Search Results for

First Title value, for Searching Bradford, Edward (1802 - 1888)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Bradley, Charles (1841 - 1892)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Bradley, Charles Lawrence (1819 - 1892)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Bradley, Richard Holland (1820 - 1897)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Bradley, Samuel Messenger (1841 - 1880)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373133373133
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at Manchester and the Manchester Infirmary; soon after he was qualified he served as Resident House Physician. He then had a varied experience as locum tenens for six months of a general practice in Bowness, Windermere, and next for twelve months he made several voyages between Liverpool and New York in the Cunard Company’s service. He began general practice at Longsight, which involved him in a warm controversy with the Manchester Board of Guardians over the treatment of the sick. At an inquiry by the Poor Law Board he produced such strong evidence as to justify his statements, and his legal expenses were paid by a public subscription. For a time he acted as Surgeon to the Ancoats and Ardwick Dispensary and lectured on physiology at Stonyhurst College, for he was a successful and popular lecturer on natural history subjects, and a brilliant conversationalist. He published the first of numerous books, a *Manual of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology*, in 1869, of which a third edition appeared in 1875. Having qualified as FRCS in 1869, he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to the Manchester Infirmary and Lecturer on Anatomy at Owens College; later he lectured on practical surgery, and in 1879 became Surgeon to the infirmary. In 1870 he joined Walter Whitehead and edited the *Manchester Medical and Surgical Reports*, later amalgamated with the *Liverpool Reports*. He wrote much in a popular style on the “Shape of English Skulls”, “On Controversial Aspects of Syphilis”, “On the Relationship of Anatomy to the Fine Arts”. Besides he was so skilful a painter as to be elected an honorary member of the Manchester Limners’ Club and exhibited pictures. He was also a member of the Literary Club and a composer of casual verses. He had striking clear-cut features, a slightly aquiline nose, high forehead, and massive jaw; he was a good linguist and possessed of musical talents. His contributions to surgery appear to have been limited to the “Treatment of Hydrocele” (*Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1872), and *Injuries and Diseases of the Lymphatic System*, 1879. His health not being good he went to Ramsgate for rest, where after getting wet he was seized with acute pleurisy and pericarditis, from which he died on May 27th, 1880, and was buried at Ramsgate. Publications: *Retrospect of Advance of Modern Medicine: an Introductory Address, Manchester Royal School of Medicine*, 8vo, Manchester, 1869. “The Unity of the Syphilitic Virus.” – *Med. Press and Circ.*, 1871, ii, 269. *Notes on Syphilis, with an Appendix on the Unity of the Syphilitic Poison*, 8vo, London, 1872. “A New Method of Treating Hydrocele.” – *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1872, i, 508. *Manual of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology*, 8vo, 1st ed., 1869; 3rd. ed., 1875. “Moral Responsibility,” 8vo, Lewes, n.d.; reprinted from *Jour. Ment. Sci.*, 1875-6, xxi, 251. *A Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the Art of Surgery: a Lecture*, 8vo, Manchester, 1876. *Injuries and Diseases of the Lymphatic System*, 8vo, London, 1879. “The Evolution of Disease.” – *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1871 ii, 19. *The Collateral Statistics of English Surgery in Public Medical Charities for* 1870 (with Walter Whitehead), 8vo, 1871. “Description of the Brain of an Idiot.” – *Jour. Anal. and Physiol.*, 1872, vi, 65. *The Relationship of Anatomy to the Fine Arts*. A Lecture delivered in the Royal Institution, Manchester, 8vo, Manchester and London, 1880, etc. *A List of S. M. Bradley’s Published Writings* (1863-1876), was issued from the press without date. Bradley was Editor, in conjunction with Walter Whitehead, of the *Manchester Medical and Surgical Reports* in 1870-1871, and remained as an Editor for some time after the amalgamation of the publication with a similar one at Liverpool, when it became the *Liverpool and Manchester Medical and Surgical Reports*. He contributed several papers to these *Reports*, including one on the “Shape of English Skulls”, his object being to show that the existing classification of crania was no longer accurate. With the same object in view he also wrote on Australian crania (1871-1872). His paper on the shape of English skulls was based upon his measurements of the heads of male prisoners in the Manchester Borough Gaol, and he concluded that the skull is greatly modified by civilization.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000950
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bradley, William Henry (1807 - 1881)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Bradshaw, William Wood (1801 - 1866)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Brady, George Fraser (1820 - 1877)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Braine, Francis Woodhouse (1837 - 1907)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373137373137
Occupation General surgeon
Details Son of James William Braine (qv), a medical man in large practice; born at St James’s Square, London, on December 28th, 1837, the eldest of eleven children. He entered St George’s Hospital in 1854, and was successively House Surgeon, Surgical Registrar, and Demonstrator of Anatomy. He acted as private assistant to George Pollock (qv), Surgeon to the hospital, and thus gained experience in the administration of chloroform. Henry Potter, Chloroformist to St George’s Hospital, gave up his position unexpectedly owing to the death of a patient to whom he was giving the anaesthetic. The post was offered to Braine, who until then was educating himself for a post on the surgical staff of the hospital, and was Resident Medical Officer at the Children’s Hospital, Great Ormond Street. The offer was accepted with some reluctance. Braine took Potter’s house in Maddox Street, and became one of the early specialists in the administration of anaesthetics. He soon attained a European reputation. For twenty-six years, from 1868-1894, he was anaesthetist to the Dental Hospital in London, where he was appointed a Vice-President on his resignation of office. During this period Braine was the first to adopt in England the use of nitrous oxide gas for the production of anaesthesia. From 1873-1890 he was Chloroformist and Lecturer on Anaesthetics at Charing Cross Hospital, where his lectures were the first systematic course on the subject in this country. He was also Anaesthetist to St Peter’s Hospital for Stone, acting for sixteen years and retiring with the rank of Consulting Anaesthetist. He was one of the founders and the first President (1893-1895) of the Society of Anaesthetists, and was Hon Secretary of the Medical Society of London when it moved from George Street, Hanover Square, to Chandos Street, Cavendish Square, in 1871. For his services the Society awarded him a silver medal in 1875 and made him a Vice-President. He was twice married. He died on October 28th, 1907, and was buried at Harrow. Braine was an adept boxer, whip, and rider to hounds, his love of sport being an inheritance from his grandfather, who is described as a wealthy gentleman farmer living in Oxfordshire. In his younger days he took part in swimming matches under the assumed name of ‘Frank Stanley’. He was also devoted to games of skill. For many years he acted as Hon Secretary of the Fellows of the College of Surgeons’ dinner, which was held on the date of the Election to the Council, and by his social qualities and administrative ability did much to make the gathering successful. He held high rank as a freemason, and was appointed in 1901 to the acting rank of Senior Grand Deacon in the Craft, and Assistant Grand Sojourner in the Royal Arch. His life synchronized with the rise and development of the art of anaesthesia from experimental beginnings. He was one of the great practical pioneers, and lived to see it established on a firm scientific basis. Nitrous oxide could not be brought in cylinders when Braine began to practise. It had to be made at home and conveyed to the patient in a large bag from which the gas leaked, as often as not, until it frequently happened that hardly enough would be left to produce anaesthesia. It was so often impure that to the last day of his practice Braine always satisfied himself by inhaling a few whiffs before he gave it to the patient. He was greatly in favour of chloroform at the beginning of his career, but soon became an advocate for the use of ether, in the administration of which he was very expert. He always used the Ormsby inhaler, and was a firm believer in rapid induction, giving nitrous oxide first to full narcosis and then changing to ether, using separate inhalers. He very rarely used mixtures containing chloroform in later life. Publications:— Braine’s contributions on anaesthetics are to be found in *Brit. Dent. Jour.* and *Brit. Med. Jour.* for 1869-1871 and in *Lancet* for 1872, ii, 782.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000954
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Braine, James William (1796 - 1870)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Braithwaite, Francis (1804 - 1863)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Bramley, Lawrence (1807 - 1882)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Branfoot, Sir Arthur Mudge (1848 - 1914)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Brett, Frederick Harington (1803 - 1859)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Brewer, Jehoida (1801 - 1876)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Bridge, Alexander (1814 - 1873)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Bridge, Stephen Franklin (1790 - 1877)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Brietzcke, Henry (1841 - 1879)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373148373148
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in London in 1841, the son of E J Brietzcke, formerly of the Admiralty. He entered as a student at Guy’s Hospital in October, 1860. A severe attack of rheumatism towards the end of his time at the hospital, followed by cardiac trouble, caused him to become Surgeon to one of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s ships. Sailing on June 11th, 1864, the vessel was wrecked near its destination. Brietzcke endured many privations and went through considerable perils, but returned to England with improved health, though during the remainder of his life he remained somewhat of an invalid. He joined the Naval Medical Service, and was on the West Coast of Africa for one year. He then became House Surgeon to the Sheffield Public Hospital and Dispensary, retained this post for three years, and finally entered upon general practice in Derby in 1869. From this, poor health and partnership troubles compelled his retirement in 1871. After a time he obtained the appointment of Medical Officer to the Fulham Convict Prison, and in 1872 was transferred to the post of Assistant Surgeon to the Parkhurst Prison, Isle of Wight. Thence he was moved successively to Portland, Portsea, and Millbank, being appointed Senior Medical Officer to Portsea in October, 1876. He married in 1874, and when he died at Portsea he left a widow and two young children. He was buried on March 11th, the prison officials attending the funeral. Despite his wretched health Brietzcke was a hard worker and a keen reformer. It was chiefly as an indefatigable officer of the medical convict service that he was best and most widely known and appreciated. Being of a warm, generous, sympathetic temperament, thoroughly unselfish, hating and fighting abuses of all kinds, gifted with far more than ordinary talent for appreciating the humorous in all matters, his company and correspondence were highly prized by his friends. Amongst the many abuses against which he vehemently protested was that which made the medical officers in the convict service hold an inferior position, both in regard to the large amount of work expected of them and the inadequacy of their pay, when contrasted with the more favoured position occupied by other officers of the service having unskilled work to perform. Brietzcke himself once wrote to a friend: “My great difficulty appears to be how to detect the malingerer. I have always found it difficult enough to make a correct diagnosis in any disease when the symptoms are at all obscure, but it seems ten times more so when you know that nearly every assertion your patient makes is false. And most of these men employ their solitary hours (which are not a few) in endeavouring to discover means for deceiving the doctor.” Publications: “Caries of First Lumbar Vertebra; Inflammation of the Membranes of the Cord extending to the Brain; Death by Coma.” – *Lancet*, 1872, ii, 668. “A Case of Aneurysm of the Arch of the Aorta, in which Death occurred from Rupture into the Pericardium.” – *Ibid.*, 1875, ii, 730. Extensive researches on urea in relation to muscular force were embodied by him in a paper in the *Brit. and For. Med.-Chir. Rev.*, 1877, lx, 190.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000965
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brigham, William ( - 1864)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Briscoe, John (1820 - 1908)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373150373150
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Montgomeryshire and was of Welsh extraction. He was apprenticed to Frederick Wood (qv), the Surgeon Apothecary at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, and was one of the earliest pupils of James Paget (qv), whose teaching made a lasting impression upon him. In 1845 he was elected House Surgeon Apothecary at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, a position he held until 1857. It is possible that his wish to come to Oxford may have been due to the fact that the Rev Thomas Briscoe, of Jesus College, a benefactor to the Infirmary in 1856, was probably a kinsman. His appointment was marked by considerable changes for the better in the organization of the charity. After twelve years’ service as a resident officer he was appointed, in 1857, to the post of Surgeon to HM Prison at Oxford, when he commenced to practise privately in the city. In 1858 he inherited a property in Montgomeryshire near Shrewsbury which rendered him independent of his profession. His interest in the Radcliffe Infirmary continued unabated, and in 1858 he was co-opted to the weekly board and became a member of a sub-committee to consider the accommodation for out-patients. He was about the same time appointed Surgeon to the Oxford Militia. Briscoe was elected Surgeon to the Infirmary at a special General Court held on April 29th, 1865, on the retirement of James T Hester (qv), and he retained the office until 1878. As he lived close to the hospital, he did gratuitously a large share of the hospital and private practice for his colleagues, both surgical and general, in Oxford from 1869-1872, performing at the infirmary all operations upon the eye as well as those of general surgery. On his retirement from the active staff of the hospital he practically gave up practice, but continued to go to the infirmary for at least two evenings a week, and used to attend the Tuesday Clinics given by Sir William Osler. He lived at 5 Broad Street, and died unmarried on September 28th, 1908, being buried in St Sepulchre’s Cemetery. By his will he left the whole of his fortune, amounting to £62,799, to the Radcliffe Infirmary. The bequest led the way to a complete rebuilding of the out-patient department, with accommodation for pathological, X-ray, and electro-therapeutical services, together with a lecture-room, library, sleeping accommodation for some of the staff, and a new dispensary and waiting-room. The building was formally opened by the Chancellor of the University, Lord Curzon of Kedleston, on November 26th, 1913. Briscoe was a careful but not a brilliant surgeon, eminently practical as a diagnostician. He took great care of his patients, but, having no special incentive to work and no special standard to maintain, he failed to improve in surgery as he grew older, and his wards retained the characteristic surgical odours long after they had vanished elsewhere. In appearance he was well set up, short, sturdy, and of huge chest capacity. He numbered among his colleagues Sir Henry Acland, Dr Henry Tuckwell, Dr Edward B Gray, Edward L Hussey (qv), Frederick Symonds (qv), and Alfred Winkfield (qv). His great friend was Mr Justice Wright, whom he had seen through a severe illness when he was a Balliol undergraduate, and there were periodical dinners or visits in London, at Oriel College, and in Hampshire. The friendship lasted till the judge died. Briscoe himself gave delightful little dinner-parties at his house in Broad Street, which were attended by Washbourne West, Bursar of Lincoln, John Martin, the oldest practitioner in Oxford, Harry Mallam, Randall, and Winkfield. He was a good swimmer in his early days, a great walker, and a good shot.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000967
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brittain, Thomas (1810 - 1881)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Broadbent, Edward Farr (1814 - 1877)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-13 2013-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373152373152
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at King's College and at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he was House Surgeon. After qualifying he was elected House Surgeon to the Lincoln County Hospital on December 1st, 1838, and held the post for four years, after which he became partner with Messrs Hewson and Brook, and practised at East Gate, Lincoln. At the time of his death he was Surgeon to the Lincoln Union House, the County Hospital, and County Gaol, Public Vaccinator to the Lincoln Union, Surgeon to the Lincoln Lunatic Hospital, Hon Secretary to the Lincolnshire Medical Benevolent Society, Assistant Surgeon to the Royal North Lincolnshire Militia, and Certifying Factory Surgeon. He represented the Upper Ward in the Town Council for some years. His death occurred at his residence, East Gate, on August 5th, 1877.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000969
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Broadbent, Richard (1795 - 1868)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Broadhurst, John (1818 - 1888)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Brodhurst, Bernard Edward (1822 - 1900)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373155373155
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at the Friary, Newark, on February 4th, 1822, and in 1840 was articled at the Royal College of Surgeons to John Goldwyer Andrews (qv), the Senior Surgeon of the London Hospital. After qualifying he was appointed House Surgeon, and after serving a year went to Paris, where he attended the hospitals and made the acquaintance of Maisonneuve, whose private surgical operations he attended. He then went to Vienna and studied ophthalmic surgery with Jaeger and Rosas, and pathological anatomy with Rokitansky. In the large Viennese school, with its 4000 beds, he studied for twelve months. Prague was next visited by him, then Berlin. He afterwards turned south and visited the schools of Pavia, Pisa, and Florence. He arrived in Rome at the end of 1848, or more likely early in 1849, in company with Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), the poet, who during his stay there wrote his “Amours de Voyage”. Garibaldi at this time occupied the city with his troops, and on April 30th, 1849, 5000 French under Oudinot advanced against it. The French general expected to enter Rome without firing a shot; he brought no cannon with him, and his men carried unloaded rifles, Garibaldi, who had planted guns on the French road of approach outside the city, repulsed the invaders with great loss, and took 300 prisoners. An ambuscade was formed in the gardens of the Vatican, where for a short time the fight was very bloody, and many students and other young men of the Roman States were slain. About thirty of the prisoners who were brought within the walls were badly wounded. They were conveyed to the Hospital della Spirito Santo. The beds which they occupied were arranged along one side of the ward, whilst their enemies, the wounded Italians, were placed along the opposite side. After this exploit the French retreated to Palo, there to await reinforcements. The French prisoners had not sufficient faith in their victors to trust their bodies to the Italian surgeons, and in consequence requested that they might be attended by any foreigner who chanced to be in Rome. The triumvirs, of whom Mazzini was chief, made this request known to the English then residing there, and added their own desire that they should undertake the duty. This was agreed to. But after the event of April 30th strangers were anxious to get away, and departed as fast as they could; so that in a short time only a few were left. Brodhurst agreed to remain with a non-medical friend to see the end of the matter, and during the greater part of the siege, which continued until June 30th, they were, with the exception of a few artists and three or four other English residents, the only English remaining in Rome. Thus it devolved upon Brodhurst to superintend the treatment of the wounded. When it is mentioned that on the side of the French 5000 men were slain, wounded, or prostrated by malaria, it will at once be seen that the siege of Rome afforded a good opportunity for observations in military surgery. The invading army consisted of 45,000 men. On leaving Rome Brodhurst was presented with the cross of the Legion of Honour by the Commander-in-Chief of the French troops, Marshal Baraquay d’Hilliers. Lord Palmerston is said to have offered him a baronetcy for his services. Returning to London, he was elected in 1852 a Surgeon on the staff of the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, and in 1862 was elected Assistant Surgeon at St George’s Hospital. In 1869 he intimated his inability, owing to pressure of private practice, to continue to devote so much time to hospital work, and he was then elected Surgeon with Orthopaedic Wards and held this post till 1874. He was Surgeon to the Orthopaedic Hospital at the time of his death. He was also for a time Lecturer on Orthopaedic Surgery at St George’s, and was on the staff of the Royal Hospital for Incurables, and Consulting Surgeon of the Belgrave Hospital for Children. For many years he had the chief orthopaedic practice in England, and he roused some jealousy in the profession by what were then thought to be unduly high fees for his operations. He was well known abroad, and was an Associate of the Academy of Sciences of Rome, and Corresponding Member of the Medical Societies of Lyons, Odessa, and Rome, of the Chirurgical Society of Paris, and of the American Orthopaedic Association. His London address was first at 14 Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, then at 20 Grosvenor Street for many years, and finally at 21 Portland Place, W. He died on January 30th, 1900. Publications:- Brodhurst’s extensive bibliography includes: *Of the Crystalline Lens and Cataract*, 8vo, 2 plates, London, 1850. *On Lateral Curvature of the Spine, its Pathology and Treatment*, 8vo, London, 1855; 2nd ed., 1864. “*On the Nature and Treatment of Club-foot and Analogous Distortions involving the Tibio-tarsal Articulation*, 8vo, London, 1856. “On the Restoration of Motion by Forcible Extension and Rupture of the Uniting Medium of Partially Anchylosed Surfaces,” 8vo, London, 1858; reprinted from *Med. Times and Gaz*. *The Deformities of the Human Body: a System of Orthopoedic Surgery*, 8vo, illustrated, London, 1871. *Lectures on Orthopoedic Surgery delivered at St George’s Hospital*, 8vo, illustrated, London, 1876. *On Curvatures and Disease of the Spine*, 8vo, illustrated, London, 1888 (4 editions). *On the Nature and Treatment of Talipes Equinovarus or Club-foot*, 8vo, London, 1893. “On Congenital Talipes Equinovarus, with Observations on Tarsectomy,” 8vo, London, 1894; reprinted from *Prov. Med. Jour*. *Practical Observations on the Diseases of the Joints involving Anchylosis, and on the Treatment for the Restoration of Motion*, 8vo, London, 1861; 4th ed., 1881. “Gonorrhoeal Rheumatism” in Reynold’s *System*, i, 1866. “Congenital Dislocation and Intra-uterine Fracture” in Holmes’s *Surgery*, iv, 1864, 1871, and 1883. *Observations on Congenital Dislocation of the Hip*, 8vo, London, 1896 (3 editions). Many contributions to English and foreign medical journals. In a paper read before the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society he advocated the exhibition of mercury and arsenic in cases of hydrophobia. His paper on ankylosis read before the same Society (*Trans. Med.-Chin Soc.*, 1857, xl, 125) gave rise to a very lively discussion, Mr Coulson contending that the cases were not correctly reported, and that such results were impossible. Fortunately, however, a young officer who had been operated on was present – he of whom it had been said by Sir Benjamin Brodie that “he must take his stiff hip with him to the grave!” Coulson examined him, and then withdrew his statement in complimentary terms. But the patient made them all laugh by expressing his surprise, not only that Sir Benjamin should have reported of him as he did, but that Coulson should have made such observations, seeing that he had as good a hip-joint as ever he had in his life.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000972
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brodie, William Haig (1857 - 1910)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Brooke, Charles (1804 - 1879)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Brookes, Andrew Good (1814 - 1894)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Brookes, William Penny (1809 - 1895)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Brookhouse, Joseph Orpe (1835 - 1905)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Somervell, James Lionel (1927 - 2009)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-06-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373198373198
Occupation General surgeon
Details James Somervell continued his family’s tradition of missionary work in India. He was born on 23 April 1927 in Kodaikanal, southern India. His father, Theodore Howard Somervell, was a surgeon and mountaineer, who took part in the ill-fated 1922 and 1924 Mallory expeditions to conquer Everest. He became superintendent of the Neyyor Hospital and of the South Travancore Medical Mission, and, in the later phase of his career, was based at Vellore Christian Medical College. James’ mother, Margaret Hope Simpson, was also from a missionary background. He was educated at the Downs School, Colwall, and then Peekskill High School, New York (during the Second World War). He then studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, going on to University College Hospital for his clinical studies. He qualified with the Trotter medal in surgery and the Yellowes medal in medicine. He became a house surgeon to R S Pilcher and then completed a house physician appointment at the North Middlesex Hospital. He was subsequently a casualty officer at the Royal Surrey Hospital. He then became a registrar at the Vellore Christian Medical College, southern India, under Paul Brand. In 1956, he joined the London Missionary Society, which sent him to work in the CSI Campbell Hospital in Jammalamadugu, southern India, where he stayed for the next 12 years. In 1968, he returned to England as a senior registrar at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham. He published on neonatal and infantile intestinal obstruction in India, on family planning by salpingectomy, with a record of 500 cases, and on leiomyosarcoma of the rectum. Like his father, his main interest outside medicine was mountaineering. In 1952 he married Mary Stapleton and they had two sons and one daughter. He died on 20 August 2009.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001015
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Fuller, Alan Pearce (1929 - 2010)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Geraint Fuller
Publication Date 2010-09-30 2013-10-11
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373208373208
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Alan Fuller was an ENT surgeon at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. He was born in Swansea on 18 March 1929, one of three sons, but the only one to survive more than 24 hours. His mother, Sarah Ann (née Williams), was later an hotelier and his father Frank Austin, who died when Alan was five years old, was on the sales staff of a firm of furniture manufacturers. His mother remarried, but Alan's stepfather later died when Alan was 12 years old. He was educated at Swansea Grammar School and in 1946 won a major county scholarship to St Bartholomew's Medical College. Alan was in the first entry after the college returned from evacuation to Queens' College, Cambridge. The entry was mainly made up of ex-servicemen, and for the first time women were admitted to the college. As a student he worked on the Clifford Naunton Morgan firm at the time when Reginald Murley was chief assistant. After qualifying, he held house appointments in general and ENT surgery, and a senior ENT house surgeon post in Swansea. He was able to do his National Service in the RAMC (1953 to 1955) as a junior specialist in otology as he had obtained the DLO in 1953. He served with the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR), in Singapore and in Malaya during the Malayan emergency. Whilst in Singapore he, with a fellow Bart's student, Michael Pugh, co-founded the Rahere dining club. On return from National Service he completed his ENT training at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital, before returning to Bart's in 1959 as chief assistant (senior registrar). Here he was much influenced by F C W Capps and (Sir) Cecil Hogg. He was appointed to the consultant staff of St Bartholomew's in 1963 and was also on the staff of Ealing Hospital (1963 to 1985), the Mile End Hospital (1964 to 1968), and later the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children and the Royal Masonic Hospital. Fuller was an enthusiastic teacher who served St Bart's Medical College as assistant dean (1971), sub-dean in charge of discipline (from 1972 to 1978) and admissions dean (1981 to 1985). He was president of the student's union and a keen supporter of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society and the rugby club (he had played in the second row as a student). Fuller had once unwittingly won an informal competition held by junior doctors at Bart's for the 'loudest tie of the week', but he later adopted bow ties after he found normal ones were grabbed by playful children while he looked in their ears. In 1973 Bart's celebrated the 850th anniversary of its foundation. Among the events was an outdoor play. Alan Fuller's perceived resemblance, in stature and beard, to King Henry VIII caused him to be cast as the monarch who had given Bart's a Royal Charter. In November 1982, Alan Fuller was summoned to King Edward VII Hospital, London, to attend HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, who had choked on a salmon bone which she could not dislodge. He removed it under a general anaesthetic given by his colleague Bryan Gillet. The Queen Mother, a keen angler, declared: "The salmon have got their own back". Some 11 years later the same problem happened to her again. Alan Fuller examined in surgery for the University of London, was a member of the Court of Examiners (from 1984 to 1990) and an external examiner for the ENT fellowship examination of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (from 1990 to 1992). He served on the councils and was a vice-president of both ENT sections of the Royal Society of Medicine. A delightful companion and most clubbable man, he was secretary of the Rahere Lodge for years, an enthusiastic member of the 17th London General Hospital Territorial Army (TA), a member of the Savage Club, and a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Barbers. As a painter in pastels and watercolour he belonged to the London Sketch Club and the Medical Art Society (president from 1993 to 1996). He also in late life enjoyed rough shooting and sailing his hand built dingy aptly named *Incus*. Allan Fuller met Janet Marina Williams (known as 'Nini'), a professional caterer, on New Year's Eve 1956, successfully proposed to her on St Valentine's Day 1957 and married her the following month. Their happy married life culminated in their golden wedding anniversary celebrated the year before Nini died after a short illness. Alan Fuller's last years were clouded by Alzheimer's disease. He died on 6 May 2010, and was survived by his son, Geraint, who is a consultant neurologist, and two daughters, Rowena and Charlotte.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001025
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gordon, Walter (1916 - 2003)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-09-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373209373209
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details Walter Gordon was a thoracic surgeon. He was born on 11 January 1916 in Modderfontein, South Africa, the third child and second son of Herman Gordon, a confectionery manufacturer and businessman, and Anna née Rabinowitz , a housewife. He was educated at King Edward VII School, Johannesburg, and then at the University of Witwatersrand, where he studied medicine, qualifying in 1939. He then served as a captain in the South African Medical Corps during the Second World War. Following his demobilisation, he travelled to the UK, where he was a senior registrar in the regional thoracic unit in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and then a first assistant in thoracic surgery at St George’s Hospital, London. He subsequently emigrated to the United States, where he was a surgeon at the Veterans Administration Hospital and associate professor of clinical surgery at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, City University, New York. He was a member of the executive committee of the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery in Great Britain and Ireland. In the United States he was a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists and was certified as a specialist by the American Board of Anesthesiology. He wrote on thoracic surgery, particularly on haematoma, tuberculosis and carcinoma of the oesophagus and lung. He married Stella Beryl Girdy in 1943. They had three children – Heryl, a teacher, Nayvin, a medical practitioner, and Shale, a cardiologist. He enjoyed playing chess, skiing, tennis and swimming. He died on 10 February 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001026
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hanna, Ghassan Salem Suleiman (1949 - 2009)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Neil Weir
Publication Date 2010-09-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373210373210
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Ghassan Hanna was a Palestinian who left his troubled homeland during the Six-Day War of 1967 to realise his dream of becoming a doctor; he subsequently made his home in Britain, where he became a successful ENT surgeon. He was born into a Palestinian Christian family in Nablus on 19 October 1949, one of 11 children of a primary school headmaster. Having dismissed his chances of becoming Pope, Ghassan decided, at the age of seven, to become a doctor. The Six-Day War proved to be the catalyst. Leaving home, with no money and unable to complete his school leaving examinations, he fled to Amman, where he was cared for by one of his aunts. With no physics qualification, he could not gain admission to Cairo Medical School, but was instead accepted at Alexandria Medical School, from where he was later able to transfer to Cairo. He qualified in 1973. Hanna developed an interest in ENT surgery whilst practising in Dubai. His desire to return to Palestine was thwarted as his country was occupied, and he had discovered that he had not been included in the Israeli census. He decided to make his career in Britain and arrived in 1980. After obtaining the fellowship of the RCS and completing a registrar post at Wexham Park Hospital, Slough, he was, in 1988, appointed consultant ENT surgeon to the General Hospital (later the County Hospital) at Hereford. His special interest was head and neck cancer, and he delighted in teaching. Hanna married, in 1976, Wafa Nemer Bishara, whose family also came from Nablus. He created a beautiful garden at his home in the village of Clehonger near Hereford and took pleasure in his proficiency at Middle Eastern cuisine. In 2007 he retired from the NHS, but sadly died from a heart attack on 13 June 2009, as he and his wife were preparing for their joint 60th and 50th birthday party. He is survived by his wife, their son, who is a communications manager at Barnet and Chase Farm hospitals, and three daughters, all of whom are doctors.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001027
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Harries, Bernard John (1916 - 2009)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by T T King
Publication Date 2010-09-30 2013-11-25
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373211373211
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Bernard Harries was a consultant neurosurgeon at University College Hospital (UCH) and the Whittington Hospital, London. He was born in Newport, Monmouthshire, on 30 April 1916, the son of Eric Henry Rhys Harries, an infectious diseases physician, and his wife, Edith Irene née Brazel. His grandfather, Arthur John Harries, was also a physician, in practice in London. He was educated at 'innumerable' preparatory schools, King Edward VI Grammar School, Birmingham, and University College School, and entered medical school at University College in 1933, obtaining the primary FRCS there. His clinical years (1936 to 1939) were at University College Hospital, where he was Goldsmid entrance scholar and won the Liston gold medal for surgery in 1938. From August to October 1939, he was a house surgeon to Julian Taylor, who also held a neurosurgical appointment at the National Hospital, Queen Square. Harries had been an officer in the cadet reserve of the Territorial Army from 1936 to 1939 and joined 131 Field Ambulance as a lieutenant in October 1939. Between January and May 1940, he saw service in Belgium and France, but was captured by the Germans with his unit and spent the rest of the war in various prison camps in Germany and Poland, including Stalag Luft III and IXb, Oflags VIIc and VIb, and Bad Soden-Salmünster. In 1943, he was transferred to surgical duties in a number of prisoner-of-war hospitals "as a kind of military house surgeon". These hospitals were run by some extremely able British and Australian medical personnel of all ranks who treated patients of many nationalities, but mainly British, Commonwealth and Americans. Harries, who seldom spoke of his war experience, felt he owed a great deal to the young physicians and surgeons with whom he worked at this time, a period in his life which included nine months in ophthalmics, nine months in rehabilitation of major injuries and nine months of primitive operative surgery. At the end of the war, he spent June to December 1945 at the Cambridge Military Hospital, Aldershot, where he was graded as a surgical specialist. Demobilised in 1946, he returned to the Territorial Army in 1951 and continued until 1961, as a major. Back in civilian life, he obtained the final FRCS in 1946, MB BS London in 1947, and started as a house surgeon at UCH again, to Julian Taylor and F J F Barrington, both of whom influenced him. He moved quickly to a post as a senior registrar in surgery at UCH, senior house surgeon at Queen Square and resident assistant surgeon at UCH. As Bilton Pollard fellow and Leslie Pearce Gould travelling scholar, he spent a year in North America - three months at the Montreal Neurological Institute with Wilder Penfield and William Cone, and nine at the Massachusetts General Hospital with James White, William Sweet and Jason Mixter. He also visited other units in the United States and on his return spent a year at Queen Square in the neuropathology department with J G Greenfield. His appointment at UCH in 1951 was as a "general surgeon with an interest in neurological surgery" which, even at that time, must have been unusual. In 1960 he became wholly a neurosurgeon, though he continued to have an interest in the surgery of phaeochromocytomas in which he had a large experience. In 1966 he also became a neurosurgeon to the Whittington Hospital, an honorary, though busy, appointment. It was intended that the Whittington and UCH units should eventually become a unified regional unit, but this plan was abandoned when the Whittington neurosurgery was transferred to the Royal Free Hospital in 1975. Harries continued to give a consultative service to the Whittington until 1979, when he retired from the NHS. As a neurosurgeon, Harries was held in high regard by his neurological and other medical colleagues, as a clinical opinion, an operator, for his care of his patients, and for his courtesy and kindness towards them and his colleagues. He belonged to a period when neurosurgical units were commonly small and sometimes, as in the case of UCH and the Whittington, often run almost single-handedly and were more isolated than would be the case later. His early involvement in some general surgery may, too, have separated him a little from the general run of neurosurgeons. He wrote on head injuries, spinal cord compression and phaeochromocytoma, and was a member of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons, Association of Surgeons, Surgical Travellers and was a founding member of the University Hospitals Association. Harries' other important field was in the University College Hospital Medical School, where he was a vice-dean and then dean. He played a part in the translation of the UCH Medical School into the School of Medicine, University College, London. He was also chairman of the medical committee of UCH and the south Camden district medical team, a trustee of the Sir Jules Thorne Trust, secretary of the statistical unit of the University Hospitals Association and chairman of the special trustees. In 1954 he married Irene Elsie Broadbent, whom he had met while in Boston. There were two daughters, Joanna Mary and Alison Jane, both of whom qualified in medicine, and four grandchildren. His extracurricular interests were his family and sailing, which he pursued by crewing for friends and by building his own small dinghies, thus developing an interest in carpentry. He was also a gardener and, after his retirement to Sussex, created a garden from a wasteland. He died on 19 March 2009 from bronchopneumonia after a series of strokes. He was survived by his wife and daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001028
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hartley, Charles Edwin (1922 - 2009)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2010-09-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373212373212
Occupation General surgeon missionary
Details Charles Hartley served much of his professional life as a missionary and surgeon at Vom Christian Hospital, Nigeria. He later entered general practice in Falmouth. He was born in Newcastle, Staffordshire, on 22 January 1922. His father was Harold Hartley, a senior consulting surgeon at North Staffordshire Hospital, who had won a gold medal for his London MD in 1902. His mother was Janet Stuart née Laird, the second woman to gain the FRCS Edinburgh with the gold medal. Together with Elsie Inglis of the Scottish Women’s Hospital, she went to Serbia, to provide medical services for the White Russians. His mother died when Charles was 13, and he recalled being told by his housemaster “not to cry, as it was selfish”. His two older brothers went to Eton, but when it was time for young Charles to be educated, his father’s finances were somewhat constrained. He was educated first at Summer Field School, Oxford, and then went to Epsom College (from 1934 to 1939), where he was encouraged to enter medicine. As a rather shy bespectacled schoolboy, he had a good academic record before going to Peterhouse College, Cambridge, to study natural sciences in a foreshortened two year course. From 1939 to 1941, he captained the Peterhouse tennis team and was the only medical student in his year. In his first few days as an undergraduate he received an invitation to attend a ‘fresher’s squash’, a meeting for newcomers aimed at giving a Christian message. The speaker was ‘Jim’ (Charles Gordon) Scorer, a Cambridge graduate from Emmanuel College, who gave an evangelical talk that impressed at least one young undergraduate. Charles was also influenced in his early spiritual journey by a contemporary at Peterhouse, John Swinbank, later chaplain to Bradfield College. Charles went to St Bartholomew’s Hospital for his clinical training, but, because of the war, spent only three months in Smithfield, with much of his clinical training taking place at Hill End Hospital, St Albans and later at Friern Hospital. In his first year Charles Hartley lodged in St Albans and was provided with full board and lodging for performing regular Air Raid Precaution (ARP) duties. In the second year, he was billeted in Hill End Hospital, much liked by students, nurses and resident doctors because of the friendly and informal atmosphere, not apparent in Smithfield. The rather gloomy atmosphere at Friern Barnet in his final year was offset by excellent ‘digs’, run by a Miss Pepper, a staunch Congregationalist. She encouraged the students to attend the local church, run by one of the first female ministers in the UK, the Reverend Elsie Chamberlain, who was married to the local Anglican priest. Charles won the Brackenbury prize in surgery, the Matthews Duncan prize and gold medal in midwifery and gynaecology and the Walsham prize in surgical pathology. He was house surgeon to (Sir) James Paterson Ross and John Hosford at a time when Reggie Murley became chief assistant. He then became chief assistant in neurosurgery to John O’Connell and passed the primary FRCS. In 1947 Charles Hartley entered the RAMC as a surgical specialist in Graz and on trains from Trieste to the Hook of Holland. Towards the end of his National Service, he developed jaundice and was admitted to hospital for several weeks. Once he was demobilised, Charles felt he should go abroad as a missionary. As part of his training, he took a crash correspondence course with the London Bible College, did surgical locums and ironed out gaps in his knowledge, passed the final FRCS at the third attempt and the DTM&H after a course in tropical medicine. The Sudan United Missionary Society desperately needed a surgeon in northern Nigeria, and Charles set sail for Lagos in 1953. The Vom Hospital stood on a 4,000 foot high plateau. The work at this newly built hospital was demanding. On operating days he worked from dawn to dusk: caesarean sections were common emergencies, and he became adept at treating patients with vesicovaginal fistula. In quieter moments he explored the countryside, indulged in bird watching and added to his carefully annotated researches on the history of art. Despite poor health, he was determined to explore Africa and made the long journey to Lake Chad and then back along the river Benue. He left the mission field in 1966, after some 15 years of service. After extensive investigations at Bart’s, he was found to have contracted a rare form of leprosy. After treatment, he was left with a weak leg and decided to give up surgery. He became a GP in Falmouth. Charles loved the work as it brought new challenges. He retired from general practice reluctantly at the age of 60, but continued to work for the National Blood Transfusion Service across Cornwall until 1992, when he reached 70. He enjoyed golf and was an active member of the Falmouth Baptist church. He first met Ruth E A Doble, a nurse at Bart’s, in the sluice room of the operating theatre at Hill End Hospital. They married in February 1947, and had two daughters, Jane Deborah, born in 1948, who became a teacher, and Philippa Ruth, born in 1950, who became a solicitor. One of Charles’ hobbies during his time as a GP was collecting old Bibles. His was the second largest private collection and included first edition authorised versions and a psalter that had belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots. When his daughter Philippa sadly died of breast cancer in 2004, he lost heart for collecting and sold his collection at Sotherby’s for £250,000, with which he established the Bible Heritage Trust, a charity supporting Christian missions at home and abroad. Charles Hartley died on 6 October 2009, after four weeks of increasing weakness, but remained mentally alert to the last. He was survived by his daughter Jane, her husband, their three surviving children (Anna Grace, John Melville and Esther Ivy) and Philippa’s two children, Jonathan Hugh and Naomi Ruth.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001029
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hulme, Allan (1917 - 2008)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by E C Hulme
Publication Date 2010-10-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373213373213
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Allan Hulme was chief of neurosurgery at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol. He was born in June 1917 in Seaton Carew, but spent his childhood in Stockport, Lancashire. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School, where he was in receipt of a scholarship. In 1935, he won an exhibition to St John’s College, Cambridge, to read agricultural science. A year after going to Cambridge, he decided that his true vocation lay in medicine, and the university and college authorities allowed him to switch courses. In 1939, he graduated BA in medicine. Allan Hulme returned to Manchester, to pursue his medical training at the Manchester Royal Infirmary as a house surgeon under the tutelage of Sir Geoffrey Jefferson, newly appointed professor of neurosurgery at the University of Manchester, a mentor for whom he developed the utmost regard and admiration. In 1942, Allan Hulme gained his BChir. He also married Christine Annie Pepper, whom he had met in Cambridge whilst she was nursing at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. Their marriage lasted for 59 years. In 1942, Allan Hulme joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving first in East Africa (Nigeria), then being transferred to India, and finally Burma. While in India, his interest in neurosurgery was kindled by having to deal with combat-related traumatic head injuries. During this highly formative period, he was strongly influenced by a second mentor, Gordon Paul, a surgeon from Bristol, who informed him of the possibility of obtaining a position in Bristol after the war finished. After his demobilisation in 1946, Allan returned briefly to Manchester, but influenced by this advice, applied for and obtained a post in neurosurgery at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol. This had been developed as an Emergency Medical Services hospital, housed in a series of single-story brick buildings, by the US forces during the Second World War, and it was during this period that neurosurgery was established. After the war, when the hospital was handed back to the newly-formed NHS, Frenchay became the south-western regional centre for the specialty of neurosurgery. In 1947, shortly after starting work at Frenchay, Allan obtained his FRCS. At the time of his appointment, the chief of neurosurgery was George Alexander, another strong influence. He was acknowledged in an important paper which Allan Hulme published in 1960 on the surgical approach to thoracic intervertebral disc protrusions, which is still being cited more than 40 years later (*J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry*. 1960 May;23:133-7). Allan was promoted to senior registrar then full consultant by the early 1960s. The third consultant was Douglas Phillips. Work in the unit was arduous and demanding, with long and frequently unsocial hours. He showed paramount devotion to the welfare of his patients, often making the journey from his home in Long Ashton in the western suburbs of Bristol, even when not on duty, to check on the progress of patients in person. Because of his wide geographical coverage of the Frenchay neurosurgical unit, he also held regular clinics in Taunton and Exeter. On the retirement of Douglas Phillips in the late 1960s, Allan became chief of neurosurgery. Arising from his surgical work, he developed a strong interest in the mechanisms of control of intracranial pressure. He initiated and undertook pioneering research into this with colleagues at the Burden Neurological Institute, particularly Ray Cooper. They studied the control of intracranial pressure during anaesthesia, after traumatic head injury, and before and after surgery for intracranial space-occupying lesions. These studies involved the implantation of miniaturised subdural pressure transducers into the skull, along with other intracranial monitoring devices such as oxygen electrodes and thermistors to monitor local blood flow. Allan retired from his post as chief of neurosurgery in 1979, and retired to Balquhidder in Perthshire, where he passed a long, productive and happy retirement amongst his beloved Scottish hills, which he loved to paint and photograph to the very end of his life. He died on 29 December 2008 and was survived by his three children, Edward, Martin and Catherine.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001030
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jenkins, Ian Lawrence (1944 - 2009)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2010-10-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373214373214
Occupation General surgeon
Details Surgeon Vice-Admiral Ian Jenkins retired from the Royal Navy after a distinguished career and was appointed Constable and Governor of Windsor Castle in February 2008. His predecessor in this office was Air Chief Marshall Sir Richard Johns, and it was considered that he would be a hard act to follow. Windsor was the pinnacle of Ian’s career and, with his quiet approach, he soon mastered his brief and became much respected both within and without the castle. In this position he was the Queen’s ‘right-hand man’ and his duties included greeting heads of state. In June 2008, he had the privilege of leading the annual Garter procession down the hill to St George’s Chapel, when Prince William was installed as a member of the Order. Ian Jenkins was born in Cardiff on 12 September 1944, the son of Gordon Eaton Jenkins MBE and Edith Jenkins (née Rouse). His father had served in the Airborne Forces during the Second World War, and was a senior hospital administrator for Wales. Ian was educated at the Howardian Grammar School in Penylan, and in his youth cycled for Glamorgan. He graduated from the Welsh National School of Medicine in 1968 and married Elizabeth Lane, an occupational therapist the following year. Embarking on a career in surgery, Ian retained a love for the sea and, in 1973, he joined the Royal Naval Reserve. He attended the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, for only two weeks, which did not deter him from taking the Dartmouth Passing Out Parade years later, much to the bemusement of senior colleagues! Transferring to the Royal Navy as a surgeon lieutenant-commander in 1975, he was mentored by Sir James Watt and specialised in urology under Surgeon Captain (later Sir) Norman Blacklock and Keith Yeates in Newcastle, and became a consultant in 1979. His naval service included spells with HMS *Ark Royal*, the Royal Naval hospitals at Haslar, Plymouth and Gibraltar, as well as with Five Commando Royal Marine surgical support team. While with Marines, he undertook an Arctic survival course in Norway, commenting that “he had never really been so cold ever since. Once you have learned how to dig out and survive in a snow hole you never complain about the weather in Wales again.” Ian Jenkins returned from Gibraltar to RNH Haslar as head of urology in 1982. In 1988, he was appointed professor of naval surgery and then became the medical officer in command at RNH Haslar (from 1990 to 1996) and Honorary Surgeon to the Queen in 1994. Jenkins was also a mentor to some of the best surgeons that the Navy recruited. As a surgeon commodore he became the first Defence Postgraduate Dean and commandant of the new Royal Defence Medical College: this appointment coincided with the launch of the Calman initiatives for specialist training. He was a member of the Conference of Postgraduate Medical Deans (COPMeD) under (later Sir) John Temple. In April 1999, he became the Medical Director General (Naval) as a Surgeon Rear Admiral directly responsible to the Second Sea Lord for maritime medical strategy and for the delivery of medical services to the surface and submarine flotillas and to the Royal Marines. In October 2002, he was appointed Surgeon General of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces with the rank of surgeon vice-admiral. Ian was then responsible to the Secretary of State and to the Chief of the Defence Staff for the quality and standards of defence medicine, medical intelligence, defence medical research and education and for the leadership and strategic direction of all three Defence Medical Services. Despite these achievements and the high standards he set himself and others, he was widely recognised as a caring consultant and a ‘Christian’ gentleman. Ian Jenkins was appointed as Medical Officer Abroad to the Prince of Wales in 1982. He attended their Royal Highnesses the Prince and the Princess of Wales on a number of foreign engagements, but was not really impressed when he was mistakenly identified as a member of the royal bodyguard during a visit to Australia. He had a flair for administration, which was exercised with efficiency, effectiveness and thoughtfulness. Ian relinquished the baton of Surgeon General at the end of October 2006, but he was far from idle. Retirement interests included chairmanship of the council of Portsmouth Cathedral, co-patron of Children and Families of Far East Prisoners of War, governor of Sutton’s Hospital in Charterhouse, director of the White Ensign Association, trustee of the Queen Alexandra’s Hospital Home and chairman designate of Seafarers UK (King George’s Fund for Sailors). Ian regularly attended meetings of the British Association of Urological Surgeons and was a valued member of the Travelling Surgical Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, to which he was elected in 1984. He and his wife Liz were outgoing members at meetings of the ‘club’ at home and abroad. Ian contributed papers on many visits that reflected his urological interests. The Jenkinses organised a home visit of ‘club’ members at the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar in 2000 and Ian gave an erudite paper on ‘The life and wounds of Lord Nelson’. Outside interests included painting, classical music and fly-fishing. In the Windsor area he was soon elected as president of the Windsor Music Festival and attended many local concerts. The Jenkins Christmas cards often had watercolours painted by Prince Charles, but Ian always declared that he did not have the talent or access to the scenes as his ‘boss’. Ian died suddenly at breakfast on 19 February 2009. The Queen was said to be devastated by his premature death and the flag on the Round Tower at Windsor Castle was lowered to half-mast as a mark of her respect. Ian Jenkins’ funeral service took place in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, on 6 March 2009. The Military Knights of Windsor mounted a vigil beside the coffin before the service, which was conducted by the Dean of Windsor, the Very Reverend David Conner. The Duke of Edinburgh represented the Royal Family. The chapel was full to capacity with over 800 people, including family mourners, friends and service personnel. An address was given by the Reverend Jeremy Ames, Chaplain Royal Navy and Master of St Nicholas Hospital, Salisbury, and a private committal followed the very moving service. A requiem to Ian Lawrence Jenkins was celebrated at Sutton’s Hospital, Charterhouse, at which the address was given by the Master, James Thomson. In this Jenkins was described as a “Much loved God-fearing man who had many strands to his life, and whose life touched so many.” He was survived by his wife Elizabeth (Liz), their son Michael, daughter Georgina and her husband and three grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001031
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jewsbury, Percy (1920 - 2008)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Raymond Hurt
Publication Date 2010-10-13
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373215373215
Occupation Cardiothoracic surgeon
Details Percy Jewsbury was a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at the Blackpool Victoria Hospital. He was born in 12 March 1920 in Manchester, the son of Sydney Shardlow Jewsbury, a heating and ventilation engineer, and Hannah Harrison Alder, a district nurse. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and then entered Manchester Medical School, where he won a Rockefeller studentship to Minneapolis, Minnesota. There he qualified MD in 1943, and returned to Manchester to complete his English qualifications, winning the surgical prize in his finals. He was then a house surgeon at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, at the Birmingham Accident Hospital, and then a casualty officer and resident surgical officer at Manchester Royal Infirmary. From 1946 to 1948, he was in the RAMC as a graded surgeon at 77 British Military Hospital Wuppertal, Rhine Army, whilst retaining his position as a supernumerary surgical registrar on Michael Boyd’s unit at Manchester Royal Infirmary and as a general surgical registrar at the Withington Hospital. In Minneapolis he had been taught by Richard L Varco, who stimulated his interest in thoracic surgery and in 1951 he became a senior registrar in thoracic surgery at the Withington Hospital under Graham Bryce and Frank Nicholson, from which he was appointed as a consultant in cardiothoracic surgery at the Victoria Hospital, Blackpool, in 1955, where he remained until his retirement in 1983. His consultant career was at a time when heart surgery was expanding dramatically and, in 1960, together with James Glenie, he initiated open-heart surgery in Blackpool for the closure of congenital septal defects and valve replacement operations. The heart pump for this new technique of surgery was not readily available in those days and Percy persuaded engineers at the nearly British Aircraft Company in Warton to manufacture a pump – this was the situation in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s. All this was in addition to his thoracic work, which included pioneering operations for the resection of post-intubation tracheal strictures and the reanastomosis of the left main bronchus during lobectomy. He also undertook oesophageal resection with colon transplant, and operations for the correction of portal hypertension by spleno-renal and portocaval anastomosis. Like so many of his generation of cardiothoracic surgeons, he was completely dedicated to his work and the further development of open-heart surgery, to the partial exclusion of his home and social life. He was president of the Manchester Surgical Society in 1980, and president of the North West Thoracic Society. In 1945 Percy married Moira Elizabeth Walter, a staff nurse at Manchester Royal Infirmary. They had three sons (David Richard, Brian Ross and Robert Graham), none of whom entered medicine, although one grandson (Hugh Oliver) became an ophthalmologist. In 1969, Percy and Moira retired. His recreations were fell-walking, dingy sailing, golf, music, photography and working in his garage. He died on 17 December 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001032
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jones, Barrie Russell (1921 - 2009)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Enid Taylor
Publication Date 2010-10-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373216373216
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details Barrie Russell Jones was professor of clinical ophthalmology at the University of London. He was born at Silverstream, near Wellington, New Zealand, on 4 January 1921. He obtained a degree in natural sciences from Victoria University, Wellington, before studying medicine at the University of Otago, Dunedin, qualifying in 1947. His early clinical training was in Wellington, but in 1950 he returned to Dunedin as a registrar in ophthalmology, where he trained under Rowland Wilson, who had done important research on trachoma. He went to London in 1951 to study for a PhD, at that time planning to return to Dunedin, but he was appointed to a training post at Moorfields Eye Hospital and then to a research post at the Institute of Ophthalmology. He was professor of clinical ophthalmology in the University of London from 1963 to 1980 based at the Institute, with the clinical component at Moorfields. At Moorfields he made fundamental changes to clinical practice, insisting that all trainees use the operating microscope and encouraging sub-specialisation. His own interests were in the micro-surgery of the lacrimal system and surgery to the eyelids often deformed by trachoma. His aim was always to make a major contribution to the eradication of preventable blindness throughout the world and in 1981 the International Centre for Eye Health was opened with Barrie Jones as the first director. The Centre is now based at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, with training centres in Africa, India and America. He retired in 1986. He gave many prestigious lectures and received many honours, including the CBE, the Gonin medal, the King Feisal International prize in medicine and the global achievement award from the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness. He was immensely respected by all. He was supported by his wife, Pauline, who accompanied him on many field trips when he was studying eye diseases resulting from infection, particularly those caused by chlamydia. In 2002 they finally returned to New Zealand. Barrie Jones died from pneumonia on 19 August 2009 and was survived by his wife Pauline, a daughter, Jenny, and three sons, Graham, Andrew and Peter.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001033
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jones, Peter Ferry (1920 - 2009)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2010-10-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373217373217
Occupation General surgeon
Details Peter Ferry Jones, clinical professor of surgery at the University of Aberdeen, was an outstanding surgical craftsman, a major academic contributor to coloproctology and paediatric surgery, as well as a renowned teacher of operative surgery. He was born on 29 February 1920 in London, the son of Ernest Jones, a bank official, and Winifred Ferry, a nursing sister and matron in the British Red Cross. Peter Jones was schooled at Mill Hill, winning the Old Millhillians’ Literary prize in his final year. In 1937, he proceeded to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he was a major exhibitioner, and thence to St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School. Here he won the Bentley prize in 1941 and the Matthews Duncan gold medal in midwifery, before qualifying in 1943 and being appointed as a house surgeon. He then joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving in the Middle East between 1944 and 1946 with the rank of captain. On demobilisation, he decided to pursue a career in surgery and undertook various training posts, principally at Bart’s and the North Middlesex hospitals, passing the FRCS in 1948. From 1951 to 1953, he was a surgical tutor at Bart’s, coming under the influence of Sir James Patterson Ross. In 1953 he was appointed as a senior registrar to the Middlesex Hospital surgical rotation, where he was greatly influenced by Peter Gummer at the Central Middlesex and Oswald Lloyd-Davies at the Middlesex, the latter teaching him the meticulous surgical technique which was to become his trademark. In 1957, he was appointed as a consultant surgeon to the Aberdeen General and Special hospitals with a mixed practice of adult and paediatric surgery. He continued to practice both adult and paediatric surgery throughout his career. In both spheres he made major academic contributions, publishing numerous papers as well as textbooks. He had a special interest in the acute abdomen and his textbook *Emergency abdominal surgery in infancy, childhood and adult life* (Oxford, Blackwell Scientific, 1974, 1987; London, Chapman & Hall, 1998) went through three editions. His published work covered such diverse subjects as recurrent small bowel obstruction, inflammatory bowel disease, gastrointestinal haemorrhage, colorectal cancer, maldescent of the testis and vesico-ureteric reflux. In 1966, he was appointed as a clinical reader in surgical paediatrics in the University of Aberdeen in recognition of his contributions to paediatric surgery. In 1983 was appointed to a personal chair in clinical surgery. His surgical distinction was recognised more widely by his appointment as surgeon to the Queen in Scotland between the years 1977 to 1985. Throughout his consultant career he was especially noted for teaching his trainees both the art and the craft of surgery, always instilling in them the same attention to operative detail that he himself had acquired in his early training. He also played a full part in the wider world of surgery, being a keen member of the British Association of Paediatric Surgeons and the Mason Brown lecturer for 1986. At various times he was an examiner for the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, a member of the Specialist Advisory Committee in General Surgery and a member of the executive of the education sub-committee of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1990 he was appointed by the latter organisation as the *British Journal of Surgery* travelling fellow and lecturer. He had previously been a visiting lecturer to the University of Natal, South Africa, and the Monash University Medical School in Melbourne. Peter Jones was a quietly spoken man, modest in manner, a good listener and a man who seemingly had infinite time for others. He was committed to the NHS and wrote that he was sad to retire on reaching the age of 65, but perhaps not so sorry to know the telephone would not ring in the middle of the night. His interests outside of surgery were dinghy sailing, boat building and surgical history. In retirement he wrote a monograph on the history Scottish surgery from 1837 to 1901, helped to establish a hospice in Aberdeen, and created a wonderful garden in collaboration with his wife Margaret, née Thomson, whom he had married in 1950. They had four children, Katharine (a teacher), Timothy (a general practitioner), Janet (a horticulturist) and Andrew (a consultant in accident and emergency medicine). He died of a stroke on 17 October 2009.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001034
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Keynes, William Milo (1924 - 2009)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-10-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373218373218
Occupation General surgeon Medical editor Writer
Details William Milo Keynes was an honorary consultant surgeon at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, and subsequently a writer and medical editor. He was born on 9 August 1924, the third son of Sir Geoffrey Keynes, a former vice president of the College, and Margaret Elizabeth née Darwin, a descendant of Charles Darwin. Milo was the only one of Sir Geoffrey’s sons who followed him into surgery. (The only other son in a related discipline was Richard, who became professor of physiology at Cambridge.) Milo Keynes was educated at Oundle in Northamptonshire. With family connections in Cambridge – both civic (his paternal grandfather had been mayor) and academic (through his economist uncle, Maynard), the city inevitably became a magnet and Milo chose to study at Trinity College. The cultural and artistic life he enjoyed whilst an undergraduate was cast aside somewhat reluctantly when he went to his father’s hospital (St Bartholomew’s) in London for his clinical studies. There he won the Shuter scholarship in anatomy and physiology (in 1945) and then went on to obtain the Brackenbury scholarship in surgery (in 1948). Following a house appointment on the surgical unit at St Bartholomew’s under Paterson Ross, he spent four years in Cambridge as a demonstrator in anatomy, and then carried out his National Service in the Air Force (from 1950 to 1952). In 1953, he returned to St Bartholomew’s Hospital as a junior registrar. At the end of this appointment, in 1954, he was awarded an Arris and Gale lectureship at the College. He then returned to Cambridge, as a surgical registrar, before leaving on a Nuffield Foundation medical fellowship to Harvard and the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. On his return to the UK, he was a senior surgical registrar at St Bartholomew’s, a post which was combined with a research assistantship at St Mark’s. He then became a senior lecturer in surgery at the London Hospital under Victor Dix, from which he went to the Nuffield department of surgery at the University of Oxford as a first assistant, and as an honorary consultant in surgery at the Radcliffe Infirmary. In 1973, he migrated back to Cambridge, where he was a part-time clinical anatomist. While in his Cambridge post, he became an editor of medical books for William Heinemann publishers, and developed a career as a writer and historian. He wrote books on, among other subjects, the history of science, on Isaac Newton, and on Mendelism in human genetics. He edited a book of essays on his uncle, John Maynard Keynes, and wrote a biography of his uncle’s wife, Lydia Lopokova. Milo Keynes died on 18 February 2009.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001035
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Luker, Bryan Carsten Hauch (1916 - 2006)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-10-13
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373220373220
Occupation General surgeon
Details Bryan Luker was a consultant general surgeon at Rotherham and Mexborough hospitals. He was born in London, in Hampstead, on 5 July 1916, the only child of Herbert William Luker MBE and Ella Matilda Henrietta, the daughter of Adam Hauch, the headmaster of the local grammar school in Roskilde, Denmark. Bryan’s early life was spent in Sweden, where his father was managing director of Proctor and Gamble. Returning to London in 1928, Bryan went to University College School, Christ’s College, Cambridge, and then St Thomas’ Hospital for his clinical training. Whilst in London he was awarded a certificate of honour by the Royal Humane Society for rescuing a woman who was “in imminent danger of drowning in the River Thames at Sunbury-on-Thames on 1 August 1935”. After qualifying, he undertook house appointments at St Mark’s Hospital and Bradford Royal Infirmary. By 1944 he was serving as a captain with the RAMC in the 18th Light Brigade Field Ambulance and was mentioned in despatches in November 1945. When serving in Belgium, he met his future wife, Cynthia Eileen Littlewood, a nurse who had trained at Llandough Hospital, Cardiff. They were married on 2 November 1946. After demobilisation, he became a resident surgical officer at the Leicester Royal Infirmary under John C Barrett and E R Frizelle. He was appointed in 1952 on the understanding that a new hospital would be built in Rotherham. In fact the new district general hospital did not open until 1979 and he worked at Moorgate and Doncaster Gate hospitals in Rotherham and Mexborough Montague Hospital for most of his professional life, spending only three years in the new building. Bryan was a keen member of the BMA and chairman of the Rotherham branch from 1974 to 1975. He was a talented watercolourist and fisherman, who created his own flies and was a member of the Linton and Threshfield Angling Club in Wharfdale. Brian and Cynthia had three girls: Anne Louise, Janet Mary and Pamela Jane. A few weeks before Bryan’s death a party was held in his beloved garden to celebrate his 90th birthday, at which a junior consultant colleague, K D Bardhan, gave a moving speech detailing Bryan’s medical life, his contribution to Rotherham and his unique personality. Bryan Luker died peacefully on 30 August 2006 and was survived by his wife Cynthia, his three daughters and two granddaughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001037
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching MacDonald, Neil (1927 - 2008)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Macky, James Fraser Warwick (1920 - 2010)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-10-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373222373222
Occupation Urologist
Details Warwick Macky was the leading urologist in New Zealand for more than half a century, and a man of outstanding presence and charm. He was born on 8 December 1920 into a successful family of importers. His father, Frank Macky, who qualified in 1914, was senior surgeon of the Auckland Hospital from 1926, and battled to establish a separate urological unit, introducing the Harris prostatectomy. Warwick was educated at Wanganui Collegiate School and followed his father to Ormond College, University of Melbourne, where he graduated in 1943 with the Ryan prize in surgery. After junior posts, Warwick joined the Royal New Zealand Army Medical Corps in 1945. After the war, he carried out postgraduate work in Melbourne, passed his MS in 1947 and won the Gordon Craig scholarship, which took him to the Westminster Hospital. There he specialised in urology under Robert Cox and passed the FRCS. In 1950, he returned to Auckland as a tutor specialist in surgery at Greenlane Hospital. He was appointed as a visiting urologist at Auckland Hospital the following year, remaining there as a senior urologist and head of department until he retired in 1985. During this period he made his department into a first-class modern unit, to which end he travelled extensively and invited many celebrated urologists to visit New Zealand. He also set up the Ormond clinic for private urology, which had day care facilities and became a mecca for visiting urologists for the next 30 years. He was very active in national and international urology. In 1974, he was elected as an international member of the exclusive American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons. At the Royal Australasian College, he served on the New Zealand committee from 1955 to 1963, on the council from 1965 to 1977 and was vice president from 1975 to 1977. He was an examiner in urology from 1966 to 1975, New Zealand censor from 1975 to 1977 and was a member of the Court of Honour from 1981 to 2010. He was president of the Australasian Urological Society from 1965 to 1966, when he hosted the annual conference in Auckland. Warwick was a tall, handsome man with an impish sense of humour and, together with his wife Elizabeth, was popular wherever he went. He was a keen sailor, skippering his 40 foot yacht Ilex as far as Sydney. Three of his children became world champion yachtsmen. His other great interest was St Kentigern’s school in Auckland, of which he was chairman for 37 years. He planted many London plane trees at the school and his funeral was held there. He died on 9 February 2010 at the age of 89, in the presence of Elizabeth, his son Peter, and his daughters Rebecca and Josephine, a week after sustaining a fracture of the hip.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001039
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Magell, Jack (1928 - 2005)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2010-10-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373223373223
Occupation General surgeon
Details Jack Magell was a consultant general surgeon at Blackburn Royal Infirmary and Accrington Victoria Hospital. He was greatly admired by his colleagues and his trainees were devoted to him for the support he provided and the good grounding he gave to them for their future careers. Jack’s father, Abraham Magilner (later Magell), came from Vilna in Russia (Vilnius in Lithuania) at the age of 19 and became a watchmaker in Llanelli, Wales. The family of Jack’s mother, Ida Polotovski (later Paul), came to the UK around 1910. Abraham and Ida married in 1912 and had three children, George, Angela and Jack, who was born in Cardiff on 22 October 1928. Jack went to Cardiff High School, from which he entered Cardiff Medical School at the age of 16, qualifying in 1950. He was a senior house officer at Llandough Hospital and a surgical registrar at Bridgend Hospital. He was much influenced by Lambert Rogers and Arnold Aldis. He went to be a registrar at New End Hospital in London, where he gained experience in thyroid diseases. Jack did his National Service in the RAMC, serving in Singapore and in Malaysia, mainly in Kluang, Johor state. Following his demobilisation, he trained as a senior registrar in general surgery at the Maelor Hospital, Wrexham. During his training he spent a year in America as an instructor in surgery at the University of Illinois, Chicago, under Warren Cole. He published several papers, including one on the use of anticancer agents for the control of tumour growth in the peritoneal cavity. He also studied the role of bile salts in the dissolution of gallstones. He was appointed to his consultant post in Blackburn in 1965. He was married twice. He met his first wife, Naida Payne, a theatre sister, in Wrexham. They had two children: Tanya became a lawyer and Alex is a chartered accountant in Sark. Naida died in May 1985 and Jack subsequently met and married Jeanne, who herself had four children, Antony, Michael, Christopher and Karen. Jack and Jeanne had 20 happy years together, and had nine grandchildren between them. Jack Magell died on 6 February 2005. He was survived by Jeanne (who died in 2006), his daughter Tanya and son Alex.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001040
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Maguire, Charles James Frederick (1931 - 2009)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Enid Taylor
Publication Date 2010-10-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373224373224
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Charles James Frederick Maguire was a consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast. He was born in County Wicklow, Ireland, on 10 May 1931 to Charles Maguire, a nonconformist minister, and Gertrude née Armitage. He was at school in Belfast, attending the Methodist College, and continued in Belfast for his medical training at Queen’s University Medical School. After qualifying in 1954, he held house jobs at Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, before beginning his ophthalmic training in London, initially at University College Hospital and then at Moorfields Eye Hospital. He was appointed as a consultant ophthalmic surgeon to Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, in 1967, and was subsequently appointed as a senior lecturer at Queen’s University Medical School. At Belfast he developed the subspecialty of vitreoretinal surgery and launched diabetic and neuro-ophthalmic eye clinics. He was recognised as an expert, innovative and meticulous surgeon by his colleagues and introduced new techniques in vitreoretinal surgery and laser photocoagulation. During his working life he helped develop ophthalmic services in India and Libya, and after his retirement from the NHS in 1994 he practised ophthalmology in Bermuda. He married twice. He married Ann in 1962 and they had one son and two daughters. He died on 7 July 2009 and leaves his second wife, Barbara, his three children and a grandson.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001041
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Mawson, Stuart Radcliffe (1918 - 2008)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Norman Kirby
Publication Date 2010-10-14
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373225373225
Occupation Otolaryngologist ENT surgeon
Details A renowned ear surgeon, Stuart Mawson was a consultant otolaryngologist at King’s College Hospital, London. He was born on 4 March 1918 in London. His father, Alec Robert Mawson, was chief officer of the parks’ department of the London County Council. His mother, Ena Grossmith, was an actress and the granddaughter of George Grossmith, author of *The diary of a nobody*. Stuart’s parents divorced while he was still a boy. He was educated at Stagenhoe Park and Canford schools, and then went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, and then to St Thomas’ Hospital in London to study medicine. Qualifying in 1943, he was a house surgeon at St Thomas’ during the first years of the Second World War and during the London Blitz. He then joined the 11th Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, after being encouraged to join the Airborne Forces by another St Thomas’ graduate, Charles G Robb. His introduction to surgery began on the battlefield of the ill-fated airborne assault on Arnhem, Holland, in September 1944. In Arnhem, Stuart and his RAMC section were separated from their battalion and joined the advanced dressing station located in the very heart of the battle. The brigadier commanding the 4th Brigade, Sir John Hackett, was one of the casualties treated at the station. He survived and later wrote the introduction to Stuart’s book *Arnhem doctor* (London, Orbis publishing, 1981). All doctors, orderlies, dentists and padres stayed with the injured after the remnants of the 1st Airborne Division were evacuated, and all were captured. After being liberated by the American Army in 1945, Stuart returned home. In 1947 he passed the FRCS and became chief assistant to the ENT department at St Thomas’ in 1950. The following year, he was appointed as a consultant to the ear, nose and throat department at King’s College Hospital and the Belgrave Hospital for Children, where he worked until his retirement in 1979. He took a great interest in the diagnosis and management of deafness in children. During the 1960s and 1970s, ear surgery enjoyed a renaissance initiated by the use of the binocular operating microscopes and Stuart was one of the pioneers in the adoption of these new techniques of microsurgery of the ear. He published a textbook of ENT surgery *Diseases of the ear* (London, Edward Arnold) in 1963, which has become the standard British and international work and essential reading for all trainee otologists. His second memoir, Doctor after Arnhem (Staplehurst, Spellmount, 2006), described how the inspiration of his belief sustained him during his worst moments as a prisoner of war when he cared for the sick and wounded in many camps in and around Leipzig. He later wrote *The devil’s doctors*, a history of the Airborne Medical Services: this was not published, but a copy is held in the archive of the Army Medical Services Museum. During his last years at King’s, he was the chairman of the medical committee and the district management team during a difficult time of change in the health service. He enjoyed the full support of his medical colleagues when he fully exercised his well-honed tact and diplomacy. He was a member of the council of the British Association of Otolaryngology. In 1974, he was elected president of the section of otology at the Royal Society of Medicine. Married after the war, in 1948, he and his wife, June Irene née Percival, known to many as ‘Julie’, had a happy family life, which was of paramount importance to Stuart. They had four two daughters (Judith Helen and Deborah Rose), two sons (Robert Stuart and John Percival) and 13 grandchildren. It was a joy to him that so many of them lived close to him in Suffolk. Stuart and Julie spent their retirement years in Knodishall, Suffolk, where he sailed his own boat from the Aldeburgh Yacht Club until he felt it unwise to expect Julie to be able to rescue him should he fall overboard at sea. Ever active in affairs of the Church, he was licensed as a lay reader in 1959, appointed a lay elder in 1990, and served as a church warden at his local church, St Lawrence’s. He played golf regularly in Aldeburgh until very soon before his death. Julie had died in 2006. He died from leukaemia on 20 February 2008, just missing his 90th birthday. His son Jock spoke at his father’s funeral service and summed up his life: “Stuart was a warm, stubborn, courageous perfectionist; forged in war, never offering less than total commitment to his country, his profession, his family, and his God.”
Resource Identifier RCS: E001042
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching McCluskey, Kenneth Alan (1925 - 2009)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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, Henry Jagoe (1922 - 2007)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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 Booth, John Barton (1937 - 2005)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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 Gordon-Taylor, Sir Gordon (1878 - 1960)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 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/372643372643
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 18 March 1878 at Streatham Hill, London, the only son of John Taylor, wine merchant of Dean Street, Tooley Street, London Bridge and Alice Miller Gordon daughter of William Gordon, stockbroker of Union Street, Aberdeen; he and his sister were taken by their mother to Aberdeen when their father died in 1885. Educated at Gordon College and Aberdeen University, as a student he would retire at eight in the evening and would be called by his mother at midnight in order that he might continue his studies. As a result, he passed in English in March 1896, in logic and geology in March 1897, in botany in July 1897 and obtained the degree of MA with third-class honours in classics in April 1898. On the family returning to London, he entered the school of the Middlesex Hospital, being awarded a gold medal in anatomy in the intermediate examination for the London MB. Qualifying in May 1903 with the conjoint diploma and passing the final MB London also, he became, in addition to his other duties, a demonstrator of anatomy under Peter Thompson, working together with Victor Bonney to obtain first-class honours in anatomy in the BSc in 1904. In 1905 he took the BS examination and in 1906 the MS, at the same time passing the Fellowship examination. His first consultant appointment was that of surgeon to out-patients at the Royal Northern Hospital but, when a vacancy occurred at the Middlesex, he applied and was appointed to that hospital in 1907 at the age of 29, becoming assistant surgeon to (Sir Alfred) Pearce Gould and (Sir John) Bland Sutton. He also became attached as consultant to a number of smaller hospitals, St Saviours, the West Herts, Potters Bar, Welwyn, Kettering, Teddington and Hampton Wick Hospitals, and to the Ross Institute for Tropical Diseases. During the war of 1914-18 he was gazetted Captain in the RAMC in March 1915 and, serving first at home, proceeded to France being involved in the battles of the Somme and Passchendaele. He was promoted Major, later acted as consulting surgeon to the 4th Army, and was awarded the OBE, returning to England in December 1918. By his experiences in France he had proved the value of prompt and fearless surgery in wounds of the abdomen, which often necessitated multiple resections of the intestine. After the war he built up a great reputation as an intrepid general surgeon, whose profound knowledge of anatomy and whose operative skill enabled him to undertake the most formidable operations. As a result of his war experience, he was a pioneer in the use of blood transfusion, using the Kimpton Tube technique as he distrusted the addition to blood of anti-coagulants, and so he was one of the first in the field in performing immediate gastrectomy for bleeding peptic ulcer. A truly general surgeon, it was however particularly in the field of the surgery of malignant disease affecting the breast, mouth and pharynx that his interest lay. His enthusiasm for anatomy led him to become an examiner in the Primary Fellowship examination in London for many years 1913, 1919, 1940-4 and 1950-3, and in 1934 he was the first surgeon anatomist to go to Melbourne, Australia, to participate in the second Primary examination to be held in that country as at the first only one anatomist, William Wright of the London, had taken part. He made five subsequent visits to Australia as an examiner, and conducted the examination in Calcutta and Colombo in 1935 and 1949. In 1932 he was elected to the Council of the College and thus began another of his life interests. In 1938 he spent some time as lecturer in surgery at the University of Toronto, where he delivered the Balfour lecture. On the outbreak of war in 1939 he offered his services to the Army, and, being rejected on grounds of age, he crossed Whitehall to be received enthusiastically by the Royal Navy, being gazetted Surgeon-Lieutenant and, very rapidly, promoted Surgeon Rear-Admiral, a very fruitful association which led him all over the world. He was, at some time, an examiner in surgery to the Universities of Cambridge, London, Leeds, Belfast, Durham and Edinburgh. At the College he was elected to the Council in 1932, was Vice-President 1941-3, Bradshaw lecturer in 1942 and a Hunterian professor in 1929, 1942 and 1944. In 1945 he delivered the Vicary lecture, and again in 1954. In 1950 he was appointed Sub-Dean of the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences in recognition of his great assistance to overseas students. In 1952 when a memorial plaque to John Hunter was unveiled in St Martins in the Fields, he delivered the address, and in 1955 he was appointed a Hunterian Trustee. In 1941 he acted for a time as exchange Professor at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston and again in 1946, when he was also postgraduate Professor in Cairo. In 1943 he was a member of a mission to Russia sponsored by the British Council and, while there, he conferred the Honorary Fellowship on the Russian Surgeons Yudin and Burdenko. For the remainder of his life he acted as surgical adviser to the British Council in their choice of representatives to undertake missions abroad and to areas where British surgery could be of assistance. After his theoretical retirement during the war, distinctions were showered upon him. An outstanding orator, the result of punctilious care, effort and his upbringing in the classics, he gave the first Moynihan memorial lecture in Leeds in 1940, the oration to the Medical Society of London in 1940, the Syme oration to the Royal Australasian College in 1947, the Lettsomian lectures to the Medical Society of London in 1944, the Sheen memorial lecture to the University of Wales in 1949, the Rutherford Morison memorial lecture in Newcastle in 1953, the Hunterian oration to the Hunterian Society in 1954, the John Fraser memorial lecture in Edinburgh in 1957, the Diamond Jubilee oration to the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1958, the Mitchell Banks memorial lecture in Liverpool in 1958, the Cavendish lecture to the West London Medico-Chirurgical Society in 1958, the Harveian lecture to the Harveian Society in 1949, and the Founder's Day oration to the Robert Gordon College, Aberdeen. All his life he maintained his contact with Scotland and with the classics, introducing Latin and Greek quotations in his addresses without any suspicion of pomposity. He was elected a member of the Highland Society of London in 1955, was Vice-President of, and honorary surgeon to, the Royal Scottish Corporation, was chairman of the Horatian Society and a member of the Classical Association. His very infrequent holidays were spent in the Highlands. He was President of the Medical Society of London in 1941-2, President of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland in 1944-5, and President of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1944-5, being elected an Honorary Fellow in 1949. In 1956 he was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Society of Medicine, and on his eightieth birthday the *British Journal of Surgery* published a special edition in his honour. The Australasian College honoured him in 1949 by founding the Gordon Taylor prize for the best candidate in their Primary examination, on the suggestion of six of their Fellows all holders of the Hallett Prize, and that College commissioned his portrait by James Gunn in August 1960. He himself presented the portrait of his wife, painted in 1922 by Cowper, to the Australasian College. His own portrait by Anna Zinkeisen was commissioned by the Middlesex Hospital, where it now hangs. He was made consultant surgeon to the Alfred and St Vincent Hospitals in Melbourne and was an honorary member of surgical societies in Belgium, Norway, Greece, France and Germany, although his feelings for the last were antipathetic. A keen cricketer and member of the MCC, he was a regular attender at Lords, and it was one evening on leaving the ground that he was struck down by a motor car, sustaining injuries from which he died. A touch of irony, as he was an inveterate walker and detested motor cars, and never had any desire to drive one; having sold his Rolls at the outbreak of war in 1939, he never subsequently owned a car. It must be obvious to any reader of this tale of achievement that this was no ordinary man: indeed he was rightly regarded as the doyen of surgery of his generation. Few men, if indeed any others have inspired such universal respect, admiration and affection. Pre-eminent as a surgeon himself, he performed over one hundred hind-quarter amputations, his joy was to educate, instruct and help young surgeons from all over the world. In Australia his was a name to conjure with, and at the Middlesex out of his forty house surgeons twenty-five achieved consultant status, and of these, twelve at the Middlesex itself. He never forgot a face and, more important, the name that went with it. Christmas cards, penned in his own florid handwriting, were sent every year to surgeons all over the world. He lived for surgery and to keep himself fit always walked and became an expert ballroom dancer. He delighted to entertain visiting surgeons in the Oriental Club or his beloved Ritz, and, although abstemious himself, he was a connoisseur of food and wine. His dapper, trim figure in double-breasted jacket, hatless and with bowtie and wing collar, complete with the pink carnation in the button hole, brought a thrill of excitement to any surgeon lucky enough to encounter him and to be recognised immediately and addressed by name. He was indeed, as Sir Arthur Porritt, the President, described him in his funeral oration quoting Chaucer's words, “a very parfit gentil knight”. He married Florence Mary FRSA, FZS, eldest daughter of John Pegrume, who died in 1949. He died in the Middlesex Hospital following an accident on 3 September 1960. He was cremated at Golder's Green on 8 September, D H Patey reading the lesson. A memorial service was held in All Souls, Langham Place on Thursday 13 October 1960, conducted by the Vicar and by the Chaplain of the Middlesex Hospital. The oration was delivered by Sir Arthur Porritt, who was supported by the Council of the College. The lesson was read by T Holmes Sellors, and the church was filled by representatives of many learned societies and Sir Gordon's colleagues, friends and patients A bibliography of his publications, compiled by A M Shadrake, was appended to the memorial pamphlet published by the Middlesex Hospital, and his principal writings are listed at the end of Sir Eric Riches's Gordon-Taylor memorial lecture *Ann. Roy. Coll. Surg. Engl.* 1968, 42, 91-92; they included: Books 1930. *The Dramatic in Surgery*. Bristol, Wright. 1939. *The Abdominal Injuries of Warfare*. Bristol, Wright. 1958. *Sir Charles Bell, his life and times*, with E A Walls. Edinburgh, Livingstone. On Cancer Statistics and Prognosis 1904. *Arch. Middlesex Hosp.* 3, 128, with W S Lazarus-Barlow. 1959. *Brit. med. J.* 1, 455. Mitchell Banks Lecture. On Cancer of the Breast 1948. *Ann. Roy. Coll. Surg. Engl.* 2, 60. 1948. *Proc. Roy. Soc. Med.* 41, 118. On Malignant Disease of the Testis 1918. *Clin. J.* 47, 26. 1938. *Brit. J. Urol.* 10, 1, with A S Till. 1947. *Brit. J. Surg.* 35, 6, with N R Wyndham. On the Oro-pharynx 1933. *Proc. Roy. Soc. Med.* 26, 889. On Retroperitoneal and Mesenteric Tumours 1930. *Proc. Roy. Soc. Med.* 24, 782. 1930. *Brit. J. Surg.* 17, 551. 1948. *Roy. Melb. Hosp. clin. Rep.* Centenary Volume, p. 189. On the Hindquarter Amputation 1935. *Brit. J. Surg.* 22, 671, with Philip Wiles. 1940. *Brit. J. Surg.* 27, 643. 1949. *J. Bone Jt. Surg.* 31 B, 410, with Philip Wiles. 1952. *J. Bone Jt. Surg.* 34 B, 14, with Philip Wiles, D H Patey, W Turner-Warwick and R S Monro. 1952. *Brit. J. Surg.* 39, 3, with R S Monro. 1955. *British Surgical Progress,* p. 81. London, Butterworth. 1959. *J. Roy. Coll. Surg. Edin.* 5, 1, John Fraser Memorial Lecture. On War Surgery 1955. War injuries of the chest and abdomen. *Brit. J. Surg.,* Supplement 3. On Tradition Moynihan (1940) *Univ. Leeds med. Mag.* 10, 126. Rutherford Morison (1954) *Newcastle med. J.* 24, 248. Cavendish Lecture (1958) *Proc. W. Lond. Med.-Chir. Soc.* p. 12. Fergusson (1961) *Medical History,* 5, 1. The surgery of the "Forty-five" rebellion. (Vicary Lecture 1945). *Brit. J. Surg.* 33, 1.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000459
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Travers, Benjamin junior (1808 - 1868)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Bond, Charles John (1856 - 1939)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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 Witte, Jens (1941 - 2003)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-02 2012-03-08
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/372347372347
Occupation Colorectal surgeon Oesophageal surgeon Upper gastrointestinaI surgeon
Details Jens Witte, doyen of German surgery, was born on 4 February 1941 in Perleberg, Mark/Brandenburg, the eldest of three sons of a surgeon father. He studied medicine at the Universities of Homburg/Saar, Hamburg and Berlin. After qualifying, he became a medizinalassistent in Bielefeld and Hamburg, spent some time in a mission hospital in Tanzania, and returned to work under Egerhard Weisschedel in Konstantz. There followed a series of brilliant appointments under Georg Heberer, first in Cologne and then in Munich, becoming professor in 1982 and head of viszeralchirugie in 1984. His special interests were in oesophageal and colorectal surgery. He was a prominent member of the professional surgical organisation, becoming its President in 1998. Active in the European Union of Medical Specialists, he was President of the section of surgery in 2002 and devoted himself to the integration and training of surgeons in the former East Germany. He was the recipient of many honours, including that of our College. He died unexpectedly on 12 June 2003 in Augsburg.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000160
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Allan, Walter Ramsay (1927 - 2003)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-15 2006-07-17
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/372348372348
Occupation General surgeon
Details Walter Ramsay Allan, known as ‘Peter’, was a consultant surgeon at Bolton Royal Infirmary. Born on 26 October 1927, he was the second of four sons of Walter Ramsay Allan, a general practitioner based in Edinburgh who had fought in the first world war before completing his medical studies at Glasgow University. His mother was Elizabeth Brownlee née Moffat, a classical scholar who studied at Oxford. Peter went to Lincoln College, Oxford, to read medicine, along with his two younger brothers, all of whom represented the university at sport. Peter also won a Scottish cap for cricket in 1950. He went on to Edinburgh for his clinical studies, qualifying in 1951. After house physician and house surgeon posts at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and Stornaway, he spent two years in the RAMC from 1952 to 1954. He returned to continue his surgical training at Bangor Hospital and Manchester, becoming a senior registrar at Preston and Manchester Royal Infirmaries and finally being appointed consultant surgeon at Bolton. Following his retirement he developed an interest in the Scottish writers of the 18th century and enjoyed walking in the Borders and Pennines. He also enjoyed music and made annual trips to Glyndebourne. He married Anne Evans, a senior house officer in anaesthetics, while he was a surgical registrar. They had two daughters (Ann Ellen Elizabeth and Victoria Jane Moffat) and two sons (Walter Janus Thomas and James Dillwyn Douglas). James became a consultant urologist. Peter died on 12 May 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000161
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cleland, William Paton (1912 - 2005)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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/372349372349
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details Bill Cleland was a pioneering thoracic surgeon who helped develop open heart surgery in London in the 1950s. He was born in Sydney, New South Wales, on 30 May 1912, the son of Sir John Burton Cleland, professor of pathology at the University of Adelaide, and Dora Isabel Robson. He was proud to be the 26th head of his ancient Scottish family who were kinsmen of William Wallace. He was educated at Scotch College, Adelaide, and Adelaide University, where he qualified in 1934. He then completed two years as house physician and house surgeon at the Royal Adelaide and the Adelaide Children’s Hospital. He went to England, to King’s College Hospital, in 1938 to be a resident medical officer and passed the MRCP. With the outbreak of war he was evacuated with King’s to Horton, Surrey, where he was busy in the Emergency Medical Service dealing with wartime injuries. This generated an interest in surgery: he quickly passed the FRCS and then went on in 1948 to the Brompton Hospital as house physician and resident medical officer, where he was influenced by Russell Brock, Tudor Edwards and Price Thomas. He soon specialised in chest surgery, moving gradually on into cardiac surgery. He was appointed consultant thoracic surgeon at King’s College Hospital and the Brompton in 1948, and the following year as a lecturer at the Hammersmith, where he worked with Denis Melrose on the prototype heart-lung machine with which he performed the first successful open-heart operation in Britain in 1953. He was a pioneer in the subsequent development of cardiac by-pass surgery, which he described in a classic paper in *Thorax* in 1983. He wrote more than 70 papers, and was much sought after abroad, setting up cardiothoracic units in Russia, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Iceland. He was consultant adviser in thoracic surgery to the Department of Health and the Royal Navy. He married Norah Goodhart in 1940 who predeceased him. They had two sons and a daughter. In retirement he continued to follow up his old patients, and enjoy his hobbies of fishing, the opera, gardening and beekeeping. A strongly built man, he became somewhat frail in old age, and died peacefully at home in Goodworth Clatford, Hampshire, on 29 March 2005, just before his 93rd birthday.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000162
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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 Brown, James Marsh (1913 - 1965)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-03-07 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/372647372647
Occupation General surgeon
Details James Brown was born in 1913 and educated at Bishops Stortford. In 1930 he entered Guy's Hospital and for two years studied dentistry before changing to medicine. After qualification in 1936 he held various house appointments at Guy's before obtaining the Fellowship in 1938. Brown was then appointed lecturer in anatomy at Trinity College, Cambridge, but returned to Guy's as demonstrator of anatomy and physiology in 1939. When the second world war broke out he joined the Emergency Medical Service and went to Guildford as a surgical registrar. In January 1940 he joined the RAMC in the hope of being posted abroad but after a short time his commission was changed to that of Surgeon-Captain in the Royal Horse Guards and he was posted to Windsor. He spent much of his spare time at Windsor in helping at King Edward VII Hospital; here his abilities were quickly recognised and in January 1942 he was made temporary assistant surgeon. In 1946 this appointment was confirmed, and in 1948 he was made senior surgeon. When the Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital was incorporated in the Health Service he was appointed to its surgical staff; he also became surgeon to the Maidenhead Hospital and to many other hospitals in that area; in addition he was on the staff of the King Edward VII Hospital for Officers in London. Brown did much work on the medical committees of his region and was keenly interested in the Windsor and District Medical Society. He was medical officer to the racecourses at Ascot and Windsor, and to the Windsor Polo Club and the Royal Windsor Horse Show Club. After demobilisation he was made Honorary Surgeon-Captain to the Royal Horse Guards. In April 1956 he was elected a Freeman of the City of London. He died suddenly in Guy's Hospital on 24 April 1965 at the age of 52, survived by his wife and four children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000463
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Mayo, William James (1861 - 1939)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-03-11
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/372648372648
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Le Sueur, Minnesota on 29 June 1861, the elder son of William Worrall Mayo and Louise Abigail Wright, his wife. The younger son Charles Horace Mayo was also an Honorary FRCS. For an account of W W Mayo, their father, see the life of C H Mayo, above. William J Mayo, was educated at the Rochester High School and at Niles Academy, working in a local drug store during the vacations. When a tornado struck Rochester in 1883, W Worrall Mayo was appointed to take charge of an improvized hospital and a number of Sisters of St Francis worked with him to help the wounded. The Mother Superior proposed to build a permanent hospital in memory of the catastrophe, provided sufficient money for the purpose and nominated Mayo to take charge of it. The hospital was opened in 1889 under the name of St Mary's Hospital with thirteen patients. It was always the rule that each patient paid according to his means, that fees would not be required from charitable organizations, and that the patient's promise to pay was a sufficient guarantee. The institution quickly became known, first as the Mayo Clinic, later (1915) as the Mayo Foundation. The Mayo brothers gave $1,500,000, and on making the endowment William Mayo, speaking also for his brother, said “We never regarded the money as ours; it came from the people, and we believe it should go back to the people.” The two brothers worked throughout in the utmost harmony and to the end of their lives had a common pocket book in which each wanted the other to have the greater share. Both had the essential attribute of a true gentleman, consideration for others. At first neither brother specialized in surgery; later William was the more inclined to operate upon the abdomen, Charles upon the head and neck. Of the two “Willie” was the better administrator, “Charlie” the more original. Both were simple in their lives and actions, both were humble-minded in spite of their great success in life, and both were witty, each in his own way. During the war William, who had received a commission as a first lieutenant in the Medical Reserve Corps in 1913, was promoted major in 1917 and later colonel in the United States Army Medical Corps. During 1917-19 he was chief consultant for the Medical Service; he was appointed colonel, Medical Reserve Corps in 1920 and brigadier-general in 1921. A regent of the University of Minnesota since 1907, William Mayo was president of the Minnesota State Medical Society in 1895, president of the American Medical Association 1905-06, president of the Society of Clinical Surgery 1911-12, president of the American Surgical Association 1913-14, president of the American College of Surgeons 1917-19, and president of the Congress of American Physicians and Surgeons 1925. In 1919 he was awarded a gold medal by the National Institution of Social Sciences for his services to mankind. In 1933 he received a special award from the University of Minnesota in recognition of his distinguished services in the furtherance of scientific studies. He married Hattie M Daman of Rochester, Minnesota. She survived, him with two daughters: Mrs Waltman Walters, wife of a director of the Mayo Clinic, and Mrs Donald C Balfour, wife of the director of the Mayo Foundation. He died in his sleep at Rochester, Minnesota, on 28 July 1939, after suffering from a sub-acute perforating ulcer of the stomach, for the relief of which he had been operated upon in the previous April.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000464
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Rumsey, Henry Wyldbore (1809 - 1876)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-03-11 2012-03-09
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/372649372649
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Chesham, Buckinghamshire, on July 3rd, 1809, the eldest son of Henry Nathaniel Rumsey, a surgeon, by his wife, Elizabeth Frances Catherine, second daughter of Sir Robert Murray, Bart, whom he had married late in life. His grandfather, the youngest son of an old Welsh family, had settled and practised in Chesham from the middle of the eighteenth century. Rumsey's father had taken shorthand notes of John Hunter's lectures in 1786 and 1787. His notes were printed by James F Palmer in his edition of Hunter's works, who says of them, "one might almost suppose that the writer had had access to the Hunterian manuscript: for besides being generally more full, it never omits examples and illustrations in proof of opinions. The style too is characteristically Hunterian." Rumsey received a desultory education, one of his tutors being the Rev Joseph Bosworth, DD (1789-1876), the eminent Anglo-Saxon scholar. He was apprenticed at the age of 16 to Dr Attenburrow at the Nottingham Hospital, and afterwards became a house pupil of Caesar Hawkins (q.v.), Surgeon to St George's Hospital. In 1831 he was Resident Physician for three months to Lord Dillon at Ditchley, in Oxfordshire, after which he returned to Chesham and took over the family practice. Three years later he went to Gloucester, where he remained for twelve years, acting as Surgeon to the Dispensary, and being appointed Cholera Inspector in 1849. Having overworked himself in this office, he retired to Cheltenham, and from 1851 built up a large practice by his delicate generosity, untiring industry, his suavity, and his kind-heartedness. He got into financial difficulties towards the close of his life owing to the failure of *The European*, and his friends - Dr William Farr being Chairman of the fund - presented him in 1876 with a handsome sum of money, a service of silver plate, and obtained for him a Civil List pension of £100 a year. He died at Prestbury, near Cheltenham, on Oct 23rd, 1876. Rumsey was one of the leading sanitarians of his generation. Lacking the science, philosophic insight, organizing power, and literary genius of Sir John Simon, and the masterly command of statistics possessed by Dr William Farr, he was none the less a great man. In 1835, after having devoted much attention to the establishment of provident societies among the working classes, he commenced his labours as Hon Secretary of the Sick Poor Committee of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association - labours which were continued for ten years. He furnished materials for a series of Reports, on which was founded a Bill, introduced into the House of Commons in 1840 by Mr Serjeant Talfourd, for the better regulation of Medical Relief under the Poor Law. This led to his being examined, first in 1838 by the Poor Law Committee of the House of Commons, and again in 1844 by Lord Ashley's Select Committee on Medical Poor Relief, when he submitted a mass of evidence, collected with much labour, relating to the sickness prevalent among the poor in towns, and forcibly showing the need of preventive measures, under the superintendence and control of a General Department of Public Health. The results of these investigations, and of his previous inquiries into the working of the so-called self-supporting Dispensaries, were embodied in two pamphlets, one published in 1837, on *The Advantages to the Poor of Mutual Assurance against Sickness*, the other in 1846, in connection with Lord Lincoln's Public Health Bill and Sir James Graham's Bill for the Regulation of the Medical Profession, on *The Health and Sickness of Town Populations*. After the publication in 1836 of his paper on the "Statistics of Friendly Societies", with suggestions and forms for an improved Registration of Sickness in connection with them, Rumsey on many occasions, either singly in papers of remarkable ability, or in co-operation with others, pointed out with much clearness and force certain "Fallacies of Vital and Sanitary Statistics", and the difficulty of drawing correct conclusions regarding the Public Health from returns of mortality, apart from records of sickness. In 1848, in his "Remarks on the Constitution of the Authorities under the Public Health Bill", then before Parliament, he anticipated and indicated with great precision the defects - many of which had remained unremedied - of that important measure. The same high intelligence and remarkable mental activity and acuteness were conspicuously manifested by him in the prominent part he took in all the subsequent phases of sanitary legislation, and in the valuable evidence given by him before the Royal Sanitary Commission in 1869. He was consulted in 1849 by the authorities of the Colony of St Christopher's, and in 1850 by the nascent Colony of New Zealand, on their sanitary schemes. His merits and public services were repeatedly recognized. In 1863, by the advice of the Privy Council, he was nominated by the Queen a Member of the General Medical Council; in 1868 and 1869 he was nominated a Member of the Royal Sanitary Commission. It was mainly under Rumsey's guidance, and largely at his instigation, that the British Medical Association procured the appointment of the Royal Sanitary Commission, whence has sprung the improved sanitary legislation of our days; and he will be remembered among the band of workers - Farr, Simon, Stewart, Michael, Acland, Stokes, Clode, and Chadwick - who have placed the health of the people upon a new and surer footing. He died at the beginning of November, 1876, and at the time of his death was an honorary member of the Metropolitan Association of Health Officers and a Fellow of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society. Rumsey's best-known book, which for many years was the only work on the subject, was his *Essays on State Medicine* (8vo, London, 1856). To attempt to write his full bibliography would be useless in any short notice of his life, but the following remarks by his able biographer in the *British Medical Journal* may be taken as covering most of the ground: "The very numerous and able papers presented by him...to the British, the Social Science, and the British Medical Associations, and to the Manchester Statistical Society, or published either separately or in various reviews, form a record of unwearied literary and philanthropic activity such as not many public men can boast of. Amongst the most important of these, not already adverted to, are his Address on Sanitary Legislation and Administration read at the first Meeting of the Social Science Association in 1857; Public Health, the right use of Records founded on Local Facts, in 1860; A Proposal for the Institution of Degrees or Certificates of Qualification in State Medicine, in 1865; Comments on the Sanitary Act, in 1866; an Address on State Medicine, delivered at the Dublin Meeting of the British Medical Association in 1867, and followed by the formation of the Joint Committee of the British Medical and Social Science Associations, which applied for and obtained from Her Majesty's Government the appointment of the Royal Sanitary Commission in 1868. On Population Statistics, with reference to a County Organization for Sanitary Administration, in 1870; and a paper on The State Medicine Qualification, which was read before the London Meeting of the British Medical Association in 1873, and led to the appointment of a Committee for the promotion of legislation on that subject."
Resource Identifier RCS: E000465
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Falloon, Maurice White (1921 - 2004)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Fison, Lorimer George (1920 - 2004)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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 Ford, Colin Gagen (1934 - 2004)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23 2007-02-09
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/372245372245
Occupation General Practitioner
Details Colin Gagen Ford was a former general practitioner in Chislehurst, Kent. He was born in Merton Park on 11 December 1934, the son of Bertram Leonard Ford and Kathleen May née Gagen. He attended Rutlish School, but left at 16 after gaining his O levels. He joined Cable and Wireless, becoming a proficient morse operator, and whilst working there attended evening classes to gain the necessary A levels for entry to medical school. His studying was interrupted by his National Service: he served with the Royal Marines, winning the coveted green commando beret and serving in Cyprus. He went on to St Mary’s to study medicine, graduating in 1962. He played rugby for the second XV and rowed for the college. After qualifying, he was a house surgeon to Sir Arthur Porritt and H H G Eastcott at St Mary’s and was then a house physician at Paddington General Hospital. He then went into general practice, but later returned to hospital medicine and developed an interest in orthopaedics. However, he failed to gain a place on a training programme, being told he was “too old and too experienced”, although he did achieve his FRCS in 1973. After several locums, he returned to general practice. He married Ann McAra, a consultant anaesthetist, in 1969 and they had two sons and two daughters – William, Kate, Robert and Helen. He was interested in old cars, sailing and golf. He had a long battle with alcohol and finally retired in 1991 on medical grounds. He died from pancreatitis as a result of alcoholic liver disease on 29 March 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000058
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Fuller, Robert Charles (1914 - 2004)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Gatehouse, David (1944 - 2003)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Gourevitch, Arnold (1914 - 2004)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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/372250372250
Occupation General surgeon
Details Arnold Gourevitch was a consultant surgeon in Birmingham. He was born in Paris on 24 February 1914, the son of Russian Jewish émigrés. At the outbreak of the first world war his parents fled to England, eventually settling in Birmingham. His father, Mendel, later qualified as a doctor and became a general practitioner in Aston. Gourevitch was educated at King Edward VI School, Birmingham, and then went on to Birmingham University, where he qualified in medicine. Gourevitch joined the Territorial Army in 1938 and was commissioned into the Royal Army Medical Corps. He served with the TA Field Ambulance, part of the 145 Brigade, 48th South Midland Division, and accompanied them to France with the British Expeditionary Force. He was evacuated from La Baule, Brittany, where he had been manning a hospital with the help of a single orderly. He was posted to Leeds as RMO of the 10th West Yorkshire Regiment, before joining the surgical division of No 7 General Hospital. In April 1941 he disembarked at Suda bay in Crete, and established a hospital, near Galatas, west of Canea. The Germans advanced through the island, and Gourevitch was captured and held at a prisoner of war camp at Galatas. Here he organised a hospital for the many wounded. As the prisoners were being transferred to more secure accommodation, Gourevitch and an Australian surgeon decided to escape. They lived in caves and huts as fugitives, and were later picked up by Special Operations Executive and taken to Libya. Gourevitch was awarded the Military Cross for his actions. He was subsequently posted to the 8th Field Surgical Unit, part of the 2nd New Zealand division, and served with the unit at El Alamein. He later took part in the invasion of Sicily and the Italian campaign. He was mentioned in despatches at Monte Cassino and was in Trieste at the end of the war. Following his demobilisation in 1946, he was appointed as a consultant in general surgery at the Queen Elizabeth and Birmingham Children's Hospital. In 1969 he was elected to the Court of Examiners of the College. He presented two Hunterian lectures. In the early 1960s he spent time in Ethiopia, teaching and operating, and helping to support the development of a medical school. In 1973 he took time off to help Israeli surgeons during the Yom Kippur war. Gourevitch was an enthusiastic after-dinner speaker. He enjoyed squash, playing golf and hill walking. A natural linguist, he knew French, Russian, Hebrew and Greek. He also enjoyed painting. He married Corrine Natkiel in 1951. They had three sons (David, Daniel and Samuel) and two daughters (Gillian and Naomi). There are nine grandchildren. He died from pneumonia on 5 February 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000063
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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 Kathel, Babu Lal (1932 - 2002)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-23
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/372355372355
Occupation General surgeon
Details Babu Lal Kathel, known as ‘Brij’, was a consultant surgeon at Grantham General Hospital. Born on 11 November 1932 in Jhansi, India, he was the son of Har Prasad Kathel and Durga Devi Kathel. He was educated at a Christian school and studied medicine at Lucknow University, where he qualified in 1955. He went to England in 1959 to specialise in surgery, doing junior jobs in Ipswich and elsewhere, and becoming a registrar at Whiston Hospital, Liverpool, where he completed a masters degree in surgery from Liverpool University and met his future wife, Cynthia Wigham, a hospital administrator. He was appointed consultant general surgeon at Grantham Hospital in 1973, with administrative responsibility for the accident and emergency department. At that time there were only two general surgeons in Grantham and Brij was on call on alternate nights, and every night when his colleague was ill or absent. It was not long before he was chairman of the hospital management committee. Despite a heart attack in 1975, he continued to work with enthusiasm, building up the surgical service in Grantham. He married Cynthia in 1975 and they had two daughters (Kiran and Camilla) and a son (Neal). An enthusiastic gardener, he enjoyed visits to the Lake District, walks by the sea, freemasonry and Rotary. He died on 25 November 2002 in Grantham Hospital.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000168
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Kelly, John Peter (1943 - 2004)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-23
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/372356372356
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details John Kelly was born in Ayr, Queensland, on 12 September 1943, the son of John Kelly, a general practitioner and superintendent of the Ayr District Hospital. He was educated at the Marist Brothers College in Ashgrove, Brisbane, and studied medicine at the University of Queensland. After junior posts at the Royal Brisbane Hospital, where he met his future wife Shelly Parer, he went to England to specialise in ENT surgery, and was a registrar at the Royal Surrey County Hospital, being on duty when the victims of the 1974 Guildford IRA bombing attack were admitted. Later, he was at the Royal Free Hospital under John Ballantyne and John Groves. On his return to Australia he set up in practice at Southport and Palm Beach, where, in addition to surgery, he developed a passion for windsurfing, gardening and classical music. Early in 2004 he was found to have metastatic colorectal cancer, and died on 23 May 2004, leaving his widow and three daughters (Caroline, Krissi and Georgie).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000169
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching O'Donoghue, Patrick Desmond (1922 - 2004)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Hilary Keighley
Publication Date 2005-11-23 2015-09-14
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/372357372357
Occupation General surgeon Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Patrick Desmond O'Donoghue was a surgeon in Kenya. He was born in Kaiapoi, New Zealand, on 12 May 1922, the second son of Michael and Eva O'Donoghue. His father was a teacher and later schools inspector. Pat attended Christchurch Boys' High School, where he excelled in classics, sciences, literature, languages and sport, particularly cricket and rugby. He had a formidable intellect and he loved to write poetry and prose. He went on to study medicine at the University of Otago. He spent two years in house jobs in Christchurch, where he developed his particular interest in urology, and then, in 1949, sailed to England as a ship's doctor to specialise in surgery. He did a number of junior posts, including one at the Seamen's Hospital, Greenwich, and then became a registrar to Sir Cecil Wakeley at King's College Hospital. There he met Brenda Davies, an anaesthetics registrar at King's, and they were married in 1952. He went on to be a surgical registrar to Neville Stidolph at the Whittington Hospital for two years, gaining extensive experience in genito-urinary surgery, before going on to be RSO at St Paul's under Winsbury-White, Howard Hanley and David Innes Williams. This was followed by six months at the Brompton Hospital under Sir Clement Price Thomas and Charles Drew, who, in 1955, supported him with enthusiasm when he considered applying for a vacancy at St Mary's. However, at the same time a vacancy came up in Nairobi, for which he opted after much deliberation. His first appointment there was as a locum for Sir Michael Wood with the East African Flying Doctor Association, which cemented his love for the country and its people, and his desire to make a life for himself and his family in Kenya. From this he went on to become a partner in the Nairobi Clinic, where he rapidly developed an outstanding reputation as a very professional, capable and compassionate surgeon. He developed free outreach clinics for the Flying Doctor Service, covering remote areas of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, where surgery was often difficult and performed under the most basic conditions. He described operating in Tanzania where the humidity was so great that the door of the room had to be kept open, despite the many onlookers. There were times when the throng of patients delayed the departure of the flying doctor and when the runway lights were switched off at the small airport in Nairobi they had to land unannounced at the international airport, pursued by a meteor of which they were unaware, which landed close behind them. Pat was also chief surgeon at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, doing pro bono surgery for missionaries and many others. The bulk of his work was at the Nairobi Hospital, where he was well respected and liked by colleagues and nursing staff. Although he specialised in urology, he remained a very general surgeon, dealing with a wide variety of injuries, including severe mauling by leopards, buffaloes, rhinos and elephants. People were also flown in with spear injuries from inter-tribal battles and he also treated casualties from the ANC (African National Congress) bombing of the Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi. Occasionally he was asked to escort patients back to their homes in other countries, including a cardinal who needed to be taken back to Rome, where Pat had an audience with Pope John XXIII. In 1968 he became president of the East African Association of Surgeons, and was instrumental in setting up the equivalent of a coroner's court, essential to protect both surgeons and patients in the ever-increasing world of litigation, a move which was approved by the attorney general in 1969. Pat led a very full and productive working life. He loved his surgery. Even after retirement he continued to read his medical and surgical journals with great interest, and wanted to be up to date with the evidence emerging from recent research. Golf was among his many interests: he continued to play until he could no longer walk round the course (he scorned the use of buggies). He loved to learn, particularly poetry and literature. He would often quote, among others, Keats, Yeats, Manley Hopkins and Dylan Thomas. He remembered passages from Virgil - he loved Latin. Pat and Brenda raised their four daughters (Gillian, Jenny, Geraldine and Hilary) in Nairobi. In 2002 Brenda unexpectedly died whilst on holiday in England. This was a terrible blow for Pat. He had described Brenda as his 'life's navigator'. He returned to Kenya for one more year and then moved to be with his daughter Hilary in Cooma, Australia. Pat made Cooma his home for a further year, before he passed away on 22 December 2004, aged 82. He had a strong Christian faith throughout his life and he had a wonderful, quiet sense of humour that remained with him until the day he died. He was an inspirational person.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000170
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Organ, Claude H (1927 - 2005)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-23 2006-12-21
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/372358372358
Occupation General surgeon
Details Claude Organ was a distinguished American surgeon and the second African-American President of the American College of Surgeons. He was born in 1927 in Marshall, Texas, and educated at Terrell High School, Denison, and then Xavier University, Louisiana. Denied acceptance to the University of Texas on account of his colour, he studied medicine at the Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha. After qualifying in 1952 he served in the US Navy, before returning to Creighton to complete his surgical training, rising to become chairman of his department in 1971. There he became famous for encouraging his trainees to pursue bio-molecular research. He then went on to be professor and chairman of the department of surgery at the University of Oklahoma, leaving in 1988 to establish the University of California Davis-East Bay department of surgery in Oakland, now UCSF East Bay department of surgery. He remained there as chairman until 2003. He was chairman of the American Board of Surgery and President of the American College of Surgeons, being honoured by the distinguished service award of that Association, in addition to gaining numerous honorary degrees from all over the world, including the honorary Fellowship of our College. The author of more than 250 papers and five books, he was for 15 years the editor of *Archives of Surgery*. He was a frequent visitor to the UK, and in 1999 was invited to tour the British Isles as the *British Journal of Surgery* travelling fellow to review our methods of surgical training and the role of women in surgery, as a result of which he presented a detailed and perceptive report to the Association of Surgeons in 2000. He died on 18 June 2005 in Berkeley, California, and is survived by his wife Elizabeth Lucille Mays, five sons (Brian, Paul, Gregory, David and Claude) and two daughters (Sandra and Rita). The Claude and Elizabeth Organ professorship at Xavier University has been endowed in his memory.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000171
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Green, Sydney Isaac (1915 - 2005)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Sarah Green
Publication Date 2006-01-13 2015-09-23
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/372362372362
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Sydney Green was a neurosurgeon based in Washington DC and Bethesda. He was born in Glasgow on 10 June 1915 and lived in a one bedroom apartment with his parents and four older siblings, Lionel, Fagah, Mae and Lillah. He often spoke lovingly about his parents Hymen Harry and Sarah Sayetta Green, and told many stories of life at Springhill Gardens. As he played in the courtyard, he would yell up to his mother, 'Ma, throw me a piece!' and his mother would fix him a bread, butter and sugar sandwich and lower it down to him on a pulley which she rigged up on the fourth floor. The family moved to London when Syd was 10. He decided to become a doctor like his brother Lionel and went on to study medicine at Guy's Hospital. He qualified in 1938. During the Second World War, he served as a captain in the RAMC and was aboard the *Dinard* when it was sunk after hitting a mine on D-Day. Later, he crossed the Rhine as surgeon in charge of the Glider Ambulance Unit, 6th Airborne Division, and was one of the first to liberate the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen, an experience which profoundly shaped his feeling toward religion and his Jewish heritage. After the war he returned to specialise in neurosurgery under Hugh Cairns and Murray Falconer and in 1958 went to the United States, where he was in practice in Washington and then Bethesda, working mainly at the Sibley Memorial Hospital. He was much appreciated by his patients and admired by his peers, and was meticulous and incredibly thorough. Intensely devoted to each and every patient, he told how, during the war, he insisted on using more and more blood in an attempt to save one soldier. He was disciplined for his commitment to his patient. Throughout his career, his waiting room was often crowded. He simply wouldn't take shortcuts with any person, much less his patients - but he was well worth waiting for. In 1961 he met a widow, Phyllis Leon Brown. The story goes that she took him on a walk on their second date, and before he knew it they were in a jewellery store choosing rings. They married in 1962 and Syd instantly became a father to three boys, Stuart, Myles and Ken. A daughter, Sarah, was born in 1964. His pride in his family was transparent: family defined his life. He always tried to be home for dinner every night, even if it meant he would have to go back to work late into the evening. He didn't have many hobbies that would take him away from home, but he was passionate about his garden. He would drive up the driveway and, before going inside, he would take off his jacket and lie down in a patch of grass, painstakingly picking out the crabgrass. He would sometimes lose his glasses in the garden, only to find them crunched by the lawnmower weeks later or would come in the house frantically looking for them, only to realise that they were still on the top of his head. He loved to sing off key and tell jokes, good and bad, and to play games. He was intensely alive at every moment and took incredible pleasure in food, whether marmite on burnt toast, over ripe bananas and really crusty bread. Syd had the eccentric habit of grading every meal he ate. While his wife learned to accept a solid B with some satisfaction, other hostesses weren't so thrilled to accept that their meal was anything less than an A+. With Syd, there was no such thing as grade inflation. He was thrilled to see each of his children find his or her life partner, and was passionate about his grandchildren. As Sydney's family tree grew, so did his life force, it seemed. He was famous for travelling to new cities, finding phone books in hotel rooms and looking up anyone who had a name that vaguely resembled his mother's maiden name 'Sayetta'. If he found someone, he would call them and invite them for tea. Whether or not they were related, it was a new person to meet with the potential of connecting with them on some intellectual or emotional level: Syd was a people person to the very end. He saw a great deal during his long life, including two world wars and the horrors of the Holocaust. He was also around to see some of the most fantastic advances in technology and he made sure he kept up with the latest medical breakthroughs, even into his eighties. In 1996 he underwent a pneumonectomy and, after a prolonged battle with chest disease, he died on 14 September 2005. He was 90.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000175
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lowden, Thomas Geoffrey (1910 - 2005)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-13
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/372364372364
Occupation Casualty surgeon Accident and emergency surgeon
Details Thomas Lowden was a casualty surgeon in Sunderland. He was born in Leeds on 25 March 1910, where his father, Harold Lowden, was an engineer and his mother, Ethel Annie Lamb, a schoolteacher. From Leeds Grammar School he won a Holroyd scholarship to Keble College, Oxford, and went back to Leeds for his clinical training, qualifying in 1934. After junior posts in Leeds General Infirmary and the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne (from which he passed the FRCS), he joined the RAMC as a surgical specialist in 1941. He served in India, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, North Africa and Egypt, before taking part in the Sicily landings and the invasion of Italy, rising to the rank of acting lieutenant colonel. He remained for a time in Germany, before returning to specialise in accident and emergency surgery, becoming consultant in that specialty in Sunderland in 1946 and establishing its casualty department. He published The casualty department (Edinburgh and London, E & S Livingstone, 1956), and developed a subspecialty of hand surgery and was an early member of the Hand Club (later the British Society for Surgeon of the Hand). After he retired in 1970 he continued to do locums at Hexham General Hospital. He married Margaret Purdie, a doctor, in 1945. They had a daughter, Catherine, who became a teacher, and a son, Richard, a lawyer. Among his hobbies were mountain walking, especially in Norway, 16 mm photography and the history of the Crusades. He died on 9 October 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000177
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Reid, Douglas Andrew Campbell (1921 - 2005)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-13
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/372365372365
Occupation Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Campbell Reid was a leading hand surgeon. He was born on 25 February 1921 in Cardiff, the son of David William Reid, a general practitioner, and Edith Mary née Smith, a nurse. His grandfather, David Spence Clark Reid, had also been a GP. He was educated at Christ’s College, Finchley, where he played in the first XI in football and cricket, and won prizes for shooting. After premedical studies at Queen Mary College he entered the London Hospital Medical College, which at that time was evacuated to Cambridge. After qualifying he was a house surgeon at Chase Farm Hospital and then at Hackney Hospital, where he worked through the V1 air raids. He was then a casualty officer, assistant anaesthetist and house physician at the London Hospital. From 1945 to 1946 he was a casualty officer at Chase Farm Hospital, and then went on to be an anatomy demonstrator at the London Hospital, passing his primary in April 1946. He then passed the final from a registrar post at Haslemere. He decided to specialise in plastic surgery, first as senior registrar to Sir Harold Gillies at Park Prewett, Basingstoke, and later as senior registrar to R G Pulvertaft at Derbyshire Royal Infirmary and at the Royal Hospital, Sheffield. During this time he was awarded a research prize for an essay on reconstruction of the thumb and was later the first to undertake pollicisation in the UK using the Littler neurovascular pedicle. In 1962 he was appointed consultant plastic surgeon to the United Sheffield Hospitals, the Sheffield Children’s Hospital and Chesterfield Royal Hospital. He won the Frank Robinson silver medal from the United Hospitals of South Manchester in 1980, and was the Sir Harold Gillies lecturer and gold medallist of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons in 1981. He served on the council of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons from 1952 and was on the editorial board of the British Journal of Hand Surgery. He published widely on all aspects of hand surgery, including *Surgery of the thumb* (London, Butterworths, 1986) and *Mutilating injuries of the hand* (Edinburgh, Churchill Livingstone, 1979). Outside surgery he was a keen ornithologist and photographer. In 1946 he married Margaret Joyce née Pedler, who was an archivist and head of her division at the Foreign Office. They had a son and two daughters. In 1969 he underwent an emergency replacement of the aortic valve and in 1982 he retired to Eastbourne. He died on 16 August 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000178
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Rhind, James Ronald (1943 - 2005)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-13
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/372366372366
Occupation General surgeon
Details Ron Rhind was a general surgeon with an interest in urology based in Hartlepool. He was born in Calcutta on 7 July 1943, where his father, James Albert Rhind, was a general surgeon. His mother was Dorothy Cornelia née Jones. From Sedbergh School Ron went to Leeds to study medicine and did house jobs there after qualifying in 1965. He remained on the surgical rotation, working in Yorkshire hospitals and developing a special interest in urology thanks to the influence of Philip Clarke, R E Williams and Philip Smith, to whom he became senior registrar before going to the Institute of Urology as an RSO. He became a consultant surgeon at Hartlepool General Hospital, where he continued to practice general surgery but concentrated increasingly on urological work. Small, dapper and bustling, Ron was full of energy and self-confidence which was sadly dented in 2001 when, already ill with cancer, he was accused of making errors in the treatment of patients with carcinoma of the bladder and faced with a GMC enquiry. He married Valerie Ross, a nurse, in 1968. They had a son and daughter. He died on 12 March 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000179
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Richardson, John Samuel, Lord Richardson of Lee in the County of Devon (1910 - 2004)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-13
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/372367372367
Occupation Physician
Details John Samuel Richardson was a former President of the General Medical Council and the British Medical Association who inadvertently played a key role in the resignation of Macmillan in 1963. The son of a solicitor, he was born on 16 June 1910 in Sheffield, where his grandfather had been Lord Mayor, Master Cutler, an MP and Privy Councillor. He was educated at Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge, going on to St Thomas’s to do his clinical studies, where he won the Bristowe medal and Hadden prize. After qualifying, he did his house jobs at St Thomas’s, winning the Perkins fellowship. He served in the RAMC in North Africa with the rank of lieutenant colonel, and there, in 1943, was assigned to be physician in attendance to King George VI (whom he treated successfully for sunburn), on which occasion he met and treated Harold Macmillan, with whom he became a close friend. After the war Richardson returned to St Thomas’s as a consultant physician, where he became very successful thanks to his considerable charm. In due course he became President of the General Medical Council, British Medical Association and the Royal Society of Medicine, and was the recipient of innumerable honours. Rather unfairly he is probably remembered today not for his many and considerable contributions to his profession but for being on holiday when Harold Macmillan developed acute-on-chronic retention of urine, formed the (wrong) impression that he was going to die of cancer and handed over the reins of government to Alec Douglas Home. Lord Richardson married the portrait painter Sybil Trist, who predeceased him. They had two daughters. He died on 15 August 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000180
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Sanderson, Christopher John (1947 - 2005)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Sen, Adosh Kumar (1942 - 2005)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Shapland, Sir William Arthur (1912 - 1997)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-19 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/372370372370
Occupation Accountant Philanthropist
Details Sir William Shapland, an honorary fellow of the College, was born on 20 October 1912, the son of Arthur Frederick Shapland and Alice Maud née Jackson. Educated at Tollington School, he joined the firm of Allen Charlesworth & Co, chartered accountants. He was given the responsibility of dealing with the accounts of John Blackwood Hodge & Co and Bernard Sunley & Sons, and, later, of advising the chairman, Bernard Sunley, a construction magnate. So valuable was his advice that, in 1946, he was invited to join the group as a non-executive director. In 1954 he became an executive director, succeeding Sunley as chairman of Blackwood Hodge ten years later. In 1960 he helped set up the Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation, which distributes almost £3 million a year to good causes. Charities and institutions as varied as the Scout movement, Charing Cross Hospital and the Wild Fowl Trust have benefited. Among his many honours he was a Waynflete fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and honorary fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford. He died on 1 October 1997, leaving his wife Madeleine and two daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000183
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Shenolikar, Balwant Kashinath (1923 - 2005)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-19
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/372371372371
Occupation General surgeon
Details Balwant Shenolikar was born in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India, on 22 November 1923, where his father, Kashinath Shenolikar, was a lawyer. His mother was Indira née Garde. He was educated at the College of Science of the University of Nagpur, and Carmichael Medical College, Calcutta, where he won prizes and medals at every stage of his career, including the silver medal for surgery and the Ghosh gold medal for pathology in his finals. After qualifying he was a demonstrator in anatomy at the Medical College in Nagpur and lecturer in the Robertson Medical School in Nagpur, before going to Hammersmith as a house surgeon. After his surgical training there and in the Royal Halifax Infirmary, he went to be a lecturer and consultant surgeon in Georgetown, Guyana, where he remained, eventually becoming chief of surgery at the Government Hospital, Georgetown. He had close links with Great Ormond Street, where he was an honorary consultant thoracic surgeon. His first marriage to Joan Barbara Thomas in 1948 ended in divorce. They had a son, who became assistant professor of biochemistry in Houston, Texas, and a daughter. He married Audrey Heyworth in 1958, who predecesased him in 1979. They too had a daughter and son, who qualified MB ChB from Dundee. Balwant died on 4 August 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000184
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Shepherd, Mary Patricia (1933 - 2003)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-19 2007-02-09
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/372372372372
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details Mary Shepherd was a former consultant thoracic surgeon at Harefield Hospital, Middlesex. She was born at Forest Hill, London, on 4 July 1933, the youngest of the two children of George Raymond Shepherd, an electrical and mechanical engineer, and Florence May Savile, whose father and grandfather had been general practitioners in Harrogate. She spent a year in school in Maryland when her father’s professional work took the family there, and this experience gave her a lifelong interest in the United States, to which she frequently travelled throughout her life. In 1946 she won a scholarship to James Allen’s Girls School, did well there, and had no difficulty gaining a place at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, where she again won several prizes, notably in surgery, which was always her first interest, and she qualified in 1957. After house jobs and a registrar appointment in surgery at the Royal Free, and passing her Edinburgh fellowship, she became a registrar at Harefield Hospital, where she spent the rest of her professional life, becoming a senior registrar and then consultant. She enjoyed a valuable year at the Toronto Children’s Hospital from 1966 to 1967, where she worked with Mustard, becoming a joint author of papers on membrane oxygenation and the diaphragmatic pedicle graft, later the subject of a Hunterian Professorship (1969) and her thesis for the MS London. Her professional contributions were considerable, with the publication of many papers, of which that on plombage (*Thorax* 1985) is perhaps the most influential. She maintained a characteristic style, with her striking appearance in theatre garb, her white Jaguar, and occasional performances on the piano accordion at social events. Her wide interests were exemplified by her service on the board of visitors at Wormwood Scrubs prison, and her decision to retire at 52. She had a home in Southwold, where she had always spent much of her free time through a lifelong friendship. Thereafter she divided her time between Suffolk and Cape Cod, United States, pursuing her interest in antiques. Her active life was ended when she developed cancer of the thyroid, with which she coped with characteristic fortitude. She died on 20 October 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000185
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Welbourn, Richard Burkewood (1919 - 2005)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-19
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/372373372373
Occupation Endocrine surgeon
Details Richard Welbourn was professor of surgery at Belfast and then at the Hammersmith Hospital, London, where he developed a reputation for endocrine surgery. He was born in Rainhill, Lancashire, on 1 May 1919, the son of Burkewood Welbourn, an electrical engineer, and Edith Annie Appleyard, a teacher. From Rugby School he went to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and did his clinical studies at Liverpool University. He qualified in 1942 and, after his first house job, joined the RAMC, where he served in field ambulances and a field dressing station, and took part in the invasion of Normandy in June 1944, after which he was posted to general hospitals in Belgium and Germany. He eventually became a graded surgeon in Hamburg, where he remained until he was demobilised in 1947. On returning to England he became a registrar with Charles Wells in Liverpool, becoming a senior registrar in 1948. In 1951 he spent a year at the Mayo Clinic under James Priestley, then pioneering adrenalectomy for Cushing’s syndrome under cover of the newly described cortisone. He returned as consultant lecturer in surgery at the Queen’s University, Belfast, in Harold Rodgers’ department, where he continued to study the role of adrenalectomy in Cushing’s and later in carcinoma of the breast and prostate. He became a consultant surgeon to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, in 1951 and later to Belfast City Hospital. In 1958 he was appointed professor of surgical science. On the death of Ian Aird, Welbourn was invited to the vacant chair at Hammersmith in 1963, taking with him to the new post Ivan Johnston, his senior lecturer from Queen’s, who soon afterwards went on to the chair at Newcastle. His department was active, particularly in endocrine surgery, but supervised all the other disciplines, including urology. A keen teacher, his postgraduate courses at Hammersmith were widely sought-after. He wrote many publications and among other honours was a Hunterian Professor of our College in 1958, received the James Berry Prize in 1970, and was a visiting professor at Yale and many other universities. Among his many interests, stemming from his early involvement with the Student Christian Movement, were the philosophy and ethics of medical care, and he was one of the founders of the Institute of Medical Ethics and was a joint editor of the *Dictionary of Medical Ethics* (Bristol, J Wright, 1977 and London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1981). Unfortunately his last years were marred by a cardiac condition, worsened by the medication he was given. After retiring from Hammersmith in 1983 he was visiting scholar for research at UCLA, where he carried out a study of the history of endocrine surgery, which led to his last book in 1990. In 1944 he married Rachel Haighton, a dentist, by whom he had four daughters, Philippa Mary, Edith Rachel, Margaret June and Dorothy Alice, and one son, Charles Richard Burkewood Welbourn, a surgeon. He had 15 grandchildren. After a series of strokes he died in Reading on 3 August 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000186
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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 Pheils, Murray Theodore (1917 - 2006)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Auden, Rita Romola (1942 - 2008)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Seyal, Nur Ahmad Khan (1920 - 2008)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Harvey, Ronald Marsden (1918 - 2004)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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/372257372257
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Born in London on 28 September 1918, Ronald Harvey trained at King’s College Hospital. He was appointed as a consultant in ENT, first at the Eye and Ear Hospital in 1954, and later at Altnagelvin Hospital, Londonderry, where he remained until he retired in 1983. From an early stage he was involved in the planning of the ENT department at Altnagelvin Hospital, one of the first new hospitals to be built in the new NHS. This was such a success that his advice was always sought in later developments within the hospital, even in retirement. His period as Chairman of the medical staff coincided with the worst period of civil disturbance in Northern Ireland. His leadership was remarkable: he would remain in the hospital for days on end to make sure that the frequent emergency situations were dealt with smoothly. The pressures related not only to treatment of patients with severe and multiple trauma, but to making sure that appropriate surgical teams were available at all times, in spite of difficulties with transport. He was Chairman of the Northern Ireland central medical advisory committee, and he promoted education of undergraduates and postgraduates at Altnagelvin. For this work he was appointed OBE in 1982. Outside the hospital he had many interests: he had a long involvement with the Red Cross, both at local and national level, and was awarded the Red Cross badge of honour. He served on the committee of Hearing Dogs for the Deaf, and got great pleasure from his work with Riding for the Disabled. He served two terms as high sheriff for the City of Londonderry and was a deputy lieutenant for many years. He died on 7 April 2004, and is survived by his wife Eustelle, three daughters, Elveen, Fiona and Maryrose, and four grandchildren, Charlie, Katherine, Andrew and Amy.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000070
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hashemian, Hassan Agha (1915 - 2003)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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/372258372258
Occupation General surgeon
Details Hassan Agha Hashemian was a professor of surgery and head of the department of surgery at the Cancer Institute, Tehran. He was born in Kashan, Iran, on 14 April 1915, the son of Hossein Hashemian, a velvet merchant, and Nagar, a housewife. He was educated at Tehran Boys School, and then received a scholarship from the Shah to study in Europe. He attended the Lycée Francais in Paris and went on to University College London Medical School. He was a house surgeon at St Antony's Hospital, Cheam, and then a resident surgical officer at West Herts. He then moved on to Central Middlesex Hospital, where he was a senior casualty officer, then a surgical registrar in the department of urology and subsequently in the department of neurosurgery. He became a senior surgical registrar in 1948 and was appointed to the senior staff as an assistant surgeon in 1953. In 1956 he was invited to open up a large cancer institute in Tehran, Iran. The institute received many visitors, including Sir Stanford Cade, Sir Brian Windeyer and Sir Francis Avery-Jones. He was a past President of the Iranian National Surgical Society and of the International College of Surgeons. He was a fellow of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Oncological Society. He retired in 2001. He married Marjorie Bell, also a doctor, in 1947 and they had two children - Michael Parviz and Moneer Susan. He died on 3 September 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000071
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hayes, Brian Robert (1929 - 2004)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Hayes, George ( - 2004)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Hendry, William Garden (1914 - 2003)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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/372261372261
Occupation General surgeon
Details William Garden Hendry was a consultant surgeon at Highlands General Hospital and Wood Green and Southgate Hospital, London. He was born in Aberdeen on 30 September 1914, the son of two schoolteachers, and was brought up in a strict Presbyterian household. He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and in 1936 graduated from Marshall College, Aberdeen. After house posts in Portsmouth, Guildford and Stafford, he joined the RAMC, serving as a regimental medical officer to the Honorable Artillery Company (Royal Horse Artillery). He then became a graded surgical specialist, serving in Baghdad and Basra. After a spell in Tehran, he returned to Basra, returning to the UK in 1944. Following demobilisation, he joined the London County Council hospital service at Highlands Hospital (then known as the Northern Hospital), a busy district general hospital. He subsequently worked there for 34 years, developing a high quality surgical unit. He was a general surgeon, but was particularly interested in gastric surgery. He was a pioneer of vagotomy and pyloroplasty, and of the conservative treatment of the acute diseases of the abdomen. He served as Chairman of the Highlands Hospital medical committee and was a consultant member of the hospital management committee, He was a keen gardener and golfer, winning many trophies. On several occasions he competed in the Open. After he retired, he wrote a book on the science of golf. He married Mary Masters, a nurse, who predeceased him. They had three children and eight grandchildren. He died from cerebral vascular disease on 26 September 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000074
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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 Hudson, James Ralph (1916 - 2003)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-28
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/372266372266
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details James Hudson was an ophthalmic surgeon at Moorfields in London. He was born on 15 February 1916 in New Britain, Connecticut, USA. His father, William Shand, was a mechanical engineer and farmer. His mother was Ethel Summerskill. He was educated in Massachusetts, at Winchester County Day School and then Belmont High School, before he went to England, where he attended the King’s School, Canterbury, and then Middlesex Hospital, where he was Edmund Davis exhibitioner. After qualifying, he joined the RAFVR, where he rose to the rank of Squadron Leader. In 1947, he went to Moorfields as a clinical assistant, trained in ophthalmology, and was appointed consultant in 1956 to Moorfields and to Guy’s Hospital. He also held posts at the King Edward VII Hospital for Officers, the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, London, and ran a private practice in Wimpole Street. He retired in 1981. He was a most competent general eye surgeon. An expert in surgical technique rather than an innovator, he devoted much of his time to the diagnosis and management of retinal detachment in an era when subspecialisation within ophthalmology was still new. In this field he made his reputation. For 25 years he presided over the retinal unit at the High Holborn branch of Moorfields, setting new standards by his unique and thorough methods of retinal examination and his meticulous records. His patients included the Duke of Windsor. He taught by example, and juniors soon learned that the soft cough at the end of a case presentation meant that something was not to his liking. He wrote chapters in Matthew’s *Recent advances in the surgery of trauma* and contributed to Rob and Rodney Smith’s *Operative surgery.* He was President of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom and the Faculty of Ophthalmologists, representing that faculty on the Council of the College. He was an examiner in ophthalmology to the Court of Examiners of the College. He was consultant adviser in ophthalmology to the DHSS and a civilian ophthalmic consultant to the RAF. His services were recognised by the award of the CBE in 1976. Abroad he was a respected member of the Société Française d’Ophtalmologie and represented the United Kingdom on several European committees. He was a member of the International Council of Ophthalmology and helped found the Jules Gonin Club, an worldwide association of retinal experts. He was interested in motoring, travel and cine-photography. He married Margaret May Oulpe, the daughter of a translator, in 1946. They had four children (Ann, Jamie, Sarah and Andrew) and five grandchildren (Matthew, Timothy, Mark, Jessica and Olivia). He died after a long illness on 30 December 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000079
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Jayasekera, Kodituwakku Gnanapala ( - 2001)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Johnson-Gilbert, Ronald Stuart (1925 - 2003)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12 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/372269372269
Occupation Administrator College secretary
Details Ronald Stuart Johnson-Gilbert, or 'J-G' as he was known with affection throughout the College, was our secretary from 1962 to 1988. He was born on 14 July 1925, the son of Sir Ian A Johnson-Gilbert CBE and Rosalind Bell-Hughes, and was proud to be a descendant of Samuel Johnson. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy and Rugby, from which he won an exhibition in classics and an open scholarship to Brasenose College, Oxford. During the second world war he served in the Intelligence Corps from 1943 to 1946 and learnt Japanese. On demobilisation he became a trainee with the John Lewis partnership for a year and then joined the College on the administrative staff in 1951, becoming the sixth secretary in 1962, having previously been secretary of the Faculties of Dental Surgery and Anaesthetists. He worked under 13 presidents, from Lord Porritt to Sir Ian Todd, bringing to everything he did an exceptional administrative skill, an ability to write succinct and lucid prose, an unrivalled knowledge of the most arcane by-laws of the College and above all an unruffable charm. He served as secretary to the board of trustees of the Hunterian Collection, the Joint Conference of Surgical Colleges and the International Federation of Surgical Colleges. He was the recipient of the John Tomes medal of the British Dental Association, the McNeill Love medal of our College and the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons medal. He served the Hunterian Collection as a trustee for 10 years. A skilled golfer, his other interests included music, painting, literature and writing humorous verse. He married Anne Weir Drummond in 1951 and they had three daughters, Clare, Emma and Lydia. He died on 23 April 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000082
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wingfield, Charles (1787 - 1846)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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/372274372274
Occupation Vascular surgeon
Details John Richard Kenyon, known as ‘Ian’, was a former consultant vascular surgeon at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. His father, who was a general practitioner in Glasgow, died when Ian was just 13. His mother had been a Queen Alexandra nursing sister on various hospital ships during the Gallipoli campaign. After Glasgow Boys High School, Ian went to Glasgow University to study medicine and soon afterwards joined the RAF. He served in the Middle East and left the forces as a Squadron Leader. During this period he developed an interest in surgery and, following his demobilisation, went to London to further his surgical studies. At St Mary’s Hospital he was an assistant to Charles Rob and, on the retirement of Sir Arthur Porritt, he became a consultant surgeon. He was eventually assistant director of the surgical unit. He remained at St Mary’s until his retirement. He made many contributions to the developing specialty of vascular surgery, particularly on aortic aneurysm, carotid artery stenosis and renal transplantation. In the early 1980s he became President of the Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland. He was married to Elaine. They had no children. He was interested in rugby (he was President of the St Mary’s Hospital rugby club) and model steam trains, building a railway track around the five acres of his garden. He died on 9 March 2004 following a stroke.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000087
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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 Mayo, Charles (1788 - 1876)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-06-12
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/372707372707
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on Dec 29th, 1788, the third son of the Rev James Mayo, MA, Head Master of Queen Elizabeth’s Free Grammar School, Wimborne, and Rector of Avebury in succession to his father and grandfather. The Mayos may be described as a Wiltshire family, members of it having flourished there as clergymen and schoolmasters. To this Wiltshire family also belonged Thomas Mayo, MD, President of the Royal College of Physicians, Herbert Mayo, the distinguished physiologist, and others well known in literature. Charles Mayo received a sound education at the Grammar School under his own father. He became a good Latinist and Grecian and was taught French carefully by a French *émigré*, M Leprince, a man of good family compelled by the exigencies of the French Revolution, which had ruined him, to earn his living as a schoolmaster in England. The *émigré* lived nine miles from Wimborne at Ringwood, and was lent a horse by the head master in order to ride home half-way. “Young Mayo was sent to some appointed spot, whence he had to ride the horse back whilst Monsieur dismounted and finished his journey on foot. But it so happened that, some short time before, a frightful murder had been committed at Parley, a desolate village a mile or two to the south of the road between Wimborne and Ringwood, and the bodies of the two murderers were hung in chains from a gibbet on a heath within a very short distance from Parley, where, although the gibbet has vanished, the memory of the affairs surives to the present day (1876). On one occasion young Charles Mayo, when he was sent as usual to take the horse from the Frenchman, was tempted to leave the high road and go and inspect the remains of the murderers, whose bones and rags swung and creaked horribly in the wind, but when he returned to the high road, the Frenchman, not seeing him at the accustomed spot, had gone on towards Ringwood, and the truant did not return to Wimborne with the horse till long after the appointed time, and with no small fear of the consequences, for his father, amongst other accomplishments, was thought to excel in the use of the birch. Whether or not, however, this anatomical pilgrimage was considered to mark out his future destiny, the profession of medicine was chosen for him, and he began, at the age of fifteen, by being apprenticed to Mr Brown, a city apothecary, who flourished and kept a shop at the corner of Raven Row, Bethnal Green, just on the east of Bishopsgate Street. Mr Brown was a Member of the Society of Apothecaries - a body of men at that time of good culture and social position, amongst whom were many good botanists. The Society kept up the ancient and decent custom of examining the pupils of all its members in Latin at the beginning of their apprenticeship and gave them the opportunity, by means of herborising excursions, of cultivating a practical acquaintance with botany, a taste for which was preserved by the subject of this sketch up to a late period in life. In truth, the change from the life of the Wimborne schoolboy to that of the apprentice in Bishopsgate required some compensation. The business of an apothecary was a kind of compound between a trade and a profession, in which the professional skill supplied dignity, but the trading element supplied the means of living. Remuneration was obtained by supplying draughts, mixtures, and other forms of drugs, which were supplied profusely, and formed the items in a long bill of charges sent in at Christmas. That a medical practitioner shall supply his patients with medicine is reasonable and convenient, but that he shall make the medicine supplied the basis of remuneration, instead of his time and skill, is derogatory to himself and injurious to his patients. We have heard Mr Mayo describe the weak parts of this system, which were - the multiplicity of bad debts which crowded the ledger of the Bishopsgate apothecary, and the heavy cost of drugs, and particularly of bottles, which were taxed, in proportion to the receipts. “Meanwhile, the young apprentice’s life was not a cheerful one. The errand-boy slept under the counter, the apprentice had a bed in an adjoining closet, and the family lived in a dingy back-parlour; whilst a drawing-room upstairs, where the carpet and furniture were covered with brown holland, was used only about twice a year. “The apprentice had the recreation, if he chose, of accompanying the mistress once a week in a hackney-coach to hear a Calvinistic preacher at Clerkenwell. He had a book called ‘Tyrocinium Medicum; or, the Duties of Apothecaries’ Apprentices’, which will give some idea of the trade element amongst the general practitioners of the time (by William Chamberlaine, 1812, in the College Library). The dusting of shelves and bottles was held to be the chiefest of duties, and the writer enforces it on the medical apprentice in the terms in which Ovid excites the young men of his day to brush away the dust of the amphitheatre from off the clothes of the young ladies ‘Et si nullus erit pulvis tamen excute nullum’.” After some three years of this melancholy life young Mayo joyfully became a student at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where, by contrast, the medical atmosphere was ‘elevated and dignified’ in a high degree. He studied anatomy with great ardour, and was for long dresser to Sir Charles Blicke, the founder of our College Library and at that time a leading London surgeon. He also came under the favourable notice of Abernethy, Lawrence, Stanley, and Wormald, as well as others on the high road to repute. After qualifying he went down to Winchester and was elected Surgeon to the County Hospital in 1811, and here till 1870 he gained a high professional reputation both in general surgery and as a lithotomist. Quite at first he met with some opposition at the hospital, and appealed to Abernethy to support him on the eve of his first operation for stone. The great Surgeon wrote as follows: “MY DEAR SIR, - If the Governors of any hospital entrusted me with the care of the patients, I would take care to do my duty to the best of my ability. I would not bleed and purge a patient repeatedly prior to an operation for lithotomy, to the extent you describe, at the suggestion of any man, if it did not appear to me proper. There is but one general rule for a man’s conduct: Do as you would be done unto. I would not defer the operation beyond that time when it seemed most conducive to the patient’s welfare to perform it. You know I use a gorget, which cuts as well as any knife that ever I tried, and has the advantage of being a conductor for the forceps. If I used a knife it should be such a one as Mr Cooper uses. I know not what to advise you to do. You represent your patient as much reduced, and if the subject were unfavourable for an operation, I would rather send him to a London Hospital than run the risk of his dying after an operation, however well you might perform it. This is the beginning of lectures; I have scarcely time to write. Had it happened at any other season I would have gone to Winchester. “Yours most sincerely, J ABERNETHY. *August*, 1812.” The operation was successful, and Mayo thereupon began a remarkable career. His success as a lithotomist reached a climax when he extracted without mishap, in December, 1818, one of the largest stones so far recorded, which weighed over 14 oz. In 1848 he performed two lithotomies in one day, but both proved fatal. His last was on a man of his own age (74) in 1861, which was successful. His procedure and implements, in imitation of Cheselden, were bold and simple. When he came to Winchester he found the best practice in the hands of long-established surgeons, who debarred him from ‘the Close’ and the ‘County’, but among lesser patients his vogue was very extensive. He exhibited in the strongest possible degree that incongruous combination of professional work which linked together Raven Row and St Bartholomew’s Hospital. At one time of the day he would be tying the subclavian artery or diagnosing an obscure fracture, whilst at another he would be busily superintending the dispensing of medicines for sick paupers or club patients, for he took all the practice that offered itself. He performed a number of capital operations for axillary and other aneurysms (some of which were published in the *Medico-Chirurgical Transactions*), cases of complete transposition of the viscera, deep encysted tumours of the neck (*Lancet*), and epispadias. At the age of 84 we find him entering his last case, one of obturator hernia, with a youth’s carefulness and clearness. The practice of the Winchester County Hospital was ‘homely but effective’ under Mayo. He set fractures with rough wooden splints in a manner which it would have been hard to outrival. A contributor to the *Medical Times and Gazette* (1876, ii, 638) wrote: “There was one thing which comes to the remembrance of the writer pretty vividly - the air of the Hospital: a compound of bad breath, unwashed skin, and ulcerated legs, which could be tasted as well as smelt the moment anyone entered the hospital door. Thirty or forty years ago people lamented the frequent deaths after operations from pleurisy or other apparently eccentric causes; but it is easy to see now (1876) that, in a purer air, Mr Mayo would have had a much larger percentage of successful lithotomy cases, whilst many a life might have been spared which was sacrificed to puerperal fever and erysipelas in the hospital and town.” Mayo loved his work, though much of it was beneath his talent. Winchester in his day became a centre of professional education and Mayo’s many pupils were deeply attached to him. In manner he outdid the great Abernethy, whom he is supposed to have copied: he was blunt, outspoken, and testy to the greatest degree, and when made angry, as he often was, he relieved himself and amused his hearers by a stream of half-humorous vituperative epithets of the quaintest and most original description. He was a man of exuberant health and activity, up early and late, and never seeming to feel hunger or fatigue - so, at least, some of his pupils used to think when he summoned them to make post-mortem examinations, dress compound fractures, and to do other unsavoury work at the hospital before breakfast. In 1870 this grand old lion of the ancient school resented the honour done him at his hospital when he was removed from the active to the consulting staff: in 1874 he grew blind, but fully believed himself fit to continue in practice. Latterly he grew less restless and consoled his dark hours by listening to the music of the daily cathedral services. In 1851 his fellow-citizens gave him a grand entertainment in honour of the fortieth anniversary of his hospital appointment. He was elected Mayor of Winchester. His memory remained vigorous almost to the last, and he delighted in telling of his early days. At the, very end of his life he talked of ‘going home’, and died painlessly in great old age at his residence in St Peter Street, Winchester, on Nov 27th, 1876. He married in 1835 Miss Dennis, the daughter of a clergyman, and of his two sons one was Dr Charles Mayo of Fiji, Fellow of New College, Oxford, the other the Rev James Mayo. There were two daughters of the marriage. Mayo was one of the last of those who had been “in practice prior to 1815”. PUBLICATIONS: “Successful Case of Lithotomy.” - *Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1820, xi, 54. “Case of Aneurism in which a Ligature was placed on the Subclavian Artery.” - *Ibid.*, 1823, xii, 12. “Case of Axillary Aneurism Successfully Treated by Tying the Subclavian Artery.” - *Ibid.*, 1830, xvi, 359. “A Report on Lithotomy.” - *Prov. Med. Jour.*, 1846, 439. “Case of Strangulated Femoral Hernia Successfully Treated by Opium.” - *Ibid.*, 1847, 319. “Lithotomy and Hernia.” - *Prov. Med. Jour*., 1846-7. “Cervical Encysted Tumour.” - *Lancet*, 1847, i, 667.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000523
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wormald, Thomas (1802 - 1873)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-25 2012-03-08
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/372378372378
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Pentonville in January, 1802, the son of John Wormald, who came of a Yorkshire family, a partner in Child's Bank, and Fanny, his wife. He was educated at the Grammar School of Batley in Yorkshire, and afterwards by the Rev. W. Heald, Vicar of Bristol in the came county. He was apprenticed to John Abernethy in 1818, lived in his house and became a friend. Abernethy used him as a prosector, caused him to teach the junior students, and made him assist Edward Stanley (q.v.) in his duties as Curator of the Hospital Museum. During his apprenticeship he visited the schools in Paris and saw something of the surgical practice of Dupuytren, Roux, Larrey, Cloquet, Cruveilhier, and Velpeau. When Abernethy resigned his lectureship Edward Stanley was appointed in his place, and it was arranged that Wormald should become a Demonstrator. But when the time arrived Frederic Carpenter Skey (q.v.), an earlier apprentice of Abernethy, was chosen, and 'Tommy', as he was known to everyone, was disappointed. He therefore became House Surgeon to William Lawrence, who was of the opposite faction, in October, 1824. It was not until 1826 that Wormald became Demonstrator of Anatomy conjointly with Skey, and when Skey seceded from the medical school to join the Aldersgate School of Medicine, Wormald remained as sole Demonstrator, and held the post for fifteen years. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital on Feb. 13th, 1838, on the death of Henry Earle, and spent the next twenty-three years teaching in the out-patient department without charge of beds. He became full Surgeon on April 3rd, 1861, on the resignation of Eusebius Arthur Lloyd (q.v.), and was obliged to resign under the age rule on April 9th, 1867, when he was elected Consulting Surgeon. He was Consulting Surgeon to the Foundling Hospital from 1843-1864, where his kindness to the children was so highly appreciated that he received the special thanks of the Court of Management and was complimented by being elected a Governor. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member of Council from 1840-1867, Hunterian Orator in 1857, a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1858-1868, and Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1864. He served as Vice-President in 1863 and 1864, and was elected President in 1865. He married Frances Meacock in September, 1828, and by her had eight children. He died of cerebral haemorrhage after a few hours' illness whilst on a visit to the sick-bed of his brother at Gomersal, in Yorkshire, on Dec. 28th, 1873, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery. A pencil sketch by Sir William Ross (1846) is in the Conservators' Room at the Royal College of Surgeons, and a photograph taken later in life hangs by its side. Wormald was the last pupil of John Abernethy, and his death snapped the link connecting St. Bartholomew's Hospital with Hunterian surgery; but it is as a teacher of clinical surgery and not as a surgeon that Wormald is remembered. The long years first as a Demonstrator of Anatomy and afterwards in the out-patient room made him a teacher of the highest class. He was so perfect an assistant that it was said in jest he ought never to have been promoted. He is reported to have been cool, cautious, and safe as an operator, and in diagnosis remarkably correct, particularly in diseases and injuries of joints. He had some mechanical skill, for he invented a soft metal ring which was passed over the scrotum for the relief of varicocele, known as 'Wormald's ring', and would forge his own instruments. He read but little and trusted almost entirely to observation and experience. He exercised a great influence over students and put a permanent and effective stop to smoking and drinking in the dissecting-room. His manner was brusque but not offensive, and was modelled upon that of his master, John Abernethy, whose gestures and eccentricities he often mimicked. He drew well, and illustrated his demonstrations and lectures with freehand sketches on the blackboard. His style of speaking was easy, clear, and forcible. There was no hurry or waste of words, and he had the art of arresting and keeping the attention of his class, partly by his quaintness and originality, partly by his frequent reference to surgical points in the anatomy he was discussing, and partly by his inexhaustible fund of humour and of anecdotes, many of which were not quite proper. In person he was of a ruddy countenance, with light-brown hair lying thin and lank over his broad forehead, his eyes twinkling and roguish; his coat and waistcoat were 'farmer-like', his trousers tight-fitting, with pockets in which he usually kept his hands deeply plunged; his boots were thick and laced. He looked, indeed, more a farmer than a surgeon. PUBLICATIONS:- *A Series of Anatomical Sketches and Diagrams with Descriptions and References *(with A. M. MCWHINNIE, q.v.), 4to, London, 1838; re-issued in 1843. These sketches from one of the best series of anatomical plates made for the use of students. They are true to nature and not overloaded with detail.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000191
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Partridge, Richard (1805 - 1873)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-25 2012-03-13
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/372379372379
Occupation General surgeon
Details The tenth child and seventh son of Samuel Partridge, of Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. He was born on January 19th, 1805, and was apprenticed in 1821 to his uncle, W. H. Partridge, who practised in Birmingham. During his apprenticeship he acted as dresser to Joseph Hodgson (q.v.) at the Birmingham General Hospital. He entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, in 1827 and attended the lectures of John Abernethy, acting afterwards as Demonstrator of Anatomy at the Windmill Street School of Medicine. He was appointed the first Demonstrator of Anatomy at King's College, London, when the medical faculty was instituted in 1831, and held the post until 1836, when he was promoted Professor of Descriptive and Surgical Anatomy in succession to Herbert Mayo (q.v.). John Simon (q.v.) became Demonstrator in his place two years later, in 1838. On November 5th, 1831, occurred the 'resurrectionist' case in London which was instrumental in causing the passing of the Anatomy Act in 1832. Bishop, Williams, and May brought the body of Carlo Ferrari, an Italian boy, to King's College asking nine guineas for it. Partridge, being on the alert owing to the Burke and Hare case in Edinburgh in 1830, suspected foul play and delayed payment until the police were informed, saying that he only had a £50 note for which he must get change. Bishop and Williams were hanged, May was respited and sentenced to transportation for life. On Dec. 23rd, 1836, Partridge was elected Visiting or Assistant Surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital; he was promoted to full Surgeon on January 8th, 1838, and resigned the office on April 13th, 1840, when he was appointed Surgeon to the newly established King's College Hospital in Clare Market. He remained Surgeon to King's College Hospital until 1870. In 1837 he was elected F.R.S. He held all the chief positions at the Royal College of Surgeons, serving as a Member of Council from 1852-1868; he was a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1864-1873; Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1865; Hunterian Orator and Vice-President in the same year; and President in 1866. He filled many offices at the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society, where he was elected a Fellow in 1828; he was Secretary from 1832-1836; a Member of Council 1837-1838, and again in 1861-1862; Vice-President, 1847-1848, President, 1863-1864. Partridge succeeded Joseph Henry Green (q.v.) as Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy in 1853. He had himself some skill in drawing, having taken lessons from his brother John, the portrait painter. In the autumn of 1862 he went to Spezzia, at the request of Garibaldi's English friends, in order to attend the general, who had been severely wounded in the right ankle-joint at the Battle of Aspromonte. Having no previous experience of gunshot wounds, he unfortunately "overlooked the presence of the bullet", which Nélaton afterwards localized by his porcelain-tipped probe, and it was subsequently extracted by Professor Zanetti. This failure did him much harm professionally, though Garibaldi himself always wrote to him in the kindest terms, and he died a poor man on March 25th, 1873. Partridge has been described as a fluent lecturer, an admirable blackboard draughtsman, an excellent clinical teacher, and one who, though he operated nervously, paid close attention to the after-treatment of his patients. He was a painstaking but not a brilliant surgeon; minute in detail and hesitating in execution - a striking contrast to the brilliant performances of his colleague, Sir William Fergusson. He was somewhat of a wit, and it is recorded of him that, being asked the names of his very sorry-looking carriage-horses, he replied that the name of one was 'Longissimus Dorsi', but that the other was the 'Os Innominatum'. This was to a student. He wrote very little, and his copiously illustrated work on descriptive anatomy was never printed. There is a portrait of him by George Richmond, R.A., which was engraved by Francis Holl. There are in addition a lithograph by Maguire, dated 1845, and a photograph of a picture by an unknown artist representing Partridge attending the wounded Garibaldi; it is reproduced in the centenary number of the Lancet (1923, ii, 700, fig. 10).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000192
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hilton, John (1805 - 1878)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-01 2012-03-22
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/372380372380
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details Born at Sible Hedingham, a small village on the River Colne in the heart of Essex, on September 22nd, 1805, the first son of John and Hannah Hilton. His parents were in humble circumstances when he was born, but his father afterwards made money in the straw-plaiting industry, became the owner of some brickfields, and built the house in Swan Street which is still called Hilton House. In addition to John, the Hilton family consisted of a brother, Charles, who inherited his father's property, and two sisters, one of whom, Anne, married Charles Fagge on December 27th, 1836. Hilton was educated at Chelmsford and afterwards at Boulogne, and became a student at Guy's Hospital about 1824. Guy's separated from St. Thomas's during his student career, and he was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy under Bransby Cooper (q.v.), his fellow-demonstrator being Edward Cock (q.v.), in 1828. The two demonstrators worked together in friendly rivalry, and when Sir Astley Cooper proposed that they should investigate the origin and distribution of the superior laryngeal nerve, Cock undertook the comparative and Hilton the human anatomy side of the question. The results were largely instrumental in causing his election as F.R.S. in 1839. From 1828 Hilton devoted himself so assiduously to the dissecting-room as to acquire the sobriquet 'Anatomical John'. When he was not dissecting or teaching he was making post-mortem examinations, and after sixteen years of this work he had gained an unrivalled knowledge of the anatomy of the human body and had become a first-rate teacher and lecturer. About 1838 he was engaged in making those dissections which, modelled in wax by Joseph Towne, still remain as gems in the Museum of Guy's Hospital. For this purpose Hilton spent an hour or two every morning in making a most careful dissection of some very small part of the body - usually not more than an inch or two. He then left, and Towne copied the dissection in wax. Towne worked alone in a locked room, and the secrets of his art died with him. Hilton was elected Lecturer on Anatomy in 1845 and resigned in 1853. As a lecturer and teacher he was admirable, for he had the power of interesting students by putting the trite and oft-told facts of anatomy in a totally new light, the result of his own observation and experience. He combined, too, elementary physiology with anatomy, for the two subjects had not then been separated. He was, however, a confirmed teleologist and tried to prove that anatomical distribution was due to design rather than to development. He had neither the education nor the inclination to appreciate anatomy in its scientific aspects. Hilton was elected Assistant Surgeon to Guy's Hospital in 1844, Thomas Callaway and Edward Cock being his colleagues, whilst John Morgan, Aston Key, and Bransby Cooper were full Surgeons. He thus had the distinction of being the first surgeon at one of the large London hospitals who was appointed without having served an apprenticeship either to the hospital or to one of its Surgeons. In 1847 James Paget was elected to a similar position at St. Bartholomew's Hospital without either of these qualifications, and the rule previously looked upon as inviolate soon became more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Hilton's period of probation in the out-patient room was of short duration. Aston Key (q.v.) died of cholera after an illness of twenty hours in 1849, and Hilton as the Senior Assistant Surgeon was promoted to fill his place. The ordeal was trying, for he had been an anatomist all his life and had never had charge of beds, but he came well through it. He did not acquire the brilliancy or expertness of the older surgeons, but the very exactness of his anatomical knowledge made him a careful operator. His caution is still remembered by that method of opening deeply-seated abscesses with a probe and dressing forceps after making an incision through the skin, which is known as 'Hilton's method'. He shone especially in clinical lectures, where he brought out the importance of every detail in a case, and so linked them together as to form a continuous chain which interested even the idlest student. He attracted to himself the best type of men, and to be a dresser to Hilton was considered a blue ribbon at the hospital. Yet he was no easy master to serve, for he was rough in speech and was prone to indulge in personalities designed to hurt the *amour propre* of those to whom they were addressed. At the Royal College of Surgeons Hilton was chosen a life-member of the Council in 1854. He lectured as Hunterian Professor of Human Anatomy and Surgery from 1859-1862, but it was not until 1865 that he became a Member of the Court of Examiners, a post he held for ten years. He served as Vice-President during the years 1865 and 1866, and was elected President in 1867, the year in which he delivered the Hunterian Oration. He resigned the Lectureship on Surgery at Guy's Hospital in 1870, though he continued to practise at 10 New Broad Street, E.C. In 1871 he was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria, and in the same year he was President of the Pathological Society. He married twice, and his children survived him. He died at Clapham of cancer of the stomach on September 14th, 1878. Hilton's claim to remembrance rests upon his essay "On the Influence of Mechanical and Physiological Rest in the Treatment of Accidents and Surgical Disease and the Diagnostic Value of Pain". The essay was delivered as his course of Arris and Gale Lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons in the years 1860, 1861, and 1862, with the title "Pain and Therapeutic Influences of Mechanical and Physiological Rest in the Treatment of Surgical Diseases and Accidents". It was published as an octavo volume in 1863; the second edition, with the shortened title *On Rest and Pain*, edited by W. H. A. Jacobson (q.v.), appeared in 1877; the third in 1880; the fourth in 1887; and the fifth in 1892. All the issues except the first are duodecimos; the third, fourth, and fifth contain no material changes. *Rest and Pain* is interesting historically as showing the state of surgery in a large general hospital when its practice was based entirely upon anatomy and was devoid of the assistance it now derives from histology, bacteriology, and anaesthetics. It bears perhaps the same relation to modern surgery as Chambers's *Vestiges of Creation* bears to modern geology and biology. There is much morbid anatomy, and great common sense mingled with very crude speculation. It remains a fascinating work, written by one who, though a master of one side of his subject, was unable to see the whole, partly because he was insufficiently acquainted with advances of his contemporaries, and partly because the means for developing the scientific aspects of surgery were not in existence. The particular points upon which Hilton laid stress in his lectures were the blocking of the foramen of Magendie in some cases of internal hydrocephalus; the cautious opening of deep abscesses; the pain referred to the knee by patients with hip disease and its anatomical explanation; the cause of triple displacement in chronic tuberculous disease of the knee; and the importance of the early diagnosis and treatment of hip disease. All this and many other things which are now the commonplaces of surgery, Hilton set out in *Rest and Pain*, in which the naïve description of his cases and their treatment is by no means the least attractive feature. It was said that no one looking at Hilton would have taken him for a great surgeon: he appeared much more like a prosperous City man. Short, rather stout, and plodding in his walk; dapper in a plain frock-coat with a faultless shirt front, a black stock or bow-tie, a fancy waistcoat festooned with a long gold chain which was hung from the neck; always in boots irreproachably blackened at a time when Warren's and Day & Martn's blackings were at the height of their vogue - such was the picture of Hilton as he sat on the bed of a patient in one of his wards examining an inflamed ulcer with a probe to determine the position of any exposed nerve. A life-size half-length oval portrait of Hilton by Henry Barraud (1811-1874) hangs in the Conservator's room at the College. It was presented by Mrs. Hilton in 1879. There is a photograph in the New Sydenham Society's "Portraits by President" portfolio; and a medallion given by Mrs. Oldham to C. H. A. Golding-Bird, F.R.C.S., in 1894 hangs in the Librarian's room at the College.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000193
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Halton, John Prince (1797 - 1873)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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 Fergusson, Sir William (1808 - 1877)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-01 2012-03-22
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/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
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Busk, George (1807 - 1886)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Hancock, Henry (1809 - 1880)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Travers, Eric Horsley (1910 - 2006)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-06-08
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/372548372548
Occupation General surgeon
Details Eric Travers was a consultant surgeon to Sedgefield and Stockton and Thornaby hospitals. He was born on 7 June 1910 in Brantingham, Yorkshire, where his father John (‘Jack’) Francis Travers was a solicitor. His mother was Beatrice Mary Horsley. The eldest of three, he and his two younger sisters (Mary and Rachael) grew up to enjoy riding and shooting. He was educated at Repton, where he was found to be a talented mathematician and woodworker, enjoying carpentry for the rest of his life. On leaving school he spent a few months in his father’s office, but found the work uncongenial. He told his father: ‘I never want to look at another damned deed again’. So he went to Edinburgh to study medicine, and qualified in 1936. He was house surgeon at Derby Royal Infirmary. He had joined the Territorial Army as a gunner, but found his medical work interfered with his training sessions and transferred to the RAMC. In 1939 he married Beryl Newby, and was about to take up the position of demonstrator in anatomy in Cambridge when the war broke out and he was posted to France, from which he was safely evacuated. He took the opportunity to sit and pass the FRCS. He was then posted to Singapore when news came of its surrender, and his ship was re-routed to the Middle East. There he found himself in a field hospital in Basra, where he practised his small arms skills by going wild fowling, and in the evenings became a fine bridge player. He ended the war as commanding officer of his field hospital. While at this posting a single dose of penicillin was received and he was asked which patient should be given it. He answered, the patient most in need. His staff remonstrated – this patient was an Italian prisoner of war. Travers repeated his orders. He was demobilised in 1945 and then worked as a registrar at the Westminster Hospital under Sir Stanford Cade until 1948, when he was appointed consultant surgeon to Sedgefield, and Stockton and Thornaby hospitals, their first non-GP specialist, retaining this appointment when the National Health Service was set up. He was particularly interested in abdominal surgery. From time to time he acted as medical officer to Sedgefield and Stockton racecourses. Outwardly shy, mild and well-mannered, in hospital he demanded the highest standards for his patients. Outside medicine, he learned to sail dinghies with his eldest daughter Jane and son John, and helped his other daughter, Mary, with her pony. He also bought a small farm. He retired at the age of 60 to a neglected Elizabethan cottage in Surrey, where he and Beryl transformed the interior and recreated the garden. He died after a prolonged illness on 2 September 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000362
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Walker-Brash, Robert Munro Thorburn (1920 - 2006)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-06-08
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/372549372549
Occupation General surgeon
Details Munro Walker-Brash was a consultant general surgeon at Orpington and Sevenoaks hospitals. He was born in London on 15 November 1920, the second son of John Walker-Brash, a general practitioner, and his wife Gloria Lilian née Parker. He was educated privately at Colet Court in Hammersmith and Cliveden Place School, Eaton Square, and then entered Westminster as a King’s scholar, remaining there from 1934 until 1939. He was a chorister for Royal events in Westminster Abbey, including the coronation of King George VI. From Westminster he went up to Christ Church, Oxford, and on to St Bartholomew’s for his clinical training in 1942, spending part of his time in Smithfield during the Blitz, and part at Hill End Hospital, a former mental hospital to which Bart’s students were evacuated. After qualifying, he was house surgeon to Sir James Paterson Ross and John Hosford, by whom he was greatly influenced. He did his National Service in the RAMC, rising to the rank of major, and returned to Bart’s to be junior registrar to Basil Hume. After six months at Great Ormond Street he returned to the surgical unit at Bart’s under Sir James Paterson Ross, and then went to Norwich as registrar to Charles Noon and Norman Townsley, and the Jenny Lind Hospital for Sick Children. He returned to Bart’s in 1954 as chief assistant to Rupert Corbett and Alec Badenoch, progressing after one year to senior registrar on the ‘Green’ firm. He was noted for his dexterity, clinical judgment and teaching ability. At this time senior registrars continued their training in Bart’s sector hospitals, in Munro’s case this was at Southend General Hospital, where he worked with Rodney Maingot, who was also at the Royal Free Hospital, and Donald Barlow, who also worked at the Luton and Dunstable and London Chest hospitals. In spite of spending so much time on the road, both were prolific writers and had thriving private practices. During this period Munro was much influenced by his namesake Andrew Munro, who later moved to the Royal Postgraduate Medical School. Munro’s definitive consultant posts were at Orpington and Sevenoaks hospitals, from 1960 until his retirement in 1984. He used his extremely wide general surgical training and admitted that ‘he was overworked at two peripheral hospitals’. Surgical Tutor at these hospitals for five years from 1970, he said he wrote ‘nothing of importance’. Despite his sizeable frame, his main hobby was riding: he was a show-jumping judge and an early supporter and helper of Riding for the Disabled. He married Eva Frances Jacqueline Waite, a Bart’s nurse in 1945. They had two children, Angela, who became a personal assistant in the legal department at Scotland Yard, and Robert, who emigrated to Auckland, New Zealand, to work as an insolvency accountant. Munro’s wife was diabetic and predeceased her husband, dying in 1985. Following her death, he was befriended by Pauline Smeed. Munro had a fall in May 2006 and died in hospital on 15 September 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000363
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Williams, Henry Thomas Gee (1925 - 2006)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Beck, Alfred (1912 - 2006)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-07-25
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/372551372551
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Alfred Beck was a consultant trauma and orthopaedic surgeon in Cardiff. He was born in Uhersky Brod, Moravia (now in the Czech Republic), on 28 January 1912. His father, Ignaz, was a wholesale merchant and councillor, from a prominent family in the Jewish community which included rabbis and businessmen. His mother was Rose Fürst. Alfred qualified at King Charles’ University, Prague, in 1935 and, after six months as a house surgeon at Ruzomberok, he completed two and a half years in the Czechoslovakian Army, before becoming a surgical registrar in Benesov, near Prague. A year later the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia and Alfred secretly crossed the border into Poland, where he joined a volunteer unit. He first went to France and then to England, where he was accepted at St George’s. He then worked as a doctor at Colindale Hospital, and narrowly escaped death in a bombing raid. After the war he found that his parents, two brothers and several other relatives had been killed by the Germans in Aüschwitz. He specialised in orthopaedic surgery, was for many years a registrar at St Mary Abbott’s Hospital, and then at Cardiff, where for over 20 years he was consultant in charge of the accident unit at St David’s Hospital. After retirement from the NHS he joined an independent medical group in the City of London, where he continued to work until he was 80. He published on stress fractures, devised an instrument for extracting the femoral neck, and a way of measuring disuse atrophy. A man of exceptional patience and modesty, he was a keen gardener, specialising in cacti. He died on 24 October 2006, and is survived by his wife Martha, whom he married in 1953, and his son Richard. His daughter Linda predeceased him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000365
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Patrick G Alley
Publication Date 2009-08-14
JPEG Image
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)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Mawdsley, Alfred Roger (1932 - 2003)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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/372288372288
Occupation General surgeon
Details Roger Mawdsley was a consultant surgeon on the Wirral, Merseyside. Born in Formby, Lancashire, on 2 November 1932, his father was Edward Mawdsley and his mother, Martha Jones. He was educated at St Mary’s College, Crosby, Liverpool, and then went on to Liverpool University. He completed a BSc in anatomy, which introduced him to research. At medical school he received the William Mitchell Banks bronze medal in anatomy and shared the E B Noble prize in 1955. After house jobs in Liverpool, he returned to the department of anatomy as a demonstrator, and completed an MD thesis on environmental factors affecting the growth and development of whole-bone transplants in mice. It seemed that a future in academia was before him, but, whilst working as a house officer for Edgar Parry at Broadgreen Hospital, he had become fascinated with vascular surgery. He held registrar appointments at the thoracic unit at Broadgreen Hospital and at Liverpool Royal Infirmary. He was appointed as a consultant general surgeon to Whiston Hospital, Prescot, in 1970, and as a consultant surgeon in the north and central Wirral Hospital group in 1973, where he remained until he retired in 1992. He had many interests outside medicine. He played golf and completed the Telegraph crossword every day. After a visit to South Africa, he became an expert on that country’s history and politics. When a patient gave him a lathe he set about making a sophisticated clock, every piece of which he made himself. He married Elizabeth Anne Cunningham, the daughter of L J Cunningham, a physician, in 1964, and they had three children, Elizabeth Anne, Andrew and Caroline. There are five grandchildren. A dedicated smoker, his later years were beset by increasing dyspnoea due to emphysema. He died of cancer on 13 September 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000101
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bell, David Millar (1920 - 2006)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-07-25
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/372552372552
Occupation General surgeon
Details David Bell was a surgeon at Belfast City Hospital. The son of William George Thompson Bell, a farmer and mill-owner from Cookstown, Northern Ireland, and Emma Jane Bell, he was born on 20 June 1920. A great uncle, cousin and brother were all doctors. From the Rainey Endowed School he went to Queen’s University, Belfast, in 1939, qualifying in 1945. He completed his surgical training at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Rochester, Guy’s and the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast. He spent the year 1956 to 1957 at the University of Illinois Research and Educational Hospital, Chicago, under Warren Cole. On his return he was appointed consultant surgeon to Belfast City Hospital. There he was involved in the modernisation of the old infirmary, insisting on setting up the casualty department and the intensive care unit. He was an active member of the Moynihan Club and was a former president. In 1956 he married Sheila Bell, a consultant anaesthetist. They had three daughters (Rosemary Margaret, Kathryn Ellison and Gillian Cecily) and a son (David William). A keen horseman, David Bell hunted with the North Down Harriers. He died suddenly at home on 24 September 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000366
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Blumberg, Louis (1920 - 2006)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-07-25
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/372553372553
Occupation General surgeon
Details Louis Blumberg was a consultant surgeon in Cape Town and a respected medical historian. He was born in 1920 and educated in Cape Town, where he graduated in 1944. He went to England to specialise in surgery, passed the FRCS, and returned to South Africa, developing a private practice in Cape Town and becoming a consultant surgeon and senior lecturer at Groote Schuur and Somerset hospitals, as well as a part-time lecturer in the department of anatomy at the University of Cape Town. He subsequently became an associate professor at the Medical University of Southern Africa and principal surgeon at Ga Rankuwa Hospital. He wrote on a number of general surgical topics, including vascular surgery, the anterior tibial syndrome and traumatic pancreatitis, and produced a popular textbook for students *Introductory tutorials in clinical surgery* (Cape Town, Juta and Co., 1986). In the field of medical history he wrote on the war wounds in Homer’s *Iliad* and the diaries of J B S Greathead. He retired in 1994 to Pretoria, where he continued to pursue his interest in medical history. Towards the end of his life he developed Parkinson’s disease, and died in 2006, leaving his widow Hinda.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000367
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Murray, Denis (1793 - 1860)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-08-29 2017-05-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002700-E002799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374965374965
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in January, 1793, he was appointed Surgeon's Mate on the Hospital Staff, unattached, on November 9th, 1812. From May, 1813, he was Hospital Assistant to the Forces. He was gazetted Assistant Surgeon to the 16th Dragoons on June 22nd, 1815, and was present at Waterloo; to the 31st Foot on November 10th, 1831; Surgeon to the 46th Foot on November 23rd, 1832; to the 13th Foot by exchange on June 2nd, 1833; transferred to the 10th Dragoons on December 14th, 1841; to the 44th Foot on March 20th, 1846, and promoted to the Staff (1st Class) on September 18th, 1846. He retired on half pay on September 10th, 1847, and died at Enniscorthy Lodge, Co Wicklow, on March 17th, 1860.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002782
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Murray, Frank Everitt (1874 - 1907)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Muscroft, James ( - 1882)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Muspratt, Charles Drummond (1859 - 1927)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Nance, Henry Chester (1856 - 1927)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Hewett, Sir Prescott Gardner (1812 - 1891)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Simon, Sir John (1816 - 1904)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-01 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/372391372391
Occupation Chief Medical Officer General surgeon Pathologist
Details Born in London on Oct. 10th, 1816, the sixth of the fourteen children of Louis Michael Simon (1782-1879) by his second wife, Mathilde Nonnet (1787-1882). His father, who had been a shipbroker and served on the Committee of the Stock Exchange from 1837-1868, was the son of an Englishman who had married a French wife, whilst his mother was the daughter of a Frenchman who had married an English wife. John Simon was christened at St. Olave's, Hart Street, E.C. - Pepys' church - and began his education at Pentonville, after which he was for seven and a half years at Greenwich under the Rev. Dr. Charles Parr Burney, son of Dr. Charles Burney and grandson of Johnson's friend, where he had John Birkett (q.v.) as a schoolfellow. He then lived with Leonard Molly, a pastor, for a year at Hohensolms, near Wetzler, in Rhenish Prussia, and acquired a good knowledge of German. He was apprenticed, on his return to England in the autumn of 1833, to Joseph Henry Green (q.v.) for the usual fee of 500 guineas. Green was Surgeon to St. Thomas's Hospital and Professor of Surgery at the newly founded King's College, and his pupil attended both institutions. In 1838, a year before the end of his apprenticeship, Green allowed Simon to obtain the M.R.C.S. that he might be appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy at King's College, having Francis Thomas MacDougall (q.v.) as his colleague, and in 1840 he was elected the senior of two Assistant Surgeons appointed on the opening of the Hospital founded in connection with King's College. The junior Assistant Surgeon was William Bowman (q.v.), with whom Simon formed an intimate friendship and from whom he learnt to work on scientific lines. The outcome was a paper read before the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society on June 8th, 1847, on "Subacute Inflammation of the Kidney" (*Trans. Roy. Med-Chir. Soc.*, 1847, xxx, 141) which is illustrated with a plate showing the microscopic appearances described. In 1844 Simon gained the Astley Cooper Prize with a "Physiological Essay on the Thymus Gland" (4to, London, 1845), and contributed to the Royal Society "The Comparative Anatomy of the Thyroid Gland" (*Phil. Trans.*, 1844, cxxxiv, 295). He was elected F.R.S. on Jan. 9th, 1845, and was afterwards a Vice-President. Simon was invited in 1847 to accept the newly created Lectureship on Anatomical Pathology at St. Thomas's Hospital with charge of beds, and he thereupon resigned his demonstratorship of King's College, but retained the Assistant Surgeoncy. Green resigned his office of Surgeon, and on July 20th, 1853, Le Gros Clark (q.v.) and John Simon were elected "to do out-patients". Simon then severed all connection with King's College, and on July 6th, 1863, became full Surgeon to St. Thomas's Hospital in succession to G.W. Macmurdo (q.v.). He resigned his lectureship in 1871 and the office of Surgeon in 1876. As a surgeon Simon was not brilliant, for he was neither rapid nor graceful, but every operation he performed was carefully planned and prepared for. He was in the habit of going frequently to the dead-house and there performing every kind of operation, endeavouring to make improvements on old methods and to learn the exact landmarks and lines of section to be made in novel or unusual operations, particularly where bones were concerned. He repeated Syme's amputation in this manner many times before he performed it on the living patient, and he was the first surgeon in this country to undertake Pirogoff's method of removing the foot. He was particularly apt in the diagnosis of abscesses within bones, which he located with great accuracy. He was equally good in the treatment of difficult strictures of the urethra, and in passing a catheter he almost seemed to confer intelligence on the instrument. He was the first to open the membranous part of the urethra by the same route as was afterwards followed by Edward Cock (q.v.). Simon devised and practised the operation before Cock published his results and substantiated his claim to priority in the *St. Thomas's Hospital Reports* (1879, x, 139). A proof of the paper with Simon's corrections is in the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons. As a pupil of Joseph Henry Green he was an expert lithotomist, using a pointed and extremely stout knife, and a grooved staff. Simon was a great power in the Medical School at St. Thomas's, and it was in some measure due to his incisive and satirical pen that St. Thomas's Hospital was not converted into a country convalescent hospital at the time it was compelled to move from its old site at the foot of London Bridge. Without respect of persons he was active in removing abuses, in introducing reforms, and in extending the area and efficiency of instruction. In particular he was especially active in securing suitable accommodation for the treatment of diseases of the eye when Richard Liebreich (1829-1916) was appointed Ophthalmic Surgeon. At the Royal College of Surgeons Simon was a Member of the Council from 1868-1880, a Vice-President in 1876 and 1877, and President in 1878. Throughout his life Simon was interested in pathology. He was an original member of the Pathological Society in 1846, contributed several papers to its *Transactions*, and was elected President in 1867. The best exposition of his aims and methods in pathological teaching is to be found in his Inaugural Address delivered at St. Thomas's Hospital in 1847, which was afterwards published in his *General Pathology as Conducive to the Establishment of Rational Principles for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Disease,* 1850. Simon said of the latter work that as a result of its publication he woke up to find himself famous - not as a surgeon, but as a sanitary reformer. The judgement proved true; few now think of Simon as a surgeon, all know him as the maker of modern sanitary science in England. Simon was one of the illustrious figures in Victorian medicine. When he began his labours in the field of public health it was not thought to be the duty of the State to seek out and prevent the causes of disease and death in its citizens. There was no administrative authority in the country, central or local, that had any medical officer or medical adviser for sanitary purposes: the development of a science and practice of preventive medicine was quite unknown. In 1848 Simon was appointed the first Medical Officer of Health of the City of London. He was the first and for many years the only Medical Officer of Health in London. He was the head of the Medical Department of the Government from the years of its creation in 1855 to his retirement in 1876, and must be considered the founder and in some directions its creator. Simon's record of ability and industry was marvellous, whilst his imaginative faculty was of a very high quality. Cultivated as a linguist, as a student of Oriental literature, and as the friend of artists, poets, and philosophers, he was able to think grandly, to project his mind into the future, to discern the real meaning of social evils as well as their probable developments, and so to devise schemes of prevention and amelioration which could never have occurred to move plodding, if equally industrious, minds. One can scarcely estimate the importance to civilization and humanity of Simon's work. It may be briefly stated that he drained the city and rendered it healthy, abolished the pernicious system of central cesspools under houses, intramural slaughter-houses, and other malodorous trade establishments, and conducted an active crusade against smoke, intramural graveyards, Thames pollution, impure water, and overcrowded dwellings. To enumerate the full details of Sir John Simon's official career would be to write a history of hygienic reform. For many years after the close of his official life in 1876 as Chief Medical Officer to the Privy Council and afterwards to the Local Government Board, Simon occupied himself with public work and was a Crown Representative on the General Medical Council. In the latter part of his life he gradually and completely lost his sight. He married on July 22nd, 1848, Jane O'Meara, daughter of Matthew Delaval O'Meara, who had been Commissary-General in the Peninsular War. They had no children and she died on Aug. 19th, 1901. Lady Simon was a close friend of Ruskin, who used to call her "dear P.R.S." (Pre-Raphaelite sister and Sibyl). Simon died at his house, 40 Kensington Square, where he lived since 1867, on July 23rd, 1904, and was buried at Lewisham Cemetery, Ladywell. A bust by his friend Thomas Woolner, R.A., was presented to the College by the subscribers to the Simon Testimonial Frund on Dec. 14th, 1876. It is a remarkable presentation of a remarkable head. A photograph in late middle life faces pages 187 in MacCormac's *Address of Welcome*. An excellent likeness in extreme old age is appended to the obituary notice in the *Lancet* (1904, ii, 308) and is reproduced in the *St. Thomas's Hospital Reports* (1905, xxxiii, facing page 393). Sir John Simon was remarkable for the extent of his knowledge. The influence of Joseph Henry Green, to whom he had been articled, coupled perhaps with his early education in Germany, gave a philosophical basis to his thoughts and actions through life. In 1865 he edited the *Spiritual Philosophy* of his old master. He was widely read in the classics and in English literature and became an excellent writer of English prose. In youth he pursued a course of reading in metaphysics and in Oriental languages, and his general culture allowed him to value and to appreciate the friendship of such literary and artistic friends as Thackeray, Tennyson, Rossetti, Alfred Elmore, R.A., Sir George Bowyer, George Henry Lewis, William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Tom Taylor, Ruskin, Sir Arthur Helps, Thomas Woolner, R.A., and Robert Lowe, afterwards Lord Sherbrooke. He was mainly responsible with J. A. Kingdon (q.v.) for the establishment by the Grocer's Company of scholarships for the promotion of sanitary science. Considering his eminence Sir John Simon received little public recognition during his lifetime. He was decorated C.B., the ordinary reward of a faithful public servant, on his retirement in 1876, but it was not till Queen Victoria's Jubilee that he was promoted K.C.B. The Harben Medal of the Royal Institute of Public Health was awarded him in 1896, and the Buchanan Medal of the Royal Society in November, 1897. Publications: Simon's chief reports and writings on sanitary objects were issued collectively by subscription by the Sanitary Institution of Great Britain in two volumes in 1875. *English Sanitary Institutions Reviewed in their Course of Development and in Some of their Political and Social Relations,* 8vo, London, 1890. A charmingly written and fair-minded account of the development of public health in England from the earliest times. It appears now to be somewhat difficult to obtain. *Personal Recollections of Sir John Simon, K.C.B.* This was privately printed in 1898. It consists of 34 pages printed by Wiltons Ltd., 21 & 22 Garlick Hill, E.C., and is dated Oct. 4th, 1894. It was revised on Dec. 2nd, 1903, "in blindness and infirmity". The Library of the Royal College of Surgeons possesses a copy enriched by the author's corrections. Bibliography in the *Catalogues of the Surgeon General's Library,* series i and ii.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000204
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hollis, David George Hanbury (1924 - 2006)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Neil Weir
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/372708372708
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details David Hollis was an ENT surgeon in south London. He was born in Northwood, Middlesex, on 16 June 1924, the elder son of Frederick James Hollis, a priest and university lecturer, and Christina Mary née Hanbury. Educated at Ovingdean Preparatory School, Brighton, and Lancing College, David Hollis read medicine at King’s College, London, and King’s College Medical School. Here he was influenced by those two ENT giants, Sir Victor Negus and Sir Terence Cawthorne, which, coupled with his own childhood experience of otitis media, led him to choose ENT as his specialty. He was a house surgeon and later a registrar in ENT at King’s College Hospital and senior registrar at the Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital. He was subsequently appointed consultant ENT surgeon to the Lewisham, North Southwark and Greenwich Health Authorities. He married Barbara Moore, a radiotherapist, later to become a consultant, in 1947. They had two sons, one of whom became a child psychiatrist, and two daughters (the eldest of whom became a state registered nurse and later a chiropractor). His principal interests outside his work were campanology, horticulture and cycling. He died on 28 September 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000524
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Selsnick, Frances (1917 - 2007)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bowen, David Ivor (1937 - 2007)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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/372711372711
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details David Ivor Bowen was a consultant ophthalmologist in Harrogate, Yorkshire. He was born on 7 March 1937 and studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He went on to St Thomas’ Hospital for his clinical training. After junior posts, he travelled around the world as a ship’s doctor, before deciding to specialise in ophthalmology. He was a senior registrar on the Cardiff/Swansea rotation, before becoming a lecturer at St Paul’s Eye Hospital in Liverpool. In 1972 he was appointed as a consultant in Harrogate. He was secretary and president of the North of England Ophthalmological Society and president of the Harrogate Medical Society. He was a keen distance runner and enjoyed golf, fell-walking, classical music and poetry. His second wife, Clare, died soon after he retired in 2001. He died from cancer on 5 February 2007. Enid Taylor
Resource Identifier RCS: E000527
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Baird, John ( - 1844)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-01-16 2016-02-05
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/372761372761
Occupation General surgeon
Details Practised at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and his death was reported to the Council in July, 1844, the authority for the report being The Times for June 19th, 1844. [2] [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] MRCS under the name John Forster (He changed his surname to BAIRD c.1821/2); [2] In 1830 opened an Egyptian mummy belonging to the Literary & Philosophical Society of Newcastle see letter inserted at life of *Greenhow* (T.M.) i.e. **his** entry]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000578
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Thomas, William Lloyd (1791 - 1855)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Mantell, Gideon Algernon (1790 - 1852)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-08-07
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/372715372715
Occupation General surgeon Geologist
Details Born on Feb 3rd, 1790, the third son of Thomas Mantell, and Sarah Austin of Peckham. His father, who traced his descent from Walter Mantell in 1540, was a cordwainer living in St Mary’s Lane, now called Station Street, Lewes. He is still remembered as the builder of the first Wesleyan Chapel in the town. Gideon Mantell was educated at an Academy in Lewes founded by John Button, and afterwards at a school in Wiltshire, his uncle being the Baptist minister at Westbury and Swindon. He was apprenticed to James Moore, a surgeon in Lewes, and then proceeded to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, taking with him a collection of fossils from the chalk which had already attracted his attention and interest. He returned to Lewes as soon as he had qualified, and entered into partnership with his former master, James Moore, and lived in Castle Place; he became Medical Officer of several parishes in the neighbourhood of Lewes and was appointed Surgeon to the Royal Ordnance Hospital at Ringmer. Encouraged by James Parkinson, a surgeon living at Hoxton who had published in 1804 *Organic Remains of a Former World*, he began to study geology seriously, and in 1815 published at Lewes an octavo volume, *A Sketch of the Geological Structure of the South-Eastern Part of Sussex*. In 1822 *The Fossils of the South Downs* appeared, with 42 plates engraved by Mrs Mantell and with the King as patron. In 1825 he contributed a valuable paper to the Royal Society on the Iguanodon, and with this fossil his name is now inseparably connected. In November, 1825, he was elected FRS. His next book, also illustrated, is known as *The Fossils of Tilgate Forest*, though it was published under the title *Illustrations of the Geology of Sussex* in 1827. Mantell in the meantime continued his medical work, took an active part in securing a free pardon for Hannah Russell in the Burwash case, and published in 1827 *Observations on the Medical Evidence Necessary to Prove the Presence of Arsenic in the Human Body*. In 1831 he became acquainted with Benjamin Silliman (1779-1866), Professor at Yale University and founder in 1818 of the *American Journal of Science*; the acquaintance ripened into a lifelong friendship and was the means of the honorary LLD being conferred upon him by the University of Yale in 1834. In 1833 he published *The Geology of the South-East of England*, with a dedication to the King, and in the same year he moved to 20 Steyne, Brighton, partly to reduce the labour of an extensive country practice, and partly on account of his health, which had given cause for anxiety. The move proved unsatisfactory from a professional point of view, and Mantell had serious thoughts first of emigrating to America, and later of buying a practice in London. He published in 1837 *Thoughts on a Pebble*, dedicated to his younger son, Reginald Neville Mantell; the book became very popular as a gift book, and there was a seventh edition in 1846. In September, 1837, he bought a practice at Clapham Common and sold a Geological Museum which he had collected with much pains. It was bought by the British Museum for £4000. *The Wonders of Geology* appeared in 1838 and soon established itself as a popular favourite. The eighth edition was published in England twelve years after his death; an edition appeared in America in 1839, and Dr Burchard, of Bonn, translated it into German. He also wrote the sketch of the “Geology of Surrey” which was published in Brayley’s *Topographical History of Surrey* in 1840. The following year, 1841, found him busy as a Member of the Councils of the Linnean and of the Geological Societies, and as Secretary of the Geological Section of the Royal Society. He was also one of the promoters of the Clapham Athenæum, which was established in 1841. With all these distractions it is clear that he did not neglect his medical practice, for his friends and patients at Clapham Common presented him with a purse of one hundred guineas as a birthday gift on Feb 3rd, 1844. He moved from his house in the Crescent, Clapham Common, in the autumn of 1844, to 19 Chester Square, SW. In this year he published *The Medals of Creation, or First Lessons in Geology and in the Study of Organic Remains* (2 vols, 8vo, illustrated, London, 1844). *The Thoughts on Animalcules, or a Glimpse of the Invisible World revealed by the Microscope*, with 12 coloured plates and 7 woodcuts, was issued in 1846, and in the same year *A Day’s Ramble in and about the Ancient Town of Lewes*, a small octavo with a frontispiece and vignette. *The Geological Excursions round the Isle of Wight and along the Adjacent Coast of Dorsetshire: illustrative of the most Interesting Geological Phenomena and Organic Remains* appeared first in 1847. A second edition with a supplementary chapter was published in 1850, and a third edition under the superintendence of Rupert Jones, FRS, was issued posthumously in 1854. Mantell was granted a pension of £100 a year from the Civil List in 1852. He died at his house, 19 Chester Square, on Nov 11th, 1852, and was buried in Norwood Cemetery. The memorial tablet in St Mary’s Church, Lewes, gives the year of his death incorrectly as 1853. Mantell married in May, 1816 - by special licence, for she was under age - Mary Ann, daughter of George Edward Woodhouse, of Maida Hill, London, W. She was educated to become a sufficiently good artist to illustrate some of her husband’s books and papers. She outlived him, but there is no mention of her at the time of his death, though she appears to have been living at Cambridge. A half-length portrait of her from a painting is in the possession of W M Woodhouse, Esq. There were two sons and two daughters of the marriage. Walter, the elder son, was appointed in 1848 “Commissioner for the allotment and purchase of lands in the middle island of New Zealand”. He died without issue. Reginald, the second son, was a pupil of Isambard K Brunel. He was engaged in railway construction in England and the United States. He died of cholera, unmarried, at Allahabad in 1857; and was superintending the building of a bridge over the Jumna when the Mutiny broke out. The elder daughter married John Parker, publisher to the University of Cambridge; the younger daughter died unmarried. Mantell was one of the many members of the medical profession who have made for themselves imperishable names in various branches of science entirely alien to their practice. He was amongst the pioneers in the study of fossils at a time when such study was considered impious. Ill health and a marked tendency to hypochondriasis must have made him “gey ill to live with” and accounted for the unnecessary acrimony which marks some of his discussions. A careful post-mortem examination was made of his body. The results are described in the *Medico-Chirurgical Transactions* for 1854, xxxvii, 167-170, with plates iv, and v. His spinal column is preserved in the College Museum (No. 4808/i) as an example of extreme lateral curvature which is remarkable from the fact that it does not appear to have been very noticeable during life. There is also a plaster cast of the spine in the College Museum (Special Pathology Part xxviii) with the number 4808/2. A kitcat portrait of Mantell is in the possession of W M Woodhouse, Esq, also a half-length portrait dated 1837 by J Masquerier, engraved by Samuel Stepney. Further portraits are one in a LLD gown from an engraving by W T Davey, and a small wax medallion executed in 1841 for presentation to Professor Silliman; but this was not considered good enough for the purpose. A fine engraving by W T Davey from a drawing by Senties is in the College Collection.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000531
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Banks, Sir William Mitchell (1842 - 1904)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-11
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372931372931
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Edinburgh on Nov 1st, 1842, the son of Peter S Banks, Writer to the Signet. He received his early education at Edinburgh Academy and passed from there to the University of Edinburgh. Graduated MD with honours, and won the Gold Medal for his thesis on the Wolffian bodies in 1864. Acted for a time as Prosector to Professor John Goodsir and later as Demonstrator of Anatomy under Professor Allen Thomson at the University of Glasgow. Served as dresser and as House Surgeon to James Syme (qv) at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, and visited Paraguay to act as Surgeon to the Republican Government. He became assistant to E R Bickersteth (qv) at Liverpool in 1868 in succession to Reginald Harrison (qv), and joined the staff of the Infirmary School of Medicine, first as Demonstrator and afterwards as Lecturer on Anatomy. This post he retained with the title of Professor when the Infirmary School was merged in University College, Liverpool. He resigned the Chair in 1894 and was then honoured with the title of Emeritus Professor of Anatomy. Meanwhile, having served the offices of Pathologist and Curator of the Museum, he succeeded Reginald Harrison as Assistant Surgeon to the Royal Infirmary, Liverpool, in 1875, served as full Surgeon from 1877 till Nov, 1902, when he resigned and was appointed Consulting Surgeon. The Committee of the Infirmary paid him the unique compliment of assigning him ten beds in his former wards. Mitchell Banks was the first representative of the Victoria University on the General Medical Council, and was a Member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England from 1890-1896. He was one of the founders of the Liverpool Biological Association and was elected the first President. He was placed on the Commission of the Peace as JP of Liverpool in 1892 and in 1899 he received the honour of knighthood. He was an honorary LLD of Edinburgh. He married in 1874 Elizabeth Rathbone, daughter of John Elliot, a merchant of Liverpool, and by her had two sons, one of whom survived him. He died suddenly at Aix-la-Chapelle on Aug 9th, 1904, whilst travelling home from Homburg, and was buried in the Smithdown Road Cemetery in Liverpool. Mitchell Banks deserves recognition both as a surgeon and as an organizer. The modern operation for removal of the cancerous breast is largely due to his practice and advocacy. He recommended, in the face of strenuous opposition, an extensive operation that should include removal of the axillary glands when most surgeons were contented with local amputation. He drew attention to his method in 1878 and made it the topic of the Lettsomian Lectures at the Medical Society of London in 1900. As an organizer he formed one of the band who built up the fortunes of the Medical School at Liverpool. Finding it a provincial school at a very low ebb, Banks and his associates raised it by dint of hard work first to the rank of a medical college and, finally, to that of a well-equipped medical faculty forming part of a modern university. The plan involved the rebuilding of the infirmary, and Banks was a member of the medical deputation which, with characteristic thoroughness, visited many continental hospitals to study their design and equipment before the foundation stone of the Liverpool building was laid in 1887. Mitchell Banks had a sound knowledge of the history of medicine. His collection of early medical works was sold in seventy-eight lots by Messrs Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge in June, 1906. He wrote good English in a pleasant style, as may be seen in “The Gentle Doctor”, a scholarly address to the students of the Yorkshire College at Leeds in Oct, 1892, and in “Physic and Letters”, the Annual Oration delivered before the Medical Society of London in May, 1893. His portrait, painted by the Hon John Collier, was presented to him by his colleagues and students, when he retired from active duties at University College, Liverpool. “The William Mitchell Banks Lectureship” in the University of Liverpool was founded and endowed by his fellow-citizens in his memory in 1905. Publications:- A paper dealing with a more extensive operation in cases of cancer of the breast appeared in the *Liverpool and Manchester Medical and Surgical Reports*, 1878, 192. *Some Results of the Operative Treatment of Cancer of the Breast*, Edinburgh, 1882. *The Gentle Doctor*, Liverpool, 1893. *Physic and Letters*, Liverpool, 1893.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000748
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cother, William ( - 1852)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Pettigrew, Thomas Joseph (1791 - 1865)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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/372764372764
Occupation General surgeon
Details The son of William Pettigrew, whose ancestor, the Gowan Priest ‘Clerk Pettigrew’, is mentioned by Sir Walter Scott in *Rob Roy*. The father was a Naval Surgeon who served in the *Victory* before the time of Nelson. Thomas was born in Fleet Street, London, on Oct 28th, 1791, and was educated at a private school in the City. He began to learn anatomy at 12, left school at 14, and after acting for two years as assistant to his father, the parish doctor, was apprenticed at the age of 16 to John Taunton, founder of the City of London Truss Society. He afterwards entered the United Borough Hospitals and acted as Demonstrator of Anatomy at the private medical school kept by his master - Taunton. He was elected a Fellow of the Medical Society of London in 1808, and was made one of the Secretaries in 1811 after a contest with Dr Birkbeck. In 1813 he was appointed registrar and took up his residence in the Society’s house in Bolt Court, Fleet Street. In 1808, as one of the founders of the City Philosophical Society, which met in Dorset Street, Salisbury Square, he gave the first lecture, choosing “Insanity” as his subject. In 1810 he helped to form the Philosophical Society of London and gave the inaugural address, “On the Objects of Science and Literature and the Advantages ensuing from the Establishment of Philosophical Societies”. In 1813 he was appointed, by the influence of Dr John Coakley Lettsom, Secretary of the Royal Humane Society, a post he resigned in 1820, after receiving in 1818 the Society’s medal for the restoration of a person who was apparently dead. In 1819, together with Chevalier Aldini of the Imperial University of Wilna, Pettigrew engaged in experiments at his house 22, Spring Gardens on the effects of galvanism in cases of suspended animation. He became known to the Duke of Kent whilst he was Secretary of the Humane Society, who made him successively Surgeon Extraordinary and Surgeon in Ordinary to himself and, after his marriage, Surgeon to his wife, the Duchess of Kent. In the latter capacity he vaccinated her daughter, afterwards Queen Victoria, the lymph being obtained from one of the grandchildren of Dr Lettsom. Shortly before his death the Duke recommended Pettigrew to his brother, the Duke of Sussex. The latter appointed him Surgeon and occupied him in cataloguing his library, which was housed in Kensington Palace. The first volume of the catalogue was published in two parts in 1827 with the title *Bibliotheca Sussexiana*. The second volume appeared in 1839. The undertaking was on too large a scale, the theological portion of the library alone was dealt with, and the catalogue remained unfinished when the books were sold in 1844 and 1845. The catalogue was well received. Pettigrew was honoured with the diploma of Doctor of Philosophy by the University of Göttingen on Nov 7th, 1826. In 1816 Pettigrew became Surgeon to the Dispensary for the Treatment of Diseases of Children then newly founded in St Andrew’s Hill, Doctors’ Commons. The Dispensary afterwards developed into the Royal Hospital for Children and Women in the Waterloo Road. He resigned the office in 1819, when he was elected Surgeon to the Asylum for Female Orphans. In this year, too, he delivered the Annual Oration at the Medical Society, taking as his subject “Medical Jurisprudence”, and pointing out the neglected position occupied by forensic medicine in England. He moved from Bolt Court to Spring Gardens in 1818 and became connected with the West London Infirmary, which had been founded by Dr Benjamin Golding that year in St Martin’s Lane. The Infirmary was the immediate forerunner of the Charing Cross Hospital. Pettigrew was appointed the first Surgeon when the hospital was opened in 1822, and held office until 1836. He lectured on physiology from 1834-1836 and on anatomy from 1835-1836. He resigned his post of Surgeon and Lecturer in consequence of a quarrel with the Board of Management, and for some years afterwards he continued to practise in Savile Row, where he lived from 1825-1854. Pettigrew was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1827, and 1830 he took a leading part in securing the election of the Duke of Sussex as President on the retirement of Davies Gilbert. For many years before his death he was a prominent Freemason. Pettigrew’s love for antiquarian knowledge grew on him as he aged. His attention to the subject of embalming began in 1822, and in 1834 he published a work on the subject. When the British Archaeological Association was founded in 1843, he at once took a leading part in its management. He acted as Treasurer and was a Vice-President, and the town meetings were held at his house for some years. He married in 1811 and had twelve children, three sons and three daughters surviving him. One of his sons was William Vesalius (qv); a second, Frederick Webb, was admitted MRCS on June 3rd, 1845, but did not obtain the Fellowship of the College. He died on Nov 23rd, 1865, at his house, 16, Onslow Gardens, where he lived after the death of his wife in 1854. There is a steel engraving of Pettigrew, No 9, in the fourth volume of the *Medical Portrait Gallery*. The portrait in the College Collection is said to be a good likeness. PUBLICATIONS: *Views of the Base of the Brain and the Cranium*, 4to, London, 1809. *Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the late John Coakley Lettsom, MD*, 3 vols, 8vo, London, 1817. *History of Egyptian Mummies and an Account of the Worship and Embalming of the Sacred Animals*, 4to, London, 1834. Biographies of physicians and surgeons in Rose’s *Biographical Dictionary* down to Claude Nicholas le Cat. To this work he contributed 540 articles. *Bibliotheca Sussexiana*. A descriptive Catalogue, accompanied by Historical and Biographical Notices, of the Manuscripts and Printed Books contained in the Library of His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex in Kensington Palace, by Thos Joseph Pettigrew, vol i, part 1, finely illustrated with full-page illustrations and a portrait, comprising Burman Manuscripts, Singhalese Manuscripts, Arabic Manuscripts, English, Dutch, and Italian Manuscripts, Latin Manuscripts, Greek Manuscripts, etc, 2 vols in 8 parts, London: vol i, 1827; vol ii, 1839. *Memoir of John Cheyne*, 8vo, London, 1839. *The Medical Portrait Gallery*, 4 vols, 4to, London, 1840. *On Superstitions connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery*, 8vo, London, 1844. *Life of Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson*, 2 vols, London, 1849. *An Historiall Expostulation… by John Halle*, edited for the Percy Society, 1844.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000581
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wilson, Sir William James Erasmus (1809 - 1884)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-22 2014-07-23
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/372394372394
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
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Nance, James (1818 - 1875)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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 Nankivell, Arthur Wolcot ( - 1899)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Nash, James George (1804 - 1879)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Nasmyth, Alexander ( - 1848)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-08-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002700-E002799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374973374973
Occupation Anatomist Dental surgeon
Details Alexander Nasmyth came of the Scottish family of that name. He practised latterly at 13A George Street, Hanover Square, W, and was well known as an anatomist and surgeon-dentist. He made valuable donations to the Royal College of Surgeons Museum, and is included in Richard Owen's "Lists of Donors of Specimens presented to the Museum, 1832-1856". The membrane covering the enamel of an unworn tooth is named after him 'Nasmyth's membrane', and his work on the anatomy of the teeth was of high importance. Nasmyth worked harmoniously with Edwin Saunders (qv) in connection with the dental treatment of cleft palate. He became paralysed in the spring of 1846, when Saunders undertook his practice at an hour's notice and carried it on successfully. At the time of his death he was Surgeon-Dentist to the Queen and the Prince Consort, and Member of the Linnean, Royal Medico-Chirurgical, Zoological, Microscopical, and Ethnological Societies. Whilst practising at 13A George Street, Hanover Square, he had a house at Great Malvern, where he died on August 4th, 1848. His lithograph portrait is in the College Collection. Publications: Nasmyth contributed many valuable papers to the *Edin Med and Surg Jour* between 1830 and 1840. *Researches on the Development, Structure and Diseases of the Teeth*, 8vo, 7 plates, London, 1839. There is an historical introduction republished at Baltimore by the American Society of Dental Surgeons, 8vo, 1842. A continuation of the preceding, 8vo, 10 plates, London, 1849. (This is posthumous.) "Report of a Paper on the Cellular Structure of the Ivory, Enamel and Pulp of the Teeth, as well as of the Epithelium," 8vo, London, 1839; reprinted from *Brit Assoc Rep*. "On the Structure, Physiology and Pathology of the Persistent Capsular Investments and Pulp of the Tooth." - *Med-Chir Trans*, 1839, xxii, 310; and other papers to the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society. *Three Memoirs on the Development and Structure of the Teeth and Epithelium*, 9 plates, London, 1841. In the College Library are the Appendix in MS to the *Researches on the Teeth*, also the original sketches for plates illustrating "Cellular Structure of the Teeth". Nasmyth contributed papers to the Geological and Ethnological Societies on the teeth and subjects connected with them. To the Institut de Paris he contributed "Memoir on the Cellular Structure of the Teeth and Epithelium", and he was Lecturer to the Royal Institution on "The Structure of Recent and Fossil Teeth".
Resource Identifier RCS: E002790
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Murray, Richard William Cordiner (1907 - 2003)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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/372293372293
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Dick Murray was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Inverness. He was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham, on 20 March 1907. His father, who was a general practitioner, was away serving in the RAMC during the first world war for much of Dick’s early childhood. He was educated at Sherborne and Caius College, Cambridge, from which he went to Birmingham for his clinical studies. After junior posts, he specialised in surgery, particularly orthopaedics, then a fledgling specialty. He was a resident surgical officer at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital, Oswestry under Naughton Dunn, Harry Platt and Sir Reginald Watson Jones. In 1940, he was appointed by the Scottish Office to take charge of the Emergency Medical Services Hospital at Killearn near Glasgow. In 1943, he was appointed as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon to Raigmore Hospital, near Inverness. He travelled far and wide in the Highlands and islands, establishing clinics and offering corrective surgery to the many local people who had disabling conditions of the limbs and spine. His practice built up and he added consultant colleagues along the way. He had a kind and empathetic nature, but developed increasingly severe migraine, which led to his early retirement in 1969. He was a talented oil painter and exhibited widely in the north of Scotland. He married Olwen secretly, at a time when resident surgical staff were not allowed to get married. They had one daughter, four grandchildren and five great grandchildren. She predeceased him in 1988. He died on 20 August 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000106
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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/372294372294
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details John Ogg was a consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Salisbury Infirmary and Odstock Hospital, Wiltshire. He was born on 19 November 1921 in Oxford, where his father, David Ogg, was the Regius professor of history. He went to the London Hospital for his clinical studies. After house jobs at the London he completed his National Service in the RNVR and returned to specialise in ophthalmology, training in Oxford and at Moorfields. There, as a senior registrar, he met and married Doreen, then a theatre sister. He first went to Salisbury as a locum, his predecessor having died suddenly. He was appointed to the definitive post in the same year. For most of his time in Salisbury he was single-handed and served a very large catchment area. He had many interests: he was a keen radio ham, a member of the Magic Circle, and a skilled cabinet maker who designed and made miniature dolls’ houses and automata. His scale model of Salisbury Cathedral is to be seen in the cathedral to this day. In retirement he became a skilled painter. John and Doreen bought a near derelict croft on the Hebridean island of Coll in the 1960s, which formed the focus of many family holidays and was the subject of his book *House in the Hebrides* (Salisbury, Cowrie Press, 2004). He died on 19 February 2005 from pneumonia following a small stroke. He is survived by Doreen and four children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000107
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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 Nesbitt, Francis Albert (1832 - 1866)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Wells, Sir Thomas Spencer (1818 - 1897)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-22 2012-03-14
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/372395372395
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
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Marshall, John (1818 - 1891)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-22 2012-03-13
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/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
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Vellacott, Keith David (1948 - 2007)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-02-10
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/372771372771
Occupation General surgeon
Details Keith Vellacott was a consultant surgeon at Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport. He was born in Tavistock, Devon, on 25 February 1948, the son of Douglas Hugh Vellacott, a surgeon and a fellow of the College, and Lorraine Freda Tibbs. From Kelly College, Devon, Keith followed his father and grandfather to the London Hospital, where he qualified in 1972. He was a house surgeon to John Blandy in the urology department at the London, and a house physician in paediatrics. He then became a casualty officer and a demonstrator in anatomy at Bristol Royal Infirmary, where he went on to the senior house officer rotation, from which he passed the FRCS. After a year as registrar in general surgery at Cheltenham, he spent two years in Nottingham, where he worked with Jack Hardcastle on the development of flexible fibreoptic sigmoidoscopy (publishing his results in 1981) and played a major role in the ground-breaking study of screening for carcinoma of the colon, for which he was awarded the Patey prize of the Surgical Research Society in 1980. He returned to Bristol as a senior registrar in 1981. After a period as locum consultant in Gloucester, he was appointed as a consultant surgeon to the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport in 1986, becoming honorary senior lecturer in surgery there in 1997. By now an expert and accomplished endoscopist, Keith introduced flexible colonoscopy and endoscopic retrograde cholangiography to Newport, as well as laparoscopic cholecystectomy, and continued his work, now on a national basis, in the screening for colorectal cancer. He organised undergraduate teaching and was appointed clinical director. In 1973 Keith married Jinette, a nurse. They had two sons, Darren (who predeceased him) and Guy, and a daughter, Adele. Keith was, like his father, a man of quiet charm and serious demeanour, who was highly respected by his collegues. His hobbies included sailing, badminton, model-making and reading, and he played an active role in the St Woolos Rotary Club. By a strange irony, in 1999 he himself was found to have carcinoma of the colon, and over the next eight years underwent five successive resections, in spite of which he returned with undiminished energy to his work. His outstanding contributions were recognised by the award of the MBE in 2007, but sadly he died in harness, before he could be invested with his insignia.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000588
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Shields, Sir Robert (1930 - 2008)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2009-02-10
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/372772372772
Occupation General surgeon
Details Sir Robert Shields enjoyed a distinguished career in surgery and in academic and health service administration. He was professor of surgery and chairman of the department of surgery and honorary consultant to the Royal Liverpool University and Broadgreen hospitals from 1969 to 1996. His unit was internationally respected for its research, teaching and clinical practice. He was born in Paisley on 8 November 1930, the son of Robert Alexander Shields, an electrical engineer, and his wife, Isobel Shields née Reid. Educated at Paisley’s John Neilson School, he studied medicine at Glasgow University. Showing early promise in his clinical training, he passed pathology with distinction and won the Captain H S Rankin VC Memorial, MacLeod and Mary Margaret Isobel Ure prizes in surgery and the Asher-Asher medal in diseases of the ear, nose and throat. Following house appointments at the Western Infirmary in Glasgow, he served his National Service in the RAMC, as regimental medical officer with the First Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in Berlin. There he met (Grace) Marianne Swinburn, a nursing sister at the British Military Hospital, whom he married in 1957. Over the years that followed he retained a Territorial Army connection as a major with the Seventh Battalion of the Argyll’s until 1962, later becoming an honorary colonel to the University of Liverpool Officer Training Corps. Demobilised in 1956, Robert returned to the Western Infirmary as Hall fellow at the University of Glasgow under Sir Charles Illingworth. This was followed by a year in the USA, where he worked as a research fellow to Charles Cooke and Jesse Bollman at the Mayo Clinic. There his research on intestinal absorption formed the basis of his MD (1965), which won the Bellahouston gold medal. For three years, from 1960, he was lecturer in surgery at Glasgow University. In 1963 he followed Sir Patrick Forrest as senior lecturer at the Welsh National School of Medicine in Cardiff, becoming reader in 1969, when he accepted the chair at Liverpool University in the same year. Here he encouraged the development of a transplant unit which opened in 1973 and, with his great friend, Richard McConnell established the country’s first dedicated gastro-intestinal unit that combined both medical and surgical expertise. Robert Shields had great administrative flair. A good listener to all points of view, he was meticulous in preparation of all paper work, in which he displayed military attention to what he called ‘staff work’. He was appointed dean of the Liverpool faculty of medicine in 1982 and in this position paved the way for new chairs in general practice and public health. He was active within the National Health Service at a national level, advising the Secretary of State for Health. He was chairman of a range of advisory and training committees, as well as working for his own local authorities, the Mersey Regional Health Authority and the Royal Liverpool University Hospital Trust. In addition to all his many commitments, he was in demand as an examiner in surgery to the universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Leicester and Sheffield, as well as many others overseas. Robert Shields held many prestigious offices. He was president of the Surgical Research Society, the Society of Gastroenterology and the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, from which he received the Moynihan medal. After 30 years of ordinary membership, Bob was elected president of the Travelling Surgical Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (from 2002 to 2004) and was later made an honorary member. He was chairman of the British Liver Foundation, a member of the Medical Research Council and the General Medical Council, where he served on the education and professional conduct committees. In 1990 he became the first Glaswegian in nearly 500 years to be elected president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. In our College, he was a member of the Court of Examiners and Zachary Cope lecturer in 1992. Shields published nearly 200 original articles and reviews in the field of gastroenterology, particularly liver problems and oesophageal varices and contributed to several textbooks including *Textbook of surgery* (Philadelphia/London, Lippincott, c.1983) and *Gastrointestinal emergencies* (London, W B Saunders) in 1992, as well as serving on the editorial boards of *Gut*, *British Journal of Surgery* and the international editorial board of *Current Practice in Surgery*. He was much sought after as a visiting professor in five continents. For the Travelling Surgical Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland he gave many short papers at home and abroad. One notable one was delivered at the diamond jubilee meeting of the society in 1984: ‘Musings of a dean’ was a model of clarity and commonsense. He had what Dean Swift called “the true definition of style”, namely the capacity to use “proper words in proper places”. Many academic distinctions came his way, among them the award of doctor of science by the University of Wales in 1990 gave him particular pleasure. He received honorary fellowships of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, the College of Surgeons of Hong Kong, the American College of Surgeons, the College of Surgeons of South Africa, the American Surgical Association, the Association of Surgeons of India and the Academy of Singapore. In retirement, he continued to serve as a government adviser on issues relating to the restructuring of the NHS. In 1996 he reported to the Scottish Office on *Commissioning better health*, in which he recommended that the onus for maintaining a high-quality environment should fall more directly on hospital boards, which should focus on clinical outcomes and monitor clinical practice using data from clinical audit. Robert Shields was a quiet man and had great integrity: his natural reserve hid a determination to get things done. Throughout a busy life he continued to maintain a close interest in research and supported many doctors in their clinical and laboratory work. He was knighted in 1990 and became Deputy Lieutenant of Merseyside in 1991. The Shields’ main home was in the Liverpool, where he enjoyed walking his dog on the Wirral. He and Marianne relaxed in their retreat ‘north of the border’ around Lochgilphead in the west of Scotland, where they sailed and walked in the Argyll countryside. They had two girls and a boy: Jennifer Camm has been NHS regional commissioner for the South West since 2001. The younger daughter is a commissioning manager on the Wirral and Andrew is a director of Avis Europe, based in London and Paris. Sir Robert Shields died at his Liverpool home after a long illness on 3 October 2008 and is survived by Marianne, their three children and their families.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000589
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Savory, Sir William Scovell (1826 - 1895)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-22 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/372398372398
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."
Resource Identifier RCS: E000211
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Dempster, William James (1918 - 2008)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by John Hopewell
Publication Date 2009-02-20 2009-02-26
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/372775372775
Occupation Transplant surgeon
Details William James Dempster, known as ‘Jim’, was a transplant researcher and surgeon at St Mary’s Hospital, London. He was born on the island of Ibo, north of Madagascar, on 15 March 1918, although his birth was not registered until 28 April and his birth certificate was not issued until 9 August of that year. He had malaria in infancy, but made a complete recovery. Such an exotic entry into the world is in keeping with his colourful personality and career, and it demands a word of explanation. His father, James, had been raising cattle in Portuguese East Africa, but the enterprise was defeated by the tsetse fly. Sadly, Jim’s father died and his mother, Jessie, brought her young family back to Edinburgh some time after August 1919. Jim went to George Heriot’s School, shining at both work and play. At rugby he was in the school first XV for three seasons as a fly-half, and played for the first XI at cricket. He won a place to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh, where a contemporary was Sheila Sherlock (later a professor and a dame). The pair of them were prominent tennis players at the university. On qualification he spent a short time as a locum GP, before joining the RAF, serving in India and Burma. On demobilisation in 1946, like many contemporaries, he had difficulty finding a job which would lead on to further training. Meeting Sheila Sherlock again, she suggested he try the Postgraduate Hospital, Hammersmith. He followed her advice and was accepted into Ian Aird’s surgical unit. With his own wry humour, he described the task allotted to him as “the worst job in the hospital”. He was to undertake research into the problem of organ transplantation, working at the Buckston Browne Farm of the Royal College of Surgeons with Sir Arthur Keith, the famous anatomist and anthropologist of Piltdown man fame. His contribution to the nature of the rejection reaction in canine renal allografts can rightly be called unique. He published more than a 100 reviews and papers on the subject between 1951 and 1957, gaining him worldwide recognition as a pioneer. His macro- and microscopic observations confirmed that rejection was an example of immune response, mediated by serum antibodies. He travelled widely and enjoyed the company of fellow pioneers of transplantation, particularly that of Georges Mathé of Paris, with whom he shared esteem for Milan Hasek of Prague, as the first to demonstrate induced tolerance, so leading to the understanding that graft rejection was an immunological reaction. Jim and his colleagues were also the first to show that not only delayed type hypersensitivity reactions but also the response to skin allografts could be suppressed in animals by whole-body x-irradiation. He also anticipated the concept of graft-versus-host responses. Asked if his department was keen to develop the clinical application of transplantation, he replied that Ian Aird’s enthusiasm was for research. Jim’s participation in clinical work was at St Mary’s Hospital, where he joined Charles Rob in a renal transplant in 1956, generally regarded as the first in the UK. Jim’s typically outspoken comments on the procedure were that it was a disaster, performed inappropriately on a patient with acute renal failure. However, it had the virtue of starting an interest in transplantation at St Mary’s Hospital, which remains a leader in the field. Later in the early 1960s, he cooperated with Shackman in the earliest transplants conducted in his department. It has been commented that Jim’s early retirement from his professional field was regrettable. At that time he was a reader at the University of London. It would appear that, like many another in the academic field, he was discouraged by what he felt to be his prospects of advancement. He retired to his home in Twickenham. His marriage had been a romantic affair. Cherry Clark was a ballet dancer with several distinguished companies, and Jim had seen her dance in London. Cherry suffered an injury and, whilst recovering took a job as a radiotherapy nurse at the Hammersmith. They met there and subsequently enjoyed a very happy marriage. In retirement Jim lost none of his enthusiasm, which he now devoted to painting and gardening, specialising in the propagation of fuchsias. A continuing interest was the defence of John Hunter and the promotion of a little-known Scot, Patrick Matthew, as one of the rightful pioneers of evolutionary theory. In 1988 the family moved to Lockerley near Romsey in Hampshire. Cherry sadly died in 2005. Afterwards Jim was cared for by his daughter Soula, who lived nearby. He leaves two sons and a daughter, all them well-versed, from meal-time conversation, in the achievements of Hunter and Matthew. He died on 27 July 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000592
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Abbey, Paul (1920 - 2008)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-02-20
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/372776372776
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Paul Abbey was a consultant ENT surgeon in the Windsor area. He was born on 6 January 1920 in Stoke Newington, London, the son of M Abbey, who had arrived in the UK in 1911 from Lodz in Poland. He was the youngest of four children – there were two older brothers and one older sister. The family lived in a two-bedroom flat until Paul was about 4½ years old, when they moved to Bethnal Green into rooms above a small factory in a converted pub. He attended primary school in Teesdale Street, where he was bullied, and in the evenings he went to Hebrew classes at the same school. At the age of 11, Paul started at the Central School, where his form teacher, Mr Jones, decided that he should try for a scholarship to Parmiter’s, the local grammar school, which was a successful move. Paul’s barmitzvah took place at Teesdale Street Synagogue when he was 13. He was an active member of the Jewish Boys Club and the Cambridge and Bethnal Green Club, taking part in swimming and gymnastics, as well as summer camps near Herne Bay. In the senior years at school Paul became a prefect, and became the school’s most successful sportsman, excelling at gymnastics, swimming and football. When Paul was 15, he bought himself a racing bicycle from James Goose in Holborn, which he paid off at 2/6 per week. He and his brother Manny would take off on camping holidays by bike, once as far as the Isle of Wight. In 1939, he passed his Senior County exams and was accepted as a student at Westminster Hospital. When war was declared, the Westminster was evacuated to Glasgow, but a friend told him about a vacancy at the London Hospital which was evacuating its medical college to Cambridge. He applied and started in October 1939. Paul qualified in 1944 and then became receiving room officer, house surgeon to A M A Moore and the gynaecological firm, and then house physician to A E Clarke-Kennedy. He joined the RAF medical service in February 1945 and was posted to India, where he spent two enjoyable years, rising to squadron leader. He made friends with the RAF transport pilots. He would wander out to the airfield and see whether a DC-3 was due to take off. “Hi doc”, the pilots would yell from the cockpit. “Just off to Jaipur. Want to come along for the ride? Hop on, old chap, we’ll list you as additional freight.” He eventually learnt to fly himself in Tiger Moth planes and kept his linen flying helmet and goggles as souvenirs. On demobilisation, he returned to the London Hospital for three years, at first as a supernumerary registrar to Clive Butler in the septic ward, where penicillin was effecting a radical change in the management of osteomyelitis. He then moved to the King George Hospital in Ilford, initially as a house surgeon for six months, followed by three years as a surgical registrar, during which time he passed the FRCS. In December 1954, Paul decided to specialise in ENT. He started work at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital, where he became a senior registrar and then moved to a similar post at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington. In May 1961, Paul obtained his first ENT consultant appointment at Southampton General Hospital. Two years later he applied successfully for a more advantageous ENT consultant post with the Windsor group of hospitals, where he spent the rest of his career. When he arrived in the area, Wexham Park Hospital was being built, and Paul had a large hand in the design of the ENT department. A firm believer in the original values and mission of the NHS, he disapproved of the many bureaucratic reorganisations that began in the 1970s. He published numerous articles, delivered lectures and belonged to many committees and councils, including the ENT section of the Royal Society of Medicine and the British Association of Otolaryngologists. He was particularly proud of designing a new surgical instrument which bears his name. In 1985 he retired from the NHS, but continued in private practice for several more years and became a surgical member of the Medical Appeals Tribunal for Industrial Injuries. Outside medicine, Paul’s great love was sailing. In the days before mobile phones, it was the ultimate escape from the stress of hospital life – out on the water he was completely unreachable. For many years he had an Enterprise dinghy and would tow this boat down to Cornwall every year for family holidays. Later, he teamed up with two friends to purchase the *St Brigid*, a 32-foot sailing cruiser which they moored down at Lymington on the south coast. Paul spent a lot of his spare time on *St Brigid*, including two weeks sailing in the English Channel every summer. He studied for his yachtmaster’s qualification, joined the Royal Lymington Yacht Club and even bought a house in Lymington. The whole family was involved in Paul’s sailing. Paul married Joan née Singer in March 1952. Jocelyn was born in April 1956 and Bryony came along four years later, in May 1960. Joan took navigation courses and their two children were co-opted as deck hands during school holidays. Paul was a great wine enthusiast, and he and Joan travelled extensively around Europe, and visited Australia, the USA and South Africa. Above all, Paul loved being with other people – he liked having an audience, he was great company and always entertaining. This world will be a duller place without him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000593
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ong, Guan Bee (1921 - 2004)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-09-13
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/372574372574
Occupation General surgeon
Details Guan Bee Ong, or ‘G B’ as he was known to his many friends and colleagues throughout the world, was a pioneering surgeon in Hong Kong. In the many tributes following his death, he was described as “a giant among surgeons”, “a craftsman, innovator and statesman” and “a far-sighted and dynamic leader”. He was born into a traditional Chinese family in Kuching, Sarawak, on 29 September 1921. After schooling in Singapore, he intended to become an electric engineer, but his father suggested medicine. He was turned away from Singapore Medical College in April 1940 and was unable to go to Europe to study because of the second world war, so he went to Hong Kong University. Here his studies were interrupted by the Japanese invasion in April 1941. Together with several other students, he sneaked into China, making a hazardous journey on foot to Chungking, where he resumed his studies at Shanghai Medical School. He eventually graduated with his MD. After the war, he returned to Hong Kong, where he obtained his MB BS in 1947. For the next ten years he honed his skills, both locally and internationally, training in the UK, where he gained the FRCS diplomas of both the English and Edinburgh Royal Colleges. In 1956 he was awarded the Harkness Commonwealth University fellowship to study in the USA at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard University in Boston and the Bellevue Hospital in New York City. On his return he became surgeon in charge of Kowloon Hospital until 1963, when he was appointed to the chair of surgery at the University of Hong Kong, the first ethnic Chinese to hold this post. The department was poorly equipped, had a budget of $1,000, no operating facilities and 96 empty and unused surgical beds. The contrast with the magnificent facilities in that department today is a tribute to G B’s vision, determination and ability to achieve his goals. He quickly developed a reputation as a master surgeon, his repertoire encompassing the full gambit of surgical specialties, initially including neurosurgery and cardiac surgery. Natural technical brilliance allowed him to become a courageous and innovative surgeon in the biliary tract, the liver, reconstruction of the oesophagus and the urinary bladder using colon and stomach, in the surgical management of oral and pharyngeal cancers and the transphenoidal approach to the surgery of the pituitary gland, to name but a few procedures. Twice a week, on Wednesday and Saturday, this diminutive figure would sweep through the wards at Queen Mary Hospital like Napoleon leading the Grande Armee. Inspiring a generation of young surgeons to promote surgical specialties to the highest standards, he was recognised as a perfectionist, an extremely strict disciplinarian and a marvellous teacher. According to his successor John Wong, he managed to “cultivate a spirit of original research and encourage innovations in surgery”, in many ways unusual for an academic. He published more than 250 papers and ten books and monographs, many using work performed by his trainees whom he encouraged to maintain high standards. Becoming emeritus professor of surgery after his retirement in 1982, G B continued in a busy private practice. G B loved to travel and was elected to the James IV Association of Surgeons travelling professorship in 1967, was a governor of the American Association of Surgeons from 1974 to 1979 and was President of the International Society of Surgery from 1983 to 1985. He received the gold medal from the College of Surgeons of Malaysia, the Abraham Colles medal from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and was awarded numerous honorary fellowships by a host of surgical colleges throughout the world. In 1979 he was awarded the PSM, the equivalent of a knighthood, by the King of Malaysia. His connection with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh was particularly strong, and receipt of the first John Bruce gold medal in 1970 was a particular pleasure, as was his appointment as Regent to the College in 1998. In 2001 he paid his last visit to that College to receive the award of the Pehin Aziz medal. G B spearheaded the introduction of surgical fellowship examinations in Hong Kong, first with the Edinburgh College and then other Royal Colleges, as early as the mid sixties. He was a Hunterian professor of the College and a Moynihan lecturer in 1974. He married Christina Chow in 1950 and they had six children – Patricia, Peter, Michelle, Josephine, Catherine and Caroline. He married for a second time, to Paula, and they had two children – Elizabeth and Michael. He died on 10 January 2004 after battling with liver cancer since 1999. Ironically, he had carried out extensive research into this disease during his long career.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000390
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Maclean, Andrew Bruce (1918 - 2006)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-09-13
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/372575372575
Occupation General surgeon
Details Andrew Maclean was a consultant surgeon in Cumbria. He was born in Glasgow on 29 April 1918, the son of Andrew Bruce Maclean, a consultant radiologist, and Harriet Thomson, the daughter of a woollen manufacturer. From Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh he went to Glasgow University, where he won the Hunter medal in clinical surgery. After qualifying in 1942 he completed house jobs in Glasgow Western Infirmary, where he was much influenced by Sir Charles Illingworth. He then joined the Royal Navy, rising to the rank of surgeon lieutenant commander. On demobilisation he continued his surgical training at Cumberland Infirmary, Carlisle, and in Newcastle as lecturer in surgery, before being appointed consultant surgeon in Carlisle. There he was surgical tutor and regional adviser to the College. Andrew married a Miss Lancaster in 1949. They had three sons, a doctor, lawyer and land agent. He counted sailing, shooting and fishing among his hobbies. He died on 28 May 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000391
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Copeland, Thomas (1781 - 1855)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18 2013-08-07
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/372576372576
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in May, 1781, the son of the Rev William Copeland, Curate of Byfield, Northants. He studied under Mr Denham at Chigwell in Essex, and under Edward Ford, his maternal uncle, and he attended medical classes at Great Windmill Street and at St Bartholomew's Hospital. In 1804 he was appointed Assistant Surgeon in the 1st Foot Guards, with which regiment he embarked for Spain under Sir John Moore, and was present at the Battle of Corunna in 1809. He resigned 29th June, 1809, settled in his uncle's resident at 4 Golden Square, and was appointed Surgeon to the Westminster General Dispensary. He attained distinction in his profession, particularly in the field of rectal surgery. He was elected FRS in 1834, Hon Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1843, and Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria in 1837. He died of an attack of jaundice at Brighton on Nov 19th, 1855, and his wife died on Dec 5th of the same year. He left £180,000, bequeathing £5000 both to the Asylum for Poor Orphans of the Clergy and to the Society for the Relief of Widows and Orphans of Medical Men.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000392
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Rae, Sir William (1786 - 1878)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Smith, Samuel (1790 - 1867)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-08-08
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/372722372722
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Briggate, Leeds, the son of George Smith, banker; was apprenticed to his brother-in-law, Fawell, a general practitioner in Leeds. He then studied in London, where he was for a time a house pupil of Sir Charles Bell, and in Edinburgh. He began practice in Leeds, and in 1819 was appointed Surgeon to the General Infirmary on the vacancy occasioned by the death of Stansfeld. He held office for forty-five years, and proved a successful operator, especially as a lithotomist, a scrupulously generous colleague, uniformly kind to his patients. In 1864 he voluntarily retired from the active staff, and was appointed to the newly created office of Consulting Surgeon, as were also Hey and Teale. Smith continued to attend the infirmary whenever there were important operations and cases of accident. His abilities as an operator were not in any way affected by advancing years, for a few weeks before his death he performed an ovariotomy. He was active as one of the originators of the Leeds School of Medicine in 1832. He began by teaching anatomy to his pupils, and he later lectured in the Medical School on surgery, midwifery, and the diseases of women and children. He had a large practice as an accoucheur, for he was also Surgeon to the Leeds Hospital for Women and Children. In 1804, at the age of 14, he had joined the Militia formed in view of the threatened invasion, and was afterwards an active member of the Volunteer Corps. On the formation of the Leeds Engineer Corps he became one of their Surgeons and was promoted to Major of the Battalion. In politics a staunch Conservative, and for many years Churchwarden in his parish church, he was a warm advocate of the movement which resulted in the Act for the shortening of the hours of labour in factories, both at meetings and at the Committee of the House of Commons, where he gave evidence on the subject, and by his zeal contributed much to the ultimate success of the movement. He had already some signs of an onset of pleurisy, when he went out to visit patients, fell ill of pleuropneumonia, and died on Nov 19th, 1867, at his house in Park Square, Leeds. He was buried at Moor Allerton, his funeral being attended by a number of his colleagues, including William and Samuel Hey, and some forty students of the Medical School. His portrait had recently been presented by public subscription to the Infirmary as an expression of the esteem in which his services to charitable institutions in Leeds were held. PUBLICATION: “Clinical Lectures on Lithotomy, delivered at the Leeds School of Medicine, 1858,” 12mo, London, 1859; reprinted from *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1859, 7, etc.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000538
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Terry, Henry (1791 - 1873)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Jukes, Alfred (1792 - 1844)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-08-08 2014-08-22
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/372724372724
Occupation General surgeon
Details Held the office of House Surgeon to the Birmingham General Hospital for ten years; he was then elected Surgeon in 1823 and held office until March, 1843, when his place was filled by S H Amphlett (qv), who had been his pupil. He appears to have belonged to a medical family in the town, for Fred Jukes, living at 45 Cherry Street, took his MRCS in 1819 and was also for ten years Resident Surgeon to the Birmingham General Hospital. Alfred Jukes died on or before July 28th, 1847. See below for an amended version of the published obituary: Alfred Jukes was a surgeon at Birmingham General Hospital. He was born in Bordesley, Birmingham, on 24 September 1792, the son of John and Elizabeth Jukes née Mansfield. The family were dissenters and Alfred was baptised on 30 October 1792 at the Unitarian New Meeting House in Moor Street, Birmingham. Alfred's father, John, inherited a manufacturing business from his father, Joseph, and in 1818, in *Wrightson's Triennial Directory*, he was described as a plater and button manufacturer. Alfred was one of at least eight sons and two daughters: three of the family died in infancy. The 1841 census reported that Alfred Jukes was living at 17 New Hall Street, Birmingham, and he was described as a surgeon. He published a booklet: *A case of carcinomatous stricture of the rectum; in which the descending colon was opened in the loin* (London, Churchill, 1842). His brother, Frederick Jukes, was also a surgeon in Birmingham. In April 1825 Alfred married Sarah Meredith, the daughter of James Meredith. They had three children, Sarah Elizabeth, Alfred Meredith and Joseph Hordern. Alfred Jukes died on 9 October 1844 at his home at 17 New Hall Street, Birmingham, at the age of 52. A note on the back of his portrait says his death was caused by 'a fall on the stairs while attending a patient', but a report in the *Admission Register of the Manchester School* stated that he died 'after a long and painful illness, aggravated, if not caused, by injury received whilst dressing a very bad case of a patient at the hospital'. Sarah Gillam
Resource Identifier RCS: E000540
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Clark, John (1784 - 1845)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Cooper, John ( - 1860)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-08-08 2011-07-21
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/372726372726
Occupation General surgeon
Details Practised at 35 Bedford Street North, Liverpool, and later at 60 Rodney Street. He was at one time Surgeon to the Liverpool South Dispensary and the Lunatic Asylum, as well as Lecturer on the Principles and Practice of Surgery, and on Clinical Surgery, at the Liverpool School of Medicine. He was then appointed Surgeon to the Liverpool Infirmary. In 1858 he was Consulting Surgeon to the Infirmary. His death occurred apparently between 1858 and 1860.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000542
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching De Beaux, John Louis Marcus (1921 - 2008)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-08-21
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/372727372727
Occupation General surgeon
Details John de Beaux spent much of his career working in the Colonial Medical Service, and then worked in Elgin, Scotland, as a consultant surgeon. He was born in Amritsar, India, on 3 December 1921, into an old Anglo-Indian family with many connections in the Colonial Service. His father, Louis Dudley de Beaux, served in the Indian Army through the First World War, retired in 1924 to join the Indian Police and in 1929 started his own business in books and stationery. His mother was Alice Maud Taylor. John de Beaux was educated at the Lawrence Royal Military Schools in Sanawar, from which he matriculated, and Ghora Gali, from which he took an intermediate science degree. He studied medicine at Madras Medical College from 1940 to 1945. After qualifying, he completed house surgeon and casualty officer posts at the Irwin Hospital, New Delhi, before going to England to specialise in surgery, beginning with registrar posts at the Winford Orthopaedic Hospital, Bristol, and the Mount Gold Orthopaedic Hospital, Plymouth. In 1948 he followed his family tradition, at first in the former Italian colonies in Africa, including Eritrea and Somalia, which were under the Foreign Office, and later in the Colonial Service in the British Solomon Islands from 1952 to 1957 (from which he published a paper on yaws). From 1957 to 1967 he was in Fiji, where for the last seven years he was the senior consultant surgeon. Largely influenced by the need to educate his children, he returned to the UK in 1967 as a consultant surgeon to Dr Gray’s Hospital, Elgin. There he remained until he retired in 1986. Dr Gray had founded his hospital in his native Elgin with a fortune made in India under the East India Company. John married Patricia Frieda Bateman, a farmer’s daughter, in 1952. They had two daughters (Patricia Anne and Jane Verina) and two sons (Samuel John and Andrew Charles). Andrew is a surgeon. John counted fishing, gardening, squash and hill-walking among his hobbies. He died of carcinoma of the prostate on 31 January 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000543
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jarrett, Llewellyn Neville (1946 - 2006)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-08-21 2009-02-10
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/372728372728
Occupation Trauma surgeon
Details Lyn Jarrett was a consultant in accident and emergency surgery at Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham. He was born on 18 September 1946 in Freetown, Sierra Leone. His father, Neville Jarrett, was a banker and his mother, Rosamond née Morrison, a housewife. He was educated at the Methodist Boys’ High School and the Prince of Wales School in Freetown, before going to England in 1966 to study medicine at Newcastle. After qualifying, he completed house officer jobs at Sunderland General Hospital and a senior house officer post at Nottingham General Hospital, where he continued to train in surgery. He then moved to the Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham, and to registrar posts at Derby Royal Infirmary and Leicester General Hospital, before being appointed as a consultant in accident and emergency surgery at the Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham, in 1987. He developed an interest in sports injury during his training in accident and emergency surgery and was medical consultant to Nottingham Forest Football Club for more than 20 years. He was also chief medical officer at the Donington Park Racing Circuit and medical consultant to the Nottingham Panthers ice hockey team. He married Resil Nicol-Cole, a solicitor, and had two daughters, Lynne and Nnenna, both of whom followed careers in marketing. Lyn died after a brief illness on 8 December 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000544
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hutchinson, Sir Jonathan (1828 - 1913)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-04 2012-03-22
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/372399372399
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.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000212
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cantrell, William (1801 - 1876)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Cape, Henry (1817 - 1866)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Cardell, John Magor (1832 - 1875)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Bryant, Thomas (1828 - 1914)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Barker, Arthur Edward James (1850 - 1916)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372935372935
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Dublin, the son of Dr William Barker. Studied medicine at the Medical School of the College of Surgeons, Dublin, and later at the University of Bonn, where he acquired a written and spoken knowledge of German as well as of French, which was of primary importance to him. Indeed, his first distinction came through his translation of the *Histologie und Histochemie des Menschen* by Professor Heinrich Frey, of Zurich. The work, first published in 1859, was illustrated by many woodcuts by Kölliker, much in advance of anything published before, and had been recommended to Barker by his teacher, Professor Max Schultze. The translation was published in 1874 and Barker’s preface is in a style characteristic of his subsequent writing. He was then living in Hume Street, Dublin, and was Surgeon to the City of Dublin Hospital, Demonstrator of Anatomy at the College of Surgeons, and Visiting Surgeon to the Convalescent Home at Stillorgan. Barker’s appointment at the age of 25 to the post of Assistant Surgeon at University College Hospital, London, in 1875, was out of the ordinary in that he had not passed the FRCS England, nor, indeed, did he qualify FRCSI, until the following year, 1876. Moreover, he received the FRCS England, in 1880 ad eundem. These occurrences have not repeated themselves. None the less, time, as it passed, showed Barker to be a leader of surgery in his day, fortified by his acquaintance with German surgery during its particularly flourishing period. University College Hospital was then the centre of Listerian surgery in London, from which Barker, following German surgeons (*see under* Bergmann, E von) began to deviate by using salicylic wool, perchloride of mercury, and adopting the so-called aseptic methods. The following is a selection in order of date from among Barker’s great surgical achievements during forty years: In 1880 he removed the kidney for a malignant tumour through an abdominal incision in a woman aged 21; the tumour had been noticed for eight months. The patient died of pulmonary embolism on the second day, after which it was found that the operation had been well performed, but there were secondary growths in the lungs the size of nuts. Barker referred in detail to Simon’s recently published monograph, including the record of twenty-eight cases, half of which had recovered and half had died. In clinical lectures in 1885 and 1889, he described further renal operations. In 1883 he rewrote articles in the third edition of the *System of Surgery* by Holmes and Hulke, on “Diseases of Joints”, “Diseases of the Spine”, and “Diseases of the Tongue”. In this last article there is a full account, with histological drawings, of leukoplakia, already recognized as a precursor of epithelioma. In 1886 he described four cases of removal of deep-seated tumours of the neck, which a few years before would have been held to be incurable. One case was probably an instance of an accessory thyroid, the others enlarged and tuberculous lymphatic glands. Also in 1886 he was the first to perform gastroenterostomy in London, and that successfully, for cancer of the pylorus in a woman aged 57, using the anterior method, the jejunum being turned over towards the right from its commencement. The patient survived for just over a year. In 1898 he noted that he had adopted von Hacker’s posterior gastrojejunostomy. In 1887 he published *A Short Manual of Surgical Operations*, illustrated by his own drawings, a capital résumé of the subject at that date. He was called upon at the hospital to examine and treat cases of ear disease before the institution of a special department, and this gave him opportunities for extending surgical measures beyond the opening of abscesses over the mastoid process after fluctuation had been detected. He had noted and explained anatomically the extension of suppuration from the middle ear to the temporomandibular joint. In four cases he trephined the mastoid antrum and drained the middle ear, so that in one case optic neuritis disappeared. In a case under Sir William R Gowers he first cleared out the disease from the middle ear and antrum, then trephined and drained a temporosphenoidal abscess. This appears to be the first case in which a cerebral abscess, due to tympanic suppuration, had been correctly diagnosed, localized, and then evacuated by operation, with complete success. Barker published a similar case in 1888, and his experience in this branch of surgery formed the subject of his Hunterian Lectures in 1889 on “Intracranial Inflammations Starting in the Temporal Bone”. To Barker is due the chief credit for establishing in this country the early diagnosis and immediate operation upon cases of intussusception. Previously there had been delay in making a definite diagnosis, and attempts at reduction by distending with water the bowel below the intussusception were generally disastrous failures. Barker saw the patient, a boy aged 4, twelve hours after the onset of the symptoms. He first distended the bowel with water until the tumour became imperceptible; five hours later he operated, reduced the intussusception, and the boy recovered. The table of cases showed how unsuccessful had been laparotomy done late in the case. He also operated successfully on the other variety of intussusception, that caused by a new growth in the rectum. Further reports on intussusception were published in 1894, 1897, and 1903 – the last in German. On the subject of active surgical interference with tuberculous disease of the hip- and knee-joint at an early stage Barker was led into error by following German authorities. In evidence of this, note the list at the end of his third Hunterian Lecture in 1888. He was quite right in substituting the term ‘tuberculous’ in place of the indefinite ‘strumous’ used, e.g., by Howard Marsh (qv) in his *Diseases of Joints*, 1886; but the getting rid of a disease which, however it had got there, had become completely localized in the joint, by removing the interior of the joint at a surgical operation, was an erroneous assumption. Howard Marsh stated the experience gained at the Alexandra Hospital for Hip Disease in favour of prolonged rest under good conditions, together with any surgical measures as restricted as possible. There followed increased support of Marsh’s contention, and great advances have occurred in combination with fresh air and sunlight. In 1887 Barker described thirty-five cases in which he had undertaken the radical cure of hernia, just at the time when that operation was coming into general use. He introduced improvement, including the removal of the neck of the hernial sac at its junction with the peritoneum. By 1898 he had operated upon 200 cases with three deaths. He had modified his earlier procedure to that of Bassini’s “as the best operation of any yet devised”. He used hard twisted Chinese silk, boiled in 5 per cent of carbolic acid; in 21 of the 200 there were reports that silk knots had worked out. In 1892, and again in 1896, he described his method of applying a ‘subcutaneous suture’ to bring together a recent fracture of the patella. His second report confirmed his primary experience, but in other hands and even in the earliest cases it proved difficult to get the fractured surfaces into apposition with none of the aponeurosis intervening. Hence with increasing certainty as to asepsis, the open operation continued the standard method. He published in 1895 two cases illustrating obliteration of psoas abscesses after one washing out, scraping, and closure without drainage. His flushing spoon was adopted as most useful and convenient, the actual scraping of the inside of a psoas abscess being practically omitted. The closure without drainage had the advantage over that of Lister’s success in draining, that there was no chance of secondary infection through the drainage tube. Barker gave great attention to detail in the designing of instruments and apparatus, and in carrying out exact asepsis, as well as in the use of local anaesthesia. In 1898 he published the description of the ‘sewing machine needle’ for the introduction of sutures whether intestinal or cutaneous. A reel of silk, after sterilization by boiling, was fixed on the handle of the instrument, so that the reel could be turned to pay out or wind up the thread by the thumb. The needle was held at right angles to the handle, threaded from the reel. It could thus be used for passing interrupted sutures, by cutting the thread beyond the needle. Strictly speaking it lacked the sewing-machine shuttle carrying the under thread and moving at the same time as the needle armed with the upper thread. Barker passed the needle well through, drew it back a little to form a loop, and then with his left thumb and finger passed the free end of the thread through the loop – to make a continuous looped stitch. Practice with both hands was necessary, and also practise in regulating the tightness of the stitch. In describing his sewing-machine needed he noted silk as the thread, but in 1902 he adopted linen sewing-machine thread for ligatures and sutures. In 1899 Barker gave a “Clinical Lecture and Demonstration on Local Analgesia” “which has of late been practised in many parts of the world”, using 1-1000 eucain ß in normal saline solution. He continued in subsequent years to make reports of improvements in technique. In 1907 he published a full description of spinal analgesia in 100 cases by injecting stovaine. In the following year a further series exhibited improvement by the addition of 5 per cent glucose to increase the density and limit the spread of the fluid. The Obituary Notice in the *British Journal of Surgery* said: “The profession in this country is deeply indebted to him for the share which he took in promoting the subject, and for recording his work with sufficient detail to enable others to practise the method with a great measure of success”. Of all the Clinical Lectures which Barker published none was better, and bears re-reading with greater advantage, than that delivered in 1906, entitled, “The Hands of Surgeons and Assistants in Operations”. The title does not cover all the ground. He commenced: “We have now arrived at an era in which we may claim to know a great deal about septic processes”, and he proceeded to summarize half a dozen possible avenues of infection where operations are undertaken: access from the patient’s own body; access from without, from his skin, from the atmosphere, from the instruments employed in making the wound and in its treatment, ligatures, swabs and dressings, and in addition to the “Hands of Surgeons and Assistants, their Clothes and Breath”. No surgeon spent more of his time and his attention over the technique of the surgeon. In the Address on Surgery at the Belfast Meeting of the British Medical Association in 1909, he reviewed in particular the advances made in intestinal surgery in which he had taken such a great part, including a definition of the protective power of the peritoneum, the faculty possessed by the intestinal coats in health of preventing migration of micro-organisms and the loss of this faculty as a consequence of disease and accident, the wider choice of anaesthetics, the success in removing malignant disease of the colon. In 1914, in apparently his last communication, he returned to the subject of leukoplakia which he had described so ably forty-one years before in the Holmes and Hulke *Surgery*. A charming and witty conversationalist, Barker was not a lively speaker. As a teacher he was at his best when discussing and explaining some subject in which at the time he was particularly interested. When lecturing he was apt to deal in allusions and to get above the level of his hearers. He examined at the Universities of London and Manchester, but he seemed to find it difficult to maintain rigorously his attention upon an exacting task. He had acted as Consulting Surgeon to the Queen Alexandra Hospital, Millbank, and to the Obsborn Convalescent Home for Officers. At the outbreak of the War he served as Colonel AMS, at Netley, next at Malta, and then at Salonika. He died there of pneumonia on April 8th, 1916. He practised at 144 Harley Street. A portrait appears in the *British Journal of Surgery*. By his marriage in 1880 to Emilie Blanche, daughter of Mr Julius Delmege, of Rathkeale, Co Limerick, he had issue two sons and four daughters. In the midst of all his work he had great anxiety even during the last days of his life. The younger son died of acute ear disease. The elder, after entering the Army, developed signs of chronic bilateral pulmonary tuberculosis, for which he was invalided. He rejoined six weeks before the outbreak of War, was wounded and taken prisoner. During this time the tuberculosis again became active. On his release after his father’s death the disease was held in check until an attack of bronchopneumonia proved fatal. Publications:- *The Histology and Histo-chemistry of Man*, by Heinrich Frey, translated from the 4th German edition by A E J Baker, 1874. “Nephrectomy by Abdominal Section” – *Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1880, lxiii, 181; also “Clinical Lectures Illustrating cases of Renal Surgery.” – Lancet, 1885, i, 93, 141; 1889, i, 418, 466. Holmes and Hulke, *System of Surgery*, 3rd ed, 1883, ii. “On the Removal of Deepseated Tumours of the Neck.” – *Lancet*, 1886, i, 194. “A Case of Gastro-enterostomy for Cancer of the Pylorus and Stomach.” – *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1886, i, 292, 618; also *The Surgical Affections of the Stomach and their Treatment*, 1898. *A Short Manual of Surgical Operations*, 1887. Erichsen and Beck, *Science and Art of Surgery*, 8th ed. 1884, ii, 600. Gowers and Barker, *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1886, ii, 1154; 1888, i, 777. “Hunterian Lectures on Intracranial Inflammation Starting in the Temporal Bone, their Complications and Treatment.” – *Illust. Med. News*, London, 1889, iv, 10, 35, 63, 82, 108. “A Case of Intussusception of the Caecum, Treated by Abdominal Section with Success.” –*Lancet*, 1888, ii, 201, 262. “A Case of Intussusception of the Upper End of the Rectum due to Obstruction by a New Growth. Excision with Suture. Recovery.” – *Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1887, lxx, 335. “Cases of Acute Intussusception in Children.” – *Brit. Med. Jour*., 1894 , i, 345. “Fifteen Consecutive Cases of Acute Intussusception with Appendix of all Cases at University College Hospital.” – *Trans. Clin. Soc. Lond*., 1897-8, xxxi, 58. “Zur Casuistik des Darm-Invagination.” – *Arch. f. klin. Chir*., 1903, lxxi, 147. “Three Lectures on Tubercular Joint Disease and its Treatment by Operation.” – *Lancet*, 1888, i, 1202, 1259, 1322. “Diseases of Joints” in Treves’ *System of Surgery*, 1896. “Operation for the Cure of Non-strangulated Hernia.” – *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1887, ii, 1203; 1890, i, 840; 1898, ii, 712. “Permanent Subcutaneous Suture of the Patella for Recent Fracture.” – *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1892, i, 425; 1896, i, 963. “Two Cases Illustrating Obliteration of Psoas Abscesses after one Washing out and Scraping and Closure without Drainage.” – *Trans. Clin. Soc.*, 1895, xxviii, 301. “Sewing Machine Needle.” – *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1898, ii, 148. “A Short Note on the Use of Linen Sewing Machine Thread for Ligatures and Sutures.” –*Lancet*, 1902, i, 1465. “Clinical Lecture and Demonstration on Local Analgesia.” – *Lancet*, 1899, i, 282; 1900, i, 156; 1903, ii, 203. “A Report on Clinical Experiences with Spinal Analgesia.” – *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1907, i, 665; 1908, i, 244. “Clinical Lecture on the Hands of Surgeons and Assistants at Operations.” – *Lancet*, 1906, i, 345. “Progress in Intestinal Surgery.” – Address on Surgery at the Belfast Meeting of the British Medical Association. – *Brit. Med. Jour*., 1909, ii, 263. “Leukoplakia.” – *Practitioner*, 1914, xciii, 176.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000752
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Orr, Wilbert McNeill (1930 - 2008)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-02-26
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/372781372781
Occupation General surgeon Transplant surgeon
Details Wilbert McNeill Orr, known as ‘Willie’, was a renal transplant researcher and surgeon, and later a general surgeon in Manchester. He was born on 3 April 1930 in Trim, County Meath, Ireland, the son of David Orr, a bank manager, and Wilamena McNeill, a teacher. He attended Sligo Grammar School and entered Trinity College, Dublin, for his medical studies. In addition to his scholastic work, he became an enthusiastic oarsman and was captain of the senior eight rowing team that came third in the head of the river race at Putney and made the final of the Ladies’ Plate at Henley. In the last year of his studies he was a demonstrator in physiology at Trinity College Dublin Medical School and took a house physician’s post at Steeven’s Hospital, Dublin, under the watchful eye of P B B Gatenby. Wilbert Orr then went to the England for a house surgeon post, working at the Birmingham Accident Centre, before undertaking his first senior house officer post at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford in 1956. Deciding on a surgical career, he studied for the primary FRCS at the College on the basic sciences course. He passed this examination, before becoming senior house officer to Sir Stanford Cade at the Westminster Hospital, London. Going further north to gain more experience, he undertook a senior house officer post at the Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) and showed his teaching skills shortly afterwards as tutor in surgery at the MRI. During two years’ of National Service in the RAMC, he was a junior specialist in surgery with the rank of captain, serving with the Cameroon Force in West Africa. Returning as tutor in clinical surgery at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, Willie spent a year in this post in 1962, before becoming assistant lecturer. An early joint publication with Kenneth Bloor was a case report on ‘haemorrhage from ileal varices due to portal hypertension’: this was the forerunner of many joint papers and lectures over the years. In 1964 he was research fellow at the Paterson Laboratories of the Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute, the first of many academic posts with a research interest in surgery. Senior registrar training was undertaken at a combined post at the Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, London, with Ralph Shackman, before he returned to Manchester as a lecturer in surgery. Some research work on renal function with Geoffrey Chisholm, then in London, led to other publications, as did his later stay in Manchester with Athol G Riddell on such diverse subjects as ‘the management of arterial emboli’ and ‘chemotherapy in the treatment of cancer’. Riddell was later translated to the chair in Bristol. During this lectureship he worked in the research laboratories of the Harvard Medical School under Francis D Moore, Moseley professor of surgery and surgeon-in-chief at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. Willie became involved in the dog liver transplantation work, or the ‘Sputnik’ programme, as did so many other research fellows. Some of this work was later submitted for the degree of master of surgery at the University of Manchester. He also worked with Joseph E Murray, who in 1990 received a Nobel prize for his pioneering renal transplantation work. Some joint publications and lectures followed on the survival of both liver and kidney transplants from this one year stay in the USA. Returning to Manchester as lecturer in surgery with honorary consultant status in 1967, he was promoted to senior lecturer and became director of the renal transplantation unit. He was a founder member of the British Transplantation Society and, from 1969 to 1985, an elected non-professorial member of Senate, sub-dean of clinical studies at the University of Manchester and for 10 years Royal College of Surgeons of England tutor at the Manchester Royal Infirmary. His last 16 years, from 1974 until retirement in 1990, were spent as a consultant in general surgery, where he was happy to display the diverse range of ‘specialties’ in which he had been trained. He remained a member of the Vascular Society, the Surgical Research Society and the British Society for Immunology. As a fellow of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland he served on its council. Wilbert McNeill Orr married Ann Fullerton, a physiotherapist, in 1955. They had five children: Jane became a nurse, Michael an orthopaedic surgeon and a fellow of the College, Anthony a general practitioner, Robert an actor and Susan a speech therapist. Willie Orr maintained a balanced lifestyle with outside interests in fly fishing, clock making and gardening. He died on 30 June 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000598
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cooke, Timothy Gordon (1947 - 2008)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2009-03-13
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/372782372782
Occupation General surgeon
Details Tim Cooke, St Mungo professor of surgery at the University of Glasgow, was tragically killed at the age of 60 in a car accident when returning from a continental holiday with his wife and two of his six children. He was one of the UK’s leading academic surgeons, contributing extensively to research in surgical oncology with a special interest in breast disease. He was born in Birkenhead, on the Wirral. His father, Gordon George Cooke, was a sales consultant and his mother, Jeane Catherine Bremner née Mathieson, a ward clerk. He received his schooling at the Birkenhead Institute, before spending a year in Ghana working with Voluntary Services Overseas. He then proceeded to Liverpool University Medical School, qualifying in 1973. After house jobs, he entered surgical training at Royal Liverpool Hospital, including a two-year research appointment in the professorial surgical unit under the direction of Robert (later Sir Robert) Shields. His research centred on aspects of the biology of breast cancer and led to a successful MD thesis, a Hunterian professorship in 1980 and a lifelong interest in malignant breast disease. In 1980 Tim Cooke moved to Southampton as a lecturer in surgery, where he undertook research into colorectal cancer and in 1983 was appointed senior lecturer at the Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School, where he remained for three years. In 1986 he moved back to the academic department of surgery in Liverpool with honorary consultant status at the Royal Liverpool Hospital. In 1989 he was appointed to the St Mungo chair of surgery at the University of Glasgow. Over the next 20 years he contributed enormously to the research literature on breast cancer. He published almost 200 peer-reviewed papers, supervised some 25 postgraduates to obtain higher degrees, was a member of several editorial boards, edited two books, contributed chapters to several more and examined for 13 universities in the UK and abroad. He gave many invited lectures and brought substantial funding to his department. In 1996 he was elected to the prestigious James IV Association of Surgeons, a body whose active membership comprises only 100 practising surgeons worldwide. In addition to his academic endeavours he played a major part in improving NHS breast services in the Glasgow region and was also heavily involved in the wider NHS reorganisation which became necessary in greater Glasgow. He was a keen and enthusiastic teacher and universally popular with students. Outside of work, Tim led a full and varied life. He was widely read and, having attended the same school as the First World War poet Wilfred Owen, was especially knowledgeable about war poetry. He was a keen sportsman, enjoying sailing, skiing and riding. He played tennis and squash, ran marathons and rode mountain bikes. He was a longstanding supporter of Liverpool Football Club, a saxophonist, a bon vivant and a superb storyteller. Married to Lynn (née Russell), a consultant ENT surgeon, he had six children – Emma, Sophie, Ben, James, Esme and Cameron. He died returning from a sailing holiday on 20 July 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000599
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Henriques, Cecil Quixano (1924 - 2008)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2009-03-13 2009-06-04
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/372783372783
Occupation General surgeon
Details Cecil Quixano Henriques was a consultant surgeon at Ipswich and East Suffolk hospitals. He was born on 22 February 1924 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, the son of Wilfrid Quixano Henriques OBE, a civil engineer, and Beatrice Ledward (née Forde), Cecil Henriques was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read natural sciences. In 1945 he entered St Thomas’ Hospital Medical School, London, from where he qualified in 1948. He was a house officer and casualty officer at St Thomas’ Hospital, before spending two years National Service in the Royal Navy as a surgeon lieutenant on HMS Britannia at Dartmouth. On demobilization he became a registrar at the Royal Northern Hospital, where he was greatly influenced by Sir Reginald Murley and R J McNeil Love. He then moved to King’s College Hospital, London, where he completed his training, becoming a research fellow and senior registrar. Here he was influenced by Sir Cecil Wakeley, Sir Edward Muir and Harold C Edwards. During his time at King’s he was successful in winning the John Everidge research prize in both 1957 and 1960. He was appointed consultant surgeon at Ipswich and East Suffolk hospitals in 1960, where he practised for the rest of his career, retiring in 1988. In 1961 he gave a Hunterian Lecture based on his research at King’s on the veins of the vertebral column and their role in the spread of cancer, some of the experimental work also being carried out at the Buckston Browne Research Farm. This lecture was published in the Annals in 1962, the same year in which he gave an Arnott Demonstration. For several years he was an examiner in surgery for the University of Cambridge and at the College he was a surgical tutor between 1964 and 1971. He had the reputation of being a highly skilled technical surgeon, but was noted for being conservative in his choice of management; if an operation could be avoided, so much the better. Immaculate in dress, in the operating theatre he always wore a pair of Royal Naval officers’ half brogue white leather deck shoes and in private life was never seen without a jacket and tie. He was also noted for owning a succession of Daimler cars. He was a skilled politician in hospital committees, usually winning the day in matters of debate. In retirement he enjoyed gardening and living a quiet country life with his wife Faith (née Sanderson), by whom he had three children. He died on 21 July 2008 in Saxmundham, Suffolk.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000600
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Vane, Sir John Robert (1927 - 2004)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-26 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/372326372326
Occupation Pharmacologist
Details John Vane shared the Nobel prize in 1982 with Bergström and Samuelsson for discovering how aspirin works, based on the research he had carried out at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences in our College, where he was successively senior lecturer, reader and then professor between 1955 and 1973. Born on 29 March 1927 in Tardebigg, Worcestershire, he was the son of Maurice Vane and Frances Florence née Fisher. As a boy he blew up the kitchen with a chemistry set, so his father built him a shed in the garden to serve as a laboratory. He read chemistry at Birmingham University, graduating at 19, and then went on to St Catherine's College, Oxford, to read pharmacology, winning the Stothert research fellowship of the Royal Society in 1951. Between 1951 and 1953 he was assistant professor of pharmacology at Yale, coming back to our College where the head of the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences was William Paton, succeeded by Gustav Born, then both leading pharmacologists of their day. It was at a time when prostaglandins were being discovered, and Vane had a notion that aspirin might work by inhibiting their formation, and went on to show that aspirin and indomethacin did in fact inhibit prostaglandin synthetase. Later he developed the anti-inflammatory drugs which inhibited cyclo-oxygenase-2 (the Cox 2 inhibitors) and captopril, the first of the ACE inhibitors. In 1973 he left the College to become director of research and development at the Wellcome Foundation, where his research group discovered prostacylin, the agent which dilates blood vessels and prevents platelets from sticking together. He retired from the Wellcome in 1985 to set up a new research establishment, the William Harvey Research Institute at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He retired again in 1995, but continued as the director of the institute's charitable foundation. He was an inspiring teacher and many young surgeons spent a profitable year under his supervision at the College learning the principles of basic scientific research. He married Elizabeth Daphne Page in 1948. Basically shy, he was a most agreeable companion. He and Daphne built a house in Virgin Gorda in the Caribbean, where he enjoyed underwater swimming. He died from pneumonia on 19 November 2004, leaving Daphne and their two daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000139
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Walker, Victor Gordon (1919 - 2004)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-26
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/372327372327
Occupation General surgeon
Details Gordon Walker was a consultant surgeon on the Isle of Wight. He was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1919. He studied medicine at Melbourne University, qualifying in 1942. Shortly afterwards, he joined the Royal Australian Air Force as a medical officer and was posted to the UK, attached to RAAF Spitfire Squadron 453. In 1944 he took part in the D-day landings on an American tank landing craft. After the war, he was demobilised in London, passed his primary and became house surgeon to Ian Aird at the Hammersmith Hospital. He attended lectures at the College and passed the FRCS in 1947. He was resident surgical officer in Colchester and registrar at St George’s Hospital. He was appointed as a consultant surgeon on the Isle of Wight. He was also surgeon to the prisons on the island and to the Osborne House Convalescent Home. He held these positions for the next 30 years. He was Chairman of the Wessex regional health board and a fundraiser for the Police Convalescent and Rehabilitation Trust, helping to establish a series of convalescent homes in the south of England. He was elected to the Court of Examiners in 1970 and was one of the first members of the Surgical 60 Club. In 1979, he went to Damam, Saudi Arabia, to help set up the surgical wing of the Abdulla Fuad Hospital. A year later he returned to Saudi Arabia to teach surgery in Dharan. He finally retired in 1982. He married Judith in 1947. They had four children and five grandchildren. He died from bronchopneumonia on 23 July 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000140
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wapnick, Simon (1937 - 2003)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-26
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/372328372328
Occupation Anatomist
Details Simon Wapnick was an anatomist based in New York. He was born on 25 October 1937 in Pretoria, South Africa, the son of Percy Jacob Wapnick and Fanny née Levitt. He was educated at Pretoria Boys’ High School and then went on to the University of Pretoria Medical School. He held house appointments at Pretoria General Hospital and Harari Hospital, in the then Rhodesia. In 1964 he went to London, where he was a locum registrar at St Stephens and King George’s Hospitals, London, and followed the basic science course at the College and the Fellowship course in surgery at St Thomas’s. In 1965 he was a senior house officer at Great Ormond Street. From 1966 to 1969 he worked as a registrar and clinical tutor at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in Hammersmith. In 1969 he returned to Africa, as a lecturer and senior lecturer at the department of surgery at the Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine, Rhodesia. From 1972 he was a specialist surgeon at the department of surgery, Ichilov Hospital, Tel Aviv, Israel. He then emigrated to the US, where he was a surgeon at Brooklyn Veterans Administration Hospital in New York. He subsequently taught gross anatomy at Ross University Medical School in the Dominican Republic and at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. At the time of his death, Simon was an assistant professor in the department of cell biology and anatomy at New York Medical College. He taught gross anatomy to first year medical students and facilitated a postgraduate gross anatomy course for various residency programmes. He wrote papers on a range of topics, including skeletal abnormalities in Crohn’s disease, diverticular disease, hiatus hernia, and carcinoma of the oesophagus and stomach. He was actively interested in various Jewish organisations in Israel and in Africa. He married Isobelle née Gelfand, the daughter of Michael Gelfand, the author of books on tropical medicine and on the Shona people, in 1962. They had two daughters (Janette and Laura) and a son (Jonathan), and three grandchildren (Chloe, Jordan and Michael Joshua). A keen marathon runner, Simon Wapnick died on 26 May 2003 of an apparent heart attack, while out jogging in Central Park.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000141
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Carpenter, William Guest (1815 - 1885)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Carpmael, Norman (1875 - 1912)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Carr, William (1814 - 1877)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Carr, William (1829 - 1905)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Carter, Charles Henry (1817 - 1897)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Carter, Henry Freeland (1821 - 1894)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Carter, James (1814 - 1895)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Carter, John Collis ( - 1866)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Carter, Robert Brudenell (1828 - 1918)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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/373042373042
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Little Wittenham, Berkshire, on October 2nd, 1828, traced his descent from Thomas Carter, armiger, of Higham, Bedfordshire, who lived in the reign of Edward IV. When he had authenticated his descent to the satisfaction of the Heralds’ College, and established his right to armorial bearings, he became qualified in the Order of St John of Jerusalem to be promoted from a Knight of Grace to a Knight of Justice. A later ancestor, the Rev Nicolas Carter, preached before the Long Parliament. His grandfather, the Rev Henry Carter, was Rector of Lower Wittenham for fifty-seven years. The sister of his grandfather was Elizabeth Carter (*Dict. Nat. Biog.*), the Greek scholar who translated Epictetus, and was the friend of Johnson, Edmund Burke, and Horace Walpole. His father, Major Henry Carter, Royal Marines, and his wife were staying with the grandfather when he was born. He was christened Robert Brudenell, the name of his father’s neighbour and lifelong friend Robert, sixth Earl of Cardigan, the father of Lord Cardigan of the Light Brigade. Carter’s mother died soon after his birth, and he was brought up by Mrs Fearne. After serving an apprenticeship to a general practitioner, he entered the London Hospital at the age of 19, and qualified in 1851. He then acted as an assistant to a practitioner in Leytonstone, during which he made his first publication, *The Pathology and Treatment of Hysteria* (1853). In 1854 he moved to Putney and published a second book, on *The Influence of Education and Training in Preventing Diseases of the Nervous System*. One may smile at the subjects adopted by a young medical assistant, but his account of hysteria, which he based upon the teaching of Stephen Mackenzie, to whose memory he dedicated the book, shows remarkable literary talent together with much observation, apparently made during his apprenticeship in the country. The obituary in *The Times* noted this first evidence of his talent. With the Crimean War he volunteered and was appointed a staff surgeon in Turkey, where he came under the notice of W H Russell, correspondent of *The Times*; with this introduction he wrote letters to *The Times* from the front, which subsequently determined his future; also letters and contributions to the *Lancet*. He received both the English and Turkish War Medals. On his return he moved from Putney to Fulham, then to Nottingham for five years. There in 1859 he took part in founding the Nottingham Eye Infirmary, and at the same time began to direct special attention to ophthalmology. Once again, in 1862, he moved to Stroud to a partnership with George Samuel Gregory, and had a share in establishing the Gloucestershire Eye Institution. Meanwhile he published *The Physiological Influence of Certain Methods of Teaching, The Artificial Production of Stupidity, The Principle of Early Medical Education, The Marvellous*. In spite of all this, he said: “Nevertheless I was able to go up from my country practice for the FRCS examination without either rest for study or coaching – and to pass.” He married at the age of 40, and looking around for better opportunities he applied to *The Times*. Concerning this crisis he referred to himself in a letter to the *Lancet* as “a conspicuously unsuccessful general practitioner in the country.” His Crimean letters were looked up, and as a result he was put upon the editorial staff. This determined him to settle in London. In the following year, 1869, he was appointed Surgeon to the Royal Eye Hospital, Southwark, and held the post until 1877. He became Ophthalmic Surgeon to St George’s Hospital in 1870 in succession to Henry Power (qv), and was appointed Consulting Surgeon in 1893. His literary abilities gave distinction to his writing on ophthalmology, and his *Students’ Manual* was the most widely used of the day. Another of his appointments was that of Ophthalmic Surgeon to the National Hospital for Paralysis and Epilepsy. In addition to *The Times* Carter joined the staff of the *Lancet*, and at that time James Wakley (qv) was desirous of initiating the ‘Hospital Sunday’. Carter wrote on this and also in *The Times*. On the start of the Mansion House Fund Carter was elected a member of the first Council. He was Hunterian Professor at the College in 1876-1877; Orator in 1874; Lettsomian Lecturer in 1884, and President in 1886, of the Medical Society of London. From 1887-1900 he was the representative of the Apothecaries’ Society on the General Medical Council, and was instrumental in introducing a modification in the procedure of that body, whereby before deciding upon an offence an interval of probation might be afforded by postponing a definite decision until the following session. But it was his position on the staff of *The Times* which enabled him to place the views of the medical profession on subjects of the day before the general public, and the lucidity of his style always enabled him to do so with effect. Said the *Lancet*: “Eloquent, incisive, more than occasionally bitter, he was also a generous writer, and few members of the Medical Profession have wielded greater power with the pen, while he possessed the equally valuable gift of being able to speak in public with the same command of language and high level of literary style. Carter’s ‘leaders’ belong to an older day; he used the Latin ‘period’ and a rotund full-dress method; but any appearance of pomposity thus given to his writings was purely superficial; no writer of to-day is more fastidious than was Carter in his choice of language, or more resolutely averse from the use of ‘stale metaphors, trite tags and obvious morals’.” Although his handwriting was good, he was the first on *The Times* to use a typewriter. Carter sat on the first London County Council, and obtained a special committee to report upon the Care of the Insane. The Council did not accept the recommendations, and he was not re-elected. At the age of 87 he volunteered to write again for the *Lancet* whilst the staff were depleted by the War. He died at his house on Clapham Common on October 23rd, 1918, in his ninety-first year, and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery. There is a portrait of him by ‘Stuff’ in the *Vanity Fair Album* wearing two pairs of spectacles, a habit also noted by ‘Jehu Junior’ in the biographical note, *Vanity Fair*, April 9th, 1892. There is also a portrait in the *Leicester Provincial Medical Journal*, 1890. Carter was twice married: (i) to Helen Ann Beauchamp, daughter of John Becher, and (ii) to Rachel Elizabeth, daughter of Stephen Hallpike, and widow of Walter Browne. He had four sons. Publications:– *On the Pathology and Treatment of Hysteria*, London, 1853. *On the Influence of Education and Training in Preventing Diseases of the Nervous System*, London, 1855. “Hints on the Diagnosis of Eye Disease,” Dublin, 1865; reprinted from *Dublin Quart. Jour. Med. Sci.*, 1865. “The Training of the Mind for the Study of Medicine” (Address at St George’s Hospital), London, 1873. *A Practical Treatise on Diseases of the Eye*, with plates, Philadelphia, 1875. Translations of Schaller on “Ocular Defects”, 1869, and of Zänder on “The Ophthalmoscope”, 1864. Contributions to Holmes’s *System of Surgery*, and to Quain’s *Dictionary of Medicine*. *Ophthalmic Surgery* (with W A Frost), 1887; 2nd ed. 1888. *On Defects of Vision remediable by Optical Appliances* (Hunterian Lecture RCS), London, 1877. *Eyesight Good and Bad.* A treatise on the exercise and preservation of vision, London, 1880; translated into German, Berlin, 1884. Cantor Lectures on “Colour Blindness” delivered at the Society of Arts, London, 1881. “Eyesight in Civilization,” London, 1884; reprinted from *The Times*, 1884. “The Modern Operations for Cataract” (Lettsomian Lectures, Medical Society of London), London, 1884. “Eyesight in Schools” (Lecture before the Medical Officers of Schools), London, 1885; reprinted from *Med. Times and Gaz.*, 1885. “On Retrobulbar Incision of the Optic Nerve in Cases of Swollen Disc.” – *Brain*, 1887, x, 199. “On the Management of Severe Injuries to the Eye.” – *Clin. Jour.*, 1894, iv, 317. *Sight and Hearing in Childhood* (with A H Cheatle), London, 1903. *Doctors and their Work; or Medicine, Quackery and Disease*, London, 1903. “Medical Ophthalmology” in Allbutt’s *System of Medicine*, vi.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000859
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cartwright, Samuel (1815 - 1891)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Carver, Edmund (1824 - 1904)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Bennett, William Charles Storer (1852 - 1900)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Bennett, William Edward (1865 - 1927)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Tainsh, John McNeill ( - 2007)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-10-14 2012-03-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373232373232
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Tainsh passed the FRCS in 1946 and returned to Vancouver, where his death on 3 January 2007 was notified to the College by his daughter.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001049
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Tooms, Douglas ( - 2007)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Weisl, Hanuš (1925 - 2007)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by K M N Kunzru
Publication Date 2010-10-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373234373234
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Hanuš Weisl was a consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon in South Glamorgan, Wales. He escaped his native Prague in the last kindertransport to London in June 1939. His parents, Alfred, a dentist, and Marie née Mandler, a doctor, eventually joined him in England after the Second World War. After qualifying from Manchester, he acquired British citizenship. He was appointed as a house officer in Manchester Royal Infirmary in 1948 at the inception of the NHS. After serving as an assistant lecturer in anatomy at his medical school, he worked as a surgical registrar at Rhyl, and became a senior registrar in orthopaedics at Cardiff and at Prince of Wales Orthopaedic Hospital, Rhydlafar (near Cardiff). Working with Dilwynn Evans, he developed a special interest in children’s deformities. He was appointed as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Bolton in 1963, and returned to Wales in 1969 to Cardiff and Rhydlafar as a consultant, specialising in club feet, and later in deformities caused by spina bifida. He published on many subjects, mostly children’s orthopaedic problems, including papers on skull caliper tractions and hip problems in spina bifida. He died on 17 July 2007 from a cerebral haemorrhage after a fall at home. His wife, Reba, predeceased him in 1997. He left a daughter and a grand-daughter.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001051
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wolfson, Leonard Gordon, Baron Wolfson of Marylebone in the City of Westminster (1927 - 2010)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Wyatt, Arthur Powell (1932 - 2009)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Christopher Russell
Publication Date 2010-10-14 2012-03-08
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373236373236
Occupation General surgeon
Details Arthur Powell Wyatt was a consultant surgeon in the Greenwich health district. He was born in Hornsey, Middlesex, on 14 October 1932. His father, Henry George Wyatt, a medical missionary in China, died as a neutral during the Sino-Japanese War in 1938. His mother, Edith Maud née Holden, also a missionary, was a teacher. Arthur spent his early childhood in China, before returning to England in 1940 to attend Eltham College, then the school for the sons of missionaries. During the war it was evacuated to Taunton School and afterwards returned to Eltham. Wyatt entered St Bartholomew's Hospital, qualifying in 1955 with the Walsham prize in surgical pathology. After junior posts, he passed the FRCS in 1960 and became a lecturer in surgery at St Bartholomew's for two years. He then became a senior registrar at King's College Hospital, from which he was seconded to the post of postgraduate research surgeon at Moffat Hospital, University of California, San Francisco (from 1965 to 1966). In 1967, he joined Austin Wheatley at the Brook General Hospital to establish a vascular service, his experience at St Bartholomew's under Taylor, in San Francisco and at King's making him almost uniquely qualified for such a position. Austin Wheatley died prematurely in 1969 and was replaced by Arthur Wyatt, Mervyn Rosenburg and Ellis Field in 1970. They soon established the Brook as one of the places in London in the 1970s for young surgeons to establish their credentials in surgery. The hospital provided a wide range of experience with a heavy emergency workload. Arthur proved a master at difficult and complex operations, having wide experience in pneumatosis coli, oxygen therapy, transhiatal oesophagectomy for carcinoma, thoracic sympathectomy for axillary hyperhidrosis and introducing new methods of fixation for rectal prolapse. He took a full and active part in hospital management, as well as being a regional adviser in general surgery for the South East Thames Region. He was an active member, secretary and president of the surgical and proctological sections of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was a member of the Court of Examiners of our College. He was well recognised locally and became president of the West Kent Medico-Chirurgical Society. Like his parents, Arthur was a committed Christian, and was active in the Christian Medical Fellowship. After retirement, he retraced his Chinese experience to re-establish links with that country. He developed his long term interest in gardening. It was while establishing his new garden that he became aware of the tumour which eventually proved fatal. He accepted the diagnosis with calm bolstered by his Christian faith. He died on 11 October 2009 and was survived by his wife, Margaret Helen née Cox, whom he married in 1955, and their three sons, John, Robert and Andrew. A son, David, predeceased him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001053
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Harvey, John Scott (1946 - 2010)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2010-11-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373237373237
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Harvey was appointed as a consultant general surgeon at the Llandough Hospital in 1982. The hospital later became an integral part of Cardiff Medical School, and was renamed 'University Hospital Llandough' in 2008 during the celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the hospital and 125 years of Cardiff University. Harvey was born on 5 April 1946 in Manchester into a non-medical family, the son of Arthur Harvey, a clerk who worked for the Manchester Ship Canal Company, and his wife Eliza Jane née Scott, a coalminer's daughter. After secondary schooling at Manchester Grammar School, where he was a foundation scholar, he entered the University of Leeds for his medical training. Qualifying in 1968, he held house appointments at the Leeds General Infirmary. He obtained his MPhil when he was a university lecturer in physiology and passed the FRCS when working on rotating appointments in the Leeds area. To gain more practical experience, he proceeded to a surgical registrar appointment at the Clayton and Pinderfield hospitals in Wakefield. Most of his higher surgical training took place in Wales, as a senior registrar in South Glamorgan, and he acquired a specialist interest in vascular surgery during this period. Over the years he became the respected 'anchorman' of the Cardiff vascular service. He was active in many aspects of Welsh surgical practice, becoming president of the Welsh Surgical Society and also an excellent chairman of the Welsh Surgical Travelling Club. Fond of teaching both undergraduates and postgraduates, in a student yearbook he was quoted as saying: "if you want to pass the exam you need to use the correct words: to gain a distinction you need to put them in the right order". He was a very private man in many ways, but had a keen sense of humour. He would never flout his learning, but when he took an interest in a subject his knowledge took many by surprise. There were many family holidays to the USA, and he became interested in the American Civil War and was an ardent fan of baseball. He staggered and entertained all his colleagues with a verbatim recitation of all 13 stanzas of the famous baseball poem 'Casey at the Bat' at one of the local surgical society meetings. His colleagues described him as "one of the most self-deprecating and caring surgeons" they knew. In 1968 John Harvey married Maureen Grayson: they had one daughter, Rachel Elizabeth, and a son, James. A sufferer from diabetes, he withstood the rigours of treatment for leukaemia and maintained the unique ability of never being rude to anyone, even during the final days when aplastic anaemia developed and his suffering was great. He died on 6 January 2010 in South Glamorgan.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001054
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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 Nicoll, Charles Richard (1814 - 1879)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-08-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002800-E002899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374993374993
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on November 5th, 1814, the son of the Rev Thomas Vere Richard Nicoll, Rector of Cherrington, Warwickshire, and a grandson of the Rev Richard Nicoll, DD, of Boddicott, Oxon, who married Vere Wickham, a niece of the sixth and last Viscount Saye and Sele. He was thus of Founder's kin at Winchester College, but though he had the right he was not sent to a free education there, but was privately educated, and received his medical training at University College, St Bartholomew's Hospital, and in Paris. In 1839 he was an undergraduate of the then University of London. After qualifying he entered the Army Medical Service, serving with the staff in the Bermudas. He afterwards entered the Grenadier Guards and served with them through the Crimean Campaign, receiving the Medal and Clasp for Sebastopol, and the Turkish Medal; and again with the same regiment as Surgeon Major in Canada 1861-1864. Retiring in 1866, he was elected Resident Medical Officer to the Charterhouse, and held this post at his death, when he was also a member of the Hunterian and Pathological Societies and of the British Medical Association, having been for nearly two years a Member of the Council of the Metropolitan Counties Branch. He died at the Charterhouse on May 14th, 1879, much beloved and mourned by his many friends and old brother-officers. Free from all self-assertion, those who knew him most intimately recognized in him one well versed in his profession, upright, honourable, and sincere - in short, a gentleman. He married in 1850 a daughter of Sir Alexander Morison, MD, and left two sons and two daughters. Colonel Johnston (*RAMC Roll*, No 4602) gives his appointments as Assistant Surgeon, Grenadier Guards, June 26th, 1840; Staff, June 9th, 1843; Grenadier Guards, February 7th, 1845; Battalion Surgeon, Grenadier Guards, December 29th, 1854; Surgeon Major in the Army on completion of twenty years' full-pay service, June 26th, 1860, under the Royal Warrant of October 1st, 1858, but continued in his regiment in the rank of Battalion Surgeon; retired on half pay, October 30th, 1866.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002810
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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/372452372452
Occupation General surgeon
Details Kenneth Edgar Bond spent much of his career as a surgeon working in India. The son of Edward Vines Bond, the rector of Beddington, and Rose Edith née Bridges, the daughter of a landowner, he was born on 24 October 1908 and was educated at Mowden School, Brighton, and Haileybury College, before going on to Peterhouse Cambridge and St Thomas’s Hospital to study medicine. As an undergraduate he became interested in comparative anatomy, which led to a special study of reptiles, and in later life he kept snakes, which he exercised on his lawn in Bungay. He held junior posts at St Thomas’s, the Royal Herbert Hospital and Hampstead General Hospital. During the first part of the war he served in the EMS, in London, working as a surgeon at North-Western Hospital, Connaught Hospital, and New End Hospital. In October 1942 he joined the Army, first as surgical specialist at Queen Alexandra Hospital, Millbank, and later in India, where he was officer in charge of a surgical division in Bangalore and then in Bombay. Following demobilisation, he was appointed as a senior surgical registrar in abdominal, colon and rectal surgery at St Mark’s Hospital, London. In 1948 he returned to India, where he was honorary consulting surgeon at the European Hospital Trust, the Masina Hospital and Bombay Hospital. Following his retirement in 1970, he returned to Beddington as patron of the parish, a duty which he took very seriously, fighting one vicar who unlawfully removed and sold six fine medieval pews, and going to endless trouble to interview prospective candidates for the parish. He had a lifelong love of Wagner, regularly visiting Bayreuth. He was twice married. His first marriage to Wendy Fletcher was dissolved. He later married B H M Van Zwanenberg, who died in 1970. He died on 1 July 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000265
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Barker, Edgar ( - 1874)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Barker, Edward (1818 - 1885)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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 Barker, Walter Rice Howell (1810 - 1889)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Nicolson, John Frederick (1817 - 1892)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Nicolson, Simon (1779 - 1855)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-08-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002800-E002899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374995374995
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in the Manse of Kiltarlity, one of the large Inverness-shire parishes, on July 5th, 1779; his father and his grandfather had been ministers of the parish. He was apprenticed to a medical man at Inverness and afterwards became a student at St George's Hospital, where he served the office of House Surgeon and Assistant to Sir Everard Home and became a friend of his contemporaries, Sir Benjamin Brodie and Sir Charles Clarke. He practised for some time in London until Sir Everard Home in 1805 gave him a nomination in the service of the HEIC. He entered the Bengal Army as Assistant Surgeon on Feb 2nd, 1807, his appointment being delayed as he was acting as Private Surgeon to the Duke of Portland. He was detailed as Assistant Surgeon to the Calcutta General Hospital as soon as he arrived in India, and spent nearly all his working life in connection with the institution. On Jan 8th, 1820, he was promoted Surgeon, and in 1827 Superintending Surgeon, in the service of the HEIC, but he resigned this rank and reverted to his appointment as Residency Surgeon at Calcutta, and held office until a few days before his death. Nicolson soon obtained a very large practice in Calcutta, and it is said that horses were in harness day and night whilst a coachman sat on the box of his carriage ready for any urgent summons; yet in spite of this he was not ostentatious and never grew rich, for he gave of his best in the matter of advice to rich and poor alike. When John Macdonald came to India in 1838 Nicolson was one of the first to enrol himself and his family in the New Scottish Free Church in India. His last years were darkened by misfortune: his eldest son was killed in the Battle of Ferozshakar; a few months later his wife died after a long illness; and he himself became paralysed in 1847. On resigning his post of Surgeon to the Hospital at Calcutta he received a letter from the Marquis of Dalhousie, the Governor-General, dated April 25th, 1855, and another from the President of the Council of India, congratulating and thanking him for all the good work he had done during the nearly fifty years he had held office. He died at Calcutta on August 8th, 1855, after a short illness.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002812
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Noble, Daniel (1810 - 1885)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-08-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002800-E002899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374996374996
Occupation General surgeon Physician
Details Born at Preston, and received his medical education at the Borough School and Guy's Hospital. He settled in general practice in Manchester in 1834, and in 1847, when an alarming and disastrous epidemic of typhus raged there, was the general superintendent of the extensive arrangements made for checking the progress of the disease. In 1866, when the cholera threatened a renewed visitation, he was once more consulted. In 1859 he declined a County Magistracy offered him by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He practised at 32 Ardwick Green, after leaving Piccadilly, Manchester, to which latterly he returned. He was Medical Officer of the Manchester Union, Vice-President of the Manchester Medical Society, President of the Manchester Statistical Society, a Member of Council of the Provincial Medical Association, and President of the Lancashire and Cheshire Branch of the British Medical Association. He was also Visiting Physician to the Clifden Hall Retreat and Consulting Physician to the Manchester Ear Institute, and to the Wye House Lunatic Asylum, Buxton. He died on January 12th, 1885. His last address was at 258 Oxford Road, Manchester. Publications:- *An Essay on the Means, Physical and Moral, of Estimating Human Character*, 8vo, Manchester, 1835. *Facts and Observations relative to the Influence of Manufactures upon Health and Life*, 8vo, London, 1843. "On Mesmerism." - *Brit and For Med-Chir Rev*, 1845, xix, 428. *The Brain and its Physiology*, a critical disquisition on the methods of determining the relations between the structure and functions of the encephalon, 8vo, London, 1846. *Wat is waar, wat onwaar in het dierlijk magmetisme? Kritische beschouwing der mesmerische daadzacken en theorien. Uit het Engeloch vertaald door. J N Ramaer*, 8vo, Zutphen, 1847. "On the Question of Contagion in Cholera," 8vo, London, 1849; reprinted from *Lond Med Gaz*, 1849, ns viii, 141. *Elements of Psychological Medicine*, an introduction to the practical study of insanity, adapted for students and junior practitioners, 12mo, London, 1853; 2nd ed, 8vo, London, 1855. "Three Lectures on the Correlation of Psychology and Physiology," 8vo, London, 1854; reprinted from *Assoc Med Jour*, 1854, 586, etc; 2nd ed, 1855. *The Human Mind in its Relations with the Brain and Nervous System*, 8vo, London, 1858. "On Certain Popular Fallacies concerning the Production of Diseases," 8vo, Manchester, 1859; reprinted from *Trans Manchester Statist Soc*, 1863-4. "On Fluctuations in the Death-rate, with a Glance at the Causes, having Especial Reference to the Supposed Influence of the Cotton Famine on Recent Mortality" (read before the Manchester Statistical Society, Oct 26, 1863), 8vo, London, 1863; reprinted from *Trans Manchester Statist Soc*, 1863-4. "Thoughts on the Value and Significance of Statistics," 8vo, London, 1866; reprinted from *Trans Manchester Statist Soc*, 1865-6. "Epidemic Fever of 1847." - *Ibid*, 1848, i, 285. "Cerebrospinal Concussion, with Illustrative Cases." - *Assoc Med Jour*, 1855, 1127.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002813
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Buchanan, Thomas Cox (1804 - 1975)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Noon, Leonard (1877 - 1913)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-08-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002800-E002899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374998374998
Occupation Pathologist
Details Born on December 8th, 1877, the only son of James Noon, of the Charterhouse. He entered Charterhouse School in 1891 and left in 1896, having in the meantime gained the junior and senior scholarships and an exhibition in science. He also shot in the school VIII for the Ashburton Shield in 1894-1896, the team being winners in 1895 and 1896. He had a brilliant career at Cambridge, where he obtained a first class in both parts of the Natural Science Tripos in 1898 and 1900 and a major scholarship for advanced physiology at Trinity College in 1899. He entered St Bartholomew's Hospital, winning the open scholarship in anatomy and physiology, and was House Surgeon and Ophthalmic House Surgeon. In September, 1905, he was nominated to a research scholarship at the serum department of the Lister Institute at Elstree when Professor G Dean was Director. Here he carried out an important research on the laws governing the neutralization of tetanus toxin by brain tissue. In 1906 he became the John Lucas Walker Student for Research in Pathology at Cambridge, and in 1909 he was Assistant in the Inoculation Department at St Mary's Hospital under Sir Almroth Wright. He had to relinquish laboratory work early in 1911 owing to failing health, and he died unmarried at his house, 30 Devonshire Place, London, on January 20th, 1913. Noon proved himself a most capable pathologist during the short span of life allotted to him. His work was almost wholly connected with immunity, and was of a general theoretical character opening up wide fields of inquiry rather than of a direct practical application. It dealt chiefly with the nature of the toxins and antitoxins of tetanus, the mechanism and localization of the production of antibodies, and, with a more practical outcome, active immunization against hay fever by the inoculation of extracts of pollen. Noon maintained his interest in rifle shooting to the end of his life. He was deeply but not ostentatiously religious, interested in all subjects, extraordinarily fertile both in new conceptions and in bold generalizations, but ready and ingenious in destructive criticism. All his colleagues were his friends. Publications:- Noon's scientific papers appeared in the *Jour of Pathos and Bacteriol*, in the *Jour of Hygiene*, and in the *Lancet*.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002815
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Budd, Herbert Walker (1813 - 1876)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-11-11 2013-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373248373248
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Seringapatam, the son of Major G Hayward Budd, of the 43rd Regiment of the Madras Native Infantry. He was brought to England at the age of 6 years, and began his medical training at the Worcester General Infirmary under his uncle, Herbert Cole, son of Pennel Cole, who was Senior Surgeon of the institution for fifty years. In 1833 Herbert Walker Budd became a student at St Bartholomew's Hospital, and after qualifying began to practise at Worcester about the year 1835, continuing there to his death. In 1853 he was elected Surgeon of the Infirmary, and at the time of his death was Senior Surgeon. He had also held various appointments in and around Worcester, such as the Surgeoncy of the City Gaol. He died at his residence, College Gates, Worcester, on February 4th, 1876.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001065
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bullar, John Follett (1854 - 1929)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-11-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373249373249
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Putney on May 2nd, 1854, the son of John Bullar, of Basset Wood, Southampton. He was a pupil of C Scott, of East Molesey, Surrey, and matriculated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1872, having been admitted a pensioner on October 12th in that year. He obtained a first class in the Natural Science Tripos in 1875, but did not graduate BA until 1877. He acted as Demonstrator of Comparative Anatomy at Cambridge, and took the MA and MB degrees together in 1883. He received his medical education at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he acted as House Physician to Dr James Andrew and as Ophthalmic House Surgeon to Henry Power (qv) and Bowater J Vernon (qv). Whilst he was Ophthalmic House Surgeon he invented what afterwards became known as 'Bullar's shield' by the simple process of luting a watch-glass over the unaffected eye by means of diachylon plaster to protect it in cases of gonococcal inflammation. He acted for a few months as Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy at St Bartholomew's Hospital, and then determined to devote himself to ophthalmic surgery. He settled in Southampton, where his uncles Dr John and Dr William Bullar had practised, and founded in 1889 the Southampton Free Eye Hospital, to which he was appointed first Surgeon and afterwards Consulting Surgeon. He was also Consulting Surgeon to the Royal Hants County Hospital, Winchester, and a Trustee of the Royal South Hants and Southampton Hospital which his uncles had founded in 1838. During the European War he acted as ophthalmic specialist with the rank of Captain RAMC (T). Failing sight caused him to retire to Houmet Du Nord, L'Islet, Guernsey, where he became Ophthalmic Surgeon to the Guernsey Victoria Hospital and occupied himself in breeding pedigree goats. He married but had no children. He and his wife were drowned when a seaplane in which he was travelling from Corsica to the mainland turned turtle in the harbour at Antibes on January 24th, 1929. Bullar was of a genial and loyal disposition: absolutely honest, he exercised an influence for good over all with whom he was brought in contact. Having means in excess of his wants, he never used to the full his natural attainments, which were great.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001066
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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 Bernard, Ralph Montague (1816 - 1871)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Berney, Edward ( - 1890)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-02-25 2013-08-07
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/373049373049
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at Guy's Hospital. He practised at 73 High Street, Croydon, and died at his residence, Kirby Bedon, Lower Addiscombe Road, Croydon, in the period between November, 1889, and November, 1890.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000866
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Berry, Samuel (1808 - 1887)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Berry, Sidney Herbert (1874 - 1901)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Berry, Titus (1779 - 1868)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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/372838372838
Occupation General surgeon
Details Son [1] of Thomas Alcock, a medical man practising at Ealing. Educated at Westminster Hospital, where he filled the post of House Surgeon, and in 1832 was appointed Surgeon to the British Portuguese forces acting in Portugal. In 1836 he was transferred to the Marine Brigade engaged in the Carlist war in Spain, and within a year was appointed Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals. [2] On his return to England he lectured on Surgery at the Sydenham College, [3] but in 1844 he was nominated Consul at Foochow, one of the ports newly opened to trade by the treaty of 1842. He was transferred to Shanghai in 1846 and had with him Sir Harry Smith Parkes. Under Alcock's direction the municipal regulations for the Government of the British Settlement of Shanghai were established and the foundations were laid of the city which has since arisen there. In 1858 he was appointed the first Consul and in 1859 British Minister in Japan, where the admission of foreigners proved so distasteful that an attack was made upon the British Legation on July 5th, 1861, and Alcock with his staff were in serious danger. Alcock returned to England in 1862 and, having already been decorated CB, was promoted KCB on June 19th, 1862, receiving the Hon DCL at Oxford on March 28th, 1863. He returned to Tokio in 1864, leaving in the following year on his appointment as Minister-Plenipotentiary at Pekin. Here he conducted affairs with such delicacy and tact that Prince Kung said: "If England would only take away her missionaries and her opium, the relations between the two countries would be everything that could be desired." In 1871 he retired from the service of diplomacy, settled in London, and interested himself in hospital management, more especially at the Westminster and Westminster Ophthalmic Hospitals, and in hospital nursing establishments. He served as President of the Geographical Society (1876-1878) and as Vice-President of the Royal Asiatic Society (1875-1878). [4] He married: (1) Henrietta Mary, daughter of Charles Bacon, in 1841; (2) Lucy, widow of the Rev T Lowder, British chaplain at Shanghai. He died without issue at 14 Great Queen Street, London, on Nov 2nd, 1897. There is a portrait of him late in life in the Board Room of the Westminster Hospital, a copy is in the collection of the Royal College of Surgeons [5], and one, made in 1843, by L A de Fabeck, is reproduced in Michie's *Englishman in Japan*. Publications: *Notes on the Medical History and Statistics of the British Legion in Spain*, 8vo, London, 1838. *Life's Problems*, 8vo, 2nd ed., London, 1861. *Elements of Japanese Grammar*, 4to, Shanghai, 1861. *The Capital of the Tycoon*, 2 vols., 8vo, London, 1863. *Familiar Dialogues in Japanese with English and French Translations*, 8vo, London, 1863. *Art and Art Industries in Japan*, 8vo, London, 1878. He also edited in 1876 the *Diary of Augustus Raymond Margary* (1846-1875) (the traveller in China). [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] ? Nephew; [2] He was honored with the Knighthood of the Royal Spanish order of Charles III in 1839-40 (*London medical gazette* 1839-40, xxv, 720.); [3] He won the Jacksonian Prize in 1839 and again in 1841.; [4] He was a member of the Board of Guardians of St George's Hanover Square and took "a deep personal interest" in the scheme for emigrating pauper children to Canada. (see his letter to the *Spectator* 5 July 1879 [reprint in the Library]); [5] The words 'a copy is in the collection of the Royal College of Surgeons' are deleted and 'no!' added; Rutherford Alcock contributed to the *London Medical Gazette* on lithotripsy (?) 1829, 4, 464; 1830, 5, 102; on transport of wounded 1837-8, 21, 652; on medical statistics of armies 1838 22 321 & 362; on gunshot wounds & other injuries 1839 24 138 etc; on clinical instruction 1839 25 694, & on his Jacksonian prize 1840, 26, 607 and to *The Lancet* 1839/40, 1, 929 on concussion & 1840-41, 1 & 2 on amputation (a series of lectures); Portrait (No.47) in Small Photographic Album (Moira & Haigh).]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000655
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bevan, William ( - 1856)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Bickersteth, Edward Robert (1828 - 1908)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-02-25
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/373057373057
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at 2 Rodney Street, Liverpool, the house of his father, Robert Bickersteth, FRCS (qv). He entered the Liverpool School of Medicine in 1845 and later studied in Edinburgh and at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, visiting also Dublin and Paris before qualifying as MRCS. At Edinburgh he was House Surgeon under Syme and met Lister and Charles Murchison as fellow-students. He also acted as House Surgeon at the Liverpool Infirmary. He began to practise at Liverpool in 1852, and in 1856 succeeded his father as Surgeon to the Infirmary. Rapidly gaining a large surgical practice, he started a private Nursing Home in 1857. As a teacher of clinical and systematic surgery, his classes were well attended to the last. After thirty-two years on the active staff he was elected Consulting Surgeon in 1888. A member of the Hospital Committee, he became President of the Infirmary in 1904, residing at Craig y Don, Anglesea. After a short period of failing health he died in the family house in Rodney Street, Liverpool, on March 7th, 1908, leaving property to the value of £330,000, including £10,000 as a legacy towards the erection of a new Out-patient Department. He married Anne, sister of Charles Murchison his fellow-student in Edinburgh, who survived him together with three daughters and two sons; one, Robert Alexander Bickersteth (qv), followed on as Surgeon to the Infirmary. Bickersteth’s distinction as a surgeon was recognized by his election to the Fellowship of the College on April 10th, 1879. Later he was President of the Surgical Section at the Liverpool Meeting of the British Medical Association. He made a most valuable and timely contribution to surgery when Lister in 1869 published his “Antiseptic Method of Treating Compound Fracture and the Use of Catgut rendered Aseptic by Carbolic Acid as Ligatures”. Lister as a young Professor in Glasgow had to obtain a hearing in the face of the prejudices of senior surgeons. Bickersteth at once acted in support of Lister, whom he had known as a fellow-student in Edinburgh, by publishing “Remarks on the Antiseptic Treatment of Wounds” in the Lancet. Shortly before there had appeared a letter by Lister objecting to a report by Paget. Paget had first applied collodion over the wound made by a compound fracture, and twelve hours later Lister’s carbolized putty, and had concluded that it ‘certainly did no good’. Lister objected first to the primary collodionizing and secondly to the delay in applying the antiseptic. Bickersteth began his paper “The Editorial Remarks regarding the antiseptic treatment of wounds contained in a recent number of the *Lancet*, in which comment is made on the discrepancy of the results obtained by Mr Lister and by other surgeons induces me to notice briefly the result of my personal experience.” He went on to relate Case I Male, 32. Aneurysm of the right common carotid near its bifurcation. A swelling had been first noticed a year before; three weeks previously there had been a sudden increase. The aneurysm over¬lapped the angle upon the mandible and extended down the neck to 1½ inches from the top of the sternum. On April 6th the right carotid was tied about 1½ inches above the sternum where the vessel had become considerably dilated, catgut prepared by Lister’s method being used. There was primary union and the man left the Infirmary five weeks later. Case II Male, 30. Aneurysm of the right external iliac 16 weeks before, after a strain in the groin, a swelling the size of a hen’s egg had appeared immediately above Poupart’s ligament. The external iliac artery was ligatured on the same day immediately after Case I. There was slight superficial suppuration, but the patient left the Infirmary well, and with no sign of the swelling, on May 15th. Subsequently he described two cases, upon which operation had been previously impracticable or inadvisable, namely, the removal of a loose cartilage from the knee-joint, twice on the same patient, and excision of a compound palmar ganglion. In both instances there was good healing. The hand had previously become useless; the patient was discharged “with almost perfect use of the hand!” Two instances of suppuration in the knee-joint were washed out with carbolic acid lotions, and healed. Previously, the limbs would have been amputated. Publications: “Remarks on the Antiseptic Treatment of Wounds.” – *Lancet*, 1869, i, 743, 811; 1870, ii, 6. Article in *Liverpool Med. and Surg. Rep.*, 1870, iv, 99.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000874
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bickersteth, Robert Alexander (1862 - 1924)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-03-04
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/373058373058
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Liverpool on October 4th, 1862, the son of Edward Robert Bickersteth (qv); was educated under Dr Hornby at Eton, which he entered in 1872. He was admitted a Pensioner at Trinity College, Cambridge, on June 13th, 1881, and graduated BA with first-class honours in the Natural Science Tripos in 1884. He then entered St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he was House Surgeon. After being a Clinical Assistant at the Throat Hospital, Golden Square, and the Royal Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields, he was elected Assistant Surgeon to the Royal Liverpool Infirmary, representing the third generation of his family on the staff of that institution. In due course he became full Surgeon, and, on his resignation in 1921, Consulting Surgeon. His attention was specially directed to urology, and he was elected a Corresponding Member of L’Association française d’Urologie and a Member of L’Association Internationale d’Urologie. He was distinguished as a clinical teacher and lecturer on surgery, and was Examiner in Surgery at the Liverpool University. At the Liverpool Medical Institution he was Treasurer and Vice-President. At the Liverpool Meeting of the British Medical Association in 1912 he was President of the Section of Surgery. From 1914-1918 he served as Major RAMC(T) at the 1st Western General Hospital, and later at the 57th General Hospital in France. Whilst in practice he lived at 4 Rodney Street; on retirement he went to Outgate, Ambleside. He died at Bournemouth on February 28th, 1924, and was buried at Kirkby Lonsdale, where his great-grandfather had practised, leaving a widow, three sons, and two daughters. Dr George Luys in 1901 at the Laboisière Hospital of Paris had devised an instrument for separating in the bladder the urine from each kidney. Bickersteth visited Paris in October, 1903, and on February 4th, 1904, published his first communication on the intravesical separation of the urine1 at the Liverpool Medical Institution, which was followed by later accounts of further experience with the method. In his paper on kinked ureter2 he explained how the ureter immediately below a hydronephrotic kidney is found sharply kinked so that its lumen becomes obstructed. He gave three diagrams in illustration of this occurrence owing to an abnormal accessory renal artery, which may spring direct from the aorta below the level of the main renal artery. In a few cases he had divided this artery and relieved the hydronephrosis. Publications:- “Intravesical Separation of the Urines coming from the two Kidneys.” – *Lancet*, 1904, i, 437, 859. *Brit. Med. Jour.,* 1904, ii, 837. “Kinked Ureter.” – *Proc. Roy. Soc. Med.* (Surg. Sect.), 1913-14, vii, 259.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000875
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bickersteth, William Henry (1813 - 1862)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Bidwell, Leonard Arthur (1865 - 1912)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-03-04
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/373060373060
Occupation General surgeon
Details Son of Leonard Bidwell, Chief Clerk in the General Post Office. Educated at Blackheath School, and entered St Thomas’s Hospital in 1882, where he was a House Surgeon. He then studied in Paris, was appointed Assistant Surgeon to the West London Hospital in 1891, and became Surgeon in 1906. There he distinguished himself in the surgery of the abdomen, and more especially as a teacher and administrator in the Post-Graduate College. The Post-Graduate College at the West London Hospital was initiated by Charles Bell Keetley (qv) in 1894, but to Bidwell was due, in the main, its rapid rise to success. He became Dean of the School in 1896 and held that position until his death. In the first three years of the School’s existence it was attended by 50 graduates, and in the last three years of Bidwell’s life (1909-1912) by 671 graduates. The number of entries during his term of office exceeded 2500. Bidwell was also Surgeon to the Florence Nightingale Hospital, to the Blackheath and Charlton Hospital, and to the City Dispensary. He served as Surgeon Major in the Buckinghamshire Yeomanry. His death occurred from acute appendicitis on September 2nd, 1912. He had married Dorothea, daughter of Sir J Ropes Parkington, Bart, in 1896; she survived him together with three sons and two daughters. He practised at 15 Upper Wimpole Street. Publications: Bidwell devoted his attention chiefly to abdominal surgery. His *Handbook of Intestinal Surgery*, 1905, 2nd ed 1910, was one of the best text-books of the day. In addition from 1893 he made many special communications upon abdominal surgery, on “Undescended Testicle”, “Gastro-jejunostomy”, “Fixation of the Colon in Inguinal Colotomy”, “Extra-uterine Gestation with Resection of 5 inches of Intestine”, “Intestinal Anastomosis”, “Transverse Colectomy and Ileo-sigmoidostomy”, “Pyloroplasty”, “Varieties of Dilated Stomach”, “Pulmonary Embolism after Abdominal Operations”. His *Minor Surgery*, published in 1911, with 88 illustrations, was so successful, that a second edition was required in the following year, and included 129 illustrations. He edited the *Proceedings of the West London Medico-Chirurgical Society*, and when this developed into the *Journal* he became Editorial Secretary.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000877
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bindley, Samuel Allen (1810 - 1877)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Birch, Edward Arnold (1852 - 1890)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-03-04 2013-08-07
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/373062373062
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born about the year 1852 and was educated at the Royal School of Medicine, Manchester. He held most of the resident appointments at the Royal Infirmary (Assistant to the Ophthalmic Surgeon, Senior House Surgeon, and Physician's Assistant). At the time of his death he was in practice at 341 Stockport Road, Manchester, and was Surgeon to the Chorlton-on-Medlock Dispensary. He died of pneumonia on Christmas Day, 1890, leaving a widow, but no children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000879
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bunce, John Strudwicke (1816 - 1875)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Bunch, Frank Vigers (1869 - 1894)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-11-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373256373256
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on July 15th, 1869, the third son of John James Bunch, a medical practitioner in Wolverhampton. He was educated at the Royal Naval College, Gosport, and then at Charterhouse from 1882-1886, where he showed no special bent in his studies. He entered University College as a student in May, 1887, and soon became interested in scientific matters; in fact, he showed such ability and promise that after two years of anatomy and physiology he was appointed Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy in the winter of 1889-1890. Beginning to work in the wards, he soon showed an exceptional character. He out-distanced all competitors and won numerous medals, including the Bruce Gold Medal. He was awarded the Filliter Exhibition of £30 in Pathology and the Atchison Scholarship of £60 for two years in Surgery and Medicine. After qualifying in 1892 he held the posts of House Surgeon, Ophthalmic Assistant, and Obstetric Assistant, and was appointed Surgical Registrar early in 1894. He passed the first part of the Fellowship Examination at the end of the winter of 1890 when only 21 years of age, and the final part in November, 1898, but was too young to receive the diploma. When he died at 25 he had just been admitted FRCS, and is notable as one of the youngest of the Fellows whose deaths are recorded up to October, 1894. Bunch had a thorough grasp of the science of his work, and his skill in diagnosis was phenomenal. He seemed to arrive at an appreciation of the nature of the case before him so rapidly and truly that it appeared to onlookers almost like an intuition rather than a reasonable weighing of the pros and cons. He was conscientious and devoted to his work, and his friends predicted for him a brilliant surgical career. Among his fellow-students he was known as a very well-read man, with a cultivated love for pictures, and as a facile, incisive, often rather sarcastic, speaker. He was Vice-President of the Hospital Medical Society at the time of his death. He died on Friday, October 5th, 1894, from diphtheria caught from a child in the ward, and was buried at Finchley Cemetery. His elder brother, John Lamare Bunch, born June 23rd, 1868, entered Charterhouse School on the same day as F Vigers Bunch and left in 1885; the two brothers were together in 'Weeksites'. He too was educated at University College Hospital and gained the Bruce Medal and the Filliter Exhibition, gaining a Gold Medal at the London University.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001073
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Buncombe, Charles Hope (1818 - 1897)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Burchell, Peter Lodwick (1818 - 1892)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Burd, Henry Edward (1790 - 1854)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-11-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373259373259
Occupation General surgeon
Details The son of a land agent in Shropshire. He became apprentice at an early age to a Mr Taylor, of Middlewick, and after serving his term was assistant to Richard Hughes, the well-known Stafford surgeon, with whom he gained much experience. He then continued his studies at the London Hospital and at St. Bartholomew's, where he was a constant follower and favourite pupil of Abernethy. From 1815-1822 he was House Surgeon to the Salop Infirmary, and in 1822 was elected Surgeon and began private practice, continuing to hold this office till the time of his death. As an operator he was firm, decided, skilful, and humane. He twice successfully performed the operation for ovariotomy by the large incision. One of these cases is on record in the Transactions of the Medico-Chirurgical Society. He was a very successful accoucheur, his maxim being 'Meddlesome midwifery is dangerous'. A local lay paper thus eulogized him-the passage is interesting as showing the high position often held by Fellows in country practice: "He was, in the year 1822, elected Surgeon to the Salop Infirmary by a large majority of the trustees present, and by his attention and skill, during the long period he filled the office, he fully sustained the high character he had previously earned, and by his valuable services greatly tended to preserve to the charity the high professional character it maintains. He was unobtrusive and unostentatious in character-not seeking professional distinction; but the records of the Infirmary and the annals of medicine afford ample proof that he was entitled to high rank as a medical practitioner, and as a skilful operating surgeon. He was remarkable for unremitting perseverance in the discharge of his professional duties, even when frequently from ill health and feebleness of frame he as greatly needed relief as did those to whose sufferings he administered. In the various relations of life -as husband, father, and friend-he was beloved, respected, and esteemed, not less for the kindness and gentleness of his manners than for the high integrity of mind. He gained the confidence and affection of a large circle of friends, both professional and non-professional, who deeply deplore the loss." He was succeeded in his practice by his son, Edward Burd, MD Cantab, who was an examiner for the degree of Master of Surgery at Cambridge, and in due course by his grandson, Edward Lycett Burd. One of his granddaughters married Stephen Paget (qv). His death occurred at his house, Belmont, Shrewsbury, on July 22nd, 1854.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001076
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Burgess, Frederick Josiah (1812 - 1893)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Burgess, John Hay (1880 - 1914)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-11-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373261373261
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on January 10th, 1880, and was educated at St Mary's Hospital, where he gained an entrance scholarship in Natural Science in 1898, and won a number of prizes and distinctions during his student career, including the General Proficiency Scholarship 1900-1902. He showed a great liking and aptitude for clinical work, and served as House Surgeon and as Resident Obstetric Officer and House Anaesthetist. He was an athlete, and in 1901-1902 was captain of the St Mary's Hospital Rugby team, and in 1899-1900 a member of the fifteen which won the Inter-Hospital Rugby Cup. He joined the Indian Medical Service, being placed second in order of merit. He chose the Bengal side, was appointed Lieutenant IMS on August 31st, 1903, and was gazetted Captain on Aug 31st, 1906. He served four years in India before he was appointed Medical Officer of the 88th Carnatic Infantry on March 11th, 1908. When the Province of Bengal became a Governorship on April 2nd, 1912, he was selected Personal Surgeon to Lord Carmichael, the first Governor. He enjoyed the complete confidence and friendship of the Governor, and won many friends, the natives being especially devoted to him. He returned to England in 1910 and became House Physician to Dr Sidney Phillips at his old hospital. He went back to India with every prospect of a continuance of his brilliant career and every reason to expect he would reach the highest honours. He was appointed Surgeon to the Governor of Bengal and enjoyed a large private practice, both in Calcutta and Darjeeling, showed great enthusiasm in his profession, and as he was an expert in gynaecology it was frequently said of him that he was marked out to succeed to the charge of the Eden Hospital. He was taken ill early in June, 1914, and underwent two serious operations, dying, after a week's illness, in the Eden Sanatorium, Darjeeling, on the evening of June 10th, 1914. He was given a public funeral, the Governor of Bengal being chief mourner, and, besides heads of Departments and other officials, the natives in hundreds followed from the Sanatorium to the grave in the Singamari Cemetery. Captain Hay Burgess was survived by Mrs Burgess and by two young children. Mrs Burgess, whom he married in 1905, had been Sister Thompson of the Albert Ward, St Mary's Hospital.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001078
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Burke, John Page ( - 1870)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Burleigh, Richard Clarke ( - 1901)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Burlton, Thomas ( - 1892)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Burroughs, John Beames (1806 - 1878)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Burrows, Sir John Cordy (1813 - 1876)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-11-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373266373266
Occupation General surgeon
Details Eldest son of Robert Burrows, silversmith, of Ipswich, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of James Cordy, of London, was born at Ipswich on August 5th, 1813. He was educated at the Ipswich Grammar School and apprenticed to William Jeffreson, surgeon, of Framlingham. He completed his medical education at the United Borough Hospitals, and directly after he qualified acted as assistant to Edward Dix at Brighton from 1837-1839, and then commenced practice in Old Steine on his own account. He soon began to take part in the public life of Brighton, and in 1841 he projected with Dr Turrell the Royal Literary and Scientific Institute. He also took part in founding the Brighton Mechanics Institute, of which he was Secretary from 1841-1857 and afterward Treasurer. In 1849 he was one of the Town Committee who bought the Royal Pavilion from the Commissioners of Woods and Forests for the sum of £53,000; and when a Charter was granted to Brighton he was returned at the head of the poll for Pavilion Ward. His services were recognized on October 13th, 1871, when his fellow-townsmen presented him with a handsome carriage and a pair of horses. Two years later, on February 5th, 1873, he received the honour of knighthood as a result of a petition that his great services to Brighton might receive some recognition. Burrows was Brigade Surgeon of the Brighton Artillery Corps and Chairman of the Lifeboat Committee. He was one of the two promoters of the Extramural Cemetery, and at his own personal expense he obtained the order for discontinuing burials in the churches, chapels, and graveyards of the town. He also directed attention to the sanitary condition of Brighton, and under his advice the Health of Town Act was adopted. In 1846 he raised money for erecting a fountain on the Steine, and there laid out and planted the enclosures near it entirely at his own cost. His pet aversions were street-organ players and itinerant hawkers. He died at 62 Old Steine, Brighton, on March 25th, 1876, and was buried in the Extramural Cemetery. He married on October 19th, 1842, Jane, daughter of Arthur Dendy, of Dorking. She died in 1877, leaving one son, William Seymour Burrows, who succeeded his father in practice.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001083
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Burt, George (1789 - 1874)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Barlow, Joshua (1820 - 1867)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Barlow, William Frederick (1817 - 1853)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Barnard, Harold Leslie (1868 - 1908)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Barnes, Alfred Brook (1804 - 1867)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-11 2013-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372946372946
Occupation General surgeon
Details Apprenticed to Richard Cremer, of Chelmsford, before he entered Guy's and St Thomas's Hospitals in the time of Astley Cooper and of Addison. First practised at Ingatestone, Essex, removed to Chelsea in 1820, practising for many years at 19 Manor Place, King's Road. There he was instrumental in founding the Western Medical and Surgical Society, also the West London Eye Infirmary, to which he was surgeon. He was also Surgeon to the School of Discipline and to the Royal Manor Hall Asylum for Young Females. He died before the year 1867.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000763
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Barnes, Christopher Hewetson (1801 - 1875)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Barnes, John Wickham (1830 - 1899)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Barnes, Robert (1817 - 1907)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372949372949
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Norwich on September 4th, 1817, second son of Philip Barnes, an architect and one of the founders of the Royal Botanic Society of London. His mother was Harriet Futter, daughter of a Norfolk squire. Sent to school at Bruges from 1826-1830 he became proficient in French; later he had as tutor George Borrow, the well-known author of the *Bible in Spain*. After an apprenticeship in his native town he entered University College and continued medical studies at the Windmill Street School and at St George’s Hospital. After qualifying in 1842 he spent a year studying in Paris. Having failed to be appointed to the post of Resident Physician to Bethlem Hospital he started practice at Notting Hill. He taught at the Hunterian School and lectured on Forensic Medicine at Dermott’s School. He served as Obstetrician to the Western General Dispensary, and in 1859 was elected Assistant Obstetric Physician, and in 1863 Obstetric Physician to the London Hospital. But within a year he changed over to St Thomas’s Hospital, and in 1875 passed on to become Obstetric Physician to St George’s Hospital. Thus he became the foremost representative in London of his special branch, and his name was attached to instruments and apparatus. With the development of ovariotomy, he advocated an active practice of surgery by obstetricians and gynaecologists. In midwifery he prescribed early interference. In 1847 he first published an account of placenta praevia, elaborated in his Lettsomian Lectures to the Medical Society in 1858, “On the Physiology and Treatment of Flooding from Unnatural Position of the Placenta”. His plan was to separate with the finger the placenta as soon as possible, but other measures have replaced his. He advocated a bag to dilate the cervix, long forceps to extract the foetal head, or perforation when extraction failed. He proposed the term ‘ectopic gestation’ instead of ‘extra-uterine foetation’. Barnes was an active controversialist; the differences of opinion between the Obstetrical and Gynaecological Societies, with which he was much concerned, were solved by their union in the Section of the Royal Society of Medicine. Mrs Robert Barnes gave a sum of £4,010 to the Royal Society of Medicine, and the gift is commemorated in the name of the large hall of the society. Another gift has caused the Pathological Laboratory at St George’s Hospital to be named after him. He was twice married: by his first marriage he had three children; a son, Dr R S Fancourt Barnes, assisted his father in the publication of *Obstetric Medicine and Surgery*, 1884. By his second marriage he had a son and a daughter. He retired at about the age of 70, and died of apoplexy at Eastbourne on May 12th, 1907.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000766
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Aylett, Stanley Osborn (1911 - 2003)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-06 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/372192372192
Occupation Bowel surgeon General surgeon
Details Stanley Aylett was a distinguished bowel surgeon. He was born in Islington, north London, on 8 July 1911, the youngest son of Arthur John Aylett, a building contractor of the firm John Aylett and son, founded by Stanley's grandfather in the 1850s. His mother was Hannah Josephine née Henman. He was educated at Highgate School and won an open scholarship to read medicine at King's College Hospital, where he obtained a BSc in physiology with first class honours and qualified with honours in medicine. He captained the United Hospitals Rugby Football XV. He completed junior posts at St Giles' and King's College Hospital, and spent a year as a ship's doctor with the Blue Funnel Line, before becoming a resident surgical officer at East Ham and Gordon Hospitals. In 1939, he was a surgical registrar at King's and a clinical assistant at St Peter's Hospital, and then a senior registrar at King's. He resigned his post at the outbreak of the second world war, in order to join the RAMC. He and his anaesthetist joined a surgical team in France, at first in a general hospital and later in a casualty clearing station at Lille. During the retreat, he set up operating posts at several locations until he reached de Panne, close to Dunkirk. When ordered to leave on 29 May, he and his companions commandeered a beached pleasure launch, dragged it into the sea, loaded it with their wounded and set off. The leaking vessel soon began to sink, but Aylett and some 20 men were rescued by a destroyer, HMS Havant. After arriving in England, he was sent to Dover to set up a small hospital in the Citadel in anticipation of a German invasion. In 1941, he sailed to the Middle East, to a posting at Alexandria, and then requested a move to forward surgical units, into the Western Desert and Tobruk just as the Axis forces were recapturing it Aylett's was the last surgical unit to escape. In January 1944, he was back in Cambridge, to train and command a field surgical unit, with which he sailed on D-day and accompanied the forces into Germany. In May 1945, he was sent into Sanbostel concentration camp, as a part of the first RAMC unit to reach the camp. His repeated requests for a hospital were turned down, until Lieutenant General Sir Brian Horrocks appeared and at once agreed. Aylett was awarded the French Croix d'honneur for his work in the camp. Later he was sent to Copenhagen to help in the evacuation of German wounded from their hospitals in Denmark. In August 1945 he was posted to Hanover as officer in charge of a surgical division of a general hospital with the acting rank of Lieutenant Colonel. In November 1945 he was demobilised. After the war, he was briefly a surgeon in the Emergency Medical Service in the King's College sector and then a surgical registrar at the Royal Marsden Hospital. At the start of the NHS, he was appointed consultant surgeon to the Gordon, Metropolitan and Potter's Bar Hospitals and consulting surgeon to the Manor House Trade Union Hospital in Hampstead. He developed a special interest in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, or colitis. At that time, the standard treatment was removal of the diseased bowel and a permanent stoma. Aylett pioneered a more conservative resection, allowing the retention of lower-most bowel, avoiding a stoma. The surgical establishment condemned his approach, with surgeons voicing concern that the patient would have intractable diarrhoea and would risk developing cancer in the retained bowel. However, Aylett soon showed good results and demonstrated that the risk of cancer could be overcome by careful follow-up. His approach, ileo-rectal enastomosis, became a standard treatment. Aylett gained many honours. He was Hunterian Professor at the College and in 1974 was made a member of the Académie de Chirurgie Française. He was President of the section for coloproctology at the Royal Society of Medicine, President of the Chelsea Clinical Society, and an honorary member of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons. He published extensively and wrote a textbook on colonic surgery, Surgery of the caecum and colon (Edinburgh and London, E & S Livingstone, 1954), as well as an autobiography based on his war diaries called Surgeon at war (Bognor Regis, New Horizon, c.1979). Among his hobbies were French history, gardening and cooking. In retirement, he enjoyed a full life, travelling to his beloved France and collecting antiques, porcelain and medical instruments. His first marriage to Winsome Clare in 1949 produced a son, Jonathan Stanley, a land agent in Devon, and two daughters, Deidre Clare, a nurse, who predeceased him, and Holly Josephine, a television producer and director. After his marriage was dissolved he married his outpatient sister, Mary Kathleen 'Kay' Godfrey. Stanley Aylett died on 7 January 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000005
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Smith, Carey Curloss Kenred (1917 - )

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-03-27
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/372790372790
Occupation General surgeon
Details Carey Smith was surgeon superintendent of Stratford Hospital, Taranaki, New Zealand. He was born in Slad, near Stroud, in Gloucestershire, on 5 June 1917. His father Kenred Smith was a missionary in the Baptist Missionary Society and his mother was Ethel May Walker. He was educated at the Birches, a private school in Stroud, Belmont School and Mill Hill School in London, from which he was sent to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1935, going on to St Thomas’ Hospital in 1938 for his clinical studies. Qualifying in 1941, he completed junior posts at the Royal Surrey County Hospital and Newbury and District Hospital, before joining the RAMC in 1942. He served in Sierra Leone, India and the Arakan region during the campaign in Burma. On demobilisation, he returned to London, first to St Thomas’ and then St James’s Hospital, Balham. From July 1950 to February 1951 he was a house surgeon to N R Barrett at St Thomas’ and then returned to St James, where, from April 1951 to May 1956, he was a senior registrar with Norman Tanner. He then emigrated to New Zealand, as surgeon superintendent of Stratford Hospital Taranaki. This was at that time a small rural hospital with no specialist or ancillary services. His training under Tanner enabled him to provide a comprehensive surgical service, as well as the only gastroscopy service within a radius of 150 miles. He built up the services in every department, installing new operating theatres and wards. There he remained until his retirement in 1982. In 1942 he married Helen Frances Dugon. They had four children. His sons Keith Alexander Carey and Timothy Kenred Carey are both doctors, while his other son, Christopher Mark Carey is an Anglican priest. His daughter, Jill Frances Carey, is a missionary. His death was notified to the College by his family in March 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000607
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hames, George Henry ( - 1909)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-20 2012-03-28
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/372194372194
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Lincolnshire; entered St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1871 and distinguished himself there, gaining the Foster Prize in 1872, being Brackenbury Medical Scholar in 1875, and Kirkes' Scholar and Gold Medallist. He was House Surgeon to G W Callender (qv) in 1875 and House Physician to Reginald Southey in 1876-1877. Meanwhile in 1873-1874 he was Prosector at the Royal College of Surgeons and for some years Hon Secretary of the Abernethian Society. After leaving St Bartholomew's he studied at the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, was Chloroformist at the Cheyne Hospital for Children, and Surgeon to the Western General Dispensary. He became a well-known practitioner in Mayfair at 29 Hertford Street, 125 Piccadilly, 113 Sloane Street, and died at 11 Park Lane on May 28th, 1909. Publication:- Hames was a contributor to the *Saturday Review*.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000007
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Keate, Robert (1777 - 1857)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-20 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/372195372195
Occupation General surgeon
Details The fourth son of William Keate, D.D., rector of Laverton, Somerset; was born at Laverton on March 14th, 1777. John Keate, his elder brother (1773-1852), was the well-known and ferocious head master of Eton. Robert Keate was educated at Bath Grammar School until 1792, when he was apprenticed to his uncle, Thomas Keate, who in 1798 was elected Surgeon to St. George's Hospital in succession to Charles Hawkins, and was also appointed in the same year Surgeon General to the Army in succession to John Hunter. Robert Keate entered St. George's Hospital in 1793, and was made Hospital Mate in 1794 and Deputy Purveyor to the Forces on Sept. 26th, 1795. In 1798 he became a member of the Surgeons' Corporation and was appointed Staff Surgeon in the Army, from which he retired on half pay on March 25th, 1810, with the rank of Inspector-General of Hospitals. In 1800 he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to his uncle at St. George's Hospital, where he succeeded him as full Surgeon in 1813, and held the post until 1853, outstaying his powers. He was early introduced to practice among the royal family. In 1798 he attended the Princess Amelia at Worthing, who was suffering from a "white swelling of the knee". The Duke of Clarence, later King William IV, always showed great confidence in him, and made him Serjeant-Surgeon Extraordinary, and in 1841 Queen Victoria continued him as Serjeant-Surgeon. Keate used to say, "I have attended four sovereigns and have been badly paid for my services. One of them, now deceased, owed me nine thousand guineas"; but William IV always paid, though there is no doubt that Keate's frequent visits to Windsor led to some loss of practice. It is told of him that he one day received an urgent summons to Windsor to see Queen Adelaide, and he arrived there about the breakfast hour. The Queen, who was suffering from a pain in the knee, gave Keate a hint that the presence of the King might be dispensed with. Keate accordingly said to the King, "Will your Majesty be kind enough to leave the room?" "Keate," replied the King, "I'm damned if I go." Keate looked at the King for a moment and quietly said, "Then, your Majesty, I'm damned if I stay." When Keate got as far as the door the King called him back and said, "I believe you are right, and that you doctors can do anything; but had a Prime Minister or the Lord Chancellor ventured to do as you have done, the next day I should have addressed his successor." Keate contributed little to the literature of his profession, yet he rose to the highest eminence in it. He was anxious to avoid operations, yet he was a good operator, accurate in diagnosis, and a sound practitioner. Timothy Holmes (q.v.) remembered Keate as a very old man when he but seldom visited the hospital. He once saw him operate and his hand shook terribly. Holmes, too, recollected his saving the limb of a lad from amputation after the Assistant Surgeon had actually ordered the boy into the operating theatre. He was a terror to his house surgeons and dressers from the violence of his temper and language. He clung to office at the hospital - there was no rule as to retirement then - until he was bullied into giving up by certain of the governors, who persisted in inquiring at every meeting how often the senior surgeon had visited the hospital, and for how long, and who did the work there which he did not do. Keate was sensible of the value of the scientific advancement of surgery, and deserves our recollection as a good surgeon and an honest man. Sir Benjamin Brodie spoke highly of Keate, who was slightly his senior; and he joined with Brodie in the effort, which the latter began, to raise the surgical practice of the hospital to a higher level, by more careful and systematic visits to the patients, and by more constant and regular instruction of the students. He won the warm friendship of his great contemporary, who speaks of him in his autobiography in the following terms: "He was a perfect gentleman in every sense of the word; kind in his feelings, open, honest and upright in his conduct. His professional knowledge and his general character made him a most useful officer of the Hospital; and now that our *game has been played*, it is with great satisfaction that I look back to the long and disinterested friendship that existed between us." With his death was ended the direct connection of the Serjeant-Surgeoncy with the Army. At the College of Surgeons he was co-opted to the Court of Assistants in 1822, being the last person to be so chosen, and continued as a life member of the Council until 1857. He was President in the years 1831 and 1839, and he served and acted as Examiner from 1827-1855. He married the youngest daughter of H. Ramus, an Indian Civil Servant, by whom he had two sons and four daughters. [One daughter married W E Page FRCP and was the mother of H M Page (1860-1942) FRCS 1886, qv in Supplement.] One of his sons, Robert William Keate (1814-1873), was successively Governor of Trinidad, of Natal, and of the Gold Coast. Keate is described as being a square, compact little man, with a rough complaining voice. He was unmistakably a gentleman, but there was something of the 'Scotch terrier roughness' in all that he said and did. He was always a favourite with the pupils, who never turned him into ridicule in spite of his trying ways. Keate was perfect in minor surgery, the placing of limbs, and bandaging, and was reputed to be the only man who could make a linseed-meal poultice to perfection. He did marvels, too, with red precipitate ointment, saying, "My uncle used it for many years. I have used it all my life, that's why I use it." In standard operations, such as amputation of the thigh by the circular method, he excelled even Robert Liston (q.v.). In chronic and painful diseases of joints he used the cautery freely, and his judgement of tumours was good but wholly empirical. He did not care for anatomy, and he had no other tastes but surgery. He died in Hertford Street, Mayfair, on Oct. 2nd, 1857. A portrait of him hangs in the Board Room at St. George's Hospital. PUBLICATIONS: - Keate wrote only two papers: - "History of a Case of Bony Tumour containing Hydatids Successfully Removed from the Head of a Femur." - *Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1819, x, 278. "Case of Exfoliation from the Basilar Process of the Occipital Bone and from the Atlas after Excessive Use of Mercury." - *Lond. Med. Gaz*., 1834-5, xvi, 13 (with drawing): Le Gros Clark referred to the specimen and reproduced the drawing in the Med.-Chir. Trans., 1849, xxxii, 68.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000008
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lynn, William Bewicke (1786 - 1878)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-20 2012-07-19
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/372196372196
Occupation General surgeon Military surgeon
Details Was gazetted Assistant Surgeon in the 5th Foot on July 13th, 1809, and retired on half pay on Sept 25th, 1817, commuting his half pay on June 22nd, 1830. He saw active service in Walcheren in 1809 and served in the Peninsula War from 1810-1814. He also served in Canada during the years 1814-1815. After he had retired he settled in practice in Westminster, and by 1847 had removed to Claygate in Surrey, and later to Aldenham Grove, Elstree, Herts, whence he returned to Claygate, where he died on July 27th, 1878. His son was W T Lynn, the Cambridge astronomer.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000009
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Thomas, Honoratus Leigh (1769 - 1846)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Wallace, Sir Cuthbert Sidney (1867 - 1944)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-18 2023-01-13
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/372415372415
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Surbiton, Surrey, on 20 June 1867, the fourth and youngest son of the Rev John Wallace, of Weysprings, Haselmere, and his wife Marion Kezia Jane Agnes Greenway, the daughter of Francis Howard Greenway, a convicted forger and later a prominent architect in Australia. He was educated at Haileybury, 1881-86, and at St Thomas's Hospital. After taking the Fellowship in 1893 he went on, the following year, to the London M.B., B.S. examination, at which he won the gold medal in obstetric medicine and qualified for the gold medal in surgery. At St Thomas's Wallace served as house surgeon, senior obstetric house physician, and surgical registrar 1894-96, and in 1897 was appointed resident assistant surgeon. In this post he began the introduction of the strictest asepsis into the Hospital's practice, and by his enthusiasm and practical ability persuaded the senior staff and the governors to carry through the necessary re-equipment of the operating theatres and the modernizing and electrifying of the wards. The material needs of this pioneer policy were supplied by the Gassiot bequest. As a result of this modernization, hospital authorities and surgeons of many countries came to look to St Thomas's and to Wallace for inspiration and advice in similar problems. In the middle of this work Wallace volunteered for active war service in South Africa. He served 1899-1900 as surgeon to the Portland Hospital under his friend Anthony Bowlby of Bart's, won the medal, and recorded his experiences jointly with Bowlby in *A civilian war hospital*, published in 1901. His experience of the surgery of war-wounds came to stand him in good stead for later, greater campaigns. Returning to London he developed a brilliant career. Wallace's hands were particularly in demand in cases of enlarged prostate and of acute appendicitis; his surgery was marked by skilled economy of time and perspicacious common-sense. At St Thomas's he passed through the offices of assistant surgeon 1900, surgeon 1913, and lecturer on surgery. He was also surgeon to the East London Hospital for Children. He was dean of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School in 1907, a post to which he returned more than ten years later. On the outbreak of the war he went to France as consulting surgeon to the First Army, British Expeditionary Force, with the temporary rank of colonel, Army Medical Service, dated 29 April 1915; he was promoted major-general on 19 December 1917. Bowlby as consultant to the Second Army at St Omer had oversight of the First as well. Authority disapproved of surgical interference in gunshot wounds of the belly; but Wallace was sympathetic to the urgent appeals of his juniors, and "smuggled" the necessary instruments to the front when inspecting casualty clearing stations; thanks to his encouragement the field surgery of abdominal wounds quickly vindicated itself in practice. John Campbell made the first successful operation for gunshot wound of the stomach, Owen Richards, F.R.C.S. the first successful small-intestine resection, and Claude Frankau, F.R.C.S the first successful resection of the colon for gunshot injury. Wallace's survey of these and further results in his *War surgery of the abdomen*, 1918, became a classic textbook, in demand on the renewal of war in the next generation. He also published jointly with Sir John Fraser, K.C.V.O., *Surgery at a casualty clearing station*, illustrated by Lady Fraser, 1918. While in France, Wallace took a major share in the disposition and administration of the base hospitals. On 28 October 1915 he was called to attend King George V, who had been thrown from his horse while inspecting the R.F.C. aerodrome at Hesdigneul; the King was seriously injured, but resumed full activity in the following February. Wallace was nearly captured at St Venant, when his driver took a wrong turn during the German spring offensive of 1918. For his war service Wallace was created C.M.G in 1916 and C.B. in 1918, and promoted K.C.M.G. in 1919; he had been several times mentioned in despatches, and was also awarded the American Distinguished Service Medal. It was in these years that Wallace found scope for the fullest exercise of his great abilities both surgical and administrative. On his return to St Thomas's he served as senior surgeon and director of the surgical unit for several years, being then elected consulting surgeon, and was dean of the medical school for a record period. He was also dean of the Medical Faculty of the University of London. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was elected both to Court and Council in 1919, and served on the Court for ten years and on the Council for twenty-four years till within a few months of his death. In 1923 and 1929 he was appointed an examiner in surgery on the Dental Board; he gave the Bradshaw lecture in 1927, and the Hunterian oration in 1934. He was a vice-president in 1926-27, and president 1935-38. In 1937 he was created a Baronet. Wallace was elected a trustee of the Hunterian collection in 1942. In February 1943 he put before the Council an informal memorandum on the Fellowship. He gave the College library a specially typed copy of the unpublished autobiography of Sir George Makins, under whom he had long served at St Thomas's, at the College, and in France; he had it finely bound by Mrs Loosely, sister of Sir D'Arcy Power, one of the best bookbinders in the country. Wallace's counsel was much in demand. He served on the Radium Commission and the Medical Research Council, and was chairman of the M.R.C. radiology committee; from 1930 he was director of medical services and research at the Mount Vernon Hospital, Hampstead, under the M.R.C. and the Radium Commission. From 1920 he was a hospital visitor under King Edward's Hospital Fund for London, and later a member of its general council and distribution committee. He was also chairman of several committees of the British Empire Cancer Campaign; and for nine years (1935-44) chairman of the London and Counties Medical Protection Society. During the official visit of British surgeons on 5 and 6 July 1937 to the newly reconstituted Académie de Chirurgie in Paris he was decorated an Officer of the Legion of Honour by the President of the Republic. In 1929 he was gazetted honorary colonel of the 47th (2nd London) Unit of the R.A.M.C. (T.F.). On the outbreak of the second world-war Wallace was appointed chairman of the consultant advisers to the Ministry of Health's emergency medical service; he was also a member of the Army Medical Advisory Board, and in June 1940 was appointed chairman of the Medical Research Council's committee on the application of the results of research to the treatment of war wounds. He received honorary degrees from Oxford, Durham, and Birmingham Universities, and was an honorary Fellow of the American Surgical Association. He took an active interest in the welfare of his old school, Haileybury. Wallace married on 6 July 1912 Florence Mildred, youngest daughter of Herbert Jackson of Sussex Place, Regent's Park, who survived him but without children. He had lived at 5 Cambridge Terrace, Regent's Park N.W., and died in Mount Vernon Hospital on 24 May 1944, less than a month before his seventy-seventh birthday. He was privately buried and a memorial service, arranged by the Royal College, St Thomas's, and Mount Vernon, was held in the chapel of Lincoln's Inn on 8 June 1944. His country house was at Whipsnade, near Dunstable, Bedfordshire. Wallace was a brilliant surgeon whose *obiter dicta*, such as "the surgeon who does not trust the peritoneum if not fit to do abdominals", or "the key to gastrectomy is the mobilisation of the lesser curvature", were treasured by those who heard them. He made his way to a unique place among his fellow surgeons by sheer ability and honest practical shrewdness, coupled with a warm-hearted wish to help, whether as surgeon, teacher, or counsellor. He was of middle height and upright carriage, and in later years with his bright complexion and white hair had the air of a distinguished solider, accentuated by his pepper-and-salt suit and blue-and-white spotted bow-tie. He was an excellent chairman, as economic of time here as he had been in the operating theatre. His somewhat brusque manner and speech were belied by his humour and his ability to win the affection of all with whom he worked. *Publications*: Wallace contributed in early years to *St Thomas's Hospital Reports* and to the *Transactions* of the Clinical and Pathological Societies. His writings include: *A civilian war hospital, being an account of the work of the Portland Hospital and of experience of wounds and sickness in South Africa* [issued anonymously, with A. Bowlby]. London, 1901. *Prostatic enlargement*, with section on *Bacteriology* by Leonard S. Dudgeon. London, 1907. A study of 1200 cases of gunshot wounds of the abdomen. *Brit. J. Surg.* 1917, 4, 679-743. *War surgery of the abdomen*. London, 1918. *Surgery at a casualty clearing station*, with Sir John Fraser; illustrated by Lady Fraser. London, 1918. *Surgery of the war*, edited jointly with Sir Wm. Grant Macpherson, Sir A. A. Bowlby, and Sir T. Crisp English, in the official War Office *History of the Medical Services in the Great War of 1914-18*. H.M.S.O., 1922, 2 vols. A review of prostatic enlargement, Bradshaw lecture, R.C.S. *Lancet*, 1927, 2, 1059-1064. *Medical education 1760-1934*, Hunterian oration, R.C.S., 1934. Not published, the author's transcript is in the College library. *Thoughts on the Fellowship*, 1943. Unpublished memorandum laid before the College Council, February 1943. **This is an amended version of the original obituary which was printed in volume 2 of Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows. Please contact the library if you would like more information lives@rcseng.ac.uk**
Resource Identifier RCS: E000228
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lett, Sir Hugh (1876 - 1964)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-18 2012-03-14
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/372416372416
Occupation General surgeon
Details Hugh Lett came of an Anglo-Irish family but was born on 17 April 1876 at Waddingham, Kirton, Lincolnshire, where his father Richard Alfred Lett (M.B. Dublin 1869) was in general practice; his grandfather had also been a doctor. He was educated at Marlborough College and kept a close connection with the school, becoming a life governor and chairman of the school club and helping to compile the Record of the Old Marlburians. His surgical career was spent at the London Hospital, where he came as a student from Leeds Medical School in 1896. He qualified from Leeds in 1899, took the Conjoint Diploma in February 1901, and the Fellowship in June 1902. He was appointed surgical registrar at the London in 1902, becoming assistant surgeon 1905, surgical tutor 1909-12, surgeon 1915, and consulting surgeon 1934 when he retired. In the first world war Lett served from its outbreak (1914) in France, and later in Belgium and Egypt, was promoted Major, R.A.M.C., and awarded the CBE in 1920. Though his main interest was urology, he was always a general surgeon and his writings, while not frequent, covered many topics. He was one of the first to advocate adequate operation for appendicitis, to prevent recurrence. Between the wars Lett began to find operating sessions wearisome, and it was noticed that in the theatre he lost his usual imperturbability. Fortunately he had great abilities as an administrator and medical statesman, which he became free to use for the benefit of his colleagues and the country by retiring relatively young. Lett's association with the College was long, close, and extremely valuable. He served on the Court of Examiners 1923-25 and on the Council 1927-43. He was elected President in 1938 and held office for the customary three years, which were sadly spoiled for him by the anxieties and disasters of the war. Already before war broke out he was taking a personal initiative in safeguarding the College's treasures. He travelled to Aberystwyth in the summer of 1939 and arranged the removal of the most valuable paintings, books and other treasures to the National Library of Wales, and during 1940 secured a generous grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to evacuate the library to the west country. In May 1941 the Museum was bombed and much of the collection destroyed, in spite of Lett's provision of a deep vault to protect thousands of the Hunterian specimens. After this disaster he actively supported his successor Sir Alfred Webb-Johnson (as he then was) in planning to restore the Museum. He became a Hunterian Trustee in 1942, was the first permanent Chairman of Trustees 1955-59, and lived to see the Museum successfully renewed. He had been Bradshaw Lecturer in 1936, speaking on "The early diagnosis and treatment of tuberculous disease of the kidney", and was Thomas Vicary Lecturer in 1942, when he described "Anatomy at Barbers' Hall", an address based on original research. Lett married in 1906 Nellie, only daughter of (Sir) Buckston Browne F.R.C.S., a leading London urologist and afterwards one of the College's most munificent benefactors. Lett took an active interest in his father-in-law's two foundations at Downe: the Darwin Museum and the Surgical Research Farm. Sir Buckston had also endowed a dinner at the College, and in the year of Lett's Presidency he gave each guest a silver box full of snuff. Lady Lett died before her husband, on 9 August 1963, and Sir Hugh was survived by their three daughters. Lett was created a Baronet in 1941 while President of the College, and KCVO in 1947 to recognise his work for King Edward's Hospital Fund for London, where he had been one of the honorary secretaries since 1941. He was particularly concerned with the King's Fund's work for nurses and was the first chairman of its Staff College of Ward Sisters. He had previously been President of the Hunterian Society in 1917, and its Orator in 1919, President of the Sections of Surgery and of Urology at the Royal Society of Medicine in 1932-33, and Master of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries in 1937-38. He was Chairman of the war-time Committee of Reference for allocation of medical man-power, and in 1946 succeeded his former surgical colleague Sir Henry Souttar as President of the British Medical Association. In this position his wise statesmanship proved invaluable to the profession and the nation in preparing for the start of the National Health Service. Lett was a tall man of serious demeanour, kindly and affable, utterly without affectation, and upright in all his ways. He was meticulous and regular in business, firm but courteous in personal contacts, and made an admirable chairman, with a wealth of experience and innate common sense. As a young man he enjoyed fencing and golf, but music was his favourite recreation, for he was an accomplished cellist. Lady Lett gave the College the portrait of her husband by Sir James Gunn R.A., which admirably catches his reserved, but slightly quizzical look, and gave a different portrait by the same artist to the Society of Apothecaries. Sir Hugh Lett died at his home at Walmer on 19 July 1964 at the age of 88. He had been so active and prominent in professional affairs that he was still widely known and held in affectionate regard by many colleagues much younger than himself, although he had retired from surgery thirty years earlier. Throughout his long life "he nothing common did or mean", but remained a pattern of unobtrusive and unselfish virtue.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000229
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Webb-Johnson, Sir Alfred Edward, Lord Webb-Johnson of Stoke-on-Trent (1880 - 1958)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-25 2012-04-12
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/372417372417
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 4 September 1880 eldest of the two sons and two daughters of Samuel Johnson (1846-99), Medical Officer of Health for Stoke-on-Trent and Julia his wife, daughter of James Webb. Mrs Johnson died only in 1931; her children had all adopted her maiden surname, Webb, before their father's name. Dr Johnson came of North Irish Presbyterian stock and had graduated M.D., M.Ch at Queen's College in the old Royal University, Belfast. (There is an obituary notice in *Transactions of the Obstetrical Society*, London, 1900, *42*, 71.) Alfred Webb-Johnson was educated at the Victoria University of Manchester, winning prizes and scholarships in surgery, and graduated in 1903; he then became surgical registrar at the Royal Infirmary. Coming to London he was appointed resident medical officer to the Middlesex Hospital in 1907, and rapidly made his mark as a brilliant operator. He also won the life-long friendship of Sir John Bland-Sutton, then one of the leading personalities on the Hospital's staff. He became Assistant Surgeon in 1911 and ultimately consulting surgeon, but played a larger part in the Hospital's administration than in its purely clinical work. He was Dean of the Medical School 1919-25, and chairman of the rebuilding committee 1925-35, when he successfully raised very large sums of money and attracted influential support with the help of the slogan "Middlesex Hospital is falling down". He was later a Governor and finally Vice-President of the Hospital. A ward was named after him in his life-time, and his widow gave a stained-glass window to the Chapel in his memory in 1964. He was also consulting surgeon to Chesham, Southend, and Woolwich Hospitals. Webb-Johnson was a keen territorial officer; he served at Wimereux on the French coast during the first world war and was awarded the D.S.O. and the C.B.E. for his distinguished work "in connection with military operations in the field". He rose to the rank of Colonel, Army Medical Service, and later served on the Army Medical Board, becoming its chairman in 1946. During the second world war he was, among other public services, President of the Anglo-Soviet Medical Committee from September 1941. He was a personal friend of Queen Mary, and Her Majesty's surgeon in the years of her widowhood, 1936-53. He was an honorary Freeman of the Barbers Company (1949), and President of Epsom College from 1951. He was also for many years President of the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund. In the Order of St John of Jerusalem he was a Knight of Justice, Hospitaller from 1946, and one of the three Bailiffs Grand Cross from 1955. He was an honorary Fellow of many British and foreign surgical colleges and societies, and a member of several clubs, particularly favouring the Garrick, where a dinner was given in his honour in 1955. He was a Deputy Lieutenant for the County of London, and Lord High Steward of Newcastle-under-Lyme. At the College he was a Hunterian Professor in 1917 and enlarged his lectures on *Surgical Complications of Typhoid and Paratyphoid Fevers* to form a book of 190 pages (Oxford University Press 1919). Although a good public speaker and amusing in conversation, he was not a frequent writer but took infinite pains to prepare interesting lectures such as his Syme Oration (1938) at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons on the history of British surgery, and his Bradshaw Lecture (1940) "Pride and prejudice in the treatment of cancer". He served on the Court of Examiners 1926-36 becoming its chairman, and also examined for Cambridge. He was a Member of Council 1932-50, was elected President in 1941 just after the bombing of the College and was re-elected annually seven times, resigning in 1949. He was awarded the Honorary Medal in 1950, elected a Hunterian Trustee also in 1950, and chosen for the first Court of Patrons in 1956. As President, Webb-Johnson threw his energies into gathering support to rebuild the College and extend its activity; his efforts were as successful here as they had been at the Middlesex Hospital. The enlarged and beautified College house, improved ceremonial, monthly dinners to increase and maintain interest among Fellows and Members, a regular programme of teaching and research, formation of special Faculties and endowment of professorships were achieved through his masterful management, though he sometimes took credit for improvements devised by others. He was a difficult man to serve since he was jealous of rivalry from his colleagues and overbearing to his officials. Several of the College Professors resigned rather than work under him, and at the Royal Society of Medicine, where he was President 1950-52, he discharged the Secretary who had served the Society with success for twenty-five years. Webb-Johnson married in 1911 Cecilia Flora, daughter of Douglas Gordon McRae. She supported all her husband's interests and many charitable causes of her own, both personally and with her wealth. She endowed the Hunterian Museum with the McRae/Webb-Johnson Fund in 1952 in memory of her parents and to record her husband's work. After his death she made many generous gifts of furniture, books, portraits etc. to the College and took an active share in the work of the Committee for Artistic and Historical Possessions. She was elected to the Court of Patrons (1956), awarded the Honorary Medal (1956), and was the first woman to be a Hunterian Trustee (1966). Lord Webb-Johnson died on 28 May 1958 and Lady Webb-Johnson on 15 March 1968.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000230
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wakeley, Sir Cecil Pembrey Grey (1892 - 1979)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-25 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/372418372418
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born the eldest son of 12 children on 5 May 1892 at Meresborough House in the country near Rainham, Kent, Cecil Wakeley always looked upon himself as a countryman born and bred and would recall riding his own pony at the age of four. In 1904 he started attending King's School, Rochester, as a day boy travelling by train and in 1906 was severely ill with pneumonia. In 1907 the family moved to Dulwich where he entered the College and three years later in 1910 he went to King's College Hospital, with which he was to be identified for the rest of his life. He qualified in 1915 and joined the Royal Navy for the next four years as Surgeon-Lieutenant, spending most of his time aboard the hospital ship *Garth Castle* at Scapa Flow. His link with the Navy lasted all his life, first as a consultant and in the second world war as Surgeon Rear-Admiral when he worked at the Royal Naval Hospital, Haslar. The rolling gait with which he traversed the corridors at King's and the Royal College of Surgeons, his two great loves, was that of a seafaring man. Success and honour came early in life to him and he lived long enough to enjoy them to the full. In 1922 he was appointed to the staff at King's and was senior surgeon by the age of 41, remaining so for the next quarter of a century. He was consultant to the Belgrave Hospital for Children, the Royal Masonic and the Maida Vale Hospital for Nervous Diseases. In addition he was a member of Council of the College and eventually President from 1949 to 1954, at a period of immense importance since it witnessed the completion of the College's very ambitious rebuilding programme, the establishment of the Faculties of Dental Surgery and Anaesthesia and the setting up of the academic units and their laboratories. His limitless vitality and splendid powers of leadership were shown to their best at that time. In addition to all his other duties he found time to be President of the Association of Physiotherapy, Hunterian Society, Medical Society of London and the Royal Life Saving Society. He examined for both the Primary and Final Fellowship examinations as well as the medical degrees at many universities in the UK and overseas. He was also a Hunterian Orator, Hunterian Professor five times and Erasmus Wilson, Bradshaw, and Thomas Vicary Lecturer. He was Chairman of the Trustees of the Hunterian Collection and received the College's Gold Medal for his services. Wakeley was a first class teacher and his legible, bold handwriting was an indication of his clear, uncluttered thinking. He was wonderfully cheerful and never seemed to forget a face or a name. He had a kind word of encouragement for everyone and never failed to give sound and practical advice to any doctor, nurse or student who came to him for help. He was a very positive, swift surgeon and the length of his operating lists and the variety of problems he tackled was legendary. Sir Cecil was the author of many textbooks and edited 'Rose and Carless' for a generation. For twenty years he edited the *British journal of surgery* and in 1947 he founded the *Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England* which he continued to edit until 1969. He was for a long time editor of the now defunct *Medical press and circular*. In addition to his own prolific output he always encouraged younger workers to write and helped them to get their work published. He was devout practising Churchman and long presided over the Lord's Day Observance Society. The service of thanksgiving for his life's work which was held at All Saints', Langham Place, London and was attended by the President and Council of the College, was a particularly happy occasion and reflected very faithfully his joy of living and the great contribution he had made in his 87 years. In 1925 Wakeley married Elizabeth Muriel Nicholson-Smith and there were three sons, two of whom are medically qualified, his eldest son is a consultant surgeon in Chester. In 1975 they celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. Sir Cecil died on June 5, 1979.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000231
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Platt, Sir Harry (1886 - 1986)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-25 2012-03-13
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/372419372419
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Harry Platt, the eldest son of Ernest Platt, a master velvet cutter, and of Jessie Cameron Platt (née Lindsey), was born at Thornham, Lancashire, on 7 October 1886. His father later became chairman of United Velvet Cutters, Ltd, and both parents lived to be nonagenarians. Harry's life was dominated by the development of a tuberculous knee joint at the age of five, though the diagnosis was somewhat delayed. As a result of this he was frequently confined to bed and his early education, which was notably catholic, was undertaken privately at home. He read widely and became quite fluent in French and German, as well as a highly proficient musician and pianist. The knee trouble precluded any active participation in sport though his three younger brothers excelled in athletics. Despite the knee problem he had a very happy childhood; but it is significant that, in later life, he remarked that his parents found it far harder to come to terms with his physical handicap than he himself did. Fortunately he was referred to Robert Jones, the internationally renowned orthopaedic surgeon, for whom he formed a deep affection and from whom he received some of his later training. Music became the passion of Harry's childhood, and in 1903 he prepared three compositions for the Mendelssohn scholarship which was won that year by George Dyson (later Sir George) who went on to become a distinguished composer and Principal of the Royal College of Music in London. After momentary indecision, and partly influenced by Robert Jones, Harry opted for medicine. On entering the Victoria University of Manchester without previous scientific training he had great difficulty with physics and chemistry. He was in the same year as Geoffrey Jefferson, the distinguished neurosurgeon, and they remained lifelong friends. They recall that there were three women student contemporaries who were then kept completely separate in their studies! After an outstanding undergraduate career, he qualified in 1909 from both Victoria and London Universities and secured the gold medal in London. After resident and registrar appointments at Manchester Royal Infirmary with Sir William Thorburn, he demonstrated anatomy in Grafton Elliot Smith's department at Manchester. He later passed the mastership and fellowship examinations, and secured the MD, Manchester, with gold medal, for his thesis on peripheral nerve injuries. His orthopaedic training was mainly at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in London, and in Boston, USA, with Elliot Brackett and R. B. Osgood at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Children's Hospital, whilst he also observed Harvey Cushing's neurosurgery at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. In the days before travelling scholarships he depended upon his father's support and recalled how he had sailed from Liverpool to Boston on *S. S. Franconia* for £15 in a small first-class cabin. Whilst in Boston he read voraciously the orthopaedic journals in English, French and German, and deeply savoured the musical and operatic life. On returning to England in 1914 he was appointed surgeon to Ancoats Hospital, Manchester, where he organised the first special fracture department in Great Britain. On the outbreak of the first world war he became a Captain RAMC and was appointed by Sir Robert Jones, the then Army consultant in orthopaedics, to be surgeon-in-charge of a military orthopaedic centre in Manchester. It was there that he acquired his considerable experience of nerve injuries and undertook studies in bone-grafting. He showed great organising ability and later described himself very truthfully as a contemplative man, more of a physician, and "not naturally a great craftsman." He later fostered many other institutions - the Ethel Hadley Hospital, Windermere, and the Children's Hospital at Biddulph Grange, Staffordshire. In 1920 he became consultant orthopaedic surgeon to Lancashire County Council and surgical director of the Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital, Oswestry, and in 1932 orthopaedic surgeon to the Manchester Royal Infirmary, subsequently to become its first Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery in 1939. He held all of these posts until his retirement and, with the inception of the NHS, he also served on the Board of Governors of the Manchester Royal Infirmary from 1948 to 1963. Between the two world wars Harry sometimes claimed that he had won the Ashes for England in 1932, having declared one of Harold Larwood's knees as fit for the notorious "bodyline" tour. During the second world war he was consultant adviser in orthopaedic surgery to the Emergency Medical Service and an active member of innumerable government committees and other public bodies after the war. He had been elected to the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1940, serving there for eighteen years and being Vice-President 1949-50 and President 1954-1957. He had received the accolade of Knight Bachelor in 1948 and, as was then the custom, was awarded a baronetcy on completing the Presidency of the College. He also became a member of the Court of Patrons of the College and an honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Dental Surgeons and, quite exceptionally, continued to serve on one College committee until well into his eighties when he was also appointed a Knight of the Order of St John. He received honorary degrees from the Universities of Berne, Manchester, Liverpool, Belfast, Leeds and Paris; honorary fellowships of the surgical colleges of American, Canada, South Africa, Australasia and Denmark, and honorary membership of the orthopaedic associations and societies of most countries in the western world and of Latin America. He had been a founder member of the British Orthopaedic Association in 1916, its President in 1934-5 and ultimately an honorary Fellow. A founder member of the Societé Internationale de Chirurgie Orthopaedique et de Traumatologie in 1929, he was its President from 1948 to 1953; he was also President of the International Federation of Surgical Colleges 1955-1966, and its honorary President from 1970. He had been a founder member of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland in 1919 and was President of the Royal Society of Medicine from 1931 and 1932. He contributed to nine textbooks on orthopaedic surgery and peripheral nerve injuries, and a list of all his publications is recorded in the *Journal of bone and joint surgery*, Harry Platt Birthday Volume, 48-B, No.4, November 1966. As a man, Sir Harry displayed formidable energy and drive, both physical and mental, despite the handicap of a much shortened leg supported by an appliance. In early years he had a rather shy nature, married to considerable intellectual arrogance, making it difficult for many folk to get to know him well though friends became more numerous as increasing age brought greater intolerance. Many were greatly amused and enlightened by his astringent - often acidulous - comments on colleagues and affairs in general. Privately it was his firm belief that a committee of one was the quickest way to get things done! But his many great qualities of mind and heart, his organisational ability and his far-seeing philosophical outlook more than compensated for any abruptness of manner on first encounter. He married Gertrude Sarah Turney in 1917 and they had one son, who is a barrister, and four daughters. His wife predeceased him in 1980 after 63 years of marriage though for some time prior to her death she had been under institutional care. He continued to live alone with an ever lively mind and intellect, and he had a prodigious memory, even as he approached his century. Shortly before that he gave a five hour interview to a reporter from the *British medical journal* in which he showed a remarkable recollection of names and past events. His birthday was marked by an orthopaedic festschrift attended by surgeons from many countries - not a few of international renown. A dinner was held at Manchester University on the evening of Tuesday 7 October 1986, attended by a company of 338, with all of whom he insisted on shaking hands while seated in his wheel-chair. After several speeches and presentations had been made the hardy old warrior stood up and spoke for 25 minutes in a firm voice and without a note. A month later, in a last visit to his surgical alma mater he was entertained to dinner in the council room by the President and Vice-Presidents, and by four of the five surviving fellow Past-Presidents. When he died a few months later on 20 December 1986 he was survived by his son, who inherited the baronetcy, and by his four daughters. A memorial service was held in Manchester Cathedral on 6 March 1987 at which the address was given by A.H.C. Ratcliff, FRCS. A portrait by Sir William Oliphant Hutchison PRSA hangs in the College.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000232
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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 Taylor, John Gibson (1918 - 2005)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-30
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/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 Bury, George William Fleetwood (1836 - 1918)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

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/372494372494
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details Michael Walsh qualified in Perth in 1964 and after junior posts was RMO at the Sir Charles Gairdner and the Princess Margaret hospitals, where he specialised in ophthalmology. He went to England as a registrar at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Newcastle on Tyne, followed by posts in Leeds and Bradford. He returned to Perth as visiting medical officer at the Royal Hospital in 1972 and by 1987 had become director of the ophthalmic department at the Sir Charles Gardner Hospital, and had set up the Claremont Eye Clinic. He died in April 2005 leaving a widow, Ann.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000307
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bushell, Richard ( - 1891)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Bush, John Dearden ( - 1929)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Allingham, William (1829 - 1908)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-09-25 2016-01-22
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372858372858
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated for the profession of architecture at University College, where he gained prizes. He even practised as an architect, exhibited studies at the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, and obtained honourable mention for a design of a building to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. In this year, however, he decided to abandon architecture for medicine. Entering as a student at St Thomas's Hospital, he carried off prize after prize - the Descriptive Anatomy Prize, the Anatomy Prize (1854), the Medicine Prize, the Clinical Medicine President's Prize, and the Clinical Medicine Treasurer's Prize (1855). After qualifying in 1855 he volunteered as Surgeon in the Crimean War. He was in time to be present at the siege of Sebastopol and to see a vast amount of practical surgery in the most arduous circumstances at the hospitals at Scutari. During a large part of his war services he was attached to the French Army, which was extremely badly provided with surgical aid, and there is no doubt that under the strenuous nature of the duties which devolved upon him, Allingham gained the courage and sense of responsibility which marked him out as a successful operating surgeon from the beginning of his career. After his return home he was Surgical Tutor, Demonstrator of Anatomy, and then Surgical Registrar at St Thomas's Hospital. He set up in practice in 1863 as a consultant at 36 Finsbury Square, EC, but removed to Grosvenor Street, where he soon became a well-known authority on diseases of the rectum and enjoyed a large practice. In 1871 he published his classical book on Diseases of the Rectum. It was accepted at once as an authoritative and inclusive work, though some surgeons differed from the author on points of technique. William Allingham was not attached to the staff of any of the great London Hospitals possessing a medical school, but was for many years Surgeon to the Great Northern Central Hospital and to St Mark's Hospital for Fistula and Diseases of the Rectum. He was also Consulting Surgeon to the Farringdon General Dispensary and to the Surgical Aid Society, of which, together with some of his relatives and others, he was one of the founders in 1862. He was a Member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1884-1886, and retired from practice in 1894. Allingham was one of the first surgeons in England to specialize in the treatment of diseases of the rectum, out of which he made a considerable fortune. He was kindly, generous, and hospitable. After his retirement he lived for some time at St Leonards, and then at Worthing, where he died on Feb 4th, 1908. He married twice: (1) Miss Christiana Cooke, by whom he had six children - four sons and two daughters. The eldest son was Herbert William Allingham, (qv). Of his two daughters both married medical men; the elder, who afterwards became Mrs Chevallier Tayler, having been first the wife of Mr Charles Cotes, of St George's; the younger was married to Claud E Woakes. (2) Miss D H Hayles, [1] who, like Mr Herbert William Allingham, predeceased the subject of this memoir. William Allingham appears in the portrait group of the Council by Jamyn Brooks (1884). Publications: Fistula, Hæmorrhoids, Painful Ulcer, Stricture, Prolapsus, and other Diseases of the Rectum, their Diagnosis and Treatment, 8vo, London, 1871. The Diagnosis and Treatment of Diseases of the Rectum. Edited by Herbert William Allingham. 8vo, London, 1871. The final 1901 edition, a collaboration between father and son, was practically rewritten. The work was translated into several foreign languages. "On the Treatment of Fistula and other Sinuses by Means of the Elastic Ligature, being a Paper (with Additional Cases) read before the Medical Society of London, November, 1874." 8vo, London; reprinted again in 1875, etc. [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] who had nursed him through a severe illness]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000675
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Amphlett, Edward (1848 - 1880)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-09-25
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/372860372860
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on Oct 20th, 1848, the second son of Samuel Holmden Amphlett (qv), by Mary Georgiana, his wife. He was nephew of Sir Richard Amphlett, of Wychbold Hall, near Droitwich, at one time Lord Justice of Appeal. Edward Amphlett was the grandson of George Edward Male, an early nineteenth century authority on medical jurisprudence. He was educated for the sea, and served as midshipman in the Royal Navy for several years, seeing many parts of the world and acquiring great interest in nautical matters. At the time of his death he was Surgeon to the Naval Artillery Volunteers, with whom he had recently been a cruise on board HMS *Esk*. He suffered so severely from asthma that he was invalided out of the service. Determining to enter the medical profession, he first graduated at Cambridge from Peterhouse as a Junior Optime in the Mathematical Tripos (his uncle, Sir Richard Amphlett, who died in 1883, had been Sixth Wrangler). He is thus one of the first Cambridge man on our record. Entering at Guy’s Hospital, he was House Surgeon and Resident Obstetrician. After qualifying and passing the Fellowship examination he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to Charing Cross Hospital, and began to devote himself to practice and more particularly to diseases of the eye, which he had studied at Vienna. At the time of his death, besides being Assistant Surgeon, he was also Demonstrator of Surgical Pathology in Charing Cross Hospital Medical School and Assistant Surgeon at the Central London Ophthalmic Hospital. He practised at 40 Weymouth Street, Portland Place, W, and died there on Sept 9th, 1880. His elder brother was Richard Holmden Amphlett, QC, Recorder of Worcester.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000677
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Amphlett, Samuel Holmden (1813 - 1857)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Amyot, Thomas Edward (1817 - 1895)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-09-25
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/372862372862
Occupation General surgeon
Details Eldest son of Thomas Amyot, FRS, Treasurer of the Society of Antiquaries and sometime Private Secretary to the Right Honourable William Wyndham. His mother was Jane, daughter of Edward Colman, of Norwich, surgeon. Thomas Amyot was born on Jan 28th, 1817, and was admitted to Westminster School on Jan 12th, 1829. Educated professionally at the Hunterian School of Medicine and at St Thomas’s Hospital. Married on Oct 28th, 1847, Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev Francis Howes, Minor Canon of Norwich Cathedral, and had issue one son and a daughter. He practised at Diss in Norfolk, and died there on Dec 15th, 1895. Amyot appears to have inherited the versatility of his father, for his leisure hours were spent in microscopy, astronomy, geology, and botany. He is also said to have had musical and literary tastes. He was President of the Norfolk and Norwich Medico-Chirurgical Society and of the East Anglian Branch of the British Medical Association. Publications: “Diabetes: Saccharine Treatment – Death – Autopsy.” – *Med. Times and Gaz.*, 1861, i, 327. “A Case of Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus with Bursting of the Head.” – *Ibid.*, 1869, i, 330. “Foot and Mouth Disease in the Human Subject.” – *Ibid*, 1871, ii, 555.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000679
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ancrum (or Ancrum), William Rutherford (1816 - 1898)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-09-25 2013-08-06
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/372863372863
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at the Manor House, Weston, near Bath, on Feb 5th, 1816. Educated at private schools, and apprenticed at the age of 15 to T Taylor Griffith (qv) at Wrexham, where he is said to have had Sir William Bowman (qv) as a fellow-apprentice. Three years later he entered as a student at University College, had a brilliant career, and was elected House Surgeon, with such success that Robert Liston (qv) invited him to become his private assistant. He accepted and acted in this capacity for three years. In 1843 he left England and practised in the City of Mexico. In 1848 he was appointed Surgeon to the Naval Hospital at Valparaiso, a post he held for eleven years, during which he built up a large and lucrative practice. Returning to England, he took the FRCS on Dec 12th, 1850, having been admitted MRCS on Oct 11th, 1839. During this visit he also became a member of the Royal College of Physicians of London. He resigned his practice in Mexico in 1859, returned to London and took a house, 75 Inverness Terrace, Bayswater. He retired from all practice in 1863 and bought St Leonard's Court, Gloucester. From 1863 until his death in 1898 Ancrum took an active part in the public life of Gloucester. He served for twenty-seven years as Chairman of the County Infirmary, bringing method, order, and financial soundness into the working of the institution. A ward in the infirmary is named in his memory "The Ancrum Ward." He was appointed Chairman of the Committee of the Wotton County Asylum in 1878, and was mainly instrumental in founding and financing the second County Asylum in 1882. In 1878 he was also elected Chairman of the Barnwood House Private Asylum, which was much enlarged during his tenure of office. He was an active magistrate and was at one time Chairman of the Gloucester County Bench, a member of important Committees of the old Court of Quarter Sessions, and an Alderman of the County Council, where he was Chairman of the Prison Visiting Committee. He married in 1852 the youngest daughter of Arthur Lewis, of Brighton, and by her had three sons and two daughters. He was an invalid during the last three years of his life, died at St Leonard's Court, Gloucester, on Oct 9th, 1898, and was buried in the neighbouring churchyard of Upton St Leonard's.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000680
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Norman, Henry Burford (1819 - 1900)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-08-29 2012-09-05
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002800-E002899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375001375001
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Born at Langport on April 11th, 1819, the son of William Norman, a medical man descended from an ancient Somersetshire family - the Normans of Fiveheads. He received a liberal education and his early professional training was with his father. He entered University College as a medical student in 1837, for, though Guy's had been originally chosen for him, he met a student of University College on his way to London, who so effectually dilated on the advantages of his own school that he was persuaded to follow in the footsteps of his friend. During his successful career at University College he numbered among his fellow-students and friends John Eric Erichsen, Henry Thompson, John Marshall, and Spencer Wells. He was appointed House Surgeon to Liston in 1846. He then worked at the eye as a specialty, and was appointed Surgeon to the North London Eye Hospital and to the Marylebone General Dispensary. He practised at 3 Duchess Street, Portland Place, and was President of the Harveian Society in 1850. Hard work told so seriously on his health, that he was compelled to leave London. He settled in practice at Portland Lodge, Southsea, in 1858, in succession to Edward J Scott (qv), and soon gained a leading position in Hampshire. In 1861 he was elected on the surgical staff of the Royal Portsmouth Hospital, and distinguished himself in this post for several years (1861-1866). He was one of the principal founders of the Portsmouth and South Hants Eye and Ear Infirmary, and was Consulting Surgeon to this Institution for a long period. Before leaving London he had also been Consulting Surgeon to the North Pancras Provident Dispensary and St Marylebone Charity Schools. Norman was an able surgeon, and from time to time made many valuable contributions on surgical topics to the medical journals. Throughout his long career he enjoyed the entire confidence of his professional friends, who at Portsmouth, on the occasion of his retirement in 1889, entertained him at a dinner and presented him with a valuable silver service. He was a staunch Liberal and a broad churchman. He keenly supported the British Medical Association, acted on the Provisional Committee in connection with the formation of the Southern Branch in 1874, and was President in 1888. After his retirement he resided at the Manor House, Drayton, Taunton, and died at Chesham, Bucks, on June 11th, 1900. He married twice, and left behind a widow and six children. Two of his sons continued the medical tradition of his family. His photograph is in the Fellows' Album. Publications: "Pathology and Treatment of the Diseases of the Excreting Lachrymal Apparatus." - *Lond Med Gaz*, 1848, ns vii, 25. "Caries of the Hip and Excision of the Head of the Femur." - *Lancet*, 1848, ii, 37. "Vascular Tumours of the Urethra." - *Lond and Edin Monthly Jour Med Sci*, 1848-9, ix, 795. "Analogous Growth of Other Parts." - *Lond Jour Med*, 1852, iv, 146.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002818
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching North, Thomas Stanley (1897 - 1924)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Norton, Arthur Trehern (1841 - 1912)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-09-05
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002800-E002899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375004375004
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on August 17th, 1841, the second son of Robert Norton, MD (qv), of Bayswater. He was educated at Totteridge Park School and entered St Mary's Hospital Medical School as a student in 1858. He was a successful worker, most of the class examination prizes for which he competed being awarded to him. He secured the Scholarship in Anatomy in 1861, at a time when the holder of this scholarship - which was discontinued in 1884 - became Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy. Shortly afterwards he was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy, although he had not yet qualified. His colleague was, for a short period, George G Gascoyen (qv). In 1866 Norton was elected Surgeon to Out-patients. From 1866-1876 he was Lecturer in Anatomy, being till 1871 joint-lecturer with Gascoyen. In 1878 Norton succeeded H Spencer Smith (qv) as Surgeon to In-patients, and in 1881 followed James R Lane (qv) as Senior Surgeon. He was Lecturer in Surgery from 1876-1888, his colleagues in this post being James E Lane (qv) from 1876-1881 and Herbert Page (qv) from 1882-1888. In 1888 the Clinical Lectureships were revived and Norton became Lecturer on Clinical Surgery, Sir William Broadbent being Lecturer on Clinical Medicine. Norton, though his term of office did not expire till March, 1898, severed his connection with the staff of St Mary's at the close of 1896, and was elected Consulting Surgeon on January 22nd, 1897. In 1870 he had been placed in charge of the newly established Department for Diseases of the Throat at St Mary's, and in the same year he served with the English Ambulance in France during the Franco-Prussian War, receiving the French Gold Medal in recognition of organizing work in the Ambulance Department; together with Sir John Furley and Henry Sewill the dental surgeon, he was in charge of an ambulance at Brieu. He took an active part in the formation of the Volunteer Medical Staff Corps, which he joined as Surgeon Major in 1885, being transferred from the Civil Service Rifles. In 1888 he became Commandant of the London Companies, and in 1889 was promoted to the rank of Surgeon Lieutenant-Colonel. In recognition of his services he was made a CB in 1889, and received the Volunteer Officers' Decoration on its institution as well as the Jubilee Medal. He was also an Hon Associate of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. In view of his military experiences he was appointed a member of the War Office Committee for the development of the Volunteer Medical Service. He ardently supported the movement for admitting women to medical degrees and took an active share in founding the London School of Medicine for Women. He was an Examiner in Surgery at the University of Durham and the Society of Apothecaries. He was appointed Examiner to the latter in 1892 and held the post for six years; in 1901 he became a member of the Court of Assistants, was Warden in 1908-1910, Master in 1910-1911, and represented the Society on the General Medical Council from 1910-1912. After his retirement from London and from practice he lived at Leyfields Wood, Ashampstead, Berks. Norton died at a nursing home at Reading after an operation for appendicitis on Sunday, August 4th, 1912. In 1898 he married Lucy Maude, eldest daughter of E Meredith Chase, of Newhouse Park, Herts. A portrait of him in uniform accompanies his biography in *St Mary's Hospital Gazette*, 1897, Personally Trehern Norton was courtesy itself, and in his profession he had shown great industry and capacity, giving also ungrudgingly personal help to both colleagues and students at St Mary's. He was for some years editor in London of the *Medical Press and Circular*, and was one of its proprietors at the time of his death. Publications:- *Osteology: a Concise Description of the Human Skeleton*, 8vo, atlas of 20 plates, London, 1866; 2nd ed. *Affections of the Throat and Larynx. The Classification, Description and Statistics of 150 Consecutive Cases occurring in the Throat Department of St Mary's Hospital*, 8vo, London, 1871; 2nd ed, 1875. *The Examiner in Anatomy: a Course of Instruction in the Method of Answering Anatomical Questions*, 12mo, London, 1877. *Text-book of Operative Surgery and Surgical Anatomy, based on the Original Work of Professors Claude Bernard and Ch Huette*, 2nd ed, 8vo, 88 plates, London, 1886. *Clinical Lectures on Recent Surgery*, 12mo, London, 1894. "On Accommodation of Vision and Anatomy of the Ciliary Body." - *Proc Roy Soc*, xxi, 423. "The Anatomy of the Eye" in Haynes Walton's *Diseases of the Eye*, 3rd ed, 1875. Norton was one of the first contributors to *St Mary's Hosp Gaz* (1875, i, 5), with an article on "Gunshot Wounds in Civil Practice", which also referred to his experiences in the war of 1870.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002821
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Norton, Robert (1803 - 1876)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z

First Title value, for Searching Norway, Samuel (1806 - 1870)

2025-12-17T03:28:00Z