Search Results for Medical Obituaries - Narrowed by: Genito-urinary surgeon

First Title value, for Searching Powell, William Wyndham (1857 - 1944)

2024-05-04T19:54:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-10-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004400-E004499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376661376661
Occupation Genito-urinary surgeon Urologist
Details Born 30 October 1857 at Penyfai, Bridgend, Glamorgan the fifth of the six sons and tenth of the twelve children of Griffith Powell, farmer, and Ann Jenkins, his wife. He was educated privately at Bridgend and at Mumbles near Swansea, and took his medical training at the Westminster Hospital. He won the Treasurer's exhibition in 1884 and was President's scholar in 1885. He served as senior house surgeon, senior house physician, demonstrator of anatomy, and surgical registrar. After a period of postgraduate study in Paris he specialized in genitourinary surgery and was for seven years chief clinical assistant at St Peter's Hospital for Stone. He was also surgeon to the Westminster General Dispensary. Powell was an honorary member of the American Urological Association. He practised at 28 Devonshire Place, W1, and lived at Wimbledon. During the heavy bombing of London in 1940-41 he moved to 4 Newton Villas, Porthcawl, Glamorgan, where he died on 2 July 1944, aged 86. He never married. Powell's brothers and sisters all lived long: one lived to be 92 and two others past 90. He was survived by one sister, Mrs Lloyd, a year younger than himself. Publications: Operative urethroscopy: an improved urethroscope. *Lancet*, 1921, 2, 175. Urethroscopy, in E R T Clarkson's *The Venereal Clinic*, London, Bale, 1922.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004478
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Messent, Arthur David (1915 - 1985)

2024-05-04T19:54:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-06-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007500-E007599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379685379685
Occupation General practitioner Genito-urinary surgeon Urologist Vascular surgeon
Details Arthur Messent obtained an open exhibition to Mill Hill School and proceeded to St Bartholomew's Hospital where he won the Brackenbury Prize in surgery and anatomy. He qualified in 1938 and after a short spell in general practice he joined the Royal Air Force and served in Coastal Command both in the Faroe Islands and the Middle East where he was mentioned in despatches. After the war he continued his surgical training, passed the FRCS examination in 1948, and held senior registrar appointments in Norwich, Reading and Hammersmith before his appointment as consultant in vascular and genito-urinary surgery to the Brentwood Group of Hospitals in 1955. In 1940 he married Margaret, a doctor's daughter and medical secretary at St Bartholomew's Hospital where one of their daughters eventually trained as a nurse. Their second daughter trained as a physiotherapist at the London Hospital. He enjoyed gardening, reading, entertaining and being entertained. He was kind, courteous and ready to help those in need, and it was sad for him and his family when he was struck by a long illness. He retired in 1980 to Nantgaredig in Carmarthen, his wife's birthplace, hoping to enjoy the countryside he loved and he died on 2 August 1985 survived by his wife and daughters, Rosemary and Ann.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007502
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Barclay, Dorothy Margaret Somerville (1914 - 1964)

2024-05-04T19:54:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Gairdner, Alan Campbell (1900 - 1977)

2024-05-04T19:54:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-12-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006500-E006599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378712378712
Occupation Genito-urinary surgeon Urologist Neurosurgeon
Details Alan Campbell Gairdner was born in Surbiton on 4 July 1900. Both his father and grandfather were general practitioners. He was educated at Tonbridge School and, for the last six months of the first world war, served as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps. After demobilisation he studied medicine at University College, Oxford, and at the London Hospital, qualifying in 1925. He held numerous house appointments at his teaching hospital where he came under the stimulating influence of Russell Howard; he obtained his FRCS in 1928. He developed an interest in brain surgery and spent six months in Boston, USA, studying under Harvey Cushing. In 1932, soon after his return, he was appointed medical superintendent at St Georges-in-the-East Hospital, and in the same year won the London Hospital Hutchinson Triennial Prize. In 1934, at the age of 34, he was appointed surgeon to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and the Exeter Clinical Area. During the early years and until the speciality was moved to the regional centre in Bristol, he widened his experience in neurosurgery in addition to a very busy general surgical practice. He volunteered for service in the second world war and served as surgical specialist with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel RAMC in India and West Africa. On his return to Exeter he developed an increasing interest in genito-urinary surgery and pioneered transurethral resection of the prostate with excellent results. He was a careful and gentle surgeon with a special interest in neonatal work and he co-operated closely with his colleagues in paediatrics. Although he published little he communicated his experiences to the Surgical Club of South West England at which meetings he was a regular attender whose opinions were held in high regard. He was a man of few words who did not suffer fools gladly. His somewhat gruff exterior belied the generous and considerate man that he was. On his retirement he continued to work in the cottage hospitals to help reduce the waiting lists. Failing health in his last few years prevented him from enjoying to the full his hobbies of farming, fishing and shooting, but he was uncomplaining and staunchly supported by his wife. They had two daughters and a son. He died on 5 June 1977, aged 76.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006529
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Doherty, William David (1893 - 1966)

2024-05-04T19:54:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-07-22
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/377886377886
Occupation General surgeon Genito-urinary surgeon Urologist
Details Doherty, always called "George" though his real names were William David, was born on 17 July 1893 of Irish parents and educated at Dulwich College and King's College, Cambridge. He volunteered for active service when war broke out in August 1914, and served in France with the Royal Army Service Corps, attaining the rank of Captain, till he was recalled in 1917 to complete his medical training at Guy's Medical School. He qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in 1920, took his Cambridge medical degrees in 1921, and proceeded in 1923 to the Fellowship and in 1924 to the Cambridge Master of Surgery degree. At Guy's he served as house surgeon to Sir Alfred Fripp and was a demonstrator in anatomy; he was surgical registrar and tutor 1923-31, and assistant surgeon 1931-38. He succeeded A Ralph Thompson as genitourinary surgeon in 1936, and in 1948 followed T B Johnston in the very responsible post of Superintendent of the Hospital. He retired in 1958 and was elected a Governor of the Hospital, and of the Medical School from 1961. He was also a Governor of Alleyn's College of God's Gift at Dulwich. During the second world war Doherty operated on two days each week at Orpington Hospital to which his in-patients had been evacuated from Guy's, and spent one night a week at Guy's to deal with surgical emergencies during the heavy German air-raids on London. When he became Superintendent, after the war, he restricted his clinical work entirely within the walls of Guy's, where he was also deeply involved in the successful but prolonged restoration of the hospital buildings after their severe damage by bombing. Doherty was an excellent teacher, and his wide knowledge of most fields of surgery made him an invaluable mentor to his assistants and nurses, beyond the bounds of urology. He was a genial, sympathetic friend to his colleagues, staff and patients. He had great physical and mental strength, balance and judgement. In his youth he was an outstanding athlete. At Cambridge he won a half-blue for water-polo and a blue for rugger; he played forward for his school and for Cambridge, and was Captain of Guy's XV for three years; he was capped seven times for Ireland in the rugby international matches, and was captain of the Irish XV in 1921. Doherty married in 1922 Annie Ruth Margaret Barker, who survived him with two sons and a daughter. He died on 31 March 1966 at Forge Cottage, Chipstead, Surrey, aged seventy-two.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005703
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching MacDonald, Sydney Gray (1879 - 1946)

2024-05-04T19:54:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Brownlee, Joseph John (1901 - 1972)

2024-05-04T19:54:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-07-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005600-E005699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377857377857
Occupation Genito-urinary surgeon Urologist Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Joseph Brownlee was of Irish descent; his father, J J Brownlee, who died in 1928, came from Northern Ireland and was one of the earliest doctors in Christchurch; his mother's maiden name was McKee. Brownlee received his early education at Waitaki Boys High School; he kept a great interest in his old school and became Dominion President of the Old Boys Association. He qualified from Otago Medical School in 1926; while there he developed considerable prowess at running and hurdling, and at one stage the Otago record for the 100 yards was held jointly by Brownlee and Arthur Porritt. In 1927 he became a house surgeon at Auckland Hospital and then came to England where he stayed for seven years holding various surgical appointments and obtaining his Fellowship in 1934. In 1935 he returned to Christchurch and was appointed assistant surgeon to the genito-urinary department of Christchurch Hospital. In 1940, early in the second world war, he came to England as one of several surgeons from Commonwealth countries to be trained in plastic surgery by Sir Harold Gillies; he returned to New Zealand through the Middle East, where he spent several months observing the requirements of a plastic unit dealing with war casualties. Then at Burwood Hospital, Christchurch he set up the first plastic unit in New Zealand. Brownlee was senior surgeon at this plastic unit 1942-1955. From 1955 to 1966, when he retired from practice, he carried on his plastic work at various private hospitals and in addition visited Invercargill and Dunedin in a consultant capacity. In 1946 he was elected to the North Canterbury Hospital Board and served on it until 1957. He was also chairman of the building committee of the Princess Margaret Hospital. An important part of Brownlee's life was his annual holiday camp on the shores of Lake Hawea; the fishing there was excellent and he became an expert fly-fisherman; each camp lasted for several weeks and about twenty people were generally present. At these camps he fed, sheltered and entertained not only his friends but many widows, orphans and underprivileged people at his own generous expense. Brownlee was a keen Mason, who thought deeply about religion and politics. In 1966 Brownlee retired from medicine because of failing health and for the last few years of his life he was confined to a chair. He died at his home on 1 November 1972 in his 71st year. His wife, son and daughter survived him. His son J J Brownlee qualified in medicine but gave up practice for farming; his daughter married M T Milliken and practised surgery at Christchurch.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005674
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Teevan, William Frederic (1834 - 1887)

2024-05-04T19:54:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Watkins, Kenneth Harold (1903 - 1938)

2024-05-04T19:54:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-12-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004700-E004799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376930376930
Occupation Genito-urinary surgeon Urologist
Details Born on 16 September 1903 at Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire, the elder of the twin sons of Harold Ernest Watkins, MRCS, LRCP, medical officer of health for Newton-in-Makerfield, Lancs, and his wife, *née* Smith. He was educated at Oundle School, Northants, at the Manchester University, and at St Thomas's Hospital. Whilst still a student he was awarded the Bradley memorial scholarship in clinical surgery in 1926, and the prize in clinical medicine in the following year. At Manchester he graduated with second-class honours at the MB ChB examination, and at the London University he was placed in the honours list with distinction in medicine and surgery. He then acted as house surgeon at the Manchester Royal Infirmary and, having decided to practice as a genito-urinary surgeon, became house surgeon to the genitourinary department of the Salford Royal Infirmary. In 1932 he was attached as a Rockefeller Fellow to the Brady Urological Institute at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, and when the Fellowship expired he spent some time in Europe visiting the various urological clinics. At Freiburg he met the lady who afterwards became his wife. Returning to England he acted as resident surgical officer at the Manchester Royal Infirmary and as resident medical officer at the Christie Hospital, whilst at the Northern Hospital and at Crumpsall he organized urological units. He acted, too, as medical officer and registrar at the Radium Institute, where he was able to study the effects of irradiation on growths in the urinary tract. In 1933 he was appointed surgeon for genito-urinary diseases at the Manchester Northern Hospital and urological assistant at the Royal Infirmary, Manchester. In 1934 as Hunterian professor at the Royal College of Surgeons he took "The bladder function in low spinal injury" as the subject of his lecture. He married Irmgard Herrmann on 21 April 1935, who survived him with a son and a daughter. He was killed on 15 September 1938 whilst being driven in a motor car, which skidded on a slippery road between Neubrandenburg and Neustrelitz, Germany; he was buried at Newton-le-Willows, Lancs. Watkins was a great loss to genito-urinary surgery. He was skilful as an operator, and his contributions to the specialty show him to have been full of ideas, which would have led him far had he lived. He was universally admired, respected, and beloved. He spoke ill of none and none spoke ill of him. Publications: A preliminary note on temperature variations during general anaesthesia, with S R Wilson. *Brit J Anaesth* 1927, 4, 201. The clinical value of bladder pressure estimations. *Brit J Urol* 1934, 6, 104-118. Paralysis of the bladder and associated neurological sequelae of spinal anaesthesia (clauda equina syndrome), with Fergus R Ferguson. *Brit J Surg* 1938, 25, 735. An experimental investigation into the cause of paralysis following spinal anaesthesia, with A D Macdonald. *Ibid* 1938, 25, 879.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004747
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Barrington, Frederick James Fitzmaurice (1885 - 1956)

2024-05-04T19:54:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-01-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004800-E004899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377051377051
Occupation Genito-urinary surgeon Urologist
Details Educated at University College Hospital Medical School, where he won a university scholarship in physiology when he qualified in 1907 and the Atkinson Morley surgical scholarship in 1908. After holding resident posts at University College Hospital and St Peter's Hospital for Stone he was elected to the staff of both hospitals and was ultimately surgeon to St Peter's and consulting surgeon for genito-urinary diseases at University College Hospital. He pursued his surgical work with distinction and gave particular care to his students and hospital patients, but cared little for private practice. He was at heart a scientist and field-naturalist. While still a student he frequented the pathology department of the Zoological Gardens; later at St Peter's he carried through a valuable research on the nervous mechanism of micturition. He was uncommonly well-read in the literature of anatomy and physiology, and was a regular visitor to the College library in search of out of the way German books and articles by the older writers in these fields. He also had a wide and deep knowledge of botany, zoology, and comparative anatomy. Barrington was a member of the Physiological Society and of the Société internationale d'Urologie. At society meetings he could demolish an ill-founded hypothesis, but he was generous of his own knowledge and ready to admit ignorance and to explore the background of any subject which he thought he ought to study. All who got past his shy, harsh manner held him in affection and admiration. He often spent an evening in animated conversation at the Athenaeum, and equally enjoyed a day's shooting or sailing for the opportunity of observing wild-life. His informed enthusiasm on these occasions was an inspiration to his companions. His tall figure and brisk movements were long familiar in the parts of London where he lived and worked, for he set no store by appearances, never wore a hat or great-coat, and always walked; he was a well-known figure at the Athenaeum. During the second world war he organised a large genito-urinary service at the Emergency Medical Service hospital at Colindale. He had previously lived at 10 Chandos Street, Cavendish Square, and after the war settled at 14A Upper Wimpole Street. He died suddenly on 23 March 1956. A memorial service was held at St Pancras Church on 19 April 1956. He left £1000 each to the Severn Wildfowl Trust, the Ray Society, the British Ornithologists Union, and the libraries of the Athenaeum Club, the Linnean Society and the Zoological Society. Publications: The nervous mechanism of micturition. *Quart J exper Physiol* 1914, 8, 33. The relation of the hind-brain to micturition. *Brain* 1921, 44, 23.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004868
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Walker, Kenneth Macfarlane (1882 - 1966)

2024-05-04T19:54:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-24
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/378391378391
Occupation Genito-urinary surgeon Urologist Urological surgeon
Details Born in Hampstead on 6 June 1882 the son of William James Walker, he was educated at the Leys School and Caius College, Cambridge, where he took first-class honours in the Natural Science Tripos in 1904. He had his clinical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he was assistant editor of the Journal and President of the Abernethian Society. He qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in 1906, graduated in medicine and surgery at Cambridge in 1907, and took the Fellowship in 1908, after serving as demonstrator of physiology and house physician at St Bartholomew's. He won the Jacksonian Prize in 1910 with his essay on *Tumours of the bladder and male genitalia*, having decided to specialise in genito-urinary surgery, and was lecturer in venereal diseases at Bart's Medical College. He was a Hunterian Professor in 1911 and again in 1922 and 1924. Between 1920 and 1913 he worked in Argentina as resident surgeon at the British Hospital in Buenos Aires, and retained happy and vivid memories of his South American experiences. During the first world war he served in the RAMC in France, was mentioned in despatches three times, and became surgeon to the Duchess of Westminster's War Hospital. On demobilization he was appointed urological surgeon to the Royal Northern Hospital, which he served for more than twenty years, retiring at the age limit of 65 in 1947. He was also a consulting surgeon at St Bartholomew's. He was active in many surgical societies, including the Surgery and Urology Sections of the Royal Society of Medicine and the Venereal Diseases Section of the British Medical Association, and for many years was medical secretary of the British Social Biology Council. Walker made a distinguished contribution to his specialty as surgeon, writer and teacher. He endeared himself to his students by his complete freedom from pomposity, and to his colleagues by his gaiety and wit; a friend wrote that "his laugh was always an appreciation, not a sneer." He had many interests and friends outside medicine. He enjoyed fox-hunting, and in his middle years regularly played tennis in Regent's Park. He became more and more interested in the personal and social problems of medical practice both for the doctor and the patient. He was a fluent talker and writer, and in later years a prolific author on the mystical background of life and on psychological and spiritual suffering. He also wrote books for children, three or four popular medical books such as *Physiology of sex and its social implications* (1940), several volumes of reminiscences and a history of medicine in the 1950's, and during his last twenty years at least a dozen books expressing his mystical interpretation of life. His thought was profoundly influenced by his friendship with the Russian religious emigrés P D Ouspensky and G I Gurdjieff. He was a handsome man, but quite careless of appearance, and his character combined innocence with experience. Walker married twice; in 1926 Eileen Marjorie Wilson, and in 1944 Mary Piggott. He died at Midhurst on 22 January 1966 aged 83, survived by the son and daughter of his first marriage. Publications: *Diseases of the male organs of generation*. 1923. *The enlarged prostate*. 1926, and 2nd edition 1933. *Sex difficulties in the male*. 1934. *Genito-urinary surgery*, by Sir John Thomson-Walker, 2nd edition by K.W. 1936. *Human sterility and impaired fertility* (with C L Roberts and others). 1939. *Sexual disorders in the male* (with E B Strauss). 1944.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006208
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching McCrea, Edward D'Arcy (1895 - 1940)

2024-05-04T19:54:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-09-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004400-E004499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376614376614
Occupation Genito-urinary surgeon Urologist
Details Born on 7 February 1895 at Altona, Stillorgan, Co Dublin, eldest son of John Harris McCrea, merchant, and Jeannette Seale, his wife. He was educated at Wycliff College, Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated with a brilliant academic record in 1917, proceeding MD in 1920 and MCh in 1922. In that year he also gained the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He had been commissioned as a temporary captain, RAMC, on 30 July 1918. McCrea was elected assistant surgeon at Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital, Dublin in 1919, but retired on moving to England in 1922. He settled at Manchester, becoming registrar of the department of urology at Salford Royal Hospital. He was elected assistant surgeon to the Hospital in June 1927, and surgeon in February 1935; throughout this period he worked with J B Macalpine. He took the Fellowship of the College in 1926, without being already a Member. He was also consulting surgeon to the Eccles and Patricroft Hospital, Manchester, and from 1 July 1935 consulting genito-urinary surgeon to the Infirmary at Leigh. At the time of his death he was senior honorary secretary of the section of urology in the Royal Society of Medicine. McCrea carried out some excellent anatomical and physiological research, in association with J S B Stopford and B A McSwiney. He first studied the innervation of the stomach, then became interested in the musculature of the bladder, and worked at various problems in bladder physiology at the Manchester Medical School. He subsequently transferred his interest to the diseases of the male genital tract. His monograph on Diseases of the urethra and penis, published six months before his death, was very well received. It was intended as the first of a series on the surgery of his special subject. The specimens and notes for this work, including a rich collection on the testicle, were destroyed in the bombing of his house in which he lost his life. McCrea was reserved and shy, with few non-professional interests, but he was a good talker and enjoyed the company of fellow-scientists, though preferring his home and his books. He was a first-class lawn-tennis player and had represented Ireland in the Davis Cup competition. McCrea married on 25 September 1925 Edith Florence Willock, who, like him, was a medical graduate of Dublin and a Fellow (1925) of the Irish College of Surgeons. Mrs McCrea was surgeon to the Manchester Babies Hospital. She had written on Anoxaemic atrophy of infants in the *Quarterly Journal of Medicine*, 1929, 22, 269, and was engaged on an exhaustive study of pyloric stenosis. McCrea, his wife, and their two children, a boy and a girl, were killed when a German bomb destroyed their house, The Cottage, Worsley, near Manchester, during an air-raid in December 1940. Publications:- Nerves of the stomach and their relation to surgery. *Brit J Surg* 1926, 13, 621. Musculature of bladder. *Proc Roy Soc Med* 1926, 19, Urol. Sect., p 35. Early carcinoma testis. *Brit J Urol* 1934, 6, 46. Pre-sacral sympathectomy and the urinary bladder. *Brit J Urol* 1934, 6, 119. Epididymal cysts, their aetiology and treatment. *Brit J Urol* 1935, 7, 152. Treatment of undescended testis. *Lancet*, 1935, 2, 753. Dislocation of testis, spontaneous reduction. *Brit J Urol* 1938, 10, 251. Tuberculosis of male genital tract. *Irish J med Sci* 1938, p. 614. Urinary symptoms in disease of nervous system. *Med Press*, 1939, 201, 8. Factors influencing treatment of incompletely descended testis. *Urol Cutan Rev* 1939, 43, 239. *Diseases of the urethra and penis*. Bristol, 1940.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004431
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Nitch, Cyril Alfred Rankin (1876 - 1969)

2024-05-04T19:54:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Nicholls, Sir Marriott Fawckner (1898 - 1969)

2024-05-04T19:54:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-09-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005900-E005999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378167378167
Occupation General surgeon Genito-urinary surgeon Urologist
Details Born in London on 12 May 1898 the son of Marriott Edwin Nicholls he was educated at the City of London School, Clare College, Cambridge and St George's Hospital, London. His undergraduate studies were interrupted by the first world war, during which he enlisted with the Royal Fusiliers at the age of seventeen and served with them from 1915-1919. After demobilization in 1919 with the rank of Captain he returned to his studies at Cambridge and graduated BA in 1921. For his clinical work he entered St George's Hospital qualifying with the Conjoint Diploma in 1923. He took the FRCS in 1926, graduated BCh two years later and obtained the MChir in 1932. While at St George's he was awarded the Allingham Scholarship in surgery in 1925 and the Sir Francis Laking Research Scholarship in 1928-9 and again in 1929-30. He held the usual junior surgical appointments including that of assistant curator of the Museum (1926), a post which until its abolition was a nursery in pathology for young aspirants to the surgical staff. In 1932 he was appointed to the consultant staff of St George's and soon established himself as a successful surgeon and a popular and lucid teacher. He was also consultant to the Royal Chest and the Belgrave Children's Hospitals and general surgeon to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. Later his interests centred on genito-urinary surgery. His reputation in this field was recognised by his appointment to serve on the Council of the British Association of Urological Surgeons, and later by his election as President of the Section of Urology of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1960-1. He was Dean of the Medical School from 1936-1956 - a very long spell by any standards. This record is notable in two directions, first his twenty years of office, whereas the service of deans, then as now, does not usually exceed ten years; secondly it was then, and is even more so now, unusual for a practising surgeon to be dean of a London teaching hospital. His work as Dean was early interrupted by the outbreak of the second world war. In characteristic fashion, he left his hospital career to serve in the RAMC for the next six years (1940-1946), first as Lieutenant-Colonel in charge of a surgical division, stationed for some time at Freetown, and later as Brigadier and consultant to the 14th Army, South-East Asia Command. He was appointed CBE in 1946. On demobilization, for the second time in his life, he returned to his duties as Dean and surgeon to the hospital. It was during the ten year period that followed (1946-1956) that he made his greatest contribution to his medical school, whose life and fortunes were reborn and recast as a direct result of his wisdom and diplomacy. In 1946 he found a position in which the future of the school and hospital were both uncertain. A new site for the rebuilding of the hospital was being sought and was finally designated by the Ministry of Health at Tooting in South London. The new project, however, had to be phased, and the site being some distance from the parent hospital at Hyde Park Corner presented problems of transport and accommodation for the students and of a division of duties for the teachers. He played an invaluable part in overcoming these difficulties. Synchronously he pursued a policy of academic development within the school. In this sphere he was the driving force behind the gradual evolution of a series of new university departments and their associated academic staffs, appointments which were later to become chairs, first in pathology and its allied subjects, and afterwards in medicine and surgery. Throughout this period he worked in the closest harmony with the Board of Governors, the university authorities and the Academic Council of the school. In 1956 when he relinquished his office as Dean he had transformed the loose situation he inherited into an integrated university unit of medical education of great potential. At this stage he did not forsake his academic associations, transferring his activities to become the first director of the surgical unit. Apart from the attributes of character essential to such achievements, he had a most engaging personality. He was without envy. He had a special élan and zest for life and good fellowship. Equipped as he was intellectually and blessed with a sense of fun always near the surface, he added authority, colour and gaiety to any gathering in which he found himself. He was a memorable figure, tall and slim, approachable, yet somewhat aloof. He inspired affection and not a little awe in students, and in his house-surgeons a respect and devotion which he returned. In committee he had a flair for sensing the strength or weakness of an argument and the gift of timing his own intervention at the most effective moment. He had the knack of lowering the temperature in a heated exchange and cutting short the discursive debater by some aptly humorous remark. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member, and for two years Chairman, of the Court of Examiners. In this post he was popular with colleagues and candidates alike. He was particularly quick to notice the nervous examinee and to get the best out of him or her. His fellow Members of the Court held him in such regard that, at the end of his term of office, they broke with tradition and made him a presentation of a silver cigarette box. In his private moments he was a keen sportsman and loved cricket and fishing and the countryside of Gloucestershire and Ireland. Although with the passing years he spent more recreation time on the river bank than on the cricket field, he remained a staunch supporter of the cricket club and actually played for the staff against the students when he was over sixty. There were many cricketers and others who recalled with wistful pleasure his genial hospitality at his country home in Northleach. He had a host of friends but was particularly remembered with affection by his students of both sexes to whom he was universally known as 'Nick'. In 1962 at the age of sixty-four he started a new career as professor of surgery in the University of Khartoum succeeding Julian Taylor. His skill as a teacher, his diagnostic acumen, his administrative ability and his innate friendliness were not lost upon his Sudanese students who held him in the warmest personal regard and admiration. He became an important member of the British colony exerting much influence in maintaining good relations during a most difficult period. His continuous hard work and service to his profession and his country were recognised by a knighthood in 1969. He died in Khartoum, the university city of his adoption, from coronary thrombosis on 25 August 1969, at the age of seventy-one.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005984
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Thompson, Sir Henry, Bart (1820 - 1904)

2024-05-04T19:54:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-12-05
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003200-E003299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375423375423
Occupation General surgeon Genito-urinary surgeon Urologist Public health reformer
Details Born at Framlingham, Suffolk, on August 6th, 1820, the only son of Henry Thompson, a tradesman who kept the village shop, by his wife Susannah, daughter of Samuel Medley (1769-1857), the artist who painted the portrait group of the founders of the Medical Society of London, and was one of the founders of University College, London. He was educated under Mr Fison, a Nonconformist minister at Wrentham, and early engaged in mercantile pursuits, as his parents, who were uncompromising Baptists, dreaded a scientific education and disliked the idea of a profession. Coming to London he was, however, apprenticed to George Bottomley, a medical practitioner at Croydon, in January, 1844, and in October he entered University College, London, to study medicine. Here he won the gold medal in anatomy in 1849, the gold medal in surgery in 1851, and took the MB degree. From June, 1850, he acted as the first House Surgeon to John Eric Erichsen (qv), who had recently been appointed Surgeon to University College Hospital. Joseph Lister (qv) was one of his dressers, and it was partly on Thompson's advice that Lister went to Edinburgh to work under James Syme. Thompson entered into partnership with his former master, George Bottomley, at Croydon, in January, 1851, but after a few months returned to London and began to practise surgery at 35 Wimpole Street, where he lived the rest of his life. He acted for a short time as Surgeon to the St Marylebone Infirmary, but in 1863 was elected Assistant Surgeon to University College Hospital, becoming full Surgeon in 1853, Professor of Clinical Surgery in 1866, Consulting Surgeon and Emeritus Professor of Clinical Surgery on his retirement in 1874. Thompson determined to devote himself particularly to genito-urinary surgery and visited Paris in July, 1858, to study the subject under Jean Civiale (1792-1867), who was the first to remove a vesical calculus by lithotrity. Beginning life thus as a pupil of Civiale, Thompson adopted his methods and at first crushed stones at repeated intervals, leaving it to nature to void the fragments, until in 1866 J T Clover (qv) invented the rubber evacuator and evacuating tubes. When Henry Jacob Bigelow (1818-1890) recommended crushing at a single sitting and removal of the fragments by operative measures, Clover's apparatus came into general use. He also began to advocate the discredited operation of suprapubic cystotomy about 1886, and it has since come into general use. He was thus a pioneer in the removal of tumours from the urinary bladder. Thompson's successful crushing operations at University College soon attracted attention, and in 1863 he operated upon Leopold I, King of the Belgians, completing the work Civiale had begun eighteen months previously. In July and December, 1872, Thompson treated Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, at Camden Place, Chislehurst. He performed the operation of lithotrity upon him under chloroform on Jan 2nd, 1873, and again on January 7th. A third sitting was arranged for midday on January 9th, but the Emperor died of uraemia at 10.45 am, an hour and a quarter before the operation was to have begun. Thompson's attainments and interests were exceptionally versatile. He was not only pre-eminent in his own branch of surgery, but his zeal for hygiene made him a pioneer in the cause of cremation. He was also an authority on diet, a devoted student of astronomy, an excellent artist, a collector of china, and a man of letters. He first drew attention to cremation by an article in the *Contemporary Review* in 1874. Experiments had then been made recently in Italy, but it was not until 1874, and chiefly by Thompson's energy, that a Cremation Society was founded in England. From that time onwards he was its President and did all in his power to promote the practice both here and on the Continent. A crematorium was built at Woking in 1879: its employment was forbidden by the Home Secretary and it was not used until March, 1885. The Government had in the meantime brought a test case against a man who had cremated his child in Wales, and Sir James Stephen decided that the practice was not illegal if no nuisance was caused. In 1902 Thompson took a leading part in the formation of a company which erected the crematorium, under the guidance of Mr Eassie, CE, at Golder's Green near Hampstead Heath, then an outskirt of London. Astronomy occupied much of Thompson's leisure, and he built an observatory at Molesey, where he had a country house. He presented some fine instruments to the Greenwich Observatory, the last being a telescope twice the size of any previously in use. It was manufactured at Dublin by Sir Howard Grubb, and was erected in 1897. Thompson doubtless inherited his artistic faculties from Samuel Medley, his maternal grandfather, but his original talent was fostered by study under Edward Elmore, RA, and Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema, RA. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1865, 1870, annually from 1872-1878, and again in 1881, 1883, and 1885. Two of his pictures were afterwards shown in the Paris Salon, and to this exhibition he contributed a landscape in 1891. He was also an eminent collector of china and acquired many fine specimens of old white and blue Nankin. A catalogue illustrated by the owner and James McNeill Whistler was issued in 1878, and the collection was sold at Christie's on June 1st, 1880. Besides numerous articles in magazines Thompson wrote two novels under the name of 'Pen Oliver'. *Charlie Kingston's Aunt*, published in 1885, presents the life of some fifty years earlier. *All But, a Chronicle of Laxenford* (1886) is illustrated by twenty full-page drawings by the author, in one of which he portrayed himself as he was in 1885. Cultured society had great attractions for Thompson. As a host he was famous for his 'octaves', which were dinners of eight courses for eight people at eight o'clock. They were commenced in 1872, and the last, which was the 301st, was given shortly before his death. The guests were as carefully chosen as the food, and for a quarter of a century the most famous persons in the worlds of art, letters, science, politics, diplomacy, and fashion met at his table in Wimpole Street. King Edward VII, when Prince of Wales, dined there once, and his son, King George V, when Prince of Wales, attended Thompson's 300th octave. There is a portrait group of one of the octaves in the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, No 116, with the original studies by W J Solomon, RA. Thompson received the honour of knight bachelor in 1867 and was created a baronet on February 20th, 1899. He married on December 16th, 1861, Kate Fanny, daughter of George Loder, of Bath. Lady Thompson was well known as a pianist. She was paralysed for some years, but survived her husband, dying on August 30th, 1904, leaving a son, Henry Francis Herbert, and two daughters. Sir Henry Thompson died at 35 Wimpole Street, W, on April 18th, 1904, and was cremated at Golder's Green. A three-quarter-length portrait painted by Sir J E Millais, RA, in 1881 hangs in the Tate Gallery. There is a bust by F W Pomeroy, RA, in the Crematorium at Golder's Green. A cartoon portrait by Ape in *Vanity Fair* (1874) is subscribed 'Cremation'. There are numerous photographs in the College Collection, and an excellent one in University College, Gower Street. Publications: *The Pathology and Treatment of Stricture of the Urethra both in the Male and Female*, 8vo, London, 1854; 4th ed, London and Philadelphia, 1885. Translated into German, München, 1888. *The Enlarged Prostate, its Pathology and Treatment*, 8vo, London, 1858; 6th ed, London and Philadelphia, 1886. Translated into German, Erlangen, 1867. *Practical Lithotomy and Lithotrity*, 8vo, London, 1868; 3rd ed, 1880. Translated into German, Kassel and Berlin, 1882. *Clinical Lectures on Diseases of the Urinary Organs*, 8vo, London, 1868; 8th ed, 1888. Translated into French, 1874, and again in 1889. Translated into German, Berlin, 1877. *On Tumours of the Bladder*, 1884. *Lectures on some Important Points connected with the Surgery of the Urinary Organs*, 8vo, London, 1884. *On the Suprapubic Operation of Opening the Bladder for the Stone and for Tumours*, 8vo, London, 1886. *Traité pratique des Maladies des Voies urinaires*, a collected edition of Thompson's surgical works, was published in Paris in 1880. *Cremation*, 16mo, London, 1874; 4th ed, 1901. *Modern Cremation, its History and Practice*, 12mo, London, 1889; 4th ed, 1901. Thompson was also part-author of the article on cremation in the *Encyclopaedia Britannica* (9th ed). *Food and Feeding*, 8vo, London, 1880; 12th ed, enlarged, 1910. *Diet in Relation to Age and Activity*, 1886; 4th ed, 1903; revised edition, 1910.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003240
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset