Society of Clinical Anatomists. In 1990 he was appointed to the Sir Harry Platt chair of orthopaedic surgery in Aberdeen and developed links with China and Romania, and later became the first Syme professor of orthopaedics in the University of Edinburgh and director of education and training at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Following his retirement he returned to Doncaster and, as a devout Christian, played a very full part in the local Evangelical Methodist Church. He published extensively and was the author of three textbooks. In 1964 he married Christine Brown, whom he had known since his schooldays. They had four sons, one of whom is an orthopaedic surgeon, two are Anglican ministers and one a Methodist minister. He died on 20 July 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000244
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Booth, John Barton (1937 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-21 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372432372432
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details John Barton Booth was a consultant ENT surgeon at St Bartholomew's and the Royal London Hospitals. He was born on 19 November 1937, the son of Percy Leonard Booth and Mildred Amy née Wilson. He was educated at Canford School and at King's College, London, where he became an Associate (a diploma award given by the theology department), flirted with politics (the Conservative Party) and law, but in the end qualified in medicine. After house appointments at the Birmingham Accident Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, he started ENT training at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital. He subsequently became a senior registrar at the Royal Free Hospital, working with John Ballantyne and John Groves, and for one day a week he was seconded to the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases as clinical assistant to Margaret Dix, who was famous as an audiological physician with a particular interest in balance problems. The influence of these mentors very much guided John into a career in otology and he later confirmed his position in that field by being elected a Hunterian Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons. His lecture was based on his work on Ménière's disease. He was appointed consultant surgeon to the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital and consultant ENT surgeon to the London (later Royal London) Hospital and subsequently to the Royal Hospital of St Bartholomew's. John was never happy with the fusion of the Royal London and Bart's, particularly as the ENT department was relocated at Bart's. He was appointed as a civilian consultant (otology) to the RAF, which gave him the opportunity to practise otology in Cyprus for two weeks in June every year. John Booth had a strong Christian belief and moral code, which underpinned his life. He was always immaculately dressed, precise in his manner, thoughtful in his approach to problems and determined in his belief that a job should be well done and with no half measures. He was always a person who could be relied upon, which explains the succession of responsible positions he held. He edited the *Journal of Laryngology & Otology* from 1987 to 1992, as well as the volume on diseases of the ear in two editions of *Scott-Brown's Otolaryngology*. For the Royal Society of Medicine he was president of the section of otology and council member, honorary secretary and subsequently vice-president of the Society. For the British Academic Conference in Otolarynoglogy he was honorary secretary of the general committee for the eighth conference, becoming chairman of the same committee for the ninth. John inherited the significant voice practice of his father-in-law, Ivor Griffiths, and continued his association with the Royal Opera House, the Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain, the Concert Artists Association and the Musicians Benevolent Fund, until his retirement in 2000. In addition, he was honorary consultant to St Luke's Hospital for the Clergy. John had a great interest in the history of his specialty and in art. He was able, with Sir Alan Bowness, to combine these two interests in a publication on Barbara Hepworth's drawings of ear surgery, which appeared as a supplement in the *Journal of Laryngology & Otology* (April 2000). He married Carroll Griffiths in 1966. They both enjoyed playing golf, either at the RAC Club or on the Isle of Man, where they retired. John took great pride in his membership of the MCC and the R and A at St Andrew's. On retirement he switched from ENT and became a physician at St Bridget's Hospice in Douglas. He managed to combine part-time work at the hospice with the care of Carroll, who had been ill for eight years. She died on 3 July 2004 and John died of a massive coronary thrombosis on 22 July 2005. He left their son, James. Neil Weir
Resource Identifier RCS: E000245
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Byrne, Henry (1932 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Levy, Ivor Saul (1941 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-21 2012-03-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372434372434
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details Ivor Levy was a consultant ophthalmologist at the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel. He was born in Manchester on 29 June 1941 and educated in Manchester, at Pembroke College, Oxford, and at the London Hospital. After junior appointments, he held a research fellowship at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, USA, which led to his special interest in neuro-ophthalmology. He was appointed to the Royal London Hospital in 1973. He had a particular interest in collecting books, especially those of Sir Frederick Treves. In 2000 he developed a tremor, which was found to be caused by a communicating hydrocephalus, for which he underwent shunt surgery. He died at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, on 21 March 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000247
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Shawcross, Lord Hartley William (1902 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-21 2006-10-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372435372435
Occupation Politician
Details Hartley Shawcross, a barrister, Labour politician and an honorary fellow of the College, will be perhaps best remembered as the leading British prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. He was born on 4 February 1902, the son of John and Hilda Shawcross. He was educated at Dulwich College, the London School of Economics and the University of Geneva. He was called to the bar in 1925. He successfully stood for Parliament as a Labour candidate in 1945 and immediately became Attorney General. From 1945 to 1949 he was Britain’s principal UN delegate, as well as Chief Prosecutor at Nuremberg. He later served as President of the Board of Trade before leaving politics and resigning from Parliament in 1958. He went on to help found the University of Sussex and served as chancellor there from 1965 to 1985. He a board member of several major companies. He married three times. His first wife, Alberta Rosita Shyvers, died in 1944. He then married Joan Winifred Mather, by whom he had two sons and a daughter (who became a doctor). In 1997, at the age of 95, he married Susanne Monique Huiskamp. Tall, handsome and with a commanding presence, Shawcross was a most distinguished member of his party, and a good friend to the College.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000248
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Siegler, Gerald Joseph (1921 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-21 2009-05-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372436372436
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Gerald Joseph Siegler, or ‘Jo’ as he known to colleagues, was an ENT consultant in Liverpool. He was born in London on 3 January 1921, and studied medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. He held junior posts in Huddersfield, Lancaster, Nuneaton and Birkenhead, before completing his National Service with the RAF. After passing his FRCS he specialised in ENT, becoming a registrar at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital and then a senior registrar at Liverpool, where he was appointed consultant in 1958. He was past president of the North of England ENT Society and an honorary member of the Liverpool Medical Institute. After he retired in 1986 he continued to be busy, working for Walton jail until 1995. He died from the complications of myeloma on 4 October 2005, leaving a wife, Brenda, two daughters, Sarah and Pauline, and three grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000249
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Yellowlees, Sir Henry (1919 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-21 2012-03-08
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372437372437
Occupation Chief Medical Officer
Details Sir Henry Yellowlees was Chief Medical Officer for England from 1973 to 1983. He was born on 16 April 1919 in Edinburgh, the son of Sir Henry Yellowlees, a psychiatrist, and Dorothy Davies, a cellist. He was educated at Stowe and University College, Oxford, but deferred his medical training to join the RAF, where he became a flying instructor. After the war he went up to Oxford to read medicine, going on to the Middlesex Hospital for his clinical studies. After house appointments he became a resident medical officer at the Middlesex. His skilful handling of an epidemic among the staff drew him to the attention of Sir George Godber and before long Henry was involved in medical administration, first as medical officer at the South West and later the North West Regional Hospital Boards, and finally the Ministry of Health. There he became Deputy Chief Medical Officer in 1966 and finally Chief Medical Officer in 1973, despite having suffered a coronary thrombosis. During his time the NHS went through a series of massive and destructive reorganisations, wrought by Barbara Castle and her successors just at a time when important new developments were taking place in medicine and surgery. After he left the Department of Health he worked at the Ministry of Defence, restructuring the medical services of the Armed Forces. He married Gwyneth 'Sally' Comber in 1948. They had three children, Rosemary (a nurse), Lindy (a psychiatrist) and Ian (an anaesthetist and pain specialist). After his wife's death in 2001 he married Mary Porter. He died on 22 March 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000250
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Glaser, Sholem (1912 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching McConnachie, James Stewart (1913 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 2007-08-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372289372289
Occupation General surgeon
Details James Stewart McConnachie, known as ‘Monty’, was a consultant surgeon at Tredegar and Nevill Hall hospitals. He was born in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, Scotland on 8 October 1913 into a medical family. His father was James Stewart McConnachie, his mother, Mary Watson Reiach. He studied medicine in Aberdeen, where he captained the rugby team and the athletics association, and gained five gold medals and one scholarship. He completed house jobs in the professorial units under Sir Stanley Davidson and Sir James Learmonth. At the outbreak of the second world war, he joined the RAMC and was with the 51st Highland Division in the British Expeditionary Force, being evacuated from St Valéry. He was later posted to the Far East, where he was a prisoner of war in the infamous Changi jail and was made to work on the railways, operating alongside the celebrated Sir ‘Weary’ Dunlop. After the war, Monty was a surgical registrar at Inverness and then a senior registrar in Aberdeen. In 1949, he was appointed to Tredegar and Nevill Hall hospitals, where he was at first the only surgeon. His wife Dot, along with Alun Evans, gave the anaesthetics. He was a founder member of the Welsh Surgical Society in 1953 and played an important role in developing surgical services in south Wales, culminating with the opening of a new district hospital in Abergavenny, to which he moved with two other surgeons in 1969. Predeceased by his first wife, Dorothy Isabel Mortimer, and son, he married a second time, to Megan. He died on 29 April 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000102
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching McKechnie, William Richard (1906 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Ogg, Archibald John (1921 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Owen, William Jones (1945 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 2007-08-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372295372295
Occupation General surgeon
Details William Jones Owen was a consultant surgeon at Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospitals and a senior lecturer at King’s College, London. He spent his early life in north Wales, where he excelled at his academic work, rugby, music and Welsh. He won first prize in a recital group at the Urdd National Eisteddfod and the Evanson scholarship from Llandovery College. He went on to Guy’s, where he took a BSc in anatomy, with a distinction in pathology. He held house posts in the south east of England, and gained his FRCS, winning the Hallet prize. He returned to Guy’s for his higher surgical training, and during this period obtained his masters degree in surgery from the University of London for his studies on intestinal adaptation. At the end of his training, in 1981, he was appointed to the staff of Guy’s, as a senior lecturer with Ian McColl. He remained in this position until he died. For many years he also worked at Lewisham and later at St Thomas’s Hospitals, and took on management responsibilities. He was considered a warm and loyal colleague, becoming a surgeons’ surgeon. He established one of the best oesophageal laboratories in the country, producing over 100 excellent papers. He played a prominent role in the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, and was Chairman of the oesophageal section of the British Society of Gastroenterology. He was an examiner at the College and an honorary surgeon to the Army and the Royal Society of Music. He loved music and was an enthusiastic follower of sport. He was married to Wendy, a doctor who worked with him in the oesophageal laboratory. They had a daughter, Sarah, and a son, David. He died from a brain tumour on 3 April 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000108
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Galloway, James Brown Wallace (1930 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372444372444
Occupation General surgeon
Details James Galloway was a consultant general surgeon in Stranraer, Scotland. He was born on 26 March 1930 in Lanark, the son of William Galloway, a farmer, and Anne née Wallace, a secretary. He received his early education at Lanark Grammar, followed by McLaren High in Callendar when the family moved there after his father’s death. At an early stage he showed the academic bent that was to remain with him throughout his life. School was followed by Glasgow University, where he graduated MA before embarking on a medical degree. After gaining his MB Ch in 1956 he undertook his National Service as a captain in the RAMC, spending a large part of his time in Hong Kong. Returning to civilian life, he opted for surgery as a career, and received his training in Glasgow. In 1966 he moved to Ballochmyle Hospital in Ayrshire. Here he made an indelible impression. He was an outstanding doctor whose interest in his subject seemed insatiable, his knowledge of it being encyclopaedic. His practical skills were also of a very high order, and he gave of himself unstintingly. He could truly be said to be dedicated to his work, and he was held in the highest regard by his medical colleagues and nursing staff alike. Though a quiet man, even self-deprecating, he had a remarkable ability to get what he wanted; where his patient’s interests were concerned he could be tenacious, to say the least, and he provided a service second to none. His interest in new developments, and his enthusiasm for new devices, were infectious. He was a most likeable colleague and he was held in considerable affection by all. His time in Hong Kong had given him a taste for travel and during the 1970s, while working in Ayrshire, he answered an advertisement placed by the Kuwait Oil Company and spent three months there as a general surgeon. His work so impressed that he was invited back for two further tours of duty. In 1981 he was appointed consultant general surgeon at the Garrick Hospital in Stranraer. Ayrshire’s loss was Stranraer’s gain, and he quickly established himself there as he had at Ballochmyle, becoming a most valued member of the community. He believed firmly that medical services should be provided locally whenever possible, and fought hard to prevent the surgical service being transferred to Dumfries. James’s other great love was sailing, and he had a succession of boats, starting with a 14-foot dinghy and culminating in *Eliane*, a very capable traditional yacht which was his pride and joy. He happily related that all his boats had one thing in common – they were so full of his beloved gadgets and equipment that they all had to have their waterlines redrawn. He was a very relaxed skipper who, though a lifelong teetotaller himself, was not in the least put out by the occasional excesses of his crew members. There can be no part of the Clyde, and few parts of the Western Isles, that he had not sailed to, and he never ceased to be glad of his origins. After retirement in 1991 he remained as active as ever, embracing the computer age with typical enthusiasm. He was a very kindly, widely read and thoughtful man who made a most interesting companion. He took up scuba diving and continued to be a very active sailor, crossing the Minch to Eriskay in his last summer. Sadly this was to be his last cruise, and thereafter he became increasingly weak. Typically he preferred to discuss the differential diagnosis rather than to complain. He died in the Ayr Hospital on 11 December 2005. He was predeceased by Janet and Anne, his two older sisters. He is greatly missed by his many friends.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000257
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Grimshaw, Clement (1915 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Hounsfield, Sir Godfrey Newbold (1919 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2008-09-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372446372446
Occupation Research engineer
Details Godfrey Hounsfield, the inventor of the CT scanner, was the epitome of the brilliant boffin – modest, retiring and shunning the limelight. He was born on 28 August 1919, the youngest of the five children of Thomas Hounsfield, a steel engineer who took up farming in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire. There Godfrey grew up surrounded by farm machinery, with which he became fascinated. ‘In a village there are few distractions and no pressures to join in at a ball game or go to the cinema and I was free to follow the trail of any interesting idea that came my way. I constructed electrical recording machines; I made hazardous investigations of the principles of flight, launching myself from the tops of haystacks with a home-made glider; I almost blew myself up during exciting experiments using water-filled tar barrels and acetylene to see how high they could be waterjet propelled.’ At Magnus Grammar School he was interested only in physics and mathematics. At the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the RAF as a volunteer reservist and was taken on as a radar mechanic instructor, occupying himself in building a large-screen oscilloscope. His work was noticed by Air Vice Marshall Cassidy, who got him a grant after the war to attend Faraday House Electrical Engineering College, where he received a diploma. He then joined the staff of EMI working on radar and guided weapons, working with primitive computers. In 1958 he led a team building the first all-transistor computer, speeding up the transistors by providing them with a magnetic core. In 1967 he began to study aspects of pattern recognition and worked in the Central Research Laboratories of EMI. Contrary to the public relations story, which has been repeated so often that it has come to be accepted as true, his idea did not occur to him when out walking, and it was not supported by the full resources of EMI. His colleague, W E Ingham, pointed out that EMI were not interested: they were not in the medical business, and it was only covertly that a deal was done with the Department of Health and Society Security to fund the development of what became the first CT scanner. The first brain to be scanned was that of a bullock. The prototype was soon shown to be successful in 1971, when it was used to diagnose a brain cyst at Atkinson Morley’s Hospital and before long Hounsfield’s work had been plagiarised and developed all over the world, mostly overseas. Hounsfield was unaware that Cormack, of Tufts, had published theoretical studies on the mathematics for such a device. A whole-body scanner was introduced in 1975. Honours came thick and fast: CBE, FRS, the Nobel prize (shared with Cormack), a knighthood and an honorary FRCS. He remained a modest, retiring bachelor. His advice to the young was: ‘Don’t worry if you can’t pass exams, so long as you feel you have understood the subject.’ In retirement he did voluntary work at the Royal Brompton and Heart Hospitals. He died from a chronic and progressive lung disease on 12 August 2004. He was unmarried.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000259
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hopper, Ian (1938 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Neil Weir
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2009-05-07
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372447372447
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Ian Hopper was an ENT consultant in Sunderland. He was born in Newcastle upon Tyne on 19 May 1938, the son of John Frederick Hopper, an insurance manager, and Dora née Lambert. He was educated at Dame Allans School, Newcastle upon Tyne, and High Storrs Grammar School, Sheffield, where he played rugby in the first XV. At Sheffield University, although he boxed for a short while, he turned away from contact sports and played table tennis for the university and the United Sheffield Hospitals. He was much influenced by the skills of the professor of surgery, Sir Andrew Kay. He held house physician and house surgeon posts at Sheffield Royal Infirmary and Wharncliffe Hospitals. Having obtained his primary fellowship, he chose to specialise in ENT surgery. He became registrar and later senior registrar in ENT at the Sheffield Royal Infirmary. In 1969 he was appointed ENT consultant at Sunderland Royal Infirmary and General Hospital, where he stayed until his retirement in 1997. Ian Hopper was regional adviser in otolaryngology, a member of the Overseas Doctors Training Committee and the College Hospital Recognition Committee. He was on the council of the British Association of Otolaryngologists (from 1983 to 1997), honorary ENT consultant at the Duchess of Kent Military Hospital, president of the North of England Otolaryngological Society, a council member of the Section of Otology at the Royal Society of Medicine and chairman of the Regional Specialist Subcommittee in Otolaryngology. He married Christine Wadsworth, a schoolteacher, in 1961. Their son, Andrew James, was bursar at Collingwood College, Durham University, before entering the private student accommodation market and their daughter, Penelope Anne, teaches art at Poynton High School, Cheshire. In retirement Ian Hopper made bowls his main sport and subsequently became vice-chairman of Sunderland Bowls Club. He was also a keen snooker player. He died peacefully in hospital after a long illness on 4 March 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000260
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Herdman, John Phipps (1921 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372448372448
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Herdman was born on 15 December 1921. He studied medicine at Oxford, qualifying in 1945. He completed house jobs at the United Oxford Hospitals and at Ancoats, Manchester, from which he passed the FRCS. He then returned to the Nuffield Institute for Medical Research for two years, before undergoing further registrar posts in Oxford. In 1953 he went to Canada and worked as a general surgeon at the St Joseph's Hospitals, Sarnia, Ontario, until 1973. He then studied health services planning under D O Anderson in the University of British Columbia, where he wrote a graduate thesis on patterns in surgical performance in the Province of British Columbia, and revealed a natural aptitude for epidemiological research. In 1976 he joined the staff of Riverview Hospital, Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, becoming surgical consultant in June 1976, where his duties were administrative. By 1978 he was the chief physician of North Lawn in charge of the entire medical and surgical service. By 1985 he was involved in a successful application for re-accreditation of Riverview Hospital and its mental health services. He was also involved with the care of patients who developed megacolon as a side effect of their medication. He retired in 1991. He died on 4 April 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000261
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Halvorsen, Jan Frederik (1935 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2007-08-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372449372449
Occupation General surgeon
Details Jan Frederik Halvorsen was director of the department of surgery and professor of surgery at the University of Bergen, Norway. He graduated from the University of Bergen Medical School in 1960, becoming a general surgical specialist in 1968 with a special interest in intestinal surgery. He gained a PhD for his work on blood pressure within the liver. His first appointment was at Stavanger Hospital, followed by the Rikshopitalet in Oslo. He also worked at the United Nations Hospital in Gaza. In 1964 he was appointed to Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, where he remained until illness forced his retirement in 2001. He moved through the department of pathology and the gynaecology clinic, but his main focus was surgery. He initially specialised in endocrine surgery, but eventually developed his interest in GI surgery, particularly the diagnosis and treatment of bowel disorders. He published over 100 papers on diseases of the GI tract. He took a sabbatical, spending time at St Mark’s Hospital, London. He became professor of surgery at Bergen University and, as a result of his involvement with the Norwegian Medical Association, he was responsible for the coordination of postgraduate studies. His door was always open to students and colleagues. The organisation of training and the decentralising of courses were a demanding project. He organised the coordination of 1,100 courses involving 25,000 participants. In 1992 he was chosen to coordinate university exchanges between the Hanseatic towns of Lubeck in Germany and Bergen. His enormous experience, knowledge, friendly amiability and dynamism helped him to establish important international contacts and successful exchanges. He was a generous man and established great and permanent friendships with both the students and the specialists in both these cities. He also organised many visits of groups of surgeons from other countries, including the UK. He was a great communicator and spoke impeccable English. He was extremely interested in English literature. He belonged to a British surgical travelling club and was one of its most enthusiastic members. Even when he was suffering from serious cardiac problems he determinedly joined the group on a visit to Spain. In 1988 he was made an honorary Fellow of the College. This particular honour he cherished more than the other many honours he received. Jan Frederik Halvorsen was an extremely skilled surgeon, with vast theoretical knowledge and practical experience. In addition to the qualities he showed as a surgeon, his organisational skills in health management were used to great effect in improving postgraduate education in Norway. Patients and doctors benefited from these attributes. He left a great legacy. He was a strong family man. He leaves his wife Sissel and four children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000262
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Addison, Norman Victor (1925 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Blaiklock, Christopher Thomas (1936 - 2018)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by David Currie
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2018-05-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372451372451
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Christopher Thomas Blaiklock was a consultant neurosurgeon at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. He was born on 27 July 1936 in Newcastle upon Tyne and raised in Northumbria. His parents, Thomas Snowdon Blaiklock and Constance Rebecca Blaiklock, were both doctors. He attended Oundle School, Northampton, and then carried out his National Service (from 1954 to 1956) in the Royal Navy. He went on to study medicine at Durham, qualifying in 1961. Chris was influenced by his medical house officer post with the Newcastle neurologist, Sir John Walton. His original intention was to pursue a career as a physician, but, having passed the MRCP in 1966, he came to the view that, with the resources available at the time, he could achieve more for patients as a surgeon and he did his basic surgical training in Cardiff. He decided on a career in neurosurgery which, at the time, could not be said to be the most successful of surgical specialties, but he was fortunate to be regularly in the right place at the right time. He was a neurosurgical registrar at Atkinson Morley Hospital in London, which was famous (or notorious) for giving a rigorous training. While he was there the first CT (computed tomography) scanner in the world was installed and Chris was among the first neurosurgeons to experience the revolutionary transformation of neurological imaging and the huge improvement that brought to patients' experience of neurological diagnosis. In 1972, he was appointed as a senior registrar in neurosurgery in Glasgow with Bryan Jennett at a time when Glasgow was being recognised as a centre of excellence in neurosurgical research. The first CT scanner in Scotland was installed in Glasgow during his training there. In 1974, he was appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. He was only the third neurosurgeon in Aberdeen after Martin Nichols and Bob Fraser. The department covered the whole of the North of Scotland, including the Northern and Western isles. In addition to providing a comprehensive neurosurgery service, the department housed, prior to the advent of intensive care units, the only ventilation unit in the region and the two neurosurgeons were responsible for its management along with a single trainee. Chris brought his experience of CT imaging and saw the installation of the first CT scanner in Aberdeen. He introduced the operating microscope and effectively brought neurosurgery in Aberdeen into the modern era. When the world's first MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner was built and became available for clinical use, Chris was the first neurosurgeon in the world to employ it and gain experience in its use in neurosurgery. Chris was unusual in being a neurosurgeon who was also a member (and subsequently a fellow) of the Royal College of Physicians, and his diagnostic skills were evidence of his broad general knowledge. For many years, the neurosurgeons in Aberdeen also offered the out-of-hours neurology service, handing patients over to the well-rested neurologists in the morning. Chris often remarked that he could just as easily have enjoyed being an engineer. He had a fascination with how things worked. He carried a skill with tools and his manual dexterity into his operative surgery. He was a true craftsman. His operative surgery was calm, precise and quick, and an inspiration to his trainees. He was an NHS partisan. Despite a heavy workload, his waiting times were negligible and he was offended on occasions when it was suggested to him that he might see a patient 'privately'. He was intensely proud of the local service and of the beautiful territory he served. He enjoyed demonstrating the extent of the territory he covered by placing a pair of compasses on Aberdeen and passing it through his most distant centre of habitation - one of the North Sea oil platforms. The circle also passed through Watford. He contributed extensively to NHS administration, both locally and nationally. With the introduction of clinical management, he became director of surgery for Grampian - a post that he accepted without dropping any clinical sessions. He lacked self-importance or pomposity, and was genuinely interested in people and their occupations and he was always available. For a year, while the other consultant post was unfilled, he provided the service single-handedly. Chris Blaiklock died at home on 8 February 2018 at the age of 81 and was survived by his wife Judith, an anaesthetist, and by his son, Ian, and daughter, Fiona. He will be remembered with great affection by former patients, colleagues in all health professions and by his trainees who have occupied consultant posts in Scotland and in other countries.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000264
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bond, Kenneth Edgar (1908 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Bonham, Dennis Geoffrey (1924 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Keane, Brendan (1926 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-10-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372454372454
Occupation General surgeon
Details Brendan Keane was a surgeon at the Whakatane Hospital, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. He was born in Dublin on 9 May 1926, one of six children. His father rose to become private secretary to Eamon de Valera and head of the Irish Civil Service. His mother was a teacher from the Aran Islands, where the family spent their summers in thatched stone cottages. His early schooling was at Roscrea, a Cistercian monastic boarding school where the examinations were all in Gaelic. From there he went to University College, Dublin, to study veterinary surgery, but changed to medicine after a year. After a period as house surgeon at Coombe Hospital, Dublin, he went to England, to work at Sefton General Hospital, Liverpool, as a casualty officer. He then joined the RAMC, spending two years in Malaya, rising to the rank of major, treating British and Gurkha soldiers and their families. He returned to Halifax General Hospital, Yorkshire, to complete a series of training posts in surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology. In 1965 he moved to Gibraltar, where he remained for six years. During this time he became a passionate lover of the Spanish language. He then sailed for New Zealand, working as a consultant surgeon at Whakatane Hospital in the Bay of Plenty. On retirement he continued his study of Spanish, enrolling on a short course at the University of Zaragoza, and began to learn French from scratch. His other hobbies included golf, snooker, Irish history and jazz. He married Christine in 1957 and they had four children. He died on 22 October 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000267
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Katz, Gerson (1922 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-10-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372455372455
Occupation Cardiothoracic surgeon
Details Gerson Katz was a cardiothoracic surgeon in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was born in Johannesburg and studied medicine at Witwatersrand University. After qualifying he completed junior posts in Durban at King Edward VIII Hospital. He then went to the UK, to specialise in surgery. He was a house surgeon at the National Temperance Hospital in 1947, subsequently doing registrar jobs at the London Chest and Harefield hospitals and then becoming a senior registrar in Southampton. In 1952 he returned to Johannesburg, to join Fatti and Adler in developing the cardiothoracic unit at the Johannesburg General Hospital. He entered private practice in 1956. He was appointed part-time consultant in the faculty in 1962. He worked at Rietfontein, Natalspruit, the old Johannesburg General, and former J G Stydom hospitals, before moving to Johannesburg Hospital. He retired in 2000. During his career he saw the evolution of open heart surgery. He was an outstanding teacher, winning an exceptional service medal from the Faculty of Health Sciences in 2001. He married Beatrice and they had five children. He had a great love for the arts. He died from acute myeloid leukaemia on 17 February 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000268
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Laird, Martin (1917 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372481372481
Occupation General Practitioner
Details Martin Laird was a general practitioner in Richmond, South Australia. He qualified from Sheffield University in 1941 and then demonstrated anatomy for two years. In 1943 he became a resident medical officer at the Royal Hospital, Sheffield. He then served in the RAMC in Burma, returning after the war to Sheffield, to specialise in surgery and take the FRCS. He was resident surgical officer to the Sheffield Royal Infirmary and then went on to the Westminster Hospital as registrar. In 1952 he went to Nottingham General Hospital as a senior registrar and remained there for the next three years. He then retrained in general practice in Cleethorpes. In 1956 he emigrated to South Australia, where he was in general practice in Richmond. He died in Adelaide on 13 November 2004. He was predeceased by his wife Joan. He leaves three daughters, Fiona, Alison and Isobel.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000294
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Scannell, Timothy Walter (1940 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Quartey, John Kwateboi Marmon (1923 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-30 2007-12-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372483372483
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details ‘Kwashie’ Quartey had an international reputation for his work on the surgery of urethral stricture, and was one of the father figures of surgery in his home country, Ghana. He was the sixth of the seven children of Peter David Quartey snr, headmaster of the Government Junior School in James Town, and Elizabeth Abigail Quartey (née Marmon). He was educated at the Achimota Secondary School, where he was senior prefect, and won colours for cricket and hockey. In 1942 he was awarded a Gold Coast Government medical scholarship to Edinburgh, travelling there in convoy at the height of the U-boat war. At Edinburgh he captained the hockey team, became involved with the Student Christian Movement and graduated in 1948. After junior posts, which included a spell at Wilkington Hospital, Manchester, and passing the Edinburgh and English fellowships in 1953, he returned to the Gold Coast. On the ship home to the Gold Coast he met his future wife, Edith Sangmorkie Saki, who was a nurse. Quartey then worked in Ministry of Health hospitals in Kumasi, Tamale and Accra, returning to do a course in tropical medicine in London in 1954 while Edith returned to England to study theatre work. They married in 1955. He was appointed a surgical specialist in 1958 and in 1961 he was awarded a Canadian Government fellowship in urology at Dalhousie University, Halifax, where he is remembered with respect and affection, and where strenuous attempts were made to arrange a full residency for him. On his return Kwashie set up the urology unit at the Korle Bu Hospital in Accra. The following year, 1963, he set up the anatomy department of the new Ghana Medical School, in the absence of any basic medical scientists. He was extremely active in the work of the surgical department, fostering its department of plastic surgery. In April 1978 there was an order for his arrest on charges of treason and he went into exile in Lome, Togo, for six months, during which time it was arranged that he should become a WHO consultant in surgery to the Government of the Gambia. He returned home after the palace coup in which General Acheampong was ousted. In 1981 he described his method of urethroplasty based on his own careful anatomical studies that used a pedicled flap of penile skin, which had the advantage of being non hair-bearing. The method was widely publicised and earned him an ChM from Edinburgh University. He travelled widely and was a visiting professor in Iran, Johannesburg and Mainz. He was a founding member of the Ghana Medical Association and of the West Africa College of Surgeons, of which he became president, and was the recipient of numerous honorary distinctions, including the unique posthumous award of the St Paul’s medal by BAUS. He was still busy with the Operation Ghana Medical Mission at the age of 82, and it was when returning from one of these outreach visits that he was involved in a fatal head-on road collision on 27 August 2005. Only two of the 10 occupants of the two vehicles survived. A state funeral was held in the State House in Accra in the presence of the President. Kwashie had an ebullient, irrepressible personality, which won him friends throughout the world of surgery and urology. He left a son (Ian Malcolm Kpakpa), daughter (Susan Miranda Kwale) and six grandchildren (Alexis Naa Kwarma, Smyly Nii Otu, Arthur Nii Armah, Nana Akua, Obaa Akosua and John Nii Kwatei).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000296
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Sneath, Rodney Saville (1925 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372484372484
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Rodney Sneath was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham and a pioneer in limb salvage surgery for patients with bone tumours. He was born in Sheffield, the son of Ernest Saville Sneath, a master printer, who owned the ‘Saville Press’. His mother was Dorothy Unwin. He was educated at Chesterfield Grammar School and Sheffield University, where he qualified with the conjoint diploma in 1948, acquiring the MB ChB in 1957. He had a wide range of interests at university, including rugby, rock climbing, gliding and motor sport. In 1952 he took part in the Monte Carlo rally with his father and was the first of the private competitors to finish. During his National Service in the RAMC he was stationed in Austria, and became an accomplished skier, an interest he pursued well into his seventies. After demobilisation and the acquisition of the FRCS in 1958 he began orthopaedic training at St George’s Hospital and later at the Royal National Orthopaedic and its associated hospitals. He was appointed a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, Birmingham, in 1965, where he developed an interest in the treatment of malignant musculo-skeletal tumours. In collaboration with John Scales at the RNOH he established what became an internationally recognised unit for the treatment of bone tumours, and together they made many innovations, including a ‘growing prosthesis’ for use in children. He was a founder member of the European Musculo-Skeletal Oncology Society and a Fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association. Among many invited lectures he gave a Hunterian lecture on ‘the treatment of malignant bone tumours in children’ in 1993. He died on 1 April 2005, leaving a wife, Ann, and five children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000297
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Staunton, Michael Douglas Mary (1925 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-30 2017-06-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372485372485
Occupation General surgeon
Details Michael Douglas Mary Staunton, known as 'Dudley', was a general surgeon in London with an interest in oncology. He was born on 8 September 1925 in Swinford, County Mayo, Ireland, where his father Michael Douglas Staunton was a dispensary doctor. His mother was Ursula Mellett. Of the six children, all became doctors. From Blackrock College, Dublin - 'the best rugger school in Ireland' - he went on to Trinity College Dublin to study medicine, and did house jobs at Dr Steevens Hospital, before going to Bristol Royal Infirmary, where he worked for Ashton Miller. In 1952 he did his National Service in the RAMC, mostly in 37th BMH Accra, Ghana, as a junior surgical specialist. In 1955 he returned to marry Rena Stokes, a radiographer from Tipperary, and to become surgical registrar at the Morriston Hospital, Swansea. Having passed the FRCS, he became a senior registrar at the Royal Marsden Hospital, training in cancer surgery under Ronald Raven. In 1964 he was appointed as a consultant surgeon to the Metropolitan, St Leonard's and the Royal London Homoeopathic hospitals, and in due course to the Hackney Hospital and St Bartholomew's (1980) and finally Homerton Hospital (1986). He was an enthusiastic tutor and examiner for the College, ending as chairman of the Court in 1982. He published extensively, mainly on cancer of the breast and thyroid. A keen member of the Territorial Army, he retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Among his many other interests were rugby, genealogy, his old college (he was chairman of the Trinity College Dublin Dining Club from 1985 to 1994) and the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. A colourful, amusing and delightful colleague, he died on 31 August 2005 from carcinoma of the prostate. He had two sons, a daughter and two grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000298
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Stanley, Edward (1793 - 1862)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-08-10 2012-07-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372208372208
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on July 3rd, 1793, the son of Edward Stanley, who was in business in the City; his mother was sister to Thomas Blizard. He entered Merchant Taylors' School in April, 1802, and remained there until 1808, when he was apprenticed to Thomas Ramsden, Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, who died in February, 1813; Stanley was then turned over to John Abernethy for the rest of his term. He was awarded the Jacksonian Prize for his essay "On Diseases of Bone", and was elected Assistant Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital on Jan. 29th, 1816, at the early age of 24. Even during his apprenticeship he had rendered important services to the Medical School, for his love of morbid anatomy led him, with Abernethy's assistance and approval, to enlarge the Museum so greatly that he practically created it. He subsequently compiled a valuable catalogue of the collection. He acted as Demonstrator of Anatomy until 1826, when he was appointed Lecturer on Anatomy and Physiology in place of Abernethy and held the post without distinction until 1848, when he was succeeded by F. C. Skey (q.v.). He was elected full Surgeon in 1838, and then became famous as a clinical teacher. He was elected F.R.S. in 1830 for his pathological work, became President of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society in 1843, and was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria in 1858. At the Royal College of Surgeons Stanley was a Member of Council from 1835-1862, Professor Human Anatomy from 1835-1838, and Hunterian Orator in 1839, the Oration being published in London as an octavo volume in 1839. He was a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1844-1862, Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1856, Vice-President in 1846, 1847, 1855, and 1856, and President in 1848 and 1857. He resigned the post of Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1861, but continued to attend the weekly operations on Saturdays until May 24th, 1862. On that day, after witnessing the operations, being in his usual health and good spirits, he went with the other Surgeons, on the invitation of Sir William Lawrence, to see a patient in Henry Ward who was suffering from a swelling of the knee. Stanley bent over the patient for a short time, then drew himself up and said, "I think, Mr. Lawrence, this is a case of knee-joint disease, and that if all remedies have failed for many months in your hands the case would be one favourable for resection." He spoke clearly and evidently in full possession of all his faculties: a moment later he staggered against a bed and sank to the floor supported by those around him. He was at once raised and place on the 'state bed' in the front ward. Momentarily he seemed to regain consciousness, and when Mr. Wormald asked if he could do anything, Stanley replied: "I am quite well, Wormald; I never felt better in my life, it's only stomach." Tradition says that Lawrence, looking round, said to his House Surgeon, "Wrong again. Head." However this may be, Stanley quickly became unconscious, passing into a state of coma and died within an hour. He married a highly educated, talented and sympathetic lady by whom he had one son, the Rev. Rainey Stanley, and several daughters. He lived at first in Lincoln's Inn fields, afterwards at 66 Brook Street, the house afterwards occupied by Sir William Savory (q.v.). Stanley is described as being one of the most sagacious teachers and judicious practitioners of his day. He was vivacious in conversation, but solemn and impressive, and his language was clear and empathic when teaching in the wards, where the students knew him as 'the inspired butterman' because he was short and 'podgy'. His unattractive features were redeemed by large intellectual eyes, a genial smile and a face honest, earnest, and good-tempered. He was an eager inquirer after pathological knowledge, a patient, accurate, and intelligent investigator and collector, but was wanting in culture of the higher kind and was without any appreciation of the arts. He always took immense pains in studying his hospital cases, and as the result of this and his innate sagacity he was seldom wrong in the opinions he arrived at. He was never a brilliant operator, yet he shone in the operating theatre, because when grave or unexpected incidents arose he never lost his self-possession, and his courage rose with the emergency. His anatomical knowledge and quiet insistence carried him through all difficulties, and he was fortunate in having James Paget (q.v.) as his Assistant Surgeon. He was, too, a man of peace, and did much to compose the bitter quarrels in which the hospital staff engaged. To this end he was instrumental in arranging the Christmas Dinner which is still a feature in the life of the Hospital, where the members of the Staff and all teachers in the Medical School meet together and, if they are so disposed, play cards until a late hour. Stanley's writings and the specimens he added to the Museum show how extensive was his knowledge of diseases of bone. He had prepared specimens of the arthritis which occurs in locomotor ataxy and has since been called Charcot's disease. There are portraits of him in the College Collection. PUBLICATIONS: - *An Account of the Mode of Performing the Lateral Operation of Lithotomy*, 4to, London, 1829. *Illustrations of the Effects of Disease and Injury of the Bones with Descriptive and Explanatory Statements*, fol., 24 plates, London, 1849. The coloured plates are splendidly executed and are drawn from original preparations, many of which are still preserved in the Museum of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. *A Treatise on Diseases of the Bones*, 8vo, London and Philadelphia, 1849. These two books are classics. *A Manual of Practical Anatomy*, 12mo, London, 1818; 3rd ed., 1826.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000021
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bastable, John Ralph Graham (1923 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-07 2007-06-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372209372209
Occupation Urologist
Details John Bastable was a consultant urologist at York. Born in 1923, he spent his childhood in Cornwall and studied medicine at Birmingham. He qualified in 1945. After National Service, he was a registrar to Alan Perry at Poplar Hospital and then at the London Hospital, where he became senior lecturer on the surgical unit under Victor Dix, and where David Ritchie supervised his MCh thesis on the effect of vagotomy on the oesophago-gastric junction. He specialised in urology, spending a year as resident surgical officer at St Paul’s Hospital and then at the London. In 1966, he was appointed consultant urologist at York, and remained there until he retired in 1988. At York, he developed a department of urology, introduced day surgery facilities, and also undertook parathyroid surgery, and was involved in the planning committee for the new district general hospital. He married Morag Millar, an anaesthetist. They had three children. In his retirement he found time for music, travelling, walking and history of art. He died after a stroke on 28 May 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000022
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Bigelow, Wilfred Gordon (1913 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372210372210
Occupation Cardiac surgeon
Details Wilfred Gordon ‘Bill’ Bigelow, who helped develop the first electronic pacemaker, was a professor of cardiac surgery at the University of Toronto and a pioneering heart surgeon. He was born in Brandon, Manitoba, in 1913. His father, Wilfred Bigelow, had founded the first medical clinic in Canada. Bill trained in medicine at the University of Toronto and did his internship at the Toronto General Hospital, during which time he had to amputate a young man’s fingers because of frostbite, leading Bill to research the condition. During the second world war, he served with the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, in a field transfusion unit and then as a battle surgeon with the 6th Canadian Casualty Clearing Station in England and Europe, where he saw many more soldiers with frostbitten limbs. After the war, he returned to a surgical residency in Toronto, followed by a graduate fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He returned to Toronto in 1947 as a staff general surgeon. In 1950 he became a research fellow in the university department of surgery. He was made an assistant professor in 1953 and a full professor in 1970. He researched into hypothermia in a cold-storage room in the basement of the Banting Institute. He theorised that cooling patients before an operation would reduce the amount of oxygen the body required and slow the circulation, allowing longer and safer access to the heart. This work led to the development of a cooling technique for use during heart operations. He also discovered that he could restart the heart by stimulating it with a probe at regular intervals, work which led him on to develop the first electronic pacemaker, in collaboration with John Callaghan and the electrical engineer John Hopps. He published extensively and received many awards, including the Order of Canada and the honorary Fellowship of our College. He was President of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery and the Society for Vascular Surgery. He was predeceased by his wife, Margaret Ruth Jennings, and is survived by his daughter, three sons and three grandchildren. He died from congestive heart failure on 27 March 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000023
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Bond, Alec Graeme (1926 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Quain, Richard (1800 - 1887)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-01 2012-03-09
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372381372381
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Fermoy, Co. Cork, in July, 1800, the third son of Richard Quain, of Ratheahy, Co. Cork, by his first wife - a Miss Jones. Jones Quain (1796-1865), the anatomist, was his full brother, and Sir John Richard Quain (1816-1876), Judge of the Queen's Bench, was his half-brother. Sir Richard Quain, Bart. (1816-1898) was his cousin. Richard Quain was educated at Adair's School in Fermoy, and after apprenticeship to an Irish surgeon came to London and entered the Aldersgate School of Medicine under the supervision of Jones Quain, his brother, for whom he acted as prosector. He afterwards went to Paris and attended the lectures of Richard Bennett, who lectured privately on anatomy and was an Irish friend of his father. Bennett was appointed in 1828 a Demonstrator of Anatomy in the newly constituted School of the University of London - now University College - and Quain acted as his assistant. Bennett died in 1830 and Quain became Senior Demonstrator of Anatomy, Sir Charles Bell being Professor of General Anatomy and Physiology. When Bell resigned the Chair Richard Quain was appointed Professor of Descriptive Anatomy in 1832, Erasmus Wilson (q.v.), Thomas Morton (q.v.), John Marshall (q.v.), and Victor Ellis (q.v.) acting successively as his demonstrators. He held office until 1850. Quain was elected the first Assistant Surgeon to University College - then called the North London - Hospital in 1834. He succeeded, after a stormy progress, to the office of full Surgeon and Special Professor of Clinical Surgery in 1848, resigning in 1866, when he was appointed Consulting Surgeon and Emeritus Professor of Clinical Surgery. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member of the Council from 1854-1873; a Member of the Court of Examiners, 1865-1870; Chairman of the Midwifery Board, 1867; Vice-President, 1866 and 1867; President, 1868; Hunterian Orator, 1869; and Representative of the College at the General Medical Council, 1870-1876. He was elected F.R.S. on Feb. 29th, 1844, and was Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria. He married in 1859 Ellen, Viscountess Midleton, widow of the fifth Viscount, but had no children. She died before him. He died on Sept. 15th, 1887, and was buried at Finchley. The bulk of his fortune of £75,000 was left to University College to encourage and promote general education in modern languages (especially the English language and the composition of that language) and in natural science. The Quain Professorship of English Language and Literature and the Quain Studentship and Prizes were endowed from this bequest. Quain himself had received a liberal education, and one of his hobbies was to write and speak English correctly. Quain was a short and extremely pompous little man. He went round his wards with a slow and deliberate step, his hands deep in his pockets and his hat on his head. As a surgeon he was cautious rather than demonstrative, painstaking rather than brilliant, but in some measure he made up for his lack of enterprise with the knife by his insistence on an excellent clinical routine, and he was a careful teacher. He had a peculiar but intense dread of the occurrence of haemorrhage. He devoted especial attention to diseases of the rectum. "Even such a matter as clearing out the scybala had to be performed in his wards in a deliberate manner, under his own superintendence." He had certain stock clinical lectures which he delivered each year, and one of these was on the ill consequences attending badly fitting boots, which he illustrated profusely by the instruments of torture called boots devised by some shoemakers. He edited his brother's *Elements of Anatomy* (5th ed., 1843-8), and was author of a superbly illustrated work, *The Anatomy of the Arteries of the Human Body* (8vo, with folding atlas of plates, London, 1844), deduced from observations upon 1040 subjects. The splendid plates illustrating this were drawn by Joseph Maclise (q.v.), brother of the great artist, and the explanation of the plates is by his cousin Richard Quain, M.D. (afterwards Sir Richard). He also published *Diseases of the Rectum* (8vo, London, 1854; 2nd ed., 1855), and *Clinical Lectures* (8vo, London, 1884). He was an unamiable colleague, for he was of a jealous nature and prone to impute improper motives to all who differed from him. He quarrelled at one time or another with most of the staff of University College Hospital. In these quarrels he sided with Elliotson and Samuel Cooper against Liston and Anthony Todd Thomson. At the College of Surgeons he was strictly conservative, and apt to urge views on educational subjects which did not commend themselves to the majority of his colleagues. A life-size half-length portrait in oils painted by George Richmond, R.A., hangs in the Secretary's office at the Royal College of Surgeons, and in the Council Room is a bust by Thomas Woolner, R.A.; it was presented by Miss Dickinson in December, 1887.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000194
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Halton, John Prince (1797 - 1873)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-01 2012-03-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372382372382
Occupation General surgeon
Details The eldest son of the Rev John Halton, MA, St Peter's, Chester; educated at the University of Edinburgh and at Guy's Hospital under Sir Astley Cooper. After Continental travel he settled in Liverpool, and in 1820 was elected Surgeon to the Royal Infirmary, an appointment he held until 1856, when he became Consulting Surgeon. In 1844 he published a pamphlet attacking the heavy mortality following operations at the Liverpool Northern Hospital, as compared with that at the Royal Infirmary during the previous twenty-two years. The reply by the Surgeons of the Northern Hospital as to the salubrity and ventilation of the building breathes a considerable spirit of deference to Halton. He caused a rule to be passed excluding the Surgeons at the Royal Infirmary from the practice of pharmacy, for a surgeon, he said, should restrict himself to cases in surgery. Further, he advocated education at universities and large centres of population. Thus, as a successor of Park and of Hanson, Halton did much to advance the reputation of surgery in Liverpool. He retired from practice in 1885 and died at Woodclose, Grasmere, Westmorland, on Jan 27th, 1873. He married in early life; his wife, a daughter of John Foster, of Liverpool, died in 1871.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000195
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Briggs, James ( - 1848)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Swan, Joseph (1791 - 1874)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372578372578
Occupation General surgeon
Details The son of Henry Swan, Surgeon to the County Hospital at Lincoln, where his ancestors had been doctors for several generations. He was apprenticed to his father, and was sent to the United Borough Hospitals in 1810. He became a pupil of Henry Cline the younger, and gained the warm friendship of Astley Cooper, who sent him annually a Christmas present of a subject in a hamper labelled 'Glass with care', to enable him to continue his anatomical dissections of the nerves. Sir Astley's example was imitated by John Abernethy. He studied abroad for a short time after qualifying, and then settled at Lincoln, where he was elected Surgeon to the County Hospital on Jan 8th, 1814. He won the Jacksonian Prize at the College of Surgeons in 1817 with his essay, "On Deafness and Diseases and Injuries of the Organ of Hearing", and in 1819 he gained the prize a second time with a dissertation, "On the Treatment of Morbid Local Affections of Nerves". He was awarded in 1822-1824 the first College Triennial Prize for "A Minute Dissection of the Nerves of the Medulla Spinalis from their Origin to their Terminations and to their Conjunctions with the Cerebral and Visceral Nerves; authenticated by Preparations of the Dissected Parts”. The Triennial Prize was again awarded to him in 1825-1827 for "A Minute Dissection of the Cerebral Nerves from their Origin to their Termination and to the Conjunction with the Nerves of the Medulla Spinalis and Viscera, authenticated by Preparations of the Dissected Parts". Swan's success is the more remarkable when it is borne in mind that the Triennial Prize has only been given twelve times since it was first offered for competition in 1822. The College had so high an opinion of his merits that he was voted its honorary Gold Medal in 1825. Swan resigned his office of Surgeon to the Lincoln County Hospital on Feb 26th, 1827, moved to London and took a house at 6 Tavistock Square, where he converted the billiard-room into a dissecting-room. Here he continued his labours at leisure until the end of his life, never attaining any practice as a surgeon, but doing much for naked-eye anatomy. He was elected a life member of the Council of the College of Surgeons in 1831, but resigned after a severe attack of illness in 1870. He then retired to Filey, in Yorkshire, where he died on Oct 4th, 1874, and was buried in Filey Churchyard. He never married. Swan was a born anthropotomist, for there is but little to show that he was greatly interested in the anatomy of birds, beasts, or fish. He had a native genius for dissection, and the kindness of his friends kept him supplied with the necessary material. Of a retiring and modest disposition, he remained personally almost unknown, and the value of his work long remained unappreciated. Publications:- *A Demonstration of the Nerves of the Human Body* in twenty-five plates with explanations. Imperial fol., London, 1830; republished 1865. It is a clear exposition of the course and distribution of the cerebral, spinal, and sympathetic nerves of the human body. The plates are admirably drawn by E West and engraved by the Stewarts. The original copperplates and engravings on steel are in the possession of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, presented in 1865 by Mrs Machin, of Gateford Hill, Worksop, widow of the nephew and residuary legatee of Joseph Swan. A cheaper edition of this work was issued in 1884, with plates engraved by Finden. It was translated into French, Paris, 4to, 1838. *An Account of a New Method of Making Dried Anatomical Preparations*, 8vo, London, N.D.; 2nd ed., 1820; 3rd ed., 1833. *A Dissertation on the Treatment of Morbid Local Affections of the Nerves* (Jacksonian Prize Essay for 1819), 8vo, London, 1820; translated into German, 8vo, Leipzig, 1824. *Observations on Some Points relating to the Anatomy, Physiology and Pathology of the Nervous System*, 8vo, London, 1822. *A Treatise on Diseases and Injuries of the Nerves* (a new edition), 8vo, London, 1834; This seems to be a re-issue of the two previous works. *An Enquiry into the Action of Mercury on the Living Body*, 8vo, London, 1822; 3rd ed., 1847. *An Essay on Tetanus*, 8vo, London, 1825. *An Essay on the Connection between . . . the Heart . . . and . . . the Nervous System . . . particularly its Influence . . . on Respiration*, 8vo, London, 1822; reprinted, 1829. *Illustrations of the Comparative Anatomy of the Nervous System*, 4to, plates, London, 1835. *The Principal Offices of the Brain and other Centres*, 8vo, London, 1844. *The Physiology of the Nerves of the Uterus and its Appendages*, 8vo, London, 1844. *The Nature and Faculties of the Sympathetic Nerve*, 8vo, London, 1847. *Plates of the Brain in Explanation of its Physical Faculties*, etc., 4to, London, 1853. *The Brain in its Relation to Mind*, 8vo, London, 1854. *On the Origin of the Visual Powers of the Optic Nerve*, 4to, London, 1856. *Papers on the Brain*, 8vo, London, 1862. *Delineation of the Brain in Relation to Voluntary Motion*, 4to, London, 1864.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000394
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Callaway, Thomas (1791 - 1848)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Babington, George Gisborne (1795 - 1856)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18 2016-01-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372580372580
Occupation General surgeon
Details Fourth son of T Babington, MP, of Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, who was brother-in-law of Zachary Macaulay, father of the historian, Thomas Babington Macaulay. Babington was attached to St George's Hospital, where he was Assistant Surgeon in 1829-1830, and Surgeon from 1830-1843. He was also at one time Surgeon to the London Lock Hospital. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member of the Council from 1836-1845, and in 1842 delivered the Hunterian Oration. In 1817 [1] he married Sarah Anne, daughter of John Pearson, of Golden Square. He died at his house, 13 Queen's Gardens, Hyde Park, on Jan 1st, 1856. Babington was eminent as a surgeon, and made some important contributions to medical literature on the subject of syphilitic diseases. Publications:- "Cases Illustrative of the Different Forms of Phagedenic Ulcer." - London Med. and Physical Jour., 1826, lvi, 204. "Observations on Sloughing Sores." - Ibid., 1827, Iviii, 285. Hunterian Oration, 8vo, London, 1842. Several contributions in the Lancet and Med.-Chir. Rev. Was one of the editors of John Hunter, more especially the Treatise on Venereal Disease in Palmer's edition of the works, 1837, ii. [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] '1817' is deleted and '18.9.1816' added]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000396
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Liston, Robert (1794 - 1847)

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First Title value, for Searching Morgan, John (1797 - 1847)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Pennington, Robert Rainey (1766 - 1849)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372583372583
Occupation General surgeon
Details Studied under Percivall Pott at St Bartholomew's Hospital, and Pott was one of his eight examiners for Membership of the Corporation. He practised in Lamb's Conduit Street, and was President of the National Institute of Medicine, Surgery, and Midwifery. For the last two years he practised in Portman Square, where he died on March 8th, 1849. The following by J F C appeared in the *Medical Times and Gazette*, 1869, i, 361;- “SOMETHING ABOUT ONE OF THE OLD SCHOOL “The late Mr Pennington, who was a fellow-student at St. Bartholomew's with Mr Abernethy, related to me the following anecdote in the course of a conversation at a very advanced period of his life. He and Abernethy were dressers at the same time to the celebrated Percivall Pott, and each claimed precedence. Pennington was certain that he was entitled to be first, but for some time, in order to avoid a quarrel, gave way to the ‘pretension’ of Abernethy. On one occasion, however, ‘Johnny’ carried his presumption a little too far. Pott was crossing the quadrangle of the Hospital, followed by the students. He was giving a kind of ‘running clinique’ on a case in which Pennington was deeply interested, and, anxious to hear all that was said, he stuck close to the teacher. Abernethy came up and absolutely elbowed me out of my position. I then found it was time to put a stop to his impertinence, particularly as the insult was given in the presence of so many of our fellows. I took no notice of it at the moment, though the circumstance did not escape the observation of Mr Pott. Immediately on the conclusion of “the round”, I made up my mind to act, and accordingly, in the presence of a number of students, I addressed Abernethy: “Jack, this won't do; I have given way to you too long, and for the future you must be content to play second fiddle.” Abernethy began to bluster, and said, “I'll be d—d if I do!” At that time disputes of the kind were settled in a summary way, and I immediately prepared to assert my right by an appeal to the fist. The place of combat was in the corner of the ground which is near to the anatomical theatre, and thither we repaired, followed by our anxious and admiring confrères. I took off my coat and prepared for action. Jack did not follow suit, and began, like Bob Acres, to show unmistakable symptoms of not coming to the scratch. In fact, he declined the ordeal of battle, and I was for the future first. We were closely associated for nearly fifty years afterwards, but we never had an angry word. Dining with him some forty years after in Bedford Row, the old quarrel between us accidentally cropped up. “Well,” said Abernethy, “the truth of the case was this – the moment I saw you uncover your biceps, I was certain I should be thrashed, and so, my boy, I surrendered at discretion.”’ “Pennington was a great physicker, and has often been called the originator of ‘homeopathy’. However this may be, he was in the habit of ordering three, four, or more draughts a day, to be ‘continued’ until further orders. These repetitions amounted, on an average, to one hundred a day, and his dispensary in Keppel Street, behind his house in Montagu Place, was a regular manufactory of physic. The boys who ‘took out the medicine’ were furnished with a string and hook, and the parcel was let down into the area by this simple mode. When orders were given by the patient that no more medicine was required, the fact was duly announced in a book kept for the purpose. ‘Ah,’ said Pennington, ‘I see I must change the medicine; I will call to-morrow.’ He did so, changed the colour of the dose, and the repetition was ordered for three weeks. In those days this was regarded as orthodox; but chiefly in respect to the ‘tip-top apothecary’. But then Pennington attended eleven out of the twelve judges, and could do pretty much as he liked. In proof of this I may mention a circumstance which was related to me by a gentleman who at one time was one of his dispensing assistants in Keppel Street. This gentleman some years since retired from general practice on account of ill health, and is now deservedly high in the profession as a dentist. “The late Lord Wynford, then Serjeant Best, was subject to severe attacks of the gout. The serjeant was irritable, and Mrs Best anxious and nervous. When she wished to see Pennington about her husband, she used to lie in wait for him in Keppel Street, and follow him into his dispensing establishment. Here she would stay with wonderful patience until he had finished his entries. On one occasion, says my informant, Mrs Best looked up imploringly to ‘the great man’. ‘The serjeant is very bad,’ said his wife, ‘in great pain.’ ‘Well,’ said Pennington, ‘what am I to do? I saw him yesterday; let him go on with his medicine.’ ‘But do tell me when you will kindly see him again.’ ‘Well,’ said he, ‘I will tell you to a minute. I will see him this day six weeks at 25 minutes to 12.’ But Pennington, however much he enjoyed a joke, did not carry this one out. He was at Best's house the next morning before breakfast. “Pennington boasted that he had never worn a great-coat in his life; nay, in the coldest weather you might see him in his pumps and silk stockings, for to the last he was proud of his ‘leg’. ‘Ah,’ said he to me on one occasion, ‘I am not such a fool as to neglect my creature comforts. I am clothed in flannel underneath, and have a pair of lamb's-wool stockings under the silk.’ I may mention here, en passant, that the late Dr Clutterbuck, who lived to nearly 90 years, and then succumbed to an accident, used to boast that nobody had ever seen him wear an outer coat, but he wrapped up almost like a mummy underneath. “Pennington's practice was large and laborious, and, in addition to seeing patients in town, he was frequently called upon to pay visits in the country. These he always managed to make at night. He would, after a hard day's work, take a warm bath, and travel in a post-chaise all the night, getting back in the morning sufficiently early to see his home patients. He had a vigorous constitution, and could sleep almost anywhere. It is said that Pennington made £10,000 a year for many years by physic. At all events he accumulated a very large fortune. He sold his practice to Mr Hillier, who, however, did not succeed in keeping it together. Pennington was a thorough man of business, and did not attend the societies. He was, however, very sociable and hospitable. When the National Association of General Practitioners was instituted, he was elected President, but he was then an octogenarian and did not display any of his former energy or ability. He was not a man of much acquirement, but he was possessed of a large amount of good common sense, had considerable power of diagnosis, and was most successful as a prescriber. He was a remarkably handsome man, with a fine presence and a manner which inspired confidence. He was in harness to the last.” A fine mezzotint in the College collection (Stone) represents Pennington as a quaint-looking old man with a humorous expression. It is from a painting by F R Say, and was engraved by W Walker in 1840.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000399
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ogilvy, Alexander (1769 - 1846)

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First Title value, for Searching Steel, Richard H H (1767 - 1856)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Nixon, Thomas ( - 1853)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Howse, Sir Henry Greenway (1841 - 1914)

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First Title value, for Searching Tweedy, Sir John (1849 - 1924)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-11 2012-03-09
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372405372405
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Born at Stockton-on-Tees, the son of John Tweedy, a solicitor. He was educated at Elmfield College, York, and at University College, London, from which he went to University College Hospital for his medical course. He qualified in 1872, and in 1873 became a Clinical Assistant at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields, thus beginning a long and distinguished association with that institution. Tweedy was never a robust man, and always suffered from an embarrassment of respiration, a wheeziness, the nature of which was obscure. It is said that his frail physique determined Tweedy not to attempt the career of general surgery and led him to become an ophthalmic surgeon. In this line he soon showed himself something above the ordinary, by his work, his early publications and his wide interest in the whole field of medicine. At Moorfields he was appointed Assistant Surgeon in 1877 on the resignation of Sir Jonathan Hutchinson (q.v.), Surgeon in 1878, Consulting Surgeon in 1900, when he was placed upon the Committee of Management in recognition of the "numerous occasions he had pleaded the cause of the Hospital in powerful and most interesting public addresses, endorsing his advocacy with liberal donations to its funds". He was likewise appointed Ophthalmic Surgeon to the Great Northern Hospital in 1878, Assistant Ophthalmic Surgeon to University College Hospital in 1881, and Professor of Ophthalmic Medicine and Surgery in University College. In addition to his professional work, Tweedy was interested in music, politics, books, history, and journalism. He was the editor of the "Mirror of Hospital Practice" in the *Lancet* and became the close friend of Dr. James Wakley, the editor of that journal, for which he was a constant leader-writer. The centenary number of the *Lancet* speaks of his being offered the editorship and refusing it. It is said that he was largely responsible for the utterance of the editorial views of the *Lancet* on the constitution of the Royal College of Surgeons, and it was as a reformer that Tweedy stood for and was elected to a seat on the Council in 1892. Here, however, he expressed moderate views and gained for himself the warm friendship and hearty co-operation of the leaders of the medical profession, so much so that in 1903 he was elected President of the College, and retained office for three years, being succeeded in 1906 by Sir Henry Morris (q.v.); in his final year as President (1906) he received the honour of knighthood. Tweedy was the first surgeon practising purely as an ophthalmologist to obtain the presidency of the College, and during his term of office he gave the presidential badge to the College to be worn by future Presidents when in their robes of office. While President of the College, Tweedy was also President of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom, President of the Medico-Legal Society, of the Medical Defence Union, and of the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund. He took an active share in King Edward's Hospital Fund, serving on the Distribution Committee, for which his powers of organization peculiarly fitted him. He was admitted to the Livery and Court of the Barbers' Company, where he was chosen Master and thus brought about a *rapprochement* between the Company and the College of Surgeons. The Barbers' Company having founded the Vicary Lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons, he was appointed to deliver the first lecture in December, 1919, when he chose as his subject "Surgical Tradition". Tweedy was an excellent speaker, whether in a set lecture or after dinner. He showed precision, making his points deliberately, and his speeches were always imbued with a kindliness and modesty which were characteristic of the man. In 1905 he was Hunterian Orator, and in his later years one of the Hunterian Trustees. On the occasions when the Hunterian Trustees met at the College, the sound of his horses' hoofs might be heard with measured tat-tat in front of the portico, for Sir John was perhaps the last consulting surgeon in London to keep a brougham instead of a car. Almost immediately afterwards a measured but laboured breathing announced the arrival at the door of the Librarian's room of Sir John himself, who, after making his courteous old-world greetings, would proceed to the discussion, and nearly always the presentation of valuable books, for which benefactions the Library is grateful. He lived at 100 Harley Street, where he had a large library of some 6000 volumes. By his will he bequeathed to the Royal College of Surgeons such of his medical and surgical books and instruments as the College might select, and to University College Hospital Medical School any others to be selected by that body after the College had made its choice. He left over £61,000, ultimate residue as to one-half, after other bequests, to go to the College in case of the failure of his heirs. In 1895 Tweedy married the daughter of Mr. Richard Hillhouse, of Finsbury Place, and left two sons and one daughter. He died on Jan. 4th, 1924, after a short illness following an operation, and his ashes were interred at Holder's Green Crematorium on Jan. 8th. Though Tweedy published no large work he had written a great deal, as the following list of his publications shows. Possibly his best-known original observation was that the physiological 'lens star' could be recognized clinically. He also advanced a theory as to the causation of conical cornea being due to developmental defect and brought the idea before the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom, in whose *Transactions* (xii, 67) it appears. He was also a pioneer in practising the extraction of immature cataracts. There are several portraits of him in the College Library, the largest a photograph from a portrait by Frank B. Salisbury. PUBLICATIONS: "On a Visible Stellation of the Normal and of the Cataractous Crystalline Lens of the Human Eye," - *Royal London Ophthal. Hosp. Rep.*, 1876, viii, 24. This paper, accompanied by drawings, attracted a good deal of attention and was a sequel to one published in the *Lancet*, 1871, ii, 776. "On an Improved Optometer for Estimating the Degree of Abnormal Regular Astigmatism," 8vo, illustrated, London, 1876; reprinted from *Lancet*, 1876, ii, 604. "Treatment of Hardness of the Eyeball by Mydriatics and Myotics." *Practitioner*, 1883, xxxi, 321. "On an Improved Optometer for Estimating the Degree of Astigmatism and other Errors of Refraction." *Lancet*, 1886, i, 777. "On the Meaning of the Words 'Nyctalopia' and 'Hemeralopia' as disclosed by an Examination of the Diseases described under these Terms by the Ancient and Modern Medical Authors," 12mo, London, 1882; reprinted from *Royal London Ophthal. Hosp. Rep*., 1882, x, 413. "On a Case of Large Orbital and Intracranial Ivory Exostosis," 8vo, London, 1882; reprinted from *Royal London Ophthal. Hosp. Rep.,* 1882, x, 303. "An Inaugural Address delivered in University College, London, on October 1st, at the Opening of the Session 1883-4," 8vo, London, 1883; reprinted from *Lancet*, 1883, ii, 577. "Lectures on the Ætiology of Constitutional Diseases of the Eye," 12mo, London, 1887; reprinted from *Lancet*, 1887, i, 57. "Extraction of Immature Cataract." - *Lancet*, 1888, i, 966, "On Some Phases of the Constitutional History of the College of Suregons," 8vo, London, 1889; reprinted from *Lancet*, 1889, i, 957, 1112. "On Cicatricial Ectropion of the Lower Lid following Caries of the Orbit," 8vo, illustrated, London, 1890; reprinted from *Ophthal. Soc. Trans.*, 1890, x, 211. "The Physical Factor in Conical Cornea," 8vo, London, 1892; reprinted from *Ophthal. Soc. Trans*., 1892, xii, 67. "The Relation of Ophthalmology to General Medicine and Surgery and to Public Health" (Presidential Address to the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom), 8vo, London, 1904; reprinted from *Ophthal. Soc. Trans.*, 1904, xxiv, 1. *A Clinical Lecture on the Forms of Conjunctivitis, with Special Reference to the Treatment of Ophtalmia Neonatorum*, 8vo, London, 1895. *An Address delivered by the President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in Norwich Cathedral on the Occasion of the Unveiling of the William Cadge Memorial Window on the 6th of December,* 1904. *The Hunterian Oration delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England on the 14th of February, 1905,* 8vo, London, 1905. *An Address to Medical Students delivered at University College Hospital Medical School on the 1st of October, 1909, on the Occasion of the Opening of the Winter Session,* 8vo, London, 1909. "Presidential Address on the Influence of Social and Legal Restrictions on Medical Practice. Delivered before the Medico-Legal Society on the 25th October, 1910," 8vo, London, 1910; reprinted from *Medical Mag*., 1910, xix, 701. "The Mutual Relations and Influence of Law and Medicine. A Presidential Address," 8vo, London, 1910; reprinted from *Trans. Medico-Legal Soc*., 1910, vii, 1. *The Medical Tradition; being the Annual Oration delivered before the Medical Society of London on May 12th*, 1919, 8vo, London, 1920. *The Surgical Tradition; being the First Thomas Vicary Lecture delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons of England, on December 3rd*, 1919, 8vo, London, 1920. "Eyelids," "Cornea," and "Sclerotic," in Heath's *Dictionary of Practical Surgery*. "Cataract," "Hemeralopia," "Nyctalpoia," and "Pupil," in Quain's *Dictionary of Medicine*, "Diseases of the Skin" in Roberts's *Text-book of Medicine*.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000218
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Boustany, Wa'el Seifeddin (1931 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Bowsher, Winsor Graham (1957 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Bradfield, William John Dickson (1924 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Stidolph, Neville Edsell (1911 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372486372486
Occupation General surgeon Urologist
Details Neville Stidolph was a consultant in urology and general surgery at Whittington Hospital, London. He was born in Mossel Bay, South Africa, on 31 October 1911. His father, Charles Edward Stidolph, was a magistrate. His mother was Florence née Hinwood. He was educated at Grey High School, Port Elizabeth, where he was head boy. In 1929 he was Eastern Province champion in sprinting and hurdling and in 1930 South African champion in the 440 yards hurdles. From the University of Cape Town he won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford in 1932. There he won the Theodore Williams scholarship in pathology and the Radcliffe prize in pharmacology, and went on to St Mary’s Hospital for his clinical training. On qualifying he was house surgeon in obstetrics and gynaecology at St Mary’s and house surgeon at the Radcliffe Infirmary. In 1938 he became a ship’s doctor and travelled all over the world, but in August 1939 he joined the Royal Air Force, rising to the rank of wing commander. He was senior medical officer at RAF Scampton in 1943 at the time of the Dam Busters raid. Later he served with the ground forces in Burma, and was flown to Bangkok to organise the repatriation of prisoners of war. In 1948 he was appointed consultant in urology and general surgery at the Whittington Hospital, where he created a special senior registrar post for Commonwealth surgeons and set up a structured training course for the FRCS. At the College he was the Penrose May tutor from 1963 to 1968 and a member of the Court of Examiners from 1968 to 1974. A handsome, athletic man, Neville Stidolph had great charm and presence. He married Betty Rhodes in 1941, and had two sons, Chip and Paul. Betty predeceased him in 2004. He died on 15 November 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000299
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Simpson, David Andrew (1954 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372487372487
Occupation Consultant in accident and emergency medicine Accident and emergency surgeon
Details David Simpson was a consultant in accident and emergency medicine. He was born in London in 1954 and entered King’s College Hospital for medical training. He had considered a career as an engineer, but changed his mind after early training in this discipline. After gaining his FRCS, he became a surgical registrar at the Westminster Hospital and then settled on a career in accident and emergency medicine. He became an associate member of the British Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons and a member of the British Association for Accident and Emergency Medicine, and his future career seemed assured at a time when the specialty was expanding from the old ‘casualty departments’ to the modern ones capable of dealing with a variety of emergencies. He was very interested and had a great knowledge of ‘Scott of the Antartic’, to whom he was distantly related. On entering the Cambridge/Norwich senior registrar training programme he was described as a likeable and hard working, intelligent trainee, but then he developed health problems which dogged his lifestyle and made it difficult for him to engage in permanent posts. Eventually he went to the Middle East, working mainly in Saudi Arabia, and from thence to New Zealand, where he died suddenly on 14 July 2003. He is survived by Raja, his second wife, and Sue and his children, Duncan and Victoria.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000300
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Heward, Sir Simon (1769 - 1846)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Gunning, John (1773 - 1863)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372589372589
Occupation General surgeon Military surgeon
Details The nephew of John Gunning, Master of the Surgeons' Company (1789-1790). He began a distinguished career as a military surgeon by being appointed Surgeon's Mate on the Hospital Staff, not attached to a regiment, and on Nov 20th, 1793, was commissioned Staff-Surgeon under the command of the Earl of Moira. He received permanent rank as Staff-Surgeon on Sept 12th, 1799, and on Aug 13th, 1805, was superseded, having asked leave to resign on being ordered on foreign service. He was reinstated on June 9th, 1808, and on Sept 17th, 1812, rose to the rank of Deputy Inspector of Hospitals. In February, 1816, he was promoted Inspector of Hospitals (Continent of Europe only), and was placed on half pay on Oct 1st, 1816. His war service included the campaigns of Holland and Flanders (1793-1795), the Peninsular War, and Waterloo. Towards the close of the day at the Battle of Waterloo, Lord Raglan, Military Secretary to Wellington, was standing by the Duke's side, when he was wounded in the right elbow by a bullet from the roof of La Haye Sainte. The arm had to be amputated, and Gunning performed the operation. Raglan bore it without a word, and when it was ended called to the orderly: "Hallo! don't carry away that arm till I have taken off my ring" - a ring which his wife had given him. Gunning went to Paris with Wellington's army, and practised there after the conclusion of peace to the end of his life. He was nominally Surgeon to St George's Hospital from 1800-1823. On New Year's Day, 1863, he was having a dinner party. An attack of bronchitis prevented his receiving his friends on the day expected. His medical attendant thought it serious; but he got better, and on the Saturday was thought to be out of danger. On Sunday morning, Jan 11th, 1863, however, he expired in his arm-chair, without pain, and with scarcely any previous symptoms to denote his approaching end. His daughter, Mrs Bagshawe, the wife of the Queen's Counsel, and two of his grand-daughters were with him at the time of his death. He was then 90 years old, and was the senior member of the Royal College of Surgeons. He is noted by Lieut-Colonel Crawford as being one of the seven officers of the Army Medical Department on whom the CB (Mil) was conferred when medical officers were first made eligible for that honour in 1850.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000405
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hey, William II (1772 - 1844)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Bloxham, Robert ( - 1858)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Wilson, John Samuel Pattison (1923 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-09-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372744372744
Occupation Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details John Samuel Pattison Wilson, or ‘Iain’, as he was generally known, was a plastic surgeon in London with a particular interest in head and neck surgery. He was born in Edinburgh on 16 October 1923, and at the age of six went away to boarding school at the Edinburgh Academy. He remained in Edinburgh to study medicine. Following his graduation, he spent his National Service in the RAF and rose to the rank of squadron leader. Whilst working at Halton he met Sir Archibald McIndoe, who persuaded him to train as a plastic surgeon. On demobilization, he completed registrar appointments in Leeds and Sheffield. He worked with Fenton Braithwaite and quite early in his training (1956) wrote papers, starting with the serial excision of benign lesions. His first consultant appointment was as a plastic surgeon in Newcastle, where he was famous for his hard work, his parties and his Jaguar car. After some years in Newcastle, he moved to St George’s Hospital, London, and Queen Mary’s, Roehampton, with honorary appointments at the Westminster and Royal Marsden hospitals. Although a general reconstructive surgeon, he had a special interest in head and neck surgery and will be remembered for his extensive repairs following major cancer resections, while the template he designed for breast reconstruction is still in common use. He was a great teacher and taught anybody who wanted to learn, not only those in this own specialty. His weekly seminars on a Thursday evening at his consulting rooms in Portland Place were of great benefit to surgical trainees, particularly those based in London. Among his many papers were those on the embryology and manifestations of the human tail. He was an examiner and was awarded honorary fellowships of various Colleges; he was an Apothecary and Freeman of the City of London. He travelled and talked all over the world, but, as a result of his experiences in the Far East and in the Japanese prisoner of war ward at Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton, he refused to visit Japan or have anything to do with Japanese trainees. He was a man of great energy, yet was a very private man. Few knew about the model train set with a mock-up of Paddington station in the attic at Portland Place, or that he was a world expert on the philately of Canada. He was a kind colleague, giving good advice. He was always interested in trainees, especially what they were doing, who was teaching them and what they were writing. The last months of his life were borne with great fortitude, dignity and good humour as he battled cancer. He died on 27 September 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000561
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Islam, Mohammed Shamsul (1937 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-10-17
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372745372745
Occupation General practitioner
Details Mohammed Shamsul Islam was born in Tangail, East Bengal, the former training station for ICS officers, on 7 June 1937. He qualified in Dacca and then went to England to specialise in surgery. Sadly, the college has no more information about his subsequent career until he settled down in general practice in Cheshire. He died on 24 February 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000562
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Foss, Martin Vincent Lush (1938 - 2008)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-10-17
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372746372746
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Martin Foss was a consultant trauma and orthopaedic surgeon at Luton and Dunstable Hospital. He was born in Bristol on 12 February 1938, the son of George Lush Foss, a general practitioner, and Eileen Isabelle née Buller. His paternal grandfather, Edwin Vincent Foss, was also a general practitioner. Martin was educated at St Michael’s Preparatory School and at Marlborough, from which he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, going on to University College Hospital for his clinical course. After qualifying he became house surgeon to David Matthews and Doreen Nightingale at University College Hospital and then house physician to Lord Amulree at St Pancras Hospital, the UCH geriatric unit. Between 1964 and 1966 he worked for Donal Brooks and Kenneth Stone as orthopaedic and casualty senior house officer at the Barnet General Hospital, followed by a further year as an orthopaedic senior house officer at the North Middlesex Hospital. This was followed by two years as general surgical registrar at the Whittington Hospital, during which time he passed the FRCS of both colleges. He then specialised in orthopaedics and trauma, first as an orthopaedic registrar at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and then as a senior orthopaedic registrar at University College Hospital. In 1973 he was appointed consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital. He retired in 1996, having served as medical director of the Luton and Dunstable NHS Trust from 1991 to 1996. Martin undertook the full range of orthopaedic surgery in a very busy unit on the M1 motorway, but had a special interest in paediatric orthopaedics. His only publication was on bone density, osteoarthritis of the hip and fracture of the upper end of the femur in 1972. At Cambridge he played a full part in college life and won his oar in the successful first VIII. He loved the outdoor life, birdwatching, painting, walking and, after he retired, travelling. He was a lifelong freemason, gaining high office as provincial grand master for Bedfordshire. He married Anthea Noelle Johnson in 1963 (they divorced 1992), with whom he had two daughters, Victoria Charlotte and Caroline Louise. He died on 2 February 2008. Alan Lettin
Resource Identifier RCS: E000563
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Pratt, David (1930 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2008-10-17
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372747372747
Occupation General surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details David Pratt was a consultant general and vascular surgeon at St James’s University Hospital, Leeds. He studied medicine in Leeds, where he had a distinguished undergraduate career, gaining first class honours and graduating with distinctions in surgery and forensic medicine. After house appointments, he served as a surgeon lieutenant on HMS Eagle during the Suez Crisis. He returned to Leeds, where he completed his surgical training. In 1962 he gained his FRCS, winning the Wilson Hey gold medal. He was appointed as a consultant to St James’s and Chapel Allerton hospitals, Leeds. His consultant career was marked by great diagnostic flair and superb technical skills: but above all he is remembered by patients for his caring personality and by his colleagues for the help he gave them in difficult times. Behind an unassuming demeanour there was a lively mind and a gentle sense of humour. David was a valued member of the Travelling Surgical Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1971 onwards. He and his wife, Libby, made many friends when attending overseas and home meetings. He was greatly respected in this forum of surgeons whose members represent most parts of the UK and many specialties. He was also a member of the Vascular Society and many of his publications reflected this interest; his wider knowledge of surgery was apparent in other papers and lectures. During a visit of the Travelling Surgical Society to Gibraltar and southern Spain he gave a paper on ‘Delorme’s procedure’ illustrated by his own pastel drawings: colo-proctologists present were surprised at the depth of his knowledge and his carefully assessed results. His other interests included photography, domestic cooking and watercolour painting in which in retirement he took lessons. He died suddenly at home of acute coronary insufficiency on 23 May 2006. He is survived by Libby and three sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000564
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching de Fonseka, Chandra Pal (1919 - 2008)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by John Blandy
Publication Date 2008-10-17 2015-09-11
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372748372748
Occupation Accident and emergency surgeon
Details Chandra Pal de Fonseka was an accident and emergency surgeon in Bristol. He was born in Panadura, Ceylon, on 22 December 1919 into a family with many medical connections. His grandfather and two uncles were medical practitioners. His father, Hector Clarence de Fonseka, was a landowner who managed his own rubber and coconut estates. His mother was Inez Johanna née Gunewardene, whose three brothers studied medicine in London. Three of his cousins were also in medicine. Chandra qualified in medicine from the University of Ceylon with the Sir Andrew Caldecott and Dadabhoy gold medals in his final examination. He then held house appointments in his own teaching hospital. At the end of the war it was difficult to get a passage to England, so he signed on as ship's doctor to the Blue Funnel liner SS Demodocus, which was a naval auxiliary that had been held up in Colombo because her doctor had fallen ill and had been sent back to England. After a seven-month voyage, he arrived in Liverpool in November 1946. He attended the primary course at the Middlesex Hospital, passed the examination, and returned to Ceylon, where he underwent an arranged marriage to his first wife Rukmani Dias. He returned to London to specialise in surgery, doing registrar jobs at Hammersmith, the North Middlesex and St Mark's hospitals, enriching his experience by attending rounds and courses in a number of hospitals, among which he particularly valued his experience at St James's, Balham. Having passed the FRCS in 1949, he became a resident surgical officer at St Bartholomew's Hospital, Rochester, for two years and was then a registrar in Bath under Sholem Glaser who, with the other five general surgeons, gave him a glowing testimonial. There he met Peter London, then the senior registrar in orthopaedics. From Bath he went to Bristol to widen his experience in cardiothoracic surgery under Ronald Belsey in the Frenchay Hospital thoracic unit for another two years. Belsey was unstinting in praising his clinical and operative skills. Whilst there he did his best to learn neurosurgery and plastic surgery, experience which he found particularly valuable on his return to Ceylon in 1956 as senior lecturer in the university department of surgery in Colombo. Celyon had won its independence from Britain in 1948 without a drop of blood being shed. In 1958 communal riots broke out between the Tamil and Sinhalese populations. Chandra was in the theatre round the clock, dealing with gun-shot and knife wounds under the most difficult circumstances. His Tamil anaesthetist was beaten up by a Sinhalese mob. Buddhist priests complained to the administrator (a Tamil) that another doctor was treating Tamils rather than Sinhalese and the doctor was duly dismissed. The Prime Minister was assassinated in September. Laws were passed to outlaw the Tamil language and make Sinhalese the only official language. Chandra was appointed professor of surgery in July 1960. The workload increased, especially in cancer. In 1962 his marriage was dissolved and he married his second wife, Maria Thérése Bertus in Colombo. In 1963 he was asked to set up a new department of surgery in Kandy. By now Chandra was one of the senior figures on the medical scene, having become president of the medical section of the Ceylon Association for the Advancement of Science. He had been granted a sabbatical year to study in the UK and had planned visits to the foremost centres in Britain and Germany, with introductions from Ronald Raven and Sir James Patterson Ross among others. But permission was repeatedly refused for his wife to accompany him until eventually she was allowed to go as a pilgrim to Rome with their new baby daughter. They eventually made their way to the UK in 1964. There Chandra was appointed senior research fellow to set up the road accident research unit in Birmingham, the report of which was published in five volumes in 1969. During this period he was a clinical assistant to the accident department of Dudley Road Hospital. In 1969 the Medical Research Council invited him to set up a similar study into accidents in the home and he was appointed honorary lecturer in accident epidemiology in the department of public health in the University of Bristol. This project developed into the National Home Accident Monitoring Scheme of the Home Office. From then on he continued to work in the accident and emergency department until he retired in 1985. He was a man of great integrity, charm and courtesy, who was widely admired for his qualities not only as a technical surgeon but as a teacher. He published extensively on road and domestic accidents, and was in demand as a lecturer in Europe and America. His many outside interests included geology, cosmology and astronomy, and with Thérése he was a keen traveller and photographer. He was for many years treasurer of the Society of St Vincent de Paul, a charity for the disabled that was affiliated to the Catholic Church. He died on 5 April 2008, leaving his widow and the youngest of their two daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000565
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Kidd, Thomas (1777 - 1849)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Carpue, Joseph Constantine (1764 - 1846)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18 2016-04-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372599372599
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on May 4th, 1764, at Brook Green, the son of a gentleman of small fortune descended from a Spanish family. As a Roman Catholic he was educated at the Jesuits' College, Douai, being at first intended for the Church. At the age of 18, before the Revolution, he travelled about France on foot, saw Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette at the dinner table with Philip Egalité, Duke of Orleans, waiting on them. Later, in Paris, he listened to the declamations of Danton, Marat, and Robespierre. This was the beginning of what he continued through life, journeying on foot through Wales and the Highlands of Scotland with Sharon Turner the historian, also through Holland, Italy, Germany, and even, in 1843, the Tyrol. After the Church Carpue next thought about becoming a bookseller in succession to an uncle Lewis in Great Russell Street; then his admiration for Shakespeare turned his thoughts towards the stage, and up to the time of his death he continued to advocate the erection of a colossal iron statue of Shakespeare at the mouth of the Thames. Finally, fixing on surgery, he studied at St George's Hospital under Keate and George Pearson. On qualifying as a surgeon he was appointed Staff Surgeon to the Duke of York's Hospital, Chelsea, in 1799, and, through Pearson, became an ardent vaccinator. The former post he resigned Oct 1st, 1807, because he declined to go on foreign service, but he continued Surgeon to the National Vaccine Institution until his death. At the Duke of York's Hospital he held classes in anatomy with a fee of 20 guineas for the course, and had for years an overflowing attendance. He delivered three courses of daily lectures during the year without intermission except for a few days in summer. He also gave lectures on surgery twice a week in the evening. A strange occurrence happened in 1800. West, President of the Royal Academy, Sir Joseph Banks, and Cosway, agreeing that the classical representation of the Crucifixion was unsatisfactory, called upon Carpue. A murderer was about to be executed. Keate, Master of the College of Surgeons, gave permission. A structure was erected, including a cross, near the place of execution. The executed murderer, whilst still warm, was nailed on the cross, the cross suspended, and after the body had fallen into position, a cast was taken under the direction of Banks. The cast was removed to Carpue's anatomy theatre, and in 1843 was still in existence in the studio of Behnes. In connection with his anatomy teaching Carpue published a *Description of the Muscles of the Human Body*. He took up medical electricity, had a fine plate machine in his dining-room and made many experimental researches, including that on himself for the relief of lumbago, by passing the current through his loins. He published a book on the subject in 1803. On the occasion of the illness of Princess Amelia, at Worthing, Carpue was introduced to the Prince Regent, who talked with him on medical subjects, as he did later when king. Hence, when Carpue published his *Account of Two Successful Operations for Restoring a Lost Nose*, in December, 1815, he dedicated it to the Prince Regent. Carpue began with an historical account of the Tagliacotian operation by tracing the first description of the operation to the Sicilian surgeon Branca in 1442. Tagliacozzi (1546-1599) first noted his operation in his *Epistola ad Hieronymum Mercurialem de Naribus multo ante abscissis reficiendis*, 1587. He described it more fully in *De Curtorum Chirurgia per Insitionem*, libri duo, 1597, which included the well-known engraving of an arm attached to the nose by a flap of skin. Outside Italy the only reported case subsequently had been that by Griffon, of Lausanne, in 1590, mentioned by Fabricius Hildanus. The operation had been popularly confused with transplantation of skin, particularly from the buttock of a donor. Butler, in the 1st canto of his *Hudibras*, had mixed up this transplantation of skin with the superstition about sympathy. The nose restored from the donor's buttock, Butler's 'parent breech', was said to disappear on the death of Nock, the donor, the portion of the donor's spirit, or numen, having to rejoin that of its parent breech, alias Nock- "When the date of Nock was out, Off dropped the sympathetic snout." What had occurred in several instances was healing by first intention when a cut-off nose had been sutured into place at once. Carpue entered upon a long disquisition concerning healing by first intention, and mentioned more or less veracious instances. Yet owing to cold or other causes, a restored nose might shrivel up or slough off. Carpue's attention had been attracted to the description of the Indian method in the *Gentleman's Magazine*, 1794, given by two English surgeons, Thomas Cruso and James Findlay. It was also described in Pennant's *View of Hindoostan*, 1798, ii, 237, as a procedure practised from time immemorial by the caste of the Koomas - potters and brickmakers. His first case was that of an officer the tip of whose nose had sloughed in 1809, not so much the result of syphilis as from the excessive administrations of mercury for hepatitis. There are four plates in illustration of the operation and result. The second case was that of an officer the tip of whose nose had been cut off at the Battle of Albuera, in 1810; Plate V illustrates the deformity and the result of the operation. In both instances an exceedingly good result was obtained considering the surgery of the time. In 1819 Carpue published a *History of Suprapubic Lithotomy*, giving a history of other methods, without adding anything from his own experience, but the book is a useful compendium. Carpue saw the operation performed in Paris by Soubervielle. Franco had pushed up the calculus in a boy's bladder; John Douglas and Cheselden injected water to distend the bladder. In either procedure the fold of peritoneum was likely to be raised. But Frère Côme introduced his sonde-à-dard, by an incision in the perineum, to push forward the wall of the bladder after he had emptied it of urine. Consequently a perforation of the fold of peritoneum was likely. Either this accident, or the over-distension of the bladder causing rupture, was the reason why the operation failed. Suprapubic lithotomy was resuscitated by Carson, who showed that the fold of peritoneum was raised when the rectum was inflated; by Petersen, of Kiel, who carefully distended the bladder; and by the method of Sir Henry Thompson in pushing up the exposed fold bluntly with the fingers. Carpue was also Surgeon to the St Pancras Infirmary, and after seeing at Greenwich Hospital multiple punctures made into inflamed areas, he adopted the practice. It was especially through Sir Joseph Banks that Carpue was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. At the College of Surgeons he was one of the original Fellows but was not elected to the Council. Although successful at first in attracting a large anatomical class, private medical schools died out as the staff of the great hospitals set themselves to give medical instruction systematically and ceased to take private pupils. J F South, although he allowed that Carpue was a very good anatomist, depreciated him for holding private classes. Soon after the opening of the railways to Brighton, Carpue in travelling there put his two daughters in a first-class carriage, whilst he himself with two servants travelled in an open car. A collision occurred which threw him and his servants out upon the line. One of the servants was killed, and Carpue sustained severe contusions. After a tedious process at law he obtained a verdict for damages in the sum of £250, most of which had already been spent in costs. He did not recover, suffered from increasing bronchitis, and died on Jan 30th, 1846. His portrait, as well as a marble bust, was presented to St George's Hospital by his daughter, Miss Emma Carpue, who left St George's Hospital £6,500 and £1000 to the Society for the Relief of the Widows and Orphans of Medical Men. Carpue is described as a tall, ungainly, good-tempered, grey-haired man who wore an ill-fitting suit of black relieved by an enormous white kerchief which encircled his neck like a roller towel. He was a facile draughtsman on the blackboard and thus earned the name of 'the chalk lecturer'. Each pupil was made to repeat after him and in identical words the description of the bone or organ which he had just given. Tom Hood alludes to Carpue in his "Pathetic Ballad of Mary's Ghost":- "I can't tell where my head is gone, But Dr Carpue can. As for my trunk, it's all packed up To go by Pickford's van." Publications:- "Cast of Crucifixion," from an unpublished MS in Carpue's handwriting. - *Lancet*, 1846, I, 167. *Description of the Muscles of the Human Body*, London, 1801. *An Introduction to Electricity and Galvanism, with Cases showing their Effects in the Cure of Disease*, London, 1803. *An Account of Two Successful Operations for Restoring a Lost Nose from the Integuments of the Forehead in the Cases of Two Officers of His Majesty's Army*, to which are prefixed historical and physiological remarks on the nasal operation, including descriptions of the Indian and Italian methods, with engravings by Charles Turner, London, 1818, translated into German, Berlin, 1817. *A History of the High Operation for the Stone by Incision above the Pubes* (with observations on the advantage attending it, and an account of the various methods of Lithotomy from the earliest periods to the present time), London, 1819.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000415
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bancroft-Livingston, George Henry (1920 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Barros D'Sa, Aires Agnelo Barnabé (1939 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-11-08 2014-07-18
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372601372601
Occupation Trauma surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details Aires Barros D'Sa was a pioneering vascular and trauma surgeon in Belfast. He was born in 1939 in Nairobi, Kenya, into a Goan family. His father, Inaçio Francisco Purifcação Saúde D'Sa, was a civil servant. His mother was Maria Eslina Inês Barros. Aires grew up in Kenya and was educated at Duke of Gloucester School. He originally intended to study medicine in Bombay, but his plans changed following the Indian blockade of Goa, which heralded the end of Portuguese rule there. He went to Queen's University, Belfast, instead, on a scholarship, as one of only a handful of overseas students. He held a succession of junior posts across Northern Ireland, including at the Royal Victoria, Belfast City, Ulster and Lurgan hospitals. From 1975 to 1977 he was a senior registrar at the Royal Victoria Hospital, and then spent a year at Providence Medical Center, Seattle. In 1978 he was appointed as a consultant vascular surgeon at the Royal Victoria Hospital. He quickly stood out for his charm, warmth and humour, thirst for knowledge and superb clinical acumen. A loyal champion for his nurses and junior staff, he fought continually to ensure the best resources for them and for his patients, and had scant patience with red tape. He expected his own high standards to be met: lazy, incompetent staff were not tolerated and rude patients found terrorising nurses were simply wheeled off the ward, not to be readmitted. The Troubles in Northern Ireland reached their height in the 1970s and the Royal Victoria Hospital received the majority of victims. Many required treatment for horrific bomb blast, shrapnel and gunshot injuries. During this time, Aires gained an international reputation for his pioneering use of shunts in the management of complex limb vascular injuries. His surgical technique was unparalleled - his mentor, Sinclair Irwin, said Aires had the 'best hands' he had ever seen - and, aligned with his courage, stamina and coolness under pressure, he undoubtedly saved many lives and limbs. While Aires, along with colleagues, applied impeccable standards of care to all patients, he despised terrorists and had no time for extremists from either side. In recognition of his pioneering work in vascular trauma he was appointed Hunterian Professor of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1979. Over the next decades he travelled extensively as an invited lecturer, notably in 1983, when he was elected by the James IV Association of Surgeons to represent the British Isles as the 77th James IV Surgical Traveller to North America, Australia and South East Asia. Aires recognised clear advantages in developing vascular surgery as a distinct specialty. In 1978 he initiated the establishment of a dedicated regional vascular surgery unit at the Royal Victoria Hospital, only the third of its kind in the UK, and in 1979 instituted a clinical vascular lab. In 1996 he established a registry for vascular surgical patients in Northern Ireland, among the UK's earliest regional databases. It is still in use today. Despite increasing national and international commitments, Aires retained a love of teaching. Students learned from his expertise, not least his exceptional care and thoughtfulness towards patients in pain and anticipating major surgery. As a lecturer, his excellent knowledge of anatomy and dynamic delivery enlivened the driest subjects. Often he would arrive early for lectures and cover the blackboards with superb anatomical drawings. He designed crests for the Ulster Surgical Club and the Joint Vascular Research Group, one of five national and European societies of which he was a founding member. Hugely committed to vascular research, he published extensively, in particular on vascular trauma. He authored and edited three books, including *Emergency vascular and endovascular surgical practice* (London, Hodder Arnold, 2005). He sat on the editorial board of several vascular journals and was a reviewer on many more. The latter years of Aires' career brought many accolades. In 1999 he was made honorary professor of vascular surgery (personal chair) at Queen's University, and in 2000, in recognition of his services to the specialty, he was awarded an OBE. The following year he was president of the Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and hosted the annual conference in Belfast. In 2003 he became Deputy Lieutenant of County Borough of Belfast, and in 2005 the Royal Victoria Hospital honoured him by naming the laboratory he had founded 'The Barros D'Sa Clinical Vascular Laboratory'. Health problems prompted his premature retirement in 2001. His final operation was on a young man from South Africa with a large carotid body tumour. A recognised expert in this difficult field of surgery, Aires had one of the largest case series in Europe. He arranged a special weekend slot and successfully removed the tumour after eight hours of surgery. Aires was a true gentleman, a generous friend with an infectious joie de vivre, and a legendary host. His interests spanned politics, literature and the arts; he was an orchestra patron, an environmentalist, and a keen supporter of Irish rugby. Travel remained his foremost love; he and Libby had several global excursions planned for their retirement years. Above all, he was a passionate family man and believed that his life's greatest achievement was raising his four daughters. In his final year, the arrival of a grandson brought him enormous joy. Aires Barros D'Sa died on 29 January 2007 from bronchopneumonia a week after having cardiac surgery. He was 67. He was survived by his wife Libby, a retired anaesthetist, daughters Vivienne, Lisa, Miranda and Angelina, and grandson Tom Barnabé. Lisa Barros D'Sa Paul Blair
Resource Identifier RCS: E000417
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ainslie, Derek (1919 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-11-08 2009-02-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372602372602
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details Derek Ainslie was an ophthalmologist and a pioneer in the development of vision corrective surgery. He was born in Hereford on 19 September 1919, the third child and second son of Janet (née Rogers) and William Ainslie, a surgeon and a fellow of the Edinburgh College. Derek Ainslie was educated at Hereford Cathedral Preparatory School, Sherborne and Clare College, Cambridge, going on to complete his clinical training at the Middlesex Hospital. He subsequently joined the RAMC and was en route to the Far East when the war ended. He remained in the Army, working in Africa until 1948 and reaching the rank of major. He underwent training in ophthalmology at Birmingham Eye Hospital, the Middlesex Hospital, and as senior resident officer at Moorfields Eye Hospital. Soon after completing his training he was appointed consultant ophthalmologist to the Middlesex and Moorfields Eye hospitals, in 1962. His work in ophthalmology was remarkable: he was a pioneer in corneal refractive surgery, using a microkeratome and surgical cryolathe. He worked closely in parallel with José Barraquer, a Spanish surgeon, in what was then a contentious field of work, but which has developed into the laser refractive surgery of today. Derek wrote extensively on the use of antibiotics in ophthalmology, corneal grafting and refractive keratoplasty. Sadly his work was interrupted in 1975 with the onset of a severe illness compounded by deteriorating vision from glaucoma. He retired prematurely at the age of 55. He examined for the diploma in ophthalmology and was a member of the Court of Examiners for the FRCS in ophthalmology. He was an adviser to the Merchant Navy from 1953 to 1963, and ophthalmic surgeon to Chorleywood College for Girls, a school for the partially sighted and blind. He married Robina Susan Lock in 1960, a medical practitioner. They had one son and two daughters. He had a wide interest in music, was a keen salmon and trout fisherman, and an ardent supporter of Arsenal Football Club. He died on 1 August 2006, and is survived by his third wife, Diana, children and grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000418
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ellis, James Stokes (1912 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-11-08 2009-01-16
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372605372605
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Jim Ellis was professor of orthopaedic and accident surgery at the University of Southampton. He was born on 13 April 1912 in Selborne, Hampshire, the son of Frank Stokes Ellis, a wine merchant who went on to serve in the First World War with the Royal Fusiliers, and Ada née Parkes, whose family were jewellers in London. Ellis was educated at Eastbourne Preparatory School and then Charterhouse, where he decided to become a doctor. He went on to study at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he met Monica Verdon-Roe, then at Girton. After a five-year engagement the couple eventually married in 1938. After Cambridge, Ellis went to St Thomas’ Hospital in London, qualifying in 1937. Two years later he gained his FRCS, and the Cambridge MChir in 1941. After qualifying he worked in the casualty department at St Thomas’, as Bernard Maybury’s house surgeon. He was then appointed to the senior casualty post and, at the outbreak of the Second World War, was surgical registrar to W H C Romanis. During the war he was in the Emergency Medical Service, first on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, as a general surgeon. He then attended Watson-Jones’ first trauma course in Liverpool, and was sent to Park Prewett Hospital, Basingstoke, in charge of what was later to become the orthopaedic department under V H Ellis from St Mary’s Hospital. In 1946 he transferred to the Army, as a major in the RAMC, in charge of the orthopaedic department at the Cambridge Military Hospital, Aldershot. In 1948, Jim was a member of the first group of ABC (American-British-Canadian) Travelling Fellows, visiting North America. He retained his links with his North American colleagues, and was often host to United States and Canadian doctors. He returned to the UK, as chief assistant to the orthopaedic department at St Thomas’ under George Perkins. In 1950 he was appointed as a consultant surgeon to the Winchester and Southampton group of hospitals. In 1968 he began to work part-time for the Wessex Regional Hospital Board, first as director of postgraduate studies and later also as chairmen of the board’s medical advisory committee. When the new medical school at Southampton was opened he became the first professor of orthopaedic and accident surgery in 1971. He retired in 1976. Ellis became a member of the editorial board of the *Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery* in 1964 and completed two four-year terms of office. From 1970 to 1971, he was president of the orthopaedic section of the Royal Society of Medicine, and was later chairman of the orthopaedic higher surgical training committee of the College and vice president of the British Orthopaedic Association (1975 to 1976). His main professional interest was in the surgery of the hand, and he was a member of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand. He was an examiner for Liverpool and Edinburgh universities and visited Iraq in 1973 and South Africa in 1976. Since childhood, Ellis had been fascinated by the theatre, with all aspects of costume and staging, as well as performance. His early memories included attending performances at Eastbourne’s Variety Theatre with his father. As a student at St Thomas’ he played in the hospital’s Christmas shows for five years before the war and then again ten years later, in the late 1940s. His performances were legendary and he might have pursued a successful stage career had he not chosen medicine. After becoming a consultant he performed in the local village drama group in Hampshire, in the annual pantomime, but also in plays and play readings. While he wrote outstanding music and lyrics for the pantomime, he himself would play the dame. These performances were superb and, with his exceptional comic talent and timing, he was able to reduce audiences to helpless laughter night after night. His last work in the theatre was directing *The Boy Friend* for the Winchester Amateur Dramatic Society, put on at the newly re-launched Theatre Royal Winchester. In retirement, Ellis and his wife went regularly to the theatre, to Chichester, Southampton and Salisbury, and, while on breaks to London, saw two plays a day for two or three days, keeping up with the latest performances. He was also interested in architecture, archaeology and, in earlier years, gardening. Ellis and his wife lived in a large early 19th century house near Otterbourne for 20 years, where they brought up their family of three children, two of whom survive him. They also had a holiday home at Welcombe, in north Devon, which they bought in the 1960s. Always adept with his hands, Ellis gradually modernised the cottage, undertaking all the plumbing and electrical work himself. Jim’s eyesight became increasingly compromised by macular degeneration, which he suffered without complaint. Monica died after a short illness in 2001. Jim continued to live alone in their house in Otterbourne village for a further two years, helped by a team of carers. He finally moved to a nursing home for the last years of his life, where he died on 3 May 2007, just after his 95th birthday.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000421
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lowbury, Edward Joseph Lister (1913 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-11-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372606372606
Occupation Bacteriologist Poet
Details Edward Lowbury was an expert on hospital infection and also a distinguished writer and poet. He was born in London on 6 December 1913, the son of Benjamin William Lowbury, a general practitioner and a great admirer of Joseph Lister, after whom Lowbury was named. His mother, Alice Sarah Hallé, was a member of the family of the founder of the celebrated orchestra. He was educated at St Paul’s School, London, from which a leaving exhibition took him to University College, Oxford, where he won the War Memorial medical scholarship. He read for the honours school in physiology under Sherrington, Le Gros Clark and Howard Florey, and then went up to the London Hospital Medical College, where his teachers included Russell Brain and Donald Hunter. After qualifying he completed house jobs at the London and LCC sector hospitals, before training as a bacteriologist at the Emergency Public Health Laboratory Service in Cambridge. In 1943 he joined the RAMC as a specialist in pathology with the rank of major, and served in the UK and East Africa. Whilst in Kenya he took a particular interest in witch- doctoring and folk medicine. He returned to join the staff of the Medical Research Council, was a bacteriologist at the Common Cold Unit for three years, and then, in 1949, went to the MRC Burns Unit at the Birmingham Accident Hospital as head of bacteriology. Here he set up the Hospital Infection Research Laboratory, Dudley Road Hospital. He was also senior clinical lecturer in the pathology department of the University of Birmingham. During this period Lowbury confirmed Coleman’s suggestion that closed ventilated burns dressing rooms would reduce air-borne infection, a discovery that was to be applied widely, especially in orthopaedics, where, together with Owen Lidwell and others, he organised a huge MRC controlled trial in joint replacement surgery. He was especially interested in the mechanism and prevention of antibiotics resistance, and discovered the plasmid in pseudomonas aeruginosa that renders it resistant to carbenicillin and other antibiotics. He developed tests to measure the efficacy of hand disinfection, and chaired the MRC subcommittee that published the seminal *Aseptic methods in the operating suite* (1968). He wrote over 200 papers, chapters and articles, and, among his books, *Drug resistance in antimicrobial therapy* (Springfield, Illinois, Thomas, c1974) and *Control of hospital infection: a practical handbook* (London, Chapman and Hall, 1975). He retired from medicine in 1979, but continued to work, travelling the world to lecture. He was the recipient of many honours and awards, but, as a published poet, perhaps the distinction he prized most was that of being the John Keats memorial lecturer in 1973, jointly with Guy’s Hospital, our College and the Society of Apothecaries. He had won the prestigious Newdigate prize at Oxford as an undergraduate, published 14 volumes of poetry, and edited *Apollo, an anthology of poems by doctor poets* (London, Keynes, 1990). His notebook had ideas for poems at one end and for medical ideas at the other. They met in the middle, he said, for mutual enlightenment. Short, slim, quietly spoken, Lowbury had enduring love of steam-engines, whose noises he could imitate perfectly. He married Alison Young, with whom he was to write biographies of the poet and physician Thomas Campion (*Thomas Campion: poet, composer, physician*, London, Chatto and Windus, 1970) and his father-in-law, the poet Andrew Young (*To shirk no idleness: a critical biography of the poet Andrew Young*, Salzburg/Oxford, University of Salzburg Press, 1997). Alison was a professional pianist, and together they founded the Birmingham Chamber Music Society. He developed glaucoma, went blind, and after his wife died in 2001, he went into a nursing home. He died on 10 July 2007, leaving three daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000422
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Maiman, Theodore Harold (1927 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Pinker, Sir George Douglas (1924 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Stevens, Hugh Edward George (1934 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Brand, Paul Wilson (1914 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372215372215
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Paul Brand, a celebrated orthopaedic surgeon, devoted his life to the care of patients with leprosy. He was born in a remote mountain district in south east India, 150 miles from Mysore, on 17 July 1914, the son of Jesse Brand and his wife, Evelyn, both Baptist missionaries. Paul was sent away to England at the age of nine to attend the University College School, Hampstead, and for the next six years did not see his parents. After leaving school, he first decided on a career in building and construction, and in 1930 began a five-year building apprenticeship. In 1936 he began training to become a missionary at Norwood, Surrey. The following year he changed direction, and entered University College Medical School in London. There he met his future wife, Margaret Berry (they were married in 1943). During the second world war, he and his fellow students were on constant call during the Blitz. It was while treating these patients that Brand first began to develop an interest in hand surgery. The medical school was later evacuated to Watford, where he became interested in physiology and the control of pain. In 1944 he was appointed as a surgical officer at the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street, and then became assistant in the surgical unit at University College Hospital. In 1946 Brand and his wife were invited by Robert Cochrane, the foremost authority on leprosy, to join him at the Christian Medical College Hospital at Vellore, Tamil Nadu, southern India. Cochrane challenged Brand to use his skills as an orthopaedic surgeon to research and treat the disabilities associated with leprosy. Through his subsequent research Brand changed the world’s perceptions and treatments of leprosy-affected people. Firstly, he pioneered the idea that the loss of fingers and toes in leprosy was due to the patient losing the feeling of pain, and was not due to inherent decay brought on by the disease. Secondly, as a skilled and inventive hand surgeon, he pioneered tendon transfer techniques with leprosy patients, opening up a new world of disability prevention and rehabilitation. His original tendon transplantation, using a good muscle from the patient’s forearm, became known as the ‘Brand operation’. In 1953 the Brands joined the staff of the Leprosy Mission International and continued to develop their research and training work at Vellore and the newly founded Schieffelin Leprosy Research and Training Centre, Karigiri. In 1964 Brand was appointed as the International Leprosy Mission’s director of surgery and rehabilitation. Two years later, the Brands were seconded to the US Public Health Service Hospital in Carville, Louisiana, a renowned centre for leprosy research. He became chief of rehabilitation and for more than 20 years taught surgery and orthopaedics at the Medical College at Louisiana State University. He served on the expert panel for leprosy of the World Health Organization. He was medical consultant and then international president of the Leprosy Mission, from 1992 to 1999, co-founded the All-Africa Leprosy and Rehabilitation Training Centre (ALERT) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and served on the board of the American Leprosy Missions. After retiring in the mid-1980s, Brand moved to Seattle to become emeritus clinical professor of orthopaedics at the University of Washington. He authored more than 100 clinical papers, as well as the textbook *Clinical mechanics of the hand* (St Louis, Missouri, Mosby, 1985), and two books on religion and medicine (*Fearfully and wonderfully made* [Grand Rapids, Michigan, Zondervan Publishing House, c.1980] and *The forever feast: letting God satisfy your deepest hunger* [Crowborough, Monarch, 1994]). He was appointed CBE in 1961, and was awarded the Damian Dutton award in 1977. He was Hunterian Professor at the College in 1952 and received the Albert Lasker award in 1960. He died on 8 July 2003 from complications related to a subdural haematoma. He is survived by his wife, an expert on the ophthalmic effects of leprosy, his children (Estelle, Chris, Jean, Mary, Patricia and Pauline) and 12 grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000028
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brough, Michael David (1942 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Whytehead, Lawrence Layard (1914 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-11-22 2008-03-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372614372614
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details Lawrence Whytehead was a thoracic surgeon in Manitoba, Canada. He was born in Easty, Kent, on 7 February 1914 and educated at St Edmund’s and Charterhouse. He went on to study medicine at Oriel College, Oxford, and then Middlesex Hospital, qualifying in 1938. During the Second World War he served in the RAF in North Africa, specialising in thoracic surgery when he returned to the UK. He was a senior registrar in thoracic surgery at Guy’s Hospital and then first assistant at Brompton Hospital. At Guy’s he published, with Brock, an influential paper on radical pneumonectomy for carcinoma of the lung. He was the first recipient of the Evarts Graham memorial travelling fellowship, which took him to the Massachusetts General Hospital, where he met and married Nancy, a nurse, who came back to England with him. In the early 1950s he was appointed as a consultant surgeon at the Brook and Grove Park hospitals. In 1955 he emigrated to Canada, where he set up in practice in thoracic surgery at the Manitoba Clinic. He retired in 1979. He was very active in church affairs. He taught in Sunday school, was a delegate to the General Synod of the Anglican Church and wrote a book on religious issues (Dying: considerations concerning the passage from life to death, Toronto, Anglican Book Centre, 1980). He was on the board of Agape Table, the Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council and the Interfaith Pastoral Institute, which became the Aurora Family Therapy Centre. Many doctors from overseas were helped by Lawrence to qualify for practice in Canada. He had many other interests, and in retirement at his cottage in Minaki he enjoyed the company of his grandchildren. He died on 10 July 2005 in Winnipeg, leaving his widow Nancy (née Anderson) and four daughters, Mary Holmen, Louise Hunter, Jennifer Copeland and Catherine Whytehead.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000430
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Witt, Margaret June (1930 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-11-22 2009-03-13
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372615372615
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Margaret Witt was a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the North Middlesex Hospital, London. She was born on 14 June 1930 in Leyton, London, the oldest daughter of Henry Witt, a chauffeur, and Bertha, a lady’s companion until she married. Margaret won a state scholarship to Walthamstow County High School for Girls and went on to St Bartholomew’s to study medicine, the only woman applicant out of 80 men. There she won the treasurer’s prize in practical anatomy, the Harvey prize in practical physiology, the university scholarship in science (physiology), and the Mathew Duncan gold medal and prize in obstetric medicine. She then held junior house officer posts in the gynaecological and obstetric department at Bart’s, and was house surgeon to Sir Clifford Naunton Morgan and Ellison Nash, and house physician to A W Spence and Neville Oswald. After taking the primary from a job as demonstrator in anatomy, she was locum registrar in Croydon and the North Middlesex hospitals. She then specialised in obstetrics and gynaecology, completing a series of registrar posts at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Queen Charlotte’s and Charing Cross hospitals. She was the first female registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology at St Bartholomew’s, specially chosen by John Howkins, who was not known for favouring women applicants. She was appointed as a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist to the North Middlesex Hospital, becoming head of the department in 1991. She was honorary senior lecturer and honorary consultant endocrinologist at St Bartholomew’s and the Royal Free hospitals. She had a thriving private practice, with many patients from the Middle East, and she was often invited to see them in the Gulf states. She represented her consultant colleagues on various regional committees. She examined for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Many of her colleagues referred to her their major cancer cases. Margaret Witt never married. She had a zest for life, enjoying cooking, entertaining, fashion and travel, as well as music and the theatre. A colleague once said teasingly that:“Margaret was the only person who would take two fur coats, enough jewels to rival the Queen, and half a dozen pairs of Salvatore Ferragamo shoes for a weekend conference in Paris.” She was a member of the Harveian and Hunterian societies and the Medical Society of London. She sat on the committee of the Charitable Trust of the Royal Society of St George in the City of London, and was president of the Farringdon Ward Club and a governor of the Connaught School for Girls in Leytonstone, where a silver cup was dedicated to her memory for the girl who has achieved the highest all round points in the year, and a bench placed in the playground. She died on 30 October 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000431
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brown, Robson Christie (1898 - 1971)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-01-03 2014-07-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372616372616
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Christie Brown was born on 1 July 1898 and was educated at the Royal Kepier Grammar School and Durham University, where he gained numerous prizes and scholarships. While an undergraduate he served for a few years of the first world war in a destroyer based on Scapa Flow, but returned to the University after the war and graduated in 1920. He specialised early in gynaecology and became obstetric tutor at Leeds University and later at the London Hospital. After a time he was appointed to the staff of the Samaritan Hospital for Women, the Metropolitan Hospital, the City of London Maternity Hospital and many others in and around London. He became in due course an examiner to the Central Midwives Board and to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, of which he had been a founder member. Christie Brown's outstanding ability as an obstetrician was widely recognised, especially by his married colleagues, and he made a special study of the treatment of infertility in women; he was also the inventor of an unspillable hour-glass chloroform-inhaler for use by the patient when in labour. Christie Brown was an excellent lecturer and an able after-dinner speaker, much sought after at medical and other gatherings where eloquence and wit were in demand. He was a good organiser and took an active part in the work of the Samaritan Hospital. When there was talk of the Samaritan being completely merged in St Mary's Hospital, Christie Brown took up the defence of the Samaritan whose name was retained when the two hospitals were united. He contributed many papers on his specialty and his text book on midwifery was reprinted many times, running into its third edition by 1950. In addition to his other work Brown took an active interest in the problems of cancer and was one of the first to prescribe cytotoxic drugs to his patients. First in London and later at Loughton in Essex, he kept open house to his friends and colleagues; for outside interests he became a keen photographer and a first-class mechanic. For many years he was dogged by ill health (a nephrotic syndrome), which led to his early retirement in 1959. Robin Christie Brown's wife died in 1970; and their only son Jeremy Robin Warrington Christie Brown took up medicine; he himself died after a brief illness on 13 December 1971 at his home at Highcliffe-on-Sea.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000432
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Sheikh, Sardar Ali ( - )

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2008-01-17 2014-06-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372617372617
Occupation General surgeon
Details Sardar Ali Sheikh was professor of surgery at King Edward Medical College (now University), Lahore, the second oldest medical school on the Indian subcontinent. He joined the college in April 1947 as a demonstrator in the department of anatomy, went on to become a clinical assistant, and finally professor of surgery. He published a thesis in 1950 on hyperplastic ileocaecal tuberculosis. He was principal of King Edward Medical College from 1971 to 1973, when he retired. A student hostel has been named after him. He died prematurely from a heart attack at the age of 63.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000433
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Blacklock, Sir Norman James (1928 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-01-17
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372618372618
Occupation Urologist
Details Sir Norman Blacklock combined several careers; as a distinguished surgeon in the Navy, later as professor of urology at the University of Manchester, and as medical adviser to the Queen on her official trips abroad. He was born in Glasgow on 5 February 1928, the son of John William Stewart Blacklock, professor of pathology at Glasgow University and subsequently St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, and Isabella née Roger, a nursing sister. After the High School in Glasgow was bombed, Norman moved to the McLaren High School in Perthshire. He trained in Glasgow and was awarded the Rankine memorial prize and the Asher Asher gold medal. He graduated MB ChB in 1950. At the Western Infirmary he was influenced by Sir Charles Illingworth in surgery and William Snodgrass in medicine. At the Royal Infirmary professor of surgery, J A G Burton, and Arthur Jacobs awakened a lifetime interest in urology. National Service called and he volunteered for the Royal Navy, serving on HMS aircraft carriers *Theseus* and *Warrior*, where he dealt with injuries from flying training and crash landings. Back in civilian life, he became a surgical registrar and lecturer in surgery at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. He then moved to Ipswich, and subsequently the Royal Masonic and St Bartholomew’s hospitals in London. He was asked to rejoin the Royal Navy and was posted to the Royal Naval Hospital Chatham and then, in the true service pattern, to Royal Naval hospitals Plymouth, Malta and Haslar (the principal Navy teaching hospital). There he developed a department of urology with a keen interest in urinary tract stone disease. He was always happy to advise patients from the other services. In 1972 he was appointed the Royal Navy director of surgical research and was appointed OBE two years later. In 1976 the Queen’s honorary surgeon was unable to accompany her to Luxembourg, so Norman was nominated in his place. For the next 17 years he accompanied the Royal party on their trips overseas, duties which had to be fitted into his busy clinical and academic career. Norman carried his ‘black bag’, which contained a range of urgent remedies, pills and potions, first aid instruments and equipment, including a miniature resuscitator/defibrillator. Fortunately these were not required and, apart from mild gastric problems in the Far East, the Queen did not require medical advice, though her staff often did. The Duke of Edinburgh christened him ‘Dr Hemlock’, but never reported sick. Norman was knighted after his last trip with the Queen, to Hungary in 1993. In September 1978 he retired from the Royal Navy as a surgeon captain. Unusually for a service surgeon, he was appointed to an academic post, as professor of urology at the University of Manchester, working at the University Hospital of South Manchester. He developed lithotripsy in the north, obtaining the machine and training a team to use it. This pioneering enterprise reflected his long interest and experience of renal stone formation. Microanatomy of the prostate and causes of hyperplasia formed other research interests in his department. He published extensively in refereed journals from 1965 until his retirement. Outside medicine, he was interested in gardening, bread-making and cooking, and travelling in a motor caravan. He married Marjorie Reid in 1956. They had a son, Neil, and a daughter, Fiona. Both are medical graduates. Sir Norman died on his 50th wedding anniversary, after falling and hitting his head.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000434
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Helal, Basil (1927 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-01-24
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372619372619
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Basil Helal was an orthopaedic surgeon at Enfield, as well as at the London and Royal National Orthopaedic hospitals. He was born in Cairo on 28 October 1927, the son of Ibrahim Helal, director general of the state railways, and Helena née Sommerville. He was educated at the English School in Cairo, where he won prizes for literature, science and mathematics, and then entered the London Hospital, where he swam for the hospital and the university. After house appointments at the London, he became orthopaedic registrar to the United Liverpool Hospitals and then at the London, where he came under the influence of Sir Reginald Watson-Jones and Sir Henry Osmond-Clarke. He completed his orthopaedic training as a senior registrar at St George’s Hospital and the Woking and Chertsey Group of Hospitals, before his appointment as consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Enfield Group of Hospitals in 1965. He remained at Enfield until 1988, in the meantime becoming an honorary consultant to the London Hospital and, towards the end of his career, consultant hand surgeon to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. Basil Helal’s orthopaedic interests were wide, but he was particularly interested in the surgery of the hand and foot, and the surgical treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. He also had a long standing interest in sports injuries and was orthopaedic adviser to the British Olympic Association over five Olympics. He was a member of innumerable medical societies at home and abroad, and a regular attendee at their meetings, holding high office in many of them, including the presidency of the orthopaedic section of the Royal Society of Medicine, the British Society for the Surgery of the Hand, and the Hunterian Society. He published extensively and contributed to several orthopaedic text books, and in retirement wrote a biography of the German surgeon Richard von Volkmann. Basil was a good all-round sportsman with a charming personality which made him a popular life member of the Savage Club. He married Stella Feldman, a fellow junior doctor in 1952, with whom he had two daughters (Dina and Amanda) and a son (Adam). They divorced shortly before her death in 1977 and he married Susan Livett, a theatre sister, whom he had known for many years, with whom he had two sons (Matthew and Simon). He died at his retirement home in Dornoch, Scotland, on 17 July 2007, after several years of declining health.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000435
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Robin, Ian Gibson (1909 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-30 2009-05-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372488372488
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Ian Robin was a distinguished London ear, nose and throat consultant. He was born at Woodford Green, Essex, on 22 May 1909, the son of Arthur Robin, a Scottish general practitioner, and Elizabeth Parker née Arnold, his American mother. He was educated at Merchiston Castle School, in Edinburgh, and at Clare College, Cambridge, where he achieved a half blue in cross country running (once getting lost in the fog) and gained a senior science scholarship to Guy’s Hospital, London. There he won the Treasurer’s gold medal in both clinical surgery and clinical medicine, the Charles Oldman prize in ophthalmology and the Arthur Durham travelling scholarship. At Guy’s he returned to rugby, in which sport he had won a school cap at Merchiston, and subsequently captained the hospital’s first XV. He also played regularly for the United Hospitals and the Eastern Counties. After graduating in 1933 he became house physician to Sir Arthur Hirst and Sir John Conybere and house surgeon to Sir Heneage Ogilive and Sir Russell Brock at Guy's and house surgeon to Sir Lancelot Barrington-Ward at the Royal Northern Hospital, during which time he passed the FRCS. He was so highly thought of that in 1937 he was invited back to the Royal Northern to become a part-time ENT consultant whilst still working as a senior ENT registrar and chief clinical assistant at Guy's Hospital, where he was much influenced by W M Mollison, T B Layton and R J Cann. In the same year he started his private practice, which he continued until 1994. In 1947 Ian Robin was appointed consultant ENT surgeon to St Mary's Hospital, Paddington. He served both St Mary's and the Royal Northern until his retirement in 1974. At the onset of the Second World War Ian was invalided out of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve because of his left total deafness (the result of mastoid surgery as a child) and served with the EMS Sector 3 London Area seconded to the Royal Chest Hospital. He put his disability to good use and, always a practical optimist, he used to remark that ‘if he turned in bed onto his good ear he did not hear the guns and doodle bugs.’ Although he, together with J Golligher, in 1952 performed the first colon transplant in the treatment of post cricoid cancer, he was principally an otologist and was deeply concerned about deaf people and those who cared for them. A member of the medical and scientific committee and one-time vice chairman of the Royal National Institute of the Deaf (from 1954 to 1958) he was also, in 1953, a founder member of the Deaf Children's Society (later the National Deaf Children's Society) and, through the British Association of Otolarynoglogists, of which he became president in 1972, he fought hard for improved recognition and pay of audiological technicians and was the first chairman of the Hearing Aid Technicians Society. Determined to relieve children of the burden of body-worn hearing aids, Ian tried to convince the then Secretary of State for Health (Barbara Castle) that the newly available post-aural aids should be issued to children. In the Royal Society of Medicine Ian Robin was vice-president of the section of otology (from 1966 to 1969) and president of the section of laryngology (from 1967 to 1968), where his presidential address on ‘snoring’ raised much public interest. He gave the Yearsley lecture on ‘the handicap of deafness’ in 1967 and the Jobson Horne lecture in 1969. He jointly wrote *A synopsis of otorhinolarynoglogy* (John Wright, Bristol, 1957), and chapters on deafness in the second and third editions of *Diseases of the ear, nose and throat*. His last article, entitled ‘Personal experience of deafness’ was published in ENT News in 2003. Always popular with his colleagues and loved by his patients, he treated his juniors with great friendliness, regarding them as equals. He also took an active part in many student activities at St Mary’s Hospital. In his long retirement Ian Robin was able to continue his hobbies of golf, bowls, gardening, furniture restoration and painting, where he was an active exhibiting member of the Medical Art Society. In later retirement he progressively lost his sight and remaining hearing, but this did not stop him at the age of 90 becoming singles champion of Rutland Blind Bowls Club or completing a computer course to learn a voice activated programme. His first wife Shelagh (née Croft), whom he married in 1939, died suddenly in 1978. In 1994 Ian happily married Patricia Lawrence (Pat), who was the first patient that he operated on when he became a consultant at the Royal Northern Hospital when he was aged 28 and she 13. Neil Weir
Resource Identifier RCS: E000301
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Santer, Graham Julian (1930 - 2012)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Andrew Wu
Publication Date 2012-07-12 2013-10-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002600-E002699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374831374831
Occupation General surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details Graham Julian Santer was a consultant general and vascular surgeon at Walton and Fazakerley hospitals. He was born on 16 December 1930 in Liverpool, of orthodox Eastern European Jewish heritage, and was educated at the Liverpool Collegiate School, which set him on a sound foundation for a highly academic future vocation. Before entering medical school in Liverpool he carried out his National Service and later enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps based at the Royal Herbert Military Hospital, Woolwich. He was dispatched all over the country on a project designed to screen all personnel for TB. It was a period of camaraderie and *bonheur* in his life, which he often recounted with fond memories. After he qualified in 1957, he obtained his formative surgical experience in different parts of the country, including Blackpool, Chelmsford and Southport, whilst pursuing his fellowship for the Royal College of Surgeons, which he gained in 1963. As a registrar his interest in the exciting field of vascular surgery, a specialty very much on the ascendancy at that time, was heavily influenced by pioneers such as Peter Martin of the Hammersmith Hospital and Edgar Parry at Broadgreen Hospital. His research into thrombofibrinolysis made an important contribution to the understanding of venous disease and vascular reconstruction in limb salvage. This interest later led to a seminal publication in the *Annals* ('Extended deep femoral angioplasty and lumbar sympathectomy as a limb salvage procedure', 1979 Mar;61[2]:146-8). This was an important advance in the relief of rest pain from chronic limb ischemia and offered an alternative to major amputation in the elderly. He was appointed as a senior registrar and subsequently as a consultant in Walton Hospital and embarked on a long and distinguished career, exemplified by his tireless diligence, pursuit of excellence and ultimate patient care in a single-handed vascular practice in a major teaching hospital with a vast catchment area extending from north Liverpool to Lancashire. In addition to being on constant cover for vascular emergencies such as ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, Graham was fully involved in all aspects of general surgery. He recognised that early mobilisation after surgery was a key factor in preventing post-operative deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolus. To reduce hospital stay, short surgical procedures were hitherto done as day cases performed in the main or accident and emergency theatres. In 1976 he published and gave lectures on his experience of the planning, organisation and management of a new independent purpose-built day case surgical unit at Walton. This was audited to show a highly efficient and successful scheme with no parallel in the country. Not only was he modest in material aspiration, Graham's unassuming confidence belied his immense ability and skill. A man of high principle and intellect, he was a fierce defender of the disadvantaged and the marginalised. His sense of righteousness made him an ideal representative on the health authority manpower committee. During a session with the hospital chairman, who was seconded from the chemical giant ICI, and who was insistent on reducing the level of nursing staff as a cost-cutting exercise, Graham retorted with his typical sense of humour that trained staff must not be treated as pots of paint. He epitomised the essence of professional integrity, pragmatism and clinical wisdom of the highest order. These fine qualities were indelibly imprinted in all who worked under him throughout his long, distinguished surgical career. A private man, Graham always considered himself fortunate in life. Happily married to his soul-mate Maggie (née Carpenter) for 40 years, they had three successful children and five grandchildren. A loving father and devoted husband, he placed great importance on a tight-knit family life. He was much loved for his caring nature. His vast knowledge of current affairs, politics, fine wine and history made him delightful company in any circle and to friends of all ages. Graham retired in 1993 and enjoyed his passion for reading, travelling to visit old friends and being surrounded by his loving family. He lived life to the full and bore his terminal illness with serene courage, resolute stoicism and graceful acceptance.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002648
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Sewell, Robert Henry (1920 - 2012)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2012-07-12 2014-07-18
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002600-E002699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374832374832
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Robert Sewell was an orthopaedic and trauma surgeon in Greenwich. He was born in Horwich, Greater Manchester, on 21 September 1920, the son of James Scott Sewell, a general practitioner and a part-time medical officer of health, and Emily Sewell née Patton, a housewife. His elder brother, Thomas Patton Sewell, also qualified in medicine and became deputy medical officer of health for Lancashire. Sewell was educated first at home with a governess, and then attended Bolton School, where he was in the gymnastics eight and also played chess and boxed. In 1937 he went to Manchester University to read medicine. In 1940 he gained the anatomy prize, and in 1943, the year he qualified, the clinical surgical prize. As a student in Manchester Walter Schlapp supported him in his physiological research for his BSc degree, while Frederic Wood Jones encouraged him in his anatomy studies and advised him to take the primary FRCS in 1941, whilst he was still a student. Sewell was a house surgeon at Manchester Royal Infirmary in 1943, and a senior house surgeon at Preston Royal Infirmary in 1944. From 1944 to 1946 he was a registrar and senior registrar in trauma and orthopaedics to Sir Harry Platt at Manchester Royal Infirmary, treating casualties from the Second World War. He then served for two years in the RAMC and was posted to Jamaica as a surgeon to the North and South Caribbean Commands. Sewell returned to the UK in 1948, and became a surgical clinical assistant to the Metropolitan Hospital. From 1949 to 1952 he was a registrar and then a senior registrar at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, where he worked with John Cholmeley, A T Fripp, J I P James, Philip Newman and David Trevor. J I P James initiated his interest in hand surgery, while David Trevor reinforced his continuing interest in children's surgery. In 1952, at the age of just 31, he was appointed as a consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon to St Alfege's and the Miller General hospitals in Greenwich, where he faced the challenge of bringing together staff from two very different hospitals. He successfully developed an orthopaedic department and organised an accident and emergency service for Greenwich. He was also actively involved in the planning of the new Greenwich District Hospital. He chaired the medical committee for several years and, from 1973 to 1974, served on the Area Health Authority. From the late 1960s, he also built up a large medico-legal practice, as well as a small private orthopaedic practice. He described himself as a 'GP' orthopaedic surgeon. Because St Alfege's Hospital had the second largest diabetic clinic in the country, he became interested in the orthopaedic complications of diabetes. He was also interested in Dupuytren's contracture, congenital dislocation of the hip and talipes. He wrote on a variety of orthopaedic topics, including excision of the patella, Hand-Schüller-Christian disease and osteoarthritis of the hip. He was a member of the British Orthopaedic Association, chairman of the Greenwich branch of the British Medical Association, and president of the West Kent Medico Chirurgical Society. He was a liveryman of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, a freeman of the City of London and a member of the City Livery Club. Sewell retired early, in July 1983. As he himself put it, he found he 'was no longer enjoying…clinical work due to the increasing interference of the NHS administration'. He continued his medico-legal work, and finally retired in June 1988. Outside medicine, he was interested in rose growing and showing (until he developed asthma), travel, reading and, in his retirement, following the stock market. In July 1945 he married Peggy Joan Kearton Chandler, known as 'Joan'. They had two daughters, Carole Gay and Cherry Margot. Robert Henry Sewell died on 14 April 2012, aged 91.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002649
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Taylor, John Gibson (1918 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-30
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372492372492
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details John Gibson Taylor, known as ‘Ian’, was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. He was born on 8 June 1918, three months before the end of the First World War, the only child of Scottish parents Kate and William Taylor. Ian’s father was an engineer employed at the Royal Aeronautical Establishment, Hampshire. Brought up in Fleet, Ian went to the local grammar school. Deciding on a medical career, he entered St Mary’s Hospital Medical School. Much of his time was spent at Amersham, where the medical school was evacuated during the Second World War. After a year on the house, during which time he was house physician to Sir George Pickering, he joined the RNVR. His first posting was to the destroyer HMS Zetland, which hunted U-boats. After a year he served on HMS Vindex, an escort carrier. Through many hard winters over the next four years on the treacherous North Sea, the ship escorted convoys to Russia. He was discharged as a surgeon lieutenant commander in June 1946. On demobilisation he returned to St Mary’s as a registrar to V H Ellis, the orthopaedic surgeon, who was soon joined by John Crawford Adams, with whom Ian retained a lifelong friendship. After passing the FRCS Ian became first assistant to the accident service at the John Radcliffe Hospital, being greatly influenced by Edgar Somerville, Robert Taylor and Joe Pennybacker, who taught Ian spinal surgery. In 1954 he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Norwich, joining Ken McKee and Richard Howard. The unit served not only Norwich but was also responsible for most of the orthopaedic and trauma services in Yarmouth and Lowestoft. Ian embraced the introduction of new methods of joint replacement, holding clinics with Neil Cardoe and Gilson Wenley for rheumatoid and other arthritic problems, at first in an old workhouse, St Michael’s Hospital in Aylsham. Later a stable block was converted into an operating theatre – much of the money raised by voluntary donations from the Norfolk community. In this unlikely setting Ian performed knee and metacarpo-phalangeal joint replacements. Much sought-after as a teacher, he was involved with the rotation between Bart’s, Norwich and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, and encouraged many of his trainees to publish their first papers. In 1965 Sir Herbert Seddon asked him to help out in Nigera, where he spent several months. In 1956 he met Fodhla Burnell, an anaesthetist. They were married a year later in Norwich Cathedral. They had many shared interests – sailing in the North Sea was one, a cottage in the Perthshire hills another. He was an accomplished skier, using this method of transport to get him to hospital during the hard winter of 1979. He was a keen member of the Percivall Pott Club and regularly attended meetings of the British Orthopaedic Association (BOA). One of his last major trips abroad was to Murmansk in 2001. This commemorated the arrival of the first Russian convoy sent from the UK during the Second World War. Ian and others who had survived were welcomed by the Russians and given a medal of honour for the enormous risks taken 60 years previously. Over his last few years he developed progressive muscle disease, and died on 24 August 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000305
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Williams, Rowland James (1919 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Walsh, Michael Anthony (1939 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Carter, James Francis (1933 - 2008)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Patrick G Alley
Publication Date 2009-08-14
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372829372829
Occupation General surgeon
Details James Francis ‘Jim’ Carter was a general surgeon in Auckland, New Zealand. He was born on 17 March 1933 in Rawene Northland, New Zealand, one of six children of hardworking share milkers and agricultural labourers who frequently had to move to seek work in those days of depression. He was educated at Kawa Kawa High School and Kaitaia College, before studying medicine in Otago. He did his junior posts in Wellington and then spent two years in Blackball, on the west coast, serving the mining community. In 1959 he married Dorothy Rees, a staff nurse at Wellington Hospital, and in 1962 they went to England, where he passed the FRCS and worked as a registrar in London, ending as senior registrar at St Mark’s Hospital. He returned to New Zealand in 1968 as a surgical tutor and specialist in general surgery at Green Lane Hospital in Auckland. He introduced the resection and immediate anastomosis for acute left colonic conditions, which was at that time regarded as revolutionary. Two years later he founded the northern regional training scheme for surgical registrars, whereby registrars would rotate outside the main teaching centres, then a novelty in New Zealand. From 1972 he entered and developed a successful private practice, but at the same time was given an honorary academic appointment at the Auckland Medical School by Eric Nanson, who recognised his ability in clinical research. There he set up a unit for the investigation of disorders of oesophageal motility. The North Shore Hospital was opened in 1984, with Jim Carter, P G Alley, John Gillman and Kerry Clark running the general surgical service, which soon became sought-after by trainees studying for the FRACS. He was active in the Australasian College, serving on the court of examiners and its New Zealand committee, which was to become the New Zealand board of surgery and was a founder member of the New Zealand Association of General Surgeons. He was a truly general surgeon, excelling in endocrine, head and neck, colorectal and upper GI surgery. He established breast clinics at the North Shore and Mercy hospitals. A keen athlete, he was a member of the Owairaka Running Club, with several marathons to his credit, always doing his training in the early mornings. He died on 19 September 2008, leaving his widow, Dorothy, a daughter Rosemary and son Richard.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000646
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Adams, Josiah Oake (1842 - 1925)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Adams, Matthew Algernon (1836 - 1913)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-08-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372831372831
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in 1836 and received his professional training at Guy's Hospital. He practised at Leeds, where he was for a time Senior Resident Surgeon at the Public Dispensary; he was also Assistant Surgeon to the 9th Herefordshire Rifle Volunteers. Before 1871 he had removed to Ashford Road, Maidstone, where he was Surgeon to the Kent County Ophthalmic Hospital. Later he was appointed Public Analyst for the County of Kent and for Maidstone, and was a Member of Council and then President of the Society of Public Analysts, as well as a Member of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. He was also for a time Medical Officer of Health and Gas Analyst for the Borough of Maidstone. In 1870 he had been appointed a Certificated Teacher in the Science and Art Department. He resided and practised for many years at Trinity House, Maidstone, and then moved to The Kulm, Bearsted, Kent, where he died during April, 1913. At the time of his death he was still Public Analyst for Kent and Maidstone, and was Vice-President of the Society of Public Analysts and a Fellow of the Society of Medical Officers of Health, as well as Consulting Surgeon to the Kent County Ophthalmic Hospital. He was the inventor and author of “The Hormagraph, an Instrument for Investigating the Field of Vision”. Publications: *Pocket Memoranda relating to Infectious Zymotic Diseases*, 24mo, London, 1885. “Contribution to the Etiology of Diphtheria.” *Public Health*, 1890. “The Relationship between the Occurrence of Diphtheria and the Movement of the Sub-soil Water.” * 7th and 8th internat. Congr. of Hygiene and Demography*, 1891 and 1894. “On the Estimation of Dissolved Oxygen in Water.” *Trans. Chem. Soc.*, 1892. *Annual Reports of the Medical Officer of Health for the Borough of Maidstone, to the Local Board, for the years* 1879-81, 8vo, Maidstone, 1880-82. *Report to the Local Board on the Outbreaks of Small-pox in Maidstone*, 8vo, 2 diagrams, Maidstone, 1881.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000648
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Adams, William ( - 1892)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Adams, William ( [1] - 1900)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-08-21 2016-01-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372833372833
Occupation General surgeon
Details [2] Studied anatomy and physiology at the Webb Street School, which was then under the management of Richard Grainger (1798-1861), the younger brother of the talented but ill-used founder. In 1838 he entered as a medical student at St Thomas's Hospital, where he came under the influence of Joseph Henry Green (qv) (1791-1863), the philosophical surgeon whose memory he always held in the highest esteem. [3] In August, 1842, he was appointed Curator of the Museum and Demonstrator of Morbid Anatomy in the Medical School of St Thomas's Hospital, then situated in the Borough. These posts were held until 1854, when he joined the Grosvenor Place or Lane's Medical School in Kinnerton Street [4] near St George's Hospital. Here he lectured on Surgery and Hospital Practice, having Thomas Spencer Wells (qv) as a colleague. About this time Adams began to devote his attention more particularly to orthopaedic surgery, of which he became one of the leading exponents and most successful practitioners in this country. He was appointed Surgeon to the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, Surgeon to the Great Northern Hospital, and Surgeon to the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic before it had specialized in brain surgery. At the Great Northern (now the Royal Northern) Hospital he devised the operation which became known by his name - osteotomy of the neck of the femur within the capsule of the hip-joint. For this purpose he invented a saw with a short cutting surface and a long blunt shank - "my little thaw," as he always called it - by which the bone could be divided through a minute incision in the skin. He also brought into prominence the treatment of Dupuytren's contraction by subcutaneous division of the fibrous bands. In 1864 he was awarded the Jacksonian Prize for "Club-foot, its Causes, Pathology and Treatment". The essay is a classic, for it is an epitome of the knowledge of the time. In 1872 he severed his connection with the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in consequence of a quarrel between the staff and the management, in which it was thought by his contemporaries that the staff was in the right. In 1876 he was President of the Medical Society of London, and in that capacity visited the United States and Canada as a delegate to the International Medical Congress held in September at Philadelphia. He was accompanied by Dr Lauder Brunton and Richard Davy (qv). With Lister (qv) he watched Professor Sayre excise the hip-joint in a boy. He lived and practised until 1896 at 5 Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, where is now the College of Nursing. He retired to 7 Loudon Road, St John's Wood, and died there on Feb 3rd, 1900, the morning of his ninetieth birthday. [5] He never married. [6] Adams was a careful but slow operator who maintained his interest in general surgery and pathology to the end of his life. He had been one of the promoters and first members of the Pathological Society of London as early as 1846. He was a good but prolix talker, with a soft voice and well-marked lisp. Sir James Paget used to complain of him that he never finished his sentences, and when one of us (D'A P) was curator of the Museum at St Bartholomew's Hospital, he would often come in later days and waste two or three hours of valuable time, having himself nothing to do. His talk, however, was interesting, for he would tell of his reminiscences of 'resurrection days' and the snatching of bodies for the purposes of anatomy. He took with him from Grainger's School Tom Parker as his dead-house assistant at St Thomas's Hospital. Tom Parker was a notorious resurrectionist, and there is good reason to suppose that he was the executioner who cut off the heads of the four men sentenced for high treason after the Cato Street Conspiracy in 1820. Publications:- "Observations on Transverse Fracture of the Patella." *Trans. Pathol. Soc.*, ii, 254. "The Enlargement of the Articular Extremities of Bone in Chronic Rheumatic Arthritis." - *Ibid*., iii, 156. (He refuted in this paper the teaching of Rokitansky.) Lectures on Orthopaedic Surgery, 1855-8. "Presidential Address on Subcutaneous Surgery." - *Proc. Med. Soc. Lond.*, 1857. *On the Reparative Process in Human Tendons after Subcutaneous Division for the Cure of Deformities, with a Series of Experiments on Rabbits and a Résumé of the Literature of the Subject,* 8vo, plates, London, 1860. (A piece of good pathological work illustrating the method of repair of divided tendons.) *Lectures on the Pathology and Treatment of Lateral and other Forms of Curvature of the Spine*, 8vo, 5 plates, London 1865; 2nd ed., 1882. *Club-Foot, its Causes, Pathology and Treatment* (Jacksonian Prize Essay), 8vo, illustrated, London, 1866; 2nd ed, 8vo, 6 plates, London, 1873. (The original manuscript is in the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons.) "Congenital Dislocation of Hip-Joint." - *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1885, ii, 859; 1887, i, 866; 1889, i, 243; and *Trans. Amer. Orthop. Cong.*, 1895. "Congenital Wry-Neck" - *Trans. Amer. Orthop. Assoc.*, 1896. "Rotation of the Spine in the so-called Lateral Curvature." - *Ibid.*, 1899, etc. The following are in the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons:- *A New Operation for Bony Anchylosis of the Hip Joint by Subcutaneous Division of the Neck of the Thigh Bone*, 8vo, 4 plates, London 1871. "On the Successful Treatment of Hammer-Toe by the Subcutaneous Division of the Lateral Ligaments", 8vo, plate, London, 1868, from *Proc. Med. Soc. Lond*., ii; 2nd ed., 1892. "On the Successful Treatment of Cases of Congenital Displacement of the Hip-Joint", 8vo, 2 illustrations, London, 1890, from *Brit. Med. Jour*. "Subcutaneous Surgery: its Principles, and its Recent Extension in Practice" (Sixth Toner Lecture), 1876, in *Smithsonian Miscell. Collections*, xv, 8vo, Washington, 1877. *Observations on Contractions of the Fingers (Dupuytren's Contraction), and its Successful Treatment by Subcutaneous Divisions of the Palmar Fascia and Immediate Extension; also on the Obliteration of Depressed Cicatrices after Glandular Abscesses or Exfoliation of Bone by a Subcutanous Operation*, 8vo, 4 Plates, Washington, 1879. The 2nd edition appeared with the title, *On Contractions of the Fingers (Dupuytren's and Congenital Contractions) and on 'Hammer-toe'*, etc., 8vo, 8 plates, Washington, 1892. "The International Medical Congress in Philadelphia" (Presidential Address before the Medical Society of London). - *Proc. Med. Soc. Lond.*, 1875-7, iii, 97; printed as an 8vo volume, London 1876. *Royal Orthopaedic Hospital. Letters and Documents in reference to the recent Arbitration by a Committee appointed by the Council of the Metropolitan Branch of the British Medical Association to investigate Certain Charges made by Mr W Adams against Mr Brodhurst, in connection with the Events which have lately occurred at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital*, 8vo, London, 1872. *Principles of Treatment applicable to Contractions and Deformities*, 1893. Special section contributed to the 2nd edition of William Spencer Watson's *Diseases of the Nose and the Accessory Cavities*, 8vo, London, 1890. Adams delivered the Lettsomian Lectures before the Medical Society of London in 1869, his subject being the "Rheumatic and Strumous Diseases of the Joints and the Treatment for the Restoration of Motion in Partial Ankylosis." In the same year he cut through the neck of the thigh bone, but Mr Brodhurst had already performed this operation several times. [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] 1820 (1st February); [2] Son of James Adams L.S.A. of 39 Finsbury Square, a Governor of S. Thomas's Hospital.; [3] His eldest brother, James, was also a pupil of J.H. Green, became an ophthalmic surgeon & died aged 31.; [4] 'Kinnerton Street' is deleted and 'Grosvenor Place' added; [5] 'the morning of' is deleted and '2 days after' is added, and 'ninetieth' is deleted and '80th' added; [6] 'He never married.' is deleted, and the following added 'He married 21 August 1847, Mary Anne MILLS, who died in 1897, and had 2 sons & 1 daughter - all now (1931) dead without descendants (information from P.E. Adams MRCS, nephew). the last surviving son died in 1920. He is also reported to have had "two harems(?)"'; Portrait (No.1) in Small Photographic Album (Moira & Haigh).]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000650
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Agnis, John Crown (1828 - 1866)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-08-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372834372834
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Langford, Malden, Essex, on Nov 11th, 1828, and dying unmarried was the last representative of an ancient Cambridgeshire family. He was a very promising lad, and at the age of 16 entered University College, London, and soon carried off the Senior Greek Prize, “being a mere boy in comparison with his competitors” (*Lancet*). He received his medical education at University College Hospital, became House Surgeon, and was gazetted to the 3rd Light Dragoons on Aug 11th, 1854. He afterwards became Assistant Surgeon to the Horse Guards Blue in 1860 (Sept 18th), holding this post to the end of his life. As an operator he was “bold and skilful”, “notably endowed”, as his *Lancet* biographer remarks, “with that special surgical acumen which is logic in action”. His talents were such that his friends urged him to bring himself into greater evidence. Accordingly he began to study deformities and “energetically followed out a series of special researches into their general surgical pathology.” In 1864 the Examiners for the Jacksonian Essay Prize awarded an Honorarium to Agnis for his essay on “Club-foot, its Causes, Pathology and Treatment”. The many illustrations to the Essay were drawn by the author, but the paper has not been published. Agnis was a skilful artist, “an enthusiastic entomologist, and versed in almost every branch of natural science”. He died in London on June 28th, 1866, after a brief illness. He had previously suffered from the effects of a severe hunting accident.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000651
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Roberts, Gwyn Richard Ellis (1929 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-12-19
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372496372496
Occupation General surgeon
Details Gwyn Roberts was a consultant general surgeon at the Hastings group of hospitals. He was born in Kampala, Uganda, on 26 April 1929, where his father, Clifford Ellis, was a surgeon and his mother, Lydia Flay, a nurse. He was educated at the Prince of Wales School, Nairobi, and Millfield, in Somerset, before entering the London Hospital Medical College, where he qualified in 1955. He did his junior house jobs in Plymouth and at Chase Farm Hospital and went on to be casualty officer at the Hammersmith Hospital, which was followed by senior house officer posts at the West London and the Royal National Orthopaedic hospitals. He then did his National Service in the Royal Air Force as a junior specialist. On leaving the RAF he was a registrar at the Birmingham Accident and the Luton and Dunstable hospitals, before becoming a lecturer on the surgical unit at the London Hospital under Victor Dix and David Ritchie, a time when he devised a balloon catheter with an eye downstream of the balloon which he claimed provided better drainage, and did a good deal of research into the precursor of selective vagotomy in the treatment of peptic ulcers and vascular ligation for oesophageal varices. This was followed by two years at the Connaught Hospital under J Thompson Fathi. He then obtained his consultant post in general surgery at the Hastings group of hospitals. There he found himself faced with a heavy surgical load in a district over-supplied with elderly patients, carrying out the full range of general surgery with minimal junior help, but still found time to describe a new physical sign in the diagnosis of disorders of the thyroid, and a new device for decompressing the bowel. In addition to papers on his catheter, he published extensively on the management of stab wounds to the thorax and abdomen. He married Mohini Ranchandani and had two sons, Michael and Peter. He died on 4 August 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000309
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Albert, Eduard (1841 - 1900)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Alcock, Sir Rutherford (1809 - 1897)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Cheng, Koon-Sung (1966 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Clarke, Samuel Henry Creighton (1912 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-14
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372224372224
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Henry Clarke was a consultant urological surgeon in Brighton and mid Sussex until his retirement in December 1976. He was born in Derby on 1 January 1912, the son of Samuel Creighton Clarke, a general practitioner in Derby and the son of a gentleman farmer from Newtownbutler, Ireland, and Florence Margaret Caroline née Montgomery, a descendent of the Montgomery who accidentally killed Henry II of France in a jousting match in 1559. Clarke was educated at Monkton Combe junior and senior schools, and then went on to St Bartholomew’s medical school, where he was a medical clerk to Lord Horder and a surgical dresser to Sir James Paterson Ross. From 1937 to 1938 he was a casualty officer, house surgeon and senior resident at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton. He enlisted in July 1939, joining the 4th Field Hospital, as part of the British Expeditionary Force. In 1940, at Dunkirk, he organised the evacuation of men on to the boats, under aerial attack. He left Dunkirk on one of the last boats out. In 1942 he was sent out to North Africa, and was present at the Battle of El Alamein. At the end of the North African campaign, as part of the 8th Army, he took part in the invasion of Italy. He ended the war as a Major in the RAMC. After the war, he returned to Bart’s, where he was much inspired by A W Badenoch. After appointments at Bart’s, as a chief assistant (senior registrar) and at St Peter’s Hospital for Stone (as a senior registrar), he became a consultant in general surgery at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital in 1950. In 1956 he was appointed as a consultant urological surgeon to the Brighton and Lewes, and mid Sussex Hospital groups. He was a member of the council of the British Association of Urological Surgeons from 1961 to 1964, and a former Chairman of the Brighton branch of the BMA. He married Elizabeth Bradney Pershouse in 1947 and they had a daughter, Caroline Julia Creighton. There are three grandchildren – Rachel, Brittany and Alexander. He was interested in rugby, tennis and golf, and collected liqueurs and whiskies. He retired to St Mary Bourne, and became an active member of his parish. He died from heart failure on 15 September 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000037
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Cobb, Richard Alan (1953 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Coffin, Frank Robert (1915 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Jenkins, Terence Percy Norman (1913 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-06-19 2008-11-14
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372709372709
Occupation General surgeon
Details Terry Jenkins was a general surgeon to St Luke’s and the Royal Surrey County hospitals in Guildford. He was born in Shoreditch, London, on 21 April 1913, the second son of Harold and Louise Jenkins, who had a chemists’ shop. They moved to Harrow a few years later. He was educated at the John Lyon and Harrow county schools, from which he won a scholarship to University College Medical School. On qualification in 1936 he won the Magrath scholarship, and went on to be house surgeon to William Trotter. At the outbreak of war he joined the RAMC and served in France, Belgium and North Africa, mostly doing orthopaedics, and reaching the rank of major. On demobilisation, he was appointed to the Guildford hospitals as a general surgeon. There he built up St Luke’s from a Poor Law institution to a respected hospital. An experienced general surgeon, his particular contribution was to the prevention of burst abdomen by the use of a continuous looped nylon suture, placed with centimetre bites, without tension. The method had been introduced by Gordon Gill, his colleague, and the results were published in 1976. Terry married twice. His first wife was Kathleen Creegan, by whom he had two sons, Tony (an engineer) and Edward (an architect). He then married Rosemary Dockray, by whom he had a son Andrew (a senior retail manager) and a daughter, Philippa (a management accountant). He died on 16 July 2007.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000525
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Selsnick, Frances (1917 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-06-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372710372710
Occupation General surgeon
Details Frances Selsnick, one of the most remarkable women of her generation, was the first female general surgeon in the United States and the first female American Fellow of our College. Frances was born in New York on 23 December, 1917, the daughter of Harry Selznick and Florence née Greenfield. Having been a child prodigy on the piano, performing ‘the Dance of the Hours’ at Carnegie Hall, Frances was educated at New York University and then went to the Anderson College of Medicine, Glasgow, to study medicine. She returned to New York to do a residency at the New York Infirmary for Women and Children in 1948 and then on to Sea View Hospital, Staten Island, and the Knickerbocker Hospital, New York, in 1953. After completing a fellowship at the New York Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases in New York, she returned to the United Kingdom in 1955, where she was a house surgeon at the Royal Marsden Hospital. This was followed by posts as a senior house officer in Stoke-on-Trent and registrar posts at the Royal Infirmary, Gloucester, St Luke’s and the Royal Infirmary, Bradford. She returned to the USA to work in the Veterans Administration Service, first at Martinsburg, West Virginia, in 1965, and then in Reno, where she became successively senior surgical coordinator for surgical services, and then assistant and associate chief of the surgical service. For these services she was awarded the John D Chase and Mark Wolcott awards for leadership skills and clinical care delivery. She continued to be an active surgeon right up until the week before she was admitted to hospital. Frances never married, but was an ever-popular member of an extended family, who nicknamed her ‘the General’ because of her fiesty manner: nobody enjoyed the joke more than she. She died of heart failure on 10 June 2007. Howard Amster
Resource Identifier RCS: E000526
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Bowen, David Ivor (1937 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Harris, Nigel Henry (1924 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-06-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372712372712
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Nigel Harris was respected in the orthopaedic world, particularly for his participation in British Orthopaedic Association (BOA) conferences, where his pertinent questions often brought meetings to life. He had outspoken views on medico-social and medico-political issues and wrote many letters to *The Times* in defence of the interests of patients and the freedom of the NHS from political interference. Nigel Harris was born in Grimsby on 24 November 1924, the eldest son of Archibald Harris, a general practitioner. His mother was Lily Nove. He was educated at the Perse School, where he shone at athletics and cricket, and on one occasion when the school entertained a visiting Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) team, he stumped the mighty Jack Hobbs. From Perse he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, and then to the Middlesex Hospital for his clinical training. He qualified in 1948 and completed house jobs in the orthopaedic department at the Middlesex and the North Middlesex Hospital, where he was greatly influenced by Philip Wiles and Philip Newman. He then served in the RAF, reaching the rank of squadron leader, and was involved in the Berlin Air Lift of 1949, during which on one occasion he wandered by mistake into the Russian sector and narrowly escaped capture. On completing his training in orthopaedics he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon at St Mary’s Hospital in 1964. He published on osteomyelitis, congenital dislocation of the hip and osteoarthritis, and was one of the first to replace hips and knees. He contributed chapters to *Clinical surgery* and edited the *Postgraduate textbook of clinical orthopaedics* (Bristol, Wright, 1983, second edition: Oxford, Blackwell Science, 1995). Having had experience as a house surgeon in the athletes’ clinic which had been set up at the Middlesex Hospital for the Wembley Olympic Games of 1948, he set up a sports clinic at St Charles Hospital, where he became interested in the symphysis pubis strain – the ‘groin strain’ of athletes. He became orthopaedic surgeon to Arsenal Football Club and consultant to the Football Association, where he was highly respected as ‘Nigel the knife’. Nigel was a friendly extrovert; quick in thought and action and never slow to speak his mind. He campaigned for the rights of patients and for freeing medicine from political constraints. He campaigned to set up the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Wing at St Mary’s and was secretary to the Fellowship of Freedom in Medicine. Among his many outside interests, he was interested in medico-legal work, joined the Academy of Experts, where he was respected for his impartiality and, together with Michael Powers QC, wrote *Medical negligence* (London, Butterworths, 1990, second edition: 1994). He was concerned at the increased numbers of injuries to policemen and was instrumental in setting up Flint House in Goring for their rehabilitation. In 1949 he married Elizabeth Burr. They had two sons, Andrew and Mark, who became an anaesthetist. He continued to play cricket and golf for many years, and was a keen hill walker. Unknown to many of his colleagues he owned a racehorse ‘My Learned Friend’. Frank, friendly and open, he never bore a grudge and was always the patient’s friend. He died on 8 July 2007. M Edgar
Resource Identifier RCS: E000528
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Clark, Charles Denley (1908 - 2001)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-07-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372713372713
Occupation Accident and emergency surgeon General surgeon
Details Denley Clark was a consultant surgeon at Pinderfields Hospital and Pontefract General Infirmary. He was born in Thailand (then Siam) on 12 August 1908. His father, Percy Leonard Archibald Clark, was a missionary, as was his mother, Mary Lenore née Denley. He was educated in Thailand until the age of ten, when he was sent to boarding school in Devon, and thence to Leeds Central High School. He qualified from Leeds Medical School in 1933, and spent three years in junior posts at Leeds General Infirmary and at St James’s and passed the Edinburgh Fellowship, before going to Labrador, Canada, for two years to serve with the International Grenfell Association. He published an account of these experiences, in which he told of the difficulties of managing ten huskies, the high prevalence of tuberculosis, and the widespread lack of food. On returning to the UK, he became resident surgical officer at the Woolwich Memorial Hospital, and completed his surgical training at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, St Peter’s and St Mark’s. In 1943 he joined the RAMC as surgical specialist, serving in Chester before being posted to the Far East, where he served with 33 Field Surgical Unit, 13 CCS in Burma, and 14 Mobile Surgical Unit and 53 Indian General Hospital. In 1946 he was appointed officer in command of 72 Indian General Hospital, in Malaya, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. After demobilisation, he was senior registrar in Woolwich and at the Brook Hospital, and became consultant surgeon to the Royal Herbert Military Hospital in 1949. In 1950 he was appointed consultant surgeon to Pinderfields Hospital and Pontefract General Infirmary. After retiring at 65, he returned full-time for the next five years to set up the first consultant-led accident and emergency department at Pinderfields. He married Margaret Eileen Canneva (née Goulden) in 1954. There were no children of the marriage, which ended in divorce in 1965. He married for the second time, to June Elizabeth Nichols, in 1976. There were no children. He was a keen skier and gardener. He died from Alzheimer’s disease on 27 January 2001.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000529
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Power, Sir D'Arcy (1855 - 1941)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-08-07
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372714372714
Occupation General surgeon
Details D’Arcy Power was born on 11 November 1855 at 3 Grosvenor Terrace, afterwards 56 Belgrave road, Pimlico, SW, the eldest of the six sons and five daughters of Henry Power, then assistant surgeon at the Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital and Ann, his wife and first cousin, youngest daughter of Thomas Simpson, banker and shipowner of Whitby. He was educated at St Marylebone and All Souls Grammar School, 1 Cornwall Terrace, Regent’s Park, 1866-70. The school was set up by the Rev Henry North, father-in-law of Sir James Paget, and drew its pupils from the sons of neighbouring doctors. He was at Merchant Taylors School, then in Suffolk Lane under Cannon Street Station, from 1870 to ’74, having been admitted on the presentation of Mr Foster White, Treasurer of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, and he won the Pigeon and Pugh prize for “the best boy fitted for a merchant’s office”. He matriculated at Oxford in 1874 as one of the earliest non-Wykehamists at New College, and came under the influence of George Rolleston and E Ray Lankester, and of Huxley in London. As biology was not taught at New College he migrated to Exeter College with an open exhibition in 1877. In this year he was demonstrator to C J Yule of Magdalen, the University lecturer in physiology. He graduated BA 1878 with a first in natural science, MA in 1881, and BM in 1882. He entered St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School with a perpetual student’s ticket in 1878. His father sent a cheque for 100 guineas, but by return of post the school treasurer, G W Callender, sent back the cheque, saying “Dog does not eat dog”. From Christmas 1878 until 1881 he was assistant demonstrator of physiology to Dr V D Harris. In November 1883, when James Shuter, the assistant surgeon, died from an accidental overdose of morphia, Power became curator of the anatomical and pathological museum, a post he held for six years. He was demonstrator of practical surgery from 1889 and of operative surgery from 1889 to 1901, except in 1896-97 when he was not re-elected as a warning from the Medical Council that he must contest the next vacancy for an assistant surgeon. He was demonstrator of surgical pathology 1901-4, and lecturer on surgery 1906-12 with W Bruce Clarke and from 1912 to ’20 as one of the surgeons to the Hospital. In the Hospital itself he was ophthalmic house surgeon to his father and to Bowater Vernon, 1882, house surgeon to W S Savory, 1882-83, and won the house-surgeons’ prize. On 28 April 1898 he was elected assistant surgeon, after a contest like a Parliamentary election against his friend James Berry, the votes being 71 and 60, in a vacancy caused by the resignation of Sir Thomas Smith and promotion of W J Walsham. He had charge of the throat and nose department 1902-04, as it was still the custom for an assistant surgeon to act as a specialist. Speaking of this period at a lunch given by the President of the College in honour of his eighty-fifth birthday, Power said: “When I wanted advice I went to Sir James Paget; I went to him at breakfast-time, 7.30, that was the only time you could catch him. Or I went to Sir William Savory, my master; when his son Borradaile was away I took the head or at least the vice-chair at his dinner parties, which were very formal and very long. We went to Mr Hulke at tea-time, just as tea was coming in; we were always great friends with Mr and Mrs Hulke. We were friends too with Lord Lister; his testimonial helped me greatly when I stood for assistant surgeon at St Bartholomew’s, it impressed the Governors and I was elected.” In 1904 he was appointed surgeon to succeed John Langton, and resigned in 1920 when he was elected consulting surgeon and a governor of the Hospital. He was chairman of the visiting governors’ sub-committee in 1927-32. From 1906 to 1920 he had been surgical instructor of probationary nurses. In 1934 he was appointed archivist and honorary keeper of the muniments, and began with Gweneth Hutchings, DPh (Mrs Whitteridge) a systematic survey of the Hospital’s archives, one of the longest and most complete collections in Europe. He was amused to find that the muniment room had been so long untouched that the dust on the documents was sterile. He printed some of the earliest documents in a contribution to the issue of the *Bulletin of the History of Medicine* dedicated to Arnold Klebs on his seventieth birthday, 17 March 1940. At the Royal College of Surgeons Power was examiner in physiology for the Fellowship 1889-92 and 1897-1902 and for the Membership 1892-97, Hunterian professor 1896-97, Bradshaw lecturer 1919, Vicary lecturer 1920, and Hunterian orator 1925. He was a member of Council 1912-28, and vice-president in 1921 and 1922. In 1929 he became Honorary Librarian, a post created for him on the death of the librarian, Victor Plarr; and he was elected a trustee of the Hunterian Museum in the room of Lord Rosebery in 1930. In 1878-79 he had been demonstrator of biology to Ray Lankester at University College; and he was professor of histology 1890-1903 and assistant professor of physiology 1893-1903, with Bland Sutton as his colleague in anatomy, at the Royal Veterinary College, where as he wrote: “the cockney wit of Sutton and the sarcasm of Power reduced the disorderly classes to order.” Power held many hospital appointments in and round London, and took an active part in many professional and other societies. He was consulting surgeon to the Metropolitan Dispensary, the Victoria Hospital for Children and the Bolingbroke Hospital, Wandsworth. He was on the court of the Royal Sea-bathing Hospital, Margate, and on the board of management of the Royal Masonic Hospital, in the rebuilding of which he took an active interest. He was president of the Harveian Society in 1908 and of the Medical Society of London in 1916. At the British Medical Association he was president of the section of surgery for the Nottingham meeting in 1926, but an attack of pleurisy prevented his attendance. At the Royal Society of Medicine he was president of the section of the history of medicine in 1918-20 and of the section of comparative medicine in 1926-28. He was président d’honneur of the Société internationale de l’Histoire de Médecine at Geneva in 1925. He was a member of the Physiological Society from 1879, and served various offices in the Pathological Society, the British Orthopaedic Society, the Medical Research Club, and the Society for the Study of Disease in Children, among others. He took an active part in the International Medical Congresses and in the Société internationale de Chirurgie. He was for many years chairman of the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund, in whose work he took a deep interest, the president being Sir T Barlow. Outside the profession he was eminent as a freemason and achieved high rank in the Grand Lodge of England. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1897, and was president of the Bibliographical Society in 1926-28. He was a founder of the Samuel Pepys Club in 1903 and its president in 1924, and a founder of the Anglo-Batavian Society in 1920, his great-grandmother having been a Dutchwoman. He was a corresponding member or honorary fellow of many learned societies at home and abroad, including the Académie de Médecine de Paris, the American Surgical Association and the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He joined the Volunteer Medical Staff Corps in 1888 and was commissioned major *à la suite* on the formation of the RAMC territorial force in 1908. During the war of 1914-18 he was lieutenant-colonel in command of the 1st London General Hospital at Camberwell. He represented the RCS on the Statutory Committee of Reference and was a member of the appeal board. In the peace *Gazette* of June 1919 he was created KBE. He had been ambulance lecturer to the Birkbeck Institute in 1890-98. He served on the Metropolitan Asylums Board and on the Advisory Committee on the administration of the Cruelty to Animals Act. He was in 1912 a member of the Royal College of Physicians committee on the nomenclature of disease, and from 1908 to 1929 a visitor for King Edward’s Hospital Fund for London. He was for many years on the councils of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and the British Empire Cancer Campaign. He examined in surgery for several universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, for the RCS, the RAMC and the IMS, and was a member of the Faculty of Medicine in the University of London 1902-20. Power was a good all-round surgeon, who showed at his best in an emergency operation. But while eminent as a surgeon and as a writer on surgery, and taking an active part in the administrative and social life of the profession, he made his real mark as a scholar and historian. On his seventy-fifth birthday his many friends joined with the Osler Club to give him a volume of his *Selected* writings. The book contains sixteen of his articles and a bibliography of 609 items, and during the remaining ten years of his life books and articles continued to come from his pen almost as prolifically as before. Besides making so many contributions to medicine and scholarship Sir D’Arcy was throughout life a journalist, reviewing regularly for the *British Medical Journal* and frequently for *The Lancet*, *The Times Literary Supplement* and other papers. It is an open secret that he contributed the obituary notices of surgeons to *The Times* for many years. His first published writing appeared when he was twenty-two: “On the albuminous substances which occur in the urine in albuminuria”, written with Lauder Brunton for *St Bartholomew’s Hospital Reports* in 1877, and his first clinical paper appeared in the same *Reports* in 1882: “A case of hereditary locomotor ataxy.” In the meantime he had joined Dr Vincent Harris in writing a *Manual for the Physiological Laboratory* 1880, which ran to five editions in twelve years. In 1886 he edited the *Memorials of the Craft of Surgery in England* from materials collected by J F South, a book of some 400 pages; this work first turned him to historical writing. He then began his long series of unsigned historical articles in the *BMJ*, under the editorship of Ernest Hart, and later contributed an historical article to almost every number of the *British Journal of Surgery* from its beginning in 1913. From 1893 he contributed some 200 “lives” to the *Dictionary of National Biography*, and thence acquired the method of precision and compactness which he used in revising the material collected by V G Plarr for the *Lives of the Fellows of the College*, published in 1930. Between 1930 and 1940 he wrote, largely from personal knowledge, the lives of the Fellows (nearly 400) who died in those years. He had the pleasure of presenting these lives in typescript to the College Council on his eighty-fifth birthday. This was his last public appearance. These lives of 1930-40 are printed in the present volume. Power’s professional interests were wide and he wrote on many subjects. He made a thorough study of intussusception and his Hunterian lectures were enlarged to form a book on this subject in 1898. He also wrote several papers on “wiring” for aneurysm. But his life-long interests were in the surgical diseases of children on which he published a manual in 1895, in cancer (Bradshaw lecture 1919 on cancer of the tongue), and in syphilis: with J Keogh Murphy he edited the *System of Syphilis* issued by the Oxford Press in 1908-10. He was an editor of *St Bartholomew’s Hospital Reports* from 1898 to 1902 and treasurer of the *British Journal of Surgery* for many years. During the war of 1914-18 he wrote on *War wounds* for the Oxford medical war primers, of which he was an editor. He first became known to the general reader by his *William Harvey*, 1897, written to order in a few weeks; it remains after fifty-five years the best short study of its great subject. Sixteen years later he broke new ground with his *Portraits of Dr William Harvey*, compiled at Sir William Osler’s suggestion and published anonymously, and partly at Power’s expense, for the Royal Society of Medicine in 1913, with many illustrations. His most scholarly work was his edition of the *Treatises* of John Arderne, the xiv century surgeon “edited from an early xv century translation with introduction, notes, etc.” for the Early English Text Society in 1910; and followed in 1922 by Arderne’s *De arte phisicali et de cirurgia*, which he translated from the Latin. Power stated the he had seen over sixty manuscripts of Arderne’s and later gave the transcripts, which he had used for his editions, to the College library. In pure bibliography he published a masterly study of *The Birth of Mankind*, in which he cleared up the difficulties of distinguishing the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century issues of Raynalde’s book by means of elaborate “tables of comparison of the initial letters”. In 1924 he was visiting surgeon at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital at Boston, Massachusetts, and in 1930 he paid a second visit to America, when he renewed his old friendships with Fielding Garrison, Harvey Cushing, and other surgeons and scholars. He gave a course of lectures at the W H Welch Institute of the History of Medicine in the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, subsequently published as *The Foundations of medical history*, 1931. In this he explains that his method as bibliographer and historian was to seek the man behind the book; he was in full agreement with Garrison in approaching medical history from the biographical aspect, and had no use for philosophical generalizations. In 1935 he gave the inaugural address at the opening of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons at Melbourne. On the voyage to Australia he dictated his autobiography; he later wrote a family history; both remained unpublished at his death. Among his later writings were *A Mirror for surgeons*, a collection of outstanding case-reports by surgeons of many dates and countries ; a complete genealogy of the family of Percivall Pott; and a paper on Thomas Johnson, the xvi century translator of Paré, in which he cleared up the biographical puzzles which had defeated earlier writers. Like his father, of whom he wrote that “he neither affirmed nor denied”, Power was an agnostic. The age of the Reformation made a special appeal to him and he wrote much about the surgeons of Elizabeth’s reign, whose books he collected. His lively interest in human types was shown in his studies of Pepys, including the paper “Why Pepys discontinued his diary”, with its prescription for spectacles for Pepys which attracted much attention. He transcribed the xvii century diary of John Ward, which was long in the possession of the Medical Society of London and was later sold and published. He wrote on Benvenuto Cellini, in whom he was interested as a connoisseur of silversmith’s work. While always open to new ideas and new methods Sir D’Arcy was a man of genuine *pietas*. He loved Oxford, the College of Surgeons, and Bart’s, and was an authority on their great men, particularly Bodley, Hunter, and Harvey. Though simple in his way of life he was fond of good food and an excellent judge of wine, and was for many years chairman of the International Exhibition [of 1851] Co-operative Wine Society. He formed a remarkable collection of editions of the *Regimen of Salerno*, the dietetic classic of the middle ages, and wrote several papers on the history of fashions in food. He believed in dining clubs as the best dissipators of professional jealousies, and particularly valued his membership of the Confrères Club, which met regularly for dinner and debate, being himself a good informal speaker. As a man Sir D’Arcy endeared himself to all with whom he came in contact. Modest and unselfseeking, he carried his learning most lightly and always brought forward his assistants. Having been a poor man in early life, “we married on £60” he used to say, he remained always simple and approachable, and made no parade of his achievements. He was a very shrewd judge of men, absolutely straightforward and upright himself, with a puckish amusement at the foibles of others. He attributed to his Yorkshire Quaker ancestry the dogged determination with which he overcame the bitterness of bereavements which clouded a happy married life, ignored his physical disabilities, and set himself to carry through to completion the many tasks which he voluntarily undertook. Power married on 6 December 1883 Eleanor, youngest daughter of George Haynes Fosbroke, MRCS 1835, of Bidford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Lady Power died on 26 June 1923. They had three children: a daughter who died in childhood; one surviving son, Air Vice-Marshal D’Arcy Power, CBE, MC, MRCS, RA Medical Service, and a second son who was missing and presumed killed at the battle of Ypres in 1915. For the second half of his life Power lived in the little old-fashioned house, 10a Chandos Street, Cavendish Square, next door to the Medical Society of London; it became almost a museum, and he knew the associations of every book and piece of furniture in it. His heart failed soon after his eighty-fifth birthday, and when his house was damaged in the air-raids of the autumn of 1940 he moved to his son’s house, 53 Murray Road, Northwood, Middlesex, where he died on 18 May 1941. He was buried at Bidford-on-Avon; a memorial service was held at St Bartholomew-the-Less on 28 May, at which G E Gask gave the funeral oration. His library was sold at Sotheby’s on 9 and 10 June 1941. A portrait in oils, by Sir Matthew Williams Thompson, Bt, Fellow of the Society of Portrait Painters, who presented it to the College, shows Sir D’Arcy, three-quarter length, seated, in his Fellow’s gown and wearing the insignia of his knighthood, aged 79, 1934. There is a photograph, aged 56, in Henry Power’s *Brief sketch of my life*, 1912, page 31; another, aged about 70, in D’Arcy Power’s *Selected writings*, 1931, frontispiece; and a third, aged 75, in *Brit J Surg*. 1930, 18, 184. Power appears in the group-portrait of the College Council of 1927-28; this painting has been engraved. There are other photographs in the College collections. *Bibliography*: Power’s typescripts were presented to the College by his son; they include a number of unpublished lectures and speeches, and are bound in 23 volumes covering the years 1895 to 1933. *Selected writings 1877-1930*. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1931, with a bibliography of 609 items compiled by A H T Robb-Smith and Alfred Franklin. Power’s chief subsequent publications were : Some bygone operations of surgery, 1-11 *Brit. J. Surg.* 1930-33, vols. 18-20. Some early surgical cases, 1-2: The Edwin Smith papyrus. *Ibid.* 1933-34, 21, 1 and 385. Ipsissima verba, 1-13. *Ibid.* 1934-37, vols. 21-24. Hyman Maurice Cohen. *Brit. J. Anaesth.* 1930, 7, 49. John Abernethy. *Brit. med. J.* 1931, 1, 719. *The foundations of medical history*. Baltimore, 1931. Touchpieces and the cure of the King’s evil. *Ann. med. Hist.* 1931, 3, 127. Roubilliac, Cheselden, and Belchier. *Brit. med. J.* 1931, 2, 820. Century of British surgery. *Brit. med. J.* 1932, 2, 134. St Bartholomew’s Hospital 1880-1930. 7th Finlayson memorial lecture. *Glasg. med. J.* 1932, 118, 73-102. Natural science and medicine, in *Johnson’s England*, Oxford, 1933, vol. 2. *A short history of surgery.* London, 1933. Medical history of Mr and Mrs Samuel Pepys. *Brit. med. J.* 1933, 1, 325. Richard Gill. *St Bart’s Hosp. Rep.* 1933, 66, 1. The idea of the new Freemasons’ Hospital in Ravenscourt Park. *Architect. Rev.* August 1933, p. 53. Films in surgery. *Sight and sound,* 1933, 2, 43. Some great English surgeons: what they did and what they looked like; the Bolingbroke lecture, abstract only. *S. W. London med. Soc. Ann. Rept*. 40, 1933-34. Merchant Taylors School, the Charterhouse, and St Bartholomew’s Hospital. *St Bart’s Hosp. J.* 1933, 40, 5. Compulsory consultations. *Lancet,* 1934, 1, 746. The history of the amputation of the breast to 1904. 16th Wm. Mitchell Banks memorial lecture, 13 Nov. 1933. *Lpool med.-chir. J.* 1934, 42, 29. History of venereal diseases, in W. R. Bett *A short history of some common diseases*, Oxford, 1934. The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. *Brit. med. J.* 1935, 1, 930. How surgery came to Australia. *Aust. N. Z. J. Surg.* 1935, 4, 368-383. Some early English doctors and their descendants [Harman, Banester, Harvey, Browne, Sloane, Pott, Hunter, Baillie, Abernethy]. *Genealogists Mag*. 1935, 7, 55 and 97. Questions and answers. *St Bart’s Hosp. J.* 1936, 43, 221. Speech at unveiling of tablet to John Hunter at 12 South Parade, Bath, where Hunter lived in 1785, (16 May 1936). *Med. Press*, 1936, 192, 490; for an account of the ceremony, see *Nature*, 1936, 137, 864. Sir Thomas Bodley’s London House. *Bodl. quart. Rec.* 1936, 8, No. 90. New blocks of the past. *St Bart’s Hosp. J.* 1937, 44, 222. Foreword to C. Wall *History of the Surgeons’ Company*, 1937. The Treasurer of the Hospital. *St Bart’s Hosp. J.* 1937, 45, 29. Removal of the upper jaw; an historical operation. *Surgery*, 1937, 2, 780. The cultured surgeon. *Aust. N. Z. J. Surg.* 1937, 6, 243. A urological cause célèbre: Bransby Cooper v. Wakley. *Brit. J. Urol.* 1937, 9, 330. Clap and the pox in English literature. *Brit. J. ven. Dis.* 1938, 14, 105-118. A letter written in 1637 giving advice to a patient suffering from stone in the bladder. *Brit. J. Urol.* 1938, 10, 109-113. The hospital beer. *St Bart’s Hosp. J.* 1938, 45, 298. Foreword to Calvert’s *John Knight, serjeant-surgeon*, 1939. St Bartholomew’s Hospital. *Med. Press*, 1939, 202, 281. *A mirror for surgeons*. Boston, Massachusetts, 1939. The muniment room at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. *Bull. Hist. Med.*, Baltimore, 1940, 8, 392-402. Thomas Johnson (1597?-1644), botanist and barber-surgeon. *Glasg. med. J*. 1940, 133, 201. Pedigree of Percivall Pott. *St Bart’s Hosp. J.* 1940, war edit., 2, 21. Purchase of land by the family of Dr Wm. Harvey. *Ann. med. Hist.* 1940, 2, 308. The journal and the profession: some memories. *Brit. med. J.* 1940, 2, 437. Power edited two volumes of articles reprinted from the *Medical Press and Circular: British masters of medicine*, 1936, including at p. 131 his own article “James Paget”; *British medical societies*, 1939, including at p. 58 his own article “The Abernethian Society.”
Resource Identifier RCS: E000530
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Friedmann, Allan Isadore (1916 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Enid Taylor
Publication Date 2008-10-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372749372749
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Allan Isadore Friedmann was a consultant ophthalmologist at the Royal Eye Hospital. He was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, on 15 June 1916 to Joseph and Matilda Friedmann. His father was a pharmacist. He was educated locally at Grey College School in Bloemfontein, matriculating with first class honours. His undergraduate medical education was at Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg, and he then held house jobs in the General Hospital, Johannesburg, including the department of ophthalmology. He served the rest of the war in the South African Medical Corps, attaining the rank of captain. After going to England, he was initially senior lecturer to the College from 1963 to 1966 and was subsequently reader to the department of ophthalmology. At the same time, in 1963, he was appointed consultant ophthalmologist to the Royal Eye Hospital. His work was greatly influenced by two London ophthalmologists – A Sorsby and H B Stallard. He was interested in and wrote about the causes of blindness in children. He played tennis most of his life and was also interested in music and photography. He married twice. He married Marion Bernstein in 1940 and they had one son, who was “non-medical”. He died on 20 November 2005 and is survived by his second wife, Shu Qi Zhang.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000566
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Higgitt, Alan Carstairs ( - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Enid Taylor
Publication Date 2008-10-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372750372750
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Alan Higgitt was an honorary consultant ophthalmologist at Charing Cross Hospital, London. He qualified at University College Hospital. After junior posts he joined the RNVR as a surgeon lieutenant, ophthalmic specialist, on a hospital ship which was on active service in the Indian Ocean. After the end of the Second World War, he returned to start his formal ophthalmic training as a registrar at University College Hospital, working for Shapland and Neame. He worked in several hospitals, being first appointed as consultant ophthalmologist to St Mary Abbott’s Hospital, Kensington, and then to Ashford Hospital, Middlesex, and the South Middlesex Hospital. He was then appointed to Fulham Hospital, west London, which evolved into Charing Cross Hospital and he was honorary consultant ophthalmologist to this hospital until he retired in 1986. There he established a contact lens department and was involved in the treatment of diabetic eye disease. He had two great interests – sailing and music. This enjoyment extended to repairing early pianos and he also built two harpsichords and a spinet by hand. In July 2005 he had a fall, fractured some ribs and developed pneumonia, from which he died on 24 July 2005. He is survived by his wife Joan, a daughter who is a consultant psychiatrist, and two sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000567
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Ainley, Roger Gwynne (1932 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Enid Taylor
Publication Date 2008-10-24
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372751372751
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Roger Gwynne Ainley was an ophthalmic surgeon in the Merseyside area. He was born in Fringford, Oxfordshire, on 8 September 1932. His father, Joe Ainley, was a headmaster and his mother, Dora (née Carter), was a music teacher, both in schools and freelance. The family are related to the Shakespearian actor Henry Ainley. Roger Ainley attended Lord Williams’ Grammar School, Thame, and then the Old Grammar School, Bicester, from 1943 to 1950. His studies were then interrupted by National Service in the Royal Air Force for two years. In 1952 he went to Keble College, Oxford, to read zoology, but a year later changed to medicine. His clinical training was also in Oxford. His medical and surgical house jobs were at the Radcliffe Infirmary and then he began his formal ophthalmological training as senior house officer and registrar at Oxford Eye Hospital from 1961 to 1963. From 1965 to 1969 he was a lecturer and then senior lecturer at the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital. During this period, in 1968, he was awarded the George Herbert Hunt travelling scholarship and visited ophthalmic departments in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Ohio State University. In 1969 he was appointed consultant ophthalmic surgeon to Merseyside Regional Health Authority and was postgraduate medical tutor to the Wirral Group from 1974 to 1976. He was a member of the Oxford Ophthalmological Congress, a charter member of the International Association of Ocular Surgeons and a member of Wallasey Medical Society, becoming president in 1989. He wrote quite widely on ocular subjects, but was particularly interested in vitamin B12 levels in ocular fluids and tobacco amblyopia. His other interests were diverse – music, playing the clarinet, sailing, squash and particularly a lifelong interest in butterflies and moths. Initially he collected specimens and his collection covered all European countries, USA, Thailand, Morocco, Costa Rica, Kenya, the Gambia and Mediera. Later he became more interested in conservation and was a member of the Lancashire and Cheshire Entomological Society, Butterfly Conservation and Cheshire Wildlife Trust. Between 1963 and 1991 he had six papers on butterflies and moths published in *The Entomologist* and *The Entomologist’s Record*. In December 1959 he married Jean Burrows, a nurse at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. They had two children, Elizabeth Anne, born in 1965, who is a chartered accountant, and Timothy Charles, born in 1967, a linguist. Roger Ainley died in 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000568
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Baird, Robert Hamilton (1915 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Enid Taylor
Publication Date 2008-10-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372752372752
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details Robert Hamilton Baird was an ophthalmologist in Belfast. He was born in Belfast on 19 September 1915. His father, William Baird, was a district inspector with the Royal Irish Constabulary and his mother was Mary McAdam. He was educated in Belfast, at the Methodist College, from 1929 to 1934, and then went on to study medicine at Queen’s University in the city, qualifying in 1939. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1939 to 1946, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel and was mentioned in despatches in May 1945. After leaving the Army, he trained as an ophthalmologist, as a resident surgical officer in Birmingham and Midland Eye Hospital. He was appointed consultant ophthalmic surgeon to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, and North Down Hospital Group. He was a clinical lecturer and an examiner to Queen’s University, Belfast. In 1962 he married a Miss Drayson and they had two sons. He was interested in electronics and enjoyed playing golf. He died on 19 April 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000569
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Latto, Conrad (1915 - 2008)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Marshall Barr
Publication Date 2008-11-14
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372753372753
Occupation General surgeon
Details Conrad Latto was a consultant surgeon at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading. He was born on 3 March 1915, the son of David and Christina Latto. His father was the town clerk of Dundee, his mother a frugal Scot who scrupulously saved towards the education of their three sons. Conrad, Gordon and Douglas all went from Dundee High School to study medicine at St Andrews. A younger brother, Kenneth, died in childhood of a Wilms’ tumour, which may have influenced Conrad’s future career. In 1937 he qualified with first class honours and a gold medal from St Andrews University. He held junior hospital appointments at Cornelia & East Dorset Hospital, Poole, the Prince of Wales Hospital, Plymouth, and Rochdale Infirmary. He became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1940. For 18 months, from 1940 to 1942, he was a resident surgical officer at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Plymouth. It was during the Blitz on Plymouth in 1941 that his surgical reputation was established. Ironically, Latto was a conscientious objector on religious grounds. Eric Holburn, assistant superintendent at the Prince of Wales Hospital, sent this testimonial to his tribunal: “Soon after the devastation of Plymouth by enemy savagery in the early part of 1941, Mr Latto informed me that his views concerning the destruction of life had become so strongly crystallized that he could not honestly serve, even in a medical capacity, with the Armed Forces…This objection is the outcome of his earnest and overruling desire to put into practice his conception of a Christ-like life…I know of no individual who has served his country so magnificently and in such a quietly heroic and unassuming way as Mr Latto…The direction of the hospital emergency service was left entirely in his hands …With bombs falling all round and the hospital services being disrupted he carried on with imperturbable fortitude…” H F Vellacott, honorary surgeon wrote: “During the Plymouth blitzes…It was he who arranged which cases should go to theatre, which cases should have blood transfusions…Throughout these trying times he proved invaluable, and I cannot speak too highly of his conduct and of his administrative qualities. When each actual blitz was on his example of courage and calmness helped to hold the whole hospital organization together. He was outstanding in this respect and a special note of thanks was sent him by the Honorary Staff before he left.” The tribunal excused him from military service, with the condition that he continued to serve as a doctor. In 1943 he went to the Liverpool Royal Infirmary as surgical registrar for 12 months, followed by a year as an accident service officer at King Edward VII Hospital, Windsor. Now in Berkshire, and in his words “liking the look of the Royal Berks”, he became resident surgical officer in 1945. He was to remain closely attached to the Royal Berkshire Hospital for the rest of his life. With glowing testimonials from honorary surgeons Aitken Walker and Gordon Bohn, he became honorary assistant surgeon in December 1947, one of the last appointments to the voluntary hospital staff before the arrival of the NHS. Aitken Walker, the senior surgeon, suggested they all have a specialty. Walker chose thyroid and sympathectomy for himself, Bohn was given gall bladder and stomach, Robert Reid the colon and rectum. Latto had done some urology at Liverpool and therefore got urology. He took up the challenge with characteristic enthusiasm. Now a consultant in the NHS, he visited Terrence Millin and Alec Badenoch at St Bartholomew’s and St Peter’s hospitals to bring Reading up to date with the latest in the specialty. In 1961, sponsored by Badenoch and Sir James Paterson Ross (Sir James’s son Harvey was at that time Latto’s surgical registrar), he undertook a two-month study tour in the USA of the major centres for urology and general surgery. Latto was an excellent general surgeon who became a skilled urologist. He served on the council of the urology section of the Royal Society of Medicine and was an important influence in establishing the specialty in the Oxford region. In 1961 he jointly founded, with Joe Smith, the Oxford Regional Urology Club. His endoscopic and surgical skills, together with the length of his operating lists, were legendary. In the 1970s he assisted the GU Manufacturing Company in testing their prototype rod lens urology instruments. Harold Hopkins of the University of Reading, who had developed the rod lens and fibre-optic systems used in endoscopy, became both a patient and a very good friend. Another close friend was Denis Burkitt, whom he met when they were together at Poole. They were both Christian vegetarians: Latto became a member of the Order of the Cross and was president of VEGA (Vegetarian Economy and Green Agriculture). The two friends’ common interest in the effects of dietary fibre led to combined study and lecture tours in Africa, India, the Persian Gulf and behind the Iron Curtain. In 1971 Latto crusaded successfully for the introduction of dietary bran in Reading hospitals. He was a leading figure in British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS), at whose urging the College offered him the FRCS *ad eundem* in 1977. A tall, imposing figure with a shock of silver-grey hair, Conrad Latto had an enormous influence on the Royal Berks and on the medical and nursing staff in training. Although teetotal as well as vegetarian, he was the very opposite of the dour Scot. He never preached his beliefs (other than the importance of fibre). He published few papers, but was a passionate teacher, speaking eloquently and amusingly in a delightful soft Scottish accent. When in 1980 he had to retire from his beloved hospital, he took over the general practice in Caversham of his sister-in-law Monica Latto. He attended refresher courses and out-patient teaching sessions to update his knowledge and for seven years was a highly respected and much loved GP. In final retirement, he remained an active member of the local medical society, the Reading Pathological Society, of which he had been arguably its most effective post-war president. He died at his Caversham home on 6 July 2008, leaving a wife Anne, daughters Rosalind and Sharon, and five grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000570
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Cullum, Victor John Leslie (1930 - 2008)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-11-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372754372754
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Victor Cullum was an orthopaedic surgeon in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was born in Cape Town on 25 February 1930, the son of John Richard Leslie Cullum, a businessman, and Olive Mildred née Willmott, who owned a nursery school. He was educated at St George’s Primary School, Cape Town, and St John’s College, Johannesburg, before studying medicine at Witwatersrand University. After qualifying, he completed intern posts in medicine and surgery at Johannesburg Hospital and went to England to specialise in surgery. He did a series of house jobs at Derbyshire Royal Infirmary and the Birmingham Accident Hospital, and passed the FRCS in 1958. He was then a registrar in orthopaedics at the Hammersmith Hospital, working partly in Hammersmith and partly at the Ascot Infirmary. Returning to South Africa, he held registrar appointments in the orthopaedic department of Johannesburg Hospital and was registered as an orthopaedic specialist in 1963. He entered private practice in 1964, while continuing to hold part-time appointments at the Johannesburg and Germiston hospitals, and the Johannesburg branch of the General Mining Hospital Group. He married Joyce Grimes in 1957. They had two girls (Irene Alison and Jennifer Anne) and two boys (John Brian and Robert Victor). Victor Cullum was a keen dinghy sailor and a member of the South African Racing Yacht Association. He and his wife undertook a circumnavigation of Africa during the summer months of 1991, 1992 and 1993. He died on 26 May 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000571
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Sahoy, Ronald Rabindranath (1940 - 2008)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-11-14 2009-05-01
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372755372755
Occupation Cardiothoracic surgeon General surgeon
Details Ronald Sahoy was a pioneering cardiothoracic and general surgeon in the Caribbean. He was born on 3 January 1940, in Essequibo, British Guiana (now Guyana). His father was Kunandan Ramdial Sahoy, a business man who owned a trucking service, and his mother was Baidwattee née Narayan, who had worked as a clerk in the civil service in London in the sixties. Ronald was educated at the Modern Educational Institute, which had been founded by a cousin, Ongkar Narayan, the Central High School, Guyana, and Queen’s College, Guyana, where he won the Guyana Government intercollegiate scholarship. He studied medicine at the University of the West Indies, where he qualified in 1965, winning the Wilson-James surgery prize. He completed internships at the University Hospital of the West Indies in general surgery and general medicine and cardiology, followed by a senior house officer post in general and cardiothoracic surgery and a casualty officer post. He then did a general surgical rotation for two years, from which he won a Commonwealth scholarship in 1969, which took him to London to study for the FRCS. In 1970 he was clinical assistant to Norman Tanner at St James’s Hospital, Balham. Having passed the FRCS, he returned to the University Hospital of the West Indies, where he was a senior registrar in general and cardiothoracic surgery for the next three years. In 1973 he became a consultant surgeon to the National Chest Hospital, formerly the George V Memorial Hospital. There he headed the cardiothoracic team. In 1976 he entered private practice at the Medical Associates Hospital, where he was the senior surgeon and medical director. He married Pauline Rohini Samuels in 1965. Their two sons both became airline pilots. He died suddenly on 6 April 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000572
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Pheils, Murray Theodore (1917 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-11-21
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372756372756
Occupation General surgeon
Details Murray Pheils was professor of surgery at the University of Sydney. He was born in Birmingham on 2 December 1917, the younger of the two sons of Elmer Theodore Pheils, an osteopath, and Lilian Mary née Cole. His father Elmer was a colourful character: he was born in Toledo, Ohio, and trained as an osteopath under George Still, the founder of that profession, subsequently qualifying in medicine from Ohio. He went to London in 1907, and soon built up a successful practice, including among his patients George Bernard Shaw and Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother), who he cured of torticollis by massage. Despite early hostility, he was widely accepted by regular members of the profession, and insisted that both his sons went to medical school. Murray was seven when Shaw became his father’s patient and soon got to know the great man well, describing their friendship in ‘Thank you Mr Shaw’ (*Brit med J* 1994 309 1724-1726). Murray Pheils was educated at Leighton Park School and followed his elder brother to Queens’ College, Cambridge, before going on to St Thomas’ Hospital for his clinical training. There he was influenced by B C Maybury, B W Williams, R H O B Robinson and T W Mimpriss. After qualifying, he was house surgeon and casualty officer at St Thomas’ and St Peter’s, Chertsey, before joining the RAMC in 1942. There he served in Africa and in the South East Asia Command and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Whilst still on the house at St Thomas’ he married Unity Louise McCaughey, who came from a family long established in New South Wales. Her grandfather Sir Samuel McCaughey had set up the Murrumbidgee irrigation scheme which transformed agriculture in New South Wales. After the war, Murray obtained an ex-serviceman’s registrar post at St Thomas’ and then held further general surgery and urology posts at St Thomas’ and St Peter’s. In 1951 he was appointed as a consultant at St Peter’s, having obtained his Cambridge MChir. He became a very successful surgeon with a lucrative private practice, particularly after the Nuffield Private Hospital was built and opened. However, as the years passed Murray became restive – he had always wanted a teaching hospital post but, because of his late arrival back from the Far East after the war and, by that stage, having three young mouths to feed and educate, he had to take the post at Chertsey. Following a trip out to Australia in 1965, Murray had renewed his friendship with John Lowenthal, who was chairman of the Sydney University department of surgery. He was informed that there was to be a teaching department established at the Repatriation Hospital at Concord and they were looking for a mature surgeon to run the new teaching department. Murray returned to the UK, saw the post advertised, applied and was appointed to start in mid 1966. He rapidly made his mark not only as a clinician but also as a teacher. Casualties were being received from the Australian Forces in Vietnam. The condition of the evacuees was very poor and the whole process needed urgent attention as preventable deaths were all too common. Murray went to the Army hospital at Ingleburn and triaged the evacuees so they were transferred to an appropriate hospital for treatment. Furthermore, surgical teams of senior registrars and junior consultants were sent to Vietnam to improve the standard of care. With the backing of his colleagues, Murray was instrumental in transforming the management of the Australian Vietnam War casualties. His Second World War experience was invaluable in this respect. He became a full professor in 1973 and chairman of the university department in 1979. As the Concord department grew and evolved (the hospital became an acute hospital), so Murray’s department developed a special interest in bowel cancer. He published extensively on colorectal cancer, as well as writing a landmark paper on ischaemic colitis with Adrian Marston and others. He also published on abdominal actinomycosis, vesicocolic fistula and cholecystitis. He set up the section of colon and rectal surgery at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and endowed the Murray and Unity Pheils travel fellowship. Until he was over 80 he had a medico-legal practice in Sydney. He was a consultant to the New South Wales Law Reform Commission on informed decisions about medical procedures. He continued his interest in the Army, as a colonel in the RAAMC and as a consultant surgeon to the Australian Army. Outside surgery, he had a keen interest in his family and that of his wife, and wrote *The Return to Coree: the rise and fall of a pastoral dynasty* (St Leonards, New South Wales, Allen & Unwin, 1998). He died on 19 December 2006, leaving his wife, Unity, two sons (Michael Murray and Peter John) and two daughters (Diana and Johanna). Peter John Pheils is a consultant surgeon in Broadstairs, Kent.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000573
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Auden, Rita Romola (1942 - 2008)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-12-05
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372757372757
Occupation General surgeon
Details Rita Auden was a surgeon at the London Hospital, until mental illness forced her to abandon her career. She was born in Simla, India, on 22 August 1942. Her father, John Bicknell Auden, was a geologist with the Geological Survey of India, and the last European to be appointed to the permanent cadre of the Survey. His brother, Wystan, was the poet W H Auden. Her paternal grandfather was George Augustus Auden, a physician who became the first school medical officer in Birmingham and professor of public health at Birmingham University. He liked to quote an aphorism that a doctor should “care more for the individual patient than for the special features of his disease” and that “healing is not a science but an intuitive art of wooing nature”, ideas which influenced his family, including Rita. Rita’s mother was the painter Sheila Bonnerjee. She trained at the Oriental School of Art in Calcutta and the Central School of Art in London, and had various exhibitions in Calcutta and Bombay. Some of her work was exhibited in Paris. Her father, R C Bonnerjee, had read Greats at Balliol and then practised as a barrister in Calcutta. Sheila’s grandfather was W C Bonnerjee, a leading Indian barrister at the Calcutta High Court and the first president of the Indian National Congress. Calcutta in the 1940s was an interesting and cosmopolitan place, and Rita’s parents had a wide circle of friends, including journalists, artists, diplomats and businessmen. The Auden family lived in a flat in Lansdowne Road with Sheila Bonnerjee’s sister Minnie and her husband Lindsay Emmerson. Summer holidays were occasionally spent in Darjeeling at Point Clear, a house on the Jalaphar Road which belonged to an aunt. The children were sometimes taken to festivals by their bearer, ‘Mouse’, where the brightly painted statues garlanded with flowers would be carried to the Hooghly river and then left to float away. In 1951 the girls left India to be educated in England, travelling via the island of Ischia, where they stayed with their uncle Wystan. They initially went to school at the Convent of the Holy Child of Jesus in Edgbaston, Birmingham, near their grandfather George Augustus Auden, who lived in Repton. Later, when their mother settled in London, they went to More House, a Catholic day school, initially in South Kensington. Rita then went to Cambridge to do science A levels, as More House did not offer science teaching. Influenced perhaps by memories of the poverty and disease of Calcutta, she decided to choose medicine as a career, going to St Anne’s in Oxford in 1959 and then the London Hospital Medical College. There she stood out for her striking beauty and daunting intelligence, winning praises from all her chiefs and gaining the Andrew Clark prize in clinical medicine. After qualifying, she became house physician to Lawson McDonald and Wallace Brigden and then house surgeon to Clive Butler and Alan Parks, who all found her outstanding. She went on to win the Hallett prize for the primary FRCS. She was senior house officer in casualty in 1969, and then spent two years doing research with Charles Mann, before returning to the surgical unit. During this time she took study leave at the Mayo Clinic and spent a year in Belfast, where she gained experience with gun-shot injuries, and a year in Vietnam, seeking always to meet fresh challenges in the most dangerous and difficult situations. It was the same when she took a vacation: she thought nothing of spending a month going down the Amazon accompanied only by tribesmen. She returned to the London as a clinical assistant on the surgical unit in 1974 under David Ritchie, one of a group of exceptional young people, four of whom had been Hallett prize winners. There she showed herself to be an excellent organiser, a competent operator and a kind and caring doctor. When the time came for her to enter for an appointment as senior registrar to J E (Sam) Richardson in 1976, it was agreed that she was the outstanding candidate even though her appointment was vehemently opposed by the senior surgeon. Within a year however he had completely changed his opinion, saying she was the best senior registrar he had ever had. Indeed, so strongly did he advocate her further promotion that at his retirement dinner in 1981 he announced that Rita was to be appointed as a consultant. This was strongly opposed by some within the department. In the event she was appointed as a senior lecturer on the surgical unit, with consultant status. In 1984 she became ill and had a breakdown. At first Rita declined the offer of expert help, but within a few weeks she was sectioned and treated as an inpatient. After some three months it was thought she was fit to return to work, but unfortunately soon after her return she deteriorated again and had to be readmitted to a psychiatric unit. She resigned in 1987. She led a full life after her retirement. Until their deaths, she lived with her parents in Thurloe Square and her medical skills and instinct for care meant that neither had to go into a home, despite ill health. She also cared for and supported her wider family and friends, including her sister Anita, her nephew Otto and her aunt Anila Graham, who suffered a series of strokes. She would visit people in hospital even if this meant travelling up to Yorkshire. She was extremely interested in and concerned about the people around her, and would recount stories about her 90 year old neighbour who still drove a car and spent holidays in France, her Italian hairdresser, her Polish cleaner, and the regulars she would chat to in the local coffee shop. Her observations made them all the more human. While still an undergraduate she had met Peter Mudford, an English scholar at Christ Church who later lectured in English and European literature at Birkbeck College, London, eventually becoming a professor emeritus. They married in 1965 and divorced in 1985, though they kept very much in touch until her death. Because of her family and educational background her interests ranged widely. She used to play the piano and listen to music. She liked gardens and used to go to talks at the British Museum. She also regularly did crosswords and had a penchant for detective stories, tastes shared by her mother and her uncle Wystan. She died on 3 January 2008. Her family and friends will miss the special quality of her presence and her sense of humour and her sensitivity to the quirks and oddities of life.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000574
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Seyal, Nur Ahmad Khan (1920 - 2008)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Masud Seyal
Publication Date 2008-12-05 2008-12-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372758372758
Occupation Obstetric and gynaecological surgeon Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Nur Ahmad Khan Seyal was professor of obstetrics and gynaecology and a former principal of King Edward Medical College, Lahore, Pakistan. He was born on 16 July 1920 and received his early education in his home town of Jhang (Punjab). In 1936 he went to study medicine at Glancy Medical College, Amritsar, qualifying in 1940. He then went to Iran, in 1942, and joined the medical department of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in Abadan. Over a period of ten years he held various surgical appointments in the 500-bed Abadan Hospital and gradually rose to the status of a consulting surgeon. During this time he twice spent time in the UK, gaining his FRCS in 1951. A year later, in 1952, he returned to Pakistan, where he was appointed clinical assistant to the professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the King Edward Medical College, Lahore. In 1954, when Nishtar Medical College was established in Multan, Seyal was selected to take up the new chair of obstetrics and gynaecology, the first professorial appointment on the clinical side. He went on to establish a department that was recognised as “outstanding” by Sir Hector MacLennan, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, who visited in 1961. C M Gwillim, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at St George’s Hospital Medical School, London, also visited the hospital and recognized the department as easily comparable to the best abroad, and called Seyal’s devotion to duty “saintly”. In 1967 N A Seyal was appointed as professor of midwifery and gynaecology at King Edward Medical College and medical superintendent of Lady Willingdon Hospital Lahore. He completely reorganised the hospital and very markedly improved the clinical facilities available there. He took over as principal of the King Edward Medical College in 1969 and reorganised the teaching programme and formulated a number of schemes for the improvement of this premier institution. Seyal was nominated as a founder fellow of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan in 1962, and was elected to serve on its council. He was also a member of the Pakistan Medical Research Council for over six years. In recognition of his service to the medical profession, the government of Pakistan awarded him the Tamgha-i-Imtiaz, followed by the Sitara-i-Khidmat. After his retirement, Seyal was involved in the establishment of the Fatima Memorial Hospital and was the leading consultant for obstetrics and gynaecology. He retired to California in the early 1980s to be closer to his children. He died on 19 July 2008, just after his 88th birthday. He is survived by his wife (Iran Shafazand Seyal), his sons (Masud Seyal, professor of neurology at the University of California, Davis, and Mahmood Seyal, a business executive) and by his daughters (Mahnaz Ahmad, a scholar, and Farnaz Seyal Shah, a psychologist). He had seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000575
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Dave, Nareshkumar Balvantrai (1937 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-12-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372759372759
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Nareshkumar Balvantrai Dave was born on 25 August 1937 and passed the FRCS in 1967. At some time he went to Tampa, Florida, USA, from where the College was informed of his death on 5 January 2003 by his employer. It is understood that he specialised in orthopaedics and trauma, but the College has no further information about him. We would be grateful for any details that can be supplied.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000576
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Phillips, Charles Henry (1787 - 1863)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-01-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372760372760
Occupation General surgeon
Details The son of John Phillips, surgeon, of Pall Mall and Great Burton, Suffolk, was appointed Assistant Surgeon to the Grenadier Guards on June 16th, 1808. He was with his regiment in the Walcheren Expedition, in Spain at the Battle of Barosa, for which he received the Medal, and at the Battle of Corunna, for which he was mentioned in dispatches. He returned with the wounded, and on arrival at Spithead, transports signalled that they were without medical care. Phillips, at great personal risk owing to the high sea, induced boatmen to take him abroad. He retired from the Army before July 18th, 1811, and was appointed Surgeon to the Marylebone Infirmary. In later days he was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to William IV, and, his father dying in 1840, Queen Victoria appointed him to succeed as Surgeon to Her Majesty’s Household. He died long after his retirement at 6 Trafalgar Square, Chelsea, London, SW, on Aug 8th, 1863.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000577
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Canton, Edwin (1817 - 1885)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-02-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373029373029
Occupation General surgeon
Details Studied at King’s College Hospital, where he became Prosector to Professor Richard Partridge. He had worked in Charing Cross Hospital at a time when there was no Medical School, and also at the Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital. He was appointed Assistant Surgeon to Charing Cross Hospital in 1841, and became full Surgeon in 1855. He lectured on physiology from 1852-1854, on anatomy from 1854-1866, and on surgery and surgical anatomy from 1866-1870. He published in 1848 *Notes on the Morbid Anatomy of Chronic Rheumatic Arthritis*. Also in the same year from the Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital he recorded two cases of cysticercus cellulosæ beneath the conjunctiva and in the anterior chamber of the eye, with a number of references to similar cases. He continued to exhibit specimens of joints at the Pathological Society, which are preserved in the Museum of the College and in Charing Cross Hospital Museum. His account of the arcus senilis also attracted attention. Among exceptional cases was that of the dislocation of the ulna forwards without fracture of the olecranon process. His excision of the knee for separation of the lower epiphysis of the femur is in contrast to the reduction now practised. Canton held offices in the Medical Society, and in 1857 was awarded the Fothergillian Prize for an essay on “Injuries and Diseases of the Spine”. He was a ready writer and contributed satirical and critical articles to *Punch* and other weekly journals. He numbered Huxley among his friends. He retired from the active staff and was appointed Consulting Surgeon to the Hospital in 1878; he had practised in Savile Row, and later moved to Montagu Place. In later years his health declined, and on September 25th, 1885, he was found dead on Hampstead Heath with a phial of prussic acid beside him. He married late in life, but there was no issue. Portraits of him are in the College Collection. His nephew, Frederick Canton, became a distinguished dental surgeon, as also did a brother. Publications: *Notes on the Morbid Anatomy of Chronic Rheumatic Arthritis of the Shoulder and other Joints*, Exeter, 1848. “Remarks on Interstitial Absorption of the Neck of the Femur from Bruise of the Hip.” – *Lond. Med. Gaz.*, 1848, vi, 410; vii, 111, 153; also *Trans. Pathol. Soc.*, 1850-2, iii, 153; 1860-1, xii, 162 ; 1861-2, xiii, 270. “Instance of Hydatid Cysticercus Cellulosæ in the Subconjunctival Cellular Tissue, and in the Anterior Chamber of the Eye.” – *Lancet*, 1848, ii, 91. Published separately, London, 1848. “Two Cases of Excision of the Knee-joint for the Forcible Separation of the Lower Epiphysis from the Shaft of the Femur.” – *Dublin Quart. Jour. Med. Sci.*, 1861, xxxi, 74. “On the Arcus Senilis, or Fatty Degeneration of the Cornea,” London, 1850; reprinted from *Lancet*, 1850, i, 560, and 1851, i, 38 and 66. “A Case of Dislocation of the Ulna Forwards at the Elbow without Fracture of the Olecranon Process.” – *Dublin Quart. Jour. Med. Sci.*, 1860, xxx, 24. “An Account of Parasitic Ova found attached to the Conjunctivæ of the Turtle’s Eyes,” Dublin, 1860; reprinted from *Dublin Quart. Jour. Med. Sci.*, 1860. The copy in the College Library has attached autograph letters from T Spencer Cobbold and Arthur Leared. “Description of a Fœtal Monster with Eventeration,” London, 1849; reprinted from *Lancet*. The Oration delivered March 8th, 1852, before the Medical Society of London at the 79th anniversary, printed at the request of the Society, London, 1852.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000846
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First Title value, for Searching Taffinder, Nicholas James (1965 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2008-01-24 2018-05-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372621372621
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details Nick Taffinder was widely considered to be one of the brightest and most able young consultants when, at the age of 39, he was diagnosed with metastatic malignancy, from which he died two years later. He showed academic talent as a schoolboy, being a scholar at King's College, Taunton, from where he won an exhibition to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. His clinical training was undertaken at St Thomas' Hospital, London, where he won the Sutton Sams prize in obstetrics and gynaecology. Graduating in 1990, his first surgical house officer post was on the rectal firm and he retained this early interest in coloproctology throughout his career. Subsequent SHO jobs were in Southampton and Portsmouth, where he spent six months on the intensive care unit, before being appointed a specialist registrar to the training rotation of St Mary's Hospital, London. After a year on the academic surgical unit, he was seconded to Paris for a year, where he worked as a registrar in a world-renowned laparoscopic centre with Gérard Georges Champault and where he learned advanced laparoscopic skills. Returning to St Mary's he became a research fellow to Ara Darzi (later Lord Darzi), where he studied the quantification of manual dexterity in laparoscopic surgery, the effects of sleep deprivation on surgical dexterity and the impact of virtual reality on surgical training. His thesis on this subject was accepted for the MS degree and the work gained him two international prizes, one in the UK and one in the USA, as well as many publications. In the year 2000 he was awarded two travelling scholarships, both to European centres, to further enhance his laparoscopic skills and the following year he completed his colorectal training with an appointment as RSO at St Mark's and Northwick Park hospitals. He was then appointed consultant colorectal surgeon to William Harvey Hospital, Ashford, where he practiced and taught advanced laparoscopic surgery until his untimely death. Nick Taffinder contributed widely to surgery outside of clinical activity. He continued to publish regularly after his consultant appointment, his last paper appearing in print after his death. At the College, he taught on the care of the critically ill surgical patient course (CCRISP) and also trained the faculty for this course, a reflection of his own early experience in intensive care medicine. He was a faculty member on numerous laparoscopic courses, both basic and advanced. He was a council member of the section of surgery of the Royal Society of Medicine and of the Association of Endoscopic Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. He was in constant demand as a lecturer at home and abroad. In private life he was equally talented. His first love was his family, Jane his wife and four children, Jacques, Louis, Max and Jessica. But outside of family life he was an enthusiastic pilot, a good games player (tennis and squash), a snowboarder, paraglider and oarsman, to say nothing of his ability as a conjurer. He was universally popular. In early 2004 he was diagnosed with malignant fibrohistiocytoma of the pelvis with lung metastases. He underwent multiple operations, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Throughout, he showed truly remarkable fortitude and wrote a moving personal view in the *British Medical Journal* (2005, 331, 463) of how he diagnosed a rectal cancer in a male nurse of his own age at four o'clock in the morning while he himself was an in-patient awaiting his third operation. Despite returning to work between operations and treatments his disease pursued a relentless course and deprived the profession of a much loved and greatly talented colleague before his full potential could be realised.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000437
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Forrest, Duncan Mouat (1922 - 2004)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-01-24
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372622372622
Occupation Paediatric surgeon
Details Duncan Forrest was a distinguished member of that first generation of paediatric surgeons, most of whom trained at Great Ormond Street in the early years of the National Health Service, who pioneered specialist surgical units in children’s and in general hospitals across the country. Later in life he was to put the same enthusiasm and dedication into caring for the victims of torture. He was born on 19 December 1922 in New Zealand into a medical family. His father died when he was six and he was educated at a boarding school. He went on to Otago University, where he qualified in 1946 and then travelled to England to specialise in surgery, working his passage as a ship’s doctor. After junior posts at St George’s and gaining his fellowship in 1951, he went to Great Ormond Street as an able young surgeon whose faultless good manners barely concealed his passionate determination to develop and apply his surgical skills for the benefit of children with major congenital disorders. Unlike most of his contemporaries he was inspired not so much by the work of Denis Browne and his team, but by George Macnab, who was treating hydrocephalus by diversionary shunts, a treatment pioneered in the USA by Holter, which had so far been little employed by British neurosurgeons. Duncan soon developed considerable expertise in these procedures and when, following the completion of his training, he was appointed to the Westminster Children’s Hospital, to Sydenham Children’s Hospital and to Queen Mary’s Carshalton, although taking on a wide range of surgery with an interest in cleft palate in particular, he made hydrocephalus and spina bifida his main concern. It takes an element of idealism to pursue the management of some of these most severely disabled children, but this was a quality which Duncan possessed, fortunately modified by a shrewdness to perceive what was and what was not possible. He created at Carshalton a centre with an international reputation and contributed largely to the literature. He went on to distinguish himself as president of the British Association of Paediatric Surgeons and of the section of paediatrics of the Royal Society of Medicine. From early in life he had been deeply involved in human rights issues and had campaigned with Amnesty International against torture. He became a senior medical examiner for the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, examining many survivors, and travelling all over the world seeking evidence of the cruel treatment of Sikhs in Punjab, Kurds in Iraq, and prisoners in Israel, Egypt and Guantanamo Bay. He wrote extensively on these and allied topics, culminating in the textbook *Guidelines for the examination of survivors of torture* (Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, 1995 and 2000). He was predeceased by his wife June, a former actress who became a nurse. He died on 2 December 2004, leaving a daughter (Alison) and three sons (Ian, William and Paul).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000438
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Gun-Munro, Sir Sydney Douglas (1916 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-01-24 2009-02-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372623372623
Occupation General surgeon
Details Sir Sydney Gun-Munro was a former Governor General of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. He was born on 29 November 1916, the eighth child of an extensive family of Scottish descent on the island of Grenada in the Windward Isles. His father, Barclay Justin Gun-Munro, died when Sydney was only seven. Sydney attended the Anglican Primary School in Grenada, from which he won a scholarship to the Grenada Boys’ Secondary School. On leaving, he gained the Grenada Island scholarship, which took him to London and King’s College Hospital, in the footsteps of his brother Cecil. Always an adaptable soul, Sydney fitted in well with life in London, as he did with his fellow students, despite being some four years their senior, showing one of the characteristics typical of him all throughout his life – his ability to mix comfortably with folk from the most varied backgrounds. As an accomplished raconteur, guitar player and competitive tennis player, he became a popular figure in the social life of his contemporaries. When the anatomy and physiology departments moved to Glasgow at the outbreak of the Second World War, he showed his adaptability by facing a harsh northern winter, always charming his Scottish landladies. When he eventually moved into a flat with three other students they rapidly learned another lifelong characteristic, his ability to organise those around him, in this case acting as kitchen hands and washers-up whilst Sydney presided over the cooking with the accomplishment of a professional chef. On returning to London to start clinical work, his group moved to Horton Emergency Hospital in Epsom, Surrey, with visits to King’s College Hospital for outpatients and special studies. He qualified MB BS with honours in medicine and a distinction in surgery. After qualifying he was house surgeon to the EMS Hospital in Horton throughout the Blitz, and was at his brother’s house when it was struck by a bomb. For four hours he lay buried in the debris and was almost given up for dead. Perhaps realising that the clinical material available at that time in the medical school was somewhat limited, he gained an appointment as medical officer to Lewisham Hospital, where he enjoyed the wide variety of clinical work, under the aegis of his medical director, Humphrey Nockolds, who became a lifelong friend. When Sydney returned to Grenada in 1946 he worked as a district medical officer until 1949, when he was appointed surgeon at the Colonial Hospital, Kingstown, Saint Vincent, continuing there until 1971, apart from a secondment to England to study for the diploma in ophthalmology. In 1963, he was joined by a second surgeon. Many of his contemporaries were surprised when he returned to the West Indies because, with his record, he could undoubtedly have gained prestigious appointments in this country. To those who had the good fortune to visit him there however the wisdom of his decision was soon explained. Apart from the charm of the Windward Islands, it was clear that Sydney had groomed himself for this task throughout his medical training. His wide knowledge of medicine and his skill as a surgeon made him completely fitted for his life on the island of Saint Vincent. The only surgeon to a population of about 90,000 in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, he was able to give outstanding service in all branches of surgery and many of medicine. He dealt with general surgery, trauma, obstetrics and gynaecology, ear nose and throat surgery and ophthalmology, in which he was particularly interested, and continued to provide a clinic for many years after his retirement. After 20 years he had become known to virtually everybody on Saint Vincent and the neighbouring islands. He was respected for his own qualities and integrity, as well as for the work he had done as a surgeon, work which was recognised by our College, which granted him a fellowship *ad eundem*. It was not surprising therefore that he was appointed the first Governor of Saint Vincent in 1977, for which he was knighted. He became Governor General of the State of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines when independence came in 1979, becoming GCMG. As Governor General he always sought the welfare of the islands, established a successful arrowroot mill with Canadian assistance, a library, and a children’s charity for the welfare of the island’s young people. He married an English nurse, Joan Estelle Benjamin, and they became partners in a very happy marriage that lasted 60 years. Joan herself demonstrated remarkable adaptability in exchanging her life in the home counties for one in the West Indies, as the mother of a growing family, looking after a surgeon who was busy all hours of the day or night, and subsequently as wife of the Governor General, acting as hostess to members of the Royal Family and a broad spectrum of public figures from church and political life, as well as developing interests of her own, including distinguished service to the Red Cross. Apart from Sydney’s professional activities, his interests were in boating and tennis: he and Joan regularly won the mixed doubles at the island tennis club. He died on 1 March 2007, leaving his wife Joan, daughter Sandra and two sons, Rodney and Michael.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000439
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First Title value, for Searching MacFaul, Peter Alexander James Marsh (1935 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

First Title value, for Searching McGhee, John James (1931 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-01-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372625372625
Occupation General surgeon
Details John James McGhee, known as ‘Jack’, was a surgeon in the Canadian town of Prince Georgia, British Columbia (BC). He was born in Princeton, BC, on 6 December 1931 and raised in Trail. His parents, Thomas Doyle McGhee, a miner, and Agnes Wilson McGhee, both originally from Glasgow, agreed that Jack and his younger brother, Gordon, should try to avoid life in the mines. Jack subsequently enrolled in the University of British Columbia. Having played for the Trail Smoke Eaters as a junior, Jack was on the university hockey team, but quickly realised he wasn’t cut out for life as a professional sportsman. He concentrated on medicine and was in the third graduating class of the faculty of medicine, being licensed to practise in 1957. With a group of classmates he went to the UK, and gained much experience in orthopaedic and general surgery. When off duty he enjoyed all the cultural and sport opportunities offered in Europe. There were certain consultants who strongly influenced Jack’s decision to pursue general surgery. The first was Michael Reilly in Plymouth, who noted Jack’s ‘good hands’ and encouraged him by teaching him many skills. A strong negative influence was a position at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital where, in spite of encounters with many famous specialists, such as Seddon, and free tickets to the opera etc, he realised that the esoterica he was dealing with were not what he was really interested in. However, he continued with orthopaedics by taking a position at Nottingham General Hospital, before proceeding to Edinburgh to tackle the primary. He passed the Edinburgh FRCS exam in 1962, and returned to the Nottingham General to take a surgical registrar position. His chiefs were Tommy Field and John Swan, and the senior registrar was Ted Oliver. The experience of working with these three skilled surgeons was inspiring. It was an extremely busy hospital, and the call schedule involved each surgical firm being on call for a continuous week every month. Cold surgery was not set aside during this week, so the work was intense. Ted Oliver died on the golf course, much too young – he was 45. Jack completed the London fellowship during this period, in 1964. In November 1964 he married Carolyn Meetham, also a doctor, whom he had met in Nottingham. He had applied for one senior registrar position in Sheffield, but realised that it would be a very long haul before he achieved this promotion, and it was decided to return to British Columbia in 1965, after seven years in Britain. On returning to Canada, while Carolyn kept bread on the table with an assistant resident position in paediatrics in Vancouver, Jack studied for the Canadian Certification in General Surgery, which he achieved in 1965. On weekends off they travelled around the province looking for a town which wanted a specialist surgeon. Prince George was the only city where they were welcomed with open arms, so they settled there. Jack formed a dynamic and legendary partnership with Bob Ewert, who had earlier come back to his home town as the city’s first specialist general surgeon. Jack was a very skilled surgeon, much loved for his humour and courtesy, humanity towards patients, and scrupulous professionalism. He was an inspiring and enthusiastic mentor for a generation of medical students and surgical residents. Wanderlust led him to travel widely with his family. They volunteered their professional services in Belize, Dominica, Papua New Guinea and Somalia. Jack retired from active practice in 1996 after 30 years. He was honoured to be made an honorary member of the department of surgery of the University of British Columbia in 1995, and of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia in 2000. During his working life, his many hobbies included mountaineering. He was a member of the Alpine Club of Canada for 25 years and an active member of the Prince George section, where another of his interests was indulged: he would enter the photographic competition with success. He was a wonderful skier, and undertook many traverses and climbs with and without guides in winter and summer. He loved fly fishing for trout and steelhead. He was also interested in beekeeping, at which he became an expert. With his family, he travelled to all the continents, for exploration, natural history and especially bird watching. He gave many beautiful slide shows based on these travels. He carried on with these pursuits after retirement, and added more, including cooking. His final remarkable trek, around Manaslu in central Nepal in April 2005, was undertaken in great pain from bone secondaries, before the diagnosis of lung cancer was made in August 2005. Nobody was surprised that he bore his illness with extraordinary courage. He died on 18 April 2006, at home, surrounded by his family. Posthumously he was inducted into the Northern Medical Hall of Fame in January 2007. He is survived by his wife Carolyn, three adult children (Alex Jane, a nurse, Rachel, a physician, and Dougal, a carpenter, whose wife is Kirsten) and two grandchildren, all of whom he was extremely proud.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000441
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Nachemson, Alf (1931 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-01-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372626372626
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Alf Nachemson was one of the giants of his generation in the now recognised and developing specialty of orthopaedic spinal surgery. He spent a year or more in the USA, involved in editorial work and research, particularly at Boston, and remained a popular figure at American spinal conferences, where he drove home his strong views. Despite this, he remained scathing of what he considered to be the American tendency of resorting to surgery prematurely in situations where the outcome was still in question, citing particularly spinal fusion. Born on 1 June 1931, Alf Nachemson graduated in medicine from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1956 and, after his internships, studied for his PhD at Uppsala University. He then joined the staff of the Sahlgrenska Hospital, Göteborg, in 1961. Here he was appointed orthopaedic specialist and associate professor. He was promoted to professor and chairman of orthopaedic surgery at Göteborg University in 1971 and remained in this position until his retirement in 1996. He built up the research faculty of his department and developed a large research budget. His major involvement was in basic science research and clinical trials related to spinal orthopaedics. When he was first at Uppsala University, under the direction of Carl Hirsch, he became involved in the in-vitro and then in-vivo studies on lumbar disc mechanics. Initially this work involved intra-discal pressure measurements on post mortem specimens, but he developed his techniques to provide a safe method of measuring in-vivo intra-discal pressures in the lumbar spines of volunteers in different postures of flexion, extension and whilst lifting. This classic study, published in the *Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery* in 1964, and since corroborated in other centres, has become the scientific basis of our understanding of what is and what is not the correct use of the back in sitting, bending, lifting and carrying, according to the avoidance of disruptive internal disc pressures. From the late 1960s onwards, he set up a number of controlled prospective trials and random studies into the results of different spinal surgical procedures, correlating these with the outcomes of conservative treatment for the management of back pain arising in the workplace and in industry. Perhaps the main conclusions, which he derived from these controlled studies, was that bed rest for acute low back pain should be limited to no more than a few days and that lumbosacral fusion was rarely a useful treatment for chronic back pain, except where there is a clear mechanical cause, for example in cases of spondylolisthesis. He travelled the world and banged the table with this message (often literally), particularly in the USA, where there is a much higher prevalence of spinal fusion compared with Europe. Nachemson also made significant contributions to the field of spinal deformities and published on the poor longevity of severe infantile scoliosis, as well as the prevalence and pattern of back pain in different types of adult scoliosis. In the late 1980s he initiated an international multi-centre prospective control study into the effects of bracing in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis funded by the Scoliosis Research Society of the USA. This extended over some five years and its eventual publication concluded that bracing made a significant difference to the natural history of mild cases. Although the trial was at that time unique in its ambitious attempt to coordinate a study across several continents, unfortunately it did not extend the follow-up time long enough to answer the question as to whether bracing significantly altered the likelihood of a braced adolescent with scoliosis avoiding the need for eventual surgical correction. Alf Nachemson published over 500 scientific papers as first author or co-author and gave more than 1,500 lectures worldwide. Not only did he publish in Swedish and international journals, but was the co-founder of the journal Spine and remained their senior editor for 20 years. He was also one of the founders of the Cochrane Collaboration Back Review Group, established in 1993, which promoted a more scientific approach and the need for a higher standard of papers published in the spinal specialty journals. Among his many initiatives, he helped to found the European Spinal Deformities Society and the European Spine Society. Nachemson was appointed an honorary fellow of our College in 1987 and an honorary fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association the following year. In the last decade he had taken up the baton of promoting evidence based medicine, using this as a yardstick against which he felt that all treatments and methods of management must be judged. Undoubtedly his drive in this area has helped to make evidence based medicine not only a priority in spinal management, but also an everyday medical term. It could be said that Alf Nachemson’s greatest contribution was the establishment of a very successful university department of orthopaedics at Göteborg. Among his postgraduate students, 81 PhD theses were successfully defended, and 16 of his PhD students became notable professors in centres around the world. His department attracted many grants and achieved many awards. He worked in close collaboration with the Volvo car company based in Göteborg, which promoted research into back pain. There is good evidence that his team designed the anthropometrics for Volvo car seats. As with most distinguished medical Swedes, his English was impeccable and in addition he was an anglophile. As a result he enjoyed his frequent visits to friends and colleagues in the UK. These included not only to those in his own spinal specialty, but to general orthopaedic surgeons, of whom one stands out. Alf always enjoyed a good debate in the controversial areas of orthopaedics and it was Michael Freeman of the London Hospital who often provided this intellectual stimulus for him. Overall, Alf Nachemson was indeed highly gifted; not only as a lateral thinker with a research mind, but also as a good clinician, and one able to communicate with the patient over the options of treatment and their likely outcomes. One thing he despised was the ‘trigger happy’ surgeon. More than that, he was a charismatic team leader providing inspiration for a generation of spinal surgeons, not only in Sweden but worldwide and in this direction his energies were seemingly limitless. In one extended itinerary as a visiting professor he visited 50 universities in Australia, New Zealand, Asia, South Africa, North and South America and Europe. Outside medicine his interests largely revolved around his close family circle. He died on 4 December 2006 and is survived by his wife Ann and his children Louise, Mikael, Lotta, Sophie and their families.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000442
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First Title value, for Searching Sheldon, Donald Mervyn (1937 - 2007)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-01-24 2012-03-09
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372627372627
Occupation General surgeon
Details Don Sheldon was a surgeon at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, specialising in gastro-intestinal surgery. He was born on 5 January 1937 in Sydney, the third of the four children of Margret and Mervyn Sheldon. His mother Margret had been a schoolteacher, while his father Mervyn was head of the biology department and vice principal at Sydney Teachers' College. Don was educated at Earlwood Primary School and Canterbury Boys' High School, where he was *dux* and vice captain in 1953, becoming an accomplished pianist, and playing cricket and tennis for the school. He then studied medicine at the University of Sydney, where he joined the 13th NSW National Service Battalion as a private soldier. He was a prosector in 1955, preparing a dissection of the lateral aspect of the knee joint which remains in the museum today. After qualifying, Don completed junior posts at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, where he became senior resident medical officer and demonstrator in anatomy. It was at this time he won the Gordon-Taylor memorial prize for the best candidate in the basic sciences part of the FRACS. He went on to become surgical registrar in 1963. While he was surgical registrar in thoracic surgery he was in charge of the Australian thoracic surgical team at Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, under Rowan Nicks and was a locum for the Royal Flying Doctor Service at Broken Hill. He would fly out to remote districts in an old Drover aeroplane, which would squirt oil over the windscreen. He was appointed superintendent at the Royal Prince Alfred in 1966, and continued to provide a locum service while the only surgeon in Darwin was on six weeks leave. While doing this job he set up a surgical registrar post to which many trainees from the Prince Alfred rotated. He also harvested the cadaver kidneys for the first renal transplant done at the Prince Alfred with Shiel and James May. In 1967 he became surgeon in charge of the 3rd Australian Surgical Aid Team which was invited by the Commonwealth Government to provide surgical services in Vung Tau, South Vietnam. His team, all of whom were volunteers, comprised two surgeons, an anaesthetist, a physician, an intern (on this occasion D K Baird), six nurses, a pathology technician and a radiographer. There he carried out much emergency surgery and also successfully delivered Siamese twins. In 1968 he returned, having lost much weight, to Sydney as honorary surgeon to the Marrickville Hospital, and the following year was appointed to the staff of the Royal Prince Alfred. But in the same year Rodney Smith, who had met him as the McIlnath guest professor at the Royal Prince Alfred, invited Don to be his registrar at St George's as a British Commonwealth scholar. At St George's he worked on the management of complicated hepatobiliary conditions, especially surgical injuries to the bile duct, and took the opportunity to pass the FRCS. Back at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, he specialised in upper gastro-intestinal surgery, becoming head of the department in 1986 where, together with George Ramsay-Stewart, he set up a total parenteral nutrition service and published many papers, including one which won a prize in Athens on liver resection for secondary bowel cancer. He was a pioneer in the use of mucosal grafts and balloon dilatation for stenosis of the common bile duct, and was an early advocate of removal of the sloughed pancreatic tissue in acute necrotising pancreatitis, which until then had nearly always been fatal. In 1990 he acquired the instruments and introduced laparascopic methods for cholecystectomy. For his publications he was awarded the Justin Fleming gold medal of the Australian Association of Surgeons. Other appointments and awards followed. He was awarded the Vietnam Logistics and Support medal in 1995, the Graham Coupland lecture and medal of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1996, and the Active Service medal of 1997. In his College he was on the council and chairman of the board of continuing professional development, a tutor in surgery and an examiner for the University of Sydney. A keen freemason, he was provincial grand district master of the Grand United Lodge of New South Wales and chairman of the division of surgery of the New South Wales Masonic Hospital, later the New South Wales Private Hospital. He was active in medico-legal matters, a member of the review committee of the law of negligence and the Abbot committee into medical indemnity. He was sought after as a visiting lecturer in Indonesia and the Philippines. He bought his first farm in Tarago in 1973, moving on to others in 1976 and 1977, where in Robertson he established a Polled Hereford stud, and then began share farming in wheat and sorghum in Quirindi in 1997, devoting himself to growing his own fruit and vegetables. He died of cancer in the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital on 16 March 2007, leaving his widow Pam, whom he had met while playing tennis at school and married in 1961, 4 children and 13 grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000443
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First Title value, for Searching Robertson, Douglas James (1919 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-12-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372504372504
Occupation General surgeon
Details Douglas Robertson was a consultant general surgeon at the Royal Hospital, Sheffield. He was born in London in 1919 of Scottish parents. His father, Falconer Robertson, was a banker, and his mother, Jane Mary Duff, was a teacher. Douglas was educated at the Stationers’ Company School. He entered St Bartholomew’s Hospital at the age of 17 in 1936, being interviewed by Sir William Girling Ball. He passed the Primary at the age of 20 and qualified in 1942, winning the gold medal in obstetrics and the Brackenbury prize in surgery. He was invited by Sir James Patterson Ross to be his house surgeon on the professorial unit, but Douglas had already joined the Royal Navy and soon found himself as a surgeon lieutenant on Arctic convoys. Later he was posted to Ceylon with the Fleet Air Arm. He returned to Bart’s in 1946 and at once became interested in the new specialty of vascular surgery. He was appointed second assistant to Sir Edward Tuckwell in 1947 and chief assistant to the surgical unit under Ross in 1950. Having won a travelling fellowship, he took the opportunity to visit the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Eric Hüsfeldt in Copenhagen and Sir James Learmonth in Edinburgh. He was a Hunterian Professor at the College in 1954. He was finally appointed consultant surgeon to the Royal Hospital, Sheffield in 1955. At the Royal Hospital he continued to practise a wide range of general surgery and to build up a large practice. He was secretary and later president of the Moynihan Club, and was a moving figure in establishing St Luke’s Hospice, under the aegis of Dame Cicely Saunders, the first such hospice to be set up in the provinces. He married Alison Duncombe, née Bateman, a medical social worker and had two daughters, Joanna and Fiona. He was a popular figure, clever, quick-witted, funny, mercurial and very effective. A contemporary recorded that ‘there was never any hurry or worry about his surgery’. He enjoyed driving fast cars, music, reading and walking in the hills of Galloway, where they had a second home. He died on 7 December 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000317
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Turk, John Leslie (1930 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-12-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372505372505
Occupation Pathologist
Details John Turk was a former professor of pathology at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences at the College. He was born on 2 October 1930 in Farnborough, Hampshire, where his father was a solicitor. From Malvern, where he specialised in classics, John went up to Guy’s Hospital to read medicine, qualifying with honours and two gold medals in 1953. He did house jobs at Lewisham, where he met his future wife, Terry, and then did his National Service in the RAMC in Egypt and Cyprus, where he developed his interest in pathology. On demobilisation he was appointed senior lecturer at the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, working at the Medical Research Council research unit at Mill Hill, going on to be reader at the Institute of Dermatology in the University of London. He was one of the pioneers in clinical and experimental immunology, building on the work of Medawar and Humphreys, and was a founder of the British Society of Immunology. John Turk made important links with deprived and developing nations, where he was able to use his linguistic skills, and became in time an international authority on leprosy. He was appointed Sir William Collins professor of pathology at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences in our College. The author of many articles, he wrote two classic textbooks, *Delayed hypersensitivity* (Amsterdam, North-Holland Publishing Co., 1967) and *Immunology in clinical medicine* (London, William Heinemann Medical Books, 1969), which became very popular and was translated into many different languages, including Bulgarian and Japanese. In addition he and Sir Reginald Murley edited the collected case books of John Hunter. He was curator of the Hunterian Museum for many years. He was editor of *Clinical and Experimental Immunology* and *Leprosy Review*, was president of the British Society for Immunology and of the section of immunology of the Royal Society of Medicine, and adviser to the World Health Organization on leprosy. His wife Terry was a general practitioner; they had two sons, Simon and Jeremy (a psychiatrist), and three grandchildren. A delightful companion, John Turk was a kind and sensitive man, and a devoted servant of the College, who made him FRCS by election. He suffered from diabetes and died from renal failure and small vessel cerebral disease on 4 June 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000318
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Makin, Myer (1919 - 2005)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-12-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372506372506
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Myer Makin was professor of orthopaedics at Hadassah University, Jerusalem. He was born in Birkenhead in March 1919, the son of Leon Makin and Rebecca nee Goldman, furniture dealers. He studied medicine at Liverpool University and was house surgeon at Walter Municipal Hospital, Liverpool, before joining the RAMC. He was mentioned in despatches in 1945 and was awarded the Croix de Guerre in France. In 1946 he was appointed to the staff of the Rothschild Hadassah University Hospital. In the early 1950s he spent two years in New York, at the New York Orthopaedic Hospital, Columbia University, as a clinical fellow in orthopaedic surgery and then the senior Annie C Kane fellow. In 1952 he returned to Jerusalem, becoming director of the department of orthopaedic surgery in 1955. At the College he was a Hunterian Professor in 1957, and in the same year was the Lord Nuffield research scholar at Oxford. He was awarded the Robert Jones gold medal and prize of the British Orthopaedic Association in 1960. In 1965 he was made a Fellow of the College by election. He was a member of many prestigious associations, and was invited as visiting professor to the Albert Einstein Medical College and elsewhere. He was corresponding editor of the *Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery* in 1962 and of *Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research* in 1967. His method of transposing the flexor pollicis longus tendon to make the thumb opposable is widely used. He was declared a Distinguished Citizen of Israel in 1960. He died on 27 October 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000319
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Raine, John Wellesley Evan (1919 - 2006)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-12-19 2014-12-16
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372507372507
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Raine, one of New Zealand's most distinguished surgeons, was born on 12 March 1919 in Wellington. His father John was an importer of china and glassware. His mother was Harriet Eva née Cox. John was educated at Scots College, Wellington, where he was *dux* in 1933, winnng the Pattie cup for the best all-rounder in the school. He went on to Victoria University, Wellington, where he won his hockey blue, and then to Otago University to study medicine, qualifying in 1941. He was house surgeon at the Wellington Hospital, before joining the RNZAF in 1943, serving as a flight lieutenant in Guadalcanal and Bougainville. After the war he returned to Wellington, where he was assistant to E H M Luke, before going to Guy's Hospital as a Dominion student registrar under Sammy Wass, Hedley Atkins, Grant Massie and Lord Brock, during which time he attended St Mark's under Gabriel and Naunton Morgan. After passing the FRCS he was resident surgeon at Barnet General Hospital in 1949. In 1950 he returned to Wellington as visiting surgeon and clinical lecturer in surgery, a post he held until he retired in 1980. After retirement he continued as an honorary postgraduate tutor in surgery and director of medical services for the Justice Department for another ten years. His main interests were abdominal and head and neck surgery. At the Royal Australasian College he was elected to council in 1963, served for 12 years on the court of examiners, was vice president for two years from 1972 and president from 1974 to 1975. As president he conferred an honorary FRCS on his friend, Rodney, Lord Smith of Marlow. In the New Zealand branch of the BMA he was honorary general secretary from 1958 to 1963. He married Eleanor Luke in 1943, by whom he had a daughter, Rosalind Frances, who became a doctor in Christchurch, and three sons, one of whom, John Kenneth, became professor of mechanical engineering, the second, Anthony Evan Gerald, a Rhodes scholar, became professor of renal medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital, but died in 1996. His third son, Christopher Taylor, became a paramedic in St John, Southland. His first wife died in 1978 and he married Patricia Mary Cryer, in 1980. A keen sportsman he achieved two holes in one at golf, continued to ski until he required a knee replacement, played fiercely competitive bridge and was a keen gardener. He died on 12 July 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000320
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Murthy, Subbayan Keshava (1931 - 2003)

2025-08-16T07:47:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-12-19 2007-08-02
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372508372508
Occupation General Practitioner
Details Subbayan Keshava Murthy was a general practitioner in Swindon. He was born on 9 April 1931 at Channaraya Patna, in Mysore (now called Karnataka). His father, Venkatajubbiah Murthy, was a government state doctor. His mother was Subbalakhamma Murthy. He was educated at various government schools, finishing at Maharaja’s High School, Mysore. In 1946 he went on to Mysore Medical College, graduating in 1953. He then worked in various hospital posts in Karnataka State. In 1956 he went to the UK to specialise in surgery. His first post was at Swansea Hospital, from which he successfully took the Edinburgh and English fellowships. He then went on to a series of registrar jobs in general and thoracic surgery, including St John’s Hospital, London, and Sully Hospital, Glamorgan. He spent a year in Chicago, and was offered a permanent job in a surgical clinic, but declined, having found the mercenary aspects difficult to accept after his experience of the NHS. He returned to India to work in various positions, including a post at the Missionary Hospital in Karnataka, where he carried out reparative surgery on patients with leprosy. Finally, he was appointed as a pool officer in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi, where he was joined by his colleague from Swansea, Helen Parker. They married on 4 April 1963 in New Delhi. In 1964 they returned to the UK, when he found it necessary to pass the conjoint to obtain full registration. His next posts were in cardiothoracic surgery at Sully and Broad Green hospitals. In 1971 he decided to enter general practice in Swindon, where he worked until he was obliged to take early retirement after cardiac by-pass surgery in 1987. He continued to work part-time until November 1991. He had many outside interests. He was passionately interested in cricket and loved cooking, at which he excelled. He enjoyed classical music, both Western and Indian, and also travelling, especially motoring in Europe, particularly Spain and France. On his retirement he and his wife joined the University of the Third Age, and, before his health failed, he had completed the first year of an Open University Spanish course. He died on 13 May 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000321
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset