Search Results for Godfrey Huggins

First Title value, for Searching Huggins, Rt Hon Godfrey Martin, Viscount Malvern (1883 - 1971)

2025-08-26T20:08:24Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-08-11
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/377984377984
Occupation General practitioner General surgeon Politician
Details Born on 6 July 1883, he was the eldest son of Godfrey Huggins, member of the London Stock Exchange, of Berkhamsted, and Emily Blest, his wife. After preparatory school Huggins went to Malvern College in January 1898, but had to leave in July 1899 because his schooling was cut short by illness as he developed acute otitis media complicated by mastoiditis. In 1901 he entered the medical school of St Thomas's where as a student he was a contemporary and friend of Max Page, Rowley Bristow and Sidney Macdonald. He qualified in 1906 with the Conjoint Diploma and then obtained successive house appointments at St Thomas's as casualty officer, house surgeon and senior house surgeon. After this he went to Great Ormond Street, first as house physician and later as resident medical superintendent, during which period he was admitted a Fellow in 1908. In 1911 after a serious illness he was advised to convalesce in a sunny climate and therefore chose to go out to Salisbury, Rhodesia, as locum for a general practitioner for six months. He decided to remain and set up as a general practitioner surgeon in Salisbury. When war broke out in 1914, he returned to England and was gazetted as a Captain RAMC and surgical specialist, serving in England, Malta and France. In 1915 as a result of his own war experience, he wrote a small handbook on the management and care of patients who had undergone amputation. Returning to Salisbury he decided in 1921 to give up general practice and became a consultant as he was recognised as one of the most able surgeons in Southern Africa. Even after his entry later into politics and when he ultimately became Prime Minister he found it impossible to abandon surgery completely owing to the demands of his old patients and of his friends. He would often operate in the early morning before going on to his ministerial duties and it was only in 1950 that he gave up surgery altogether. In 1921 he volunteered for service during a police strike, when he mediated successfully for the strikers and, as a result, was urged to stand for parliament. In 1923 he was elected to represent Salisbury North in the legislative assembly. Like many other Rhodesians he had favoured the linking of Southern Rhodesia with South Africa, but, after a referendum in 1922, he accepted the decision of the majority and joined the Rhodesian party to help implement self government. In 1928 he was returned with an increased majority, but he was becoming increasingly impatient with the policy of his party. When the world depression hit Rhodesia in 1930, the Government was forced to adopt stringent economies, and it was over the decision to reduce the salaries of civil servants that Huggins broke with the Government. One vote was needed to give the Government the necessary two thirds majority, which Huggins gave with reluctance, announcing that he would leave the party. In 1933 he was persuaded to accept the leadership of the Reform party in opposition. After a year, however, the majority of this party decided to join with elements of the Rhodesia party forming a new party under Huggins leadership. A general election followed in 1934 in the month of November and the new united party was returned with 24 seats. The next general election was held in April 1939 in view of the threat of war, instead of waiting the full five years, and Huggins' United Party was again returned with a majority of 23 seats. This Government carried on throughout the war period for seven years, but in the first post war election of 1946 was nearly defeated and in 1948 was defeated on a minor issue. By this time the question of closer union with Northern Rhodesia had become a dominant political issue and the United Party, led by Huggins, won a resounding victory, his party being in power during the negotiations for the formation of the Federation with Nyasaland. Huggins became Prime Minister of the Federation in November 1953. He had been the architect of the Federation but he resigned office on November 1 1956, the day the British and French Governments launched their Suez adventure. He was succeeded by Sir Roy Welensky who, like himself, considered that the British Government had let the Federation down. Huggins years as Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia were marked by the country's progress up to the outbreak of war in 1939, by its great record during the war and by its tremendous progress afterwards. He occupied the position of Prime Minister longer than any other man in the history of the Commonwealth, although he did not enter politics until after middle life. For many years he held the portfolio of native education, housing and hospitals, all of which made great advances, as did research in tropical diseases. Sympathetic in outlook towards the African and believing in social and economic advance rather than political advance, he was at the same time a realist, and as a result was assailed vigorously from time to time, both by those who thought that advancement of the African was not rapid enough, and by those who thought that it was too fast. Huggins caused comment in public life by his occasional apparent impishness, puckishness and a tendency, unusual in a politician, of saying exactly what he thought, irrespective of the time or the place, thereby exasperating his political opponents and giving anxious moments to his friends. His greatest disappointment was the defeat in 1962 as a result of the Southern Rhodesia election of Sir Edgar Whitehead and the United Party with the resulting emergence of the Rhodesian Front. The indications were that the Rhodesian electorate, after more than a generation, had turned away from the policy of racial progress initiated by him, Huggins. He expressed the opinion that it was a victory for those white Rhodesians who were opposed to any change. As the Rhodesia Front policies became increasingly intolerant, he expressed anxiety concerning the country's future. Pro-British and a loyalist, he condemned UDI, the declaration of a republic and the abolition of the Union Jack. Doubtless, being fully occupied as a surgeon for half his life, and partially even after he had entered politics, made him a realist. In 1938 he operated on his Governor, Sir Herbert Stanley and in 1939 on the Governor of Nyasaland; while on another occasion he dealt with a visiting British surgeon who had been mauled by a leopard. He was created a Viscount in 1955 and retired from office in 1956. Ever since his school days he had suffered from deafness, but he was a man of great energy, showing little strain, even when following two careers simultaneously. His relaxations were polo, golf, tennis and racing in his capacity as a steward of the Mashonaland Turf Club. In 1921 he married Blanche Slatter, by whom he had two sons. He died on 8 May 1971 aged 87.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005801
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hoggins, Geoffrey Slaney (1916 - 2000)

2025-08-26T20:08:24Z

by J K
Publication Date 2023-08-10
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010400-E010499
Occupation Oral and maxillofacial surgeon
Details Geoffrey Slaney Hoggins, consultant oral and maxillofacial surgeon, died on January 4 2000, aged 84. ‘Geoff’ as he was affectionately known by colleagues throughout the hospital service in the Midlands, was educated at Bedford School, King Edward’s School Birmingham, and Birmingham University. He qualified LDS (Birm) in 1937. BDS followed in 1946, and FDSRCS (Eng) in 1949. Before he retired he held consultant appointments at three hospitals, the Children's and Selly Oak Hospitals in Birmingham, and Walsall General Hospital. Together these represented a heavy load, but hospital work was Geoff's life, and he enjoyed it. He was always kind and caring towards his patients and his junior staff. In 1940 he volunteered for service in the Army Dental Corps spending five years overseas with various medical units under Middle East and India commands. He returned to England in 1945, and was demobilised in 1946, with the rank of major. He then became surgeon in charge of the General Anaesthetic Department at Birmingham Dental Hospital until 1953. Many of the older Birmingham graduates will remember with gratitude his teaching of safe dental extractions under general anaesthesia for out-patients. In those days this was a normal procedure in general dental practice. Geoff was an enthusiastic member of many professional societies including the BDA, with the Hospitals branch, the Oral Surgery Club of Great Britain and Birmingham Medical Institute, of which he was president of the Odontological section in 1962. He was a founder fellow of the British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial surgeons, and a founder member of the Midland Clinical Club, and past president. He published several papers describing rare and interesting conditions he found in the course of his professional career. Apart from his work, he had great enthusiasm for art, motor cars, wine, and above all for the restoration of antique clocks. When he returned to England in 1945, Geoff married Mary Isobel Prince, a girl who had been in the same academic year as himself. Sadly ‘Molly’, as she was always called, died after a short illness in 1971. Geoff slowly recovered, and in 1973 married Mary Eileen McShane who was consultant anaesthetist to Walsall hospitals. Incredibly, after only 12 years she also died in 1985. But in spite of these tragedies Geoff still had a good life and the best years of the Health Service. He leaves two daughters, Jane and Sarah, by his first marriage, and three grand- children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010407
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-08-26T20:08:24Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372328372328
Occupation Anatomist
Details Simon Wapnick was an anatomist based in New York. He was born on 25 October 1937 in Pretoria, South Africa, the son of Percy Jacob Wapnick and Fanny née Levitt. He was educated at Pretoria Boys’ High School and then went on to the University of Pretoria Medical School. He held house appointments at Pretoria General Hospital and Harari Hospital, in the then Rhodesia. In 1964 he went to London, where he was a locum registrar at St Stephens and King George’s Hospitals, London, and followed the basic science course at the College and the Fellowship course in surgery at St Thomas’s. In 1965 he was a senior house officer at Great Ormond Street. From 1966 to 1969 he worked as a registrar and clinical tutor at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in Hammersmith. In 1969 he returned to Africa, as a lecturer and senior lecturer at the department of surgery at the Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine, Rhodesia. From 1972 he was a specialist surgeon at the department of surgery, Ichilov Hospital, Tel Aviv, Israel. He then emigrated to the US, where he was a surgeon at Brooklyn Veterans Administration Hospital in New York. He subsequently taught gross anatomy at Ross University Medical School in the Dominican Republic and at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. At the time of his death, Simon was an assistant professor in the department of cell biology and anatomy at New York Medical College. He taught gross anatomy to first year medical students and facilitated a postgraduate gross anatomy course for various residency programmes. He wrote papers on a range of topics, including skeletal abnormalities in Crohn’s disease, diverticular disease, hiatus hernia, and carcinoma of the oesophagus and stomach. He was actively interested in various Jewish organisations in Israel and in Africa. He married Isobelle née Gelfand, the daughter of Michael Gelfand, the author of books on tropical medicine and on the Shona people, in 1962. They had two daughters (Janette and Laura) and a son (Jonathan), and three grandchildren (Chloe, Jordan and Michael Joshua). A keen marathon runner, Simon Wapnick died on 26 May 2003 of an apparent heart attack, while out jogging in Central Park.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000141
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Williams, Bernard Lewis (1910 - 2001)

2025-08-26T20:08:24Z

by Timothy G Williams
Publication Date 2014-07-23 2014-12-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005700-E005799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377891377891
Occupation General surgeon
Details Bernard Williams was a senior surgeon in Portsmouth. He was born into a medical family on 26 August 1910, his father, Morgan Watkin Williams, being a general practitioner in Morriston, Swansea. His mother, Beryl Jane née Gabe, was the daughter of a GP. He received his schooling at Marlborough College, before proceeding to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and then to St Thomas's Hospital for his clinical education. After house appointments and a brief interlude as a ship's doctor, he enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps reserve when war was looming, being assigned to the military hospital at Netley two days before Neville Chamberlain made his fateful broadcast. In a personal memoir he recalled with affection his six years of military service. After a spell with the British Expeditionary Force in Dieppe, he went to Cairo and led a surgical team during General Wavell's advance with the Army of the Nile. He commanded a field surgical unit, one of three assembled to support the larger medical facilities of the Eighth Army under General Montgomery. Bernard's casualty clearing station bore the brunt of the casualties from the Battle of El Alamein. Some 13,000 Allied soldiers died - requests for help fell on deaf ears. When in Egypt in 1943, Bernard Williams met and married Rosalind Bone, a Middlesex-trained physiotherapist. Their ushers included Ronald Bodley Scott from Bart's (later the Queen's Physician) and John Charnley of 'hip-replacement' fame. Michael Boyd, also of Bart's and later Professor of Surgery in Manchester, declined to be best man on the grounds that of some eight previous marriages for whom he had performed the role, all had failed! Bernard and Rosalind's was a long and happy one, and produced four children. Three sons followed their father in medicine; Tim became a surgeon, John a gastro-enterologist and Peter a rheumatologist. Their daughter, Jane, lives in Wales, and there are 14 grandchildren. His only injury of the war was sustained when he was posted with the Liberation Army near Hamburg in 1945. On hearing the singing of Sospan Fach by a Welsh division coming from the cellar of a mansion, he went to investigate and was hit in the eye by a champagne cork and got a black eye as he joined in the celebration! In 1946, he was appointed to the staff of the Royal Portsmouth Hospital as a consultant general surgeon, and was the senior surgeon with the Portsmouth group of hospitals until his retirement in 1975. He promoted the Wessex system of central sterile supply, which had been introduced by the local pathologist, Michael Darmady, and became the standard technique nationally of sterilising and packaging surgical instruments. In retirement, he undertook three surgical locums as senior lecturer at the Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine in Zimbabwe, and was yet again to deal with the wounded of civil strife, reinforcing his abhorrence of gratuitous violence. From 1952 until his death, he was an active member of the Travelling Surgical Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and took pleasure in chronicling its activities with wit and accuracy. Indeed, he travelled to almost all home and overseas meetings, giving a lucid account at the age of 86 of Belgian surgeons he had met during visits to the country. He was proud that his uncle Howell Gabe had been a founder member when the society met in Leeds for the first official meeting and dined at the home of Sir Berkeley (later Lord) Moynihan - its first president - in 1924. He remained an active and good tennis player from his youth into his eighties, when he played each week with the late Selwyn Taylor - their combined ages being 170 years. His most notable success was defeating Najar, the Egyptian champion, and earning banner headlines in the Cairo press: "Najar battu par un joyeur de la moyenne classe". Dying on 21 November 2001 at the age of 91 from advancing prostatic cancer, he retained his wit, wisdom and humanity throughout his last illness.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005708
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset