Search Results for Forshall

First Title value, for Searching Forshall, Isabella (1902 - 1989)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-05-13
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007200-E007299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379448379448
Occupation Paediatric surgeon
Details Isabella Forshall was born and spent her childhood in affluent surroundings in Sussex. Details of her family are not recorded but she was educated privately at home where her mother, who read classics at Girton College, Cambridge in the 1890s, had a powerful influence, imbuing her with a keen appreciation of art and literature and especially of poetry. It might be regarded as surprising that a young woman of her time and background eventually embarked on a career in surgery. Though never encouraged nor, indeed, discouraged to think of a professional career, it is clear that her parents expected her to make observance of her social responsibilities her first priority. And so she entered the Royal Free Hospital Medical School where she graduated in 1927. There is no record of her first hospital appointments but she became house surgeon at the Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital in 1929, and later at Alder Hey Children's Hospital where she worked until her retirement in 1965. Whilst surgical registrar at Alder Hey in 1939, she became honorary assistant surgeon at Birkenhead and Wirral Children's Hospital and at Waterloo General Hospital. In 1942 she was appointed honorary surgeon at the Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital. Only at the end of the second world war was she able to achieve her ambitions for paediatric surgery. She gathered around her a group of young people in paediatrics and the associated specialities whom she fired with her own enthusiasm. This resulted in notable advances in the surgical care of children and in the foundation of the Liverpool Neonatal Surgical Centre in 1953. The mortality for infants surgically treated for congenital abnormalities in the Liverpool region fell dramatically during the next few years, and it was not long before a Ministry of Health report on neonatal surgery strongly recommended the establishment of similar units in all regions. Her achievements in Liverpool brought her national and international recognition. In 1958 she became the second President of the British Association of Paediatric Surgeons and the next year she was President of the Section of Paediatrics of the Royal Society of Medicine. She was elected to honorary membership of the British Association of Paediatric Surgeons and of the British Paediatric Association in 1963 when she was also President of the Liverpool Medical Institution. In 1970 she was awarded the honorary degree of master of surgery of the University of Liverpool. She was a most kindly woman who was without personal ambition and often gave her associates more credit for joint achievements than they deserved. Those who enjoyed her friendship quickly learnt of her warmth, her abhorrence of pomposity, her mischievous sense of humour, her concern for all and especially for the better care of children. She was amongst the first to embark on the now widely accepted and enlightened approach to the hospital care of children. Throughout her busy working life she devoted every spare moment to the care of her beautiful garden and she continued this absorbing interest during her many years of retirement in Sussex where she died on 10 August 1989.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007265
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Latto, Conrad (1915 - 2008)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Marshall Barr
Publication Date 2008-11-14
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372753372753
Occupation General surgeon
Details Conrad Latto was a consultant surgeon at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading. He was born on 3 March 1915, the son of David and Christina Latto. His father was the town clerk of Dundee, his mother a frugal Scot who scrupulously saved towards the education of their three sons. Conrad, Gordon and Douglas all went from Dundee High School to study medicine at St Andrews. A younger brother, Kenneth, died in childhood of a Wilms’ tumour, which may have influenced Conrad’s future career. In 1937 he qualified with first class honours and a gold medal from St Andrews University. He held junior hospital appointments at Cornelia & East Dorset Hospital, Poole, the Prince of Wales Hospital, Plymouth, and Rochdale Infirmary. He became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1940. For 18 months, from 1940 to 1942, he was a resident surgical officer at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Plymouth. It was during the Blitz on Plymouth in 1941 that his surgical reputation was established. Ironically, Latto was a conscientious objector on religious grounds. Eric Holburn, assistant superintendent at the Prince of Wales Hospital, sent this testimonial to his tribunal: “Soon after the devastation of Plymouth by enemy savagery in the early part of 1941, Mr Latto informed me that his views concerning the destruction of life had become so strongly crystallized that he could not honestly serve, even in a medical capacity, with the Armed Forces…This objection is the outcome of his earnest and overruling desire to put into practice his conception of a Christ-like life…I know of no individual who has served his country so magnificently and in such a quietly heroic and unassuming way as Mr Latto…The direction of the hospital emergency service was left entirely in his hands …With bombs falling all round and the hospital services being disrupted he carried on with imperturbable fortitude…” H F Vellacott, honorary surgeon wrote: “During the Plymouth blitzes…It was he who arranged which cases should go to theatre, which cases should have blood transfusions…Throughout these trying times he proved invaluable, and I cannot speak too highly of his conduct and of his administrative qualities. When each actual blitz was on his example of courage and calmness helped to hold the whole hospital organization together. He was outstanding in this respect and a special note of thanks was sent him by the Honorary Staff before he left.” The tribunal excused him from military service, with the condition that he continued to serve as a doctor. In 1943 he went to the Liverpool Royal Infirmary as surgical registrar for 12 months, followed by a year as an accident service officer at King Edward VII Hospital, Windsor. Now in Berkshire, and in his words “liking the look of the Royal Berks”, he became resident surgical officer in 1945. He was to remain closely attached to the Royal Berkshire Hospital for the rest of his life. With glowing testimonials from honorary surgeons Aitken Walker and Gordon Bohn, he became honorary assistant surgeon in December 1947, one of the last appointments to the voluntary hospital staff before the arrival of the NHS. Aitken Walker, the senior surgeon, suggested they all have a specialty. Walker chose thyroid and sympathectomy for himself, Bohn was given gall bladder and stomach, Robert Reid the colon and rectum. Latto had done some urology at Liverpool and therefore got urology. He took up the challenge with characteristic enthusiasm. Now a consultant in the NHS, he visited Terrence Millin and Alec Badenoch at St Bartholomew’s and St Peter’s hospitals to bring Reading up to date with the latest in the specialty. In 1961, sponsored by Badenoch and Sir James Paterson Ross (Sir James’s son Harvey was at that time Latto’s surgical registrar), he undertook a two-month study tour in the USA of the major centres for urology and general surgery. Latto was an excellent general surgeon who became a skilled urologist. He served on the council of the urology section of the Royal Society of Medicine and was an important influence in establishing the specialty in the Oxford region. In 1961 he jointly founded, with Joe Smith, the Oxford Regional Urology Club. His endoscopic and surgical skills, together with the length of his operating lists, were legendary. In the 1970s he assisted the GU Manufacturing Company in testing their prototype rod lens urology instruments. Harold Hopkins of the University of Reading, who had developed the rod lens and fibre-optic systems used in endoscopy, became both a patient and a very good friend. Another close friend was Denis Burkitt, whom he met when they were together at Poole. They were both Christian vegetarians: Latto became a member of the Order of the Cross and was president of VEGA (Vegetarian Economy and Green Agriculture). The two friends’ common interest in the effects of dietary fibre led to combined study and lecture tours in Africa, India, the Persian Gulf and behind the Iron Curtain. In 1971 Latto crusaded successfully for the introduction of dietary bran in Reading hospitals. He was a leading figure in British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS), at whose urging the College offered him the FRCS *ad eundem* in 1977. A tall, imposing figure with a shock of silver-grey hair, Conrad Latto had an enormous influence on the Royal Berks and on the medical and nursing staff in training. Although teetotal as well as vegetarian, he was the very opposite of the dour Scot. He never preached his beliefs (other than the importance of fibre). He published few papers, but was a passionate teacher, speaking eloquently and amusingly in a delightful soft Scottish accent. When in 1980 he had to retire from his beloved hospital, he took over the general practice in Caversham of his sister-in-law Monica Latto. He attended refresher courses and out-patient teaching sessions to update his knowledge and for seven years was a highly respected and much loved GP. In final retirement, he remained an active member of the local medical society, the Reading Pathological Society, of which he had been arguably its most effective post-war president. He died at his Caversham home on 6 July 2008, leaving a wife Anne, daughters Rosalind and Sharon, and five grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000570
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Bohn, Gordon Leonard (1913 - 2007)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Marshall Barr
Publication Date 2009-03-13
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372785372785
Occupation General surgeon
Details Gordon Bohn was a consultant general surgeon at the Royal Berkshire and Battle hospitals, Reading. He was born in Forest Gate, London, on 17 February 1913, the son of Leonard Gayton Bohn, a ship-owner, and Sophia Bohn (née Cattermole). From the County High School, Ilford, he went to the medical school of St Bartholomew’s Hospital. After two and a half years in junior posts at Bart’s he had already passed the final fellowship examination. Sir James Paterson Ross told him “now is the time to learn some real surgery”. Leonard Joyce, the brilliant honorary surgeon at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, was a Bart’s man who had close links with the surgical professorial unit, so in 1937 Bohn went to the Royal Berkshire in Reading. He dropped a rank to become house surgeon to Joyce. In 1938 he became a registrar and married Freda Stace. When Joyce died in 1939, Aitken Walker became honorary surgeon and Bohn an honoary assistant surgeon. He joined Aitken Walker in private surgical practice and as co-owner of Dunedin Nursing Home, which would later become a large private hospital in a national chain. At the Royal Berkshire Hospital he was promoted to honorary surgeon in 1942, but was soon called to military service. He went with the RAMC to West Africa and Burma, reaching the rank of major. With the coming of the NHS, he was appointed consultant surgeon, becoming active on many local and regional committees. From 1969 he served for a year as head of the British paediatric team in South Vietnam. On his return he plunged into the planning for a new acute services unit being built at Battle Hospital. When it opened as the Abbey Block in 1972, Bohn, who had served at the Royal Berkshire on every surgically related committee from records to sterilising services, totally changed his allegiance: he brought his own surgical unit to the Abbey Block and worked tirelessly to improve the clinical services at Battle until his retirement on his 65th birthday in 1978. Even then, he stayed on to do two years of research. Bohn was a skilled general surgeon, with particular interests in peptic ulcer surgery and paediatrics, equally at home in dealing with a massive haematemesis or pyloric stenosis in a neonate. His mastery of clinical diagnosis was a source of wonder to a succession of surgical registrars. If a junior called with a problem, he would come in at once. In theatre he was calm, quiet and unflappable, much-loved by the nursing staff. Outside work, he was a skilled church organist and choirmaster. He continued as organist in the Royal Berkshire Hospital chapel for many years after retirement. He was completely unostentatious, although his great joy after music was an immaculate vintage Rolls Royce. A short time before both their deaths, Gordon Bohn married Maisie Cook, the ex-superintendent of theatres at the Royal Berks and Battle, who had been his companion for many years. He died on 10 December 2007 in Reading, leaving three daughters (Frances, Elizabeth and Griselda), six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. The second daughter, Elizabeth Calder, became an associate specialist in the Derriford Hospital dialysis and transplant unit. Her son, Alistair Calder, is a consultant radiologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000602
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Williams, Hugh Marshall (1938 - 2018)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2018-05-18 2021-01-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009400-E009499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381861381861
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Priest Trauma surgeon
Details The Reverend Hugh Marshall Williams was an orthopaedic surgeon in Huddersfield and later a priest. Born in July 1938 he studied medicine at London University and Charing Cross Hospital. He qualified MB, BS in 1962 and passed the conjoint examination that same year. After house jobs at the Chester Royal Infirmary, he became a senior registrar in orthopaedics on the Leeds Regional Training Scheme. Appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary, he then turned to private practice and worked as a consultant at the BUPA Hospital in Elland. Retiring from his medical practice, he joined the clergy and in 1997 moved to the Cotswolds as non-stipendiary minister (NSM) of Little Compton with Chastleton, Cornwell, Little Rollright and Salford. From 2001 to 2008 he was NSM in the Chipping Norton Team Ministry. He died on 12 March 2018, aged 79.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009457
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Laird, Robert Marshall (1919 - 2018)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2019-12-18
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009600-E009699
Occupation General surgeon
Details Robert Marshall Laird was born on 4 February 1919. He studied medicine at Queen’s University Belfast, qualifying MB, BCh, BAO in 1942 and working there as a demonstrator in physiology. He served as a flight lieutenant in the RAFVR. After house jobs at Preston Royal Infirmary, he passed the fellowship of the college in 1951. He was appointed consultant surgeon to the East Antrim Hospital group and became a fellow of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. He died on 13 June 2018 aged 99.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009689
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Marshall, Robert Desmond (1926 - 2011)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2021-05-05
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009900-E009999
Occupation General surgeon
Details Robert Marshall was a consultant surgeon at Prince Henry’s Hospital, Melbourne. He was born on 3 May 1926 in Nihill, Victoria, Australia, the son of Charles Jeremiah Marshall and Catherine May Marshall née Bofill. His four siblings all had careers in medicine and allied professions: Betty became a general practitioner, Gwen a physiotherapist, and Vernon and Donald both became surgeons. Marshall studied medicine at the University of Melbourne and qualified in 1948. From 1951 to 1973 he lectured in anatomy at the University of Melbourne and subsequently worked at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. He then went to the UK for further training, to Hammersmith Hospital. He gained his fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1955. He returned to Australia, where he assisted Ernest Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. From 1963 to 1991 he was a consultant surgeon at Prince Henry’s Hospital. He continued his private practice until the last year of his life. He was on the Victorian branch council of the Australian Medical Association, the Victorian regional committee of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and served as chairman of the committee of chairmen of the Senior Medical Staff Associations. He cowrote *Principles of pathology in surgery* (Oxford, Blackwell Scientific, 1980) and, drawing on his comprehensive knowledge of anatomy, *Living anatomy: structure as the mirror of function* (Carlton South, Victoria, Melbourne University Press, 2001). This led to him being awarded a doctor of medicine from the University of Melbourne in 2006. In 2001, to honour the contributions to surgery of Robert and his brothers Vernon and Donald, Monash University set up the Marshall Prize in Surgical Training. Outside medicine, he found time for skiing and trekking in the mountains, his two great passions. In 2009 he published *K2: lies and treachery* (Ross-on-Wye, Carreg Ltd), an account of the 1954 ascent of K2 by the Italian mountaineer Walter Bonatti. Two years earlier he had given a presentation on Bonatti to the Italian Alpine Club in fluent Italian. Marshall died on 29 January 2011 at the age of 84. He was survived by his wife Phyllis (née Sinclair), whom he married in 1951, and five children Diane, David, Robert, Andrew and Lisa.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009963
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching McEwan, Lena Elizabeth (1927 - 2011)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by D R Marshall
Publication Date 2014-08-15 2015-03-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005800-E005899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378001378001
Occupation Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Lena McEwan was the first woman to specialize in plastic surgery in Australia, and did so with much distinction. She was born on 11 August 1927 in South Australia. Her parents were recent immigrants from Glasgow, and when Lena and her mother conversed in demotic Glaswegian, they became totally incomprehensible to those not familiar with this language. She was educated in St Peter's Collegiate Girls School and in the University of Adelaide, where she graduated MB BS in 1949. She was a brilliant student. After a year as a resident medical officer in the Royal Adelaide Hospital and a year in general practise, she went to England for surgical training and secured positions as registrar in two great teaching hospitals, the Birmingham Accident Hospital and the now Royal London Hospital. She took the FRCS (Eng) diploma in 1954, and then returned to Adelaide, where she worked as Senior Surgical Registrar in the Royal Adelaide Hospital. This was a very responsible post, especially demanding in emergency surgery. Lena coped with the work with effortless ease, showing great skill in delegation; on one busy night, she directed a bemused neurosurgeon to remove a difficult retrocaecal appendix. Lena took the FRACS diploma in May 1958. She obtained a position as Honorary Clinical Assistant in the surgical staff of the Royal Adelaide Hospital, but after a year in this capacity she decided to move to Melbourne. Her English experience had included plastic work, and she came under the influence of B K (later Sir Benjamin) Rank, then the leading Australian plastic surgeon. In 1960-61, she was appointed as his associate at the Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH), where she later became his second assistant after John Hueston. She also obtained an appointment as assistant plastic surgeon under George Gunter at Prince Henry's Hospital (1963-5), and an honorary appointment as plastic surgeon on the staff of the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital, (1961-82), later the Queen Victoria Medical Centre (QVMC), and at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Hospital (PMCH), where B K Rank took over as head of unit after retiring from the RMH. She remained at the PMCH until her retirement in 1992. Lena made notable contributions in widely different fields. In 1962, she published a paper on repair of injuries of the median and ulnar nerves. She studied the outcomes in patients treated in the Royal Melbourne and Royal Children's Hospitals; most had undergone primary nerve suture and were later assessed by quantified neurological tests of motor, sensory and sudomotor functions. Her study showed the good results of early operation by expert plastic surgeons, especially in children. Her elegant paper attracted much attention at a time when many surgeons favoured secondary(delayed) repair; it was later repeatedly quoted by Sydney Sunderland. After fifty years, the paper reads as a definitive contribution in a controversial field, and as a very mature assessment by one still a trainee. Lena also published a perceptive study of hand function and its restoration by surgery; this too reads very well today. At the QVMC, Lena collaborated with William Walters in the care of persons suffering from transsexualism due to underlying gender dysphoria. An interdisciplinary team was established in 1976, to treat selected individuals by gender reassignment. In most cases, this required reshaping male genitals to conform with a psychological conviction of female identity. In 1986, the members of the team published a book describing their work; in this, Lena was the leading author of a section describing the technique of male-to-female genital reassignment. She is remembered for her high surgical competence in these demanding operations, and for her compassionate care for the patients; she was never judgemental in her attitude to patients whose experience of transsexualism had affected their lifestyles. She also showed moral courage in undertaking what was then a controversial branch of plastic surgery. Lena became head of the Skin Unit in the PMCH in 1982 in succession to B K Rank. She was much interested in the management of skin cancers, and she coauthored with D R Marshall and B K Rank in a study of malignant melanomas. This confirmed the value of wide surgical excision, but also showed that massive excision of very small lesions did not improve the outcomes. It was well received at an international congress of plastic surgeons. Lena was a good teacher, and taught many future plastic surgeons at the PMCH, where she had a rotating trainee registrarship. She was also much interested in the needs of undergraduates, and was Senior Resident Tutor in University College where she later became Vice Principal. She was instrumental in the foundation of a scholarship at University College, and made generous donations to education there and in Adelaide. She was vivacious and companionable, and made many friends. She had sharp wits, and sometimes a sharp tongue. Once at a meeting, she memorably summed up the many questions of a self promoting colleague with a devastating phrase from ornithology: "male display." After her graduation, she must have had to struggle to establish herself as a woman in plastic surgery, and it has been suggested that she encountered male opposition. If this was so, she did not become embittered. In 1967, when she was president of the Victorian Medical Women's Society, she gave an address on the economic value and the problems of women in the Australian medical workforce. This reads as a tranquil and balanced assessment, tinged with gentle irony and making very constructive suggestions. After her retirement, she moved to Torquay Vic, where together with her friends Dame Joyce Daws DBE and Dr June Pash she developed a long-standing interest in botany, notably in growing proteas. She did this very well. She died after a short illness on 4 October 2011, from ovarian cancer, and was widely mourned. D A Simpson W A W Walters
Resource Identifier RCS: E005818
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Wood, Richard Frederick Marshall (1943 - 2003)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Graham Pockley
Publication Date 2007-08-23 2009-02-10
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/372569372569
Occupation General surgeon
Details As professor of surgery at the University of Sheffield, Richard Wood was an academic surgeon who was recognised internationally in the fields of transplantation and vascular surgery. He was a founding fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (1998), a founding member of the British Transplantation Society, council member of the Vascular Surgical Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1990 to 1998) and secretary of the Surgical Research Society (1986 to 1990). He was also secretary, councillor and vice-president of the International Transplantation Society. He served as a member of the management committee of the UK Transplant Service (the national coordinating organisation for transplantation). As an accomplished surgeon he was always totally committed to the care and welfare of patients in his charge. Richard Wood was born in Cheshire, but spent the majority of his formative years in Scotland. He studied medicine at the University of Glasgow, following which were a series of hospital appointments in Glasgow. The award of the ‘Medical News’ essay prize for the design of his own medical curriculum in 1966 set the scene for his life-long commitment to the teaching of medical undergraduates. Following his basic surgical training in Scotland, when he was a member of a team establishing a kidney transplantation programme in Glasgow, he gained his higher surgical training as a senior registrar in Leicester. He then helped to set up a kidney transplantation programme, for which he assumed day-to-day responsibility on his appointment to a senior lectureship at the University of Leicester in 1978. His special interest in kidney transplantation was further developed following a six-month research fellowship at Harvard medical school in Boston, when he was appointed clinical reader in surgery with (now Sir) Peter Morris at the University of Oxford in 1981. Richard Wood was appointed to the chair of surgery at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, in 1994. He expanded the vascular surgical practice and introduced innovative clinical work on the use of lasers for unblocking blood vessels in patients with atherosclerosis. He also assumed directorship of the renal transplantation programme. The proposed re-organisation of the medical schools in London with its attendant uncertainty prompted him to move to the University of Sheffield in 1994. He was responsible for coordinating the introduction of a unified vascular service for the city and at the time of his retirement had been director of the Sheffield Vascular Institute since its inception in 1995. In 1997, the Institute was the first winner of the *Hospital Doctor* ‘Surgical Team of the Year’ competition. Although kidney transplantation had been performed for a number of years, effective, coordinated clinical programmes were still in their infancy when Richard Wood first became interested in the field in 1968. The potent immunosuppressants that provide the mainstay of current anti-rejection treatment had yet to be introduced, as did better techniques for identifying the development of rejection. He became interested in the immunology of the rejection response and presented some of his work at the inaugural meeting of the British Transplantation Society in 1972. He was awarded an MD for his research work. His interests in transplantation immunology continued throughout his career, and it was during his time at St Bartholomew’s Hospital that he became interested in the field of small bowel transplantation. He conceived and organised the first international symposium on the subject in 1989. This biennial series of symposia continues to thrive, and the eighth meeting was dedicated to his memory. He was involved in the first isolated small bowel transplantation from a live-related donor performed in the UK at Leeds in February 1995. Richard Wood was a prolific writer who had published more than 200 scientific and clinical papers in the medical literature, as well as numerous chapters in medical and scientific books. His clinical handbook on renal transplantation published in 1983 is always at hand and he co-edited the first comprehensive text on small bowel transplantation published in 1993. His interest in small bowel transplantation continued until his retirement. Latterly, he also became interested in the capacity of exercise to improve the clinical status of patients with peripheral vascular disease using funding provided by the British Heart Foundation. Richard Wood was a committed surgeon-scientist and was a great source of inspiration and motivation for clinical trainees. His passion for academic surgery was boundless and his enthusiasm infectious. He took great pride in the progression of his former protégés, and always followed their developing careers with great interest. Despite his demanding career, he served in the Royal Naval Reserve both as a seaman officer and as a surgeon lieutenant commander with a reserve decoration. He was a devoted husband and father and as a passionate sailor, spent many holidays cruising in the Western Isles with his wife, Christine, and their two sons, Douglas and Alastair. Richard Wood’s legacy lies in his two sons and in the countless clinical and scientific trainees with whom he worked. It is a great pity that countless others will not now benefit from his expertise and wise counsel.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000385
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Marshall, Peter (1809 - 1877)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-08-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002600-E002699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374847374847
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Aberdeen on March 8th, 1809; he studied at Aberdeen, also in London at the School in Great Windmill Street, and at Joshua Brookes's in Blenheim Street. He became one of the foremost London practitioners, practising first in Greek Street, Soho, then at 3 Bedford Square, London, WC. In conjunction with Dr John Snow he began the administration of anaesthetics, and at Charing Cross Hospital tried bichloride of methylene and published *Experiences with Bichloride of Methylene* in 1868. He was for long Treasurer of the Medical Society and in 1869 its President. He constantly took part in debates, and his quiet courtesy and earnestness were a set-off to a certain nervous anxiety to express himself fairly. He acted as Referee and Inspector to the British Home for Incurables, also as Surgeon to the Recruiting Staff, East India Company's Depot, Soho. In 1870, owing to failing health, he moved to East Cowes Park, Isle of Wight. A long-standing affection of the heart and aorta, complicated towards the last by inflammation of the lungs, caused his death on March 12th, 1877, and he was buried in Whippingham Churchyard.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002664
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Marshall, William Gurslave ( - 1897)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

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

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Marshall, John (1783 - 1850)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Horsfall, John (1840 - 1904)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002200-E002299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374449374449
Occupation General surgeon
Details Son of Abraham Horsfall, of Leeds. He matriculated at University College, Oxford, in October, 1859, and took a pass degree. He was afterwards a student and House Surgeon at St Bartholomew's Hospital, in connection with which he published "Tetanus - a Case at St Bartholomew's" in the *Lancet* (1867, ii, 767). He then practised at Hilary House, Leeds, was Surgeon to the Leeds Dispensary from 1871-1882, Lecturer on Physiology at the Leeds School of Medicine from 1874-1882, and was also Hon Secretary and Registrar to the Medical School. In 1887 he was Surgeon to the Leeds Hospital for Women and Children, to the Leeds Fever Hospital, to the Convalescent Homes at Manwood and Coodridge, and at one time he was Assistant Surgeon to the 7th (West Riding) Yorkshire Rifle Volunteers, and in partnership with Sydney Rumboll, FRCS. Later he went to reside at Bournemouth, and practised at Naples during the winter season. He died at Naples on May 31st, 1904.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002266
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Nunn, George Marshall ( - 1993)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-03-04 2015-09-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006800-E006899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379070379070
Occupation General surgeon
Details Nunn received his medical education at the University of Adelaide, qualifying MB BS there in 1951. He came to Britain and passed the Fellowship examination in 1957, before returning to Australia, where he practised at Claremont, WA. He was staff specialist at the Royal Perth Hospital in 1959 and also at the Princess Margaret Hospital, Perth from 1959 to 1967. He died at Claremont, Western Australia, on 7 October 1993.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006887
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Marshall, Alan Francis (1914 - 1959)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Marshall, Charles Jennings (1890 - 1954)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-03-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005100-E005199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377321377321
Occupation General surgeon Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Born on 6 June 1890 at Cardiff, the son of Charles William Marshall and Mary Jennings, he was educated at Cardiff High School and studied medicine at Charing Cross Hospital where he gained a University Scholarship in 1909. He graduated in 1912 with honours in medicine, pathology and forensic medicine, being awarded a gold medal. He proceeded to the degree of MD in 1914 and was awarded a Murchison Scholarship by the Royal College of Physicians. He held many residential appointments at Charing Cross Hospital, and in 1915 became a Fellow of the College. He then served as assistant surgeon to the Anglo-Russian Hospital at Petrograd under Sir Herbert Waterhouse, afterwards serving in the RAMC at Salonika. In 1916 he had obtained the MS, winning a gold medal. After the war he was for a short time assistant surgeon and assistant orthopaedic surgeon at King's College Hospital, but was then appointed to the staff of Charing Cross Hospital, where he became in due course full surgeon and a governor. From 1919 to 1932 he was surgeon to Manor House Hospital and consultant to the Ministry of Pensions. Later he was consulting surgeon to the Bromley District Hospital, to St Charles Hospital and to Kingston Hospital, Surrey, and during the 1939-45 war was director of the Sutton EMS Hospital. Jennings Marshall acted as an examiner in surgery for the Universities of Manchester and London, and was the author of numerous works. A good teacher, he was an excellent diagnostician and skilful operator. Fond of music and the arts, he was a member of the Savage Club, and in his spare time an amateur radio mechanic. In his youth he had been a hockey player as a trial cap for Wales. In 1945 he married Hope Embleton Smith. He died suddenly on 29 December 1954, survived by his wife. Publications: Notes from the Anglo-Russian hospitals, with Sir Herbert Waterhouse and W D Harmer. *Brit med J* 1917, 2, 441. *A textbook of Surgical Pathology*, with Alfred Piney 1925. *The Surgeon*, London, G Bles 1932. *Surgical anatomy and physiology*, with Norman C Lake. London, H K Lewis 1934. *Chronic Diseases of the Abdomen*. London, Chapman and Hall 1938.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005138
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Marshall, Charles McIntosh (1901 - 1954)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Marshall, James Cole (1876 - 1952)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-03-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005100-E005199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377323377323
Occupation Gynaecologist Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Born on 3 March 1876 at Blandford, Dorset, the third child and eldest son of James Marshall, who was in business there, and Emily Cole his wife, he was educated at Dean Close School, Cheltenham, and St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he won a certificate of honour in anatomy in 1896. Marshall was at first interested in gynaecology and held resident posts at Queen Charlotte's, the Chelsea Hospital for Women, and the Samaritan Hospital, and in charge of the gynaecological wards at the West London Hospital. He also worked at Great Ormond Street and the Golden Square Throat Hospital. He took the MD in 1904 and, his interest turning to ophthalmology, became clinical assistant at the Royal Eye Hospital in 1905. He was senior clinical assistant at the Central London Ophthalmic Hospital, and in 1907 chief clinical assistant at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields. He was also ophthalmic surgeon in charge of the LCC Department at the Victoria Hospital for Children, Chelsea. He was appointed ophthalmic surgeon to the Royal Waterloo Hospital in 1912, and was afterwards ophthalmic surgeon to the LCC Hospital at Lambeth and surgeon to the Western Ophthalmic Hospital, where he ultimately became consulting surgeon. He was honorary oculist to the Royal Academy of Music and to the Royal London Society for teaching the Blind. He was commissioned as Captain, RAMC, on 7 May 1918, and served in 1919 as an ophthalmic specialist with the Army of Occupation on the Rhine. Marshall was one of the first in England to practise the modern operative treatment of retinal detachment. He devised charts for plotting the retinal tears observed in the fundus oculi. His work in this branch of ophthalmology not only won him a large practice, but attracted surgeons to learn his method, in which he founded a British school. He was efficient, deliberate, and careful, of sound judgment, and a skilful operator. He proved his administrative ability as chairman of the medical committee at the Western Ophthalmic Hospital. He gave the Middlemore lecture at Birmingham in 1935, and was a Hunterian professor at the College in 1938. Marshall married in 1905 Margaret Compton, who survived him with three daughters. He was a man of balanced and attractive personality, fond of music and painting, and of gardening and watching birds. He practised at 126 Harley Street, and built himself a country house, Compton Cottage, Sarratt Lane, Rickmansworth to which he retired. He died there suddenly on 24 December 1952 aged 76. Publications: Unusual case of cataract in a child. *Proc Roy Soc Med* 1913, 6, Ophthal. P 105. Electrolytic method of treating detachment of the retina. *Ibid* 1935, 29, 53-58. *Detachment of the retina; operative technique in treatment*. Oxford 1936. Surgical treatment of detachment of retina. Hunterian Lecture, RCS. *Lancet* 1938, 1, 1033-1037.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005140
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bates, Ralph Marshall (1902 - 1978)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-11-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006200-E006299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378476378476
Occupation General practitioner Psychiatrist
Details Ralph Marshall Bates was born in 1902. He was educated at Plymouth College and qualified with the Conjoint Diploma at the London Hospital, where he held several resident appointments. He was a first assistant to Sir Hugh Cairns, the neurosurgeon, and was also a member of the Middle Temple. He spent a short period in general practice and became interested in psychiatry. He was then appointed medical superintendent at the Stoke Park Colony, Bristol, and in 1946 he became medical superintendent at the Royal Eastern Counties Hospital, Colchester. He modernised and upgraded the hospital, developed the training school for nurses, opened new hostels, provided better amenities for staff and patients and encouraged parole and licence. The management committee and staff fully recognised his judgement in organisation and administration and the hospital which he had developed to such high standards was visited by many psychiatrists from overseas. Marshall Bates married Lilian, a doctor, and they had a son and two daughters. He was essentially a family man with deep religious feelings, devoted to duty and a staunch friend for those in adversity. He had a full and busy professional life but found time and relaxation in painting in oils and in gardening where he specialised in orchids and daffodils. His large and beautiful garden delighted many people who enjoyed his warm hospitality. He died at his home in Colchester on 28 August 1978.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006293
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Thompson, Samuel Marshall (1909 - 1989)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-08-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007700-E007799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379925379925
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Samuel Marshall Thompson was born in Leeds in 1909, the son of Walter Thompson FRCS (1886-1924), see *Lives of the Fellows*, vol.2, p.409, consultant surgeon to Leeds General Infirmary. His mother was one of the early graduates from the London School of Medicine for Women. He was educated at Uppingham School before entering Caius College, Cambridge, for pre-clinical studies. During his time at Cambridge he was a member of the newly formed University Air Squadron and took a particular interest in flying gliders. He was the first to fly a primitive glider off Sutton Bank in Yorkshire and shortly before his death returned there for a special flight arranged in his honour. After leaving Cambridge he went to Leeds for his clinical studies, qualifying in 1934. He did early house appointments at Leeds and Mansfield and passed the FRCS two years after qualifying. He worked in the orthopaedic department of the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Hospital at Oswestry and was surgical registrar at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore. At the outbreak of war he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a surgical specialist with the rank of Major. He served in India for three years. On demobilisation he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon to Grimsby Hospital and to Louth and District Hospital. He played an important role in establishing a fracture and orthopaedic service in North Lincolnshire, retiring in 1974. He died on 20 April 1989 and is survived by his wife Biddy and his step family.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007742
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Pullan, John Marshall (1915 - 1998)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-12-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008800-E008899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381041381041
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Pullan was a senior surgeon at St Thomas's Hospital in London. He was born in Yorkshire on 1 August 1915 and educated at Shrewsbury, where he boxed and rowed. He was a scholar at King's College, Cambridge, and entered St Thomas's Hospital in 1937, qualifying in 1940. He held junior posts and served in West Africa as a Major in the RAMC. In 1948, he joined the surgical unit at St Thomas's, where he was appointed consultant in 1951. He was subsequently appointed to King Edward VII, the Royal Masonic and the Bolingbroke Hospitals. He had a reputation for thyroid and adrenal gland surgery, and for his clinical judgement and skill. He served on the Court of Examiners of the College, and was an examiner for the Universities of Cambridge and London. For 20 years he organised the Fellowship class at St Thomas's. Fishing and gardening were his two main hobbies. He fished all the great salmon rivers in Britain, and also in Norway. He knew the English and Latin names of almost every flower, shrub, bird, butterfly, moth and ephemerid in the country. He was a charming and humorous host, and was quiet and modest. He was always smartly dressed, having allegedly 100 Savile Row suits, and two beautiful fifties Rolls Royces. He is survived by his wife, Wendy (née Craven-Veitch), a St Thomas's nurse and the daughter of a surgeon, whom he married in 1940 at the height of the London Blitz, by their son, Julian, and three daughters, Susan, Andrea and Tessa.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008858
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Marshall, Charles Frederic (1864 - 1940)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-10-30 2022-09-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004500-E004599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376737376737
Occupation Dermatologist
Details Born at Birmingham, 13 February 1864, the fifth son and youngest child of William Prime Marshall, a civil engineer, and Laura Stark, his wife, who was a niece of James Stark, the artist. His father was for many years secretary of the Institute of Civil Engineers and was an enthusiastic naturalist. His elder brother Arthur Milnes Marshall (1852-93), who was killed accidentally whilst climbing in the Lake district, was a brilliant pupil of Francis Balfour at Cambridge. He did much to advance the study of embryology, more especially in connection with the development of the nervous system in the chick. There is a notice of his life and work in the *Dictionary of National Biography* Supplement, vol 3, 1901. Charles Frederic Marshall was educated at Owens College and at the Victoria University, Manchester, where he was Dauntes medical scholar, Platt physiological scholar, Dalton natural history prizeman, and senior physiological exhibitioner. He came to London and acted as house surgeon at the North Eastern Hospital for Children, and in 1893 was surgical registrar to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children. He then practised for a time at Edgbaston, Birmingham, but soon returned to London as resident medical officer at the London Lock Hospital and afterwards surgeon to the British Skin Hospital in the Euston Road, which closed in 1905. During 1908-14 he was surgeon to the Blackfriars Hospital for Diseases of the Skin. In the war of 1914-18 he acted as a civilian medical officer attached as dermatologist to the RAMC, a position he continued to hold for two years after the armistice. For some years before his death he was interested in John Beard's theory that cancer was of embryonic origin and was not a local disease. He published an account of his views in two parts in 1932. The first dealt with a method of diagnosing cancer through the blood, using polarized light in precancerous conditions and in cases with a strong family history of the disease. Part 2 dealt with the danger of radium in its present form and with a method of sterilization in order to produce helium, which he considered to be an essential factor in the cure of cancer by eradication and neutralization of the blood. Five years later he was using thorium sulphate in place of radium, with injections of ferric chloride. His views met with considerable criticism, but he was not deterred from continuing his work. He married in 1908 Blanche, elder daughter of W H Emmet; she survived him with one son. He died on 22 May 1940 at 69 The Drive, Golders Green, NW11. Marshall began life brilliantly but never shone like his more brilliant brother. He was better fitted for the life of a scientific than that of a medical man. He was perhaps dominated by the artistic inheritance which came through his mother. Publications: Some investigations on the physiology of the nervous system of the lobster. *Stud Biol Lab Owens Col Manchester*, 1886, 1, 313. Observations on the structure and distribution of striped and unstriped muscle in the animal kingdom, and a theory of muscular contraction. *Quart J microsc Sci* 1888, 28, 75; 1890, 31, 65. The thyro-glossal duct or "canal of His". *J Anat Physiol* 1892, 26, 94. Variations in the form of the thyroid gland in man.*Ibid* 1895, 29, 234. An analysis of thirty-seven cases of excision of the hip, with Bilton Pollard. *Lancet*, 1892, 2, 186; 254; 302. *Syphilis and gonorrhoea*. London, 1904. *Syphilology and venereal disease*, with E G ffrench. London, 1906; 4th edition: *Syphilis and venereal diseases*, 1921. *A new theory of cancer and its treatment* Bristol, part 1, March 1932; part 2, September 1932. New treatment of cancer. *Med World*, 1939, 50, 292. **This is an amended version of the original obituary which was printed in volume 2 of Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows. Please contact the library if you would like more information lives@rcseng.ac.uk**
Resource Identifier RCS: E004554
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

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/372567372567
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Davis was a consultant general surgeon at the Whittington Hospital, London. From Cambridge he went to St Thomas’ Hospital for his clinical training and house appointments. After qualifying he served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve for two and a half years in a minesweeping squadron. After the Navy he returned to Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, to specialise in surgery, being in due course registrar and senior registrar. He was a research fellow in surgery at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston, and on his return was appointed consultant general surgeon at the Whittington Hospital, London, in 1958. He published, among other things, a study on the prognosis of Crohn’s disease. He retired in 1985. He was briefly married in 1945, but had no children. He had been good at cricket and fives, and enjoyed golf. An extremely private person, he could be good company as a visitor, but seldom if ever invited anyone to his home. He died on 31 August 2006 after fracturing his hip.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000383
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Allen, Robert Marshall (1818 - 1893)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-09-18 2016-01-22
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/372854372854
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born March 2nd, 1818; educated at St Bartholomew's and St George's Hospitals and at Paris. Joined the Cape Mounted Riflemen as Assistant Surgeon, June 30th, 1843, and served in the field with this regiment during the Kaffir War of 1846-1847 (medal). He joined the Staff on Jan 12th, 1849, was transferred to the 6th Foot on March 16th, and to the 3rd Dragoon Guards on April 25th, 1851. He was promoted Staff Surgeon (2nd Class), March 28th, 1854, rejoining the Dragoons May 12th, 1854. Surgeon Major, 3rd Dragoon Guards, June 30th, 1863. He was again placed on the Staff on March 13th, 1866, and was transferred to the 7th Dragoon Guards on Aug 7th, 1867. He retired on half pay with the rank of Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals, July 31st, 1869, and died at Welbourn Hall, Grantham, Lincolnshire, on March 17th, 1893. [1] [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] Portrait in College Collection.]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000671
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Oakden, William Marshall (1886 - 1928)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-09-05
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002800-E002899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375015375015
Occupation General surgeon Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Born on December 19th, 1886, at Sherwood, the son of William Oakden of Bank House, Retford. He was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School, Retford, and at the Nottingham High School under G J Turpin, DSc. He obtained a foundation scholarship at Peterhouse, Cambridge, in December, 1905, but did not matriculate in the University until October, 1906. He took first-class honours in the first part of the Natural Science Tripos in 1909. He then entered St Thomas's Hospital with a scholarship and subsequently gained the Bristowe Medal. He served as Casualty Officer, House Surgeon, Resident Anaesthetist, and Clinical Assistant in the Ear Department at St Thomas's Hospital, and as Resident Assistant Surgeon and Surgical Registrar at St George's Hospital. He was sent to Salonika as surgical specialist with the acting rank of Major RAMC during the War, in 1919 he was appointed Orthopaedic Surgeon at Springfield Park Ministry of Pensions Hospital, Liverpool, and in 1920 became Senior Assistant Surgeon at Queen Mary's Hospital, Carshalton. On the opening by the Metropolitan Asylums Board of St Luke's Hospital, Lowestoft, for the treatment of surgical tuberculosis in 1922 Oakden was appointed Medical Superintendent. He died unmarried at St Luke's Hospital on August 12th, 1928. Oakden was singularly shy and reserved, with a curiously hesitating manner of speech. He proved himself a good organizer and a fine administrator, but his bias was towards medicine rather than surgery.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002832
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Marshall, Charles Devereux (1867 - 1918)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-07-31
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002600-E002699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374844374844
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Born at Portsmouth in 1867, the younger son of William Marshall, solicitor, Southsea. He studied at University College Hospital, where he was House Surgeon and Demonstrator of Anatomy. At the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, City Road (formerly Moorfields), he was House Surgeon, Clinical Assistant, Curator of the Museum, Librarian, and in 1902 was appointed Surgeon. In that connection he acquired a great reputation for scientific knowledge and skill; a good teacher and lecturer, he built up a practice at 112 Harley Street. Besides, he was Ophthalmic Surgeon to the Victoria Hospital for Children, Chelsea, from 1899, and to the Royal Society of Musicians. At the Ipswich Meeting of the British Medical Association in 1900 he was Secretary of the Section of Ophthalmology, and Vice-President of the same Section at the Sheffield Meeting in 1908. He made numerous communications on ophthalmology, especially in the *Royal Ophthalmic Hospital Reports*, and published *Researches on Colour Vision* in collaboration with F Edridge Green, which included an experiment on the diffusion of visual purple into the fovea. His small book for students, *Diseases of the Eye*, 1912, was referred to as "probably the best that has been written for the general practitioner" - "most lucid". The same applies to the article "Diseases of the Eye" in Power and Murphy's *System of Syphilis*. An enthusiastic yachtsman, he sailed his own yacht for many years, and joined the London Division of the Royal Naval Reserve in 1903; was promoted Lieutenant in 1906, and transferred to the Medical Branch in 1909. He joined HMS *Euryalus* at Chatham at the outbreak of the War, August 2nd, 1914. In this ship he was present at the Battle of Heligoland Bight, and for some months after in the defence of home waters. He next served on the Flagship in the Mediterranean, was present at the Suvla Bay landing in 1915 and throughout the Gallipoli operations up to the evacuation. He was promoted Staff Surgeon in 1916, and a colleague wrote of him:- "I have never met any man who so completely won the esteem and affection of everyone in his ship. It was to Marshall we naturally turned when down on our luck. His religious convictions influenced his whole life he was a tender- hearted doctor he loved his life at sea; he was father and mother to every youngster on board. On that ghastly night following the landing at Gallipoli he heard that an attempt was to be made to evacuate the wounded from the River Clyde, which was at the time aground and under musketry fire from both sides. Although he had been continuously at work for eighteen hours he at once volunteered and went." In 1917 he was appointed Principal Medical Officer in the Persian Guff and Mesopotamia, was present at some of the Mesopotamian operations, and went up the Tigris in the river gunboats as far as Bagdad. He was serving on HMS *Dalhousie* when he died of cholera in the Isolation Hospital, Bombay, on September 14th, 1918. His name is on the College Roll of Honour.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002661
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Marshall, George Henry (1814 - 1884)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

First Title value, for Searching Robinson, John Marshall (1801 - 1861)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-11-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003100-E003199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375310375310
Occupation General surgeon
Details Practised at Bolton-le-Moors, where he was Certifying Factory Surgeon, Medical Referee to several Assurance Societies, and Surgeon to the Infirmary and Dispensary. He died at Bank House, Bolton-le-Moors, on July 4th, 1861.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003127
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Cowell, Sir Ernest Marshall (1886 - 1971)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006200-E006299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378424378424
Occupation General surgeon
Details Ernest Cowell was born on 24 February 1886, son of Jasper Cowell of Steyning, Sussex, and was educated at Steyning Grammar School and University College Hospital Medical School where he graduated in 1907, taking the Conjoint Diploma the same year, and went on to take his MD degree in 1909 and the Fellowship in 1911. After holding resident posts at University College Hospital he was appointed assistant surgeon in 1922 at the Croydon General Hospital with which he remained throughout his career, becoming surgeon and ultimately consulting surgeon, but his work was interrupted by distinguished military service in both world wars. He joined the RAMC in 1914 and served throughout the war in France, becoming Lieutenant-Colonel in command of No 1 Casualty Clearing Station, and Commandant of the 1st Army's RAMC School of Instruction. He was twice mentioned in despatches, and was awarded the DSO in 1918. He then returned to civilian practice at Croydon, was elected as Fellow of University College London in 1918, and was County Director and Controller (Surrey) for the British Red Cross Society. From 1938 he was also surgeon to the Mayday Hospital. He remained on the reserve for the Army and was assistant Director of Medical Services 1934-40 of the 44th (Home Counties) Division of the Territorial Army, winning the Territorial Decoration. When war broke out again in 1939 he was recalled to active service, became Deputy Director of Medical Services, 3rd Corps, British Expeditionary Force in France 1940 and to 2nd Corps in England 1940-42. He was then promoted Major-General and Director of Medical Services of the Allied Armies which invaded North Africa in September 1942. He was also chief surgeon under General Eisenhower's command and organised the Air Ambulance Service in North Africa, Sicily and Italy; he was thus director of a vast service of British, American, French, Italian and other allied medical officers and their supporting staff. He was created CBE in 1939, CB in 1940 and was knighted KBE in 1944, and was several times mentioned in despatches. During 1945-46 he was principal medical officer in the Central Commission for Germany and, later, director of health in the United Nations (UNRRA) mission to Greece. For nearly twenty years after the war he continued his civilian practice at Croydon, retiring only in 1965 at the age of seventy-nine. He was appointed an honorary surgeon to the King in 1944, became a Freeman of Croydon in 1945, and a Freeman of the City of London in 1953 in the Company of Coopers. He was also a Deputy Lieutenant for Surrey. He was chairman of the Croydon Division of the British Medical Association 1926-27 and of the Surrey Branch 1936-38 and was active in the central committees and Representative Body of the Association. At the College he was Arris and Gale Lecturer in 1919, and a Hunterian Professor in 1927, and kept up his association with the College, its Museum and Library till near the end of his long life. Cowell married in 1912 Dorothie, daughter of Arthur Miller ISO, who died in 1962 leaving three children. He married secondly in 1966 and removed to Guernsey where he died on 26 February 1971, two days after his eighty-fifth birthday, survived by his wife Mary and by his son and daughter, his second daughter having died before him. Publications: *Hernia*, 1927. *Pocket-book of First Aid in Accidents and Chemical Warfare*, 1937. *Field Service Notes for Medical Officers*, 1939. *Medical Organisation in Air Raids*, with P H Mitchiner 1939, 2nd edition 1944.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006241
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Forshaw, William Herbert (1880 - 1950)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-06-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005300-E005399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377558377558
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at University College, Sheffield, and the London Hospital, where he served as senior casualty officer and surgical registrar, he then emigrated to the Argentine, where he made his career at Monte Caseros, serving as surgeon to the Robinson Charity Hospital. After retiring he lived at Slythehurst, Ewhurst, Guildford, and latterly at 5 Abingdon Mansions, Kensington. He died in Stoneycrest Nursing Home, Hindhead, on 9 November 1950, aged about 70. His widow, Mabel Anne, died on 24 December 1963.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005375
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Jolleys, Ambrose (1919 - 1991)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008100-E008199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380295380295
Occupation Paediatric surgeon
Details Ambrose Jolleys was born on 25 September 1919 in Ireleth, Westmoreland. He was educated at Urmston Grammar School, Manchester, and graduated MB ChB from Liverpool University in 1942. He was appointed a consultant in 1952, the first full-time paediatric surgeon in Manchester. He was a true pioneer of paediatric surgery and he set up a vast service encompassing all three children's hospitals in Manchester. His special interests were surgery for hare lip and cleft palate, and neonatal surgery. He spent many years striving for the establishment of a single children's hospital, but this was agreed only after his retirement. A founder member of British Association of Paediatric Surgeons, he was its President from 1979 to 1980 and Forshall lecturer in 1984. In his retirement Ambrose went to the Lake District often, where he enjoyed walking, hill climbing and botany. He also enjoyed his garden and woodwork, making reproduction antique furniture. He died of lymphoma on 16 October 1991 survived by his wife, Betty, a son and four daughters, and his grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008112
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Rickham, Peter Paul (1917 - 2003)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372305372305
Occupation Paediatric surgeon
Details Peter Rickham was one of a small group of pioneering surgeons who helped to establish the specialty of paediatric surgery in the UK. He was born in Berlin on 21 June 1917, where his father, Otto Louis Reichenheim, was professor of physics at Berlin University. His mother was Susanne née Huldschinsky. Peter was educated at the Kanton School and the Institute Rosenberg, St Galen, Switzerland. He then went to Queen’s College, Cambridge, and on to St Bartholomew’s for his clinical training, where he won the Butterworth prize for surgery. After junior posts, he joined the RAMC, where he had a distinguished career, taking part in the Normandy invasion and the war in the Far East, reaching the rank of Major. On demobilisation, he trained in paediatric surgery under Sir Denis Browne at Great Ormond Street and Isobella Forshall at the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool. After a year as Harkness travelling fellow, spent in Boston and Philadelphia, he was appointed consultant paediatric surgeon at Alder Hey in 1952. He became director of paediatric surgical studies in 1965 and in 1971 was appointed professor of paediatric surgery at the University Children’s Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland, where he remained until his retirement in 1983. He was intensely involved with research. His MS thesis concerned the metabolic response of the newborn to surgery. Later he devised the Rickham reservoir, an integral part of the Holter ventricular drainage system for hydrocephalus. His textbook, *Neonatal surgery* (London, Butterworths, 1969), remained the standard text for many years. At Alder Hey, he set up the first neonatal surgical unit in the world. It became a benchmark for similar units around the world, and resulted in an improvement in the survival of newborn infants undergoing surgery from 22 per cent to 74 per cent. He was Hunterian Professor at the College in 1964 and 1967, was honoured with the Denis Browne gold medal of the British Asosciation of Paediatic Surgeons, the medal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Chevalier Legion d’Honneur in 1979 and the Commander’s Cross (Germany) in 1988. Peter was a founder member of the Association of Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus, the European Union of Paediatric Surgeons and of the British Association of Paediatric Surgeons, serving as its President from 1967 to 1968. He was a cofounder and editor for Europe of the *Journal of Pediatric Surgery*. Innovative, forceful and outspoken, he was passionately involved with his specialty. Shortly after his appointment in Liverpool he became so exasperated by the local paediatricians’ use of barium to diagnose oesophageal atresia that at Christmas 1954 he sent each one a card enclosing a radio-opaque catheter with which to make the diagnosis safely. He took great pride in the achievements of his many pupils who went on to become leaders in their specialty. He married Elizabeth Hartley in 1938 and they had a son, David, and two daughters, Susan and Mary-Anne. Elizabeth died in 1998 and he married for a second time, to Lynn, who nursed him through his final long illness. He had five grandchildren. He died on 17 November 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000118
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Johnston, James Herbert (1920 - 2003)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372440372440
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Herbert Johnston was a pioneer of paediatric urology, determined to make what had been a peripheral interest a specialty in its own right. Appointed first as a general surgeon to a leading children’s hospital, Alder Hey in Liverpool, he soon saw that the urogenital problems required a much closer attention than had been accorded them, and by years of dedicated practice and research he built for himself an international reputation and inspired a succession of young disciples. James Herbert Johnston, known to his intimates as ‘Herbie’, was born on 26 February 1920 in Belfast. His father, Robert Johnston, was in the linen business, his mother, Mary née McCormack, a science teacher. He was always destined for a career in medicine and distinguished himself as an undergraduate by gaining several surgical prizes. He graduated from Queens University, Belfast, in 1943, and after a house job became assistant to the professor of surgery at the Royal Victoria Hospital and at the Children’s Hospital. After military service, from 1946 to 1948, he returned to Belfast, taking the FRCS Ireland in 1949 and the English Fellowship in the following year. He then crossed the Irish Sea, theoretically for a short spell, but actually for the rest of his life, taking up senior registrar posts in Liverpool. There he came under the powerful influence of Charles Wells, who not only trained his registrars but directed them to their consultant posts. Thus it was that in 1956 Herbert was appointed surgeon to the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. Although Charles Wells was much concerned with urology, Herbert had had no specialist training and, curiously, he was at first given responsibility for the management of burns. With this in mind he went to a famous burn unit in Baghdad, but this venture was abruptly ended by the Suez War. At Alder Hey Isabella Forshall and Peter Rickham were making great strides in neonatal surgery, but had no particular interest in urology and Herbert saw both the need and the opportunity to make that field his own. As Hunterian Professor in 1962 he lectured on vesico-ureteric reflux, the topic then exciting all paediatric urologists, and went on to produce a long series of papers illuminating important, or neglected, aspects of children’s disorders. He joined with Innes Williams in writing the standard British textbook on this subject and his published work soon brought him an international reputation, with invitations to deliver eponymous lectures in the USA and elsewhere. In 1980 he was awarded the St Peters medal of the British Association of Urological Surgeons in recognition of his many contributions. In spite of all this evidence of enthusiasm Herbert did not at first acquaintance give an impression of liveliness. Deliberate in speech, he could at times look positively lugubrious. However, he became a popular lecturer, making his points with logic and a clarity laced with dry wit and self deprecating humour. To those who knew him well he was a delightful companion who could make fun of all life’s problems. His hobbies were few, though he was a keen golfer if not an outstanding performer in this field. In 1945 he married Dorothy Dowling, who made a happy home for him and their son and daughter, who are now in the teaching profession. His retirement was marred by a stroke which left him with considerable disability, but he was lucky to have Dorothy to look after him so well. He died on 4 February 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000253
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Irving, Irene Marion (1928 - 2020)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Sir Alan Craft
Publication Date 2021-09-23
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010000-E010099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/385010385010
Occupation Paediatric surgeon Neonatal surgeon
Details Irene Irving was a senior lecturer in paediatric surgery at the University of Liverpool and a consultant paediatric surgeon at the Royal Liverpool Children’s Hospital (Alder Hey) who managed to combine her career with bringing up three children on her own after the early death of her husband. She was born in Liverpool, the daughter of George Stanley Irving, a chemical engineer, and Mary Ellen Irving née Stockley. Apart from a few months when she was evacuated to north Wales at the beginning of the Second World War, she spent her whole life in Liverpool. The city was heavily bombed during the war and she recalled leaving an air raid shelter one night to get a book and finding an incendiary bomb had landed in the front garden. She and her father quickly piled sandbags on it, preventing it from exploding and saving her family. She was educated at Broughton Hall Convent High School and then, in 1945, at the age of 17, went on to study medicine at Liverpool University on a state scholarship. She was the outstanding student of her year and grew up very rapidly in the company of many ex-service students. Inspired by her ex RAF friends, she learnt to fly in her third year and gained her pilot’s licence in 1948. Her only brother Francis was a pioneering glider pilot and aeronautics expert. After qualifying in 1952, her first house posts were in surgery and medicine at the Royal Infirmary. Deciding against adult surgery, she then took a senior house officer post in the newly-established academic department of paediatric surgery at Alder Hey under the inspirational leadership of Peter Paul Rickham, one of the first to specialise in the surgical care of children, along with Isabella Forshall. Irving was immediately fascinated by paediatric and especially neonatal surgery and, inspired by Forshall, she decided to make paediatrics her specialty. But first she had to train in general surgeon. After a year demonstrating in the medical school and then six months of casualty work, she became Philip Hawe’s first female registrar at the David Lewis Northern Hospital. She gained her FRCS in 1957. She returned to paediatric surgery in 1958, as a registrar to Forshall. She married Louis Desmet in June 1960 and had three children in rapid succession. She moved to the post of clinical assistant at Alder Hey and Birkenhead Children’s hospitals, a part-clinical, part-research post. During this time, she wrote her ChM thesis on ‘Exomphalos with macroglossia’ and gained her degree in 1969. Louis had been an oyster farmer in Belgium and then ran a hotel in Liverpool largely occupied by long-term resident elderly. Irene described how she would often have to be the hotel cook in addition to her mothering and work duties. Unfortunately, Louis died of cancer in 1973, leaving her to bring up their three children then aged nine, 10 and 12. The youngest was born with a dislocated hip and spent almost five years in hospital, once for a continuous period of 12 months, during which time Irene visited her every day. Irene made the difficult decision to resume full-time clinical surgery and, after a period as a locum consultant, in 1974 she was appointed to a post as lecturer (later senior lecturer) with consultant status in the newly-formed university department of paediatric surgery at Alder Hey. Paediatric surgery encompasses operating on children of all ages, from tiny premature new-borns to almost fully-grown teenagers. Operating on the delicate tissues of a new-born takes special skills and she was particularly good at it: she was a fine and very delicate surgeon and her patients suffered few complications. In surgical parlance, she was described as ‘having a lovely pair of hands’. Parents were happy with her explanations: she was always very careful and thorough as she was in all aspects of her life. Her patients and families adored her, as did the nurses and junior doctors. A former trainee described her as an iron fist in a velvet glove. If you did not pull your weight or let her down, she would let you know in no uncertain terms. She was always calm and very approachable. Whilst working in the academic department she did research and wrote papers as well as doing the research for and then becoming a co-author of what was the standard textbook – Rickham’s neonatal surgery (London, Butterworth, 1978 and 1990). She served on the council of the British Association of Paediatric Surgeons, the North Sefton Health Authority and the Liverpool Medical Institution. An excellent teacher and lecturer, she was much in demand and undertook lecture tours in Brazil and the Far East. In 1986, following two skirmishes with cancer, she took early retirement and devoted her time to being a doting grandmother, travelling, buying a grand piano and learning to play it, and singing in a choir. Irene was only five feet tall, always immaculately turned out, with an infectious sense of humour and a radiant smile. She loved reading poetry and was an avid *Telegraph* cruciverbalist. She was survived by her three children. Her sons, Paul and Laurence, are engineers, whilst her daughter, Anne, is a wood engraver and a fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts. There are five grandchildren. Irene Irving died on 5 March 2020 at the age of 91. Because of the corona virus pandemic, she had a family-only funeral with six attendees, with others linking in by video.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010000
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Cohen, Samuel Joseph (1923 - 2012)

2025-06-13T21:48:44Z

by Sir Miles Irving
Publication Date 2012-06-28 2018-05-09
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/374725374725
Occupation Paediatric surgeon Paediatric urological surgeon
Details Samuel Joseph Cohen, known as 'Joe', was a paediatric surgeon in Manchester. He was born on 22 July 1923 in Germiston, a gold mining town near Johannesburg, South Africa. He was the youngest of three children of Berel Nathan Cohen and Feiga Cohen, a nurse, who emigrated to South Africa from Lithuania. He attended Germiston High School, where he excelled in sport, particularly athletics and golf, and also sang in operatic performances. His talent in these areas developed further during his time at university, where his fine tenor voice was constantly in demand by the university operatic society and his prowess at golf meant that he was regarded as one of the finest South African university golfers of his time. He received his undergraduate medical training at Witwaterstrand University Medical School, from which he qualified MB BCh in 1947. Following qualification, he undertook house officer posts in the Johannesburg teaching hospitals. His time as house physician on the fever unit coincided with an outbreak of poliomyelitis, resulting in the admission of 150 cases in one month. It was following this experience that he decided to direct his future career towards the treatment of children. Another life changing decision occurred at this time when he met Isobel (née Williams), a nurse, who was to become his wife of 55 years. Overall he spent five years training as a house officer, registrar and senior casualty officer in the Johannesburg hospitals. In 1952 he moved to Britain for postgraduate training, initially gaining the MRCP (Edinburgh) later that year, however, his real aim was to train in surgery and he moved to London, commencing surgical training with Norman Tanner and, in 1954, as house surgeon to Sir Denis Browne at Great Ormond Street Hospital. His London training was linked with Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool, where he gained general and urological paediatric surgical training with Isabella Forshall, Peter Paul Rickham and Herbert Johnson. On returning to Great Ormond Street, he was appointed as a resident assistant surgeon to, amongst others, Andrew Wilkinson and Sir David Innes Williams, the latter being instrumental in founding the sub-specialty of paediatric urology. In 1963 he moved from London to take a post as the second consultant paediatric surgeon in the Manchester region, working alongside Ambrose Jolleys, with appointments to all three of that city's children's hospitals, at Booth Hall, Royal Manchester Children's Hospital Pendlebury and the Duchess of York Children's Hospital and, later on, at the neonatal unit at St Mary's Hospital, Manchester. By the time he retired there were four paediatric surgeons in the Manchester region. It was in the 1960s, in the course of creating a world-renowned paediatric urology service, that he developed the operation to prevent vesico-ureteric reflux that subsequently became associated with his name. The operation, which involved a cross trigonal tunnel technique, was hailed as being successful in around 98% of cases and became generally accepted by urologists worldwide as the best technique. Publications in the international literature confirmed his status as the leading authority on the surgical management of vesico-ureteric reflux in children. He was passionate about teaching and pioneered video televised courses for the training of surgeons in operative paediatric urology in Manchester and Varese in Italy. So successful were these video presentations that he was awarded the Golden Eagle award by the Council on International Nontheatrical Events for the most outstanding teaching film made by a non-commercial film company. He was well known and highly respected not only in Manchester and the United Kingdom, but also at an international level. He was the first South African-born president of the British Association of Paediatric Surgeons. In 2009 the British Association of Paediatric Urologists nominated both him and Sir David Innes Williams as honorary members. He was also a lifelong member of the Society of Paediatric Urological Surgeons, a small group of paediatric urologists founded by Sir David Innes Williams, who met annually to present and discuss each other's research and papers. He was an honorary member of many international urological societies and in 1996 was awarded a medal by the European Society for Paediatric Urology. His reputation led to appointments as visiting professor at Beilinson Hospital, Tel Aviv, the University of Michigan, USA, and Bogota University Medical School, Colombia. He also worked in Kuwait for some time. He was a member of the council of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1987 to 1988. His paediatric surgical colleagues in Manchester recall that children were very fond of him. At one time a child drew a picture of him holding a briefcase on which the letters 'J C' were imprinted. The child had written underneath 'Jesus Christ'. The respect in which he was held was also demonstrated by a thriving private practice. Although of amicable personality, Joe was not afraid to challenge authority when necessary. He once upset a senior Manchester rabbi by pointing out that children with clotting disorders could die after circumcision. Throughout his career in Manchester and following retirement, he was a strong supporter of the section of surgery of the Manchester Medical Society. When he retired, initially his only interest was salmon and trout fishing, a pastime he had pursued enthusiastically throughout his professional life, however, a new opportunity to exercise his talents arose as a result of his knowledge and interest in antiques and silver. He became honorary curator of silver and clocks at the Royal College of Surgeons and in 1998 was invited to give the Vicary lecture on this subject entitled 'Silver and the surgeon'. Joe will be remembered not only for his major contributions to the development of paediatric urology, but also for his gregarious, cheerful and vivacious spirit. He died on 17 April 2012, aged 88 and was survived by three sons, Anthony, Peter and Nicholas (a consultant urological surgeon), and five grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002542
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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