Search Results for

First Title value, for Searching Thornberry, David John (1950 - 2009)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by John Blandy
Publication Date 2011-06-09
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373429373429
Occupation consultant in rehabilitation medicine
Details David John Thornberry was a consultant in rehabilitation medicine at Derriford Hospital, Plymouth. He was born in London on 31 July 1950, the son of Cyril Joseph Thornberry, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, and Elizabeth Mary née Marks, a radiographer. His sister went on to become a consultant anaesthetist. He was educated at Cambusdoon Preparatory School in Ayrshire and then Harrow. He studied medicine at Queens' College, Cambridge, and St Thomas' Hospital, London. He held junior posts at St Thomas', including appointments as an orthopaedic house surgeon and as a senior house officer in the accident and emergency department. He then specialised in surgery, becoming a senior house officer in general surgery at Portsmouth and then a registrar at Wolverhampton. It was while he was working as a registrar that he developed multiple sclerosis, being diagnosed in 1979. He retrained as a medical officer in the artificial limb and appliance service at Selly Oak, Roehampton, Exeter and Plymouth. He was appointed as a consultant in rehabilitation medicine at Derriford Hospital, Plymouth, in 1990 with a particular interest in neurological disability and amputees. As his multiple sclerosis progressed, he began to work part-time. He was a member of the British Society of Rehabilitation Medicine, a committee member of the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics, Engineering in Medicine and of the national executive of the British Society of Rehabilitation Medicine. He married Judi in 1977. They had two daughters, Hannah Kate and Alice Elizabeth, and a son, David Thomas. Outside medicine, he enjoyed sailing, rowing and rugby. He was a talented artist, adapting his style to his ability. He died 15 August 2009 from complications of metastatic melanoma and his multiple sclerosis.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001246
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Till, Kenneth (1920 - 2008)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by T T King
Publication Date 2011-06-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373430373430
Occupation paediatric neurosurgeon
Details Kenneth Till was a paediatric neurosurgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London. He was born in Stoke-on-Trent on 12 February 1920, the son of Reginald Till, a ceramic designer, and his wife, Grace Adelaide née Smallcombe. He was educated at Poole Grammar School, Dorset, and later at Downing College, Cambridge, and St George's Hospital Medical School, London, winning an Anne Selina Fernee scholarship and the Brackenbury surgical prize. He graduated in 1944 and, while a house surgeon at St George's, encountered neurosurgery in the form of Wylie McKissock, into whose operating theatre he ventured at Atkinson Morley's Hospital, Wimbledon, a branch of St George's. McKissock was impressed and offered him an appointment as a neurosurgical house surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital where, ultimately, he made his career. After house jobs at St George's and National Service in the RAF, he obtained the FRCS in 1953 and was appointed first assistant to McKissock at Great Ormond Street. He spent 1956 at the Chicago Memorial Children's Hospital, and in 1959 he was appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon at Great Ormond Street, where he remained single-handed until 1970. He also held a consultant appointment at University College Hospital and honorary appointments at the Whittington Hospital, London, and Queen Mary Hospital, Carshalton, Surrey. Till was an exceptionally rapid surgeon, with wide interests. Together with the engineer, Stanley Wade, and the author Roald Dahl, whose son had developed hydrocephalus following a head injury and was under Till's care, he helped develop the Wade-Till-Dahl valve for the treatment of this condition. This device, which followed the appearance of the first valved shunts in the US designed by Holter and Nulsen, was simple, cheap, re-sterilisable and less likely to become blocked with debris, since the valves were of metal. It had considerable success, though it did not provide a pressure against which the CSF drained, a consideration that subsequently became regarded as important and led to more complex designs. Till's contributions to the literature covered a number of topics, especially craniopharyngioma and spinal dysraphism. He was involved in the development of Great Ormond Street Hospital as a centre for cranio-facial surgery and was a founding member of the International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery. In 1975, he published a textbook, *Paediatric neurosurgery: for paediatricians and neurosurgeons* (Oxford, Blackwell Scientific). After retirement he moved to Somerset and acted as a technical adviser to publications which included the *British Journal of Neurosurgery* and the *Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry*. He married Morwenna Tunstall-Behrens, a doctor who had engaged in leukaemia research and was also a distinguished plantswoman. They had one daughter and three sons. Till's interests outside the profession were gardening, photography and music. He died on 8 July 2008 of complications of Waldenström's macroglobulinaemia.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001247
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Godber, Sir George Edward (1908 - 2009)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by John Blandy
Publication Date 2011-06-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373431373431
Occupation Public health officer
Details Sir George Godber was one of the principal architects of the National Health Service. He was born on 4 August 1908, the son of Bessie and Isaac Godber, a nurseryman. From Bedford School he went up to New College, Oxford, where he won a blue for rowing, taking part in two losing boat races. He went on to the London Hospital and did junior jobs there and at Poplar, where he was confronted with large numbers of people who were too poor to go to their GP and too proud to accept charity. He attended the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, became a county medical officer in Surrey and joined the Ministry of Health as a medical officer in 1939, at a time when the outbreak of war forced hospitals to work together. His first task was to organise maternity services for Londoners who had been evacuated to the suburbs. During the Second World War Beveridge published his report and Godber was part of the team that planned the National Health Service. He was appointed deputy chief medical officer in 1950 and chief medical officer in 1960. He later campaigned against smoking and for vaccination against polio and diphtheria. A tall man with a shock of hair and a monocle, Godber had tremendous presence. He married Norma Hathorne Rainey in 1935. She predeceased him in 1999. They had four sons and three daughters, but sadly three of their children died in childhood. He was an honorary fellow of many institutions, including our own College. He died on 7 February 2009.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001248
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Harper, William Michael (1955 - 2008)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2011-06-16 2013-09-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373432373432
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details William Michael Harper was professor of orthopaedic trauma at the University of Leicester. Born in Jersey, 'Joe' Harper was proud of his roots in the Channel Islands and was equally fond of the years he spent in Bolton, Lancashire, where he went to school. Harper was one of the pioneering band of students that made up the first cohort at the Leicester Medical School in 1975. A gap year before commencing his studies was not spent trekking in the Himalayas, but in a factory in Bolton. Not one of the archetypal medical students of his day, 'Joe' Harper possessed a mop of unruly hair, generally had a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and had a broad Lancastrian accent. He did not flaunt his academic ability, but never struggled with the course work and moved easily into his clinical studies. This period of undergraduate training was interrupted on two occasions. He apparently caught chicken pox from a patient and was banished from the wards. According to a colleague, he 'attempted to make an early comeback but he was, in more ways than one, "spotted"'. A fractured femur, under unknown circumstances, occasioned an even longer absence and may have stimulated his later interest in orthopaedics. Awarded his MB ChB in 1980, he undertook junior surgical training in Leicester, where he obtained his first true exposure to his chosen specialty in the trauma and orthopaedics unit. It was said by one of his classmates that: 'the odds on his becoming a professor would have been as long as on an Englishman winning Wimbledon!"' He moved around the country to obtain more experience in general surgery at senior training level, before returning to Leicester as a lecturer in orthopaedic surgery. His academic career blossomed in the department then run by Paul Gregg. From 1988 to 1990, he held the Smith and Nephew trauma research fellowship in the department of orthopaedic surgery. During this specialist training, Harper researched different questions in the management of fractures of the neck of the femur. In a randomised trial, he evaluated internal fixations and hemiarthroplasties. He assessed the results and attempted to find the best surgical option, also noting the modes of treatment failure. This work was submitted to the university for an MD thesis in 1995. Completion of his higher surgical training saw him appointed as a senior lecturer/honorary consultant in trauma and orthopaedic surgery at the University of Leicester in 1993. His work on fractures of the neck of the femur continued and he established the renowned Trent regional arthroplasty study with Gregg in 1989. This was the inspiration for the National Joint Registry, now well established by the Department of Health. Much of this work continues, as does the new undergraduate musculoskeletal programme in the University. He fought hard to maintain trauma and orthopaedics as an independent department within the medical school. In the mid-nineties, Harper was appointed as clinical director of the trauma unit at the Leicester Royal Infirmary and was instrumental in changing clinical practice in several important ways. These included the appointment of a consulting physician to oversee the medical management of patients with fractures of the neck of the femur and nurse-led clinics for simple fractures. A framework of management for complex trauma was established and soft tissues were not ignored, and he set up and ran a multidisciplinary team for the management for bone and soft tissue tumours. As professor, he made a significant contribution to research and training, and in the Trent region area developed various aspects of his chosen specialty, particularly in the management of sarcoma. It took nobody by surprise at this later stage when 'Joe' Harper became professor of orthopaedic trauma at Leicester University in 1997 and, not long after that, head of the academic unit when Paul Clegg moved to Newcastle. He ran a busy research unit, publishing extensively on outcomes of arthroplasty of the hip and knee. Under his guidance many young doctors completed their MD dissertations on subjects ranging from cementation in hip arthroplasty to infection management. Increasingly senior roles in UK orthopaedics engaged his attention and he was the chairman of the Association of Professors of Orthopaedic Surgery from 2000 to 2003, a member of the Intercollegiate Specialty Board of Examiners for Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery from 2002, and of the Specialist Advisory Committee in the disciplines from 2005. With his publishing skills, he became a valued member of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery for two terms. These commitments were enough for a very full life, but he spent much time on local issues, being very supportive of his staff and colleagues, all of whom held him in the highest regard. Outside these commitments, he enjoyed a relaxed family life. With his wife Liz and daughter Alice he spent time in northern France, renovating a farm cottage over many years. He was a lifelong collector of stamps, Marvel comics and cards. Throughout a two-year illness leading to his death on the evening of 13 May 2008 he managed to maintain his optimism and showed great courage and independence, pursuing his clinical and academic work almost to the end. He was survived by his wife and daughter. Of his open-minded approach, it was recorded: 'There could be no doubt that, with "Joe" Harper, what you saw was what you got.'
Resource Identifier RCS: E001249
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Reynolds, Ian Stuart Russell (1943 - 2011)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by John Black
Publication Date 2011-07-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373441373441
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Ian Reynolds, formerly a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Hereford, was born into a medical dynasty. His grandfather, Russell Reynolds, himself a third generation doctor, was a pioneer radiologist in the early years of the 20th century and some of his equipment is on display in the Science Museum in London. Ian's father, Seymour Reynolds, was also a radiologist and became dean of the Charing Cross Medical School, where the main building is named after him. Ian went to school at Harrow, where his outgoing personality and sporting ability made him a popular figure. He gained colours in cricket, rugby and Harrow football, and played three times at Lords in the Eton/Harrow match. His medical training was at Caius College, Cambridge, and St Thomas' Hospital. He never achieved the sporting representative honours of which he was capable (he was a batsman of county standard) because of a disdain for training and practice, there being for Ian many more interesting things to do in life. He was a true Corinthian and never put winning before sportsmanship and enjoyment of the game. His surgical training was initially in London. He became a surgical registrar in Wolverhampton and did the West Midland senior registrar rotation in orthopaedics, working in Birmingham and Coventry. In 1980 he obtained a consultant post in Hereford, where the need to be able to cover a wide range of the specialty suited him perfectly: not for Ian the narrow sub-specialist approach. When he arrived in Hereford his new post increased the complement to three orthopaedic surgeons and he also had sessions at Oswestry. When he retired there were nine. His cheerful light-hearted manner concealed (lightly) a good brain and he was clinically very astute and well informed, with technical skills to match. He did not take to NHS management other than chairing the medical staff committee. The social milieu in Hereford, a small cathedral city, suited Ian and his wife Jill, a former St Thomas' nurse, perfectly. Ian was a generous host and loved entertaining, wine and food. Their household became a hub for a large collection of friends from all walks of life. The Reynolds' house in Hereford came with a two and a half-acre garden, including 'Scott's Hole', a sizeable crater of uncertain origin. Ian took this as a challenge and began to fill it with increasingly exotic and rare plants, as well as ponds and many other garden features. He knew every one of his plants, and there were hundreds, by their Latin names. His garden was included in the National Garden Scheme 'Yellow Book', the standard for opening to the public, an achievement of which he was very proud. Ian developed carcinoma of the prostate in 2004, and after initial treatment had a four-year remission. Unfortunately, the condition returned in 2009 and he died on 12 February 2011. He left a widow Jill, three children (Nick, Kim and Jonathan) and five grandchildren. His daughter Kim continues the medical tradition into a sixth generation.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001258
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Cooper, George Lewis (1810 - 1875)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cooper, Thomas Henry (1813 - 1881)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Copeman, Edward (1809 - 1880)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Corbin, Marc Antony Bazille ( - 1908)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cornish, Charles Henry (1807 - 1887)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cornwall, James (1821 - 1889)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cotes, Henry (1816 - 1867)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cotterell, Edward (1857 - 1898)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cottle, Ernest Wyndham (1847 - 1919)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Coulson, Walter John (1834 - 1889)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cousins, John Ward (1834 - 1921)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-08-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373478373478
Occupation General surgeon
Details The second son of the Rev Thomas Cousins, an Independent Minister at the King Street Church, Portsmouth. He was apprenticed to E J Scott (qv), Surgeon to the Royal Portsmouth Hospital, and received his professional training at St Thomas's Hospital, where he was Cheselden Medallist in 1856 and held resident appointments. He was for a time Resident Surgeon at the Victoria Park Hospital (City of London Hospital for Diseases of the Chest), and then returned to Portsmouth, where he soon devoted himself entirely to surgery. He was appointed Assistant Surgeon to the Royal Portsmouth Hospital in 1860, and remained on the active staff as Senior Surgeon till 1908, when he was elected Consulting Surgeon and a Vice-President. He was one of the founders of the Portsmouth and South Hants Eye and Ear Infirmary, making ophthalmic surgery his specialty whilst still practising as a general surgeon. He was also latterly Senior Surgeon of the Eye and Ear Infirmary and of the Medical and Surgical Home for Women. "If I were asked to state Dr Ward Cousins's outstanding characteristic as a surgeon," wrote his intimate friend and colleague, Charles P Childe (qv), "I should say it was his thoroughness - no time was too long, no trouble too great for him to spend over any case, no care too exacting in the performance of any operation. The number of hours he devoted to his hospital work was prodigious." Ward Cousins was the outstanding figure at the Royal Portsmouth Hospital, which he served for nearly half a century. Popular and helpful among his colleagues, he has been described as the backbone of the institution, where his aim was to foster esprit de corps, broad-mindedness, and tolerance. He was fond of reading and study, and was the mainstay, as Hon Secretary, of a local literary and scientific institution. His labours on behalf of the British Medical Association were life-long. For a number of years he was Hon Secretary of the Portsmouth Division, and then President of the Division and of the Southern Branch. He was a member of the old Committee of Council of the Association in the early eighties, and was President of the Central Council from 1898-1895. At the Portsmouth Meeting in 1899 he was President of the Association, and his good qualities and generous hospitality were then greatly in evidence. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a well-known figure - a little, very baldheaded, genial gentleman. From 1895-1899 he was a Member of Council and represented the College on the Central Midwives Board. Dr Ward Cousins, as he was always known locally, died at his house - Riverside, Kent Road, Southsea - on September 22nd, 1921, being survived by his widow and a daughter. He was twice married - the second time to Miss Waters, the head mistress of a school for girls in Southsea. He was a medical inventor of great originality and mechanical skill, the following being a list of the appliances devised or improved by him: Tapering metallic catheter with flexible beak; capillary catheter; gag with throat guard; Eustachian catheter; pelvic tourniquet for amputation at hip-joint; aural apparatus for alternate injection and evacuation of air; fixing forceps; ovariotomy trocar; convertible stethoscope; surgical pin with handle; aspirator; needle-holder with rotatory action; safety eye-irrigator; dilator after colotomy; empyema trocar and knife; antiseptic artificial drumhead, etc. For these inventions he was awarded a prize medal by the British Medical Association in 1884 and a gold medal at the International Inventions Exhibition. He was awarded a prize of £20 by the British Medical Association for one of his inventions; this money, however, he did not himself receive, but offered it as a prize for the best essay on abortion. The list of inventions made by Ward Cousins differs in the *Provincial Medical Journal* from that quoted above, the latter being from the *Medical Directory* and apparently that which he wished to place on record. He was for many years engaged in the development of the Portsmouth and South Hants Eye and Ear Hospital and of the Surgical Home for Women, and in the reconstruction of the Royal Hospital, where in 1889 there were 130 patients. Ward Cousins was distinguished for his singular calligraphy, and his prescriptions were a puzzle to many dispensers. Among the 'illegible prescriptions' represented in *The Art of Dispensing* and published at the offices of the *Chemist and Druggist*, a facsimile of his handwriting will be found. His portrait is in the Fellows' Album. Publications: "Case of Soft and Foetid Calculus." - *Clin. Soc. Trans*.. 1888, xxi, 259. *New Antiseptic Artificial Membrana Tympani. With Remarks on the Treatment of Perforation and other Disorders of the Middle Ear*, 12mo, London, 1889. "Ectopic Gestation, and Conditions favourable for its Advance to Full Term" - *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1903, ii, 181. "Tuberculous Diseases of Joints; Arthrectomy and Excision." - *Ibid.*, 1896, ii, 1040. "Excision of Knee-joint in Middle Life; Jamming the Bone." - *Ibid.*, 1896, ii, 177.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001295
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Coutts, David Kirkpatrick (1881 - 1911)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Covey, Edward ( - 1861)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Covey, William Henry (1804 - 1878)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cowan, Samuel Brice ( - 1883)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cox, Charles Lindsey (1813 - 1886)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Crabtree, Angelo Matteo ( - 1925)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Craddock, William (1818 - 1872)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-08-19 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001300-E001399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373490373490
Occupation Military surgeon
Details Born in July, 1818, the son of John Craddock, of Radstock, Somerset. He joined the Bengal Army as Assistant Surgeon on Jan 30th, 1843, being promoted to Surgeon on May 31st, 1857, and to Surgeon Major on January 30th, 1863. In 1857 he was attached to the 70th Native Infantry, and saw service in the First Sikh or Sutlej War (1845-1846) and in China (1858-1859). He retired on December 25th, 1870. He died on board the ss *Scotland* off Cape St Vincent, on April 18th, 1872.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001307
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Lawrence, George Anthony (1925 - 2010)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2011-08-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001300-E001399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373492373492
Occupation General surgeon
Details George Anthony Lawrence, known as 'Tony', was a consultant general surgeon in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, Canada, where he practised for 35 years. He served as a coroner and from 1984 to 1993 was chief of staff of the Highland View Regional Hospital and was also medical examiner for Cumberland County over many years. He was an enthusiastic volunteer manager of the Red Cross blood donor clinic. He left the UK when he was at senior registrar level as resident surgical officer to the Norfolk and Norwich and allied hospitals, and emigrated to Canada. He and his wife, Gillian, and family went to Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1965 to make a permanent home, highly recommended by his friend in Norwich, Joe Donachie, who had settled in the locality. Here Tony developed a fine reputation as a friendly practitioner who gave wise advice and took excellent care of patients on whom he performed a wide variety of general surgical procedures. Tony was born in Nottingham on 9 April 1925, the son of Ernest Lawrence, a dentist, and his wife Millicent. He had two sisters, Sheila and Bobbie, and was a great nephew of the writer, D H Lawrence. He was educated at Nottingham High School before entering Guy's Hospital for his medical training, whence he graduated in 1950. A gifted singer, he shunned a professional career in music to pursue medicine, but used his fine baritone voice to good effect in choirs, and also in Christmas shows, where his sense of fun became apparent as he mimicked consultants on the staff of the hospital. An all round sportsman, he played in the Guy's first XV as a scrum half. After house appointments, he entered the Royal Army Medical Corps and served as a captain in Egypt for two years before returning to Guy's for further surgical training. He met Gillian Wood, a medical student, whom he married: they had a family of six children, three boys and three girls. In Norwich, first as a registrar and from 1964 as a senior registrar, he was recognised as a superb diagnostician and an excellent surgeon. In Canada he developed the same reputation. His love of medicine was apparent as he retained a strong belief in the principle that the interests of patients were paramount. Outside medicine he had a love of the countryside even during his time in Norwich, when he and Gill lived in a 'wattle and daub' country cottage at Wreningham. They kept a variety of animals, including a donkey, 'Belinda', fed from hay in the fields, hand-mown by Tony and the many guests they entertained. In 1967, after a year or so in Canada, he moved to Burnside Farm as his permanent residence and in retirement was able to pursue his interest as a 'hobby farmer'. He was a proud Rotarian for over 40 years and his services were recognised with a Paul Harris fellowship and the Club's distinguished service award. He enjoyed a regular game of golf with his medical colleagues in the area. Tony Lawrence died at his home in Amherst, Nova Scotia, on 10 August 2010 from metastatic malignant melanoma. He was survived by his wife Gill, five children (Noel, Claire, Sarah, Anne and Michael) and nine grandchildren. He was predeceased by his son Mark.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001309
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Craigie, John Livingston (1814 - 1864)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-08-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001300-E001399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373493373493
Occupation General surgeon
Details Received his medical education at the London Hospital, where he was afterwards for some time Lecturer on Dental Surgery. He practised at 42 Finsbury Square, EC, and died at The Woodlands, Chigwell, Essex, on January 14th, 1864.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001310
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Hill, David William (1926 - 2008)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Enid Taylor
Publication Date 2011-08-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001300-E001399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373494373494
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details David William Hill was research professor in ophthalmology at the Royal College of Surgeons and a consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields Hospital, London. He was born on 5 May 1926 in Croydon, Surrey, the son of a bank manager and a housewife. He attended Whitgift School, Croydon, before becoming a medical student at St Bartholomew's Hospital, qualifying in 1948. After house jobs at St Bartholomew's, he began training in ophthalmology at Brighton Eye Hospital. He did his National Service in the RAMC, serving in Austria and Trieste, and was the sole ophthalmic trained doctor in this area. He was then appointed as an ophthalmic surgeon to Edgware General Hospital and to a research post at Hammersmith Hospital. He subsequently became research professor in ophthalmology in our College in 1967, his research covering retinal circulation and diabetic retinopathy. At the same time he was appointed as a consultant ophthalmic surgeon to Moorfields Eye Hospital, where he continued his clinical work with a special interest in cataract surgery. He examined for the Royal College of Surgeons and also worked with the Royal National Institute for the Blind. He married Jean Adams, who was a part-time general practitioner and taught and examined in first aid. They had three children, one daughter qualifying as a doctor. There are eight grandchildren. After retirement in 1991 he was able to devote more time to the church as a lay reader and sacristan. He was keen on mountain walking, climbed the Matterhorn twice, and also found time to pursue his other interests of carpentry, bird watching and classical music. Sadly in April 2006 he suffered a stroke and died on 5 February 2008. He was survived by his wife Jean, their children and grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001311
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Watts, John Cadman (1913 - 2010)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Norman Kirby
Publication Date 2011-08-26
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001300-E001399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373495373495
Occupation General surgeon
Details Colonel John Watts was the first joint professor of military surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the Royal Army Medical College, a post he held from 1960 to 1964. Watts was born on 13 April 1913 at Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, the only child of John Nixon Watts, a solicitor, and the Honorable Amy Bettina Watts née Cadman, a teacher. He was educated at Alleyn Court Preparatory School and Merchant Taylors' School, where he joined the Officer Training Corps. His medical career started at St Thomas' Hospital, London. Here he joined 'Mitchener's Army' in the University of London Officer Training Corps. Phillip Henry Mitchener was one of the most colourful figures in surgery and a consultant surgeon to St Thomas' Hospital. John, his house surgeon, asked him for career advice. He was advised to join the RAMC as war was imminent, and in February 1938 he did. In the run up to the Second World War, Watts served in Palestine with the Black Watch, and then with the No 8 General Hospital. Between 1942 and 1944, he was officer in charge of 41 Field Surgical Unit, in Italy. With the surgeon Robert Stephens, Watts developed field surgical teams for war. On D-day he took an airlanding field surgical team by glider to Normandy and operated under fire for several weeks. On seeing the red cross, one of the defending German soldiers attended his unit with a wound he had sustained on the Russian front which had broken down - this was properly treated and the patient evacuated. After several months, the lightly equipped field surgical team returned to the UK to prepare for the airborne Rhine crossing, by which time John had been promoted to deputy assistant director of medical services. For his gallant actions in these battles he was awarded the Military Cross and was mentioned in despatches. He was promoted to command 225 Parachute Field Ambulance, which, after training in UK in July 1945, went to South East Asia. He was again mentioned in despatches. In 1946, in command of 195 Parachute Field Ambulance, he returned to Palestine and was awarded the third clasp. After a spell at the RAMC College, Millbank, he became officer in command of the surgical division in the British Commonwealth Hospital in Korea and Japan. He wrote articles on the treatment of war wounds and of frostbite in Korea. Returning to the Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot, adjacent to the Airborne Forces Depot, he maintained his expertise in the treatment of parachute injuries. He later went to Cyprus at the start of the EOKA campaign, the nationalist struggle to end British rule, as officer in charge of the surgical division at the military hospital in Nicosia and later Dhekelia. During the Suez campaign, he was able to train another parachute field surgical team for the 3 Para drop on El Gamil airfield in November 1956. The EOKA campaign resulted in 704 British casualties and these were reviewed by Watts and presented to the RCS in his Hunterian Lecture, in January 1960. After a short tour at Iserlohn with the British Army of the Rhine, in February 1960, he was appointed as the first joint professor of military surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the Royal Army Medical College and was promoted to colonel. Retiring from the Army in 1965, he was appointed as a consultant in trauma and orthopaedics at Bedford General Hospital. He was a senior fellow of British Orthopaedic Association. In 1955 he published *Surgeon at war* (Allen & Unwin), which described his many adventures at war, but also expressed the many principles of war surgery that he had learnt and taught. Watts retired from the NHS in1976 and moved to Suffolk, where he could enjoy his lifelong passion of sailing the tidal waters of East Anglia. In 1938 he married Joan Lilian Inwood, a nurse. They had a daughter, Stephanie Carol, and three sons (John Michael, Jeremy Christopher and Richard Charles). His wife and one son predeceased him. John Cadman Watts died on 17 December 2010.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001312
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Tindall, Victor Ronald (1928 - 2010)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Michael Pugh
Publication Date 2011-08-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001300-E001399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373496373496
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Victor Tindall was professor of obstetrics and gynaecology in Manchester. He was awarded a scholarship to Wallasey Grammar School, where, as well as his academic achievements, he was a dazzling athlete and rugby player. In track events he won the 100-, 200-, 400- and 800-yard records, together with the high and the long jump, winning the award of *victor ludoram*. His crowning achievement was being selected to play rugby for his county, Cheshire, whilst still at school. At Liverpool University, where he was also a scholar, he played rugby for the university and also for New Brighton. He subsequently played for the Royal Air Force, England and the Barbarians. His playing career ended when he injured his neck and then he became a referee, but he was involved with the game all his life. He qualified MB ChB in 1951 and, after junior posts, which included obstetrics and gynaecology, he acquired the diploma in obstetrics. He spent his National Service in the Royal Air Force, examining recruits for the Women's Royal Air Force. Returning to Liverpool for his specialist training in Norman Jeffcoate's department, he became a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1961. He then set aside clinical work to enter the physiology department to prepare for his doctorate in medicine. He had a special interest in liver disease and this is reflected in his work on liver disease in pregnancy. In 1987 Tindall edited the fifth edition of the landmark textbook *Principles of gynaecology* (Butterworth), originally edited by Jeffcoate. In 1965 he moved to Cardiff as a senior lecturer at the Welsh National School of Medicine, becoming a consultant at the University Hospital in 1970. In 1967 he was elected to serve on the council of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. He completed four terms in office and was elected senior vice president from 1993. In 1972 he left Cardiff to become professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Victoria University in Manchester. There his role as an educator is aptly demonstrated by his bibliography. Coupled with this was a busy gynaecological surgical practice with a special interest in radical pelvic surgery. He had to combine his demanding clinical load with the administrative duties of being a professor, and he had an excellent reputation for always honouring all his commitments, always sending word ahead if he knew he was going to be late for a meeting. In addition he had a great interest in audit, with a major role in the triennial report on maternal mortality, which seeks to determine cause rather than blame when these tragic events arise. In this vein his work with the Royal College of Surgeons, when he served on the committee of the Confidential Enquiry into Perioperative Deaths (CEPOD), which was set up by Brendan Devlin in 1982 and reported for the first time in 1987. It later became a national enquiry of a similar title, initially into perioperative death and later for patient outcome. At one meeting of this committee there was a tense moment, which was resolved by taking the offended lady out to an elegant tea at the Waldorf Hotel, where her ruffled feathers were soothed and all was well. In 1991 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons by election, a great distinction. He was appointed as the Simms-Black travelling professor in 1985 by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, visiting Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan and Cyprus. This required him to give many lectures and occasional surgical demonstrations at each port of call. Victor Tindall married Brenda Fay in 1955. They had two children, a son and a daughter, who later gave them the joy of seven grandchildren, all of them boys. Sadly, his later years were clouded by Parkinson's disease and he died on 11 June 2010. From his own description of his interests in *Who's Who*, it was clear that outside medicine and his family, he had one major interest - rugby.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001313
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Craven, Robert (1798 - 1850)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Craven, Sir Robert Martin (1824 - 1903)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-09-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001300-E001399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373502373502
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Hull on March 12th, 1824. He came of a family distinguished professionally and as prominent citizens in his native town. His grandfather, Robert Martin Craven (the first), was born on November 11th, 1770 (St Martin's Day), and began to practise in Hull in 1794. He was Sheriff of Hull in 1822, carried on practice as Robert M Craven and Son, and died in 1859. The name Craven was borne by Sir William Craven (1548-1618?), Lord Mayor of London, whose eldest son, William Earl of Craven (1606-1697), was the soldier, and his second son, John, the founder of the Craven Scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge. Robert Martin Craven (the second) was educated at Kingston College, Hull, and received his professional training at the Hull General Infirmary, the Hull Medical School, and at St Bartholomew's Hospital and School, where Lawrence, Paget, Skey, and Stanley were amongst his most distinguished teachers. Later he pursued his studies in various Paris hospitals. He practised in Hull in partnership with his father and was elected Hon Surgeon to the Hull Infirmary (October 8th, 1852), having previously, during five years, acted as Dresser there under his father. He was for twenty years an admirable Lecturer on Anatomy and Physiology in the Hull Medical School, which was dissolved in September, 1870. He was during the same time Secretary to the School. In 1876 he made his wife and six children Life Governors of the Hull Infirmary, and in August, 1886, one of the wards was named 'The Craven Ward' in recognition of the eminent services rendered to the institution by three generations of Cravens. In 1878 he was elected Sheriff of Hull, and in the following year he was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh. His election to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England took place more than ten years later. He was admitted to the freedom of the Society of Apothecaries, London, on Oct 14th, 1890. In 1892 he resigned his position as Hon Surgeon to the Hull Royal Infirmary after forty years' tenure of office, when he was presented with a testimonial and appointed Consulting Surgeon. He also became a member of the Board of Management. In March, 1894, he was elected Consulting Surgeon to the Hull Women's and the Orthopaedic Hospitals. He was twice President of the Hull and East Riding and North Lincolnshire Branch of the British Medical Association, and in 1891-1892 he was President of the Hull Medico-Ethical Society. He took a considerable part in the political and social life of what he loved to refer to as 'my town'. His knighthood, which was conferred on him in 1896, was much appreciated by his fellow-citizens. Sir Robert was a most familiar figure at the Royal College of Surgeons, his striking and rugged head, with its thick white hair, being conspicuous at Hunterian Orations and elections of Fellows when personal attendance was necessary. His loud voice with a strong Yorkshire accent revealed his presence in every assembly. On stepping from his cab in front of the College, one or other of the porters would run out with a judicious "Good day, Sir Robert". "Ah, you're glad to see me, then," would come the reply. A pourboire of half-a-crown invariably followed, so that there was keen competition for the honour of opening the door of the cab. He died at his residence, 13 and 14 Albion Street, Hull, on November 15th, 1903, and was buried in the Hull General Cemetery. Sir Robert Craven was twice married: (1) in 1853 to Jane, daughter of William Ward, a shipowner of Hull, and (2) in 1859 to Mary, daughter of Robert Welsh, Writer to the Signet, Edinburgh. This lady was a descendant of John Knox, and first cousin to Jane Welsh Carlyle. By the first marriage there was born to him one son, and by the second five daughters. His second wife died in 1885. His portrait - an admirable one, from the *Scalpel*, 1896, i - is in the College Collection. Publications: Sir Robert Craven was an occasional contributor to the medical journals. "His first contributions", says the Scalpel biography, "were published in 1868 by Christopher Heath, FRCS, in his work on *Injuries and Diseases of the Jaw* (Jacksonian Essay, 1867)."
Resource Identifier RCS: E001319
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Crew, William Thomas (1854 - 1892)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Crosse, John Burton St Croix (1815 - 1900)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-09-06 2011-09-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001300-E001399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373525373525
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on December 7th, 1815, received his professional training at the Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland, and at Guy's and the London Hospitals. He then studied for some time in Paris and entered the Army in 1840, being gazetted Assistant Surgeon on the Staff on October 9th. He first served with the 88th Regiment of Foot (Connaught Rangers), to which he was gazetted on Sept 24th, 1841. With his regiment he passed through an epidemic of yellow fever in the West Indies, he himself suffering from a severe attack. He was gazetted Staff Surgeon (2nd Class) on June 16th, 1848, and joined the 31st Regiment of Foot on July 18th, 1851. On June 3rd, 1853, he became Surgeon to the 11th Dragoons, and served in Bulgaria and through the Crimean Campaign, being present at the affair of Bulganac, the Battles of Alma, Balaclava, Inkerman, Tchernaya, and the Siege and Fall of Sebastopol. For his services he received the Medal with Four Clasps, the Turkish Medal, and the Order of Knight of the Legion of Honour. He became Surgeon Major of his regiment in 1860, was placed on the Staff in April, 1865, and retired on half pay in 1884 or 1886 with the rank of Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals. "He was an ideal regimental surgeon, well educated, enthusiastic in his profession, beloved and trusted by officers and men, ever watchful and painstaking in all that concerned the health and well-being of his regiment, a military surgeon every inch of him, a high-toned honourable man, a kind and steadfast friend." After his retirement he resided at 58 Chester Square, SW, and was for many years Surgeon to the Duke of York's Royal Military School, where the orphan boys looked on him as their father - so kind, careful, and considerate was he of them. His services never received the acknowledgement they merited. He was nearly related to Sir Richard Francis Burton, the famous traveller and scholar. He died at Leigh House, Surbiton, on August 21st, 1900.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001342
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Crouch, Charles Percival (1861 - 1926)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Webster, John Herbert Harker (1929 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/372330372330
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Herbert Harker Webster was a consultant surgeon in Southampton. He was born in Heswall, Cheshire, on 2 October 1929, the son of Herbert Webster, a biscuit manufacturer, and Doris Louise née Harker, the daughter of a chandler. In 1935 the family moved to Prenton in order to be near to Birkenhead Preparatory School. However, in 1939 he was evacuated to mid-Cheshire because of the war. The schooling there proved unsatisfactory and in 1940 John was sent to Ellesmere College, a school with a fine tradition of choral music, piano and organ teaching. From there he gained a place at Cambridge. He admitted to being absolutely hopeless at ball games, although in his own words he did “become a competent small bore .303 shot” and became a competent rower, rowing fairly consistently in all the major meetings at Cambridge, Putney, Bedford, Chester and Henley. He obtained an upper second degree in anatomy, physiology, pathology and pharmacology. He went up to London and studied for his clinical examinations at the Westminster Medical School, where he won prizes in medicine, surgery, pathology and obstetrics. After qualifying he became house surgeon to Sir Stanford Cade. He then did his National Service in the Royal Air Force from 1955 to 1957, ending up as a medical officer on an Army troop ship, being involved in the preparation of Christmas Island for the first British hydrogen bomb test. On returning to civilian life in 1959 he met Joy, his wife, at St Albans and they were married the following year at Epsom. He was a junior hospital doctor in Sheffield as registrar, lecturer and then senior registrar. He was given the most enormous responsibilities and, as was the case in those days, given wide knowledge of practically all surgical procedures. In 1967 he was appointed to the Southampton hospitals as a consultant general surgeon with a special interest in vascular surgery, more specifically to his favourite, the Royal South Hants. John noted that he had operated not only from his base at the South Hants, but in places as far flung as Southampton General Hospital, Southampton Western Hospital, Romsey and Lymington Hospitals, the Isle of Wight, Haslar, Basingstoke, Torquay and even the Royal Free. John was a member of the Peripheral Vascular Club, a club made up mostly of so-called ‘second-generation’ vascular surgeons. These surgeons had learnt their trade from single-handed vascular surgeons in the teaching hospitals such as London, Leeds and Edinburgh. They in turn became consultants in their own right in what were then considered to be provincial hospitals. This club formed a great part of John's life; he and Joy enjoyed travelling widely with the fellow members. His teaching abilities, particularly at technical surgery, were renowned. Many of his students were endowed with a sense of confidence, the major characteristic needed in a vascular surgeon. In its heyday his unit attracted excellent senior registrars and lecturers, many of whom have become famous in their own right across the country. He had a particular interest in cervical rib surgery and, together with Peter Clifford, David Whitcher and Richard Bolton from the teaching media department, produced an excellent film on first rib resection, which, in 1988, received an award from the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland for the most outstanding contribution of the year to surgical education. He was a council member of the Vascular Society. He retired in 1994. John was a rather retiring person and sometimes taciturn, but he was a great raconteur once he got going and told many stories. He was a character, a good friend and an excellent surgeon. There was an intellectual side of John's character. If you looked at the bookshelves in his office you were more likely to find works on art and poetry, rather than the latest textbook of anatomy. He made sure he filled in *The Times* crossword every day, and actually became a semi-finalist in a crossword competition. His main regret was not to pursue music, but in retirement he improved his skill on the keyboard and built his own clavichord. He was also a great fly fisherman, fishing with his old chief and mentor from the Westminster Hospital, Robert Cox. Mixed in with all this was a love of golf and, above all, a love of his family, his son, two daughters and eleven grandchildren. He died on 31 August 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000143
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wright, Peter (1932 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Richmond, David Alan (1912 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/372335372335
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details David Richmond was an orthopaedic surgeon in Burnley. He was born on 1 September 1912 in Stockport, where his father, George, was Manchester’s last private Royal Mail contractor. His mother was Edith Lilian née Hitchin. He was educated at Stockport Grammar School and went up to University of Manchester to read medicine. In 1933 he was awarded a BSc in anatomy and physiology and won the Dickinson scholarship in anatomy. On qualifying he won the Dumville surgical prize and the surgical clinical prize. He was captain of the lacrosse university team and was presented to the Duke of York, later King George V. After qualifying, he was house surgeon and demonstrator in anatomy at Manchester Royal Infirmary, and then became registrar to H H Rayner and Sir Harry Platt. From 1940 to 1946 he was a surgeon in the EMS Hospital at Conishead Priory under the supervision of T P McMurray and I D Kitchin, and was involved in the treatment of many casualties. After the war he went with his family to work as a surgeon to a general practice in Stratford, North Island, New Zealand, which proved to be a low point in his career. The family returned to England in 1947, when he joined the RAMC as an orthopaedic specialist with the rank of Major, and served in Malaya and Japan. Whilst in Japan he worked in the American Military Hospital in Tokyo with several reputed American surgeons. He returned to England in 1949 as first assistant to I D Kitchin at Lancaster Royal Infirmary. In 1950 he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Burnley with the task of setting up an orthopaedic and trauma service where none had previously existed. This soon proved to be a success and he was joined by two other consultant colleagues. In 1960 he won a WHO travelling fellowship to work with Carl Hirsch in Sweden, and later his special interest in the surgery of the hand took him to the United States for several sabbaticals. In Burnley he was a respected member of the medical community, branch President of the BMA, and devoted much time to training junior medical staff and students, who remembered his freshly cut rose buttonhole. He married Eira Osterstock, a theatre sister, in 1939, and they had one son William David Richmond, a surgeon and a fellow of the College, and one daughter, Jennifer, who became a nurse. He retired in 1977 and the following year moved to Gatehouse of Fleet in Dumfries and Galloway, where he could devote himself to gardening and walking. Eira predeceased him in 1983 and he learned to cook and continued to be active in the Gatehouse Music Society. In 1996 he moved to Suffolk to be near his daughter, but began to develop signs of a progressive debilitating illness, from which he died on 9 August 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000148
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Riden, Donald Keith (1959 - 2005)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-02 2006-12-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372336372336
Occupation Oral and maxillofacial surgeon
Details Surgeon Commander Donald Keith Riden RN was born in Liverpool on 5 May 1959, the son of Alfred Donald and Mavis Irene Riden. He attended West Derby Comprehensive School in Liverpool from 1970 to 1977, and then went on to study dentistry at King’s College Dental School, winning the Wellcome award in pharmacology and therapeutics in 1980 and the annual oral surgery prize in 1981. With an increasing interest in oral and maxillofacial surgery, which had developed from his early days at dental school, he entered Southampton University Medical School in 1984, qualifying in 1988. Serving in the Royal Navy, he undertook his house surgeon appointments in urology, orthopaedics, general surgery and accident and emergency at the Royal Naval Hospital, Haslar. He had short appointments in endocrinology at Southampton General Hospital and in general surgery at the Royal Naval Hospital, Plymouth. After an ENT job at RNH Haslar, he returned to RNH Plymouth to start his oral and maxillofacial training, becoming a registrar in October 1993 and gaining his FDS in 1994. Subsequently he entered the south west specialist registrar rotation in Plymouth, Frenchay, Southmead and Bristol Royal Infirmary from 1994 to 1999. As is customary with RN medical officers, he saw service overseas and at sea, serving in Gibraltar, on HMS *Tamar* (Hong Kong), HMS *Ariadne*, HMS *Minerva*, HMS *Nelson* and HMS *Illustrious*. He was on active service in Kosovo from 2000 to 2001. He loved to travel, particularly in the Far East and was able to serve in Hong Kong, China and India as a visiting registrar. He was awarded consultant status by the Defence Medical Service Consultant Approval Board of the College in 2000. His first posting as consultant oral and maxillofacial surgeon and postgraduate clinical tutor was to RNH *Haslar*. In 2003 he was appointed to the Joint Services Hospital, the Princess Mary Hospital, RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus, where he remained until illness intervened. He published papers on dental pain and, during his training rotation, wrote *Key topics in oral and maxillofacial surgery* (Oxford, Bios Scientific, 1998) and contributed to the UK national third molar audit in 1998. In his later years he honed his skills as both a facial trauma and head and neck cancer specialist, developing techniques for facial reconstruction and neck dissections. He was a particularly good teacher of house officers and SHOs, and enormously enjoyed this role. He thoroughly enjoyed his time in the Royal Navy, especially on overseas deployments. He had a lifelong interest in music and was a lover of classical music and opera. He was an accomplished classical guitar player. He regularly sang with a variety of groups, choral unions and barbershop, and was a member of Portsmouth Choral Union, Solent City Barbershop Club and Island Blend, a Cyprus barbershop group. He married Leslie Carol, a teacher and college librarian, in August 1981. They had three sons, Daniel James, Andrew Mark and Nicholas John. He died on 19 February 2005 from carcinoma of the oesophagus.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000149
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Saunders, Dame Cicely Mary Strode (1918 - 2005)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-02 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/372337372337
Occupation Nurse Physician
Details Dame Cicely Saunders established St Christopher's Hospice in London, which became the model for hundreds of other hospices. She was born in Barnet, Hertfordshire, on 22 June 1918, the daughter of Gordon Saunders, a domineering estate agent, and Mary Christian Wright. She was educated at Roedean and St Anne's College, Oxford, and on the outbreak of war deferred completing her degree to become a nurse. She entered St Thomas's, but a back injury put an end to a career in nursing. She returned to complete her degree at Oxford and qualified as a lady almoner (a hospital social worker). By now she had fallen in love with David Tasma, a refugee from the Warsaw ghetto, who was dying of cancer. Through him she learned how the pain of cancer could be tamed by modern drugs, and that the inevitable distress of the dying could be made tolerable by care in which physical and spiritual needs were combined. At this time she also gave up her agnostic stance and became a committed and evangelical Christian. Her experience as a volunteer at St Luke's Home for the Dying Poor caused her to realise that the received medical views on dying and bereavement needed to be changed, and to do this she needed to become a doctor. She returned to St Thomas's and qualified in 1957, at the age of 38. She set up a research group to study the control of pain, while also working at St Joseph's, Hackney, which was run for the dying by the formidably down-to-earth Sisters of Charity. Before long Cicely had reached the unorthodox conclusion that the usual intermittent giving of morphine for surges of pain was far less effective than giving enough morphine to achieve a steady state in which the dying patient could still maintain consciousness, self-respect and a measure of dignity. It was at St Joseph's that she met Antoni Michniewicz, who for the second time taught her that loving and being in love were powerful medicaments in terminal illness. His death determined her to set up St Christopher's Hospice, named after the patron saint of travellers, as a place in which to shelter on the most difficult stage of life's journey. Her unorthodox views were published as *The care of the dying* (London, Macmillan & Co) in 1960. This opened many eyes, and soon another edition was needed. There followed years of hard work, lecturing, persuading and fund-raising. St Christopher's was set up as a charity in 1961 and the hospice was opened in 1967. That her methods worked was soon apparent and before long Cicely was invited to join the consultant staff of St Thomas's and the London Hospital. In 1980 she married Marian Bohusz-Szyszko who shared her love of music and with whom she was blissfully happy. Sadly he predeceased her in 1995. A tall, impressive lady, she had a tremendous though quiet personality that shone with honesty and wisdom. Innumerable distinctions and honours came her way - honorary degrees and fellowships galore, the gold medals of the Society of Apothecaries and the British Medical Association, the DBE and the Order of Merit - but it was the establishment of hundreds of hospices according to her principles and the revolution in the care of the dying that will be the real measure of her greatness. She died from breast cancer on 14 July 2005 at St Christopher's.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000150
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23
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URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372235372235
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Albert Davis was an obstetrician and pioneering neuro-gynaecologist. He born on 4 January 1904 into a Jewish family in Manchester, where he studied medicine and became resident at the Manchester Royal Infirmary to Sir Harry Platt and Sir Geoffrey Jefferson, who greatly influenced him. He soon developed an interest in neurology and gynaecology. He was a Dickeson research scholar in the gynaecology research laboratory in Manchester, studying the innervation of the pelvis. He visited Cotte in Lyons, the founder of presacral neurectomy, and performed meticulous work on the cadaver, leading to an MD and a Hunterian professorship at the College. His lifelong concern was with chronic pelvic pain, which he treated with alcohol injection or open presacral neurectomy. After resident posts at Guy’s and Chelsea Hospitals, he was appointed as a consultant to Dulwich, St Giles, the London Jewish, Bearsted Maternity, the Prince of Wales and French Hospitals, and, after the war, King’s College Hospital. During the second world war, he was obstetrician to the south east London metropolitan sector, and later also to the north east sector. Here he honed his surgical skills, being able to perform a caesarian section in 20 seconds. In one day in Hackney he performed 11 of these operations in a single day. In 1950, together with Purdom Martin at Queen Square, he drew attention to the horrors of back street abortion in a *BMJ* paper. The paper reviewed 2,655 cases, describing their neurological consequences. In retirement, he continued his interests in literature, music, art and numismatics. He was a fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society. When he was 90 he was delighted to hear that presacral neurectomy had been reintroduced in the United States with the laparoscope. In 1947, he married Renate Loeser, a cytopathologist, who survived him along with two children, one of whom is Charles Davis, the neurosurgeon. He died on 21 October 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000048
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Denham, Robin Arthur (1922 - 2004)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23 2010-01-27
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372237372237
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Trevor Dinning, known since childhood as ‘Jim’, was the architect of neurosurgical services in South Australia and the creator of a very successful research foundation. He was born in Dulwich, Adelaide, on 16 February 1919, the second child of Alfred Ernest Dinning, a school inspector and later headmaster of Adelaide Boys High School, and Maud Isabel née Ridley, who died two years after his birth. He was educated at his father’s school and then went on to study medicine at the University of Adelaide, qualifying in 1942 in the top three of the year after completing a shortened wartime course. In 1943 he joined the Army, serving as a captain in the Northern Australia Observer Unit and then in the 2nd 17th Australian Infantry Battalion. He developed pulmonary tuberculosis, which incapacitated him for some two years. He was discharged from the Army in 1946. It was at this time that he decided to make a career in neurosurgery. After his recovery, he took an appointment as lecturer in anatomy at the University of Adelaide, under the brilliant neuro-anatomist Andrew Abbie. During this time he wrote a paper on healed fractures in aborigines, based on the collection of skeletons in the South Australian Museum. Work as an anatomist doubtless contributed to his success as a surgeon: as an operator he was at his best in procedures demanding exceptional anatomical skill. At that time, it was virtually impossible to train as a specialist neurosurgeon in Australia, so, on a grant from the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Jim went to the UK. He entered neurosurgical training at Guy’s Hospital under Murray Falconer. During this appointment he was first author of a paper on ruptured intracranial aneurysm as a cause of sudden death, the work being based on forensic cases. Falconer had been a pupil of Sir Hugh Cairns, who was a pupil of the pioneering American neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing. Jim was to exemplify the best qualities of the Cushing/Cairns school – great interest in the neurosciences, unhurried and meticulous operative technique and total commitment to the welfare of patients. Jim returned to Australia in 1953 and took up an appointment in the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where he was to work for the next 30 years under a variety of titles – first as a member of the honorary staff, then from 1970 as full-time director of neurosurgery. After his resignation in 1979 he remained as a visiting consultant until 1983. He was also chief of neurosurgery in what is now the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. In both hospitals he rapidly established modern neurosurgical units, with rigorous attention to quality control and case audits. He was not the first neurosurgeon to serve these two hospitals – he was preceded Sir Leonard Lindon, one of the founders of Australian neurosurgery. Sir Leonard welcomed and supported Jim, but it is true to say that the development of an integrated state-wide neurosurgical service was very largely Jim’s achievement. He gave special attention to the needs of South Australians living in country areas, and in the 1960s persuaded the then minister of health to equip country hospitals with instruments to care for head injuries. Although he was happiest in his work in public hospitals, he ran a well-organised private service, chiefly at the Memorial Hospital, where after his retirement he treated cases of intractable pain. As a consultant neurosurgeon, Jim was liked and trusted by his colleagues, and admired as a superb diagnostician. As a doctor, he was warm and compassionate. Jim planned his unit with research in mind. When he had promising trainees, he placed them in overseas units with good research facilities, where they learned the skills that have since helped to make Adelaide a leader in head injury research. Most imaginatively, he created in 1964 what is now the Neurosurgical Research Foundation (NRF) to raise funds to sustain research work. The foundation received support because community leaders knew Jim and trusted him, and it received donations from those who knew him as a good doctor. In 1988, when Jim was president of the NRF, fundraising for an academic chair in surgical neuroscience was initiated, and in 1992 the University of Adelaide established a chair of neurosurgery research. This very productive chair is one of Jim’s greatest achievements. Jim was a master of bedside teaching, and he also taught by example. No one who worked with Jim could fail to know that he practised medicine according to the highest ethical standards and expected that his pupils would do the same. His teaching was fruitful. Today, Adelaide’s neurosurgeons are all in a sense his pupils. Some were directly recruited and trained by him. Others came to him trained elsewhere but are proud to have learned from him. Even those who came after his retirement were taught by his trainees and worked in the environment that he made. On a national level, Jim was a major force in the creation of neurosurgical training systems in Australia, which began around 1970, when he was president of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia. Outside Australia, some of Jim’s pupils now hold distinguished neurosurgical positions in Scotland, England and New Zealand. One of his earliest interns, J K A Clezy, was the first professor of surgery in Papua New Guinea, and brought neurosurgery to that country. Jim married Beatrice Margaret née Hay in 1943 and they had one son, Andrew, and three daughters – Anthea, Josephine and Nadia. He had many interests outside his profession, including photography, farming, stock-breeding, bee-keeping and sailing. He died on 22 September 2003 from chronic renal failure after a long illness. He has many memorials. He is commemorated by the Dinning Science Library at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, which is appropriate – he was a very scholarly man. He is remembered in the research foundation that he created. And, lastly, his example and his teaching have entered into the fabric of Australian neurosurgery.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000050
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Lessington-Smith, Caroline Mathilda (1918 - )

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Neil Weir
Publication Date 2006-06-21 2009-05-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372430372430
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Caroline Lessington-Smith was an ENT surgeon at King’s College Hospital, London. Born Caroline van Dorp on 25 May 1918, she was the daughter of a Dutch pastor based in London. She qualified at the London School of Medicine for Women in 1941 and, choosing ENT as a career, she became senior registrar to the ENT departments at the Royal Hospital, Sheffield, and the Royal Infirmary, Leicester, and senior registrar to the department of surgery of the General Hospital, Leicester. She was subsequently appointed as surgeon in charge of the ENT department of St Giles Hospital, Camberwell, and the Dulwich Hospital. She was interested in paediatric ENT and later worked at the Belgrave Hospital for Children. All three of these hospitals became part of the King's College Hospital group in the early 1960s. A highly intelligent and amiable colleague, she brought her extensive experience to the foreign body endoscopy unit at Camberwell and published a paper in the *Journal of Laryngology & Otology* (1954) entitled ‘Unusual foreign body in the maxillary antrum’, which turned out to be a flat metal ring measuring 7.7cms in diameter which had penetrated the antrum. A year earlier she wrote ‘Tonsillectomy for carcinoma of the tonsil in a dog – with survival’ in the *Veterinary Record*. Whilst at Camberwell in 1963 she met and married Hugh Sim, who had been injured at the Battle of Arnhem and was at the time a hospital administrator. They had two sons. Hugh died whilst Caroline was still working and, shortly after her retirement in the mid 1970s, she remarried and lived in her delightful cottage in Mayfield, East Sussex. She is believed to have died in late 2001 or early 2002, as noted in the *Medical Directory* 2002.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000243
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Siegler, Gerald Joseph (1921 - 2005)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-21 2009-05-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372436372436
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Gerald Joseph Siegler, or ‘Jo’ as he known to colleagues, was an ENT consultant in Liverpool. He was born in London on 3 January 1921, and studied medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. He held junior posts in Huddersfield, Lancaster, Nuneaton and Birkenhead, before completing his National Service with the RAF. After passing his FRCS he specialised in ENT, becoming a registrar at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital and then a senior registrar at Liverpool, where he was appointed consultant in 1958. He was past president of the North of England ENT Society and an honorary member of the Liverpool Medical Institute. After he retired in 1986 he continued to be busy, working for Walton jail until 1995. He died from the complications of myeloma on 4 October 2005, leaving a wife, Brenda, two daughters, Sarah and Pauline, and three grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000249
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Fussey, Ivor ( - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2007-08-15
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/372442372442
Occupation General surgeon
Details After qualifying from St James’s Hospital, Leeds, Ivor Fussey studied neurophysiology for nine years, gaining his PhD in 1972, during which time he devised platinum microelectrodes that could be implanted in the brain and used to locate vagal afferent impulses. After this experience he decided to specialise in surgery and did registrar jobs with George Harrison in Derby and Duthie in Sheffield, where he met his future wife Kate, a medical student. He was appointed as a consultant general surgeon to Lincoln County Hospital in 1980, where he developed a special interest in surgery of the breast and, together with Jenny Eremin, established the breast unit in the 1990s. After he retired in 1996 he went to Leicester, where he was a mentor to preclinical staff and students, with whom he was very popular. He died suddenly on 30 November 2003, leaving his wife, Kate, and two daughters, Tamsin and Miekes.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000255
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Quain, Richard (1800 - 1887)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-01 2012-03-09
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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
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First Title value, for Searching Halton, John Prince (1797 - 1873)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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
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First Title value, for Searching Fergusson, Sir William (1808 - 1877)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-01 2012-03-22
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372384372384
Occupation Biologist Naval surgeon
Details Born at St. Petersburgh on August 12th, 1807, the second son of Robert Busk (1768-1835), merchant, and a member of the English colony there, by his wife Jane, daughter of John Westly, Custom House clerk at St. Petersburgh. His grandfather, Sir Wadsworth Busk, was Attorney-General of the Isle of Man. Hans Buck (1772-1862), scholar-poet, was his uncle; Hans Busk the Younger (1816-1862), a principal founder of the Volunteer movement in England, was his cousin. George Busk was educated at Dr. Hartley's School, Bingley, Yorkshire, and seved a six years' apprenticeship to George Beaman, being articled at the Royal College of Surgeons. He was a student at St. Thomas's Hospital, and for one session at St. Bartholomew's. In 1832 he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to the *Grampus*, the Seamen's Hospital Ship at Greenwich, and afterwards to the *Dreadnought* which replaced it. He served in this capacity for twenty-five years. During his service he worked out the pathology of cholera and made important observations on scurvy. In 1843 he was one of the first batch of Fellows of the College; from 1856-1859 he was Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology; from 1863-1880 a Member of the Council; a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1868-1872; Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1870; Vice-President for the year 1872-1873, and again in 1879-1880; President in 1871; and Trustee of the Hunterian Collection from 1870-1876. He was a Member of the Senate of the University of London, and was for a long period an Examiner for the Naval, Indian, and Army Medical Services. He was also a Governor of the Charterhouse, Treasurer of the Royal Institution, and the first Home Office Inspector under the Cruelty to Animals (Vivisection) Act. The last office he held until 1885, performing the difficult and delicate duties with such tact and impartiality as gained him the esteem both of physiologists and of the Home Office. When he resigned his post of Surgeon to the *Dreadnought* in 1855, Busk retired from the active practice of his profession and turned to the more congenial subject of biology. In this department he did excellent work, more especially in connection with the Bryozoa (Polyzoa), of which group he was the first to formulate a scientific arrangement which appeared in 1856 in his article in the *English Cyclopaedia*. His collection is now in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington. The name *Buskia* was given in his honour to a genus of Bryozoa by Alder in 1856, and again by Tenison-Woods in 1877. The Royal Society elected him a Fellow in 1850, and he was four times nominated a Vice-President, besides often serving on the Council. He received the Royal Medal in 1871. He was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in December, 1846, acted as its Zoological Secretary from 1857-1868, served frequently on the Council, and was Vice-President several times between 1869 and 1882. He joined the Geological Society in 1859, served twice on the Council, was the recipient of the Lyell Medal in 1878, and of the Wollaston medal in 1885. He became a Fellow of the Zoological Society in 1856, assisted in the formation of the Microscopical Society in 1839, and was its President in 1848 and 1849. He was one of the Editors of the *Quarterly Journal of Microcopical Science*. In 1863 he attended the conference to discuss the question of the age and authenticity of the human jaw found at Moulin Quignon. His attention being thus drawn to palaeolontogical problems, he visited the Gibraltar Caves in company with Dr. Falconer, and henceforth devoted much time to the study of cave fauna and later to ethnology. He was President of the Ethnological Society before it was merged in the Anthropological Institute, of which he was President in 1873 and 1874. One result of his visit to Gibraltar was his gift of the Gibraltar Skull to the Museum of the College. He died at his house, 32 Harley Street, London, on August 10th, 1886. He married on August 12th, 1843, his cousin Ellen, youngest daughter of Jacob Hans Busk, of Theobalds, Hertfordshire, and by her had two daughters. Busk was full of knowledge, an unwearying collector of facts, a devoted labourer in the paths of science, and cautious in the conclusions he drew from his observations. He wrote but little in surgery, though his surgical work at the Dreadnought was altogether admirable and he was an excellent operator. He was a man of unaffected simplicity and gentleness of character, without a trace of vanity, a devoted friend, and an upright, honest gentleman. A good portrait painted by his daughter, Miss E. M. Busk, hangs in the Meeting-room of the Linnean Society at Burlington House. It was presented by the subscribers in 1885. There is a fine engraved portrait by Maguire and a large photograph of him as an old man. Both are in the College collection. PUBLICATIONS:- *A Catalogue of Marine Polyzoa in the British Museum*, 3 parts, London, 1852-75. Report on the Polyzoa collected by H. M. S. Challenger, 4to, 2 vols., London, 1884-6. An article on "Venomous Insects and Reptiles" in Holmes's *System of Surgery*, 1860. He was a joint translator with T. H. Huxley of Von Kölliker's *Manual of Human Histology* for the Sydenham Society, 2 vols., London, 1853-4, and he translated and edited Wedl's Rudiments of Pathological Histology also for the Sydenham Society in 1855. Buck was editor of the *Microscopical Journal* for 1842, and of the *Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science* from 1853-1868; of the *Natural History Review* from 1861-1865; and of the *Journal of the Ethnological Society* for 1869-70. Notable amongst his papers in the *Philosophical Transactions* are: (1) "Extinct Elephants in Malta", and (2) "Teeth of Ungulates".
Resource Identifier RCS: E000197
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-01 2012-03-22
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/372385372385
Occupation General surgeon Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Born on Aug. 6th, 1809, at Bread Street Hill, the son of a City merchant, his mother being a daughter of Alderman Hamerton. He was educated at Mr Butter's school in Cheyne Walk and at Westminster Hospital, where his ability soon attracted the attention of G. J. Guthrie and Anthony White. He acted as House Surgeon and was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy in 1835. In 1836 he was elected Lecturer on Anatomy and Physiology at the Charing Cross Medical School after a severe contest with James F. Palmer, the editor of the works of John Hunter. Palmer afterwards went to Australia and became Speaker of the House of Assembly at Melbourne. Hancock was appointed Assistant Surgeon in 1839 to the recently established Charing Cross Hospital, becoming Surgeon in 1840, on the appointment of Richard Partridge as Surgeon to King's College Hospital. This post he retained until 1872, when he resigned and was appointed Consulting Surgeon. He acted as Ophthalmic Surgeon to the hospital during the year 1841. He was one of the founders and chief ornaments of the Medical School attached to the hospital, and made the tradition of a high standard of teaching for which the school became celebrated. He lectured on anatomy and physiology from 1836-1841, and on surgery from 1841-1867. He acted as Dean of the School from 1856-1867. He was also attached to the Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital, which was then next door to the Charing Cross Hospital in King William Street, but has recently been rebuilt in Broad Street, Bloomsbury. As early as 1832 he acted as House Surgeon; about 1840 he was appointed Assistant Surgeon, becoming full Surgeon in 1845, and Consulting Surgeon in 1870. At the Royal College of Surgeons Hancock was a Member of the Council from 1863-1880 and of the Court of Examiners from 1870-1875. He was Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1871, Vice-President in 1870 and 1871, President in 1872, and Hunterian Orator in 1873. As Arris and Gale Professor in 1866-1867 he lectured on the foot, his attention having been directed to the study of articular diseases by his old master, Anthony White. He was one of those who early took up the subject of conservative surgery and the excision of joints. He introduced into England, and improved, Moreau's method of excision of the ankle-joint, and devised an amputation which, while preserving the back part of the os calcis and upper part of the astragalus, gives, when these are juxtaposed, a mobile and exceedingly valuable stump. He also modified Syme's amputation of the foot by dissecting the heel flap from above downwards, instead of from below upwards. At the Medical Society of London he was Orator in 1842 and President in 1848. He was greatly interested in the welfare of the Epsom Benevolent College, of which he was first Hon. Secretary and afterwards Treasurer. As an oculist he gained a large practice, and followed the tradition of Guthrie. A mode of dividing the ciliary muscle for glaucoma was introduced by him - an operation which has since given place to iridectomy. He was an excellent surgeon and clinical teacher. He was kindly and considerate, of a lovable character, earnest and enthusiastic about his work, and markedly straightforward and attached to duty. He retired into Wiltshire, and died on Jan. 1st, 1880, of cancer of the stomach, at Standen House, Chute, where he was buried, his father, at nearly the same age, having succumbed to that or a similar disease. He married and left a family. A portrait by George Richmond, R. A., is in the possession of the College, and there is a photograph in the Fellows' Album. The College Collection contains a lithograph by Hanhart after a sketch by Maguire made in the spring of 1849. PUBLICATIONS: - Translation of Velpeau's *Regional Anatomy* Tracts on Operation for Disease of the Appendix Caeci (8vo, London, 1848), and on the Male Urethra and Stricture *Lancet*, 1852, i, 187.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000198
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Curling, Thomas Blizard (1811 - 1888)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-01 2012-03-22
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/372386372386
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Tavistock Place, London, on Jan. 1st, 1811, the son of Daniel Curling, F.S.A., Secretary to the Commissioners of His Majesty's Customs, and Elizabeth, daughter of William Blizard and sister of Sir William Blizard. He was educated at The Manor House, Chiswick, and was afterwards apprenticed to his uncle Sir William Blizard (1743-1835), Surgeon to the London Hospital. During his apprenticeship he was a student at the London Hospital and attended the lectures of Edward Stanley (q.v.) and Sir William Lawrence (q.v.) at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where Blizard, his master, had himself been educated. Curling began to write before he was qualified, and communicated an article on the cranium to Partington's *Cyclopoedia*, and another, on cases he had observed at the London Hospital, to the Hospital Reports in the *London Medical Gazette*. Sir William Blizard resigned his office of Surgeon to the London Hospital in 1833, James Luke (q.v.) was promoted, and Curling was elected Assistant Surgeon in January 1834, after a severe contest with William Coulson (q.v.). In the same year he gained the Jacksonian Prize at the Royal College of Surgeons for his essay "On Tetanus", which was published in 1836. About a year after his election Curling was required to reside in the immediate neighbourhood of the hospital, and for seven years he occupied a place called 'The Mount', in the Whitechapel Road, a name given, it is said, because of the accumulated rubbish carted there after the Great Fire of London. He devoted much time to surgical pathology whilst acting as Assistant Surgeon, made the post-mortem examinations, and lectured on morbid anatomy. In 1841 he was appointed, in conjunction with James Luke, Lecturer on Surgery at the London Hospital, and in 1849 was appointed Surgeon in the place of John Goldwyer Andrews (q.v.). He was admitted a F.R.S. on June 6th, 1850, and bequeathed at his death the sum of £200 to the Scientific Relief Fund of the Royal Society. Curling was Consulting Surgeon to the Jewish, to the German, and to the Portugese Hosptials: he was also Consulting Surgeon to the London Orphan Asylum and a member of the Medical Board of the Royal Sea-Bathing Hospital at Margate, in the affairs of which he took an active interest. At the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society he filled the office of Surgical Secretary in 1845-1846 and President in 1871-1872. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member of Council from 1864-1880, a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1871-1879, Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1872, Vice-President in 1871 and 1872, and President in 1873. He discovered during his long tenure of office in the out-patient room of the London Hospital that the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the testicle needed revision. He published a paper in 1841, "Some Observations on the Stucture of the Gubernaculum and the Descent of the Testis in the Foetus", and in 1843, *A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of Testicle, Spermatic Cord, and Scrotum. *The book met with a hearty reception, ran through many editions, and was translated into foreign languages, the Chinese version being made by Sir Patrick Manson in 1866. Curling published in 1851 *Observations on the Diseases of the Rectum*, which also had a large sale, and, like "Curling on the Testis", became a standard work. His paper at the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society seems to have been the first to draw attention to the occurrence of duodenal ulcer after burns of the skin. He died at Cannes on March 4th, 1888. Curling's punctuality at the London Hospital was proverbial; he entered the gates as the clock struck the hour. In the wards he was exact and conscientious to a degree, his strong sense of duty to the patient leading him into the minutest supervision of the dresser's work. His sound judgement was grounded on vast clinical experience; he was consequently opposed to fanciful inductions. "His practice and his teaching were not at variance; both were sound, upright, and just." He was not personally popular, for his manner was cold, yet he was a staunch and sincere friend, whom to know was to trust and to honour. He was punctual in the performance of his duty in a remarkable way. He was not a good speaker, and instructed his pupils rather by what he did than by what he said. They could readily perceive that Curling's treatment of his patients was guided by fixed princicples, and that they could gain from him much valuable information. He was a careful and cautious operator, whose first consideration was a regard for the good of the individual patient. At the College he enjoyed the complete confidence of his colleagues on account of his zeal and the great interest he took in his work. The estimation in which his judgement was held by his contemporaries was shown by the fact that he was appointed five times to the important post of Surgical Referee at the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society, the last time succeeding the period of his Presidency. Curling was a man of commanding stature. There is an engraving of him from a daguerrotype in the *Medical Circular*, a photograph in the Fellows' Album, and another in *Photographs of Eminent Medical Men* (Barker and Edwards, 1867, i), and there is an engraving in the possession of the London Hospital. In later life he is described as a gentleman, tall, erect with white hair, pale complexion, and an inheritor of the large nose which marked the Blizard family.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000199
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hamerton, George Albert ( - 1920)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Paget, Sir James (1814 - 1899)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-13 2012-03-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372388372388
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Great Yarmouth on Jan. 11th, 1814, the eighth of seventeen children of Samuel Paget by Sarah Elizabeth, his wife, daughter of Thomas Tolver, of Chester. Sir George Edward Paget (1809-1892), Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge, was a brother. The father was a brewer and a shipowner who served the office of Mayor of Great Yarmouth in 1817. He got into financial difficulties when shipping fell away after the Napoleonic Wars, and incurred debts which were afterwards honourably discharged by the self-denying efforts of George and James Paget. James Paget went to a private school in Yarmouth, and subsequently extended his education, which included a knowledge of German, by private study. He was apprenticed in 1830 to Charles Costerton, who had been educated at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, was admitted a Member of the College of Surgeons in 1810, and was Surgeon to the Yarmouth Hospital and Dispensary. During his apprenticeship James Paget found time to write, with his brother Charles, *A Sketch of the Natural History of Yarmouth and its Neighbourhood, containing Catalogues of the Species of Animals, Birds, Reptiles, Fish, Insects and Plants at present known,* printed by F. Skill at Yarmouth in 1834 and sold at the price of half a crown. It was written in the hope of making a little money for current expenses, but it had the good fortune of bringing the authors under the notice of Sir William Hooker, the Regius Professor of Botany in Glasgow, who had been educated in Norfolk. Paget came to London and entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital as a medical student on Oct. 1st, 1834. Whilst dissecting on Jan. 2nd, 1835, his attention was drawn to numerous gritty specks in the muscles of the subject. He took some of the tissue to John George Children, principal Keeper of the Zoological Department at the British Museum, who sent him on to Robert Brown, Keeper of the Botanical Collection, as Children did not own a microscope. Paget made a careful study of the parasite, and his original sketches are preserved in the Library of the Royal College of Suregons. The preparation was examined by Richard Owen (q.v.), who determined the nematoid nature of the worm, named it *Trichina spiralis*, and took the credit. In 1835-1836 Paget acted as Clinical Clerk to Dr. Peter Mere Latham (1789-1875), because he could not afford the 'dressing fee' payable to the Surgeons of the Hospital, and he therefore never became a house surgeon. He was admitted a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in the spring of 1836, and after a short visit to Paris settled in London and supported himself by teaching and writing. He was sub-editor of *The Medical Gazette* from 1837-1842, and in 1841 he was elected Surgeon to the Finsbury Dispensary. At St. Bartholomew's Hospital Paget was appointed Curator of the Museum in succession to W. J. Bayntin in 1837, and in 1839 he was chosen Demonstrator of Morbid Anatomy. He proved himself so good a teacher that on May 30th, 1843, he was promoted to be Lecturer on General Anatomy and Physiology. On Aug. 10th, 1843, he was elected Warden of the College for Resident Students, then newly established at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, a post he resigned in October, 1851. In 1846 he drew up a catalogue of the anatomical and pathological museum of the Hospital, which showed evidence of the careful descriptions and literary excellence which marked his later work at the Royal College of Surgeons. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to the Hospital on Feb. 24th, 1847, after a severe contest. The opposition was based on the ground that he had never filled the office of dresser or house surgeon, posts which had always been considered essential qualifications in every candidate for the surgical staff. Paget, however, came out at the top of the poll with 142 votes - Andrew Melville Mcwhinnie (q.v.), who was Demonstrator of Anatomy and Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy, receiving 78, and Robert Rainey Pennington, nephew of a well-known and fashionable apothecary, 22 votes. He lectured on physiology in the medical school from 1859-1861; became full Surgeon in 1861; held the Lectureship on Surgery from 1865-1869, and resigned the office of Surgeon in May, 1871, although he gave an occasional lecture as Consulting Surgeon. He was Surgeon to the Bluecoat School (Christ's Hospital), then situated in Newgate Street, from 1862-1871. At the Royal College of Surgeons he prepared the descriptive catalogue of the pathological specimens contained in the Hunterian Museum, which appeared at intervals between 1846 and 1849. He was Arris and Gale Professor of Anatomy and Surgery from 1847-1852; a Member of the Council from 1865-1889; a Vice-President in 1873 and 1874; Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1874; and President in 1875. He was also the representative of the College at the General Medical Council from 1876-1881; Hunterian Orator in 1877; the first Bradshaw Lecturer in 1882, when he took as his subject "Some New and Rare Diseases"; and the first Morton Lecturer on cancer and cancerous diseases in 1887. Paget was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria in 1858, when he was only Assistant Surgeon at his Hospital. He attended Queen Alexandra, when Princess of Wales, during a long surgical illness, and was gazetted Surgeon to King Edward VII, whom as Prince of Wales he attended during the attack of typhoid fever in 1871. From 1867-1877 he held the office of Sergeant-Surgeon Extraordinary, and in 1877 he became Sergeant-Surgeon on the death of Sir William Fergusson (q.v.). He was created a baronet in August, 1871. He was President of the three chief medical societies of his time in London. He filled the chair of the Clinical Society in 1869, of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society in 1875, and of the Pathological Society in 1887. He acted as President of the International Medical Congress of Medicine held in London in 1881 with conspicuous success. In 1860 he became a member of the Senate of the University of London, and in 1883 he acted as Vice-Chancellor on the death of Sir George Jessel. He was elected F.R.S. in 1851, and held honorary degrees at Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Dublin, Bonn and Würzburg. He married in 1844 Lydia, daughter of the Rev. Henry North, domestic chaplain to the Duke of Kent and master of a private school at 1 Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park, which was affiliated to King's College, London. She died in 1895, having made his home ideally happy. The family consisted of four sons and two daughters. The eldest son, John, was a barrister and inherited the title; the second son, Francis, was successively Dean of Christ Church and Bishop of Oxford; the third, Henry Luke, became Bishop of Chester; Stephen (q.v.) inherited much of the talent of his father as a very skilful writer and an excellent speaker. The elder daughter married the Rev. H. L. Thompson, Warden of Radley College and afterwards Vicar of St. Mary's (the University) Church, Oxford; the younger daughter, Mary Maude, remained unmarried. Paget after leaving the Warden's house at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where his children were born, moved to 24 Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, in 1851, and in 1858 to 3 Harewood Place, Hanover Square, then shut off from Oxford Street by locked gates. Here he spent all his professional life, the accommodation for patients consisting of a single waiting-room which served as the dining-room, and a small consulting-room looking out on to a tiny garden; yet through these two rooms passed nearly all the interesting cases and many of the nobility of England. After he retired from practice he lived at 5 Park Square West, Regent's Park, and here he died peacefully of old age on Dec. 30th, 1899. He was buried in the Finchley Cemetery after the funeral service in Westminster Abbey. There is a tablet to his memory on the west wall of the church of St. Bartholomew-the-Less. A bust of Paget by Sir V. Edgar Boehm, Bart., R.A., is on the College staircase. It is a good likeness and there is a replica in the Museum at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. A three-quarter-length in oils by Sir John Everett Millais, R.A., of which there is an engraving, represents Paget lecturing at the age of 57, and hangs in the Great Hall at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. The portrait is a telling likeness, but shows signs of his recent recovery from a severe attack of blood poisoning caused by a post-mortem wound. It represents him with a sad expression, which was not usual with him. An admirable caricature by 'Spy' appeared in *Vanity Fair*; the likeness is poor, but the attitude is characteristic and perfect. It is reproduced in the *St. Bartholomew's Hospital Journal* (1925, xxxiii, frontispiece). He also appears in Jamyn Brooke's portrait group of the Council, 1884. Paget occupied a prominent position in the surgery of his day. He founded a school which would have been larger and more influential had it not been almost immediately eclipsed by the birth of bacteriology and the teaching of Lister. It is the peculiar merit of Paget that he made use of the microscope to elucidate the true nature of morbid growths. He was a good and efficient but not a great operating surgeon; his strength lay in diagnosis, which was perfected by his robust common sense, and in later life by his unrivalled experience. His sound knowledge of morbid anatomy, gained partly in museums and partly in the more perilous field of the post-mortem room, where he twice nearly lost his life, made him a link connecting the surgery of John Hunter with that of the present day. His perfect tact, his courtesy, and his real eloquence gave him ready access to the best circles in the Victorian era. The position he occupied as a teacher at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and the classical English of his writings, enabled him to exercise a much wider influence than would have been expected from his modest demeanour and somewhat retiring disposition. He was a great teacher because he was able to grasp principles and clothe them briefly and clearly in exquisite language. Those who will read aloud his Hunterian oration can still hear the cadences but not the actual tones of the orator. The influence of heredity was well shown in each of his distinguished sons, who reproduced quite unconsciously his attitude, his facial appearance, and many of his traits of character. Scrupulously honest and fair-minded, he acquired the chief surgical practice in London. During the busiest period of his life he was never outwardly in a hurry nor was he ever unpunctual in keeping an appointment. He had strong religious convictions and was always careful in the religious observances of the Church of England. In person he was slightly built and a little above medium height, his face rather long, his cheeks somewhat flushed, and his eyes bright. His voice was soft and musical; he spoke quietly, fluently, and apparently extemporaneously. His public utterances were carefully prepared beforehand, and were given an air of spontaneity by slight pauses, as though hesitating for an instant in the flow of thought. They were in reality flawless and were delivered without gesture of any sort. W. E. Gladstone thought so highly of his public speaking that he said he divided people into two classes, those who had and those who had not heard Sir James Paget. It was his habit to write in his carriage short paragraphs on torn pieces of paper, which, being placed together, formed a lucid and continuous statement. The names of Sir James Paget is associated with a chronic eczematous condition of the nipple associated with cancer of the breast, and with a chronic inflammation of the bones to which the name osteitis deformans has been given. A bibliography is given in the *Index Catalogue of the Surgeon General's Library* (series I and ii). The most interesting, and perhaps the most lasting, of his writings are *Studies of Old Case Books*, published in 1891.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000201
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ludlow, Joyce Rewcastle (1905 - 2006)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by John Blandy
Publication Date 2011-06-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373433373433
Occupation General surgeon
Details Joyce Rewcastle Ludlow was a surgeon who spent her working life in Nigeria. She was born Joyce Rewcastle Woods in Sidcup, Kent, on 24 July 1905, the daughter of James Rewcastle Woods, a minister, and Una Marion Pierce née Couch. Both parents were keen members of the Temperance Movement. Joyce studied medicine at the Royal Free Hospital, where she qualified in 1930. She passed the FRCS the following year, the 22nd woman to become a fellow of the College. She went at once to Nigeria to work at Ilesha Hospital. There she met the Reverend Richard Nelson Ludlow, a Methodist missionary, whose training had included a three-month crash course in surgery. Nelson Ludlow's sister Elsie was working in that hospital as a nurse, and ultimately became its matron. Inevitably Joyce and Nelson found themselves working together. Eventually Nelson popped the question, to receive the answer 'Yes, provided you will see to the Tilley lamp'. They were married on his first leave in Dublin in April 1933 and, after a very brief honeymoon in Switzerland, returned to Nigeria to be 'partners in pioneering' for a lifetime. Nelson learned dispensing and how to give the anaesthetic while Joyce was operating: in exchange Joyce would take services and preach when needed. Joyce insisted on extending the work of the hospital into the districts in the hope of detecting remediable diseases at an earlier stage and for this purpose they devised a mobile operating theatre that could be towed behind their elderly Chevrolet, and set up a chain of village dispensaries. Together they built their own house of unbaked mud bricks, established some 25 schools for women, built their own looms, taught the local people how to weave, organised the building of new roads and made long treks into the country on foot, by canoe, and later by car. To support this activity on a salary of £3 per week from the Missionary Society, Nelson raised funds for new buildings by importing ancient harmoniums and organs that had been thrown out by churches in England, learned how to mend them, and sold them in Nigeria, eventually setting up a regular workshop for this. The tough and difficult life was later described in Nelson's moving book *Partners in pioneering*, which was privately published by his son. It was not without its hilarious incidents: their car was accidently shot by a hunter who mistook its headlights for the eyes of some giant jungle creature. They had no refrigerator until 1939. They had two sons and a daughter who went with them everywhere but, as with so many of that generation, they suffered agonies when it became necessary to send the children to England to be educated. During their first leave after the war they were given an ex-Army ambulance which they rebuilt as a better mobile operating theatre cum school, kitchen, cinema and dispensary, which was to serve them for the next 10 years. As well as a hunt for superannuated harmoniums, they obtained 90 church bells that had been preserved by the London Fire Service after the Blitz, together with 1,000 hand-bells formerly used by Air Raid Patrol wardens, for use in the new schools they planned to set up. Ancient brass instruments were begged for the new brass band they intended to set up. They organised the building of a chain of rural dispensaries and a new hospital, which was opened in 1945. They organised play schools for their own and local children, and were enthusiastic proponents of literacy campaigns. Joyce and Nelson retired from Nigeria in 1952. Their partnership went on: Nelson continued with his ministry, while Joyce did locums. They developed a method of 'duologues', taking turns to preach. These proved to be very popular and the team were much in demand. A member of the congregation told Nelson, 'My goodness your wife can talk!' It was no news to him. On their return to England Joyce was awarded the MBE in 1952 for her outstanding medical work in Nigeria. Nelson Ludlow died in 1998. Joyce died in Poole on 5 January 2006 at the age of 100.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001250
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Querci Della Rovere, Guidubaldo (1946 - 2009)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Selvachandran, Prince Selvadurai (1938 - 2009)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cooper, Sir Henry (1807 - 1891)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cooper, Percy Robert ( - 1925)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cooper, Thomas Sankey (1818 - 1898)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-07-21 2013-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373452373452
Occupation General surgeon
Details Practised in Canterbury, his birthplace. His practice was extensive, but he retired at the early age of 50 (1867), after being Surgeon, Vaccinator, and Officer of Health to the Canterbury Corporation, and Medical Officer and Vaccinator to three Districts of Bridge Union. He resided at 3 Bridge Street. He was Trustee of City Charities and Mayor of Canterbury in 1866 and 1875, and from 1874 to the time of his death was Chairman of the Commissioners of Income Tax. He was courteous but firm, of a generous disposition, and always ready to help in cases of genuine necessity. He died on March 13th, 1898, at Thanington House, Canterbury, and was buried in Thanington churchyard.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001269
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Coote, Holmes (1815 - 1872)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Corbould, Francis John (1819 - 1884)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cooper, George (1792 - 1877)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Craven, Robert (1812 - 1875)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Crawford, Henry ( - 1872)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Creed, George (1798 - 1868)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-09-02 2022-10-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001300-E001399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373504373504
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at St George's Hospital. He was Surgeon to the West Suffolk Militia in 1824 and at one time Surgeon to the Suffolk General Hospital. He died at Bury St Edmunds, where he had practised, in 1868. **See below for an expanded version of the original obituary which was printed in volume 1 of Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows. Please contact the library if you would like more information lives@rcseng.ac.uk** George Creed was a general surgeon in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. He was born in Bury St Edmunds, the son of John Stephens Creed, a surgeon, and Emilia Creed née Herring on 18 December 1798. Creed’s twin brother Henry went on to become the rector of Mellis in Suffolk. He attended King Edward VI Free Grammar School in Bury, left before 1817 and became apprenticed to his father. He later studied at St George’s Hospital in London. He gained his MRCS in 1821 and the licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries in 1822. He went on to become a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1844. He was a surgeon at Suffolk General Hospital in Bury St Edmunds from 1825 to 1847 and a surgeon in the West Suffolk Militia for 44 years. In 1828 he used the skin of the notorious murderer William Corder to bind an account of his trial. The book includes an inscription: ‘The binding of this book is the skin of the murderer William Corder taken from his body and tanned by myself in the year 1828. George Creed Surgeon to the Suffolk Hospital.’ Creed was also a farmer, first at Boarhunt Farm, Fareham, Hampshire, where he farmed 472 acres and employed 24 labourers, and later at Hall Farm, Great Whelnetham, Suffolk. He was a magistrate, a trustee of the Guildhall Feoffment, which provided almshouses, and a free burgess of Bury St Edmunds. He was mayor of Bury St Edmunds in 1839. He was married to Louisa (née Powell). They had no children. He died at his home in Albert Street, Bury St Edmunds, on 28 November 1868 just before his 70th birthday. Sarah Gillam
Resource Identifier RCS: E001321
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Crellin, Frederick (1801 - 1860)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cresswell, Alfred (1837 - 1876)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cretin, Eugene (1851 - 1908)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-09-02 2013-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001300-E001399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373507373507
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Mauritius on January 6th, 1851, and was educated at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he gained the Senior Scholarship in Anatomy, Physiology, and Chemistry in 1872-1878; the Brackenbury Scholarship in Surgery in 1873-1874; and the Lawrence Scholarship and Gold Medal in the same session. He acted for a year as House Surgeon and then proceeded to Netley, where he won the Martin Memorial Gold Medal. His determination to enter the Indian Medical Service was perhaps fostered by a eulogistic communication by M C Furnell (qv) which appeared in the *St Bartholomew's Hospital Reports* (1870, vi, 138) soon after he entered the hospital. He entered the Bengal Army as Surgeon on March 30th, 1878; was promoted Surgeon Major on March 30th, 1890, and Lieutenant-Colonel on March 30th, 1898. He saw active service in the Afghanistan campaign of 1880 and was present at the action on Gara Heights and at the operations in the Hisarak District (Medal). He served in Burma (1885-1887), being in the operations of the 2nd and 5th Brigades (Medal and Clasp). He also took part in the Dongola Expedition (Sudan), for which he received a medal and the Khedive's medal, and on the North-West Frontier at Tochi in 1897-1898 (Medal with Clasp). He retired on December 31st, 1905, and died at Felstead in Essex on September 10th, 1908.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001324
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cridland, Arthur John ( - 1860)

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First Title value, for Searching Cripps, William Harrison (1850 - 1923)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-09-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001300-E001399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373510373510
Occupation General surgeon
Details The second of three sons of Henry William Cripps, QC, sometime Recorder of Lichfield, and Julia, the eldest daughter of Charles Lawrence and niece of Sir William Lawrence (qv). His eldest brother, Henry, was a prominent member of the Parliamentary Bar, and his younger brother was created Lord Parmoor. A bad attack of scarlet fever left Harrison Cripps a weakly boy for many years and unable to go to school. He was placed under the care of a private tutor, and encouraged to take open-air exercise. Perhaps it was then he developed a taste for 'shootin' and fishin'', as he used to call it, which lasted the length of his life. His connection with the Lawrence family brought him naturally to St Bartholomew's Hospital, which he entered about 1868 or 1869. Immediately after qualification in 1872 he became House Surgeon to Thomas Smith (qv). Later he was an Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy in the Medical School, which post he held till 1879, when he was appointed Surgical Registrar. In 1882 he was elected Assistant Surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital, having previously contested an election in which he was beaten by W J Walsham (qv). From 1880 to 1890 he served as Surgeon to the Great Northern Hospital and the Royal Free Hospital, but the bulk of his work was done at St Bartholomew's. In 1876 he gained the Jacksonian Prize of the Royal College of Surgeons for his essay on "The Treatment of Cancer of the Rectum, particularly as regards the possibility of Curing or Relieving the Patient by Excision of the Affected Part". This essay marked Cripps as a coming man, and he made his name as a rectal specialist, an abdominal surgeon, and a teacher. He attained the zenith of his fame both as an operator and as a teacher during the long period of twenty years for which he was Assistant Surgeon. He was at his best in the out-patient room, where twice a week he held a class, in which the students sat round him in a ring - and woe betide the man who was late! Thirty years have scarcely dimmed the memory of those classes, in which Cripps taught with dogmatism, enlivened by caustic wit and shrewd thrusts. The capacity he had for saying sharp and clever things often gave offence, and earned for him a reputation for cynicism which was hardly deserved. Cripps was a man who liked not to let his left hand know what his right hand did, and his alms were in secret. In 1892, while still an Assistant Surgeon, he was appointed Surgeon to the Gynaecological Wards, then under the charge of Sir Francis Champneys, who did not undertake abdominal operations. This work was dear to Cripps's heart, and he appeared to prefer it to his general surgical work. As a rectal surgeon credit is due to Cripps for his advocacy of colostomy, both as a palliative and as a preliminary measure to the extensive perineal and trans-sacral excision of the rectum which he favoured. As an operator he was quick, neat, and clean, and for many years he was the only surgeon at his hospital who made a complete change of clothes before operating. In January, 1902, he was elected Surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital on the retirement of Alfred Willett (qv). His long service in the out-patient room may have exhausted his energies, for though he did his routine work, it cannot be said that, as a full Surgeon, he increased the reputation he had already made. He retired in 1909, when he was elected Consulting Surgeon and a Governor of the Hospital. He was elected to the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1909, served as a Member till 1920, and was Vice-President in 1918 and 1919. He served on the Finance Committee, where his business acumen was of great assistance, for he took an active part in the negotiations which led to the transference of the Examination Hall from the Embankment to Queen's Square. His business capacity had already brought Cripps a considerable sum of money, for he realized early the capabilities of electrical enterprise and he bought founders' shares in the Metropolitan Electric Supply Company, of which he became Chairman. A considerable portion of this company was purchased by the St Marylebone Borough Council, and Cripps reaped the reward of his foresight. He lived for many years at 2 Stratford Place, W, and for some time rented Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott. In later years he bought a large estate at Glendarnel in Argyllshire, where he could get the sport he loved and where it gave him the greatest pleasure to entertain his friends. He married twice. His first wife was Blanche, daughter of Richard Potter, of Standish, Gloucestershire; she was one of nine sisters, one of whom married Lord Parmoor and one became Mrs Sidney Webb. By her he had three sons and two daughters. One son, Lawrence, entered the medical profession. His second wife was Signorina Julia Ravogli, a well-known Italian *prima donna*, who survived him. He died on November 8th, 1923, at his London residence, at the age of 73.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001327
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Croft, Charles Ilderton (1812 - 1860)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Crompton, Dickinson Webster (1805 - 1894)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-09-02 2018-02-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001300-E001399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373515373515
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on September 30th, 1805, the eldest son and second child of Jonathan William Crompton, a merchant living in Edgbaston, by his wife Martha Webster, of Penns. He was sent at an early age as a pupil to G E Male, Physician to the General Hospital at Birmingham from 1805-1816. He was afterwards apprenticed to Richard Wood, who was Surgeon to the hospital from 1808-1852. He went to Paris at the end of his apprenticeship in 1829 and studied under Dupuytren, and travelled afterwards to Bonn. In 1834 he won the Jacksonian Prize with an essay on "Injuries and Diseases of the Nose and Nasal Sinuses", the other prizeman being Thomas Blizard Curling (qv), who submitted a dissertation on "Tetanus". Crompton was elected Surgeon to the General Hospital, Birmingham, in succession to Bowyer Vaux (qv) in September, 1843, and resigned after twenty-five years' service. He lived at 59 Harborne Road, Birmingham, and practised at 17 Temple Row. He married in 1833 Catherine Elizabeth Woolley (d.1864), daughter of the Rector of Middleton, Warwickshire, by whom he had one son. He died at 40 Harborne Road on March 31st, 1894, and was buried in Witton Cemetery, Birmingham. An oil painting of Crompton dated March, 1872, hangs in the Hall of the Birmingham General Hospital, and there is also an expressive photograph in the Fellows'Album. He contributed the following "Reminiscences of Provincial Surgery" to the *Guy's Hospital Reports* (1887, xliv, 137), at the request of Thomas Bryant: "You ask me to give some account of myself. I was apprenticed to the late Mr Richard Wood, himself an old Guy's man and personal friend of Sir A Cooper, in 1823. He was Senior Surgeon at the Birmingham General Hospital, and a noted operator, especially for stone. Joseph Hodgson was much his junior, and, some would say, a superior man, but certainly not in operations. I dressed at the General Hospital during four whole years as Mr Wood's dresser, living in his house and going with him to nearly all his private operations. I entered Guy's in 1828, and lived in the house with Mr Dodd, then Demonstrator of Anatomy; Dr William Guy, still I think alive, being also house pupil at Mr Dodd's. "After one year spent there my relative, Mr John Morgan [qv], late Surgeon to Guy's Hospital, took me into his house in New Broad Street, where I was treated as a friend and became as intimate as a boy could be with Drs Addison and Hodgkin, Thomas Bell, and other naturalists, Morgan being himself a good naturalist, as perhaps you may remember. "I passed one summer in Paris, the year after Dr Blundell removed the uterus through the vagina. I must tell you this story. One day I was standing at the lecture-room door at La Pitié, when Dr Blundell, not recognizing me, though I was very regular at his lectures, gave me his card to give to Lisfranc who was lecturing; on receiving it Lisfranc turned, bowed, and rushed at Blundell, kissing him on both cheeks! Then, turning to the class, Lisfranc introduced Blundell as the distinguished Englishman who had immortalized himself by that operation. A patient was brought in and laid on the table to have a large fungoid-looking os uteri removed, an operation which Lisfranc was then doing freely and fond of. While the woman's uterus was being pulled down by large hooked forceps, Lisfranc kissed her on her cheek, upon which little Blundell thought he ought to do likewise. There were at least half a dozen English pupils in the room, and you may imagine Blundell's face when we simultaneously clapped our hands, and cried, 'Well done, Blundell!' The story fled to Guy's in a very short time. Nevertheless, we were proud of him, for he gave the class, at Lisfranc's request, an excellent lecture in the French language. "When I had passed the college I came to Birmingham and began practice soon, and first as a dispensary surgeon, whose chief duties were attending operation cases of midwifery. On the retirement of Hodgson from the Eye Infirmary he had founded here I succeeded him, and my first surgical operation on a living person was for cataract in both eyes by the lower section, using both hands, of an old woman of eighty, who recovered with good sight, to my intense delight. "After eight years of this practice I became (1843) Surgeon to the Birmingham General Hospital, as colleague with Mr Wood and Hodgson among others, giving up the Eye Hospital because according to hospital laws I could not hold both; and here I am now, in my eighty-second year, and expecting to be operated on for cataract myself; retributive justice, I suppose! "I think this is quite enough about myself. I never had any ambition for notoriety, but only to be as good a surgeon as my wits and naturally great talent for idleness could make me. "I cannot think the notes I send with this or those you already have can be worth being placed in our dear old Guy's *Reports*." Dickinson Crompton's charming autobiography prefaces his vivid account of his surgical practice on many difficult occasions. The writing of this long paper extending over nearly twenty pages was undertaken despite his total blindness. "I send you the accompanying 'Surgical Reminiscences'", he says, addressing Mr Thomas Bryant, "under rather unusual circumstances, and I write them under peculiar circumstances, for I am now getting cataracts in my eyes, and at the present moment do not see what my hand writes, but hope it forms the words my mind would dictate. It is a curious sensation, and is new to me within the present year. As I cannot read I suppose my mind goes back more easily and perhaps more clearly into the past than it has had time to do before. This must be my excuse for writing, and it is a pleasant occupation. I have depended upon a friend for corrections necessary, for if I take my pen from the paper I do not know what or where I have written."
Resource Identifier RCS: E001332
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cronin, James Dennis ( - 1909)

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First Title value, for Searching Thomas, Lewis Philip (1921 - 2009)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2011-09-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001300-E001399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373521373521
Occupation General surgeon
Details Lewis Thomas was a highly respected consultant general surgeon who worked in the Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport, from 1961 to 1986. Prior to this, he had been a senior lecturer in surgery at the Cardiff Royal Infirmary. He served the RCS, first as a surgical tutor under the Nuffield 'pilot scheme', and later as a regional adviser throughout the principality. He was also an RCS member on the court of governors of the University College of Swansea. He was born on 7 September 1921 in Pyle, Glamorgan, the only child of David Thomas, a civil servant working in the Swansea bankruptcy court, and his wife Stella née Philips. When serving as a captain in the 14th Welsh regiment David Thomas was awarded the Military Cross for his actions with the supply division at the battle of Passendale at Ypres in July 1917. He experienced one of the first gas attacks in the First World War and had shell shock, being mentally scarred by these experiences. Lewis' mother died early and he had to 'grow up' quickly as his father needed support in many ways. Lewis gained his secondary school education at Cardiff High School for Boys from 1933 to 1939 and progressed to the Welsh School of Medicine. He had a good academic record and gained the Willie Seager gold medal, a prize in surgery in 1944 and was awarded the Cardiff Medical Society prize in surgery. In Cardiff he met Anne Gwendolen Tighe, daughter of the regional medical officer of health for Swansea, and who qualified herself in 1950. They married on 9 July1955. On qualification Lewis became a house surgeon at the Cardiff Royal Infirmary and was greatly influenced by John Berry Haycraft, and in whose memory a surgical prize was established in Cardiff, and also D J Harris. After internships in Cardiff, he entered National Service as a captain in the RAMC in charge of a surgical division in Germany. Having decided on a career in general surgery, he was a resident surgical officer in Newport and progressed to senior registrar at the Cardiff Royal Infirmary from 1950 for five years. In these days it was essential to obtain experience in the USA to improve career prospects, so he obtained a Fulbright scholarship to travel to the USA where he worked in Boston, Massachusetts, between 1955 and 1956. His mentor was Francis D Moore, Moseley professor of surgery in Harvard University and surgeon-in-chief at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. As assistant in surgery he was introduced to the concept of 'grand rounds', operating lists starting at 7am after residents did their ward rounds, and was to experience 'Franny' Moore's dynamic enthusiasm as a postgraduate teacher. His research work was performed in the Harvard Medical School laboratories and under the guidance of Joe Murray, later to receive a Nobel prize for his work on 'renal transplantation'. In his definitive post in Newport, Lewis was recognised as a good diagnostician and a surgeon with great dexterity, whose hands 'simply hovered and delivered' with consummate ease. Many regarded him as one of the finest technicians in Wales. He built strong surgical teams throughout his professional life and his interest in medical education was most apparent as a co-editor with David Macfarlane of the highly successful *Textbook of surgery* (E & S Livingstone, 1964). This went into five editions, including an Italian translation in 1974. Contributors to this book were all 'young' consultants who themselves enjoyed undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. The two editors were contemporaries at medical school and also studied for the BSc in anatomy and physiology at the same time. He sat on many committees for the Welsh Office and the Department of Health and Social Security, for whom he served in medical appeals tribunals. Lewis enjoyed a happy family life, and he and Anne had four children, all of whom inherited their 'medical' genes. Richard, the eldest son, born in 1956, is a dentist who works in Poole. Philip, born in 1958, became a surgeon and is a urologist in Brighton and Peter, born in 1960, is a GP in South Wales. Sarah, the youngest, born in 1962, is a child psychiatrist in Winchester. Lewis showed great interest in all their activities, and was loved by family and his colleagues for his great loyalty and fairness, always being in charge in a quiet way. He relaxed by playing golf as a faithful member of the Newport Golf Club. As a founding member of the New Quay Sailing Club, and commodore in 1978, he taught his family to sail. Two of his sons, Richard and Peter, have also been 'commodores' in 2002 and 2010. He was a keen photographer, almost professional in his pursuit of this, and was made a fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. Lewis Thomas died on 26 August 2009 after a long illness of cardiac failure and prostatic cancer for which medication was a fine balancing act. Confined to one room for some 18 months, his wife, Anne, cared for him continuously and with great devotion. He leaves his wife, three sons and a daughter, and seven grandchildren, one of whom is studying medicine.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001338
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Crosse, Thomas William (1826 - 1892)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-09-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001300-E001399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373527373527
Occupation General surgeon
Details The son of John Green Crosse, FRS (qv), entered as a dresser to his father for three years from 1842, the half of his pupil's fee, viz, £26 5s, being paid to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. He received his professional training at St Bartholomew's Hospital and then succeeded to his father's Norwich practice. At first he very naturally suffered by comparison with his famous forerunner, but he won his way in time owing to his own high qualities. In 1857 he became Assistant Surgeon to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in succession to William Cadge (qv) and full Surgeon in 1872, when W P Nichols (qv) resigned. Crosse resigned and was elected Consulting Surgeon in 1888. His work in the hospital was good and sound rather than brilliant. As a lithotomist he had no superior, and his operations were accurate, expeditious, and generally successful. He was keenly devoted to the welfare of the hospital and was Curator of its Museum, founded by his father and by William and John Dalrymple (qv). The collection owes its excellence to his fostering care. At the time of his death he was Chairman of the Board of Management of the Hospital, having always taken a large share in its domestic administration and nursing departments. In 1866 he was President of the East Anglian Branch of the British Medical Association and a Member of the Council. Crosse's biographer speaks of his high courage, shown especially in his warfare with gout, which frequently attacked and often for long periods prostrated him. He died at Norwich on October 22nd, 1892, from a slow and distressing form of pleuropneumonia, and he was buried in the village churchyard of Eaton, near Norwich. He married Miss Taylor, daughter of a well-known Norwich solicitor, and left a family of three sons and three daughters. Two of his sons were then in the profession, one being House Surgeon to the Hospital. At the time of his death, besides being Consulting Surgeon to the Hospital, Crosse was Consulting Surgeon to the Norwich Lying-in Charity and to the Jenny Lind Infirmary as well as Medical Officer of Health of Norwich. He was a Fellow of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society and practised at 45 St Giles' Street with his sons. Publications: "Urinary Calculi," "Stone in the Female Bladder" in Heath's *System of Surgery*.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001344
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Witte, Jens (1941 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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 Doey, William David (1922 - 2004)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/372238372238
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Bill Doey was a consultant ear, nose and throat surgeon at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital in London. He was born in Bessbrook, county Armagh, Northern Ireland, on 22 February 1912, the son of Rev Thomas Doey, a Presbyterian minister. His mother was Charlotte Chesney née McCay, the daughter of a minister and farmer. Bill was educated at the Academical Institution, Coleraine, Derry, and at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. He then completed his clinical studies at the London Hospital, where he did house jobs until the outbreak of the second world war. From 1940 to 1946 he served in the RAF Volunteer Reserve, as a squadron leader and ENT specialist, in mobile field hospitals in France, Belgium and Holland. After the war, he was appointed as a consultant ear, nose and throat surgeon to the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital, and as a lecturer at the Institute of Laryngology and Otology. He also held appointments at St Albans City Hospital and the Hemel Hempstead Hospital. He had a particular interest in medical history, especially that of the fatal illness of Crown Prince Friedrich, Queen Victoria’s son-in-law, who had been treated by Sir Morell MacKenzie. He lectured on the subject at the Kopfklinikum, Wurzburg, Germany. Bill’s lifelong interest in fishing went back to his boyhood days in Northern Ireland, and throughout his life he and his wife, Audrey Mariamné née Newman, whom he married in June 1940, enjoyed many fishing holidays. He retired to Llandeilo, where they renovated an old farmhouse and landscaped a garden out of a former paddock. He enjoyed music, languages, photography and driving – he was a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists. He died from a heart condition on 12 January 2004, leaving three daughters, Virginia, Louise and Angela, and four grandchildren, Mariamné, Corinna, Sibylle and Niklas.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000051
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/372239372239
Occupation General surgeon
Details Alfred John Drew, known as ‘Jack’, was a former consultant general surgeon in Walsall. He was born in Ceylon on 17 February 1916, the son of the chief pilot for the harbour at Colombo. He was educated at Nuwara Eliya, and was then sent to Ipswich School at the age of 11. He became head boy and rugby captain. He went on to study medicine at Guy’s, qualifying in 1939. At medical school he swam and played rugby for the first XV. After house appointments at Guy’s and with the south east sector of the Emergency Medical Service during the war, he went to Preston Hall, Maidstone, as a surgical trainee. He then moved to Pembury, where he became a senior lecturer in anatomy, living in a baronial house with many others from Guy’s. After obtaining his FRCS in 1941, he moved to Sheffield as resident surgical officer to Sir Ernest Finch. Drew then joined the Navy, initially as a specialist with the First Submarine Flotilla in the Eastern Mediterranean, managing to survive the sinking of the *Medway*. He was transferred to *HMS Zulu*, and ended up in Beirut. He then spent a long period at the Massawa Naval Base on the Red Sea. He returned to the UK, as a senior surgical specialist at Chatham, having asked to be posted to the Pacific, where the fighting was continuing. Following demobilisation, he returned to Guy’s as a senior surgical registrar, working under, among others, Brock, Slessinger, Ekhof, Grant-Massey, Stamm, Wass and Kilpatrick. He also worked at St Mark’s as a clinical assistant to Gabriel. In 1951 he was appointed general surgeon to the Walsall Hospitals (the Manor and the General), where he worked for the next 30 years. A true general surgeon, he taught trainees from all over the world, spending time visiting them during his retirement. He loved to sail, and, once he had retired to Lymington in 1981, he was able to devote more time to sailing along the south coast and to France. He was also able to tend his garden and watch rugby on television. He died in Lymington on 29 February 2004, and is survived by his wife, Patricia, his daughter, Sally, and his sons, Richard and Peter.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000052
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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 Gayton, William Robertson (1912 - 2004)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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 Griffiths, Donald Barry (1921 - 2004)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/372253372253
Occupation General surgeon
Details Donald Griffiths was a consultant general surgeon in Aberystwyth. He was born in Colwyn Bay on 12 March 1921, the son of Thomas Owen Griffiths, a science master, and Alice Adelaide, the daughter of a tailor. He was educated at Penmaenrhoe Council School and Colwyn Bay County School, and was Denbighshire county scholar. He studied medicine at University College Hospital, with a physiology scholarship, qualifying in 1943. He held house appointments at New End Hospital and at Queen Mary's, Carshalton, and was a registrar at Bethnal Green Hospital and Epsom District Hospital. During the war he served with the RAMC in West Africa and Greece. After the war, he returned to the professorial surgical unit at UCH, where he held the John Marshall fellowship. He was appointed as a consultant general surgeon at Aberystwyth in 1960 and later at the newly built Bronglais Hospital. He was President of the Aberystwyth division of the BMA in 1972 and was awarded the BMA certificate of commendation in 1994. A member of the Welsh Surgical Society, he travelled widely to their meetings. Late in his career he developed a severe illness of the hands, caused by surgical gloves, but recovered and resumed his duties. A delightful, gregarious person, he knew everyone in the little village of Llanon in Cardiganshire where he retired. A keen football supporter, he was a former chairman of Aberystwyth Town Football Club. Recovering for surgery for aortic stenosis, he remained active until shortly before his death from heart failure on 12 April 2004. He leaves a widow, Mary, and five children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000066
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hall, Hedley Walter (1907 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Hall, Rodney John (1928 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/372255372255
Occupation General surgeon
Details Rodney John Hall was a surgeon in Adelaide, South Australia. He was born on 7 April 1928 at Waikerie, South Australia, and studied medicine at the University of Melbourne, graduating in 1957. He was a resident medical officer at the Bendigo and Northern District Bone Hospital from 1957 to 1958. He then spent almost as year as a locum in suburban practices in Melbourne. From March 1959 to December 1960 he was a full-time demonstrator in anatomy at the University of Melbourne. He was then appointed as a surgical registrar at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woodville, South Australia, a post he held until February 1963. He then travelled to the UK, where he was a registrar at Oldchurch Hospital, Essex. He returned to Australia, where he was a registrar at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Adelaide, from 1966 to 1970. He was a visiting medical officer at the hospital between 1972 and 1977. From 1979 to 1998 he was on the staff of the University of Adelaide. He was a medical officer to the Adelaide Community Health Service from 1981 to 1991. He died on 24 November 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000068
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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 Harvey, Ronald Marsden (1918 - 2004)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/372353372353
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Harold Goodwin was born on 5 June 1910, the son of Barnet and Rebecca Goodwin. He studied medicine at University College and St Bartholomew’s. He served in the RAMC throughout the war and on demobilisation specialised in obstetrics and gynaecology, being registrar, RMO and subsequently senior registrar at Queen Charlotte’s, Charing Cross and Hammersmith Hospitals. He was a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Prince of Wales Hospital, London, and later to the Wessex Regional Hospital Board in Bournemouth, where he continued in general practice after retirement. He died on 26 February 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000166
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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 Ackroyd, Jenny Susan (1950 - 2004)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-06 2016-11-25
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/372189372189
Occupation General surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details Jenny Ackroyd was a consultant general and vascular surgeon at Princess Alexandra Hospital, Harlow. She was born in Leeds on 23 May 1950, the fourth child of Peter Ackroyd and Evelyn née Nutt. Her father, an academic theologian, was subsequently a professor at King's College, London, and was known as 'Old Testament Ackroyd'. She was educated at James Allen's Girls' School in Dulwich, and then went on to New Hall, Cambridge, where she read medicine and fine arts. She then went to Middlesex Hospital for her clinical studies. During her junior doctor training she became the first female surgical registrar and senior registrar at St Thomas's, a particularly male-dominated institution at the time. She was awarded the FRCS in 1979. She also achieved the degree of master of surgery at Cambridge in 1986, possibly the first woman ever to do so. She was appointed as consultant surgeon in general and vascular surgery at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow in 1987 and developed a particular interest in day surgery. There was no dedicated day unit there, so she and a band of enthusiastic helpers helped raise the necessary funds to build one. Her most recent interest was the building of a new surgical wing, opened by the Secretary of State for Health in November 2004, and named in her honour. Jenny was a founder member of Women in Surgical Training, a body formed at the Royal College of Surgeons for the encouragement of training of women in surgery and felt strongly that, at about two per cent, the current representation of female consultant surgeons was unacceptably low. She is remembered as a caring, encouraging, enthusiastic and patient teacher by her junior staff and was nominated by them for a trainer of the year award from the Association of Surgeons in Training. Twelve years ago she developed a melanoma of the eye and after treatment lost the sight of the eye, but continued her professional life and was often known locally as the 'partially sighted, female surgeon from Wareside', to the amusement of her patients. In this capacity she was invited to attend the Woman of the Year lunch in 1993, which was sponsored by the Royal National Institute of the Blind. During this busy professional life, working full-time throughout, Jenny had a fulfilling social and family life. She married Malcolm Lennox, also a consultant surgeon, in 1976, and had two children, Sophie and Sandy. She was a faithful member of St Mary's Church choir and also sang in Ware Choral Society and played the cello. Her manner was sympathetic, concerned and helpful, but most of all she was lively, fun to be with, colourfully dressed and noisy in a delightful way. She died peacefully at home on 5 September 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000002
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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 Hendry, William Garden (1914 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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 Porter, Richard William (1935 - 2005)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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 Jones, Geoffrey Blundell (1915 - 2004)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Guthrie, Charles W Gardiner (1817 - 1859)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-07 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/372193372193
Occupation General surgeon
Details The younger son of George James Guthrie (q.v.) by his first wife Margaret Paterson, daughter of the Lieutenant-Governor of Prince Edward's Island. He was educated at the Westminster Hospital, where he was elected Assistant Surgeon in 1843 on the resignation of his father in his favour. He became Surgeon and Lecturer on Surgery, and resigned on the ground of ill health shortly before his death. He was also Assistant Surgeon to the Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital, where his father was Surgeon, and succeeded him as Surgeon. He practised at 18 Pall Mall East, but retiring to Clifton died there of ascites due to a liver complaint in August, 1859. He never married, his elder brother left no children, and his sister died unmarried, so that the family of Guthrie ended. Charles Guthrie was a capable surgeon and a dextrous operator, both in the large operations of general surgery and the more delicate ones on the eye. He was kindly, generous, and very sociable; a cause of much anxiety to his father, who on more than one occasion had to pay for cattle shot on the Thames marshes under the impression that they were big game. He might have done well. PUBLICATIONS: - *On the Cure of Squinting by the Division of one of the Straight Muscles of the Eye*, 8vo, London, 2nd ed., 1840. *Report on the Result of the Operations for the Cure of Squinting performed at the Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital between 18 April and 30 October,* 1840, 8vo, Westminster, 1840. *On Cataract and its Appropriate Treatment by the Operation Adapted for each Peculiar Case*, 8vo, plate, London, 1845.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000006
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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 Hudson, James Ralph (1916 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/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)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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 Jonas, Ernest George Gustav (1924 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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 Cutler, Geoffrey Abbott (1920 - 2000)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Kirklin, John Webster (1917 - 2004)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372277372277
Occupation Cardiovascular surgeon
Details John Kirklin, former chairman of the department of surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, revolutionised cardiovascular surgery through his development and refinement of the heart-lung machine. Throughout his life, he sought new methods and techniques to improve the care of patients. Born in Muncie, Indiana, on 5 August 1917, his father was director of radiology at the Mayo Clinic. John earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota in 1938. He then went on to Harvard, where he gained his medical degree in 1942. He completed an internship at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia and then served as a fellow in surgery at the Mayo Clinic. From 1944 to 1946 he served in the US Army, with the rank of Captain. He then spent six months at the Boston Children’s Hospital. In 1950, he joined the staff of the Mayo Clinic, pioneering the development of cardiovascular surgery and performing the first operations for a range of congenital heart malformations. He also modified the Gibbon machine, improving the original pumping and oxygenator system, and performed the world’s first series of open-heart operations using a heart-lung machine. At Mayo he became chairman of the department of surgery, and trained the next generation of cardiovascular surgeons from all over the world. In 1966, Kirklin joined the faculty of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) as chairman of the department of surgery and the surgeon in chief for UAB Hospital. He held these positions until 1982, during which time he built one of the most prestigious cardiovascular surgical programmes in the world. He retired from surgery in 1989. He wrote more than more than 700 publications, but he often stated that his greatest contribution was his textbook, *Cardiac surgery: morphology, diagnostic criteria, natural history, techniques, results, and indications* (Churchill Livingstone, 1956), which remains an important reference text in the field. He also served on multiple editorial boards and served as editor of *The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.* He received many awards, including the American Heart Association research achievement award (in 1976), the Rudolph Matas award in vascular surgery, the Rene Leriche prize of the International Society of Surgery and the American Surgical Association medallion for scientific achievement. In 1972 he was awarded the Lister medal by the College. Many universities awarded him honorary degrees, including the Hamline University, St Paul, Minnesota, Indiana University, Georgetown University, the University of Munich, Germany, and Bordeau and Marseille Universities, France. He was a member of more than 60 local, state, national and international associations and scientific societies, including the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (serving as President from 1978 to 1979), the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, the American College of Surgeons and the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine. His wife Margaret Katherine was a physician. They had two sons and a daughter. The Kirklins have continued the medical tradition: his son is a cardiac surgeon and director of cardiothoracic transplantation at UAB, and his grandson is a medical student at UAB. John died on 21 April 2004 from complications from a head injury that occurred in January. The new clinic at Birmingham Alabama, designed by the world-famous architect I M Pei, is named in his honour.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000090
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Leacock, Sir Aubrey Gordon (1918 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12 2012-03-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372278372278
Occupation General surgeon
Details Sir Aubrey Gordon Leacock, known as 'Jack', was a leading consultant surgeon in Barbados. He was born on 27 October 1918 in Barbados, into an established Bridgetown family. His father, Sir Stephen Leacock, was a leading merchant. He received his early education in Barbados, at Harrison College. In 1928, he won a scholarship to Rugby, from which he went on to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he took first class honours. He went on to St Bartholomew's for his clinical training. He was a senior registrar at St George's, Tooting, and was on blood transfusion duty at the Channel ports when the British Expeditionary Force came back from Dunkirk, a heart condition having prevented him from active service. His interest was always in surgery and he became a senior registrar at St Bartholomew's when many of the consultant staff had both a national and international reputation. Jack Leacock's particular interest was in anorectal surgery. He might well have obtained a consultancy in the United Kingdom, but, when on a short trip home in 1948, he was offered an appointment at the General Hospital in Barbados. At this time general practitioners carried out the general surgery and gynaecology, the only specialists being in ENT and ophthalmology. His London training, surgical skill and imagination completely revolutionised the care of the people of Barbados. He was the first to introduce oesophagectomy for carcinoma of the oesophagus, replacing it with large bowel. His range of surgery was enormous, and done with a high degree of skill. Each year he would visit the USA or UK to keep up to date, particularly in the management of scoliosis, where he used Harrington's rods to correct the deformity. At the time of independence the British, as a goodwill gesture, built the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Barbados. Jack Leacock was involved in its design, and in setting up a blood bank, for which he had to overcome some local beliefs. Early on, he recognised the need for birth control in a small island with a burgeoning population and was one of the founders of the Barbados Family Planning Association in 1950, which effectively halved the birth rate. He was a keen sportsman, enjoying sailing, snow skiing, hang-gliding, wind surfing and polo. He rode until he was nearly 80, and began playing squash in his early seventies. He enjoyed travelling and was a talented pianist. He was equally keen on reading, and after he retired in 1977 he wrote a weekly column in the Barbados *Advocate*, in which he commented on a wide range of topics. He was knighted in 2002 for his many services to Barbados. He died in Barbados on 24 August 2003. He is survived by his wife, Margaret-Ann, whom he married in 1962, and two daughters from his first marriage and one from his second. He had two grandchildren. He gave instructions that there should be no funeral, just a simple cremation, to be followed a week later by a jazz party.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000091
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-05-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372536372536
Occupation General surgeon
Details Tom Rowntree was a consultant surgeon in Southampton. He was born at 9, Upper Brook Street, London, W1 on 10 July 1916. His father, Cecil Rowntree, was a consultant surgeon at the Cancer (now Royal Marsden) Hospital, London, and held several other honorary posts in and around the city. His mother was Katherine Aylmer Whitworth Jones, the daughter of an opera singer. After his preparatory education, Tom went to Radley, where he passed the Higher School Certificate and matriculated for St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1933. He went up in the autumn of 1934 after an agreeable intervening six months in Rome – where he became fluent in Italian and attended anatomy classes at the university. He graduated from Cambridge in 1937 with a 2:1 degree in the natural sciences tripos (gaining a first in anatomy). He then went to St Bartholomew’s Hospital for his clinical training, where he also joined the Territorial Army (as a second lieutenant). At Bart’s he won the Matthews Duncan prize and qualified in 1941. At the outbreak of the Second World War Bart’s was moved to Hill End Hospital and there Tom was appointed house surgeon to James (later Professor Sir James) Paterson Ross, and then to John O’Connell, neurosurgeon. He then got a job demonstrating anatomy at Cambridge and passed the final FRCS in 1942. He returned to Hill End as chief assistant and was commissioned as a full lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps. 1942 was a landmark year for Tom for another very particular reason; it was while back at Cambridge that he met his future wife, Barbara – Dr Barbara Sibbald as she then was. They became engaged that year and married the next. They had four children, a boy and three girls. Their son became an orthopaedic surgeon and one of their daughters qualified at Bart’s, like her father, and became a general practitioner. In 1944 Tom was posted to India as a captain in the RAMC. He was released from the Army with the rank of major in 1947. After various jobs, including accident room surgeon at Reading, a registrarship at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and an honorary post at the Italian Hospital in London, he successfully applied for a consultant general surgical job in Southampton and started there in 1951. Tom was the quintessential general surgeon, the very embodiment of the best. He emphasised the importance of a detailed history, taken patiently, claiming it made up some 80 per cent of a diagnosis. He advocated, for instance, that the clinician sit at the bed/couch-side when examining the abdomen, the better to ensure, through the examiner’s bodily ease, that the examination is both gentle and unhurried; just one valuable lesson amongst many others. He independently discovered the curious phenomenon of abdominal wall tenderness in patients with non-specific abdominal pain, an immensely valuable physical sign. Tom’s clinical honesty demanded a searching but always kind and constructive analysis of any complication. His surgical technique was superb, always anatomical and scrupulously protective of vital structures. This manual felicity transferred readily to a long-time recreational interest, cabinet making, at which he excelled. He worked extraordinarily long hours at the hospital. His, too, was a most intelligent and enquiring mind. Its rigour – a notable characteristic – found expression in his concern that words, the vehicles of thought, be appropriate and joined in clear, simple, sentences. His intelligence, too, dominated the newly formed Southampton medical executive committee, of which he was the first Chairman, and through it deftly managed the birth of the Southampton Medical School. Tom’s surgical standing was recognised in his presidency of the surgical section of the Royal Society of Medicine. His presidential address was constructed from his large personal series of parathyroidectomies. He retired in 1981 to fish, make beautiful desks for each of his grandchildren and to interest himself in almost anything; it seemed, as with Dr Samuel Johnson, that there was no fact so trivial that he would rather not be in possession of it. Two weeks before he died he won the *Times Literary Supplement* crossword puzzle. On top of all this it should be added that Tom was a fair man, a good companion and had a lovely sense of humour. In short, he was quite a chap. He died on 26 February 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000350
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Salz, Michael Heinz (1916 - 2005)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-05-10 2022-02-03
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372540372540
Occupation General surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Alexander Walt was a former president of the American College of Surgeons. He was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1923 and went to school and university there. After qualifying in 1948 he completed his house jobs at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, before winning a Dominion studentship to Guy’s Hospital in 1951. He then completed a surgical residency in the USA, at the Mayo Clinic, from 1952 to 1956. He returned to the UK, as a surgical registrar at St Martin’s Hospital, Bath, where he remained until 1957. He then went back to Cape Town, to the Groote Schuur Hospital, as an assistant surgeon for the next four years. He was subsequently appointed to Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan, USA, where in 1966 he became professor and chairman of the department of surgery. He was recognised by his peers by his election to the presidency of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma in 1997, the presidency of the Western Surgical Association in 1987, and the presidency of the American College of Surgeons in 1995. **See below for an additional obituary uploaded 8 October 2015:** Alec Walt was born in Cape Town in 1923, the son of Isaac Walt, a wholesale grocer who had emigrated to South Africa from Lithuania to escape the pogrom. When only two and a half years of age, his mother, Lea, née Garb, and two sisters were killed in a train crash, but his father was determined that all three sons be educated – and all three became doctors. At Grey High School in Port Elizabeth he distinguished himself as a sportsman and formed a lifelong friendship with Bill (later Sir Raymond) Hoffenberg. Together they entered the University of Cape Town as medical students in 1940, but an acute sense of patriotism led them to volunteer for service with the army medical corps – which was approved only at the third attempt. They served for three and a half years with the 6th SA Armoured Division and 5th US Army in Egypt and Greece, and throughout the whole of the Italian campaign, during which time they spent many hours planning how to fail trivial army examinations so that they could remain together as privates in the same unit. It was service with a surgical team in the field which instilled a long-abiding interest in trauma and served him well in later years during his time in Detroit. He played rugby for the Mediterranean forces, and was disappointed that circumstances did not allow him to accept a place in the army team in London where he hoped to see his brother after a 25 year absence. With army planning at the time, he also missed the appointment for an interview for a possible Rhodes scholarship. On demobilisation in 1945, Alec Walt returned to medical school, graduating in 1948 and serving his internship in Groote Schuur Hospital. In 1947 he married Irene Lapping, with whom he had been close friends since boyhood, and they went abroad for his surgical training, firstly to attend the basic science course for the primary fellowship of the College, and then to undertake residency training at the Mayo Clinic. While there he qualified FRCS Canada in 1955 and MS Minnesota in 1956. Returning to England as surgical registrar at St Martin’s Hospital, Bath, he took his final FRCS in 1956 before returning to Groote Schuur with his wife and three children – John Richard, born in 1952, Steven David, born in 1954, and Lindsay Jane, born in 1955 – as an assistant surgeon and lecturer. However, he became increasingly concerned that his family should not be brought up in the political climate of South Africa and in 1961 left a flourishing practice to return to the United States and an appointment with the Veterans Hospital in Detroit. His abilities were clearly recognised, for in 1965 he was appointed Chief of Surgery at Detroit General (later Receiving) Hospital, and the following year Chairman of Surgery and Penerthy Professor of Surgery of the Wayne State University School of Medicine, from which he retired in 1988. He was assistant and, from 1968 to 1970, associate dean of the medical school. As Professor of Surgery, Alec Walt gained recognition as a superb teacher and distinguished academic. He was designated ‘clinical teacher of the year’ on no fewer than three occasions and in 1984 received the Lawrence M Weiner award of the Alumni Association for outstanding achievements as a non-alumnus. On his retirement in 1988, he was a visiting fellow in Oxford with his old friend Bill Hoffenberg, then President of Wolfson College and also of the Royal College of Physicians. He was elected to the Academy of Scholars and was designated Distinguished Professor of Surgery of Wayne State University. Alec Walt’s avid thirst for knowledge made him an active and prolific clinical investigator, his 165 published papers and reviews concentrating on the surgery of trauma and of hepatobiliary disease which, along with breast cancer, were his prime interests. His army experience, which endowed him with unusual skills in the organisation of trauma services, stood him in good stead during the Detroit riots in 1967, when his paper on the anatomy of a civil disturbance and its impact on disaster planning was a classic. On four occasions he took surgical trauma teams for training in Colombia, whose government presented him with the Jorge Bejarano medal in 1981 Principal author of the first paper describing the prognostic value of oestrogen receptors in breast cancer, he was an active participant in therapeutic trials in this disease and latterly became a strong proponent of the need for multidisciplinary care. His final contribution to Detroit surgery was his development of the Comprehensive Breast Center in the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, now named the Alexander J Walt Center. Alec Walt had a distinctive clarity of writing and speaking which led to his appointment to the editorial boards of several medical journals, including the <i>Archives of surgery</i> and the <i>Journal of trauma</i>. He was in great demand as a lecturer, honouring numerous prestigious national and international commitments. He was Hunterian Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1969 and Moynihan Lecturer in 1988, and in 1995 gave a keynote address at the 75th Anniversary Meeting of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. He held leadership positions in many North American surgical organisations, including the Presidency of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, the American Board of Medical Specialties and was Vice-President of the American Surgical Association. He was elected an honorary Fellow of the College of Surgeons of South Africa in 1989, and of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of Edinburgh and Australasia in 1993 and 1995 respectively. A keen contributor to the affairs of the American College of Surgeons, Alec Walt served as a Regent from 1984 to 1993 and as Chairman of the Board of Regents from 1991 to 1993. He was elected 75th President in 1994, an office to which he immediately brought great panache. Unfortunately, during his presidential year he developed a massive recurrence of a bladder cancer, first treated twelve years previously. With typical courage he elected to have chemotherapy ‘spaced’ so that he could preside over the Annual Clinical Meeting, at which his successor was to be inaugurated. The attributes which contributed to Alec Walt’s great distinction as an academic surgeon were a keen intelligence, capacity for hard work, absolute integrity, a deep concern for all people, particularly the young, and, greatest of all, a deep and sincere humility. He did not suffer fools gladly and had no hesitation in attacking the uncritical, unscientific or badly presented paper with a characteristic irony; but he would always have a kind congratulatory word for those who had given of their best. A top sportsman – champion hurdler at school, captain of cricket and an athletic Blue at university – he led by example, not dictate. Realising a boyhood dream of climbing to 17,000 feet in Nepal with one of his sons and his daughter at the age of 62 while recovering from treatment of his bladder cancer, he took with him Tennyson’s Ulysses, a favourite poem, passages from which he would loudly declaim. He was devoted to his wife Irene, his three children, his son-in-law and his 20 month old granddaughter Eve Lenora, all of whom gave him the love and respect which nourished him throughout his professional life, and supported him during his final illness. Alec described his mother as a ‘homemaker’, and his wife had been no less. From the earliest days of his marriage Irene provided a home with an ever-open door, a kindness which endeared her to impoverished and hungry British fellows at the Mayo Clinic, of which I was one. Vivid personal memories of Alec Walt are firstly early days together in Rochester, Minnesota when, as the deluded captain of the first and only Mayo Clinic cricket team which lost their match in Chicago he chastised us for our dismal performance and undisciplined behaviour on the previous night; later, when as visiting professor to his department in Detroit, joint discussions with his students revealed the depth of his feelings for the inequalities of care for women with breast cancer which, later on at midnight in the emergency room, was extended to all of those others whom society had deprived; then at the Asian Association of Surgeons when, as President of the American College of Surgeons he gave a masterly address on surgical training, during which his deep sense of responsibility for the future of young surgeons was only too evident; and finally, on the beach in Bali, when we shared our feelings of good fortune to have had a job in life which had provided us both with such great fulfilment, pleasure, and even fun. Shortly before his death he advised his son John to ‘work hard, be honest, and the rest will take care of itself’ – advice which is exemplified by the life he led. He died on 29 February 1996 aged 72, survived by his wife Irene and his children – John, a lawyer, Steven, a professor of law, and Lindsay Jane, a sculptress. Sir A Patrick Forrest with assistance from Mrs Irene Walt
Resource Identifier RCS: E000354
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Cronin, Kevin (1925 - 2005)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2007-02-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372443372443
Occupation General surgeon
Details Kevin Cronin was born on 24 July 1925, the son of M J Cronin, a general practitioner. He was educated at the Beaumont School, Berkshire, and entered the London Hospital Medical College in 1942. After qualifying, he completed house jobs in neurosurgery under Douglas Northfield, chest medicine under Lloyd Rusby, and ear, nose and throat surgery. His later training in surgery was at the Radcliffe Infirmary. During this time he spent a research year at the University of Oregon, as a result of which he obtained his masters degree in surgery. He was appointed as consultant surgeon to Northampton General Hospital. He was an Arris and Gale lecturer of the College. He married Madeleine and they had a son (Philip) and daughter (Caroline). They had four grandchildren - Sam, Chloe, Christian and Rory. He died on 20 May 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000256
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Galloway, James Brown Wallace (1930 - 2005)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372444372444
Occupation General surgeon
Details James Galloway was a consultant general surgeon in Stranraer, Scotland. He was born on 26 March 1930 in Lanark, the son of William Galloway, a farmer, and Anne née Wallace, a secretary. He received his early education at Lanark Grammar, followed by McLaren High in Callendar when the family moved there after his father’s death. At an early stage he showed the academic bent that was to remain with him throughout his life. School was followed by Glasgow University, where he graduated MA before embarking on a medical degree. After gaining his MB Ch in 1956 he undertook his National Service as a captain in the RAMC, spending a large part of his time in Hong Kong. Returning to civilian life, he opted for surgery as a career, and received his training in Glasgow. In 1966 he moved to Ballochmyle Hospital in Ayrshire. Here he made an indelible impression. He was an outstanding doctor whose interest in his subject seemed insatiable, his knowledge of it being encyclopaedic. His practical skills were also of a very high order, and he gave of himself unstintingly. He could truly be said to be dedicated to his work, and he was held in the highest regard by his medical colleagues and nursing staff alike. Though a quiet man, even self-deprecating, he had a remarkable ability to get what he wanted; where his patient’s interests were concerned he could be tenacious, to say the least, and he provided a service second to none. His interest in new developments, and his enthusiasm for new devices, were infectious. He was a most likeable colleague and he was held in considerable affection by all. His time in Hong Kong had given him a taste for travel and during the 1970s, while working in Ayrshire, he answered an advertisement placed by the Kuwait Oil Company and spent three months there as a general surgeon. His work so impressed that he was invited back for two further tours of duty. In 1981 he was appointed consultant general surgeon at the Garrick Hospital in Stranraer. Ayrshire’s loss was Stranraer’s gain, and he quickly established himself there as he had at Ballochmyle, becoming a most valued member of the community. He believed firmly that medical services should be provided locally whenever possible, and fought hard to prevent the surgical service being transferred to Dumfries. James’s other great love was sailing, and he had a succession of boats, starting with a 14-foot dinghy and culminating in *Eliane*, a very capable traditional yacht which was his pride and joy. He happily related that all his boats had one thing in common – they were so full of his beloved gadgets and equipment that they all had to have their waterlines redrawn. He was a very relaxed skipper who, though a lifelong teetotaller himself, was not in the least put out by the occasional excesses of his crew members. There can be no part of the Clyde, and few parts of the Western Isles, that he had not sailed to, and he never ceased to be glad of his origins. After retirement in 1991 he remained as active as ever, embracing the computer age with typical enthusiasm. He was a very kindly, widely read and thoughtful man who made a most interesting companion. He took up scuba diving and continued to be a very active sailor, crossing the Minch to Eriskay in his last summer. Sadly this was to be his last cruise, and thereafter he became increasingly weak. Typically he preferred to discuss the differential diagnosis rather than to complain. He died in the Ayr Hospital on 11 December 2005. He was predeceased by Janet and Anne, his two older sisters. He is greatly missed by his many friends.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000257
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Grimshaw, Clement (1915 - 2005)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2008-09-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372446372446
Occupation Research engineer
Details Godfrey Hounsfield, the inventor of the CT scanner, was the epitome of the brilliant boffin – modest, retiring and shunning the limelight. He was born on 28 August 1919, the youngest of the five children of Thomas Hounsfield, a steel engineer who took up farming in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire. There Godfrey grew up surrounded by farm machinery, with which he became fascinated. ‘In a village there are few distractions and no pressures to join in at a ball game or go to the cinema and I was free to follow the trail of any interesting idea that came my way. I constructed electrical recording machines; I made hazardous investigations of the principles of flight, launching myself from the tops of haystacks with a home-made glider; I almost blew myself up during exciting experiments using water-filled tar barrels and acetylene to see how high they could be waterjet propelled.’ At Magnus Grammar School he was interested only in physics and mathematics. At the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the RAF as a volunteer reservist and was taken on as a radar mechanic instructor, occupying himself in building a large-screen oscilloscope. His work was noticed by Air Vice Marshall Cassidy, who got him a grant after the war to attend Faraday House Electrical Engineering College, where he received a diploma. He then joined the staff of EMI working on radar and guided weapons, working with primitive computers. In 1958 he led a team building the first all-transistor computer, speeding up the transistors by providing them with a magnetic core. In 1967 he began to study aspects of pattern recognition and worked in the Central Research Laboratories of EMI. Contrary to the public relations story, which has been repeated so often that it has come to be accepted as true, his idea did not occur to him when out walking, and it was not supported by the full resources of EMI. His colleague, W E Ingham, pointed out that EMI were not interested: they were not in the medical business, and it was only covertly that a deal was done with the Department of Health and Society Security to fund the development of what became the first CT scanner. The first brain to be scanned was that of a bullock. The prototype was soon shown to be successful in 1971, when it was used to diagnose a brain cyst at Atkinson Morley’s Hospital and before long Hounsfield’s work had been plagiarised and developed all over the world, mostly overseas. Hounsfield was unaware that Cormack, of Tufts, had published theoretical studies on the mathematics for such a device. A whole-body scanner was introduced in 1975. Honours came thick and fast: CBE, FRS, the Nobel prize (shared with Cormack), a knighthood and an honorary FRCS. He remained a modest, retiring bachelor. His advice to the young was: ‘Don’t worry if you can’t pass exams, so long as you feel you have understood the subject.’ In retirement he did voluntary work at the Royal Brompton and Heart Hospitals. He died from a chronic and progressive lung disease on 12 August 2004. He was unmarried.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000259
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Hopper, Ian (1938 - 2005)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2007-08-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372449372449
Occupation General surgeon
Details Jan Frederik Halvorsen was director of the department of surgery and professor of surgery at the University of Bergen, Norway. He graduated from the University of Bergen Medical School in 1960, becoming a general surgical specialist in 1968 with a special interest in intestinal surgery. He gained a PhD for his work on blood pressure within the liver. His first appointment was at Stavanger Hospital, followed by the Rikshopitalet in Oslo. He also worked at the United Nations Hospital in Gaza. In 1964 he was appointed to Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, where he remained until illness forced his retirement in 2001. He moved through the department of pathology and the gynaecology clinic, but his main focus was surgery. He initially specialised in endocrine surgery, but eventually developed his interest in GI surgery, particularly the diagnosis and treatment of bowel disorders. He published over 100 papers on diseases of the GI tract. He took a sabbatical, spending time at St Mark’s Hospital, London. He became professor of surgery at Bergen University and, as a result of his involvement with the Norwegian Medical Association, he was responsible for the coordination of postgraduate studies. His door was always open to students and colleagues. The organisation of training and the decentralising of courses were a demanding project. He organised the coordination of 1,100 courses involving 25,000 participants. In 1992 he was chosen to coordinate university exchanges between the Hanseatic towns of Lubeck in Germany and Bergen. His enormous experience, knowledge, friendly amiability and dynamism helped him to establish important international contacts and successful exchanges. He was a generous man and established great and permanent friendships with both the students and the specialists in both these cities. He also organised many visits of groups of surgeons from other countries, including the UK. He was a great communicator and spoke impeccable English. He was extremely interested in English literature. He belonged to a British surgical travelling club and was one of its most enthusiastic members. Even when he was suffering from serious cardiac problems he determinedly joined the group on a visit to Spain. In 1988 he was made an honorary Fellow of the College. This particular honour he cherished more than the other many honours he received. Jan Frederik Halvorsen was an extremely skilled surgeon, with vast theoretical knowledge and practical experience. In addition to the qualities he showed as a surgeon, his organisational skills in health management were used to great effect in improving postgraduate education in Norway. Patients and doctors benefited from these attributes. He left a great legacy. He was a strong family man. He leaves his wife Sissel and four children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000262
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Addison, Norman Victor (1925 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by David Currie
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2018-05-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372451372451
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Christopher Thomas Blaiklock was a consultant neurosurgeon at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. He was born on 27 July 1936 in Newcastle upon Tyne and raised in Northumbria. His parents, Thomas Snowdon Blaiklock and Constance Rebecca Blaiklock, were both doctors. He attended Oundle School, Northampton, and then carried out his National Service (from 1954 to 1956) in the Royal Navy. He went on to study medicine at Durham, qualifying in 1961. Chris was influenced by his medical house officer post with the Newcastle neurologist, Sir John Walton. His original intention was to pursue a career as a physician, but, having passed the MRCP in 1966, he came to the view that, with the resources available at the time, he could achieve more for patients as a surgeon and he did his basic surgical training in Cardiff. He decided on a career in neurosurgery which, at the time, could not be said to be the most successful of surgical specialties, but he was fortunate to be regularly in the right place at the right time. He was a neurosurgical registrar at Atkinson Morley Hospital in London, which was famous (or notorious) for giving a rigorous training. While he was there the first CT (computed tomography) scanner in the world was installed and Chris was among the first neurosurgeons to experience the revolutionary transformation of neurological imaging and the huge improvement that brought to patients' experience of neurological diagnosis. In 1972, he was appointed as a senior registrar in neurosurgery in Glasgow with Bryan Jennett at a time when Glasgow was being recognised as a centre of excellence in neurosurgical research. The first CT scanner in Scotland was installed in Glasgow during his training there. In 1974, he was appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. He was only the third neurosurgeon in Aberdeen after Martin Nichols and Bob Fraser. The department covered the whole of the North of Scotland, including the Northern and Western isles. In addition to providing a comprehensive neurosurgery service, the department housed, prior to the advent of intensive care units, the only ventilation unit in the region and the two neurosurgeons were responsible for its management along with a single trainee. Chris brought his experience of CT imaging and saw the installation of the first CT scanner in Aberdeen. He introduced the operating microscope and effectively brought neurosurgery in Aberdeen into the modern era. When the world's first MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner was built and became available for clinical use, Chris was the first neurosurgeon in the world to employ it and gain experience in its use in neurosurgery. Chris was unusual in being a neurosurgeon who was also a member (and subsequently a fellow) of the Royal College of Physicians, and his diagnostic skills were evidence of his broad general knowledge. For many years, the neurosurgeons in Aberdeen also offered the out-of-hours neurology service, handing patients over to the well-rested neurologists in the morning. Chris often remarked that he could just as easily have enjoyed being an engineer. He had a fascination with how things worked. He carried a skill with tools and his manual dexterity into his operative surgery. He was a true craftsman. His operative surgery was calm, precise and quick, and an inspiration to his trainees. He was an NHS partisan. Despite a heavy workload, his waiting times were negligible and he was offended on occasions when it was suggested to him that he might see a patient 'privately'. He was intensely proud of the local service and of the beautiful territory he served. He enjoyed demonstrating the extent of the territory he covered by placing a pair of compasses on Aberdeen and passing it through his most distant centre of habitation - one of the North Sea oil platforms. The circle also passed through Watford. He contributed extensively to NHS administration, both locally and nationally. With the introduction of clinical management, he became director of surgery for Grampian - a post that he accepted without dropping any clinical sessions. He lacked self-importance or pomposity, and was genuinely interested in people and their occupations and he was always available. For a year, while the other consultant post was unfilled, he provided the service single-handedly. Chris Blaiklock died at home on 8 February 2018 at the age of 81 and was survived by his wife Judith, an anaesthetist, and by his son, Ian, and daughter, Fiona. He will be remembered with great affection by former patients, colleagues in all health professions and by his trainees who have occupied consultant posts in Scotland and in other countries.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000264
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Bond, Kenneth Edgar (1908 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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 Milton, Catherine Maureen (1951 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Neil Weir
Publication Date 2007-08-16 2009-05-07
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/372565372565
Occupation Otolaryngologist ENT surgeon
Details Catherine Milton was a consultant otolaryngologist at Kent and Sussex Hospital, Tunbridge Wells. She was born in Bristol on 6 April 1951, the middle of three children. Her brothers were Kevin and Richard. Her parents, Maureen and Robert, were both primary school teachers. The family moved in Catherine’s early teens to Littlehampton in West Sussex, her parents pursuing new opportunities at the local primary school. Catherine attended Worthing High School for Girls from 1962 to 1969 and subsequently read zoology at King’s College, London, graduating with a BSc honours degree in 1972. From there Catherine transferred to medicine, to the Middlesex Hospital, where she qualified in 1977. As part of her student training at the Middlesex she was attached to the Ear, Nose and Throat department under Sir Douglas Ranger, Dick Williams and Garfield-Davies, kindling her interest in ENT. Catherine then secured a training post at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital in Gray’s Inn Road, where Sir Donald Harrison was the patriarchal head of department. Catherine was one of three mercurial female senior surgical trainees at Gray’s Inn Road at this time. Of the others, Vicky Moore-Gillon was later appointed to St George’s, London, and Valerie Lund became chair of ENT at the Institute of Laryngology and Otology. Catherine was subsequently a senior registrar at St George’s Hospital, where in addition to advancing her surgical training, Brian Pickard, the senior surgeon in the department, enthused Catherine with his love of flying. She embarked on, but never completed, her private pilots licence. Following a six month sabbatical in Hillbrow Hospital, South Africa, with Theo Gregor, she returned to the UK and was appointed to her consultant point at the Kent and Sussex Hospital in Tunbridge Wells, joining Robert Sergeant. Catherine’s main interests lay within her paediatric practice, particularly otology. Outside medicine, Catherine maintained her earlier interest in zoology and kept a keen interest in animal husbandry, accumulating copious dogs, Jacob sheep, Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, New Forest ponies and a number of chipmunks, the latter she had inherited from Donald and Audrey Harrison. Catherine married a medical school classmate, Graham Venn, later a cardiothoracic surgeon at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, in 1979 and the couple had two children. James, the elder, followed his mother’s leanings, studying zoology at University College London before converting to law and being called to the Bar in 2006. Jonathan, following a music exhibition at Tonbridge School, studied commercial music at Leeds and Cambridge. The marriage ultimately ended in 2002. Catherine retired prematurely from practice at 50 with progressive ill health, finding the stresses of a changing and pressing surgical practice increasingly arduous. Following her retirement her health deteriorated and, following a short illness, Catherine died of hepatic failure with concomitant breast carcinoma on 18 August 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000381
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jefferiss, Christopher David (1940 - 2004)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-08-16
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/372566372566
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Christopher Jefferiss was a consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon in Devon. He was the son of Derek Jefferiss, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist in Exeter. Like his father, he was an undergraduate at the Middlesex Hospital, where he qualified in 1964. He held a variety of junior posts at the Middlesex, Weymouth and District, and the Royal Devon and Exeter hospitals, before becoming a senior house officer at the Princess Elizabeth Orthopaedic Hospital in Exeter in 1970, gaining the FRCS in the same year. He then abandoned his intention of becoming an obstetrician and gynaecologist in favour of orthopaedics, becoming successively registrar, senior registrar and finally consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at the Princess Elizabeth and Royal Devon and Exeter hospitals, eventually specialising in the surgery of the hand and the foot. He was an active member of the Hand Society and also the British Society for the Surgery of the Foot, and published 14 papers as author and co-author, mostly to do with the hand. Christopher played a leading part in the postgraduate orthopaedic training programme in Exeter. He became lead clinician in orthopaedics in 1996, and in 1997 clinical director for trauma, orthopaedics and rheumatology. In 2001 he was awarded a certificate of commendation by the BMA and the chairman’s award from the Devon and Exeter NHS Trust in recognition of his outstanding service. He was much sought after as a medico-legal specialist and was regarded by all as a man of great integrity and wisdom. He died on 26 November 2004 from a cerebellar tumour, and is survived by his wife Madlen, a former Bart’s theatre sister and by their three children, Fred, Lizzie and Emily.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000382
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Davis, John Marshall (1920 - 2006)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching O'Neill, Thomas (1912 - 2000)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2012-06-28 2014-06-27
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002500-E002599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374733374733
Occupation General surgeon
Details Tom O'Neill was a general surgeon at Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital in Dublin, Ireland. He was born on 22 May 1912 near Newmarket, County Cork, and attended Presentation College, Cork, and then University College, Cork, where he studied medicine. He qualified in 1935. After house posts, he went to England. He trained at Halifax Royal Infirmary and was a surgeon in the Emergency Medical Service in London in the Second World War, working through the Blitz. He was then a resident surgical officer and surgical chief assistant at Manchester Royal Infirmary. In 1949 he became a consultant surgeon at Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital in Dublin. At the time, his appointment caused controversy: it was then unheard of for a Catholic surgeon to be appointed to a Protestant hospital. He stayed at the hospital until his retirement in 1977. He was also a lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin. He wrote mainly on partial gastrectomy for peptic ulcer, for which he invented a useful modification. He was president of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland from 1988 to 1990. He was also retained by leading insurers as a medical expert. Outside medicine, he played hurling as a student, and then golf later on. In 1945 he married Dorothy Moriarty, who was also a doctor. They had five sons. Tom O'Neill died in 2000.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002550
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Phatak, Prabhakar Shankar (1936 - 2011)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2012-06-28 2014-06-27
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002500-E002599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374734374734
Occupation General surgeon
Details Prabhakar Shankar Phatak, known as 'Prabhu', was a consultant general surgeon at the Whittington Hospital. He was born in Pusad, Maharashtra, India, on 20 March 1936, the son of Shankar Ganesh Phatak, a lawyer, and Uma Phatak née Kelkar, a housewife. His mother's father was a doctor. He attended the local government high school, matriculating with first class honours and five distinctions. He then studied sciences at Vidarbha Mahavidyalaya College in Amravati and joined Nagpur Medical College in 1954. He qualified MB BS in 1960. In 1961 he went to the UK for further training, and gained his FRCS in 1967. He was a registrar at Bishop's Stortford, Queen Mary's, Sidcup, and at the Whittington Hospital in London. He was appointed as a consultant surgeon at the Whittington, and later worked in Dudley and Luton. In 1967 he married Jean McKinnon, who later became a GP. They had two children, a daughter, Nilima, a consultant haematologist, and a son, Devendra, and five grandchildren. Phatak died on 24 December 2011, aged 75.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002551
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Pyne, John Robin (1939 - 2012)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2012-06-28 2013-10-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002500-E002599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374735374735
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details John Pyne was a consultant ophthalmic surgeon at the Norfolk and Norwich and West Norwich hospitals, and also worked privately at the BUPA Hospital Norwich in Colney, Norfolk. One of nature's true gentlemen, he had a courteous approach to his many grateful patients, his colleagues, junior staff and the nursing staff who supported him in his work. He was born in Shoeburyness, Essex, on 13 April 1939 the son of Edward Gordon Pyne, a chest physician, and his wife Gladys Elizabeth Anne née Conway. He spent the first seven years of his life in India, where his father was stationed in the Army. The family returned to the UK for John's education, first in Chelmsford and then at Felsted School. He went for his medical education to Charing Cross Hospital, London, and qualified in 1965. Pre-registration house appointments followed at the hospital in surgery and medicine, followed by a casualty officer post. He recorded his gratitude to A Harding Rains, Peter Philips, the urologist, and Leslie Oliver, a neurosurgeon. John decided quite early in his career to specialise in ophthalmic surgery: his further training was at Moorfields. As a senior registrar there he also had sessions at the National Hospital, Queen's Square, and Great Ormond Street. At Moorfields he was greatly influenced by Barrie Jones, Lorimer Fison, a pioneer retinal surgeon, and Ayoub and Greaves. He joined the Norwich ophthalmic department as a consultant in 1974, and was an excellent colleague to Peter Hunter, Peter James and later Peter Davies. Although very general in his approach, he later specialised in retinal surgery. He wrote just three papers; his first, 'Carcinoma of the penis in a Jew circumcised in infancy' (*Br J Surg* 1967 Aug; 54[8]:729-31) was a particularly unusual contribution from a doctor destined to be an eye surgeon. After retiring from active NHS work, John continued to work as a locum for local opticians, conducting eye examinations and had sessions at D R Grey and at Dipple and Conway. He was well-known for his professional ability, and for his charming and compassionate manner. The opticians felt greatly privileged to have his assistance, admiring him for the depth of his knowledge. John undertook a lot of unpaid voluntary work. In Norwich he worked for the Samaritans. Further afield, he gave his valuable services to Fight for Sight in Africa, operating on and restoring the gift of sight to hundreds of Africans. Outside medicine John had many interests. He was a good pianist and enjoyed playing the works of Mozart and Chopin in particular, but had a wide knowledge of classical music, particularly orchestral works. He possessed a fine tenor voice and sang in the Norwich Philharmonic Choir and other choirs, and at many concerts throughout Norfolk. He enjoyed swimming, playing squash, and enjoyed skiing, mainly in the Trois Vallées region of France. His last skiing trip was to Verbier, Switzerland, three years before he died. As a medical student he met Judith Carolyn née Wheaton: they married in 1963 whilst they were both students. They had two sons, Stephen and Michael, and a daughter, Anna. Stephen works in education, Michael is a commercial airline pilot and Anna is a professional musician. They describe him succinctly as a 'fine man and a wonderful father'. In 1997 John married his second wife, Marcelle née Chapman, who had three children by her first marriage. They lived very happily in Shotesham village, where, coincidentally, the first surgeon to the original Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, Benjamin Gooch, lived and practised as a surgeon-apothecary in the eighteenth century. John Pyne developed bowel cancer which was treated surgically and then by courses of chemotherapy for two years. He never complained and was active into his last few months. He died at his home in Shotesham on 20 May 2012 at the age of 73. He was survived by his second wife Marcelle, his three children, 12 grandchildren and three step-children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002552
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Robinson, Clayton Lindsay Nelson (1919 - 2011)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Richard Robinson
Publication Date 2012-06-28 2012-09-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002500-E002599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374736374736
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details Clayton Lindsay Nelson Robinson, known as 'Robbie', was a thoracic surgeon in Vancouver, Canada. He was born in Chapeau, Quebec, the son of Joseph Edward Robinson, a rancher, and Ada Elizabeth Robinson née Armstrong. He was raised on a farm in Meath, Ontario, the youngest of three sons who were all destined to become doctors. Educated in the Ottawa Valley towns of Pembroke and Renfrew, he graduated early from Queen's Medical School in 1943 and volunteered for the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve. He served on the HMCS *Middlesex* in the Atlantic convoy escort as a surgeon lieutenant until the end of the Second World War, when he joined the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy and travelled to Ceylon for three months. He was very proud of his time in the Navy, and loved telling stories about his time on the high seas. After the war, Clayton demonstrated anatomy at the University of Toronto under J C B Grant (he wrote Grant's biography in 1993 for the Canadian Medical Association). His medical training in thoracic surgery continued in Vancouver and England, and he met his wife Kathleen Feenan at Southend-on-Sea Hospital. They were married on St Patrick's Day 1952 and honeymooned in Ireland, where Clayton kissed the Blarney Stone. Clayton and Kathleen lived in Saskatoon from 1958 to 1966, where he was a member of the department of surgery and worked at University Hospital. He was president of both the Canadian Thoracic Association and Saskatoon Medical Association in 1965. The family moved to Vancouver in 1966 and Clayton worked primarily at Vancouver General, Shaughnessy and St Vincent's hospitals and as a professor of surgery at the University of British Columbia. His work was his passion, and he was much loved by his patients and hospital staff. His crowning glory came in 1982 when he was invited to give a Hunterian Lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. The topic of his lecture was 'The role of surgery of the thymus for myasthenia gravis'. He was extremely honoured and proud of this invitation. In 1985, Clayton turned 65 and, along with 14 other physicians, lost his privileges at Vancouver General Hospital. They challenged this newly-created hospital by-law on the grounds that it infringed the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the basis of age discrimination. This precedent-setting case was eventually heard in the Supreme Court of Canada in 1990 and became the basis for many of the mandatory retirement policies of today. Clayton also loved the sea and the mountains, and he built two sailing dinghies and a family cabin at Whistler, where family and friends shared many happy times. Although Kathleen was the social planner, Clayton loved making Irish coffees to 'splice the mainbrace'. He was an avid reader, frustrated gardener and regular attendee at the Vancouver Symphony, Vancouver Opera, and Vancouver Men's Welsh Choir. Clayton passed away in his home on 13 November 2011 at the age of 92. Predeceased by his wife Kathleen in 2009, he was survived by his children Moya, Elspeth and Richard, and his five grandchildren, Lucy, Anna, Tessa, Andrew and James.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002553
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Rumble, John Anthony (1930 - 2011)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2012-06-28 2014-06-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002500-E002599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374737374737
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details John Anthony Rumble was a consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Southend General Hospital. Before he attended medical school, Rumble carried out his National Service with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Hong Kong. He subsequently went to Sheffield University to study medicine, qualifying in 1955. He then spent two years as a ships surgeon with P&O, and another two years in general practice before deciding to train as an ophthalmic surgeon. He was a resident surgical officer at Birmingham and Midland Eye Hospital, and then a senior registrar to the United Birmingham Hospitals. In 1967 he became a consultant in Southend. He also worked for several ophthalmic charities in Newfoundland, India and Cambodia. Outside medicine, Rumble was an enthusiastic sailor. He learnt to sail in Hong Kong, and was a founder member of the Sheffield University Sailing Club. He returned to sailing when he gained his consultant post on the east coast. He was also interested in classical literature, music and poetry. In his retirement he took up cross stitch. John Anthony Rumble died on 29 September 2011.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002554
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Shaw, Peter Cosmo (1934 - 2012)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2012-06-28 2014-06-30
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002500-E002599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374738374738
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Peter Cosmo Shaw was an orthopaedic surgeon in Bromley. He was born in Streatham, London, on 24 February 1934, the son of Eric Cosmo Shaw, a dental surgeon and orthodontist, and Dorothy Margaret Shaw née Butler, a maths teacher. Shaw's grandfather, David Cosmo Shaw, a dentist in Aberdeen, was said to have assisted Sir Arthur Keith in examining the jaw of the notorious 'Piltdown man', which was claimed to be an example of an early human ancestor and was later proved to be a hoax. Shaw was educated at Dulwich, but spent some time at school in Scotland when he was evacuated to an aunt in Scotland during the Second World War. He went on to Guy's Hospital Medical School, qualifying in 1957. He held house surgeon posts at Guy's and St Helier hospitals, where he was influenced by the general surgeon Aubrey York Mason. He then joined the RAMC for his National Service, choosing to take a short service commission. He entered as a lieutenant and served for three years as a surgeon at the Royal Herbert Hospital in Woolwich. He left the Army in 1963 having been promoted to the rank of captain. From 1963 to 1964 he was a surgical registrar at Sutton General Hospital. He was then a casualty officer at St James' Hospital, Balham, and a senior house officer at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital for a further six months. He returned to Guy's Hospital in 1965, as a surgical registrar in plastic surgery. From 1966, for 18 months, he was a senior registrar in orthopaedics at Guy's, and then at King's College Hospital for another four months. In 1969 he became a locum consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Bromley group, working at Farnborough, Bromley, Beckenham, Sydenham Children's and Cheyne hospitals. In October of that year he was appointed to the staff of these hospitals. From 1985 he also taught orthopaedic surgery. He retired from the NHS in 1999 and from private practice in 2002. Earlier in his career he was particularly interested in hand surgery, but later focused on all forms of joint replacement surgery, especially hip replacement. He enjoyed being able to help his patients and greatly loved teaching his junior doctors. He was generally admired and respected by his medical colleagues and the nursing staff. An anaesthetist, who was also a friend, wrote: 'His operating was neat beyond compare, wielding his tools like a paintbrush, unhurried but no time wasted, punctual, never a harsh word and never ever flustered.' He was a member of the British Orthopaedic Association and KROC (King's Rotational Orthopaedic Club). Outside medicine, he enjoyed squash (playing to county standard), tennis, scuba diving and underwater photography, gardening, walking, swimming and horse riding. He liked to draw and painted in oils and acrylics. He married Angela Dodman, a theatre sister, in 1958. They had a daughter, Jennifer Caryl, and a son, Nigel Cosmo, and four grandchildren. Peter Cosmo Shaw died on 14 April 2012 from a glioblastoma. He was 78.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002555
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Simpson, Elisabeth Davis Liken ( - 2012)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2012-06-28 2014-07-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002500-E002599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374739374739
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Elizabeth Davis Liken Simpson was an honorary ophthalmic surgeon at St James' Hospital, Balham, St George's Hospital, Tooting, and the South London Hospital for Women and Children. She qualified MB BCh BAO in Dublin in 1941, and gained the diploma in ophthalmic medicine and surgery in 1944. Prior to her appointments in Balham and Tooting, she was an ophthalmic surgeon at Queen Mary's Hospital for Children in Carshalton. She also served in the RAF as a squadron leader, and was a chief clinical assistant at Moorfields Eye Hospital. She died on 31 January 2012.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002556
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Park, William Douglas (1912 - 2004)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Pearce, Roger Malcolm (1943 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Eley, Arnold Amos ( - 1998)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 2015-10-28
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/372298372298
Occupation General surgeon
Details Arnold Eley qualified at Charing Cross and after junior posts did his National Service in the RAMC as a junior surgical specialist. On leaving the Army he was registrar at the Connaught Hospital under J Thompson Fathi and surgical first assistant at St George's before being appointed to the Surrey Hospital Group. He published on perfusion of the liver and jaundice in severe infections. He retired to Yelverton in Devon where he died on 15 December 1998.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000111
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Pichlmayr, Rudolf (1932 - 1997)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 2012-03-13
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/372299372299
Occupation Transplant surgeon
Details Rudolf Pichlmayr was a pioneering German transplant surgeon. He was born on 16 May 1932 in Munich, Germany. He graduated from the University of Munich Medical School in 1956, and in 1959 started his career in medicine at the same university. He qualified as a surgeon in 1964. In 1967, he presented his postdoctoral thesis to the medical faculty of the University of Munich for qualification as a privatdozent, and in the same year became an assistant professor. In 1968 he and Hans George Borst moved to the Medizinische Hochschule in Hanover to develop the new department of surgery. A year later, Pichlmayr was appointed as professor of transplantation and special surgery, and in 1973 he was endowed with the first chair of abdominal and transplantation surgery. He served his faculty as dean for education from 1974 to 1978, as deputy head for research from 1989 to 1991, and as chairman of the ethical committee from 1984. Pichlmayr carried out the first kidney transplantation in Hanover in 1968, and the first liver transplantation in 1972. He subsequently initiated and supervised a large number of experimental and clinical research programmes in the field of transplantation surgery and biology. Together with his wife Ina Pichlmayr he established the Foundation for Rehabilitation following Organtransplantation in Dolsach, Austria. Aside from transplantation, Rudolf Pichlmayr was an internationally recognised expert on abdominal surgery, particularly liver surgery and surgical oncology. He was President of numerous national and international scientific societies and organisations, including the German Medical Association and the department of health of the federal government in Bonn. As President of the German Association for Surgery, Rudolf Pichalmyr organised the 113th annual congress in Berlin in 1996. He was a member of many surgical societies, including the European Society for Surgical Research and received prestigious awards and honours, including honorary Fellowships of the College and of American College of Surgeons. He published a number of books and was also on the editorial boards of several surgical and transplantation journals. Pichlmayr died on 29 August 1997, during the 37th World Congress of Surgery in Acapulco, Mexico, while taking a morning swim. He had five children with his wife Ina.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000112
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Henson, Philip (1914 - 2005)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Nevill, Gerald Edward (1915 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372467372467
Occupation General surgeon
Details Gerald Nevill was a consultant surgeon in Kenya. He was born on 22 December 1915 in Nurney, County Carlow, Ireland, the son of Alexander Colles Nevill, Archdeacon of the Church of Ireland, and Rosettah Fitzgerald, a teacher of modern languages and one of the first women to graduate from the University of Dublin. He was educated at Kilkenny College, where he gained a scholarship to Campbell College, Belfast. He subsequently won the McNeil medal for mathematics and played rugby for his school. He won an entrance sizarship to Dublin University, won first class honours in all his examinations, came first in the final examinations, was awarded the Hudson medal and scholarship, and played rugby for the university. After qualifying, he was house surgeon at the Adelaide Hospital, Dublin, Salford Royal Hospital, St Mary’s Hospital, Portsmouth, and the Royal Children’s Hospital, Brighton. From 1940 to 1944 he served with the East African Forces. He went to London to do the Guy’s FRCS course and, having passed the FRCS, returned to Kenya as the successor to Roland Burkitt in Nairobi. He was appointed honorary consultant surgeon to the Native Civil Hospital, later the King George VI Hospital, and subsequently the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi. He held honorary lecturer appointments at the Makerere University Hospital, Kampala, and the University of Nairobi Medical School, and was on the organising committee of the new medical school. He published many articles on general surgical topics in the *East African Medical Journal* and was a foundation member and later president of the Association of Surgeons of East Africa. Gerald Nevill married twice. His first wife was Hilda Francis Lurring, a school teacher, by whom he had three sons, one of whom became a doctor. His second marriage was to Mary Evelyn Furnivall née Brown. He continued on the rugby field for many years as a referee and was chairman of the Kenya Referees Society from 1965 to 1980. He was a keen fisherman and freemason. He died on 23 January 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000280
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Fisk, Geoffrey Raymond (1916 - 2007)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-02-21 2009-02-10
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372634372634
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Geoffrey Fisk was a senior orthopaedic surgeon at Princess Alexandra Hospital, Harlow. He was born in Goodmayes, Essex, on 26 May 1916. His father, Harry Marcus Fisk, company director of Meredith and Drew, the biscuit manufacturers, was a descendent of an ancient Suffolk family. One of his ancestors, Nicholas Ffyske (1602-1680), was a physician and a prominent Parliamentarian. Geoffrey’s mother was Jane Gerdes. He was a scholar at Ilford County High School, from which he went on to study medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. After qualifying in 1939, he was house surgeon to Harold Wilson, and then casualty officer and senior orthopaedic house surgeon to Sidney Higgs. In 1941 he went to the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) unit at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, as a junior surgeon, registrar and chief assistant, before joining the RAF medical branch in 1945. He was in charge of the orthopaedic division at Northallerton, then went to Wroughton Hospital, before becoming senior orthopaedic specialist at the Central Medical Establishment in London. Leaving the RAF as a wing commander in 1948, he returned to Bart’s as an orthopaedic registrar, was senior registrar at Black Notley and the Seamen’s Hospital, Greenwich, and was appointed as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Albert Dock Orthopaedic and Accident Hospital, Bishop’s Stortford Hospital and St Margaret’s Hospital, Epping, in 1950. In 1965 he moved to the new Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, remaining there until he retired in 1981. Geoffrey Fisk was awarded a Fulbright scholarship in 1952 and spent a year in St Louis, Missouri. Geoffrey was an active member of the management committee of the West Essex Group of Hospitals for 12 years and secretary, then chairman, of the North East Thames Orthopaedic Advisory Committee from 1975 to 1981. He was a Hunterian Professor in our College three times, in 1951, 1968 and 1978, presenting different aspects of his wide experience in hand surgery, on which he published extensively. He was a founder member and later president of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand and received the ‘Pioneer’ award of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand in 1998. Inevitably, he was a fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association. When the Bart’s Orthopaedic Rotational Training Programme was devised in 1969 it included segments at Harlow, where the trainees greatly benefited from his excellent teaching and he regularly attended their meetings until the year of his death. His many interests outside surgery included gardening and classical music. He was a Freeman of the City of London and a Liveryman of two Livery Companies, the Makers of Playing Cards and the Apothecaries, and he was a member of the Royal Institution. Following his retirement, he became a student at Darwin College, the postgraduate Cambridge college, which had been founded in 1964. There he took an MPhil in anthropology, and in 1995 bequeathed first editions of Andreas Vesalius’ *Fabrica* (1543) and Adrian Spigelius’ *Opera* (1645), which includes an early reprint of Harvey’s description of the circulation of the blood. He died on 10 November 2007 at the age of 91 and was survived by his wife of 63 years, Susan Airey (MB ChB Leeds) and by a daughter (Susan Clare) and two sons (Simon James and Jonathan, who is a consultant psychiatrist).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000450
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hammick, Sir Stephen Love (1777 - 1867)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Pitcairn, Sir James (1776 - 1859)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-02-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372637372637
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on July 18th, 1776, the eldest son of the Rev Robert Pitcairn, of Brasenose College, Oxford, Vicar of English Combe, Somerset, and Incumbent of Spring Chapel, London. The family originated in Pitcairn, Fifeshire, and to it belonged the two well-known physicians – William Pitcairn, MD (1711-1791), Physician and Treasurer to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, and President of the College of Physicians; and his nephew, David Pitcairn, MD (1749-1800), his successor as Physician to St Bartholomew’s. James Pitcairn went to school in London, and then was a pupil of Sir Everard Home at St George’s Hospital at the same time as Benjamin Brodie. Having graduated MD at Edinburgh, he returned to become house surgeon at St George’s Hospital. He was thereupon selected by Sir Everard Home for special service at the request of the Commander-in-Chief, was gazetted at once a Staff Surgeon on Aug 30th, 1799, and was sent in 1814 to Holland, where he served to the end of the campaign, and then with the Russian Contingent at Guernsey. In 1800 he went to Ireland to the charge of the 56th Regiment, which was soon dispatched to the Mediterranean under Sir Charles Stewart, and joined the Army under Sir Ralph Abercrombie on the expedition to Egypt where he served to the close of the campaign. He returned to Dublin in 1802 in charge of the Recruiting Staff, and organized arrangements in view of the threatened invasion of England by Napoleon. From 1804-1815 he supervised the encampments formed at the Curragh and in the Connaught District of Ireland. In 1816 his services were transferred to Munster, and at Cork during thirty-one years he personally superintended the arrangements for foreign service and the embarkation. The position was full of difficulties and obstacles which his good sense and affable nature tended to lessen and remove. He was knighted by Lord Normandy in 1837 for professional services. In 1847 he succeeded Dr George Renny as Director-General of the Medical Department for Ireland until 1852, when he retired with the rank of Inspector of Hospitals. The Medical Officers of the Army presented him with a service of plate and an address. It was said of him that he discouraged criticism of the absent with such interruptions as: “Never let your mouth be opened unless for good; if you cannot speak to the credit of a man, keep it shut. This has been my rule through life and I have never had cause to regret it.” He died at 3 Haddington Road, Dublin, on Jan 12th, 1859.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000453
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Soden, John Smith (1780 - 1863)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-02-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372638372638
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Coventry on March 29th, 1780; was educated at King Edward’s Grammar School. He was then apprenticed to George Freer, of Birmingham, the author of *Aneurysm and some Diseases of the Arterial System* (1807), who evidently inspired his pupils with higher aims that the mere routine of practice, for Soden was Jacksonian Prizeman in 1810 with an essay on “The Bite of Rabid Animal”. Moreover, Joseph Hodgson (q.v.), a fellow pupil with Soden, President of the College in 1864, was the author in the following year (1811) of the Jacksonian Prize Essay on “Wounds and Diseases of the Arteries and Veins” – an elaborate piece of work. Having qualified in 1800, Soden entered the Army as a Hospital Mate on June 13th, 1800, became Assistant Surgeon in the 79th Highlanders three days later, served in Egypt, and resigned before April 16th, 1803. After returning to London he settled in practice at Bath, where he was appointed Surgeon to the United Hospitals, the Eye Infirmary, the Penitentiary, and the Lock Hospital. He thus took up a position as a leading practitioner in Bath, a successful operator and eye surgeon. He was an original member of the British Medical Association. He practised at 101 Sydney Place, Bath, and died in retirement on March 19th, 1863. His son, John Soden (q.v.), succeeded to his practice. He was ambidextrous in operating for cataract, sitting facing the patient, the patient also sitting; he made the lower incision by means of Baer’s triangular knife. Puncturing the cornea almost vertically, he watched for the jet of aqueous humour, then carried the knife across the anterior chamber without touching the iris. Soden made an admirable collection of the Portraits of Medical Men – Ancient and Modern, British and Foreign. It was presented after his death to the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society by his son John Soden, of Bath. The collection consists of four folio volumes containing 872 mounted medical portraits, with two additional volumes, the one of caricatures and newspaper cuttings, the other of autograph letters and signatures of medical men. The six volumes are preserved at the Royal Society of Medicine, where they are known as ‘The Soden Collection’. Publications:- “On Inguinal Aneurysm, Cured by Tying the External Iliac Artery.” – *Med-Chir. Trans.*, 1816, vii, 536. “Of Poisoning by Arsenic” – *London Med Rev*, 1811. *Address* at the Third Anniversary of the Bath District Branch of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, 1839, 8vo, Bath, 1839. *Address* at the Annual Meeting of the Bath and Bristol District Branch of the above, 1854.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000454
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Young, George William ( - 1850)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Crowfoot, William Henchman (1780 - 1848)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-02-21 2011-09-07
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/372640372640
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on Sept 9th, 1780, at Kessingland, a village on the Suffolk coast, where his father occupied a large farm. His mother, who was a daughter of the Rev J Henchman, died while he was an infant, and he was placed in charge of his uncle by marriage, the Rev W Clubbe, Vicar of Brandeston. Mr Clubbe, an elegant Latin scholar, taught him to love classical studies. In 1794 he was apprenticed to his uncle, Mr Crowfoot, of Beccles, who was a second father to him, and in 1799 he came to London and entered as a pupil at the Borough hospitals under Cline and Astley Cooper, the latter of whom became his friend in after-life. Sir Astley Cooper in his work on *Dislocations* (1842) refers to Crowfoot as one who, "to high professional skill, adds all the amiable qualities which can become a man." Crowfoot hoped to obtain through his patron's influence a medical appointment in India, but he failed in this and settled at Framlington. In 1803, his practice being limited there, he removed at his uncle's suggestion to Beccles, and in 1805 became his partner, thenceforward obtaining high professional credit and success. It was in the December of 1805 that he accidentally met a party bearing the body of a soldier who had been thrown on the beach at Kessingland and lain for several hours apparently dead. Finding that the precordia still retained some warmth, he caused the body to be carried to a house, and persevering in the means of restoration which his professional skill suggested, he at length revived the sufferer. For this action the Royal Humane Society awarded him a silver medal. He died, after an illness of only four days, on Nov 13th, 1848, of typhus fever, contracting the disease from a post-mortem on a typhus patient. At the time of his death he was Consulting Surgeon to the Beccles Dispensary. Publications:- Crowfoot's publications record the remarkable results of his own experience and are characterized by strong good sense. They include:- "On Carditis." - *Edin Med and Surg Jour*, 1809, v, 298. He stressed the connection between rheumatism and carditis before that connection was so much insisted upon as at present. "Surgical Cases." - *Ibid*, 1825, xxiv, 260. "On the Use of Extension in Fractures of the Spine." - *Jour Prov Med and Surg Assoc*, 1843, xi, 337. In this paper he showed the value and success of the treatment in cases too often regarded as hopeless.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000456
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bryce, Alexander Graham (1890 - 1968)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Golding-Bird, Cuthbert Hilton (1848 - 1939)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Gordon-Taylor, Sir Gordon (1878 - 1960)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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 Tomes, Sir Charles Sissmore (1846 - 1928)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Brown, James Marsh (1913 - 1965)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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 Williams, Thomas Meurig (1910 - 2007)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2008-08-21 2010-02-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372729372729
Occupation General surgeon
Details Thomas Williams was a consultant general surgeon at the West Suffolk General Hospital, Bury St Edmunds. He was born into a medical family in Canterbury, Kent, on 6 May 1910, the son of Moses Thomas Williams FRCS. Tom’s schooling was first at Sir Roger Harwood’s Grammar School, Sandwich, and then Rugby School, from which he entered Oriel College, Oxford, and gained a BA degree before going on to St Thomas’ Hospital for his clinical training. After qualifying, he became a casualty officer and later a house surgeon at St Thomas’, working with Philip Mitchiner and Oswald Lloyd Davies, both of whom influenced him greatly. Later he was a resident surgical officer to St Mark’s Hospital. He had the highest regard for Norman Tanner and visited him frequently, as did many aspiring gastric surgeons. During the Second World War he served in India with the RAMC, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel. His wide general experience did not extend to vascular surgery and in later years at Bury St Edmunds he referred these cases to a newly appointed surgeon who had a wide experience in this field. Tom was a good golfer, and went abroad on regular skiing trips in his early days. He married a Miss Thomas in 1943: they had two daughters. He re-married and his second wife, Chrissie, cared for the two daughters and her own son. Retiring in 1975 to live first in Great Barton, Bury St Edmunds, he later moved to Winchester to be near his family. He died on 31 August 2007.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000545
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Morrison, Andrew William (1925 - 2006)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-08-29
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/372572372572
Occupation Otolaryngologist ENT surgeon
Details Andrew Morrison was born on 3 December 1925 in Huelva, southern Spain, where his father, William Andrew Morrison, was a mining engineer. His mother was Violet Mary née Common, the daughter of a dentist. The family returned to Scotland and Andrew attended Stirling High School, where he excelled both academically and in athletics, being victor ludorum several years running. He went on to study medicine at the University of Glasgow. After qualifying in 1948 he was a house surgeon at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, living in on the surgical ward for six months with only two weekends off, but he could watch the ships leaving port from the hospital window. He joined the Merchant Navy as a ship’s medical officer and sailed to South Africa and the Far East. On one occasion he performed an emergency lower-limb amputation on the deck of the ship when a member of the crew had been crushed by heavy equipment, not only operating but giving his anaesthetic. He did his National Service in the RAMC and was posted to Lubbecke, where he met Maureen Rawlings who was serving in the Control Commission, and they married in December 1950. On demobilisation he specialised in otolaryngology, and did a series of registrar posts in Carlisle and at the London Hospital, becoming senior registrar in 1956. He was appointed as a consultant to Whipps Cross in 1959 and to the London in 1964. Later he became a consultant at the Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital, where he worked from 1965 to 1979 as a lecturer at the University of London. It was a time when the surgery of the ear was evolving exponentially, thanks to precise high-speed drills and the operating microscope. Andrew became one of the exponents of this, thanks to his precise surgical skill. He was a pioneer and refiner of surgical technique for stapedectomy, publishing his series of 1,000 operations with outstanding results, and later made a study of its genetic basis. In the early 1960s, he visited the House Otologic Institute in California, where he learned the trans-labyrinthine surgical approach to the inner ear, developing this, in collaboration with T T King, the neurosurgeon, into their own technique for removing acoustic nerve tumours. Its superior results soon led it to be adopted throughout Europe and America. Over the next four decades he became pre-eminent in the surgery of the inner ear, leading on to the earliest multi-channel cochlear implantation. He headed Project Ear in the late 1970s and 1980s, developing purpose-built hardware for speech-processing, and was amongst the first to undertake multi-channel intra-cochlear electrodes. His trainees included many of today’s leading otologists and skull base surgeons. He travelled extensively, forging links with the leading otologists in the Western world, and was one of the few British surgeons to have been made an honorary member of the American Otologic Society. In his retirement and until his death, he continued his research into Ménière’s disease, determined to locate the gene responsible for this distressing condition, research which is being continued today by his co-workers, Mark Bailey in Glasgow, and his son, Gavin Morrison. Andrew was one of the first directors and a trustee of the British Academic Conferences in Otolaryngology, being its master in 1995. In the College he was a Hunterian Professor in 1966, on the Court of Examiners for the DLO and the FRCS, and on the SAC for otolaryngology. His interest in medico-legal work took him onto the council of the Medical Defence Union between 1971 and 1996. He was president of the section of otology at the Royal Society of Medicine, and a member of many prestigious organisations, including the Barany and Politzer Societies, the South African ORL, the Prosper Ménière’s Society of the USA. Ambitious, competitive and successful at work and sport, he was modest about the things he did best and was always a most jovial companion. Outside surgery, golf was his passion. His first hole in one was achieved as a schoolboy in Stirling; his second came some 50 years later. He was well known at St Andrews, Rye and Chigwell golf clubs, and was a member of the R & A for many years, supporting their meetings and enjoying many friendships there. He died on 6 January 2006, leaving his widow, Maureen, his daughter Claire and son Gavin, who followed him into ENT surgery.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000388
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Brooks, Donal Meredith (1917 - 2004)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-08-29 2016-09-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372573372573
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Donal Brooks was an eminent orthopaedic surgeon in London who specialised in hand surgery. He was born in Dublin on 10 April 1917, the third son of Edward Clive Brooks, the chairman and managing director of Brooks Thomas and governor of the Royal Bank of Dublin, and Kathleen née Pollock, the daughter of a doctor and one of the first women in Ireland to be awarded a degree. His grandfather, Maurice Brooks, was a Lord Mayor of Dublin. Whilst at preparatory school in Wales Donal contracted poliomyelitis, which left him with almost complete paralysis of the left leg. He was treated by several renowned orthopaedic surgeons, including Sir Robert Jones, who inspired him to follow a career in medicine and ultimately in orthopaedics. At Repton School he was the only pupil allowed to ride a bicycle. Donal undertook his medical education at Trinity College, Dublin, qualifying in 1942 and then filled various junior posts at Dr Steevens' Hospital, Dublin, before moving to Oxford, to the Wingfield-Morris Orthopaedic Hospital, to specialise in orthopaedics as house surgeon and research assistant to H J Seddon. When Seddon was appointed director of the newly-formed Institute of Orthopaedics at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital (RNOH) in 1948, Brooks accompanied him from Oxford. He had by now become Seddon's first assistant and was soon made consultant in charge of rehabilitation, and specialised in hand surgery. In 1957 he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon to Barnet General Hospital and consultant hand surgeon at the RNOH, having worked exclusively for Seddon for 15 years: he often referred to himself as 'the last of the apprentices'. He left Barnet in 1963 on his appointment to University College Hospital and in addition held honorary appointments at King Edward VII Hospital for Officers, Chailey Heritage and St Luke's Hospital for the Clergy. He was also honorary civilian consultant to the Royal Navy and the RAF. Brooks had an extensive private practice, which included three Prime Ministers and three Kings. His international reputation resulted in many overseas honorary professorships and he published extensively on poliomyelitis and hand surgery. He served on the Court of Examiners of the College, becoming chairman, and was president of the orthopaedic section of the Royal Society of Medicine and a member of the council and of the editorial board of the British Orthopaedic Association (BOA). Early in his career he was a BOA travelling fellow to North America and worked as an exchange fellow at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm. Outside medicine his many interests included music and the ballet, but particularly motor cars, including five vintage Bentleys, one of which was a frequent sight in Harley Street. He finally retired to the house and farm he had bought in Galway, where he and his wife Stephanie née Mackworth Praed (Seddon's secretary), whom he had married in 1947, developed an extensive and beautiful garden, open to the public. Donal, an engaging and charming character, died on 24 March 2004 after a short illness, leaving Stephanie, three sons (Christopher, Rory and Seamus), three daughters (Roisin, Doon and Siobhan) and 14 grandchildren. 'I'm not a Catholic, just a careless Protestant,' was another of his memorable remarks.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000389
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Mayo, William James (1861 - 1939)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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
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First Title value, for Searching Rang, Mercer Charles (1933 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/372300372300
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Mercer Rang was an eminent paediatric orthopaedic surgeon. He was born in London in 1933 and studied medicine at University College London. He was a house officer in London and then a resident at Rochester. He went on to complete two years National Service, as a command surgical specialist in Northern Ireland. He then undertook postgraduate orthopaedic training, and was inspired by Lipmann Kessel to pursue an academic career. He enrolled in the programme of the Royal Northern Orthopaedic Hospital. In 1965 he was seconded to Jamaica, where he served for two years as a senior lecturer in orthopaedic surgery at the University of West Indies under Sir John Golding. In 1967 he went to the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto as a basic research fellow and, with R B Salter, undertook research on the pathogenesis of deformity of the femoral head in an animal model of Legg-Perthes’ disease. He was appointed to the staff of the division of orthopaedic surgery at the end of the year, where he continued undertaking research until his retirement from the hospital in 1999. He then practised and taught orthopaedics in Saudi Arabia for one year, until he became ill and returned to Canada. Mercer had many clinical interests in paediatric orthopaedic surgery, but his most important contributions were in the fields of children’s fractures and neuromuscular disorders, especially in cerebral palsy, as well as the history of orthopaedics. He wrote 12 book chapters, and published 61 articles and six books, including *The growth plate and its disorders* (1969, Edinburgh/London, E & S Livingstone), *Children’s fractures* (c1983, Philadelphia, Lippincott) and *The story of orthopaedics* (2000, Philadelphia/London, W B Saunders). He received many honours and awards, including an honorary fellowship of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in 1990, honorary fellowship of the British Orthopaedic Association in 1996 and the Alan Graham Apley gold medal of that Association in 1999. He was married to Helen and they had three daughters (Caroline, Sarah and Louise) and six grandchildren. He died on 6 October 2003 after a long illness.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000113
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Rees, Neville Clark (1922 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 2012-03-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372302372302
Occupation Occupational physician
Details Andrew Raffle, former chief medical officer of London Transport Executive, was an expert on medical standards for driving. He was born on 3 September 1918 in Newcastle upon Tyne, where his father, Andrew Banks Raffle, a barrister and a doctor, was medical officer for health for South Shields (he was later divisional medical officer to the London County Council). His mother was Daisy née Jarvis, the daughter of a farmer. His two uncles were both doctors. He studied medicine at Middlesex Hospital, qualifying in 1941, and was subsequently a house surgeon at Cheltenham. He then spent five years with the RAMC, becoming a specialist in venereology in Egypt during the North African campaign with the rank of Major. After demobilisation, he was a medical registrar in Bristol and then took the diploma in public health at the London School of Hygiene. In 1948 he joined London Transport under the aegis of Leslie Norman, whom he succeeded in 1969 as chief medical officer. There he carried out research to find evidence of the relationship between exercise and heart disease, by comparing the health of drivers and conductors. He also worked on the medical aspects of fitness to drive, becoming an acknowledged expert in this field. He advised the Department of Transport and other organisations on safe levels of alcohol in the blood, and the effects of diabetes and various medications on the ability to drive. He edited *Medical aspects of fitness to drive: a guide for medical practitioners* (London, Medical Commission on Accident Prevention, 1976), which became a key text for doctors to use when assessing patients. He was a member of the Blennerhasset committee on drinking and driving legislation. He continued to write papers on health standards for drivers up to 1992. He gave the BMA McKenzie industrial health lecture in 1974 and the Joseph Henry lecture at the College in 1988. He wrote many chapters in textbooks and was co-editor of *Hunter's diseases of occupations* (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1987). He taught occupational medicine to postgraduates and was an examiner, and later convenor, for the diploma in industrial health at the Society of Apothecaries. He became chief medical officer of the St John Association and masterminded the Save-a-Life campaign, to teach resuscitation to a wider public. He was a fellow of the BMA and deputy Chairman of the occupational health committee. He was President of the Society of Occupational Medicine in 1967, and treasurer and subsequently vice-president of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was a member of the standing committee which led to the establishment of the new Faculty of Occupational Medicine in 1978. He was a founder fellow and served on the first board of the new faculty. He married Jill, the daughter of Major V H Sharp of the Royal Horse Artillery, in 1941. They had no children. In 1982 they retired to an isolated Oxfordshire village, where he took up gardening. He died of heart failure on 23 January 2004 and is survived by his widow.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000115
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Rees, Richard Lestrem (1916 - 2004)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/372304372304
Occupation Urologist
Details Brian Richards was a nationally recognised researcher into bladder cancer. He was born on 20 August 1934 in Cambridge, the son of Francis Alan Richards, a consultant physician, and Mary Loveday née Murray, the daughter of a professor of divinity. He was educated at Kingshot Preparatory School, Epsom College and St John’s College, Cambridge, and then went to St Bartholomew’s Hospital for his clinical studies. After junior posts at Bart’s and the Whittington he specialised in surgery. He was much influenced by Alec Badenoch. He was appointed to York District Hospital in 1970, at first as a general surgeon, but he soon devoted himself to urology, concentrating on cancer of the bladder. Brian helped set up the Yorkshire Urological Cancer Research Group in 1973, which collaborated with the European Organisation for Research in the Treatment of Cancer (EOTRC) and became one of the most active instruments for clinical trials in the UK. His talent for organisation and diplomacy led the EOTRC to ask him to lead the evaluation of all its clinical research groups, as Chairman of the Breuer committee. Later, he served on the Medical Research Council’s working party on the management of testicular tumours. In York, his practical skills and formidable intellect made him a valued colleague. He had a total lack of pretension, and seemed to have an uncanny ability to follow his many talents and maintain his many interests. He dabbled in self-sufficiency, making his own methane from slurry and his own electricity from a windmill in his garden. Sadly, Parkinson’s disease forced him to give up medicine and later the clarinet, but instead he became the ‘fixer’ for the York concerts of the British Music Society and the Guildhall Orchestra. He married a Miss Gardiner in 1964 and they had three daughters, one of whom is qualified in medicine. He died on 6 June 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000117
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Carter, James Francis (1933 - 2008)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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
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First Title value, for Searching West, Sir Augustus (1788 - 1868)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-04-03
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/372668372668
Occupation General surgeon
Details Entered the Army as Surgeon’s Mate, unattached, on May 26th, 1804; was gazetted Assistant Surgeon to the 4th Foot on Nov 7th, 1805, was promoted to Staff Surgeon in Portugal under Lieut-General S W Carr Beresford on Aug 17th, 1809, and to the rank of Deputy Inspector of Hospitals in Portugal on Oct 19th, 1815, and was appointed Physician in Ordinary to the King of Portugal. His British rank dated from March 25th, 1813, temporary Staff Surgeon; Oct 25th, 1814, permanent; on April 29th, 1818, Brevet Deputy Inspector of Hospitals, later Deputy Inspector of Hospitals, then Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals on Nov 18th, 1824; on this date he retired on half pay, and was knighted at Carlton House on Nov 24th (KHS, Oct 28th, 1824). His active service included Hanover, 1805; Copenhagen, 1807; Walcheren, 1809; Portugal and Spain from 1808-1815. On retirement he lived for a time in Portugal, then in Paris, and died at Montfermeil on Aug 16th, 1868.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000484
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Thomas, Morgan ( - 1865)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-04-03
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/372669372669
Occupation General surgeon
Details Was gazetted Supernumerary Assistant Surgeon on July 14th, 1804, in the Ordnance Medical Department, Assistant Surgeon on Aug 1st, 1806, and Surgeon on Nov 11th, 1811. He saw active service at the Battle of Maida in Calabria on July 4th, 1806, where the British under Major-General Sir John Stuart severely defeated the French under General Regnier. He also served in the Peninsular War. On July 14th, 1836, he was promoted Assistant Inspector-General of Hospitals; on Jan 16th, 1841, Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals, and on April 1st, 1850, Inspector-General. He was stationed for many years at Woolwich, where he died on Oct 22nd, 1865, having retired on full pay on April 1st, 1850.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000485
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Lloyd, John Augustus ( - 1874)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Lloyd, Thomas (1809 - 1876)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Andrews, William ( - 1862)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/372832372832
Occupation General surgeon
Details Received his professional education at University College Hospital, where he was elected a House Surgeon. Was Surgeon to the Western Ophthalmic Hospital, to the North Pancras Dispensary, and occupied the position of Surgeon to the North-west District of St Pancras. He was a Fellow and Honorary Secretary of the North London Medical Society, a member of the Pathological Society of London, of the Clinical and of the Harveian Societies, and was a JP for London and Middlesex. He practised in the Regent’s Park district, and lived first at 77 Mornington Road, then at 37 Harrington Square, and lastly at Tower Lodge, 2 Regent’s Park Road. He died on Jan 31st, 1892.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000649
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Adams, William ( [1] - 1900)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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 Briggs, James ( - 1848)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Brown, John Andrew Carron (1925 - 2008)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Shaw, Henry Jagoe (1922 - 2007)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Cheyne, Sir William Watson (1852 - 1932)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-11 2012-06-27
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/372409372409
Occupation General surgeon Member of Parliament Naval surgeon
Details The only child of Andrew Cheyne of Ollaberry, Shetland and Eliza Watson, his wife (d. 1856), was born off Hobart's Town, Tasmania, on 14 December 1852. His father (d. 1867) was the owner of ships trading in the South Sea islands. His parents dying young, Cheyne was brought up by his uncle, who was the Minister of Fetlar, one of the Shetland Islands. He was educated in the name of William Watson at the local grammar school until 1864, when he went to the Aberdeen Grammar School. In November 1868 he entered King's College, Aberdeen, where he remained until the summer of 1870. He entered the University of Edinburgh in May 1871, resuming his full name of William Watson Cheyne, but symptoms of incipient tuberculosis prevented him from taking the full medical course. He devoted himself therefore to chemistry and obtained the first university prize in the subject in his first year and again in his second year. He was anxious to go to sea at this time but was unable to afford the preliminary expense, and he continued his medical studies, hoping to get the position of a ship's surgeon. In 1872 he won medals for anatomy, physiology, and chemistry, becoming the possessor of twelve such medals before he graduated. The courses of surgery, physiology, and practical anatomy were so arranged in his second year as to leave the hour 12-1 free. One wet day in October 1872 during this interval he drifted for the sake of shelter and warmth into Joseph Lister's lecture room, was fascinated by what he heard, the chemistry of anaesthetics, and attended the full course in 1872-73. At the end of the course it happened that the examinations for the physiology and the Lister class prizes were held on the same day. Chyene entered for both, tied with his chief competitor in physiology, both obtaining 99 per cent marks, in the morning and gained the Lister prize with 96 per cent marks in the afternoon. This success brought him prominently under the notice of Lister, at whose suggestion he applied for a dressership and was selected out of a class of 200-300 students. Cheyne graduated M.B., C.M. with first-class honours in the university and, again at Lister's suggestion, applied for the post of house surgeon at the Royal Infirmary. As there was no vacancy for a year, Cheyne, who had been left a legacy of £150, visited Strassburg and Vienna in the autumn of 1875. On his return to Edinburgh he began some bacteriological experiments and won the Syme bacteriological scholarship, which was of the value of £100 a year and was tenable for two years. He served as house surgeon to Lister from October 1876 and was appointed demonstrator of anatomy in the university. One spring morning in 1877 he awoke in his lodgings to find Lister standing beside his bed with the news that he was going to London as surgeon to King's College Hospital. He said that he had accepted the invitation on condition that he might bring his own house surgeon and he asked Cheyne to accept the post. Cheyne was overjoyed, and with him went John Stewart as senior assistant, W. B. Dobie and James Altham as dressers. Lister with this team took over the wards at King's College Hospital in the winter of 1877-78, and Cheyne acted as house surgeon until he was chosen additional surgical registar to the hospital in 1879, with special charge of Lister's patients, when he was succeeded by John Stewart as house surgeon. Cheyne's position as a resident in the hospital at first was neither easy nor pleasant. He had to contend with the open hostility of the nursing staff who were Sisters of St John and looked upon surgery as a hand-maid of nursing and an incentive to the high church ritual to which they were devoted; the other surgeons, his colleagues, were merely apathetic and the students, finding that the methods taught had no examination value, attended Lister's lectures in such small numbers that Cheyne was often present to assist in forming an audience. As there was no immediate prospect of making a living Cheyne entertained some thoughts of entering the Indian Medical Service. Lister, however, came to the rescue and gave Cheyne a retaining fee of £200 a year to administer anaesthetics for him and share with R. J. Godlee, F.R.C.S., the work as his private assistant. In 1879 he passed in immediate succession the examinations for the Membership and Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England; in 1880 he gained the Boyleston medical prize and gold medal; in 1881 he won the Jacksonian prize for his essay on the history, principles, practice, and results of antiseptic surgery, and in 1889 he was awarded the triennial Astley Cooper prize. Gerald F. Yeo, F.R.C.S., resigned his office of assistant surgeon at King's College Hospital in March 1880 to devote himself wholly to experimental physiology. Cheyne was appointed in his place, becoming surgeon in October 1887 and consulting surgeon on 25 October 1917. At the Royal College of Surgeons Cheyne was a Hunterian professor of comparative anatomy and physiology in 1888, 1890, and 1891, and a Hunterian professor of surgery and pathology in 1892. He delivered the Bradshaw lecture in 1908 and the Hunterian oration in 1915. From 1902 to 1907 he was a member of the Court of Examiners and a member of the Council from 1897 until 1918, becoming President in 1914-16. In 1924 he was awarded the first Lister medal in recognition of his contributions to surgical science, and in the same year he delivered the Lister memorial lecture which was afterwards published. His war service was considerable. During the South African war he served as a civil consulting surgeon to the forces and was created C.B. In 1908 he received a commission as surgeon rear-admiral in the Royal Naval Reserve and saw active service during the war of 1914-18, first with the fleet in the Dardanelles and afterwards at the naval hospital in the lines at Chatham. For these services he was created a K.C.M.G., and in 1919 was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Orkney and Shetland with the rank of vice-admiral. He retired from practice in 1917, and was then elected M.P. for the Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews; from 1918 to 1927 he represented the combined Scottish universities. He spoke rarely and confined himself strictly to medical subjects. The House always listened to him with attention not unmixed with amusement, for he addressed it as though he was lecturing to a class. He married: (1) in 1887 Mary Emma (d. 1894), daughter of William Servanté, of Plumstead, by whom he had two sons, Joseph Lister Cheyne, lieutenant-colonel, Military Cross, in command of the 16/5th Lancers until 18 Janaury 1933, who succeeded to the title, and Hunter Cheyne; (2) in 1894 Margaret (d. 1922), daughter of George Smith of Lerwick, by whom he had one son, who predeceased his father, and a daughter. He died in a nursing home after a prolonged illness on 19 April 1932. Watson Cheyne rose to the top of his profession. He owed his position in part to the accidents of fortune, but mainly to his indomitable pluck and perserverance. An early and favoured disciple of Lister, he did much to promote the spread of antisepsis both by example and precept. He was not endowed by nature with a great degree of originality and was sometimes wrong in his deductions, but he clung firmly to the principles he had learnt from his great master. A good and safe surgeon, he was not a brilliant operator; as a speaker a certain shyness taught his hearers to look to the matter rather than to the manner of what he said. Accident made him a London surgeon. His blue eyes, open countenance, bluff and hearty manner showed him to be a Norseman by heredity and that his real home was the sea. W. G. Spencer, F.R.C.S. wrote of him: "He gave at King's College Hospital a flamboyant account of Koch's tuberculin to those invited, including C. Macnamara, F.R.C.S. and myself. There were two children in Macnamara's ward at Westminster Hospital with advanced hip-joint disease. On repeating Watson Cheyne's prescription and injecting tuberculin, both had acute suppuration and quickly died; no further use was made of the remedy. Operations for cancer of pharynx: he operated very well, but by removing the pillars of the fauces rendered the patients liable to fatal pneumonia by deglutition, as distinguished from the tongue operations then done in front of the fauces." *Publications*: For reprints of his articles up to 1896 see Surgeon General's Library, Washington, *Index Catalogue* 2nd Series, v.3, p.413. *Antiseptic surgery: its principles, practice, history, and results.* London, 1882; German translation 1883. Jacksonian prize essay; original MS. in College library. *Manual of antiseptic treatment of wounds, Ibid.* 1885. *Suppuration and septic diseases.* Edinburgh, 1889. *Abstract of all cases of tubercular disease…treated..with tuberculine.* London, 1891. *The treatment of wounds, ulcers, and abscesses. *Edinburgh, 1894; Philadelphia, 1895. *Tuberculous disease of bones and joints, its pathology, symptoms, and treatment.* Edinburgh, 1895; 2nd ed. London, 1911. *The objects and limits of operations for cancer.* Lettsomian lectures. London, 1896; New York, 1896. *Treatment of wounds* (Bradshaw lecture R.C.S.). London, 1908. *Lister and his achievements *(1st Lister lecture R.C.S.). Ibid. 1925. *Three orations: the Lister centenary. Ibid. *1927. *Manual of surgical treatment,* with F. F. Burghaard, 6 parts. London, 1899-1903; new edition, 5 volumes. Ibid. 1912-13. Editor of *Recent essays by various authors on bacteria in relation to disease.*New Sydenham Society, London, 1886.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000222
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Aldred, George Edward (1816 - 1868)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-08-21 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/372843372843
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Kingston, Jamaica, on May 24th, 1816. Gazetted to the Madras Army as Assistant Surgeon on April 20th, 1847. He saw service in Burma in 1852, and retired on Nov 26th, 1860. His address is given at the East India United Services Club, St James's Square, SW. He died before 1868. The title of the Paris thesis for his MD degree is *Des Complications du Cancer du Foie*, 4to, Paris, 1841.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000660
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Aldridge, John Petty (1813 - 1884)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/372844372844
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at Guy’s Hospital, and practised at Dorchester in partnership with George Panton, MRCS Eng. He was Parochial District Medical Officer and Public Vaccinator for Dorchester. He also filled the office of Medical Officer of Health and Public Vaccinator to the Broadmayne District of the Dorchester Union. He was a Fellow of the Obstetrical Society. Died at Shirley House, Dorchester, on May 22nd, 1884.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000661
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Birbara, George (1928 - 2006)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-09-11
Unknown
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URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372739372739
Occupation General surgeon
Details George Birbara was a general surgeon in Leeton, New South Wales. He was born in Sydney on 16 August 1928. His parents, Anis, a tailor, and Amanda (née Diab) had emigrated from Lebanon. George went to Sydney Boys’ High School and Sydney University. After house appointments, he went to England in 1954 to specialize in surgery, working at the Royal Masonic, Whipps Cross, St James’s Balham, St Cross Rugby, St Luke’s Bradford and Southampton Chest hospitals. Having passed the FRCS, he returned to Leeton, New South Wales in 1959. He married Hazel, a school teacher, in 1956. They had two sons (Nicholas and Andrew) and two daughters (Rosemary and Helen), none of whom followed him into medicine. He died on 17 January 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000556
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Alexander, Henry ( - 1859)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-09-18
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/372846372846
Occupation General surgeon
Details Surgeon-Oculist to Queen Victoria, and Surgeon to Cork Street Eye Infirmary. He succeeded to the practice of Sir Wathen Waller, and was succeeded as oculist to the Queen by Sir William White Cooper (qv). He is said to have been especially successful in cataract operations, which he always undertook single-handed. He operated upon the Duke of Sussex. An unfriendly notice of him says “He was well known in the West End of London as an oculist and was much respected in his own circle, but he was not remarkable for his scientific labours. He is likely to leave the science of his profession in the state in which he found it.” He died at 6 Cork Street, Piccadilly, W, on Jan 20th, 1859, leaving a son, Charles R Alexander, who became Assistant Surgeon to the Royal Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000663
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Brown, Andrew A. ( - 1852)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-05-01 2013-08-07
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/372687372687
Occupation General surgeon
Details Practised in Paris. He died on or before May 7th, 1852.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000503
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Blaker, Harry ( - 1846)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Tuckwell, William (1784 - 1845)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-05-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372689372689
Occupation General surgeon
Details Was born of yeoman stock at Aynho, Oxfordshire, and was educated at the local grammar school under Mr Leonard, known for his scholarship and his addiction to green tea. He was apprenticed to a surgeon at Woodstock, and afterwards became a pupil of John Abernethy at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he formed friendships with Frederic Carpenter Skey (q.v.) and Sir George Burrows. He came to Oxford without introductions, friends, or money, and was made ‘Chirurgus Privilegiatus’ by the University on Nov 10th, 1808. He took lodgings in ‘The High’ and soon acquired a practice, for he had ability, engaging manners, and was not lacking in self-esteem. He was elected Surgeon to the Radcliffe Infirmary on March 15th, 1809, succeeding Edward Metcalfe Wardle, Surgeon from 1781-1808, and held the post until 1836, when he was made a Life Governor. He was also Consulting Surgeon to the Warneford Hospital, Oxford. His wife Margaret (d. 1842) bore him four children, of whom the eldest son, the Rev W Tuckwell (b. 1830), the head master of the Collegiate School at Taunton, wrote *Reminiscences of Oxford*, and Henry Matthew Tuckwell, MD (b. 1835), the second son, long had the chief medical practice in the City and University. Lewis Stacey (b. 1840), the fourth son, became Vicar of Northmoor, Oxon. Tuckwell practised in High Street, Oxford, in the somewhat gloomy stone house facing Magdalen College School, but died at Cowley House, where he had retired, on Sept 20th, 1845. He was well adapted for University practice: his professional knowledge was of so high an order that there was some talk of his coming to London when John Abernethy retired. He was also a good classic and acquainted with French, Italian, and Spanish. He dined often at high tables, and his own dinner-parties were noted for conviviality and wit. He was, too, a skilled player at piquet, whist, and chess. In costume and behaviour he was a survival from more picturesque times. His son says: “He paraded Oxford in a claret-coloured tail-coat with a velvet collar, canary waistcoat with gilt buttons, light brown trousers, two immense white cravats propping and partly covering the chin, a massive well-brushed beaver hat. His manner and address appear to have been extraordinarily winning: he overflowed with anecdote and quotation, yet knew how to listen as well as talk.” He preserved, too, the charitable spirit of practitioners before the introduction of out-patient departments by throwing open his surgery in the early morning to necessitous patients, to whom he gave the same quality of service as to those who were able to pay him adequate fees.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000505
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First Title value, for Searching Perrins, David John Dyson (1924 - 2005)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-09 2012-03-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372477372477
Occupation Medical Research Council research fellow Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details David John Dyson Perrins was an expert in the use of hyperbaric oxygen and a former MRC research fellow at Churchill Hospital, Oxford. Born in 1924, he studied medicine at Jesus College, Cambridge, and rowed for the university in the 1946 Boat Race. He completed his clinical studies at St Thomas's, where he was a house surgeon. After National Service in the Royal Navy, he trained in plastic surgery, gaining experience in the use of hyperbaric oxygen treatment. He completed his MD thesis in 1972 on hyperbaric oxygen and wound healing, and spent ten years at the Churchill Hospital, Oxford, studying the use of oxygen as a radiosensitiser. He also undertook experimental work with W S Bullough at London University on chalones, the mitotic inhibitors in skin. He then moved to Stockholm for two years, to work with Per Oluf Barr on the use of hyperbaric oxygen to prevent amputation in patients with diabetic vascular disease. On his return to the UK he was an honorary adviser to the Federation of Multiple Sclerosis Treatment Centres, researching into the use of hyperbaric oxygen to slow the progress of the disease. He was a former vice president of the International Society of Hyperbaric Medicine. David Perrins died on 2 November 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000290
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Muir, Sir Edward Grainger (1906 - 1973)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-01 2013-11-25
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372425372425
Occupation General surgeon
Details Edward Grainger Muir was born on 18 February 1906 in North China where his father was a medical missionary. He was educated at Eltham College, and the Middlesex Hospital Medical School where he distinguished himself by winning the Senior Broderip Scholarship and qualifying with the Conjoint Diploma at the early age of 21, and graduating MB, BS (Lond) in 1928. After resident appointments he passed the FRCS examination before he was old enough to receive the diploma, and in 1932 he won the gold medal in the London University MS examination. At Middlesex Hospital was influenced particularly by Lord Webb Johnson, Sir Gordon Gordon-Taylor and Sir Eric Riches, and after junior clinical appointments there he spent two years between 1930 and 1932 in the laboratories of the Royal College of Surgeons as the Bernhard Baron Research Scholar. He then returned to the Middlesex Hospital as assistant pathologist, and later surgical registrar, which prepared him for the appointments of consultant surgeon to King's College Hospital, the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, and King Edward VII Hospital for Officers. From 1940-1945 he served in the RAMC with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and was later consultant surgeon to the Army. Muir was a general surgeon with a special interest in the surgery of the colon and rectum. He regarded the training of his house surgeons and registrars as one of his principal tasks, and he made a significant contribution to post-graduate education when he was a member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons and was appointed Dean of the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences. Edward Muir's association with the College extended over the greater part of his professional life, dating from his Bernhard Baron Scholarship, then Hunterian Professorship in 1934, membership of the Court of Examiners and finally of the Council, becoming Vice-President in 1971 and President in July 1972, just over a year before he died. Besides his College activities he held many other distinctions, having been President of the Harveian Society and of the Medical Society of London, and in the Royal Society of Medicine he was President of the Proctological Section and of the Section of Surgery. In 1954 he was appointed Surgeon to the Royal Household, in 1964 Surgeon to the Queen, and shortly before his death Sergeant Surgeon. He was knighted in 1970. In spite of all these distinctions Muir was a modest, retiring person, a hard worker entirely dedicated to the care of his patients and the advancement of the science and art of surgery. He was devoted to his family, very fond of music, and took a special delight in driving motor cars, even in London. In 1929 he married Estelle Russell and they had two sons; the elder, a consultant pathologist and microbiologist was tragically killed in a road accident, and the younger became the professor of cardiology at the Welsh National School of Medicine. He died in the National Hospital, Queen Square, after a subarachnoid haemorrhage on 14 October 1973.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000238
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Parks, Sir Alan Guyatt (1920 - 1982)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-01 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/372426372426
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details Alan Parks became President of the College but died while in office. He was born on 19 December 1920. After education at Sutton High School and Epsom College he proceeded to Brasenose, Oxford, in 1939, graduating BA in 1943. He was due for enrolment at Guy's for clinical training, but was one of a small wartime group selected for further training in America, becoming a Rockefeller Student at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, in 1943. He was medical intern there and graduated MD in 1947 before returning to Guy's to complete his BM, BCh in the same year. He served as house surgeon to Sam Wass and Sir Heneage Ogilvie, passed the MRCP in 1948 and FRCS in 1949. There followed two years in the RAMC, when he was a graded surgeon and served in Malaya, Japan and Korea. On returning home he was resident surgical officer at Putney and then registrar and senior registrar at Guy's from 1953 to 1959, having obtained his MCh in 1954. Parks was an only child, and himself believed that this made it difficult for him to adjust socially. At an early age he developed a wide interest in crafts and hobbies, his later attraction to surgery was largely attributable to this. He was head boy at Epsom and a good athlete who earned his place in the rugby XV. He was a big man and at wartime Oxford, when blues were not awarded, he was captain of athletics and a forward in the university XV. Early in his career he decided which field of surgery was to become his life's work. At Guy's Hospital his study of 'thick sections' of the anal canal enhanced the knowledge of anatomy, leading to papers on fistulas, the development of the submucosal plane of dissection, and submucosal harmorrhoidectomy. His first published work appeared in 1954 with the anatomical study of the anal canal in the *Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine*. This was followed with a thesis on the surgical treatment of haemorrhoids for the degree of Master of Surgery at Oxford University. Alan's interests at this stage also included fibroadenosis of the breast, in which he collaborated with Sir Hedley Atkins, when he was research assistant, and the lymphovascular systems of the leg. His main interest, however, remained in the lower bowel; papers on submucous haemorrhoidectomy (1959) were followed by others on fistula-in-ano (1961), pelvic floor physiology (1962), pharmacokinetics of the intestinal wall musculature (1963), per-anal removal of rectal tumours (1970), techniques of colo-anal anastomosis (1976) and the 'pelvic pouch' operation after pan-proctocolectomy (1980): each of these introduced a new field or altered surgical practice. It is a truly astonishing list and a full bibliography was published in a commemorative supplement by the *Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England* 1983. He joined St Mark's in 1959, the only consultant surgeon to be appointed without having been a resident. Soon after this his interest switched to a better understanding of anorectal physiology in relation to continence. Parks gathered around him experts, neurophysiologists and neuropharmacologists and young men clamouring to work with him. He left a devoted band form all parts of the globe with a better understanding of the function of pelvic-floor muscles. He perfected the technique of colo-anal anastomosis and ileoanal anastomosis with a reservoir (Parks' pouch) - a technique dependent upon his work on sub-mucosal dissection and an understanding of pelvic physiology. In these two procedures his technique as a master surgeon is well exemplified, it was perhaps in the operating theatre that he was able to teach at his best, demonstrating his special techniques and instruments. In addition to his demanding clinical commitments he undertook a heavy load on behalf of the profession and shortly after being elected to Council in 1971 he became an honorary secretary of the Joint Consultants' Committee, being elected Chairman the following year. Few but those closest to him realised how much time, energy, and personal expense he devoted to this work; for this and his seminal contributions to surgery he received the accolade of knighthood in 1977. He was elected President of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1980 having previously been Hunterian Professor in 1965; he was to be Hunterian Orator in 1983. He was consultant surgeon to the Army, had been President of the Section of Proctology at the Royal Society of Medicine, an examiner for Cambridge University, and chief medical adviser of BUPA. He was particularly proud and delighted by the award in 1980 of the Ernst Jung Prize in medicine in recognition of his signal contributions to colorectal surgery and physiology. In 1981 the University of Geneva awarded him the Nessim Habif Prize and he was later awarded Honorary Fellowships of the Edinburgh, Australasian, and American Colleges of Surgeons and of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and Canada. He was corresponding member of the German Surgical Society, and honorary member of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons, and, only a few days before the onset of his fatal illness was admitted to Honorary Fellowship of the Italian Surgical Society. He possessed a deep faith which pervaded all his activities. He was at the time of his death President-elect of the Christian Medical Fellowship. He would always do what he conceived to be his duty, even when exhausted, Sir Alan was blessed by a supremely happy marriage to Caroline Cranston, herself a medical graduate, who survived him with their four children. They much enjoyed visits to their seaside home in Dunwich, Suffolk, bird watching. Parks' own hobbies included craftwork with old books, binding and particularly engraving. In October 1982 Sir Alan suffered a myocardial infarct when in Rome. Later he was moved to London and died on 3 November after emergency cardiac surgery at St Bartholomew's Hospital.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000239
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First Title value, for Searching Phillips, Hugh (1940 - 2005)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-08 2012-03-13
Unknown
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URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372427372427
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Hugh Phillips, the first surgeon from Norfolk to become president of the Royal College of Surgeons, died within his first year of office. A past president of the British Orthopaedic Association and the orthopaedic section of the Royal Society of Medicine, Hugh influenced every aspect of orthopaedic surgery. Voted Trainer of the Year in 1990 by the British Orthopaedic Trainees Association, he was committed to surgical training and later became chairman of the Orthopaedic Specialist Advisory Committee. Hugh earned a reputation for fairness both as an examiner and in the arrangements for rapid response teams reporting on major concerns in hospital practice. He was appointed vice-president of the College in 2003 and elected president the following year. Hugh's principal clinical interest was surgery of the hip. He founded the British Hip Society, was influential in establishing the National Joint Registry, and was said to have carried out over 6,000 joint replacements in his career. Hugh's family came from Treorchy in the Rhondda, where his grandfather and father were miners during the depression of the 1930s. His father, Morgan Phillips, a member of the Treorchy Male Voice Choir, resolved not to produce another generation of miners and walked to London where he became a manager at UGB Charlton, a thermoplastics company in south east London that made Bakelite. His mother, Elizabeth Evans, came from north Wales and contributed to Hugh's rather strict upbringing. Hugh was born on 19 March 1940 in Blackheath, the youngest of three children in a Welsh-speaking family. His older brother and sister returned to Wales during the Blitz, but his father's work was important to the war effort and Hugh remained with his parents. His earliest memories were of bombs and air raid shelters. While proud of his Welsh roots he considered himself a Londoner and commented once that he had "only been to Wales twice and it rained both times". He attended Henwick Primary School and the Roan Grammar School in Greenwich, where he became a prefect. He was a Queen's Scout. Hugh followed his eldest brother into medicine, winning a state scholarship to Bart's and completing a BSc in physiology. The life of a medical student in the 1960s was relaxed by the standards of later years and Hugh embraced it to the full. An all-round sportsman, he played cricket for Bart's, was captain of soccer and a member of the Vicarage Club. For a short period he generated additional income by working as a waiter on the liner *Pendennis Castle*, an experience that left him with a fund of anecdotes. Surprisingly, this most gregarious of men later listed "avoidance of all clubs" among his recreations in *Who's Who*. In 1966 he married Trish (Patricia Ann Cates Kennard), a physiotherapist at Bart's who later became chair of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists. They had three daughters, Jane, Katie and Susie, and at the time of his death they had six grandchildren. Hugh owed much to his Welsh background, including a love of music. He was an excellent pianist and a former head choirboy at St James, Kidbrooke, often performing as a soloist at the Royal Festival Hall and elsewhere. He also inherited a strong sense of social justice and a dogged determination that did not permit him to leave a task unfinished, a trait he once described as "a black streak of Celtic bloody-mindedness". In 1970 he was appointed to the new higher surgical training programme in orthopaedics at Bart's and in the same year was found to have Hodgkin's lymphoma, which in those days had few survivors. After a harrowing period of intensive chemotherapy under the care of Gordon Hamilton Fairley, a pioneer of chemotherapy, Hugh Phillips became one of those few. The treatment, always at weekends so that he could be back at work on Monday, lasted two and a half years, when Hugh decided it should be terminated because nobody could tell him how long it should be continued. He never sought special consideration because of his illness and took a full share of workloads that would now be considered unacceptably heavy even for healthy people. In 1975 Hugh Phillips was appointed as the fifth orthopaedic consultant at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, where he is remembered as a hard worker, a loyal colleague and an outstanding surgeon. A man of great personal charm with a disarming sense of humour, Hugh was held in the highest regard by his patients, colleagues and trainees. He also displayed a natural flair for the politics of medicine and was a great exponent of the 'Delphic process', which allowed him to implement important changes at astounding speed without pointless discussion on the assumption that changes for the better would not be reversed. Although a Londoner, Hugh loved Norfolk and was intensely proud of his association with the county and its people. In 1996 he was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of Norfolk. Hugh Phillips was elected president because of his unrivalled understanding of training and education and his ability to achieve change, but his presidency was tragically curtailed. In the last minutes of a social occasion in Norwich on 26 June 2004 to celebrate both his achievement in becoming president and his retirement from clinical practice, a trivial injury caused a fracture that proved to be pathological. The incident occurred less than four weeks before he assumed office. Many would have taken the easy path and stepped aside but despite debilitating treatment, increasing ill health and the exhortation of friends and colleagues, Hugh chose to continue the task he had been elected to complete. He confronted a number of major professional issues with characteristic determination and scored some notable successes but his unavoidable absences for treatment were to make this a difficult year for the College. In his last presidential letter for the *Bulletin* he wrote, "I had not anticipated that my presidency would last only one year but, sadly, ill-health has determined that I should stand down, a matter of immeasurable personal regret." He may also be remembered for a casual remark in another presidential letter to the effect that surgeons might avoid a great deal of confusion if they called themselves 'Dr' rather than 'Mr', a comment that attracted much media attention. During April 2005, he completed a physically demanding College visit to every hospital in Wales by road within one week, the warmth of his personality making a great impression in hospitals where the College had been seen as remote and unapproachable. A few days after his return he suffered a pulmonary embolus and, despite intensive treatment, including thrombolysis, he did not recover and died at home in Norfolk on 24 June 2005, less than one year after the condition came to light. His funeral service, which filled Norwich Cathedral, was attended by representatives of the Colleges, orthopaedic surgery, hospital colleagues and staff, the County Lieutenancy, the Department of Health, patients and the people of Norwich. The presidential gown covered the coffin as the Lord Bishop of Norwich, a personal friend, gave the address and spoke warmly of both Hugh's humanity and his contribution to surgery.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000240
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Botting, Terence David John (1934 - 2005)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-21 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/372428372428
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Terry Botting was an orthopaedic and trauma surgeon. He was born on 3 January 1934 in Birmingham. His father, Royston Eric Jack Botting, was a machine tool setter, and his mother was Jessica Sarah née Tidmarsh. He was educated at Bablake School, Coventry, and Birmingham University. He became consultant and senior lecturer in orthopaedic and trauma surgery at Selly Oak and Birmingham Accident Hospitals. He was somewhat unconventional in appearance, with a penchant for wearing jazzy ties and white shoes: his patients would often place bets as to what he would be wearing on his ward rounds. He married Diane Kathleen née Walsgrove in 1956, by whom he had three sons (Adrian Royston, Trevor George and Stephen David St John). She predeceased him in May 1986 and in 1987 he married for a second time, to Eunice Ann née Burrows. He retired in 1992, spent six months in France and then a year on a philosophy course at Warwick University. He also made frequent visits to Australia to visit his grandsons. He was a keen watercolourist and enjoyed golf and fly-fishing. He died suddenly at home on 28 July 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000241
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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 Smillie, Gavin Douglas (1926 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-26 2022-09-14
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/372316372316
Occupation General surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details Gavin Smillie (formerly Smellie) was a consultant general and vascular surgeon and honorary clinical lecturer at the Victoria Infirmary, Glasgow. He was born in Glasgow in 1926, the son of William Smellie, a geologist, and Janet Smellie née Douglas, a school teacher. He spent his early years in Argentina, where his father was helping to develop an oilfield, but returned to Scotland at the age of seven to live in Cove on the Clyde coast. He was educated at Greenock Academy and Glasgow University, qualifying in 1949. After junior posts, he did his National Service in the Royal Air Force and then returned to specialise in surgery. He was a surgical registrar at the Victoria Infirmary in 1961 and a senior registrar in 1963. Interested in vascular surgery, he was awarded a travelling fellowship to the United States, where he trained in the vascular units of Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley. In 1966 he was the first to describe adding a gold weight to the eyelid of someone who could not blink naturally to reduce corneal exposure secondary to facial nerve paralysis (‘Restoration of the blinking reflex in facial palsy by a simple lid-loading operation’ *Br J Plast Surg*. 1966;19:279-83). In 1968, he was appointed to the Victoria Infirmary as their first vascular surgeon. He set up their intensive care unit, at a time when such units were in their infancy. His inventive streak led him to introduce, among other things, the use of a Fogarty catheter to clear biliary and salivary duct obstruction, and a rubber ring tourniquet for use in operations on the digits. He also worked with the regional neurosurgical unit on refining techniques of carotid endarterectomy. He was a respected clinical teacher and examiner, and a regional tutor for the Edinburgh College. He had a calm presence and enormous patience, which he combined with a pawky sense of humour. He had the unique ability of being able to create vivid pictures using concise but humorous prose, but few knew that he wrote short stories for the Glasgow Herald and the *Scots Magazine* under the nom-de-plume of Gavin Douglas. For years he was the editor of the hospital quarterly magazine *Viewsbeat*. He was also an accomplished painter and often used his artistic talents to illustrate his operative notes. He was interested in music and – in his younger days – a keen skier. He retired in 1987 and died on 6 November 2003, from Alzheimer’s disease. He married twice, firstly to Muriel (née Dawson), by whom he had two daughters, Valerie and Claire and, secondly, to Elizabeth (née Smith). He had one granddaughter.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000129
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Radley Smith, Eric John (1910 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/372317372317
Occupation General surgeon
Details Eric John Smith was a consultant surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital, London. He was born on 31 March 1910 in Norwood, Surrey, the second son of Robert Percy and Edith Smith. His early life was overshadowed by the death from Hodgkin’s disease of his elder brother who had been a child prodigy, and Eric spent his schooldays trying to fulfill the promise of his brother. In this he was far from unsuccessful, winning prizes and commendations at all his schools – Paston’s in Norfolk, Haverford West Grammar and Sutton County Grammar (the moves being occasioned by his father’s work as a construction engineer). He went up to King’s College Hospital at the age of 17 and again distinguished himself, being rewarded with the Jelf medal and Huxley prize, as well as gaining four distinctions in his finals. A keen sportsman, he represented the college at cricket and rugby. He was proud of being the last house surgeon of Lord Lister’s last house surgeon (Arthur Edmunds) and was appointed as a surgical registrar at King’s, and later house surgeon at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases. At the age of 29 he was appointed to consultant sessions at Brentford Hospital, thereby beginning an association with Brentford Football Club, one that lasted for the rest of his life, as he became in turn medical adviser, director and President. At the outbreak of the second world war he was appointed consultant general surgeon in the Emergency Medical Service at Horton Hospital, Epsom, in which over 60,000 patients were treated during the war. His special contribution was to act as triage officer at Epsom station when trainloads of casualties arrived, and with his quick assessment and remarkable memory he directed each one to the appropriate ward in the hospital. At the same time he was working at Hurstwood Park Neurological Hospital. When in 1946 he joined the Royal Air Force as a surgical specialist, he undertook further neurosurgical specialist duties. In 1948 he spent a year with Olivecrona in his neurosurgical unit in Sweden, one of the world’s pre-eminent centres. He was appointed as a consultant general surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital, continuing his interest in neurosurgery by undertaking some of the earliest prefrontal leucotomies in the UK. He also pioneered hypophysectomy in the treatment of breast cancer. It is curious that this most conservative of men should have made his special contribution in two of its most radical fields. He was also surgeon to the Royal Ear Nose and Throat Hospital, and much valued the work he was called upon to undertake in close association with his colleagues there, especially in the area of intracranial sepsis. During his active years, and indeed long into retirement, his expert opinion was much sought in legal cases, due to his clarity of thought and expression. In 1937 he married a King’s sister, Eileen Radley, not only incorporating her name with his as ‘Radley Smith’, but being called ‘Radley’ thereafter by all his colleagues and acquaintances. They had a son, Nigel, and three daughters, of whom the eldest, Rosemary, qualified in medicine and had a distinguished career as a paediatric cardiologist. Sadly his son predeceased him as a result of lung cancer. Despite the time he gave to football, almost never missing a Brentford match, Radley took a great interest in farming, specialising in raising dairy cattle. He died on 19 January 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000130
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bankart, James (1834 - 1902)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/372930372930
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at Guy’s Hospital, where after qualification he held the posts of House Surgeon, Surgical Registrar, and Senior Demonstrator of Anatomy. He won University distinction, being University Medical Scholar and Medallist in Surgery in 1861. For three years, 1866-1869, he was Surgeon to the Metropolitan Hospital, where he is said to have been a successful operator. In 1869 he settled in Exeter, residing at 19 Southernhay, where he lived till his death on Oct 31st, 1902. In 1870 he was appointed Registrar, and in 1872 Surgeon to the West of England Eye Infirmary and to the Devon and Exeter Hospital. He was elected Surgeon to the Devon and Exeter Hospital on Dec 15th, 1871, in succession to P C de la Garde (qv), resigned on March 7th, 1895, on approaching the age limit, and was appointed Consulting Surgeon and a Governor of the Hospital. He was an excellent anatomist, an able operator, a surgical consultant of wide experience, a distinguished eye surgeon, as well as a shrewd observer of men and things. He is said to have been ambidextrous, unimpressionable, and cautious almost to a fault. As a man he was over six feet in height and his face in repose was sad and depressing. Busy professionally, he found time to play the violoncello with skill and to be Treasurer of the Exeter Musical Society. He was also an expert fly-fisher. He left a widow, Gertrude, née Moss, and five children. His photograph – an excellent likeness – hangs in the lobby of the Exeter and Devon Hospital. Publications:– “On the Functions of the Buccal Branch of the Fifth Nerve.” – *Jour. Anat. and Physiol*., 1868, ii, 325. “Dissections of Acephalous Monsters,” written in conjunction with J Braxton Hicks. – *Guy’s Hosp. Rep.*, 1867, xiii (3rd series), 456. “Abnormalities observed in the Dissecting Room at Guy’s Hospital, Sessions 1866-7 and 1867-8,” written in conjunction with Drs Pye-Smith and Phillips. *Ibid.*, 1868, xiv, 436.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000747
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Stell, Philip Michael (1934 - 2004)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/372319372319
Occupation Otolaryngologist ENT surgeon
Details Philip Stell had an outstanding career as a reconstructive surgeon, dealing with head and neck cancers, and went on to a successful second career in mediaeval history. He was born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, on 14 August 1934, the son of Frank Law Stell, a tailor’s manager, and Ada née Davies. He was educated at Archbishop Holgate Grammar School, York, and Edinburgh University. After junior posts in Edinburgh and Liverpool, he won a fellowship to Washington University, St Louis, in 1956. He returned to Liverpool as a senior lecturer. In 1976 he wrote his masters thesis on skin grafting techniques, and in 1979 he became a professor. He dealt with all aspects of head and neck malignancies, and developed exceptional expertise in reconstruction, keeping detailed outcomes of his operations using a computerised database. He published some 346 articles in scientific journals, edited 12 books and contributed to a further 39. In 1975 he founded the journal *Clinical Otolaryngology* and set up the Otorhinolaryngological Research Society in 1978 (he was President from 1983 to 1986). He was President of the laryngological section of the Royal Society of Medicine, the Association of Head and Neck Oncologists of Great Britain and the Liverpool Medical Institution. He was Hunterian Professor of our College in 1976 and a regional adviser in ENT for the Mersey region. He was the recipient of numerous awards and medals, including the Yearsley gold medal, the Semon prize of the Royal Society of Medicine, the Harrison and the George Davey Howells prizes of the University of London, the Sir William Wilde gold medal of the Irish Otorhinolaryngolical Society in 1988, the Walter Jobson Horne prize of the British Medical Society in 1989, the gold medal of the Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center and the Institute of Oncology, 1989, and the gold medal of the German ENT Society in 1991. An associate member of the Institute of Linguists, he was fluent in Dutch, German, French and Spanish, and made it his practise to deliver overseas lectures in the local language, though his size (he was 6 feet 7 inches) made air travel uncomfortable. He translated 11 foreign language textbooks into English. In 1992, when he was only 57, he took early retirement due to ill health. He moved to York, the city he had grown up in, and began a second career in mediaeval history. He enrolled for an MA at York University, writing a thesis on medical care in late mediaeval York. He taught a speech recognition computer programme to recognise Latin, and set up unique databases for mediaeval Yorkshire wills and other documents, some going back to the 13th century, more than 300 years before parish registers began. For his contribution to history he was made a fellow of both the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Historical Society. He married Shirley Kathleen Mills in 1959, by whom he had four sons and a daughter. Shirley predeceased him in April 2004. He died on 29 May 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000132
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Crawford, Bernard Searle (1919 - 2007)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Barclay, Wilfred Martin (1863 - 1903)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/372933372933
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in India on May 15th, 1863, the youngest son of Deputy Surgeon General George Barclay, of the Madras Army. Educated at Clifton College and Bristol Medical School, where he took prizes. After qualification he remained at the Bristol General Hospital, filling the posts of Assistant House Surgeon, Physician’s Assistant, Assistant Surgeon, and Surgeon (1893), and where at the time of his early death on May 9th, 1903, he was Senior Surgeon. It may be noted that he had not obtained his FRCS when he was elected Assistant Surgeon to the General Hospital in 1888, and the appointment was made conditional on his obtaining the diploma within a year. In addition to his surgical attainments, which were of no mean order, he was a scholar, widely read in English literature, particularly in the drama and poetry; and according to Canon Ainger the foundations of his literary culture were laid at Clifton College, where he showed a marked taste for good writing. Barclay was a good but slow operator; somewhat reticent and retiring, and a shade oversensitive to grievances real or imaginary. Canon Ainger writes of him: “During the thirteen years that I knew him he had suffered many grievous family bereavements and lived through years of much loneliness and anxiety; and when at last he made the most congenial and happy of marriages his friends hoped that a long future of domestic happiness lay before him, but *Deo aliter visum*.” His health failing some months before his death, he took up his residence in an open-air sanatorium and died of phthisis at Amberley, Gloucestershire, on May 9th, 1903. He was survived by his widow. Publications: Various contributions to the *Bristol Med.-Chir. Jour.* and *Brit. Med. Jour.* in 1898.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000750
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Barendt, Frank Hugh (1861 - 1926)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/372934372934
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Liverpool, the third son of J H Barendt. Educated at Liverpool College and St Petri School, Danzig. Received his medical training at the University of Liverpool, where he had a distinguished career, gaining honours in materia medica in the 1st MB, 1888, and the Roger Lyon Jones Scholarship in Pathology, a subject which interested him. After qualification he travelled in France, Germany, and Austria, studying under Hebra, Kaposi, Neumann, Max Joseph, and Lassar. Returning to Liverpool he became House Physician in the Royal Infirmary, Senior Medical Officer to the Bootle Borough Hospital, and Assistant Medical Officer to the Rainhill Mental Hospital. Specializing in dermatology, he was appointed Hon Surgeon to St George’s Hospital for Diseases of the Skin at Liverpool, and Physician to the Department of Diseases of the Skin at the Royal Southern Hospital, posts which he held to the end of his life. He won great distinction as a syphilologist, was one of the first practitioners in Liverpool to make use of intravenous injections of arsenical compounds, and was appointed to the charge of the special clinic for venereal disease at Bangor Infirmary. An admirable linguist, Barendt spoke French, German, and Russian, and often acted as a translator of foreign classics for the New Sydenham Society. He took an active part in medical societies and medical journalism, and was in turn Librarian, Editor of the Journal, and Vice-President of the Liverpool Medical Institution. He was also a strong supporter of the Medical and Literary Society. In his contributions he was minutely thorough and accurate, his German strain thus becoming apparent. His biographer says: “So German was he in what old writers would have called his genius, that he was apt to miss the wood for the trees”. He married a daughter of Dr Crowe, of Liverpool, by whom he had three sons and two daughters. One of his sons was studying medicine in 1926. He died suddenly at his residence, 65 Rodney Street, Liverpool, on Oct 28th, 1926. His publications, which were numerous, are mostly on dermatological subjects.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000751
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching O'Keeffe, Declan (1922 - 2005)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Ranger, Ian (1925 - 2008)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2008-05-01 2014-06-30
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/372693372693
Occupation General surgeon
Details Ian Ranger was a true general surgeon who worked in the United Norwich Hospitals from 1967 to 1988. He was the son of William Ranger and Hatton Thomasina née Grigg. His father had been a schoolmaster, army officer and businessman, who emigrated to Australia in 1920, where Ian and his brother (Sir) Douglas were born. He was educated at Scott's College, Warwick, Queensland, and the Church of England Grammar School, Brisbane, returning to England before the Second World War to finish his schooling. He followed his elder brother Douglas to the Middlesex Hospital. After qualifying he worked for a year at the Bland Sutton Institute of Pathology under Leslie Le Quesne. In 1958 he spent a year at the Boston City Hospital under J Englebert Dunphy, with whom he retained strong links and whilst there gave practical classes in surgical technique to medical students. Carl Walter, inventor of the Fenwal bag used in blood transfusion, made students smear their forearms with lamp black and scrub it all off before operating. This may have altered Ian's views on his own scrub up technique, as at times he used a special cream to smear his hands and arms, declaring that it was better after a gentle soap and water wash to trap any residual germs in! On returning to the UK, Ian completed his thesis on oesophageal reflux. In 1964 he began a long locum in Cambridge during the illness of Brian Truscott and was appointed to his definitive post in Norwich in 1967. He worked with one surgical firm at the West Norwich Hospital with his equally enthusiastic senior colleague, Alan Birt. Other commitments were to the Jenny Lind Hospital for Children. But he displayed even more energy in his enthusiastic efforts at Cromer and District Hospital. Here he performed some major and heroic surgery, much to the consternation of the anaesthetists, and certainly the pathology department and perhaps some of the registrars working in Norwich. He recommenced emergency surgery there to the benefit of so many patients in north Norfolk, and liaised with a voluntary organisation, the Cromer Allies, to raise funds for an extra ward and new operating theatre. He published papers on sialography, the dissemination of micro-organisms by a suction pump, superior mesenteric artery occlusion, and was a Hunterian Professor in 1961. Naturally left-handed, he was completely ambidextrous, working rapidly with never a wasted movement. Many residents went to Norwich from overseas to rotate through the surgical firms. Ian was surgical tutor for East Anglia for three years. In retirement he divorced himself from medical activities, but is remembered by his colleagues for his enthusiasm and forceful character. He married Janet, who predeceased him. They had two sons, Alistair and Piers. Alistair became a GP in Scotland. Ian Ranger died quite suddenly in Cringleford, Norwich, on 14 February 2008, after a period of ill health with heart problems.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000509
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Neame, John Humphrey (1926 - 2007)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Neil Weir
Publication Date 2008-05-01 2009-05-07
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/372694372694
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details John Humphrey Neame was an ENT surgeon in Norwich. He was born in London on 14 July 1926, the eldest son of Humphrey Neame, an ophthalmological surgeon on the staff of Moorfields Hospital, and Minnie née Goodwin. Neame followed his father to Cheltenham College and then went to Lincoln High School, Portland, Oregon, during the war, returning to Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He went on to complete his clinical studies at University College Hospital, London, where he was influenced by Miles Formby. After junior posts, he specialised in ENT, becoming house surgeon, registrar and senior registrar at the Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital. He was appointed consultant ENT surgeon to the Salisbury Hospital Group and Swindon and Marlborough hospitals. He was blessed with plenty of opportunities to fish and much enjoyed working with electronics. In 1960 he married Ruth Richards, with whom he had two sons, Stephen and Robert, and a daughter, Rachel. Both of his sons have entered the medical profession. He died on 13 July 2007, the eve of his 81st birthday.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000510
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Smith, Charles William (1923 - 2006)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Neil Weir
Publication Date 2008-05-08 2009-05-07
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/372695372695
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Charles William Smith was a consultant ENT surgeon in York. He was born in Kenton, London, on 24 October 1923, the first son of Cecil Smith and Mabel née Gibb. His father, who had served in the First World War with the Royal West Kent Regiment (known as ‘the Dirty Half Hundred’), was badly wounded in the face at the Battle of the Somme, and remained disfigured and partially incapacitated for the rest of his life. Charles Smith and his brother were both educated at the Merchant Taylors’ School in Northwood and were brought up in a happy Christian household. He always maintained that his acceptance at St Thomas’ Medical School was more due to the fact that the Dean recognised his father from the war than his own academic prowess. At medical school he was a keen athlete and rugby player. His first house job was with the ENT department, which no doubt shaped his future career. He continued his training at the Royal Waterloo, the Charing Cross and the Royal Marsden hospitals, and then fitted in his National Service (spent in the Royal Army Medical Corps serving in Chester and Klagenfurt, Austria), before becoming chief assistant to the ENT department at St Thomas’ in 1956. He was appointed, initially as the sole ENT consultant, to the York hospitals in 1959 and served there until 1988. During this time he not only developed his own department, but was also the lead clinician in the planning of the new York District Hospital. Charles Smith became a member of the Court of Examiners at the RCS in 1962. He served as chairman of the York division of the BMA and was president of the North of England Society of Otolaryngology, the section of otology at the RSM and the Visiting Association of Throat and Ear Surgeons of Great Britain. He was honorary treasurer of the British Academic Conference in Otolaryngology, and served as honorary treasurer and then president (from 1984 to 1987) of the British Association of Otolaryngologists. During the time of his presidency he did much to represent the specialty’s interests in Europe and was founder president of the European Federation of Oto-Rhino-Laryngological Societies (EUFOS). At the end of his term of office he was awarded a gold award by the International Federation of Oto-Rhino-Laryngological Societies (IFOS). His appointment to the Archbishop’s council reflected his longstanding friendship with Donald Coggan who, ahead of him at school, had been a curate to the Rev Marshall Hewitt (Charles’s future father-in-law). He persuaded his superior that Charles was a suitable match for his only daughter, and was given the privilege of marrying them at All Soul’s Langham Place. When Charles Smith eventually arrived in York he found Donald Coggan was Archbishop. Charles Smith married Moyra (née Hewitt) in 1955. They had five children, Penn, Basil, Johanna, Rupert and Jeremy. His wide range of other interests included his local church, motor caravanning, gardening, photography, golf, natural history and fly fishing. He was master of the Merchant Taylors’ Company of York. He died on 2 October 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000511
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ryan, Rowena Marion (1958 - 2005)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Neil Weir
Publication Date 2008-05-08 2022-03-17
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/372696372696
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Rowena Ryan was an ENT consultant at Northwick Park Hospital, London. She was born in East London, South Africa, on 4 February 1958, where her father, Cecil Crawford Lindsay Ryan, was serving as a diplomat. Her mother, Dorothy Hazel née Lampkin, had been a secretary. Her paternal grandfather had qualified at Trinity College, Dublin, and became a general practitioner in Bath. She was educated at Alexandra College, Dublin, where she won the Governors Association scholarship, and went on to read medicine at Trinity. After qualifying she held junior posts at the West Middlesex, Stoke Mandeville, Hammersmith and Addenbrooke’s hospitals, before becoming an ENT registrar at the Royal Ear Hospital and senior registrar at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital. She was appointed as a consultant ENT surgeon to Northwick Park and the Central Middlesex hospitals in 1996, where her principal interest was in paediatric audiology. She was an examiner for the intercollegiate FRCS (otol) and was chair elect of the ENT comparative audit group of the British Association of Otorhinolaryngologists - Head and Neck Surgeons. In 1989 she married Audoen Healy, a dentist, with whom she had a daughter, Greta, and a son, Duncan. Outside work and family, her passions were music, literature, foreign languages, squash and tennis. She died of cancer of the pancreas on 9 December 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000512
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Barker, John ( - 1884)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-11 2013-08-06
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/372939372939
Occupation General surgeon
Details Received his professional training at the London Hospital and was the sixth John Barker in direct succession who practised at Coleshill, near Birmingham. One of these, a John Barker (1708-1748?) published a controversial paper, printed at Salisbury in 1743, "On the Nature, Cause and Cure of the Present Epidemic Fever", and, in 1747, "An Essay on the Agreement betwixt Ancient and Modern Physicians". The essay was translated into French by Ralph Schomberg, and published at Amsterdam (12mo) in 1749. A revised edition by M Lorry appeared at Paris in 1768. His medical and miscellaneous works were afterwards published in two volumes. John Barker, FRCS, died on or after Nov 1st, 1884. His only son, John Barker, was thrown from his pony and killed on Sept 10th, 1874. The name died out and the practice was carried on by Dr Venn G Webb. The College possesses an enlarged photograph of John Barker, FRCS presented by Dr Webb in 1926.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000756
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Sheppard, James Pook (1787 - 1854)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching North, John (1790 - 1873)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Thorpe, Robert ( - 1851)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Lawrence, John ( - 1863)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Canton, Edwin (1817 - 1885)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Allfrey, Charles Henry (1839 - 1912)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-09-18 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/372856372856
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated as an Associate Scholar at King's College, London, and professionally at King's College Hospital, where he served as House Physician. After qualifying in London in 1861 he spent some time in Edinburgh, where he acted as Dresser and Clinical Clerk in the Edinburgh Infirmary, and then proceeded to Paris. He practised in partnership with Dr J Heckstall Smith at St Mary Cray, and took an active part in founding the Chislehurst and Cray Valley Hospital. He was Medical Officer and Public Vaccinator of the 3rd District of the Bromley (Kent) Union, Surgeon to the Governesses' Benevolent Institution, Chislehurst, and District Surgeon to the Metropolitan Police. He left Chislehurst in 1890 for St Leonards-on-Sea, where he practised as a physician. He was elected Assistant Physician to the East Sussex Hospital in 1892, and was Consulting Physician at the time of his death. He served on the Town Council for many years, and was active as Chairman of the Sanitary Committee at the time of the establishment of the Isolation Hospital. He was also a JP and Chairman of the South-Eastern Branch of the British Medical Association. In politics he was a Conservative. He died on April 16th, 1912, suddenly, whilst walking on the parade at St Leonards. Publication: *Sanitary Reports on Chislehurst and Cray Valley*, 1875.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000673
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Stirling, Leader Dominic (1906 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/372320372320
Occupation General surgeon
Details Leader Stirling was an eminent missionary surgeon and a former minister for health in Tanzania. He was born on 19 January 1906 in Essex. Many of the family were doctors, although a cousin did found the SAS – the Special Air Service. Stirling was educated at Bishop’s Stortford and then went on to the London Hospital for his medical studies. His father lent him £1,000 for the five-year medical course. After house surgeon appointments and time spent in general practice, he was eventually able to pay him back. Not knowing the direction of his career, he prayed for guidance. Two days later a cable from the Universities Mission to Central Africa arrived, urgently requesting doctors for the Masasi region. When Stirling arrived the operating theatre was a bamboo building with a grass roof, every gust of wind filling it with dust and dead leaves. There was no running water and no lighting except for oil lamps. Cooking pots, stores of food, live hens, spears, bows and arrows were stowed under the beds in the mud huts that served as wards. A visit to an outlying hospital could mean a 24-mile walk through the bush. He built his own hospital in nearby Lulundi from scratch, borrowing a book from an engineer uncle, and roofing it with pantiles fashioned by his local Scout troop. He also started a nurse training school there, despite opposition from the medical establishment who believed that only white women could be trained as nurses. After 14 years at Lulundi he became a Catholic, took the name Dominic and joined the Benedictine Mission. They sent him to Mnero, where he built another hospital, this time with the help of a brother who had been an architect. There he started a school for rural medical assistants who were trained on a three-year resident course to diagnose and treat the 15 conditions that accounted for 80 per cent of visits to the doctor, and to send anything else to a doctor. Fifteen years later he was transferred to Kibosho, on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. In his book *Africa: my surgery* (Worthing, Churchman, 1987) Stirling describes the conditions he encountered. These were as diverse as belly-ripping by a jealous husband, to crocodile and hippo bites. He devised instruments from simple materials. Screw-drivers made ideal supracondylar traction pins, sewing cotton became perfect ligatures. Thomas splints were contrived from bamboo, extension cord from plaited palm leaves with stones as traction weights. For intravenous infusions he used triple-distilled water, to which he added salt and glucose. When plaster of Paris ran out, he made his own from locally quarried gypsum. He was one of the first to operate on tuberculous abscesses of the spine causing paraplegia, draining them from the front. He devised a new bloodless operation for the giant swellings of the scrotum caused by filariasis. After the war he stood for the Tanganyika African National Union in the new legislative council, the forerunner of a parliament. When independence was agreed in 1961 Stirling became a Tanganyikan citizen. In 1973 Julius Nyerere made him minister for health and he strove to bring tuberculosis and leprosy under control, closing the obsolete leprosaria. He dealt with an outbreak of cholera and reformed the treatment of mental disease. His rural medical assistant scheme was adopted by many other developing countries. He retired from politics at 75, but continued to practise surgery. His last operation, at 85, was a favour to a friend who would trust no one else. In 1993 the College made him a Fellow by election – a rare honour. He married an African nurse, Regina Haule, in 1963, who died of septicaemia nine years later. He then married Anna Chilunda, a nurse (and also a princess), who was a widow with six children. He died in Dar-es-Salaam on 7 February 2003 at the age of 97.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000133
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Thompson, Heath Thurlow (1920 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Trevor-Roper, Patrick Dacre (1916 - 2004)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-26
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/372325372325
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Patrick Dacre Trevor-Roper, known as ‘T R’, was an acclaimed eye surgeon and a successful campaigner. He was born in Alnwick, Northumberland, on 7 June 1916, where his father, Bertie William Edward Trevor-Roper, was in general practice. His mother was Kathleen Elizabeth née Davison. He was educated at Charterhouse, where he was a senior classical scholar, and won an exhibition to Clare College, Cambridge. He went on to the Westminster Hospital for his clinical training. There he was introduced to the delights of ophthalmology by the leading eye surgeon E F King, who occupied a neighbouring mattress in the hospital air raid shelter and introduced him to Moorfields. He served with the New Zealand Medical Corps from 1943 to 1945 and then specialised in ophthalmology, becoming consultant ophthalmic surgeon to the Westminster and Moorfields Eye Hospitals in 1947. There he established the Moorfields eye bank. He also set up the Haile Selassie Eye Hospital in Addis Ababa and organised the opening of an ophthalmic unit in Lagos and a mobile eye unit in Sierra Leone for the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind. He was vice-president of the Ophthamological Society of the UK, section President of the Royal Society of Medicine and a founder member of the International Academy of Ophthalmology. He was Doyne medallist of the Oxford Ophthalmogical Society. The Patrick Trevor-Roper undergraduate award at the Royal College of Ophthalmogists was established in 1997. For 38 years he was editor of the *Transactions of the Ophthalmological Society of the UK* (which became *Eye* when the Society became the Royal College of Ophthalmologists). He wrote several key textbooks on ophthalmology, including *Ophthalmology: a textbook for diploma students* (1955), which later became *Lecture notes in ophthalmology* and then *The eye and its disorders*. But it was as the author of *The world through blunted sight* (London, Thames and Hudson, 1971) that he became known to the wider public. In this amusingly written book, he argued that the proportions, perspectives and palette of many celebrated painters was the result of ophthamological problems such as short sight, astigmatism, glaucoma and cataract. A gentle, dithery, sometimes impatient, boffin-like man, he had an endless sense of fun and was popular with students, who invited him to be president or chairman of many of their societies. His large circle of friends, who would meet at weekends at Long Crichel House in Dorset, a former rectory and a centre for like-minded writers, included music and literary critics, composers, poets, artists and actors. In 1955 he was one of a handful of establishment figures to give evidence to the Wolfenden Committee, which ultimately decriminalised homosexual activity between consenting adults. In those days, this was a brave thing to do. Trevor-Roper told the committee that gay men posed no threat to heterosexual youth, and provided evidence of the extent of blackmail of homosexuals, which had led to many suicides. Later, in the 1960s, he campaigned against the “venal manipulations of drug companies”, particularly the bogus conferences where speakers would puff the companies’ new products. He also campaigned successfully against the opticians’ monopoly of the sale of reading glasses. A trustee of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, he helped found the HIV/AIDS charity, the Terrence Higgins Trust, which was run from his house until it expanded into larger premises. He travelled widely, visiting, among other places, Borneo, Nigeria, Malawi and the Falklands. In 2003 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and a year later was found to have a cancer in the neck, from an unknown primary. He died on 22 April 2004 and is survived by his partner of many years, Herman Chan. His brother Hugh, the historian Lord Dacre of Glanton, and his sister, Sheila, predeceased him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000138
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Longmore, Sir Thomas (1816 - 1895)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-07-04
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002500-E002599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374749374749
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Southwark on October 10th, 1816, the eldest son of Thomas Longmore, Surgeon RN, and of Maria, a daughter of John Elcum. He entered Merchant Taylors' School in June, 1828, and was afterwards educated at Guy's Hospital, where he proved an industrious student and was dresser to Bransby Cooper, subsequently assisting in his private practice and in writing Sir Astley Cooper's life. He became Assistant Surgeon in the 19th Regiment of Foot, being gazetted on February 3rd, 1843, and served with the headquarters of the regiment in the Ionian Islands, in the West Indies, and in North America. He was gazetted Regimental Surgeon on March 3rd, 1854, and then served with his regiment in the Light Division of the Eastern Army from the time of its first taking the field throughout the Crimean Campaign (1854-1855) until the termination of the siege of Sebastopol. During this period he was at his post every day, but suffered severely from the effects of frostbite. He was present at the affair of Buljanac on September 19th, at the Battle of the Alma, Inkerman, and Balaclava, at the sortie of October 26th, 1854, and at the assaults of the Redan on June 18th and September 8th, 1855. For his services he was awarded the Medal with three Clasps, the Turkish Medal, and was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour (4th Class). He returned to England on the declaration of peace, and passed the Fellowship. On the outbreak of the Mutiny he was sent with a detachment of his regiment to India, and served with the Army in Bengal, at first as a regimental officer, and after December 31st, 1858, as Deputy Inspector of Hospitals. He was appointed Sanitary Officer to the British Forces in Bengal in January, 1859, but on the reduction of the establishment in July was ordered home and received the appointment of Principal Medical Officer of the Camp, Colchester. His operative skill had attracted such attention in the Crimea that he was given the Professorship of Military Surgery in the Medical School, Netley, founded in 1860 by Sidney Herbert for the better instruction of the medical officers of the Army. He held this post for nearly thirty-one years. On October 19th, 1872, he was promoted to the rank of Inspector (Surgeon) General, and was appointed a member of the Committee on Field Hospital Equipment. On October 10th, 1876, he was placed on the retired list, but was allowed to continue holding his Professorship. He was knighted at Osborne in 1886. He represented the British Government on a number of epoch-making missions. As early as 1864 he was deputed to attend the Congress of Geneva, afterwards known as the Geneva Convention. In 1867 he was sent to Paris and took part in the International Conferences of the Societies for Aid to Wounded Soldiers in Time of War. In 1869 he was British Government Delegate in the Berlin International Conference on Aid to Sick and Wounded in War. The Secretary for War dispatched him to Vienna in 1873 to report on the field hospital equipment collected at the Sanitäts Pavillon of the World Exhibition. In 1874 he read a paper which was the starting-point of the St John Ambulance classes. At the Conference of Societies for Aid to Sick and Wounded in War, held at Geneva in September, 1884, he again represented the Government, and was present at the International Red Cross Meeting held at Carlsruhe in the autumn of 1887. In June, 1887, when the Southern Branch of the British Medical Association met at Netley, he was President and delivered the Annual Address. In 1888 he acted at Antwerp as British Representative and Member of the International Jury for assessing the prizes offered by the German Empress Augusta for the best forms for a movable hut-hospital. In October, 1889, he was sent by the Secretary of State for War to take part in the fourth session of the French Surgical Congress then held in Paris, and was elected a Vice-President. In 1862 he married Mary Rosalie Helen, second daughter of Captain W S Moorsom, 52nd Regiment, by whom he had four sons and three daughters. He died on September 30th, 1895, at his house at Woolston, Hampshire, and was buried at Hamble. The College Collections possess several portraits of Sir Thomas Longmore. Good portraits accompany the biographies in the *Lancet*, *British Medical Journal*, and Guy's Hospital Gazette. His presentation portrait by George Reid is at Netley in the ante-room of the Officers' Mess. Publications: *On the Geneva Convention of 1864, with some Account of the National Committees formed for Aiding in Ameliorating the Condition of the Sick and Wounded of Armies in Time of War*, 8vo, 1866. *Report on the Military Medical and Surgical Field Hospital Equipment at the Universal Exhibition at Paris, and on Certain other Matters connected therewith*, fol, London, 1868. *On the Geneva Convention of 1864, in Relation to the Aid afforded by Volunteer Societies to Sick and Wounded Soldiers during the late Franco-German War*. A Lecture, 8vo, 1872. *Ambulances and Ambulance Service*, 1875. *Gunshot Injuries; their History, Characteristic Features, Complications and General Treatment, with Statistics*, 8vo, illustrated, London, 1877; 2nd ed., 1895. A classic. *Report on a Mission to Paris in October, 1889, to attend the 4th Session of the French Surgical Congress, together with Observations on the Military Medical Schools of France*, 8vo, London, 1890. *Richard Wiseman: A Biographical Study*, 8vo, London, 1891. This is the standard account of Wiseman.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002566
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lonsdale, Edward F ( - 1857)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Lovell, Arthur Gordon Haynes ( - 1919)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Lowdell, George (1813 - 1871)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-07-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002500-E002599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374752374752
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at St Bartholomew's Hospital. At the time of his death he was Surgeon to the Sussex County Hospital and to the Deaf and Dumb Institute, and Consulting Surgeon to the Brighton and Sussex Eye Infirmary. He practised at 24 Cannon Place, Brighton, in partnership with G E Pocock, and died on October 18th, 1871. The following interesting account of the conditions and practice at the Sussex County Hospital in Lowden day is quoted in full from Sussex in Bygone Days, by Nathaniel Paine Blaker, MRCS, of Brighton:- "If the memory of things which happened fifty years ago can be relied on, medicine and surgery and the management of patients must have been very primitive and crude. The walls of the wards were whitewashed, there was no attempt at ornamentation, the floors were of deal boards with wide interspaces, and these were occasionally scrubbed. The food was good and stimulants were prescribed freely. The beds were very close, with small cubic space for each. Both nurse and patients conspired to keep the windows closed, especially at night, night air being considered injurious. The smell was, consequently, sickening, and erysipelas and pyaemia were almost always present in a greater or less degree. Arteries were secured with waxed silk ligatures, one end of which was cut short and the other left hanging out of the wound; when they separated at about the ninth or tenth day, there was frequently secondary haemorrhage, half-healed stumps were torn open, and the almost impossible task of securing a vessel in the midst of granulations, which bled on the slightest touch, was attempted. Wounds were usually dressed with wet lint, which constantly from neglect (it was almost impossible to keep it wet) became dry; but frequently stumps, even on the second day, were poulticed, a copious excretion of yellow pus, pus laudabile, being thought to prevent erysipelas. There were about three or four sponges in the ward, which were used for all patients one after another, almost without washing. When stumps were dressed, pus used to flow out by the ounce through the fingers of the man who supported the flaps. Fractures were treated much as now, with splints, but sloughs and bedsores were much more common. Anaesthetics were not well understood and were looked upon rather with dread, and I well recollect seeing a thigh amputated without anaesthetic. The patient, a man from Rottingdean, was brought in with comminuted fracture of the thigh; it did badly, and secondary amputation was decided on at a consultation. It was also decided not to use chloroform (ether was then never used) for fear of increasing shock! Mr Lowdell tried to amputate the thigh by the flap operation, but the knife, which transfixed the limb, caught against a fragment of bone. Never shall I forget the agonized cry of the poor man - 'Please cut me through, Doctor, pray cut me through.' The limb was eventually taken off by cutting the flaps from without inwards, but the patient died next day. "Cupping was so constantly prescribed, especially for pain in the back, that two or three out-patients were occasionally seated in chairs, in a row, and all cupped at the same time, the cupping glasses being taken off and replaced in rotation."
Resource Identifier RCS: E002569
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lowe, George (1813 - 1892)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Lowes, Frederick John ( - )

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Welch, George Somerville (1935 - 2006)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Taffinder, Nicholas James (1965 - 2006)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Carden, Henry Douglas ( - 1872)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/373033373033
Occupation General surgeon
Details The son of John Carden, Surgeon to the Worcester Infirmary, born at Worcester, was educated at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. His elder brother, Thomas, had succeeded his father and was in turn succeeded by Henry Douglas, who held the post from 1888-1861, when he became Consulting Surgeon. He enjoyed a large surgical practice, hunted and shot, collected pictures of value, and was a zealous gardener. Had he lived, said the British Medical Journal, he would probably at no distant date have been elected President of the British Medical Association. The name of Carden is connected in the history of surgery with his recommendation of amputation by a single flap, published in the *British Medical Journal*, 1864. Fashion had changed from the varieties of circular amputation to that by transfixion with the long pointed knife recommended by Lisfranc. The main artery being controlled, the limb was stabbed with great rapidity twice on either side of the bone, and with each stab the edge of the knife was turned to cut obliquely forwards and outwards to make two thick flaps of obliquely severed muscles and nerves. The bone was sawn through with breathless haste; one ligature included the main artery and whatever was adjacent, vein or nerve or both. Sawdust was clapped on the stump and the surgeon departed, as also the onlookers. A few hours later there was reactionary hæmorrhage, and the House Surgeon by candlelight had to try to catch the bleeding points. The obliquely severed nerves caused painful twitchings of the stump, aggravated by the suppuration which set in. The ulceration and sloughing of the muscles was followed by their retraction, obtruding the end of the bone. After having practised amputation by transfixion from 1838, Carden began in 1846 to cut one single skin-flap, then to divide all the muscles down to the bone by a circular cut, and to saw through the bone slightly above the plane of the muscles. His table of 31 cases with 26 recoveries was very favourable at that time for the kind of cases undertaken. He avoided the pointed stump, and does not mention sloughing of the flap, which happened to other surgeons when an unduly long flap was raised. A second list of 33 cases by his colleagues as well as by Carden himself had similar results – 26 recoveries and 7 deaths. Teale modified the principle by making a flap three-quarters of what was needed anteriorly and a posterior flap of one-quarter, which aimed at avoiding the danger of sloughing mentioned above. Carden was disposed to maintain the advantage of the single long flap, for the limb had not to be removed so high up as Teale’s method demanded. He is also mentioned in Lister’s article in Holmes’s *System of Surgery*. Carden continued in active practice, although there were premonitory signs of apoplexy, until he died of it on Dec 22nd, 1872. *The Worcester Chronicle* referred to him in terms of appreciation. “He was gentle and gracious in manner, though, when it was needed, he could be firm and steadfast as a rock.” Publication: “On Amputation by a Single Flap.” – *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1864, i, 416, with two tables and 8 figures of stumps.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000850
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching MacFaul, Peter Alexander James Marsh (1935 - 2003)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Nachemson, Alf (1931 - 2006)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Story, Harold Frederick Rowe (1924 - 2009)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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/373231373231
Occupation Urologist
Details Harold Story was a urologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and at the Austin Hospital, Heidelberg, Victoria. He was born in Melbourne on 8 November 1924 and was educated at Melbourne University High School and Melbourne University, where he was awarded a prosectorship and Dwight’s anatomy prize. On qualifying, he was a resident medical officer at the Royal Melbourne Hospital (from 1947 to 1948) and then became a demonstrator in anatomy while studying for the primary, at which he won the Gordon Taylor prize in 1949. He did junior posts at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, as a demonstrator in clinical surgery, in anatomy and in pathological histology. He then went to England to study for the final FRCS. Having passed the fellowship, he became a urological registrar at the Whittington Hospital and was later a clinical registrar and then a senior surgical registrar (resident surgical officer) at St Peter’s Hospital for Stone (from 1955 to 1956), where he worked under Alec Badenoch, John Sandrey and David Wallace. He then returned to the Royal Melbourne Hospital, at first as an associate assistant to J B Somerset and later as an honorary surgeon. He was the first urologist at the Austin Hospital, where he set up a urological department and remained its head for more than 40 years, becoming an expert in the treatment of urological tuberculosis and spinal injuries, and in particular the treatment of the large staghorn stones, which occurred in these patients. He was also the first urologist at the Peter MacCallum Clinic (Cancer Institute). He was a wing commander in the Specialist Reserve for the Royal Australian Air Force He married Jean Lesley McKenzie and they had two sons, Rowan (an oral and maxillofacial surgeon) and Ian. His many interests included the history of surgery and of surgical instruments, and he was the honorary curator of the collection at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. In 2005, a Harold Story Memorial annual lecture was inaugurated. He died on 12 July 2009.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001048
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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 Blagden, Richard (1789 - 1861)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Mayo, Charles (1788 - 1876)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

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 Sieff of Brimpton, Rt Hon Lord Marcus Joseph, Baron Sieff of Brimpton (1913 - 2001)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by John Blandy
Publication Date 2011-06-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373436373436
Occupation Businessman
Details A businessman and former chairman of Marks and Spencer, Marcus Sieff was elected to an honorary fellowship in 1984 in recognition of his contributions to the College. He was born in 1913, the younger son of Israel Sieff and Rebecca Marks, an ardent Zionist. Rebecca's father Michael had co-founded the retailer Marks and Spencer in Leeds in 1884. Marcus was educated at Manchester Grammar School, St Paul's in London and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he read economics. He started working at Marks and Spencer in 1935. In the Second World War he served in the Royal Artillery, winning an OBE for gallantry and reaching the rank of colonel. From 1954, he was successively a director, assistant managing director, vice-chairman, joint managing director and deputy chairman of Marks and Spencer. He was chairman of the company from 1972 to 1984. He introduced schemes to improve the welfare of his employees, including profit sharing. He was created a life peer in 1980. He died in London on 23 February 2001.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001253
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Crockett, David John (1923 - 2009)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2011-07-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373437373437
Occupation Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details David Crockett contributed greatly to the specialty of plastic surgery in the Sudan and then in Bradford as a consultant surgeon from 1964 until he retired in 1987. A very gifted man, he enjoyed many hobbies during his very busy professional life and was above all a family man. He was born in Northampton on 5 August 1923, the son of Leonard Marshall Crockett, a dental surgeon, and his wife, Eleanor Carol née Baker. Educated first at Winchester House School, Northamptonshire, he completed his school education at Charterhouse. He then went to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, before entering St Thomas' Hospital for his clinical training. In his undergraduate days at Cambridge David took up judo for recreation and this proved beneficial at a later date in the Sudan, where he instructed the Sudanese police in the art of self defence. Qualifying in 1946, he was a casualty officer and house surgeon at St Thomas' before becoming a senior house officer in orthopaedics at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, in 1947. He then entered National Service in the RAMC for two years with the rank of captain. Deciding on a surgical career, he undertook a general surgical senior house officer post at St Peter's Hospital, Chertsey, and then demonstrated anatomy at St Thomas' whilst studying for the primary FRCS. Having passed this hurdle, he continued in general surgery as a surgical registrar, first at Tilbury and then Alton, and passed the final FRCS examination. An interest in trauma was kindled at the Birmingham Accident Unit, by which time he was veering towards a career in plastic surgery. No doubt influenced by Douglas Jackson, he studied many aspects of burns. Of his early joint publications, 'Bacteriology of burns treated by exposure', was published in the Lancet in 1954 (ii 1157). He then undertook a research project on oedema and colloid replacement at the Middlesex Hospital from 1955 to 1956. Definitive training in plastic surgery took place at Mount Vernon Hospital, Northwood, from 1956 to 1959. David then accepted a post as a senior lecturer in general surgery at the University of Khartoum, working first with Julian Taylor. He remained in the Sudan for five years before returning to the UK. The time spent in Africa was a productive period, with publications on cancer, keloids and reconstructive procedures. His workload was enormous and his reputation amongst Sudan's medical fraternity was very high. He was an invited lecturer at many conferences of the Sudanese Association of Surgeons, including one held at the time of the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the foundation of the Kitchener Medical School in 1974, giving a lecture on keloids. Also taking part were three other fellows present as examiners for the overseas primary FRCS (G W Taylor, Ian McColl and N Alan Green) and two working for WHO (Adrian Marston and Ivan Johnston). In 1964 David Crockett and his family returned to the UK, and he became a consultant plastic surgeon at the Bradford Royal Infirmary, St Luke's Hospital and Airedale Hospital. He retired in 1987 after a very full professional life punctuated by conferences in the UK. At St Thomas' Hospital he had met Anne Chalmers, a nurse, whom he married on 7 August 1947 at Quinton, Northamptonshire. As both of Anne's parents had died, David's parents proved very supportive during their courtship and for many years of their happy married life. Anne later trained as a medical social worker at Leeds University and then practised in the Bradford area. They had a family of four: Carolyn Mary, Paul Jonathan Marshall, Georgina Jane and Thurstan David. David and Anne enjoyed many educational and social trips in mainland Europe, the Indian subcontinent and Australasia. For some 18 years they had a bungalow retreat in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, Ireland. They kept a small boat there and enjoyed family holidays sailing, walking in the countryside, bird watching and cataloguing the many orchids that grew in the area. David made a collage of the varieties of orchid he found in Ireland and was very knowledgeable in various facets of natural history. He was a talented landscape painter and, as a creative carpenter, he made tables and chairs to furnish their home and garden. In retirement, David and his brother Clifden Crockett played serious bridge on a regular basis in Northampton, but the more friendly and 'family' variety was played at home with his wife. Snooker with many friends at his house was another form of relaxation. David John Crockett died on 28 June 2009. He had suffered a stroke on 11 June and was nursed at home by Anne with superb help from the local nursing and social services, and also from his granddaughter, Naomi, who had trained as a doctor at Leeds University. He could not speak, but was able to smile and recognised his family until he passed away. He was survived by Anne, their four children and seven grandchildren, Naomi, Tamara, Thomas, Victoria, Hannah, Kathryn and Jonathan.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001254
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Dalliwall, Kenneth Hayat Singh (1913 - 2010)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2011-07-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373438373438
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Kenneth Dalliwall was a much respected consultant orthopaedic surgeon who served many hospitals in the north east London area over the years. He worked at the Whipps Cross, Connaught and Wanstead hospitals, and at the Walthamstow and Loughton Children's hospitals. He was also an assistant surgeon at the Middlesex Hospital and practised privately in Harley Street. Retiring at the age of 65 in 1978, he continued in medico-legal practice for five years. He was born in Mussoorie, India, on 25 March 1913, the elder of two sons of Har (Harry) Bhajan Singh Dalliwall, a barrister, and his wife, Emma Elizabeth née Colville. The family went to England in 1915, but sadly the father died when Kenneth was a young boy. From Forest School, Snaresbrook, Kenneth went to Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he studied natural science. He proceeded to St Bartholomew's Hospital for his clinical years. His brother also entered medicine and became a general practitioner in Southport. Kenneth's years as a student saw many structural changes at Bart's in West Smithfield. The surgical block with five operating theatres, one on each floor, had already been completed in 1930 with a complement of 250 beds. So dressers were allocated to clerk and look after patients allocated to them. A year before he qualified an equivalent medical block was built to the south of the square - the so-called 'King George V block' - that was opened by Queen Mary. Students had excellent tuition in surgery from George Gask and Sir James Paterson Ross, and one of the chief assistants, John P Hosford, a general surgeon, who at that time had an interest in orthopaedics. Respite from Ken's studies came by sailing with United Hospitals, at Burnham-on-Crouch, a form of exercise and relaxation that never deserted him throughout his years as a consultant and into retirement. After qualifying, he held house appointments at the Kent and Sussex hospitals. He volunteered to serve in the Royal Army Medical Corps after a further post at the Seaman's Hospital, Greenwich. As a surgical specialist with the rank of major, he went to France shortly after D-Day and served in field hospitals during the Allies' advance in Normandy. An interest in trauma was ignited during these years and prepared him for his future specialist career in orthopaedics. Towards the end of the war he was sent to the Far East. Japan surrendered when he was on board a ship off Singapore. He went into prisoner of war camps to help poorly nourished Australian soldiers, and for the next few months accompanied many of them back to Australia. He remained with the troops in hospitals in Sydney until he returned to England. He was demobilised in 1947, but continued a strong connection with the Territorial Army as a colonel commanding the 57 Middlesex General Hospital at Harrow. For these services he was decorated with a TD and bar. Having gained the FRCS in 1943 during the war years, he continued registrar training in general surgery at the Dreadnought Hospital before specialising in orthopaedics at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children at Great Ormond Street. Here he worked for, and was influenced by, H Jackson Burrows and Sidney Higgs. Burrows later became dean of the Institute of Orthopaedics, Postgraduate Medical Federation, University of London and Higgs was a great organiser, but very demanding of his trainees in his meticulous attention to detail. In 1953, and at the age of 40, he was enjoying a successful medical career and a thriving social life. Through an interest in drama he met Margaret Faulds, a personnel officer who worked in the City of London. At the New Lindsay Theatre Club in London's Notting Hill, they discovered a mutual interest in drama, a love of wining and dining and in conversation. In the early years of their friendship, Margaret needed a crash course in the art of sailing. On one of these occasions, after Margaret had cooked a superb meal in the tiny galley of a small sailing boat, Ken proposed. They married in Lancashire on 25 November 1957. Margaret retired from her City job in 1961 in order to support Ken and worked as an administrator and secretary in his private practice. After working all week, they dashed up to Norfolk for a period of rest and relaxation. Much of this time was spent sailing and with friends in the East Anglian Cruising Club. In 1962 they bought *Betty*, a 21 foot twin-berthed, wooden sailing cruiser. Before he retired he was a member of many yacht clubs: the Royal Burnham and Royal Corinthian at Burnham-on-Crouch, the Littleship Club, London, and the Cambridge Cruising Club. He was a life member of the Naval and Military Club. In 1984, when Hawthorn Cottage, Thurn, Norfolk, came on the market, they moved from Essex to enjoy Norfolk all year round. They moved Betty to a mooring at Boundary Farm, Oby, and became popular members of the local community: their zest for life contributed greatly to the village's social calendar. Kenneth Dalliwall remained a true gentleman, a wonderful husband, a man who enjoyed the company of friends. As a man of faith he believed that death was not the end of his existence. He died on 28 June 2010, and was survived by his wife of 53 years, Margaret. One Norfolk friend in a tribute at his funeral held at St Edmund's Church, Thurne, Norfolk described his long years of work as 'a long dedication to his practice and patients that is another testimony to one of Ken's greatest qualities - his sense of duty and loyalty'.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001255
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Graham, Norman Garrick (1932 - 2010)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2011-07-07 2011-07-20
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373439373439
Occupation General surgeon
Details Garrick Graham was a consultant general surgeon in Huddersfield from 1967 to 1993 and chairman of the Huddersfield NHS Trust for many years after 1992 and into his retirement. He was born in Palmerson North, New Zealand, on 15 December 1932. His father, Cecil Davies Graham, worked in life insurance and his mother, Martha Berneice Isabel née Glass, was a housewife. Through his father he was proud of his lineage through 'Graham' of the 'House of Montrose'. Garrick Graham was a proud member of the Huddersfield St Andrew's Society from 1968 and became 'chief' in 1977 and again in the 1980s. His education commenced at the Central Primary School, New Plymouth, New Zealand, where he was 'dux' in 1945. This was followed by secondary education at King's College, Auckland, where he gained the Swale's memorial biology and the Moorhouse science prizes in 1950. In addition to these scholastic achievements he represented the school XI at cricket in 1950. Garrick went to Otago University medical school from 1951 to 1956 and was greatly influenced by D'Ath in pathology, who gave superb clinico-pathological tutorials and W E Adams, an anatomist, who had a great gift for imparting his knowledge. After qualification he was a houseman in the Auckland hospitals from 1958 to 1959 and then a surgical registrar up to 1962, when he passed the FRACS. During his years in New Zealand he led a very active life in sport. He had played cricket for the university first XI and was in the Waikato provincial team in 1955. He also kept himself fit as a member of the Otago Rugby Union Referees Association. In 1964 he went to the UK as a lecturer with senior registrar status at Leeds General Infirmary, where he was fortunate to work with John C Goligher. He was taught the importance of good clinical work underpinning all other areas of practice. During this period of training, Garrick Graham had many joint publications on ulcerative colitis, including 'Early surgery in the management of severe ulcerative colitis' (*Brit.med.J.*, 1967 2 193) and 'Reliability of physical signs in patients with severe ulcerative colitis' (*Brit.med.J.*, 1971 2 746). He also published on many aspects of bowel surgery, acute pancreatitis, the biliary tract and vagotomy. In 1967 he was appointed as a consultant surgeon in Huddersfield. He was widely respected as a busy and approachable general surgeon, who was also an examiner in surgery for the BDS at the University of Leeds and in the final MB BCh. He assumed managerial roles for several years leading up to his retirement and wrote an article 'Self-governing hospital: a hospital manager's assessment' (*Brit J Hosp Med* 1989 42, 438). This was from his experience in the years 1986 to 1991 as the part-time unit general manager at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary. He became a membership councillor and was elected by the local population to help steer the Catherdale and Huddersfield Trust into the future. Passionate about health and health services, he assumed the role of chairman of Huddersfield NHS Trust from November 1992 and was involved for many years following his retirement. 'Huddersfield Royal Infirmary always occupied a special place in his heart: he was a great man and I miss him greatly,' wrote one colleague from the Trust. He married Joy Frances Bayly on his 24th birthday in Te Awamutu, New Zealand. They had three children: Michael Ian, born in New Zealand in 1958, became a research manager in the pharmaceutical industry and now works in finance; Kathryn Denise, also born in New Zealand, was a stewardess on cruise liners but more recently a primary school teacher; and Jacky Joy, who was born in the UK, is a former BBC journalist and now a vicar in the Anglican church. Relaxation in Garrick's consultant years came from playing golf to a high standard - he won the Moynihan cup (Leeds) in 1977. In his earlier years as a consultant he switched his allegiance to Association Football. From active participation as a referee in rugby union in New Zealand, in the UK he followed the 'round ball'. From 1970 to 1974 he was director of Huddersfield Town Football club. As early as 1990 Garrick developed a keen interest in wines and had an extensive cellar in his large Victorian house. For his last 10 to 15 years he had been particularly interested in wines from New Zealand. To accompany the wines, in retirement he also became very interested in cooking and became an accomplished chef. He and Joy hosted many fun dinner parties. Norman Garrick Graham died on 25 February 2010 and was survived by his wife of 54 years Joy, their three children and three grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001256
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hardy, Eric Gordon (1918 - 2010)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2011-07-07 2013-12-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373440373440
Occupation General surgeon
Details Eric Hardy was a hardworking general surgeon who spent his consultant career in Chester and was awarded emeritus status when he retired in 1982. He was born on 21 July 1918 in Royton, Lancashire. His father was Frank Stanley Hardy, a typewriter mechanic, and his mother Jean née Leslie. Eric was the only son of a short-lived marriage and was brought up in the Scottish Glens by his mother, a talented if irascible teacher. Overcoming the circumstances of his upbringing, Eric excelled at Banff Academy, winning school prizes. As a classical scholar with little or no science training, he decided to study medicine. He qualified with honours in 1940 at Aberdeen University and at a later date completed his medical doctorate. After house appointments in Aberdeen he moved south, first to Chester and then to Norwich. He entered wartime National Service as a flight lieutenant in the RAFVR, one of his postings being in Norfolk. There he met and married Shirley née Cook, a staff nurse. Eric went to Norwich after the war as a registrar, and he gained considerable experience with Charles Noon, a surgeon of the 'old school', and Norman Townsley, who had just come back from Army service in Norway and India. Two of his three sons were born in Norwich. John, now an IT consultant, was born in 1949 and Peter, a local government officer in Norfolk, in 1951. The family lived in 'Pull's Ferry', a delightful house owned by the dean and chapter of Norwich Cathedral, that fronts the River Wensum. In 1953 the family emigrated to the USA when Eric obtained a post as a fellow and instructor in surgery at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. He worked in the famous cardiovascular unit with Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley at the Jefferson Davis Hospital. Notwithstanding a stimulating professional environment and the prospect of rapid career advancement, in 1955 Eric and Shirley decided to take the children home to England. He was then appointed resident surgical officer at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital and associated hospitals, working with his former 'chiefs' and in addition 'Monty' Ridley Thomas, a good general surgeon with a urological interest, and Alan Birt. Working for all four surgeons, including his former chiefs, Noon and Townsley, he obtained good paediatric training, some neurosurgical experience, vascular training, as well as exposure to the full range of general surgical procedures. Eric Hardy then proceeded to Newcastle, perhaps on the recommendation of Norman Townsley who held him in high regard and knew the professor there well. He became first assistant in the department of surgery at Durham University and to the surgical professorial unit in Newcastle. Under the guidance of the dynamic Andrew Lowden his surgical skills were further increased. He returned to his studies and passed the English fellowship in 1958, under the impression that this was essential at consultant interviews. He was appointed to the Chester Royal Infirmary as a consultant general surgeon the following year. Eric and the family moved there in July 1959 just after the birth of their third son, Michael, who is now a technical consultant in the oil industry. He published on 'Acute ischaemia in limb injuries' and did experimental work on 'The role of bacteria in irreversible haemorrhagic shock', and the use of trypsin on experimental thrombotic and inflammatory conditions. He was an avid correspondent to the broadsheets and was respected for his comments on medical and world matters. His MD thesis was accepted in 1954 but in 1987, after he had retired, he wrote a letter to the editor of the *Journal of the RSM* based on this thesis. An article on Meigs' and pseudo-Meigs' syndrome had been published suggesting the role of 'lymphatic stomata' in the diaphragm in the benign ovarian tumour producing both ascites and pleural effusion. Eric Hardy, based on his early work, felt that frequent shock waves produced by coughing, for example, could easily explain the diffusion of fluid in the abdomen to a sub-atmospheric pressure zone of the pleural cavity and through an attenuated diaphragm. There was no need to implicate lymphatic stomata. In Chester he gained a superb reputation as a fine diagnostician, an excellent teacher who 'did not suffer fools gladly', but who was extremely supportive to his staff and much appreciated for his support of medical colleagues. Many of his trainees still use and pass on some of Eric's techniques. He was a founder and president of the Liverpool and North West Society of Surgeons and was honoured by his peers when elected president of the Chester and North Wales Medical Society. He retired from his busy surgical life in 1982, and for the next ten years became a 'hobby' farmer in west Cheshire. After his wife, Shirley, died in 1994 he moved back to Norfolk and lived for some 15 years in Surlingham near Norwich. He was very active up to the last, and was shopping in Norwich a few days before his death following a fall. Eric Gordon Hardy died on 9 July 2010, and left three sons and five grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001257
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Roualle, Henri Louis Marcel (1915 - 2007)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2011-07-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373442373442
Occupation General surgeon
Details Henri Roualle was a consultant general surgeon in London serving at many hospitals at various stages of his career, including Connaught, Wanstead, Finchley Memorial, the National Temperance and Whipps Cross hospitals. He was also visiting surgeon to HM prison, Wormwood Scrubs. He was born on 19 May 1915 in Epsom, Surrey. His parents, Louis Francois Auguste Roualle and Marie Marguerite Caroline née Rolo, came from Normandy and settled in England, taking British nationality. Henri and his brother Jean were both educated at Epsom College, where their father was a language teacher in French and German. The Roualle brothers were brought up as bilingual speakers and enjoyed the privileged ambience of the school grounds, playing with the children of other masters. Henri entered the lower school in 1923 and moved into the main school, where he became a school prefect and head of Roseberry house. He switched from the classical side to science subjects in the sixth form. After a distinguished academic career in school, he gained a scholarship to study medicine at St Bartholomew's. During these years he developed acute appendicitis with peritonitis and poliomyelitis, the latter leaving him with a permanent limp. For his preclinical years he went to the medical college in Charterhouse Square and spent his clinical years at St Bartholomew's Hospital, West Smithfield. He contributed papers as a student to the *St Bartholomew's Hospital Journal* on a wide range of topics from 'Moliere and medicine' to 'carbuncle of the kidney'. On qualification he became a casualty house surgeon and then was attached to the obstetric and gynaecology unit. His unpublished memoirs describe his recollections of these years. He then took a job as a ship's doctor on a Blue Funnel steamer, the *Myrmidon*, sailing from Plymouth to Australia and back via Malaysia and Saudi Arabia. On the return journey, the Second World War broke out and Henri Roualle found himself in a convoy returning home via South Africa. In October 1939 he returned to Bart's as an anatomy demonstrator working with W J Hamilton, and ended this time in Cambridge with the evacuation of the preclinical school. The students were housed in Queen's College, Cambridge, and enjoyed the facilities of the university, including the lecture theatres and the anatomy dissecting room. Bart's students were segregated in a 'roped-off' area about one quarter the size of the larger portion used by the Cambridge undergraduates, who were to be seen there occasionally. Bart's students under the Hamilton were taught a lot of anatomy, almost to the exclusion of physiology and biochemistry. This state of affairs existed until Easter 1946, when the preclinical school returned to war-damaged Charterhouse Square in London. Henri Roualle then went to Queen Alexandra's Hospital, an EMS hospital at Cobham, as a 'junior' surgeon for a year and a half. Although he had a limp following poliomyelitis, he was accepted for military service as a medical officer in the RAF with the rank of flight lieutenant. He served in West Africa until 1942, then in France and was in Brussels on VE day. As part of the army of occupation he saw the horrors of Belsen, and describes these very vividly in his typewritten private memoirs. Brought up in the Roman Catholic faith, his wartime experiences turned him to agnosticism. He was, however, always committed to Christian moral principles. He returned to Bart's in 1946. During his postgraduate years he worked as a chief assistant to Sir James Paterson Ross on the surgical unit. Later his teaching skills were utilised as a surgical tutor, a post used to help students consolidate their knowledge and, in particular, to help those struggling with examinations. His further training took him to Barnet General Hospital. At the RCS he won the Jacksonian prize in 1948 and followed this as Hunterian Professor in 1950, when he delivered a lecture on 'malignant disease of the thyroid gland'. This was a survey of 100 cases and was published in the *Annals* of the Royal College of Surgeons (1950:7:67-86). In 1952 he was appointed as a consultant general surgeon to Barnet Hospital, also working at the National Temperance and Finchley Memorial hospitals. Many Greek Cypriot patients attended the National Temperance Hospital, and Henri taught himself modern Greek in order to communicate with them. In the 1960s he contracted pulmonary tuberculosis, almost certainly from a patient. This necessitated treatment in a sanatorium in Norfolk. Henri's final posts were at Whipps Cross and Connaught hospitals. He also served as surgeon at Wormwood Scrubs prison, where he had dealings with John Stonehouse MP and other notable figures. In 1946 he married Molly Walden, a nurse whom he had met at RAF Hospital, Ely. They were together for just over 60 years and had three children, Anne-Marie, Yvonne and Michael. Henri Roualle was a very hard working and conscientious surgeon who was perceived as such by his children. None of the children entered medicine, and perhaps got to know their father better in his retirement. The family recall their father as a proficient linguist who encouraged them, when holidaying abroad in their teens, to speak the native language. Linguaphone records were studied by the whole family, particularly in Spanish and Italian. The interest in languages rubbed off on the children. Anne-Marie taught Spanish and French at several schools, including Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls; her sister Yvonne teaches Italian at Sherborne Girls' School. Their brother, Michael, went to Epsom College and entered farming and then banking. Henri Roualle's last few years were dogged by indifferent health. In addition to cardiac problems, he developed circulatory problems in his 'polio' leg. This was amputated below the knee in his 85th year, and he was in hospital for several months due to MRSA infection. An attack of shingles compromised the sight in one eye to which he adapted well, but he did not venture out of doors thereafter. His intellect remained strong: he read daily newspapers and was always keen to discuss articles he had read and found interesting. Henri Roualle died after another short illness on 28 March 2007 and was survived by his wife Molly, by their children and four grandchildren, Simon, David, Helen and Samuel.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001259
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Coombe, Robert Gorton (1818 - 1909)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cooper, Sir Alfred (1838 - 1908)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-07-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373444373444
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Norwich on December 28th, 1838, the son of William Cooper, Recorder of Ipswich, by his wife Anna Marsh. He entered Merchant Taylors' School, then in Suffolk Lane, in April, 1850, and was afterwards apprenticed to W Peter Nichols, Surgeon to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. He entered as a student at St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1858; went to Paris in 1861 to improve his knowledge of anatomy in company with Sir Thomas Smith (qv), and on his return was appointed Prosector at the Royal College of Surgeons. He started practice in Jermyn Street and soon acquired a fashionable private connection. He was Surgeon to St Mark's Hospital for Fistula, to the West London Hospital from 1867-1884, to the Royal Hospital for Diseases of the Chest, and to the Lock Hospital in Soho. He visited St Petersburgh as medical attendant to King Edward VII, when Prince of Wales, on the occasion of the marriage of the Duke of Edinburgh in 1874. He was decorated by the Tzar, Chevalier of the Order of St Stanislaus of Russia. He was appointed Surgeon in Ordinary to the Duke of Edinburgh in 1893, and was knighted at King Edward VII's Coronation in 1902. At the Royal College of Surgeons of England he was a Member of the Council from 1895-1905 and served as Vice-President. He married in 1882 Lady Agnes Cecil Emmeline Duff, third daughter of the Duke of Fife, by whom he had three daughters and one son, Alfred Duff Cooper, DSO, MP, who afterwards distinguished himself in political circles. He died at Mentone on March 3rd, 1908, and was buried in the English cemetery. Cooper was gifted with great social qualities which were linked with fine traits of character and great breadth of view. He gained in the course of his life a wide knowledge of the world, partly at Courts, partly in Hospitals, and partly in the exercise of a branch of the profession which more than any other reveals the frailty of mankind, for he is now chiefly remembered as one who treated syphilis. The possession of a competence limited, but did not wholly destroy, his professional activity. Appointed early in life Surgeon to the Inns of Court Volunteers - 'The Devil's Own' -he cherished a deep interest in the reserve forces throughout his life. He was decorated with the volunteer medal for long service and became Surgeon Colonel to the Duke of York's Loyal Suffolk Hussars. Freemasonry appealed to him. He held high rank in the United Grand Lodge of England, and was instrumental in founding the Rahere Lodge No 2546, the first masonic body to be associated with St Bartholomew's Hospital in London. The portrait of him by Spy in *Vanity Fair*, 1897, is rather a likeness than a caricature. Publications: *Syphilis and Pseudo-syphilis*, 1884; 2nd ed., 1895. *A Practical Treatise on Disease of the Rectum*, 1887. The second edition (with F. SWINFORD EDWARDS) is entitled, *Diseases of the Rectum and Anus*, 1892.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001261
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cooper, Bransby Blake (1792 - 1853)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-07-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373445373445
Occupation General surgeon
Details The fourth of the twelve children and the eldest son of the Rev Samuel Levick Cooper, the elder brother of Sir Astley Cooper and grandson of Dr Cooper, Vicar of Great Yarmouth. Born in Great Yarmouth on September 2nd, 1792, he went to school at Bungay under the Rev Robert Page, and afterwards to the Grammar School at Yarmouth. In 1805 he was sent to sea as a midshipman in the Stately (64 guns) by the interest of Admiral Russell, then the Port Admiral at Yarmouth, and was placed under the care and instruction of the first lieutenant, who afterwards became Admiral Fisher. Nostalgia combined with sea-sickness soon made him give up all idea of becoming a sailor, and he was sent to school for the next two years at North Walsham, Norfolk, where the Rev Mr Spurdens was head master. A visit to his uncle, Sir Astley Cooper, led him to desire a medical training, and he entered the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital as a pupil under Edward Rigby and Edward Colman, P M Martineau, who was a brilliant operator, being his teacher in surgery. He came to London in 1811, entered the United Borough Hospitals, lodged with Joseph Hodgson (qv) in King Street, Cheapside, and became his uncle's pupil. On May 20th, 1812, he joined the Ordnance Medical Department as Temporary Assistant Surgeon, becoming 2nd Assistant Surgeon on December 2nd, 1812, and retiring on half pay on April 1st, 1816. During this period he was present at the battles of Vittoria, the Pyrenees, Nivelle, Orthez, and the sieges of St Sebastian and Toulouse. In 1814 he went to Quebec on the secret expedition, and for these services he was decorated. Returning to England in 1815, he found that his brother Henry had been apprenticed to Sir Astley Cooper, and as such apprenticeship usually carried the right of succession at the Hospital, Bransby determined to abandon surgery. He proceeded to Edinburgh with the intention of taking a degree in medicine. During his short residence there he was elected President of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh, and married Miss Keeling, a daughter of John Keeling, of Broxbourne, Herts, by whom he had a son who died before his father. Henry Cooper having died unexpectedly of fever in February, 1816, Bransby returned to London, and it was arranged that with his wife he should live in his uncle's house, for Mrs Astley Cooper disliked London and preferred to live in the country house at Gadesbridge. From June, 1818, until 1827 this arrangement was continued to the mutual advantage of uncle and nephew. Bransby assisted in the dissecting-room, where there was a class of 400 students, and in February, 1823, was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy conjointly with John Flint South (qv) on the resignation of Charles Aston Key (qv). Astley Cooper was ceasing to teach, and it became a part of the duty of the demonstrators to deliver some of the anatomical lectures for him. The appointment of Bransby Cooper was made by Sir Astley Cooper without previous consultation with his colleagues, and brought to a head a long-simmering dissension between the governors of Guy's and St Thomas's Hospital. An acrimonious dispute took place, and it was decided by the autocratic Treasurer - Benjamin Harrison - that Guy's Hospital should be separated from St Thomas's, with which it had hitherto been joined for administrative and teaching purposes. A new medical school thus came into existence and Bransby Cooper took the Chair of Anatomy, was elected Assistant Surgeon in 1825, becoming full Surgeon in the same year, and retaining office until his death in 1853. He lectured on surgery in the medical school and was also Consulting Surgeon to the Western Infirmary. The Lancet of March 29th, 1828, contained a highly sensational description, written by James Lambert, a surgeon in general practice at Walworth, of a lithotomy operation performed by Bransby Cooper in the theatre of Guy's Hospital. The account was written in a most unfriendly spirit, and was indirectly an attack upon Sir Astley Cooper. Bransby Cooper brought an action for libel against Thomas Wakley as proprietor of the Lancet. The trial began at Westminster in the Court of Queen's Bench on Dec. 12th, 1828, and became a cause célèbre in the course of which this squib was quoted:- "When Cooper's 'nevey' cut for stone His toils were long and heavy: The patient quicker parts has shown He soon cut Cooper's 'nevey'." The jury found for Bransby Cooper with damages assessed at £100, but it left a lasting mark upon him, and throughout the remainder of his life he was unduly emotional. He was elected FRS on June 18th, 1829. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was Arris and Gale Professor of Human Anatomy and Surgery from 1841-1845, a Member of the Council 1848-1853, and Hunterian Orator in 1853. He died suddenly in the Athenaeum Club on August 18th, 1853, from a large haemorrhage due to ulceration at the base of the tongue, and was buried at St Martin's-in-the-Fields. There is a fine portrait by Eddis which was engraved by Simmonds. A copy of the mezzotint hangs in the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons. There is also a lithograph by J Bizo. Bransby Cooper paid the penalty of his relationship to Sir Astley Cooper, whom he idolized. He would perhaps have done better, and he would certainly have been happier, had he remained an army surgeon. He was warm-hearted, sympathetic, and jocular, but had little confidence in himself. He never had a large practice, and towards the end of his life interested himself in the chemistry of the human body, analysing animal fluids and calculi. As a man he was well made, muscular, a good oarsman and pugilist, and a good shot. It is told of him that, when Demonstrator of Anatomy, he came to the rescue of his pupils during a fight between St Bartholomew's and Guy's, and thrashed the enemy. On another occasion he was unable to operate because he had rowed himself from Westminster Bridge to the Hospital and felt his hand was unsteady. He was beloved of his pupils and was never referred to otherwise than as Bransby. Publications: *A Treatise on Ligaments*, 4to, 18 plates, fol., 1825; 2nd ed., London, 1827; 4th ed., 1836. In this work Cooper is said to have discovered more ligaments than actually exist. *Lectures on Anatomy, interspersed with Practical Remarks*, 4 vols., 8vo, 13 plates, London (published by the author), 1829-32 ; again, London, 1830-5. This work is said to have been the first in this country to contain lithographs. *The Anatomy of the Human Bones*, comprised in a series of lithographic drawings carefully taken from nature and arranged for the purpose of illustrating the Lecture, by Henry J. Shrapnell, fol., 30 plates, London, 1833. *Surgical Essays; the Result of Clinical Observations made at Guy's Hospital*, 8vo, 4 plates, London, 1833; republished in German at Weimar in 1837. *The Life of Sir Astley Cooper, interspersed with sketches from his Notebooks of Distinguished Contemporary Characters*, 2 vols., 8vo, a portrait, London, 1843. This is an unbalanced work, which might have been turned into a philosophical history of contemporary surgery as well as of a great surgeon's career. *Lectures on Osteology, including the Ligaments which connect the Bones of the Human Skeleton*, 8vo, 10 plates, London, 1844. "Observations on Lithotomy," 8vo, nd; reprinted from *Guy's Hosp Rep*, 1843 and 1844, N.S. i and ii. "On the Pathology and Treatment of Fracture of the Neck of the Thigh Bone," 8vo, London, 1845; reprinted from *Guy's Hosp Rep*, to which at different times Cooper contributed a large number of papers. *Lectures on the Principles and Practice of Surgery*, 8vo, London, 1851; reprinted in Philadelphia, 1852. *The Hunterian Oration, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons, February 14th*, 1853, 8vo, London, 1853. The Oration is said to have been a great failure, and the auditors were sorry for the Orator as, like all his distinguished family, he was a great favourite. Cooper also edited Sir Astley Cooper's *Treatise on Dislocations*, "with additional observations and a memoir," 8vo, 1842. (Philadelphia and also Boston, 1844. Published also by the Massachusetts Medical Society in the "Library of Practical Medicine").
Resource Identifier RCS: E001262
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cooper, Clarence (1830 - 1924)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cordwent, George (1815 - 1900)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Corkey, Isaac Whitla (1892 - 1927)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cormick, William (1820 - 1877)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cornelius, James Connor (1807 - 1876)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

First Title value, for Searching Cornish, William Robert (1828 - 1897)

2025-07-26T12:50:33Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-08-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373462373462
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Corvill, Butleigh, Somersetshire, in September, 1828, son of William Cornish, and was educated at St George's Hospital, where he obtained the William Brown Scholarship and the Benjamin Brodie Gold Medal for Clinical Surgery. After acting for some time as House Surgeon at the Royal Sea-Bathing Infirmary, Margate, he gained, on April 1st, 1854, after competition, an appointment in the medical service of the East India Company which that body had offered to St George's Hospital. He was posted to the Madras Presidency as Assistant Surgeon in 1854, and proceeded in charge of troops in the Roxburgh Castle. During the first four years of his service he held various civil and military charges, and in 1858 was selected to act as Secretary to the Inspector-General of Hospitals. In addition to his official duties he edited the *Madras Quarterly Journal of Medical Science*, and wrote papers on the treatment of dysentery by large doses of ipecacuanha, on enteric fever in India, on prison dietaries, and on cholera in Madras. He was a member of an important Commission for the reorganization of medical establishments in India in 1865-1866, was Secretary to the Medical Fund from 1864-1870, and in 1870 was appointed first Sanitary Commissioner for the Madras Presidency. In 1871 he drew up the Census Report of the Madras Presidency. In 1877 an immense amount of labour and responsibility devolved upon him in connection with the famine of that year. Sir Richard Temple was sent by the Government of India as Famine Delegate, and advocated a ration which Surgeon General Cornish, from his professional knowledge, considered inadequate for the starving natives. He contended that the Government ration doled out was insufficient properly to support life, and that thereby lives were unnecessarily sacrificed. A long discussion took place between Sir Richard Temple and Surgeon General Cornish, the latter being heartily supported by the Lancet and the press generally. Eventually the authorities had to give way, the diet recommended by Surgeon General Cornish was adopted, and the slow-starvation ration stopped. Further loss of life was thus checked. During this trying period Cornish was strongly supported by the Duke of Buckingham at the head of the Government of Madras. After saving countless lives he received the modest reward of the CIE. In 1880 he was appointed Surgeon General over the heads of many seniors, and retired in April, 1885. He served as member of the Madras Legislative Council from 1888-1885, and in this capacity materially assisted in the framing of the Local Government Bill for the Presidency and in compiling the Famine Code, which has since proved of such service to India. Returning to England, Cornish lived a quietly active life almost to the last. He was appointed Hon Physician to the Queen, and busied himself as a Governor of St George's Hospital. He was a member of the Council of the British Medical Association, of the British Institute of Preventive Medicine, the Sanitary Assurance Association, and attended councils regularly, his advice in matters of tropical hygiene being much sought after. The British Institute of Preventive Medicine had been amalgamated with the College of State Medicine, of which body he was originally Hon Secretary and Treasurer, and he passed from the Council of the College to that of the Institute. He died at his residence - Corvill, Shelley Road, Worthing - on October 19th, 1897, and was buried in Heene Cemetery, Somerset. He married the youngest daughter of Dr George Yeates Hunter, of Margate. His only son, Captain William Hunter Cornish, Assistant Secretary to the Government of India, died at Simla. Lieut-Colonel Crawford gives his promotions as follows: - Assistant Surgeon, Madras (April 1st, 1856), nominated by W H C Plowden, gained Commission as a prize at St George's Hospital; Surgeon (April 1st, 1866); Surgeon Major (July 1st, 1873); Brig-Surgeon (November 1st, 1879); Surgeon General (April 5th, 1880); retired on June 1st, 1885. Never held rank of Deputy Inspector-General, being promoted direct to Surgeon General at the reorganization of 1880. Good Service Pension, Nov 18th, 1885. Publications: *Reports on the Nature of the Food of the Inhabitants of the Madras Presidency, and on the Dietaries of Prisoners in Lillah Jails. Compiled and arranged under the Orders of Government*, 8vo, Madras, 1863. *Report on Cholera in Southern India for the year* 1869, fol, with map, Madras, 1870. Madras Medical and Surgical Regulations, 1870. *Cholera in Southern India*. A record of the progress of cholera in 1870, and résumé of the records of former epidemic invasions of the Madras Presidency, 4 maps, Madras, 1871. *An Inquiry into the Circumstances attending the Outbreak of Cholera in H.M. 18th Hussars at Secunderabad in the month of May*, 1871, map, Madras, 1871. *Memorandum on the Movement of Cholera in Southern India*, 1869-72 : Appendix I, Observations on Professor Pettenkofer's theory of cholera; Appendix II. Observations on the level of subsoil water in selected stations in reference to cholera prevalence, fol, Madras, 1872, bound with Madras Rep San Com, 1871. *Report on the Census of the Madras Presidency*, 1871, with Appendix containing the results of the census arranged in standard forms prescribed by the Government of India: and Supplementary Tables by W R Cornish, 2 vols, fol, Madras, 1874. *A Reply to Sir Richard Temple's Minutes of the 7th and 14th March as to the Sufficiency of a Pound of Grain as the Basis of Famine Wages*, fol, Lawrence Asylum Press, 1877. *The Origin and Diffusion of Cholera*, 8vo, London, 1892.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001279
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cotton, Charles (1811 - 1858)

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First Title value, for Searching Coulson, William (1802 - 1877)

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First Title value, for Searching Coultate, William Miller (1814 - 1882)

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First Title value, for Searching Coumbe, John Batten (1853 - 1924)

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First Title value, for Searching Couper, John (1835 - 1918)

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by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-08-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373474373474
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Glasgow on November 7th, 1835, the son of John Couper, Professor of Materia Medica in the University of Glasgow, and Charlotte, daughter of Charles Tennant, of the St Rollox Chemical Works. The family of Couper is of ancient lineage in Scotland, and the name is the northern variant of the English 'Cooper' or 'Cowper'. After the death of Professor Couper in 1855, John Couper, who had begun his education at Glasgow Academy and at the University, went to Paris to perfect himself in French. He then returned to Glasgow and graduated in 1858, having been one of Lister's pupils at Edinburgh, where he also studied anatomy and physiology under Allan Thomson. After graduation he came to London and continued his study of anatomy at University College under Professor Viner Ellis (qv). Later he studied operative surgery under Langenbeck at Berlin. On his return to London he was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy at the London Hospital Medical College largely through the influence of Professors Sharpey and Ellis. Turning his attention to ophthalmology, he also became Assistant to George Critchett (qv) at the London Ophthalmic Hospital in Moorfields. His researches in ophthalmology enabled him in 1883 to produce a 'magazine ophthalmoscope' which facilitated the measurement not only of errors of refraction, but of degrees of astigmatism. At the London Hospital his career was one of unswerving and upward progress. He was successively Demonstrator of Anatomy, Professor of Physiology, Assistant Surgeon, and full Surgeon and Professor of Surgery. As Professor of Physiology at the London Hospital he lectured conjointly with Hughlings Jackson, who was wont to say of his colleague that "no man had more knowledge worth communicating". It is probable that some of this knowledge was shown in communicating to Hughlings Jackson the value of the ophthalmoscope in diagnosis. As Professor of Surgery Couper gave a special course of lectures on diseases of the eye. On retiring under the time limit he was appointed Consulting Surgeon, and went to live at Ellesborough in the Chiltern Hills, whence he afterwards removed with his family to Falmouth. His death occurred on April 30th, 1918, and he was buried at Falmouth. He was survived by a widow, three daughters, and one son, Colonel Duncan Campbell Couper, RE. He left £178,000. Couper was amongst the last of the general surgeons who practised ophthalmology. A pupil of Lister, he introduced the use of the spray and dressings at the London Hospital before Lister came to King's College Hospital. He was a good but slow operator and was a pioneer in operations on the kidney and liver; he did much to popularize the use of the ophthalmoscope, more especially in estimating errors of refraction by the direct method of examination. Shy and somewhat retiring in manner, he wrote no books, though he made many contributions to the medical periodicals. He practised for many years at 80 Grosvenor Street, Grosvenor Square, W, and at the time of his death was Consulting Surgeon to the London, the Royal London Ophthalmic, and the Scottish Hospitals. He married in 1868 Helen Macfarlan, daughter of Alexander Campbell, Surgeon to the 1st Life Guards, and his wife Helen, daughter of the Rev Duncan Macfarlan, DD, Principal of Glasgow University, and Minister of the Cathedral. There is an excellent bust of Couper by Miss Anna Dabis and a three-quarter length portrait in oils, both in the Medical College of the London Hospital, and his coat of arms - two laurel branches inclining towards each other -appears in one of the College windows. Publications:- "Wounds of the Intestines." - *Trans. Pathol. Soc. Lond.*, xiv, 160. "An Attempt to Reduce a Dislocation of the Lower Jaw which had lasted nearly Four Months." - *Lond. Hosp. Rep*., 1864, i., 177. "The Diagnosis of Astigmatism by the Ophthalmoscope." - *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1870, ii, 804. "A Magazine Refraction Ophthalmoscope." - *Trans. Ophthalmol. Soc.*, 1883, iii, 297.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001291
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Courtenay, John (1808 - 1854)

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First Title value, for Searching Courtney, Sydney (1805 - 1879)

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First Title value, for Searching Cowell, George (1836 - 1927)

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by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-08-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001300-E001399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373483373483
Occupation General surgeon
Details The eldest son of George K Cowell, an Ipswich surgeon; served as an apprentice to a practitioner in Birmingham; entered as a student at St George's Hospital, where he held minor and residential appointments under Henry Gray (qv), the anatomist, Prescott Hewett (qv), and Timothy Holmes (qv). Shortly after qualifying he was appointed Surgeon to the St George's and St James's Dispensary, and at the same time became Clinical Assistant at Moorfields, where he studied ophthalmology for ten years, though, like other ophthalmologists of that epoch, he always remained a general surgeon. Shortly after passing the Fellowship he was appointed an Assistant Surgeon to Westminster Hospital, and thus began a connection with that institution which lasted for fifty-six years. He was Lecturer on Surgery and Ophthalmic Surgery for twenty years, was promoted full Surgeon in 1878, and held that post till he was appointed Consulting Surgeon in 1896. This period covered the rebuilding of the out-patient department, the medical school, and the chapel, with all of which work he was closely associated. After being Dean of the Medical School for five years he became Treasurer of the School and held that post for fifteen years. While Assistant Surgeon at the Westminster Hospital he was appointed Surgeon to the Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital, then in King William Street, Charing Cross, where for twenty-seven years he interested himself warmly in the management of the institution, both scientifically and from the business point of view. He was Consulting Surgeon to the institution at the time of his death. Next to his work as an ophthalmic surgeon, and closely associated with it, must be mentioned Cowell's activities on behalf of children. In 1866 he was the virtual founder of the Victoria Hospital for Children in Chelsea, and for twenty years was associated as Surgeon and Ophthalmic Surgeon with the new institution. During the same period he found time to hold the appointment of Surgeon to the East London Hospital for Children, also to lecture on surgery and ophthalmology at the School of Medicine for Women founded at the Royal Free Hospital in 1874. When Dr Barnardo founded his Homes for derelict children he turned to Cowell for assistance, and no medical man did more than he for the establishment of this fine philanthropy upon sound grounds. No doubt its religious side had particular attraction for him as he was a zealous supporter of the Guild of St Luke, and, except for the Rev Canon Henry Arnott (FRCS, fourth in the chronological List of Fellows), was at his death the senior brother of the Guild. As a Freemason he attained the degree of Past Grand Deacon of the United Grand Lodge and was the first Chairman of the Medical Advisory Committee of the Freemasons' Hospital. He died at his residence in Nevern Square on November 18th, 1927. He married the widow of George Hamilton Roe, MD, and of John Riley, and daughter of John Laurie, MP for Barnstaple. There were no children. Mrs Cowell died in 1895. Publications: *An Introductory Address . . . Westminster Hospital Medical School*,12mo, London, 1873. "Westminster Hospital and its Medical School." - *Westminster Hosp. Rep*., 1885, i, 1. *Lectures on Cataract; its Causes, Varieties, and Treatment*: being six lectures delivered at the Westminster Hospital, 12mo, London, 1883. "Causes of Failure in Excision of the Hip." - 8vo, London, 1885; reprinted from *Westminster Hosp. Rep*., 1885, i, 47. "Note on New Mode of Distinguishing between Hypermetropia and Myopia by Ophthalmoscope." - *Ophthal. Hosp. Rep.*, 1866, v, 226. "Retinitis." - *St George's Hosp. Rep.*, 1869, iv, 115. "Clinical Lectures." - Lancet, 1890, ii, 1013. *Life and Letters of Edward Bytes Cowell* (the author's cousin and well-known Oriental scholar). *A Visit to Moscow*, Sturges Lecture for 1897, 8vo, London, 1899.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001300
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cowen, Henry Lionel (1817 - 1886)

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First Title value, for Searching Cox, Frederick (1813 - 1868)

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First Title value, for Searching Cox, William Sands (1802 - 1875)

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First Title value, for Searching Crabb, Alfred (1814 - 1875)

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