Search Results for Medical Obituaries - Narrowed by: Missionary

First Title value, for Searching Taylor, Joseph (1928 - 1997)

2024-05-04T14:48:36Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-12-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008900-E008999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381148381148
Occupation General surgeon Gynaecologist Missionary Ophthalmologist
Details Joseph Taylor was a former medical missionary in Tanzania. He was born in Czechoslovakia in 1928. In 1938 his parents brought him and his twin brother to England as the Nazis marched into Czechoslovakia. He studied medicine at St Bartholomew's. After qualifying, he made ophthalmology his career, and went to Tanzania with the Bible Churchmen's Missionary Society in 1953. He spent the first 18 years in various hospital appointments and in 1971 moved to Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre, where he was medical superintendent and senior ophthalmologist. He worked closely with the Tanzanian government and the Tanzania Christian Medical Association to develop a national medical programme. In addition to his work in ophthalmology, he did postgraduate work in gynaecology to learn how to repair vesicovaginal fistulae and other types of incontinence following obstructed labour. In 1979, he was the first medical consultant for the Christian Blind Mission, applying the lessons learned in Tanzania to the development of rural health services in other African countries, teaching, writing and lecturing extensively on all these matters. He was awarded the OBE in 1980 for this work. His work on low cost spectacles and eye drops is now part of the literature of the World Health Organization. He died on 21 November 1997 in Halton Hospital, Runcorn, survived by his wife, Joan, children and grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008965
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wilson, David Hedley (1928 - 2015)

2024-05-04T14:48:36Z

by Susan Wilson
Publication Date 2016-01-21 2016-05-27
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009000-E009099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381221381221
Occupation Accident and emergency surgeon Missionary Tropical medicine specialist
Details David Hedley Wilson was a consultant surgeon in the accident and emergency department, Leeds General Infirmary. He was born in Leeds on 5 October 1928, the son of Herbert Wilson and Phyllis Wilson née Hield. His grandfather had been a master grocer and his father, who served in the First World War, returned to join the business; however, sadly, this collapsed in the 1930's. At the age of eight, David decided that, despite the family being poor, he was going to be a missionary doctor. He was educated at Roundhay School in Leeds. At the age of 15 he met his wife to be and a year later he won a scholarship to study medicine at Leeds University, living at Rawdon Theological College. As well as studying, he loved sport and was the reserve for the 400 metres at the 1948 Olympics. He qualified in 1951 and married Robina McKenzie Simpson in July 1953; so started a relationship that lasted 40 years. After posts in surgery, casualty and obstetrics in Leeds, he took the diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene in Antwerp in 1954. On his 26th birthday, David and Robina sailed with their young baby girl Pamela to Pimu in the Belgian Congo. Their location was a very isolated hospital in the heart of the rain forest. He stayed in the Congo from 1954 to 1968, eventually moving south to a large mission hospital near the Angolan border at Kimpese. On his first period back at home in 1958, he felt the need to train in orthopaedics. In his work in Africa he was dealing with much disability from poliomyelitis and leprosy. He did this training at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital at Stanmore. On his return to the Congo, he developed a limb fitting centre, then the only one in Central Africa. During the Congo uprising following independence, Robina returned with the children to the UK and David stayed caring for the patients at Kimpese. During this time, he treated many horrific injuries owing to the civil war. On returning to the UK in 1961, David studied for his FRCS. In 1964 he gained the Edinburgh FRCS and later, in 1988, gained his FRCS from the Royal College of Surgeons of England. The family returned to the Congo in 1964 and stayed until 1968. During this time, he became a visiting lecturer at the newly formed National University in Kinshasa and medical director of the Institut Médical Evangélique at Kimpese. They now had four children - Pamela, Gerard, John and Christine. In 1968 they returned permanently to the UK and he held registrar posts in orthopaedics in Yorkshire. In 1970 he was appointed as a consultant in accident and emergency medicine at the General Infirmary at Leeds. During the subsequent years, he pioneered the growth of the specialty of accident and emergency medicine, seeking to establish it as a specialty with its own consultants. He wrote textbooks and developed patterns of training throughout the UK. He advised and lectured in Australasia and America, where he was awarded honorary fellowships. He also lectured in Canada and Europe. At this time, he was conducting research in spinal nerve regeneration and the effectiveness of Diapulse (electromagnetic therapy) in the healing of damaged tissues and nerves. He campaigned for the use of seat belts and against drink-driving. He also oversaw the introduction of computerised records in the accident and emergency department at Leeds in 1974. Paul, born in Leeds, completed the family in 1968. David was a committee man! He sat on various national committees and became an examiner for the FRCS (accident and emergency surgery) from 1982 to 1990 in Edinburgh. During this period, he represented the specialty of accident and emergency surgery on the council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. In 1986 he played a leading role in the organisation of the first International Conference of Emergency Medicine in London. He was appointed postgraduate dean of medical education at the University of Leeds in 1986, becoming chairman in 1989 and also represented the university on the General Medical Council. In 1990 he was appointed to the chief medical officer's Forum on Education and Training in the Health Service. Sadly, after celebrating 40 years of married life, Robina died of carcinoma of the stomach in 1992. David took retirement to care for her, living at that time in Harrogate. In 1994 he married Susan Evans, a nurse who had also worked in the Congo. They married on 16 April 1994 and David moved to live near Presteigne, mid Wales. He continued to be guided by his Christian faith, maintaining an interest in the church and serving as secretary in the local Baptist Church. He became president of the Baptist Union of Wales and of the Baptist Missionary Society. His love of committees and organisation continued well into his retirement. He was privileged to be one of the founding members of the College of Emergency Medicine and attended the inaugural ceremony officiated by Princess Anne in 2008; the college later became the Royal College in 2015. In 2004 his autobiography *Doctor at the cutting edge* (Houghton Regis, Bound Biographies) was published. He loved walking and gardening, enjoying the beauty of his home and life in mid Wales, although he was always proud to be called a Yorkshire man. Sadly, David developed vascular dementia and over a five-year period there was a slow decline; he was cared for in his home until he died on 4 October 2015, just two hours short of his 87th birthday. David was a visionary, always challenging the status quo and seeking better ways of doing things. He will be remembered for his contribution to changing the face of accident and emergency medicine, his Christian service in the UK and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and for his diplomacy in committees.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009038
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gibb, James Glenny (1874 - 1912)

2024-05-04T14:48:36Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-02-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001900-E001999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374160374160
Occupation General surgeon Missionary Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Born on August 1st, 1874, the eldest son of James Gibb, insurance broker and underwriter at Lloyd's, who was MP (Lib) for the Harrow Division of Middlesex. His mother was Helen, daughter of the Rev David Nimmo, Congregational minister. Gibb was educated at the City of London School and served for six years in his father's office. He entered St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1900 and won the two-mile steeplechase open to all hospitals in 1901, his time being 11 min 50 secs. He entered the University of Durham in 1902 and won the three-mile race in 1903. He served as House Physician at Westminster Hospital in 1906 and was appointed House Surgeon to Sir D'Arcy Power at St Bartholomew's Hospital in April, 1907. He was elected Ophthalmic House Surgeon to W H H Jessop (qv) and to Holmes Spicer in April, 1908. At the end of his term of office he married 'Sister Coborn' (Miss Henman), of Islip, Oxon. He started at once for Pekin as Surgeon to the Union Medical College, where a staff of brilliant and earnest teachers had already been collected under the London Missionary Society. An outbreak of bubonic plague in 1910 sent him to Harbin, as he had already made a study of its bacteriology under Dr Emanuel Klein. He worked heroically with the help of his colleague, Dr Wu Lien Te, and received the thanks of the Imperial Government, but declined, with characteristic modesty, the high decoration offered him as well as any personal emolument. The Government, therefore, sent the salary he had earned as a donation to the funds of the Union Medical College. He was called upon by the Chinese to organize the work of the Central Red Cross Society when the Revolution broke out in 1911, and again showed administrative ability of a very high order. He died at Pekin of amoebic dysentery on October 2nd, 1912, when he was on the eve of returning to Europe with his wife and two children, and was buried in the British Cemetery. One of his sons, aged 3 years, died a week after his father. Gibb was shy and somewhat reserved in manner, a man of fixed religious principles, which were never obtruded, though they guided every action of his life. His motto was 'Thorough', his first care was for his patient; of himself he took no thought. Harold Pace Gibb, FRCS, is the younger brother of James Glenny Gibb.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001977
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Coleman, John Wycliffe (1924 - 2003)

2024-05-04T14:48:36Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23 2012-03-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372228372228
Occupation Chaplain General surgeon Missionary
Details John Wycliffe Coleman, one of three hostages detained for eight months following the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1980 and released after the intervention of the Archbishop of Canterbury, was a missionary doctor who worked tirelessly in the Middle East and in the East End of London. He was born on 10 May 1924 in Cairo, where his father, Robert Baxendell Coleman, worked as a missionary doctor. His mother was Enid Louise née Evans, the daughter of a Dublin doctor. He was educated at Westminster School and then Christ's College, Cambridge, and went on to St Thomas's for his clinical studies. He was a house surgeon at St Thomas's and then a medical officer with the Church Missionary Society in Jerusalem, but soon moved to Iran after the outbreak of war between the Arabs and Israelis. For the next 16 years Coleman worked as a surgeon in the Episcopal Church of Iran's hospital in Shiraz. He was awarded the freedom of the city of Shiraz in recognition of his work. In 1964 he returned to London, for his sons' education, and worked in the East End, as medical superintendent of the Bethnal Green Medical Mission. In 1978 he returned to Iran to run a medical clinic in Yazd, where he was made pastor of the small Christian community. Just two years later, in 1980, Coleman and his wife were detained, along with the Bishop of Iran, the Right Reverend Iraj Muttahedeh, the bishop's secretary, Jean Waddell, and three other Christian Iranians. During the first month of captivity, he was kept in isolation and denied reading material, even his Bible. The hostages were eventually released in February 1981 after the intervention of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, and his envoy, Terry Waite. He never expressed any bitterness towards his captors. Once back in Britain, Coleman travelled widely, speaking about his experiences. In 1984 he returned to the Middle East at the invitation of the Bishop in Egypt, as chaplain of a small church in Port Said and at the disocesan hospital in Menouf. In 1990 the Colemans returned to the UK, once again at the Bethnal Green Medical Mission. He became chairman of the Egypt Dioscean Association and commissary to the Bishop of Egypt. He was a firmer supporter of the Friends of the Diocese of Iran and regarded both Iran and Egypt as home. He was in demand as a speaker and Bible teacher, travelling in Britain and overseas, particularly Nepal and Afghanistan. He frequently visited Egypt and in 2000 returned to visit Iran. He married Audrey Ponsford in 1946 and they had four sons. He died on 16 August 2003 in St Joseph's Hospice, London, from prostate cancer.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000041
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Alderton, Roland Maitland (1902 - 1991)

2024-05-04T14:48:36Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-01 2022-11-22
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/379967379967
Occupation General surgeon Medical Officer Minister Physician Missionary
Details Roland Maitland Alderton was born on 20 June 1902 in Hadleigh, Suffolk, son of David Simpson, a miller and corn merchant, and Margaret McLachlan, daughter of a clergyman. He was educated at Tonbridge School and the London Hospital, qualifying MRCS LRCP in 1930 and MB BS in 1931. After working as house surgeon and emergency officer at the London he gained the FRCS in 1932 and went to Hong Kong as medical officer at the Nethersole Hospital. Here he served from 1932-1958, but he was interned by the Japanese between 1942 and 1945 in Stanley, Hong Kong. In 1960 he was ordained minister in the Congregational Church in England and Wales. He was married twice, to Kathleen, née Blackman, who died in 1947 and to Bessie, née Partridge, in 1948. He had a son, Daniel Arthur, who became a physician, and a daughter. He died on 30 December 1991. **See below for an expanded version of the original obituary which was printed in volume 7 of Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows. Please contact the library if you would like more information lives@rcseng.ac.uk** Roland Maitland Alderton was a medical missionary in Hong Kong. He was born on 20 June 1902 in Hadleigh, Suffolk, the son of Daniel Simpson Alderton, a miller and corn merchant, and Margaret Watson Alderton née McLachlan, from Edinburgh, the daughter of a clergyman. He was educated at Tonbridge School and the London Hospital, where he qualified with the conjoint examination in 1930. He gained his MB BS in 1931. After working as a house surgeon and emergency officer at the London Hospital, he became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1932, the same year he went to Hong Kong as a medical missionary with the London Missionary Society. He worked as a medical officer at Nethersole Hospital until 1942, when he was interned by the Japanese in Stanley Camp. Following the liberation of Hong Kong in 1945, he stayed on in Hong Kong for another six months to help restore and reorganise Nethersole Hospital, and returned to the UK in early 1946. He had married Kathleen Blackman in Battle, Sussex in 1935. She died in January 1947 of ovarian cancer. In October 1948 he married for a second time, to Bessie Partridge in Sudbury, Sussex. He returned to Hong Kong with his new wife in January 1949 and resumed his work at Nethersole Hospital, specialising in obstetrics. He finally returned to the UK in 1958 and studied at Westminster College, Cambridge for two years to become a minister in the Congregational Church. He then took charge of the Congregational Church in Ingatestone, Essex and then at White Roding, also in Essex. He retired in around 1970. He had a son, Daniel Arthur, who became a physician, and a daughter, Margaret. Roland Maitland Alderton died on 30 December 1991 in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex. He was 89. Sarah Gillam
Resource Identifier RCS: E007784
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Buxton, Kenneth Leonard (1909 - 2001)

2024-05-04T14:48:36Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008500-E008599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380692380692
Occupation General surgeon Medical Officer Missionary
Details Kenneth Buxton was a former medical officer for the Church Missionary Society at Ruanda Mission, Ibuye, Burundi, and subsequently medical superintendent of Mildmay Mission Hospital, Bethnal Green, London. He was born in Hertfordshire, on 19 July 1909. His father, Leonard Buxton, was the grandson of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, the co-worker of Wilberforce in the abolition of the slave trade, and was the vicar of North Mimms. His mother, Kathleen Wingfield-Digby, was the daughter of a landowner at Coleshill House, near Birmingham. Kenneth was educated at Charterhouse, from which he won an exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he gained a first in the natural science tripos. He did his clinical studies at St Thomas's, where he became house surgeon and casualty officer. After obtaining his FRCS in 1935, he went to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as a missionary to found a new medical school. However, the Italian invasion meant that he was evacuated to Aden, together with his wife and baby son, and then returned to England, along with the exiled Emperor Haile Selassie. In 1938, he returned to Africa, to work in Burundi with the Ruanda mission. With few resources, he designed, built and organised a hospital, training young Africans as nurses and dressers. A maternity unit and a nurse training school (which had government recognition) were later added. As well as having to deal with a remarkable range of medical and surgical conditions almost single-handed, Kenneth also worked as the architect, building instructor, engineer and mechanic. During the second world war, Kenneth offered to join the British Army, along with the other missionaries in the country. They were requested to remain by the British government, in case there was a German invasion of East Africa. He returned home briefly in 1948 with his family. He returned to England for good in 1954 and took up the post of medical superintendent of Mildmay Mission Hospital in London's East End. While working at the hospital, he initiated and was involved in implementing many changes, including the building of an extension and a new residential wing for nurses. The hospital was closed in 1982 by the regional hospital board, but reopened three years later as a community hospital with charitable trust status. It later became the first hospital to offer a dedicated service for people with AIDS. Kenneth was chairman of the council of the Ruanda Mission from 1965 to 1974 and kept up his interest in Burundi. He married in 1935, Agnes Bragg, daughter of T Bragg, a doctor. They had two sons, of whom the elder (Paul) became a physician in Victoria, Canada. Of their two daughters, the eldest was a nurse at St Thomas's. There are nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Kenneth died at the age of 92, on 14 November 2001.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008509
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset