Search Results for Medical Obituaries

First Title value, for Searching Adams, Rosemary Helen MacNaughton (1926 - 2018)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2019-05-02
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009500-E009599
Occupation Accident and emergency specialist
Details Rosemary Helen MacNaughton Adams was a consultant in the accident and emergency department at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. She was born in Edinburgh on 26 April 1926, the second child and eldest daughter of Thomas MacNaughton Davie and Lilias Tweedie Davie née Henderson. She was brought up in Beverley, Yorkshire, where her father was medical superintendent at the East Riding County Asylum. She attended the High School in Beverley and then studied medicine at Edinburgh University, where she was an outstanding student, achieving four medals, including the most distinguished graduate of the year award; she qualified in 1948. She held house posts in Edinburgh and then initially specialised in ear, nose and throat medicine, as a registrar at Hull Royal Infirmary. In 1954 she married another doctor, John Campbell Strathie Adams. His specialist posts took them from Yorkshire to Birmingham and finally to Norwich, where he was appointed as a consultant geriatrician. She was an associate specialist in the casualty department at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital and became a consultant in 1975. She helped found the Norfolk branch of what became the British Association of Immediate Care Schemes (BASICS). She taught, spoke at conferences on immediate care and wrote papers on the emergency treatment of poisoning. She retired in 1990. She was appointed as a magistrate in 1965 and served on the north Norfolk bench until 1994. She enjoyed music, and played the piano and viola. With her husband, she organised a concert series at the local church at Salle in north Norfolk, where she was a churchwarden. In 1994 she and John moved back to Beverley. Sadly, her husband died the following year. She had age-related macular degeneration for many years and died from Alzheimer’s disease on 16 October 2018 at the age of 92. She was survived by her two daughters, son and three grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009566
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset
Publication Date 1948

First Title value, for Searching Bharucha, Pesi Beramsha (1920 - 2018)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2019-03-04
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009500-E009599
Occupation General surgeon
Details Pesi Bharucha was chief of surgery at the Tata Main Hospital, Jamshedpur, Bihar, India. He studied medicine at Grant Medical College, Bombay and qualified in 1944. He initially trained as an obstetrician and gynaecologist, but then went to the UK shortly after Indian Independence to train in general surgery. He worked at Walton General Hospital in Liverpool for eight years and gained his fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1954. In 1955 he returned to India, where he became a consultant surgeon at the Tata Main Hospital. He was chief of surgery and superintendent before retiring in 1980. He initially carried out all the general surgery, orthopaedics and trauma, but gradually developed the hospital into a multispecialty facility. He also worked with the World Health Organization, particularly arranging trips into remote areas of Bihar to vaccinate people against smallpox. After retiring from the Tata Main Hospital, he became the medical director of Breach Candy Hospital and Research Centre in Mumbai (from 1982 to 1996). He died on 28 November 2018 and was survived by his wife Gool, two children and three grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009578
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset
Publication Date 1954 1952

First Title value, for Searching Alexander, Albert Geoffrey (1932 - 2010)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by SIM
Publication Date 2023-07-19
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010300-E010399
Occupation Specialist in conservation dentistry
Details Albert Geoffrey Alexander (1932-2010), known to all as Geoff or AGA, was a caring clinician, a compassionate teacher and a meticulous research worker. Geoff was born in Hull and obtained a scholarship at Bridlington School, where he became Head Boy. He was the first member of his family to attend university when he entered University College Hospital Dental School, University of London, where he collected the Sinclair Medal for the best student in his cohort. He obtained LDS in 1955, BDS in 1956, FDSRCS in 1961 and MDS in 1968. After graduating he held House Surgeon posts at The National Dental Hospital, did National Service in The Royal Army Dental Corp, ran the Student Dental Service at University College and had a year in private practice in Kent. In 1960 he became a full-time Lecturer in Conservative Dentistry, a Senior Lecturer in 1962, and an Honorary Consultant in 1967. He became Vice Dean of Dental Studies in 1974 and Dean, UCL Dental School and Vice Dean (Dental) of the Faculty of Clinical Sciences in 1977, a position he continued to hold until 1992. Geoff, with his wife Connie, then went to Hong Kong for two years as Head of Conservative Dentistry and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry. As well as working, they enjoyed showing visiting friends and colleagues the highlights of Hong Kong, especially the sky-scape of Hong Kong Island as seen, over a cup of tea, from the Terrace of the Peninsular Hotel on Kowloon. Geoff and Connie found time to go walking in Switzerland and Austria and later visited 'long haul' destinations such as Canada and Japan. When he retired, despite his long standing ill health, bravely borne, he developed an interest in computing and photography and continued his long standing enjoyment of music. Geoff had a significant impact on a whole generation of dental students who went through UCH Dental School. He was a kindly man who raised students' standards by professionalism, persuasion and example. He is survived by his wife Connie, his daughter Susan and two granddaughters, Christine and Elizabeth.
Resource Identifier E010358
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset
Publication Date 1956

First Title value, for Searching Kolb, Thomas Axel Thor (1935 - 2022)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2023-06-27
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010200-E010299
Occupation Dental surgeon Community Dentist
Details Tom Kolb was a dentist in Cirencester with a particular interest in children’s dentistry. This is a draft obituary. If you have any information about this surgeon or are interested in writing this obituary, please email lives@rcseng.ac.uk
Resource Identifier RCS: E010246
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset
Publication Date 1959

First Title value, for Searching Lynch, James Brendan (1921 - 2018)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2019-03-04
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009500-E009599
Occupation Pathologist
Details James Brendan Lynch was a consultant pathologist at St James’ Hospital, Leeds and formerly professor of pathology at the University of Khartoum, Sudan. He was born on 9 May 1921 in Wallasey, Cheshire, the third child and second son of Thomas Patrick Lynch, a teacher and headmaster, and Margaret Lynch née Pierce. He attended local schools in Wallasey and St Francis Xavier Grammar School in Liverpool and then went to the University of Liverpool to study medicine, qualifying in 1944. He was a house surgeon and senior casualty officer at Liverpool Royal Infirmary, lectured in anatomy at the University of Leeds, and then served in the Army. He was a registrar in general surgery at the Royal Southern Hospital, Liverpool and gained his FRCS in 1950. During his training he was influenced by Henry Clarence Wardleworth Nuttall and Richard Webster Doyle, both surgeons in Liverpool. He was subsequently a lecturer in pathology at the University of Leeds. Lynch then went to the University of Khartoum, where he founded the department of pathology. By the mid 1960s, he had returned to the UK: in March 1964 he gave a Hunterian Lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons of England on ‘Mycetoma in the Sudan’ (*Ann R Coll Surg Engl*. 1964 Dec;35[6]:319-40). He was appointed as a consultant pathologist in Leeds, where he was also dean for postgraduate medical education. He was the co-author of *Pathology of toxaemia in pregnancy* Edinburgh, Churchill Livingstone, 1973. Outside medicine he enjoyed golf, reading, DIY and silver craftmanship. In 1957 he married Jacqueline Fitzgerald. They had two sons. James Lynch died on 24 August 2018 at the age of 97.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009583
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset
Publication Date 1969

First Title value, for Searching Iyer, Sennaporatti Sivashankar Viswa ( - 2020)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2020-11-02
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009800-E009899
Occupation Trauma surgeon Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Sennaporatti Sivashankar Viswanath Iyer was born in India. He studied medicine at Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute and qualified MB,BS in 1963. Initially he worked as a general surgeon and passed his MS in 1970. He was a lecturer in surgery at Mysore Medical College from 1971 to the end of 1972. In February 1973 he travelled to the UK and began his training in orthopaedics. He passed the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1975 and the college fellowship the following year. Following what he described as a *tortuous route*, he worked at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore, the Hammersmith Hospital, the Princess Margaret Rose Orthopaedic Hospital and the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh doing various locum posts. In 1994 he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon at King George Hospital in Ilford and finally he became consultant at St George’s Hospital in Tooting. Throughout his career he very much enjoyed teaching, especially his work on the inaugural *Training the trainers* course in Edinburgh. When young he was a keen sportsman and excelled in cricket, badminton and table tennis. He described himself as a very aggressive batsman and, when he came to the UK, played cricket for a local first division team from 1973 to 1981. In table tennis he also reached a reasonably high standard. He died on 23 July 2020.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009862
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset
Publication Date 1975 1970

First Title value, for Searching Webb, Anthony John (1929 - 2024)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Jason Webb
Publication Date 2024-11-08
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010600-E010699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/388455388455
Occupation General surgeon Endocrine surgeon Breast surgeon Cytologist
Details John Webb, a consultant general and endocrine surgeon for the Bristol United Hospitals, was a masterly technical surgeon and pioneer cytologist. In an era when a lump in the breast presaged uncertain frozen section biopsy and mastectomy, Webb mastered fine needle aspiration and accurate diagnosis, saving countless patients from avoidable surgery, achieved through single-handed endeavour and a microscope in his own home. His work forms the basis of the routine investigation of suspected breast cancer in modern practice. He was born in Clifton, Bristol on 29 December 1929, the son of Charles Reginald Webb, who worked in the corn trade, and Gwendoline (‘Queenie’) Webb née Moon. He was educated at Sefton Park Junior School and Cotham Grammar School, where he was head of the school from 1947 to 1948. He then entered the University of Bristol Medical School, graduating MB ChB in 1953, when he won the silver medal. He was a house officer at the Bristol Royal Infirmary between 1953 and 1955, and then carried out his National Service as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1955 until 1957. He was a surgical registrar at Frenchay Hospital, from 1957 to 1960 and then spent seven years in Birmingham and Coventry as a registrar and senior registrar. He returned to Bristol in 1967, when he was appointed as a consultant surgeon to Bristol Royal Infirmary, a post he held until he retired in December 1994. Following his retirement, he became a senior research fellow in the department of surgery at the University of Bristol. As a general surgeon, he retained broad general skills in all disciplines owing to his exhaustive training experience, but his research and clinical specialty interests focused on breast, endocrine and salivary gland disease. Central to this was his conviction that cytology, which formed the focus of his life’s research, could hold a key to investigating and thereby treating these diseases better. He undertook a higher degree, a ChM, awarded in 1974, with his thesis entitled ‘A cytological study of mammary disease’. This entailed studying with a leading cytologist, Paul Lopes Cardozo, in Leiden. He was a Hunterian professor at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1975. His fascination with cytology did not stop with gaining his ChM; he became expert in all aspects of it, and this led to him being awarded the fellowship of the International Association of Cytologists – extremely rare for a surgeon. In 1993, he was also awarded the Erica Wachtel medal of the British Association of Cytopathology for his long service to the subject. His research changed the modern surgical practice of the treatment of breast cancer, heralding the concept of the one-stop clinic where a breast lump was examined and its nature ascertained through fine needle aspiration cytology at the initial consultation. Owing to his own cytological expertise, he was able to diagnose varied conditions and was called upon by colleagues around the city when a diagnosis was elusive. One memorable case involved a request from the physicians to identify the primary in a patient with metastatic disease. Noticing a bony metastasis in the vertebral body of C3, he performed fine-needle aspiration via an open mouth technique through the oropharynx. This was performed on the ward with minimal fuss or disruption, the diagnosis of a colonic primary being provided the following morning. He was the surgeon of choice to fellow consultants in need of help and a studious trainer of junior surgeons, from whom he demanded as near to his own meticulous surgical technique as they could achieve. He was president of the British Association of Endocrine Surgeons from 1992 to 1994. In his youth, John Webb was a fine rugby player, appearing at fly half for Bristol. He sang in the choir at Clifton College and was an ardent student of history. A keen observer of human traits, he had a wry sense of humour, put to use in nicknames for colleagues whose aspirations may have exceeded their abilities. Predeceased by his wife Audrie (née Bowen), whom he married in 1955, he died from old age and frailty on 21 September 2024 at the age of 94. He was survived by their four children, Mark, Dominque, Charlotte and Jason, most of whom have followed their father into either surgery or professions allied to medicine, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010681
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset
Publication Date 1980 1974

First Title value, for Searching Arthur, Ian Hugh (1957 - 2018)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2019-02-05
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009500-E009599
Occupation General surgeon
Details Ian Hugh Arthur was a registrar in general surgery and orthopaedics at St. Albans City Hospital. He was born on 29 December 1957 and trained in medicine at London University and the Royal Free Hospital, graduating MB, BS in 1981. Initially a house physician and surgeon at the Royal Free, he joined the staff of the surgical rotation at the Basingstoke District Hospital. After passing the fellowship of the college in 1990, he began work at St. Albans City Hospital. He lived in Uxbridge and died on 18 December 2018 aged 60.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009567
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset
Publication Date 1981

First Title value, for Searching Gilmour, Andrew Graham (1955 - 2016)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by M Cassidy
Publication Date 2023-07-06
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010300-E010399
Occupation Specialist in restorative dentistry
Details Dr Andrew Graham Gilmour died peacefully on 8 January 2016 after a short illness, at the untimely age of 60. Graham was born on Good Friday, 1955. He qualified at Glasgow Dental School in 1978, then joined the SHO/Registrar rotation in Glasgow and passed the FDSRCPS in 1982. He became a lecturer in prosthodontics shortly afterwards and in 1988 was appointed consultant in restorative dentistry at Mayday Hospital, Croydon. A member of the appointments committee later told me that Graham was the most outstanding applicant for the post among the candidates. Graham quickly developed the service in Croydon and established outreach clinics around the southeast of England, including Bournemouth, Portsmouth and Southampton, which soon attracted the attention of the dental teaching hospitals in London who wanted to get their higher trainees in restorative dentistry and orthodontics into attachments at Graham’s unit in Croydon. Most of these trainees were later appointed consultants and professors up and down the UK. Graham was particularly skilled as a diagnostic clinician, a first class teacher, an educator, who was invited to lecture locally, nationally and internationally, where his clinical skills and natural humour endeared him to every audience. He had a very sharp political touch. He understood how NHS committees worked and developed the philosophy that one should be either a committee member or chairman, but never the treasurer or secretary! He was appointed Associate Postgraduate Dental Dean for the KSS Region in 2003, and was asked to organise the training of clinical dental technicians which attracted applicants from all around the UK, every one of whom successfully completed the course and held Graham in the highest esteem. One of his most endearing attributes was his unique sense of humour and fun, for which his trainees will testify. He organised educational programmes with the Cunard shipping line, crossing the Atlantic to New York on the QE2 twice, and cruising with Cunard in the Caribbean in 1994 which proved to be very popular. He had a particularly mischievous sense of humour; in 1982 Pope John Paul II came to Glasgow to say mass. On the same day, in Glasgow Dental Hospital, the oral surgery registrar received a phone call from a Cardinal, who was the Pope’s personal secretary, reporting that the Holy Father had toothache and wanted to see the Professor of Oral Surgery, at 4 pm that day! It was of course, a joke, played by ‘Cardinal’ Graham Gilmour! Graham was hugely loved by his colleagues at Mayday Hospital in Croydon, and will be sadly missed by all of those who worked with him, his brother Rowland, but most of all by his wife Virginia, and his daughters Ginny and Ally.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010313
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset
Publication Date 1982

First Title value, for Searching Fordyce, Gordon Lindsay (1925 - 2018)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Andrew Sadler
Publication Date 2023-07-05
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010200-E010299
Occupation Oral surgeon, Dental surgeon
Details Gordon Fordyce trained in dentistry at the University of St Andrews in Dundee from 1942 to 1946. After a few months of practice he was called up for national service where he treated army recruits and, after a year, was posted to Austria where he worked at the 31st British General Hospital as No 2 dentist and subsequently Senior Dental Officer. There he became responsible for trauma. After demobilisation he wanted to practise hospital oral surgery and back in Dundee he was advised by the Professor of Anatomy that a medical qualification would not be necessary if he passed the new Fellowship in Dental Surgery examination. Thus he worked as an anatomy demonstrator while studying for part one of the exam and was then appointed as Registrar at Hill End Hospital near St Albans, and a year later promoted to senior registrar. After his four years as a senior registrar Gordon was too young for a consultant post so he was appointed as a senior hospital dental officer. After the age of 32 he was appointed as a consultant at the Royal Free Hospital for two sessions a week and the North West Thames Health Authority agreed to upgrade him to consultant at Mount Vernon Hospital (to where the Hill End department had moved in March 1953). Gordon Fordyce published papers relating to oral pathology, facial trauma and orthognathic surgery. He became involved in local and national dental politics; he was a section chairman and a member of the representative board of the BDA, President of the Institute of Maxillofacial Technology and President of the British Association of Oral Surgeons. However, his major legacy to the dental profession was the introduction of vocational training for dentists. He became an elected member of the GDC and Dental Dean of the British Postgraduate Medical Federation. He found the GDC hostile and resistant to change. It took 15 years to persuade them, many of whom were deans of dental schools, that their undergraduate training was inadequate preparation for independent practice and to persuade the government to provide funding. The first vocational training pilot started in Guildford in 1977 and it became mandatory in 1988. Gordon Fordyce retired from clinical work at Mount Vernon in 1988 but remained Chairman of the Department of Health Vocational Training Committee until 1992. He was awarded the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977, OBE in 1988 and the John Tomes Medal by the BDA in 1990.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010289
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset
Publication Date 1999 1988

First Title value, for Searching Rice, Noel Stephen Cracroft (1931 - 2017)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2017-12-13
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/381806381806
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Noel Rice was a consultant ophthalmologist and medical director at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London and a pioneer in the development of microscope-assisted eye surgery. He was born on 26 December 1931 in Norwich, the son of Raymond Arthur Cracroft Rice, an anaesthetist, and Doris Ivy Rice née Slater, a nurse. His brother, John Cracroft Rice, also became a surgeon. Rice was educated at Haileybury and then went up to Clare College, Cambridge and St Bartholomew’s Hospital for his clinical studies. At Barts he was a house physician to Sir Ronald Bodley Scott and a house surgeon to Alec Badenoch. In 1957 he began his career in ophthalmology under Hyla (Henry) Stallard and continued his training as a junior specialist in the RAF as a flight lieutenant. On his return to civilian life, he joined the staff of Moorfields, where he remained for the rest of his career, becoming a consultant in 1967. At the Institute of Ophthalmology he was a senior lecturer, clinical teacher and, from 1991, dean. He was made a fellow of the Institute of Ophthalmology in 1996. As ophthalmology became more specialised, he was one of the first corneal specialists in Europe and helped open the era of microsurgery for eye conditions. He also specialised in the care of children with congenital glaucoma. He helped establish the corneal service at Moorfields and also the congenital glaucoma service, which became one of the largest in the world. He pioneered the use of anti-scarring therapy in the form of a focal dose of beta radiation, a precursor of modern anti-scarring regimens. He retired in 1996, but continued in ophthalmology as a consultant at the St John Eye Hospital in Jerusalem until 2002. He was made a Knight of the Order of St John in recognition of his service to the hospital. In 1989 he became a member of the international organisation Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis. For his contribution to ophthalmology in Iceland, he was awarded the Order of the Falcon by the Icelandic government. He was also a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore. He enjoyed fly fishing and music and sung in various choirs. He was married twice. In 1957 he married Karin Elsa Brita Linell (Brita). They had three children, Andrew, Karin and David, two of whom followed their father into medicine. After Brita’s death in 1992, he married Countess Ulla Mörner, in 1997. Rice died on 5 November 2017 from motor neurone disease. He was 85.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009402
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset
Publication Date 1996

First Title value, for Searching Adams, Josiah Oake (1842 - 1925)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Adams, Matthew Algernon (1836 - 1913)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-08-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372831372831
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in 1836 and received his professional training at Guy's Hospital. He practised at Leeds, where he was for a time Senior Resident Surgeon at the Public Dispensary; he was also Assistant Surgeon to the 9th Herefordshire Rifle Volunteers. Before 1871 he had removed to Ashford Road, Maidstone, where he was Surgeon to the Kent County Ophthalmic Hospital. Later he was appointed Public Analyst for the County of Kent and for Maidstone, and was a Member of Council and then President of the Society of Public Analysts, as well as a Member of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. He was also for a time Medical Officer of Health and Gas Analyst for the Borough of Maidstone. In 1870 he had been appointed a Certificated Teacher in the Science and Art Department. He resided and practised for many years at Trinity House, Maidstone, and then moved to The Kulm, Bearsted, Kent, where he died during April, 1913. At the time of his death he was still Public Analyst for Kent and Maidstone, and was Vice-President of the Society of Public Analysts and a Fellow of the Society of Medical Officers of Health, as well as Consulting Surgeon to the Kent County Ophthalmic Hospital. He was the inventor and author of “The Hormagraph, an Instrument for Investigating the Field of Vision”. Publications: *Pocket Memoranda relating to Infectious Zymotic Diseases*, 24mo, London, 1885. “Contribution to the Etiology of Diphtheria.” *Public Health*, 1890. “The Relationship between the Occurrence of Diphtheria and the Movement of the Sub-soil Water.” * 7th and 8th internat. Congr. of Hygiene and Demography*, 1891 and 1894. “On the Estimation of Dissolved Oxygen in Water.” *Trans. Chem. Soc.*, 1892. *Annual Reports of the Medical Officer of Health for the Borough of Maidstone, to the Local Board, for the years* 1879-81, 8vo, Maidstone, 1880-82. *Report to the Local Board on the Outbreaks of Small-pox in Maidstone*, 8vo, 2 diagrams, Maidstone, 1881.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000648
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Aikin, Charles Arthur (1821 - 1908)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Ainger, Major (1820 - 1861)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Albert, Eduard (1841 - 1900)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Alderson, John Septimus ( - 1858)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Alderson, Richard Robinson ( - 1888)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-08-21 2013-08-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372842372842
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at the London Hospital; practised at York, where he was Surgeon to the York Union, Assistant Surgeon to the 2nd West York Militia (Light Infantry), and Honorary Surgeon to the 11th Derbyshire Volunteer Rifles. During the Crimean War he was a First-class Staff Surgeon to the Osmanli Horse Artillery - Turkish Contingent - and on his return to England he practised in Aberdeen Walk, Scarborough, where he seems to have remained until 1863. He moved about this time to Filey, and appears to have died there at some time before 1888. He passed the examination for the Fellowship, but is not registered in the College books as Fellow, nor did he receive the diploma, probably because he never paid the additional fees.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000659
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Aldred, George Edward (1816 - 1868)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Aldridge, John Petty (1813 - 1884)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Alexander, Charles Linton (1820 - 1887)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-08-21 2013-08-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372845372845
Occupation General surgeon
Details Apprenticed to Francis Bennett at the Dispensary, Gateshead, Durham, and entered as a matriculated student at King's College, becoming a student at the hospital as soon as it was opened. He was one of the Surgeons of the Royal South London Dispensary until "the dignity of the profession" required that the staff, Messrs Osborn, Johnson, Berrell, Wood, and Alexander, should resign in a body. He was also Surgeon to the Board of Guardians of St Mary's, Newington, whose sick poor he attended, on the death of the regularly appointed surgeon, during an epidemic of typhus fever from which he himself suffered severely. He practised first at 12 Brunswick Street, Dover Road, SE, and afterwards at 45 Trinity Square, Borough, SE, where he died Jan 27th, 1887.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000662
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Alexander, Henry ( - 1859)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Alexander, James ( - 1895)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-09-18 2012-08-30
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/372847372847
Occupation General surgeon
Details Practised at Edenbridge, Kent, from 1843-1847; then at 12 North Audley Street, W, and at Scarborough from 1853-1856. His last address is given at 30 Walbrook, EC. He died either in 1894 or 1895.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000664
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Alexander, William ( - 1919)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-09-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372848372848
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Holestone, Co Antrim; educated at Queen’s College, Belfast, where he had a brilliant career and took the University Gold Medal and Exhibition at his MD examination. Coming to Liverpool as soon as he had graduated, he was appointed Resident Medical Officer at the Workhouse Hospital, and in 1875 became Visiting Surgeon to that institution, his address being 102 Bedford Street South. He was awarded the Jacksonian Prize in 1881 for his essay on “The Pathology and Surgical Treatment of Diseases of the Hip-joint”, and in 1883 he won the Sir Astley Cooper Prize at Guy’s Hospital with an essay on “The Pathology and Pathological Relation of Chronic Rheumatic Arthritis”. He held the office of Surgeon to the Royal Southern Hospital, Liverpool, from 1889-1910, and on his retirement was elected to the honorary post of Consulting Surgeon. For forty years he acted as Visiting Surgeon to the Brownlow Hill Infirmary. At the time of his death he was Lecturer on Clinical Surgery at the University of Liverpool, Ex-President of the British Gynæcological Society, and a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Territorial Force doing duty with the First Western General Hospital. He died after a few days’ illness on March 9th, 1919, at Heswall, near Liverpool, and is buried there. He had been a widower for many years, and his only son, Dr Moore Alexander, the pathologist, died in 1915. Alexander was a good operator, but his claim to remembrance is his work on epilepsy and his determined attempt to relieve those who suffered from the condition, as was shown by his becoming the founder of a Home for Epileptics at Maghull, of which he was the Visiting Surgeon, and where he obtained good results by ligature of the vertebral arteries and division of the sympathetic nerves. He may justly be regarded as the pioneer of surgery of the sympathetic system, which was developed later by Jaboulay and Leriche (qv) in 1882. He also introduced a new method in the treatment of inveterate uterine displacements by shortening the round ligaments. Publications: *The Cure of Epilepsy and of Inveterate Uterine Displacements*, 8vo, London, 1882, reprinted from articles contributed to the *Med. Times and Gaz.*, 1881, ii, 598; 1882, i, 250, 327. “The Treatment of Epilepsy.” – *Brain*, 1883, v, 170. “Effect of Ligature of Vertebral Arteries in Certain Spinal Diseases.” – *Liverpool Med.-Chir. Jour.*, 1882, 124. *The Treatment of Backward Displacements of the Uterus and of Prolapsus Uteri by the New Method of Shortening the Round Ligaments*, 8vo, London, 1884.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000665
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Alford, Stephen Shute (1821 - 1881)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-09-18 2013-08-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372851372851
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at University College, London, and acted as House Surgeon to the North Staffordshire Infirmary. He moved to London, becoming Surgeon to the North St Pancras Provident Dispensary, Surgeon to the Keepers and Helpers at the Zoological Gardens, Hon Surgeon to the Asylum for Infirm Journeymen Tailors, Medical Officer to the Orphan Workhouse School at Haverstock Hill, and Surgeon-in-Ordinary to the North St Pancras Provident Dispensary. He lived at 7 Park Place, Haverstock Hill, and died on July 5th, 1881, as the result of a railway accident. Alford was an active supporter of the British Medical Association, and throughout his life was interested in the treatment of dipsomania. At the time of his death he was Hon Secretary to the Society for the Promotion of Legislation for the Control and Cure of Habitual Drunkards. Under the auspices of a Committee of the British Medical Association he had organized a home for that purpose near his house, 61 Haverstock Hill, which he had hoped to supervise. Publications: *A Few Words on the Drink Craving, showing the Necessity for Legislative Power as regards Protection and Treatment*. *Dipsomania, its Prevalence, Causes and Treatment.* *The Habitual Drunkards Act, with an Account of a Visit to the American Inebriate Homes.*
Resource Identifier RCS: E000668
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Allen, William Edward (1834 - 1885)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

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

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-09-18 2013-08-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372856372856
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated as an Associate Scholar at King's College, London, and professionally at King's College Hospital, where he served as House Physician. After qualifying in London in 1861 he spent some time in Edinburgh, where he acted as Dresser and Clinical Clerk in the Edinburgh Infirmary, and then proceeded to Paris. He practised in partnership with Dr J Heckstall Smith at St Mary Cray, and took an active part in founding the Chislehurst and Cray Valley Hospital. He was Medical Officer and Public Vaccinator of the 3rd District of the Bromley (Kent) Union, Surgeon to the Governesses' Benevolent Institution, Chislehurst, and District Surgeon to the Metropolitan Police. He left Chislehurst in 1890 for St Leonards-on-Sea, where he practised as a physician. He was elected Assistant Physician to the East Sussex Hospital in 1892, and was Consulting Physician at the time of his death. He served on the Town Council for many years, and was active as Chairman of the Sanitary Committee at the time of the establishment of the Isolation Hospital. He was also a JP and Chairman of the South-Eastern Branch of the British Medical Association. In politics he was a Conservative. He died on April 16th, 1912, suddenly, whilst walking on the parade at St Leonards. Publication: *Sanitary Reports on Chislehurst and Cray Valley*, 1875.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000673
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Allingham, William (1829 - 1908)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-09-25 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/372858372858
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated for the profession of architecture at University College, where he gained prizes. He even practised as an architect, exhibited studies at the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, and obtained honourable mention for a design of a building to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. In this year, however, he decided to abandon architecture for medicine. Entering as a student at St Thomas's Hospital, he carried off prize after prize - the Descriptive Anatomy Prize, the Anatomy Prize (1854), the Medicine Prize, the Clinical Medicine President's Prize, and the Clinical Medicine Treasurer's Prize (1855). After qualifying in 1855 he volunteered as Surgeon in the Crimean War. He was in time to be present at the siege of Sebastopol and to see a vast amount of practical surgery in the most arduous circumstances at the hospitals at Scutari. During a large part of his war services he was attached to the French Army, which was extremely badly provided with surgical aid, and there is no doubt that under the strenuous nature of the duties which devolved upon him, Allingham gained the courage and sense of responsibility which marked him out as a successful operating surgeon from the beginning of his career. After his return home he was Surgical Tutor, Demonstrator of Anatomy, and then Surgical Registrar at St Thomas's Hospital. He set up in practice in 1863 as a consultant at 36 Finsbury Square, EC, but removed to Grosvenor Street, where he soon became a well-known authority on diseases of the rectum and enjoyed a large practice. In 1871 he published his classical book on Diseases of the Rectum. It was accepted at once as an authoritative and inclusive work, though some surgeons differed from the author on points of technique. William Allingham was not attached to the staff of any of the great London Hospitals possessing a medical school, but was for many years Surgeon to the Great Northern Central Hospital and to St Mark's Hospital for Fistula and Diseases of the Rectum. He was also Consulting Surgeon to the Farringdon General Dispensary and to the Surgical Aid Society, of which, together with some of his relatives and others, he was one of the founders in 1862. He was a Member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1884-1886, and retired from practice in 1894. Allingham was one of the first surgeons in England to specialize in the treatment of diseases of the rectum, out of which he made a considerable fortune. He was kindly, generous, and hospitable. After his retirement he lived for some time at St Leonards, and then at Worthing, where he died on Feb 4th, 1908. He married twice: (1) Miss Christiana Cooke, by whom he had six children - four sons and two daughters. The eldest son was Herbert William Allingham, (qv). Of his two daughters both married medical men; the elder, who afterwards became Mrs Chevallier Tayler, having been first the wife of Mr Charles Cotes, of St George's; the younger was married to Claud E Woakes. (2) Miss D H Hayles, [1] who, like Mr Herbert William Allingham, predeceased the subject of this memoir. William Allingham appears in the portrait group of the Council by Jamyn Brooks (1884). Publications: Fistula, Hæmorrhoids, Painful Ulcer, Stricture, Prolapsus, and other Diseases of the Rectum, their Diagnosis and Treatment, 8vo, London, 1871. The Diagnosis and Treatment of Diseases of the Rectum. Edited by Herbert William Allingham. 8vo, London, 1871. The final 1901 edition, a collaboration between father and son, was practically rewritten. The work was translated into several foreign languages. "On the Treatment of Fistula and other Sinuses by Means of the Elastic Ligature, being a Paper (with Additional Cases) read before the Medical Society of London, November, 1874." 8vo, London; reprinted again in 1875, etc. [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] who had nursed him through a severe illness]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000675
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Amphlett, Samuel Holmden (1813 - 1857)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Ancrum (or Ancrum), William Rutherford (1816 - 1898)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-09-25 2013-08-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372863372863
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at the Manor House, Weston, near Bath, on Feb 5th, 1816. Educated at private schools, and apprenticed at the age of 15 to T Taylor Griffith (qv) at Wrexham, where he is said to have had Sir William Bowman (qv) as a fellow-apprentice. Three years later he entered as a student at University College, had a brilliant career, and was elected House Surgeon, with such success that Robert Liston (qv) invited him to become his private assistant. He accepted and acted in this capacity for three years. In 1843 he left England and practised in the City of Mexico. In 1848 he was appointed Surgeon to the Naval Hospital at Valparaiso, a post he held for eleven years, during which he built up a large and lucrative practice. Returning to England, he took the FRCS on Dec 12th, 1850, having been admitted MRCS on Oct 11th, 1839. During this visit he also became a member of the Royal College of Physicians of London. He resigned his practice in Mexico in 1859, returned to London and took a house, 75 Inverness Terrace, Bayswater. He retired from all practice in 1863 and bought St Leonard's Court, Gloucester. From 1863 until his death in 1898 Ancrum took an active part in the public life of Gloucester. He served for twenty-seven years as Chairman of the County Infirmary, bringing method, order, and financial soundness into the working of the institution. A ward in the infirmary is named in his memory "The Ancrum Ward." He was appointed Chairman of the Committee of the Wotton County Asylum in 1878, and was mainly instrumental in founding and financing the second County Asylum in 1882. In 1878 he was also elected Chairman of the Barnwood House Private Asylum, which was much enlarged during his tenure of office. He was an active magistrate and was at one time Chairman of the Gloucester County Bench, a member of important Committees of the old Court of Quarter Sessions, and an Alderman of the County Council, where he was Chairman of the Prison Visiting Committee. He married in 1852 the youngest daughter of Arthur Lewis, of Brighton, and by her had three sons and two daughters. He was an invalid during the last three years of his life, died at St Leonard's Court, Gloucester, on Oct 9th, 1898, and was buried in the neighbouring churchyard of Upton St Leonard's.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000680
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Anderson, Richard Benjamin (1874 - 1900)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-10-02 2013-08-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372867372867
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Lincolnshire, the son of a medical man, he was educated at St Mary's Hospital. Entered the school in 1866, won a prize in 1867, and became Prosector at the Royal College of Surgeons, House Surgeon at St Mary's, and afterwards at the South Devon and East Cornwall Hospital, Plymouth. Admitted FRCS in 1873 and joined his brother, James G Anderson, who was in practice in Tobago, acting as colonial surgeon. By 1889 he was a member of the Legislature, a Justice of the Peace for the Islands, and a landowner. In this year he was consulted by a native woman suffering from necrosis of the lower jaw. The patient and her husband proved troublesome and Anderson declined further attendance. Litigation followed, and Anderson was finally imprisoned by Justices Corrie and Cook for fourteen days in default of finding bail. In 1891 Anderson brought an action in London ("Anderson v Corrie and others") and obtained a verdict in his favour with £500 damages against Mr Justice Cook (Justice Corrie having died). Lord Esher on appeal decided that no action could lie against a judge for an act done in his judicial capacity, and refused to award damages, though he confirmed the verdict of the jury. The rest of Anderson's life was spent in a campaign against the wrongs and injustice done to the medical profession, and he strove to advance his cause by acting as Hon Secretary of the Corporate and Medical Reform Association. This labour and the disappointments no doubt shortened his life, for he died of angina pectoris, in straitened circumstances, at 82 Montague Place, Russell Square, on Sept 8th, 1900, and was buried at the Lambeth Cemetery, near Balham.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000684
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Anderson, William (1842 - 1900)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-10-02 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/372868372868
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in London, Dec 18th, 1842, and educated at the City of London School. Studied for a time at Aberdeen and afterwards at the Lambeth School of Art, where he won a medal for artistic anatomy. Entered St Thomas's Hospital in 1864, when Sir John Simon (qv) and Le Gros Clark (qv) were surgeons. There he won the first College Prize, the Physical Society's Prize, and the Cheselden Medal. After acting as House Surgeon at the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary, he returned to St Thomas's Hospital on the opening of the new buildings in 1871, to fill the offices of Surgical Registrar and Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy. In 1873 he was appointed Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the Imperial Naval Medical College in Tokio, where he lectured on anatomy, surgery, medicine, and physiology. He remained in Japan until 1880, when he returned to London and was appointed Assistant Surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital and Senior Lecturer on Anatomy in the medical school. He became full Surgeon in 1891. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was elected a Member of the Board of Examiners in Anatomy and Physiology for the Fellowship in 1884, and served as a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1894-1900. In 1891 he was Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology, and in the same year was elected Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy in succession to John Marshall (qv). He died suddenly on Oct 27th, 1900, the result of the rupture of a cord of the mitral valve without any other morbid condition of the heart or other organs. He married: (1) In 1873, Margaret Hall, by whom he had a son and a daughter; (2) Louisa, daughter of F W Tetley, of Leeds, who survived him. Anderson may be said to have been steeped in art; [1] form and colour appealed equally to him, and his residence in Japan, when the old world there was changing into the new, gave full scope to his love of art. It enabled him to form a superb collection of Japanese paintings and engravings, most of which are preserved in the British Museum. Between 1882 and 1886 Anderson prepared a *Descriptive and Historical Account of a Collection of Japanese and Chinese Paintings in the British Museum* (London, 1886), which contains a very complete account of the general history of the subject. In 1886 he also published in portfolios to make two volumes, *Pictorial Arts of Japan, with some Account of the Development of the Allied Arts, and a Brief History and Criticism of Chinese Painting*. Many of the plates are reproduced in colour. Anderson was Chairman of the Japan Society from its constitution in January, 1892, until his death eight years later. In 1880 he was decorated by the Emperor of Japan a Companion of the Order of the Rising Sun. Anderson was a good surgeon and a competent operator, but except for a small book issued in 1897 (*The Deformities of the Fingers and Toes*) he published no surgical work. The book was based on his Hunterian Lectures given in 1891, and in it he advised excision in preference to notching of the fibrous bands in Dupuytren's contraction. He was an excellent teacher for art and medical students, his lectures being made especially attractive by the facility with which he sketched on the blackboard. Personally he was a handsome man of distinguished appearance, quiet in voice and manner, highly cultivated but very retiring. Dr Frank Payne says: "To speak of Anderson we must first observe that he was notable for the thoroughness of his work. He continued to give lectures and demonstrations on anatomy at a stage of his career when most surgeons prefer to reserve their mornings for the consulting-room. In operations he was indefatigable. He would go straight through a long list, and at the end of it was quite willing to take two or three cases from the medical ward in addition. All this would be done with unruffled composure and without any outward signs of fatigue. In his intercourse with colleagues, students, and nurses he showed the unaffected sweetness of his nature; it would be difficult to remember an instance of his being impatient or out of temper. Though his retiring disposition prevented him from becoming a prominent personality in the eyes of the public, no one was more highly esteemed or, by those who knew him well, more warmly loved, while all his abilities and attainments were recommended by the conciliatory grace of modesty." Portraits of him appear in the *Transactions of the Japan Society*, iv; in the *Lancet*, 1900, ii, 1869; and in the *St Thomas's Hospital Gazette* 1900, November. [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] An outline of the history of art in its relation to medical science. Introductory address, Medical and physical society, St. Thomas's Hospital 1885- St. Thos. Hosp. Repts. 1886, 15, 151-181]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000685
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Anderson, William John (1821 - 1871)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-10-02 2013-08-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372870372870
Occupation General surgeon
Details Only son of William Anderson, of Paddington, gentleman. Admitted to the Head Master's House (C T Longley) at Harrow in January, 1835, left at midsummer, 1839, and matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on Oct 16th, 1839, but never graduated. Educated at St George's Hospital and in Paris. He started practice in Prince's Street, Cavendish Square, removing in 1849 to 10 Welbeck Street, where he restricted his practice to midwifery, was District Accoucheur to St Mary's Hospital, and Accoucheur to the St George's and St James's Dispensary. He was Hon Secretary to the Harveian Society and a member of the Royal Institution. He left this country to reside at Balmain, in New South Wales, and died on a voyage home from Sydney in 1871. Publications: *The Causes, Symptoms and Treatment of Eccentric Nervous Affections*, 8vo, London, 1850: 'Eccentric' affections being such as originate in causes extraneous to the nervous centres. *The Symptoms and Treatment of the Diseases of Pregnancy*, 8vo, London, 1852. *Hysterical and Nervous Affections of Women*, 12mo, London, 1853. "Continued Fever in Children," reprinted from *Assoc. Med. Jour.*, 1854, 751. With which is: "On the Use of Nitrosulphuric Acid in Cholera and Diarrhœa", reprinted from *Assoc. Med. Jour.*, 1853, 964. 8vo, London, 1854. "Remarks on the Treatment of Procidentia Uteri." *Assoc. Med. Jour.*, 1854, 904. "Some Anomalous Cases of Scarlatina." *Lancet*, 1854, i, 327. "On Leucorrhœa." *Med. Times*, 1856, xxxiii, 108, 435. "On the Submucous Section of the Sphincter Ani for Spasmodic Constriction with Anal Fissures." The paper is interesting because it emphasizes the advantages of operative treatment, as practised by Professor Blandin of Paris, over the older method of stretching the sphincter ani in cases of fissure which had been recommended by M Recamier.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000687
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Atkins, William (1817 - 1875)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Atkinson, Henry ( - 1882)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Atkinson, Richard ( - 1901)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Atkinson, Robert James (1812 - 1879)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Attenburrow, Henry Clinton ( - 1891)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-04 2016-01-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372908372908
Occupation General surgeon
Details Surgeon to the General Hospital, Nottingham, and to the County Gaol. He went to Jersey about 1863 and practised for many years at St Brelade's. He died before 1891. [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: ? connected with John Attenborrow, Surgeon, of Nottingham see below life of John Higginbottom p.535. John Attenborrow (-burrow, or -burough) was surgeon to the General Hospital, Nottingham for 62 years 1781-1843. He died on 8 November 1843 aged 87 (*Gentleman's Magazine*) so must have been born about 1756. RCS has a drawing & engraving of him.]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000725
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Austen, John Colmer ( - 1861)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Aveling, Charles Taylor (1844 - 1902)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-04 2016-01-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372910372910
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at St Thomas's Hospital, where he became House Surgeon. Settled in practice at 14 Portland Place, Lower Clapton, London, where he held a number of public appointments - Public Vaccinator, Police Surgeon, Medical Referee to the Edinburgh Assurance Company, and Medical Officer of the City of London Union House. Later he resided at Cedar House, 136 Stamford Hill, London, where he was in partnership with John Bradshaw White, MD. He was a member of the British Medical Association, of the Hunterian Society, and a Fellow of the Obstetrical Society. He was drowned at Mullion Cove, Cornwall, on Sept 5th, 1902, in a brave attempt to rescue a lady from the like fate.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000727
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Avery, John (1807 - 1855)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372911372911
Occupation General surgeon
Details A pupil of William Cother, a very able surgeon, at the Gloucester Hospital, which, being situated in the midst of an extensive manufacturing district, gave abundant opportunities for practice in the art of operative surgery. The surgeons of that day were not generally operators, and consequently all operative surgery in the county and even in South Wales was concentrated in the hospital and in the private practice of its surgeons. Under Cother and his colleague, R Fletcher, young Avery proved an observant pupil. Entering St Bartholomew’s Hospital “he spent the greater part of his time either in the wards or the dissecting-room. Here he laid the foundation of that distinction as an operating surgeon which he afterwards reached.” He devoted much of his time to minute dissections of the dead body, and became an excellent anatomist. After qualifying he went to Paris and took the MD degree, but did not use the title. From Paris he travelled through different countries and continued his studies. He possessed ample means, but was never tempted to become an idler. Whilst he was in Italy there was war in Poland, and he conceived the idea of entering the Polish service, where he was at once appointed Surgeon-in-Chief to the 5th Polish Ambulance. He was made prisoner, lost his papers and baggage which were seized by the Russians and, being unable to communicate with his friends, lived for many months on an allowance of tenpence a day. After his release he began practice as a consultant in London, and was appointed Surgeon to Charing Cross Hospital in 1841. At the time of his death, he had accomplished much that was original in practice, particularly in the treatment of cleft palate with large deficiency of bone, in the treatment of urethral stricture, and in the inspection of the internal canals of the body. By means of his lamp, tubes, and reflectors he was able to examine the ear, urethra, bladder, oesophagus, and larynx, as probably no surgeon had ever examined them before him. He was the originator of an improved method of treating cleft palate in the worst cases of this malformation, by dissecting the soft palate away from the vault of bone, and uniting the flaps thus obtained in the centre. In this way he cured cases which his more skilful contemporaries had attempted in vain. He had also made improvements in the exploration and treatment of stricture. He published nothing on this last subject, for he was waiting, as he told his admiring friends, to perfect his views. His only formal publications were his papers in the Lancet in 1850 on cleft palate. With him, operations, particularly in their results, were a source of pleasure – of real enjoyment. No sculptor, no artificer in silver or gold, ever viewed his work with more delight than that with which he contemplated his operations when, as was generally the case, they turned out well. A handsome stump, a symmetrical fracture, an effaced hare-lip, a cleft palate restored, a stricture relieved, would give him the most heartfelt satisfaction. For his invention of a lamp for the examination of the outer passages of the body Avery received two medals, one from HRH Prince Albert, as President of the Society of Arts, and the other from the adjudicators of the Great Exhibition in 1851. For some time before his death he suffered from an obscure disease, which he and others suspected to be a malignant affection of the stomach. He was frequently harassed by vomiting and extreme pain, and to assuage these took inordinate quantities of opium and chloroform. Of the latter he inhaled sometimes three or four ounces in a day. He died at his residence, Queen Street, Mayfair, on March 3rd, 1855, and must have been literally starved to death. So popular was he that his decease excited much attention, and a post-mortem examination showed evidence of generalized tuberculosis. His brother and sister had both died of phthisis. Publications: “Illustrations of the Successful Treatment of Cleft Palate by the Division of the Levator Palati and Palato-pharyngeus, and sometimes the Palato-glossus Muscles.” – *Lancet*, 1850, ii, 337. “An Apparatus for Exploring the Internal Cavities of the Body.” This was an endoscope somewhat similar to that used by Segulas at Naples in 1827, and by Warden, of Edinburgh, in 1844.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000728
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bacot, William George (1830 - 1910)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Baddeley, William Edward ( - 1869)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bagshaw, [1] Edward Lloyd (1809 - 1885)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bailey, Henry Bennett ( - 1906)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-04 2013-08-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372915372915
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at Guy's Hospital, where he gained the second Scholarship in 1869, and afterwards at St Bartholomew's Hospital. House Surgeon for five years at the Loughborough General Hospital and Dispensary, which was called later the Infirmary. He then practised at Grantham, Lincolnshire, first at 21 North Street, then at 35 High Street, and lastly at Vine House. He was Surgeon to the Grantham Provident Dispensary, Medical Officer to the Spittlegate District and Workhouse, Public Vaccinator to the Union, and Medical Referee to various Assurance Societies. He retired to Riversdale, Shelley Road, Worthing, spent the last year or two of his life in travelling, and died at Westleigh, Thrale Road, Streatham Park, SW, in 1905 or 1906. He was Medical Officer to the Actors' Association.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000732
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bailey, Henry Woodruffe (1788 - 1873)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Baillie, Herbert (1819 - 1890)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bainbridge, John Nathan (1800 - 1863)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bainbrigge, William Henry (1806 - 1884)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Baker, Alfred (1815 - 1893)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-04 2016-02-05
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372920372920
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Birmingham on Jan 23rd, 1815, one of seven distinguished sons, including the Mayor of Manchester, a well-known Unitarian Minister, and a well-known teacher of the deaf and dumb. Educated at King Edward's School, where he showed promise of becoming an artist, being early thrown into the company of Henshaw, Thomas Creswick, ARA, and Thomas Baker, who all distinguished themselves in the world of art. His family, however, destined him for the medical profession, and in 1882 apprenticed him to J J Ledsam, Senior Surgeon to the Eye Infirmary, Birmingham. He also became a pupil of the Old School of Medicine in Snowhill, which was the precursor of Queen's College, itself again the precursor of Mason College. He won silver medals in the classes of anatomy, surgery, materia medica, and therapeutics - a range of subjects which foreshadowed the comprehensive ability which made him one of the most accomplished practitioners that Birmingham has ever known. Baker's facility in the use of the pencil and brush led to his early introduction by Joseph Hodgson (qv) into the wards of the General Hospital for the purpose of making for him pathological drawings and sketches. In this pursuit a frequent fellow-worker was his friend Sir William Bowman (qv), who was apprenticed to the hospital and who was also, as was Mr Hodgson himself, an artist of no mean skill. Baker subsequently acted as one of Hodgson's dressers and remained his friend during the latter's Presidency of the Royal College of Surgeons. After completing his curriculum of study at Birmingham, Alfred Baker, in 1886, entered as a student at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he attended Lawrence's lectures on surgery as well as Partridge's anatomical demonstrations at King's College. He returned to Birmingham in 1837, and, having declined a partnership with J J Ledsam, his former master, went to Coventry and for a year was associated with the leading surgeon there, John Bury (qv). He then secured the appointment of House Surgeon at the Birmingham General Hospital, where he effected considerable improvements, especially in the pathological examinations and in the statistical records. He became Surgeon to the hospital in succession to Bowyer Vaux (qv), in June, 1848, and here his administrative faculties, not less than his operative skill, acquired full play. In 1846 Baker was thrown from his gig when on his rounds and fractured his femur and arm. He made a slow recovery, but this accident seriously affected him to his life's end. In 1850 he married the eldest daughter of Mr. George Armitage, manufacturing chemist, and was associated with Dr Bell Fletcher, the Elkingtons, and other leading physicians in the foundation of a new medical school, Sydenham College. There had been for some time a considerable amount of misunderstanding between the authorities of the General Hospital and Queen's College, and the object of the new school was to provide more efficient teaching, to combine in a greater degree theoretical training with practical demonstration under the same teachers, and thus to increase the value of the hospital practice. Sydenham College was eventually amalgamated with Queen's College after seventeen years of useful activity, and during the whole of its existence Baker held the post of Lecturer on the Principles and Practice of Surgery. As such and as Surgeon to the General Hospital he had necessarily to keep abreast of innovations in surgical practice, and thus he was the first to perform ovariotomy in Birmingham (1851). The case was unsuccessful, for the patient died, and Baker was assailed by a colleague possessed of a facile pen. Charges of recklessness and cruelty were brought against him, but after an exhaustive inquiry before the Hospital Committee he was completely cleared of the charge of malpraxis. Baker took an important part in the management of the Birmingham General Hospital and was warmly interested in the welfare of the institution. On his retirement from the Hon Surgeoncy in 1881, after thirty-three years' tenure of office, he was presented with a testimonial by the Committee, which consisted of his portrait by Frank Holl, RA, together with a service of silver plate. The portrait was hung in the board room, and the students at the same time presented him with an illuminated address expressive of their admiration for his skill as an operator and teacher. His surgical skill was, indeed, of a high order. He was learned, dexterous, of sound judgement, and careful in arriving at conclusions. As Chairman of the General Hospital Committee in 1885, he received the Prince of Wales when he came to Birmingham to open the Suburban Branch Hospital for Chronic Diseases. This institution was built, furnished, and presented to the General Hospital by a prominent Birmingham citizen - Sir John Jaffray, Bart - but its inception was due to Baker's fertile brain. Baker was one of the founders of the Birmingham Medical Institute and at various times President of each of the local medical societies of Birmingham. He served for eight years on the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons (1852-1860). At the time of his death he was Senior Vice-President of the British Medical Association, and had been intimately associated with its reorganization after it changed its name from 'Provincial' to 'British' and removed the editorial offices of the Journal to London. He was President of the Association at its meeting in Birmingham in 1872, and exhibited an admirable collection of his pathological drawings in the 'Museum'. In addition to his other offices he was Surgeon to the Asylum for Deaf and Dumb at Edgbaston, and, at the time of his death, was Consulting Surgeon to the General Hospital and the General Dispensary, Birmingham. His death occurred at Birmingham on Jan 12th or 13th, 1898. His funeral service would have been taken, but for his absence on the Continent, by his nephew, Dr Benson, then Archbishop of Canterbury, whose mother was a sister of the deceased and of Sir Thomas Baker, Mayor of Manchester. He was survived by a widow, four daughters, [1] and three sons [2]. A good portrait of him accompanies his biography in the British Medical Journal. His Birmingham addresses were 3 Waterloo Street and The Bracken, Augustus Road, Edgbaston. He was both a general practitioner and a consulting surgeon. [3] Publications:- "A Case of Intestinal Obstruction from Disease of the Rectum treated successfully by opening the Descending Colon in the Left Loin." - Med.-Chic. Trans., 1852, xxxiv, 226. "Case of Transposition of Colon." - Brit. Med. Jour., 1880, ii, 803. "On the Difficulties of Hernia." - Assoc. Med. Jour., 1856, 599. "On Pyaemia" - Brit. Med. Jour., 1866, ii, 629. "President's Address delivered at the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association held in Birmingham in August, 1872." 8vo, London, 1872; Brit. Med. Jour., 1872, ii, 141. [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] *The Times* 4 May 1940 "HEATON. - On May 1, 1940, at St Godwald's Finstall, CHARLOTTE ELLEN, daughter of the late Alfred Baker, F.R.C.S., and widow of HARRY HEATON, jun., of Birmingham and Manchester, aged 81 years."; *The Times* 24 Sept 1952 "ADAMS. - On Sept. 22, 1952, at St Godwald's, Finstall, HARRIET ISABEL, wife of the late PERCY CROFTON DE LACY ADAMS (PADDY) in her 90th year, youngest and last remaining child of Alfred Baker, F.R.C.S., of Birmingham and his wife Emmeline Bethune. Cremation at Lodge Hill, 12 noon Friday, Sept. 26"; [2] *The Times* 4 Dec 1944 "BETHUNE-BAKER. - On Dec 1, 1944, at 6, Compton Place Road, Eastbourne, GEORGE THOMAS BETHUNE-BAKER, F.Z.S., F.R.E.S., late of Birmingham, beloved husband of Berthe, second son of the late Alfred Baker, F.R.C.S, of Birmingham, in his 88th year"; *The Times* 15 January 1951 p.1A & (above) p.69 "BETHUNE-BAKER. - On Jan. 13. 1951, JAMES FRANKLIN BETHUNE-BAKER, D.D., F.B.A. of 7, Chaucer Road, Cambridge, Fellow of Pembroke College, sometime Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, youngest son of the late Alfred Baker, F.R.C.S., of Birmingham, in his 90th year. Funeral service at Pembroke College Chapel on Wednesday, Jan. 17, at 2.45 p.m."; [3] Portrait (1) by Frank Holl RA in the General Hospital (ii) in "Edgbastonia" for May 1891 From 18th Birmingham Houses by Benj. Walker *Trans. Birm. Archaeol. Soc.* ? 1932, p.6]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000737
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Baker, Robert Large (1820 - 1885)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Baker, William Morrant (1839 - 1896)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Ball, Sir Charles Bent (1851 - 1916)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Barlow, Joshua (1820 - 1867)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Barlow, William Frederick (1817 - 1853)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Barnard, Harold Leslie (1868 - 1908)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372945372945
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Jan, 1868, at Highbury, in the north of London, the son of James Barnard, engraver and designer in precious metals, and a great-nephew on his father’s side of Michael Faraday. After attending school in the neighbourhood he and his brother were sent three months before his sixteenth birthday to an uncle’s ranch in Oregon, Harold being under a promise that he would read for the Matriculation of the London University. He looked back with the keenest pleasure to these ten months spent on his uncle’s ranch, and the opportunities it afforded of adventure. On his return in the summer of 1884 he failed, however, to pass the examination, and for a time became a clerk in the office of a firm of wholesale timber merchants. He was not happy in this apprenticeship, and by close application he passed his Matriculation and Preliminary Scientific Examinations and entered the London Hospital in 1888. He gained in his first year a Scholarship in Anatomy and Physiology, and subsequently other scholarships and prizes. In 1893, at the end of his fourth year, he acted as Clinical Assistant in several positions; in 1894 he was Resident House Physician to Dr Samuel Fenwick and then House Surgeon to his son, E Hurry Fenwick, and became Demonstrator of Physiology under Dr Leonard Hill until March, 1897. Dr Leonard Hill wrote concerning their two years of co-operation, that Barnard exhibited the highest scientific ability in the researches carried out under his guidance. The influence of gravity on the circulation, through the brain in particular; the effects of venous pressure on the pulse; the effect of chloroform, also of morphia, ammonia, and hydrocyanic acid on the heart; the functions of the pericardium; as well as the invention of an improved sphygmomanometer – have all proved of scientific value, and show Barnard’s scientific genius in working. He obtained the post of Surgical Registrar in March, 1897, and then devoted himself wholly to surgery. Two years later he became Surgical Tutor, and, in 1900, Assistant Surgeon to the Hospital. He practised at 21 Wimpole Street. His surgical genius appeared when Surgical Registrar, in the paper published on “An Improved Method of Treating the Separated Lower Epiphysis of the Femur”, which he suggested to, and in which he assisted, Jonathan Hutchinson, junr. He showed by means of the newly discovered X rays the displacement forwards of the epiphysis, and the direction backwards of the femur, as well as the successful reduction by flexion in place of the previous treatment by extension. Barnard had collected 13 cases from the London Hospital Records, and stated that in 3 there had been a complete separation of the lower epiphysis of the femur. In 1902, he published a paper on “The Simulation of Acute Peritonitis by Pleuropneumonic Diseases”, and in so doing brought to the forefront a difficulty in diagnosis which must always be present to the mind. The three lectures “On Acute Appendicitis”, which he gave in 1903, were accompanied by diagrams illustrating the various positions occupied by suppuration, and his clock mnemonic of the positions of the appendix, is one which fixes itself in the student’s memory. Sir Frederick Treves had preceded him in developing the surgery of the appendix at the London Hospital, but had rather advocated delay in operating. It was not that there is often justification, but the crux remains that if the case for delay proves to be mistaken in the individual case the patient loses his life. Barnard put forward the reasons for the immediate operation, now the established one where children and young people are concerned. His article on “Intestinal Obstruction” in the second edition of Allbutt and Rolleston’s *System of Medicine*, reprinted and further enlarged with diagrams and bibliography in *Contributions to Abdominal Surgery*, is a brilliant exposition of a most difficult and even protean branch of surgery. There is much that is new in the sections on faecal obstruction, congenital dilatation of the colon, gallstone obstruction, strangulation by bands and by Meckel’s diverticulum, and obstruction by foreign bodies. But Barnard will be best remembered for his address on “Surgical Aspects of Subphrenic Abscess”, delivered before the Surgical Section of the Royal Society of Medicine on Jan 14th, 1907, but not printed until Feb 22nd, 1908, in the *British Medical Journal*. It is reprinted in the Contributions. Whatever the merits of previous descriptions, anatomical and pathological, subphrenic abscess had been described rather from the classical position of the man upright. Diagnosis by means of X-ray examination and the patient’s position at the operation are alike the horizontal one. It is in this position that the surgeon is called upon to approach and drain subphrenic suppurations. Barnard’s admirable drawings are the surgeon’s guide. He had served as Surgeon to the Poplar Hospital for Accidents, and in 1907 he became Surgeon to the London Hospital, when his health began to fail. A short cough was premonitory of aortic disease. He died at Highbury on Aug 13th, 1908, and was buried in Highgate Old Cemetery. Publications: *Jour. of Physiol. and Proc. Physiol. Soc.*, 1897, 1898; also Dr. L. Hill, *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1908, ii, 539. Jonathan Hutchinson, Junr., and H. L. Barnard, “On an Improved Method of Treating the Separated Lower Epiphysis of the Femur.” – *Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1899, lxxxii, 77; also “H. L. Barnard, Colleague and Collaborator. An Appreciation.” – J. Hutchinson, *London Hosp. Gaz.*, 1908, 96, with portrait. *Contributions to Abdominal Surgery*, edited by James Sherren, with a Memoir by H. H. Bashford, 1910. Contents: Intestinal Obstruction, 1-254; A Lecture on Gastric Surgery, 255-68. The simulation of Acute Peritonitis by Pleuropneumonic Diseases, 269-80. Three Lectures on Acute Appendicitis, 281-333. Surgical Aspects of Subphrenic Abscess, 335-84. Besides these are his contributions on various subjects, 1901.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000762
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Barnes, Alfred Brook (1804 - 1867)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-11 2013-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372946372946
Occupation General surgeon
Details Apprenticed to Richard Cremer, of Chelmsford, before he entered Guy's and St Thomas's Hospitals in the time of Astley Cooper and of Addison. First practised at Ingatestone, Essex, removed to Chelsea in 1820, practising for many years at 19 Manor Place, King's Road. There he was instrumental in founding the Western Medical and Surgical Society, also the West London Eye Infirmary, to which he was surgeon. He was also Surgeon to the School of Discipline and to the Royal Manor Hall Asylum for Young Females. He died before the year 1867.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000763
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Barnes, Christopher Hewetson (1801 - 1875)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Barnes, John Wickham (1830 - 1899)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Barnes, Robert (1817 - 1907)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Barratt, Joseph Gilman (1819 - 1896)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Barrett, Caleb (1821 - 1911)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Barrett, John (1811 - 1881)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Barrett, Thomas (1816 - 1868)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Barron, Edward Enfield (1811 - 1878)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Barrow, Benjamin (1814 - 1901)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372955372955
Occupation General surgeon
Details Third son of S Barrow, of Bath, thus belonging to a family which included two distinguished generals who each became a KCB. He entered St Bartholomew’s as an articled pupil of Edward Stanley (qv), then an assistant surgeon, Luther Holden being a contemporary pupil. For twelve months he acted as dresser, and for a further twelve months as House Surgeon under J Painter Vincent (qv). Socially he became distinguished as an excellent talker in the Abernethian Society and was active in starting the 1830-1840 Contemporary Club, which included among its members Richard Owen, Charles Locock, and James Paget. Barrow acted as secretary. He also joined a club where boxing, fencing, and single-stick exercises were taught, fencing by Angelo, boxing by Tom Spring (1795-1851), once champion boxer of England. Barrow was able to stand up against him and get in a blow now and again. He does not appear to have taken part in the cricket, football, and rowing of the time. He is said to have served for a short time in the Army and then to have practised in Liverpool from 1841-1848. In 1841 the Society of Arts presented him with a Silver Medal as the inventor of a splint for compound fractures and diseased joints. The apparatus is described and figured in the *Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal* (1847, ii, 29), and a specimen is preserved in the College Museum. A pair of ‘lined splints’, also called ‘Gooch’s’ or ‘kettleholder’ splints, were applied, one above and one below the fracture or joint, and the two splints strained apart by means of a semicircular bracket, one quadrant of the bracket sliding on the other, so as to vary the distance of the two ends of the bracket, each of which was turned horizontally to slide in a groove on one of the splints. Barrow’s real career, however, began, when he settled in practice at Ryde, Isle of Wight, and became the advocate of improved sanitation. Typhoid fever was then of almost constant occurrence in Ryde, owing to the pollution of the wells, yet there was great opposition to the expenditure upon a water supply from the chalk downs, as well as against the drainage of the adjacent marshes. Barrow acted for a number of years as Hon Medical Officer of Health and Chairman of the Water, Highways, and Sanitary Committee. This led on to an advocacy, in conjunction with J Webster, QC, Father of Lord Alverstone, CJ, of a scheme for making docks to facilitate traffic with the mainland. Ryde was incorporated in 1859; Barrow was elected on the Council and was Mayor for nine years in succession. The Esplanade, Museum, the Literary and Philosophic Society, the Schools of Art and of Science, the Recreation Ground, the Gymnasium for children of the poor, were all largely owing to Barrow as the moving spirit. He was besides the founder and first treasurer and secretary of the Isle of Wight Artisans’ and Mechanics’ Institution. He acted as Surgeon at the Infirmary, and in later days as Consulting Surgeon; he was also Surgeon to the District Coastguard and Honorary Surgeon to the Royal Victoria Yacht Club. Barrow had been an active member of the British Medical Association when, in 1881, he became President and gave the Presidential Address at the Annual Meeting. The success of the meeting was largely due to his boundless energy, seeing that it was held just after the great International Medical Congress in London. (*Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1881, ii, Presidential Address, p. 249; Editorial, p. 290.) Barrow continued a vigorous fighter and talker, showing little diminution in either physical or mental strength up to the age of 86. He attended the St Bartholomew’s October dinner in 1900; unfortunately, a few days later he fell in the street and sustained a comminuted fracture of the left wrist. At first he made light of the accident, but sinuses developed after his return to Ryde, and he had to put himself under his friend Alfred Willett (qv). Eventually, in January, 1901, the arm was amputated above the elbow joint. Age prevented recovery, and he died at his house in Ryde on March 7th, 1901. Barrow was twice married: first in 1848 to the daughter of Edward Stanley (qv); his second marriage was to Miss Arnould, who survived him. He had no children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000772
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Williams, Henry Thomas Gee (1925 - 2006)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-06-08
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/372550372550
Occupation General surgeon
Details Tom Williams was chairman of the department of surgery at the University of Alberta, Canada. He was born in Rhewl, Wales, on 17 April 1925, and spent his childhood and youth in north Wales. He studied medicine in Liverpool, where he completed junior surgical posts, before going to Edmonton, Alberta, in 1956 on a research fellowship to work with Walter McKenzie. There he was offered the post of clinical lecturer and in due course was appointed clinical professor and chairman of the department of surgery at the University of Alberta in 1975, which he combined with being consultant surgeon to two other hospitals in Edmonton and the Seton Memorial Hospital in Jasper, 250 miles away. His main research interest was in wound healing, but he was highly regarded as a surgical teacher. He was a founder member of the Canadian Association of General Surgeons and served as secretary, archivist and then president. He married Betty née Shepherd, a pathologist, and had four children (Howell, Dorothy, Anne and David), three of whom became doctors – one a surgeon at Alberta University Hospital. Tom was keen on walking and climbing in the Rockies, and as a hobby repaired and restored vintage motor-cars. He died on 24 March 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000364
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Beck, Alfred (1912 - 2006)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-07-25
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/372551372551
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Alfred Beck was a consultant trauma and orthopaedic surgeon in Cardiff. He was born in Uhersky Brod, Moravia (now in the Czech Republic), on 28 January 1912. His father, Ignaz, was a wholesale merchant and councillor, from a prominent family in the Jewish community which included rabbis and businessmen. His mother was Rose Fürst. Alfred qualified at King Charles’ University, Prague, in 1935 and, after six months as a house surgeon at Ruzomberok, he completed two and a half years in the Czechoslovakian Army, before becoming a surgical registrar in Benesov, near Prague. A year later the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia and Alfred secretly crossed the border into Poland, where he joined a volunteer unit. He first went to France and then to England, where he was accepted at St George’s. He then worked as a doctor at Colindale Hospital, and narrowly escaped death in a bombing raid. After the war he found that his parents, two brothers and several other relatives had been killed by the Germans in Aüschwitz. He specialised in orthopaedic surgery, was for many years a registrar at St Mary Abbott’s Hospital, and then at Cardiff, where for over 20 years he was consultant in charge of the accident unit at St David’s Hospital. After retirement from the NHS he joined an independent medical group in the City of London, where he continued to work until he was 80. He published on stress fractures, devised an instrument for extracting the femoral neck, and a way of measuring disuse atrophy. A man of exceptional patience and modesty, he was a keen gardener, specialising in cacti. He died on 24 October 2006, and is survived by his wife Martha, whom he married in 1953, and his son Richard. His daughter Linda predeceased him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000365
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Freebody, Douglas Francis (1911 - 2005)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-07-25
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/372556372556
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Douglas Freebody was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Kingston Hospital. He was born in Woolwich, London, on 19 April 1911, the son of a successful tailor, and attended the City of London School, before entering Guy’s Hospital Medical School, which he represented at hockey and boxing. After qualifying he filled a number of junior surgical posts around London, and in the early part of the war worked for Burns and Young at the major casualty hospital at Botley’s Park, so beginning an orthopaedic career. In 1946 service with the RAMC took him to Egypt and Palestine, where he ran the orthopaedic services at Fayid and Bir Yaacov respectively. On his release from the Army in 1948 Douglas was mentioned in despatches for distinguished service, and was soon appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon to Croydon General Hospital, East Surrey Hospital Redhill, and later the Kingston and Richmond Area Health Authority. There he concentrated his activities and made a major contribution to orthopaedic surgery, devising an anterior transperitoneal approach for fusion of the lower lumbar spine. This he demonstrated widely at home and abroad and was the subject of his contribution to the third edition of *Contemporary operative surgery* in 1979 and of an educational film awarded a silver medal by the BMA. He was a founder member of the International Society of the Lumbar Spine. Douglas Freebody was a dignified man with a great sense of humour, devoted to his family, his dogs and his garden, where he was an expert on orchids. He died from heart failure on 12 October 2005 at the age of 94, and is survived by his wife, Yvonne, a former physiotherapist at Middlesex Hospital whom he met in Egypt during the war, and their children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000370
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Barwell, Richard (1827 - 1916)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372967372967
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Norwich of an old Norfolk family; entered St Thomas’s Hospital and was dresser to Joseph Henry Green in 1847, and later House Surgeon. During the cholera epidemic of July to September, 1849, he superintended the admission of cholera patients, and subsequently recorded his experiences. “Beyond all doubt,” he stated quite erroneously, “cholera spreads by an epidemic or atmospheric quality, and contagion has little or nothing to do with it. Hence there is nothing about the spread of cholera through pump water infected by sewage.” He acted as Demonstrator of Anatomy in the Medical School until 1855 when he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to Charing Cross Hospital. Among his seniors Hancock was the most distinguished. He lectured on comparative anatomy from 1856-1866, and on anatomy from 1866-1874, when he was appointed Lecturer on Surgery. In 1872 he became Surgeon to the hospital, and retired in 1888. His chief attention was devoted to orthopaedic surgery, on which he gained additional experience as Surgeon to the Homes for Crippled Boys and Girls. For the treatment of club-foot he advocated instrumental methods, and opposed the excessive adoption of tenotomy by the so-called subcutaneous surgery then prevailing. Scoliosis was at the time excessively common among girls and young women, and he elaborated a mass of devices, hardly needed at all now that girls prevent themselves from becoming the subjects of lateral curvature. Barwell wrote about antiseptic surgery, and whilst expressing appreciation of Lister’s methods, appears not to have adhered to the strictest Listerian precautions, at a time when there was no alternative way of performing an operation aseptically. Hence his recommendation to ligature the right common carotid and right subclavian artery on the distal side of an innominate aneurysm was not free from danger. Barwell used a strip of the aorta of an ox, first dried. This was a broad ligature, which when tightened round an artery did not divide the inner and middle coats. In that particular Barwell correctly anticipated the more careful aseptic procedure of Sir Charles Ballance. The danger of a septic ligation of the common carotid in its continuity was experienced when Barwell did this for a case of unilateral hypertrophy of the head and face; death followed from secondary haemorrhage. Later he described the case of a thoracic aneurysm, treated by electro-puncture, an even more hazardous way than distal ligation, of promoting intra-aneurysmal clot formation. Barwell was an enthusiastic skater at the Skating Club in the Toxophilite Gardens, Regent’s Park, and this, along with fishing, contributed to his hale old age. “No one would imagine that his trim figure and almost boyish step and carriage belonged to a man approaching 90 years of age”, said his obituary notice. His photograph is in the Fellows’ Album. After being for several years Senior Fellow of the College he died at Norwich on Dec 27th, 1916. He married Mary Diana Shuttleworth, of Preston, Lancashire; his son Harold Shuttleworth Barwell followed his father and took the FRCS diploma. Publications: *On Asiatic Cholera*, 1855. *On Aneurysm, Especially of the Thorax and Root of the Neck*, 1880; also in Ashhurst’s *Surgery*, iii. “Experience and Specimens of Ox Aorta Ligature.” – *Med.-Chir. Trans*., 1881, lxiv, 225. “Case of Unilateral Hypertrophy of the Head and Face.” [Specimen in Charing Cross Hospital Museum]. – *Pathol. Soc. Trans.*, 1881, xxxii, 282. *On the Cure of Club Foot without Cutting Tendons, and on Certain New Methods of Treating other Deformities*, 1863, 1865. *Lateral Curvature of the Spine*, 1868, 1877, 1895, 1905. The 4th and 5th editions contain a description of the scoliosis gauge for obtaining a precise measurement of all deviations. *Diseases of Joints*, 1861, 1881; also in Ashhurst’s *Surgery*, iv. An edition appeared in Philadelphia in 1861 and in New York in 1881. “Case of Thoracic Aneurysm Treated by Electro-puncture.” – *Lancet*, 1886, i, 1058.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000784
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Belcher, John Rashleigh (1917 - 2006)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-07-25
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/372558372558
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details John Rashleigh Belcher was a thoracic surgeon at the Middlesex Hospital, London. Born in Liverpool on 11 January 1917, he was the ninth in a long line of doctors who originally hailed from Bandon in Cork. He was educated at Epsom and St Thomas’ Hospital, where he graduated at the age of 21, having asked for an early viva. At the outbreak of war St Thomas’ was evacuated to Farnham and there he met his wife, Jacqueline Phillips. It was a watershed time in medicine: on one side of the ward leeches were being applied and on the other an early sulphonamide drug (M&B 693) was being prescribed. He joined the RAFVR as soon as possible and was posted to Cottesmore. He became FRCS in 1942 and was posted to Canada. On his return he went to RAF Wroughton, where he gained huge experience from D-day casualties. After demobilisation, he returned to St Thomas’ as resident assistant surgeon, before becoming interested in thoracic surgery. He worked at the Brompton in 1947 and became senior registrar at the London Chest and Middlesex hospitals. In 1951 he was appointed to the North West Thames region as a thoracic surgeon, a post which included the London Chest Hospital and places as far afield as Arlesey, Pinewood and Harefield. He was appointed consultant thoracic surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital in 1955. He promoted lobectomy for lung cancer at a time when the conventional wisdom, endorsed by Tudor Edwards, was that nothing short of pneumonectomy was of any use, and he published on the treatment of emphysematous cysts. He performed over 1,000 closed mitral valvotomies, even as fourth operations, and reported on these. He was Hunterian lecturer in 1979. Unfortunately his reputation in this field was less widely acknowledged than his expertise in ‘lung volume reduction surgery’. He was a kind, supportive and tolerant boss who was always ready to praise. He was president of the Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland in 1980. He travelled extensively with the British Council and set up cardiothoracic units abroad. A devoted family man, he had wide musical tastes, was a compulsive gardener and an accomplished artist and photographer. Jacqueline died in 2006 and he died on 12 January 2006, leaving a daughter and two sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000372
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wilson, Peter Ernest Heaton (1932 - 2006)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-07-25
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/372559372559
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Peter Wilson was a consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital. He was born in Deptford, London, on 16 October 1932, the son of Joseph Henry Wilson, a housing administrative officer for Bermondsey Borough Council, and Sarah Heaton, a teacher of physical training whose father had owned a brewery. The first of his family to go into medicine, his younger sister also eventually became a doctor. He was educated at several schools, including Upholland Grammar School and Newcastle-under-Lyme High School, where he gained colours in hockey, cricket and rugby, before going on to St Thomas’ Hospital in 1950. After junior posts he did his National Service in the Royal Navy and then specialised in orthopaedics, becoming a registrar at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Hospital, Oswestry and then a senior registrar at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital Birmingham under Peter London and J H Hicks. He was appointed consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital in 1970. Peter was particularly interested in the treatment of multiple and major injuries and was a pioneer in the operative fixation of fractures. Having been chairman of the regional junior hospital staff committee from 1968 to 1970 and a member of the BMA junior group council (from 1969 to 1970), he went on to chair the regional senior hospital staff committee from 1970 onwards, and was medical director of the trust board. He was active in the St John Ambulance Brigade. He retired in 1994, and continued to play golf, cricket and cultivate his garden. He was married twice. In 1951 he married Sheila Patricia Hansen, who predeceased him. They had three children, a daughter (Sallie Anne) and two sons, Michael John, a solicitor, and David Ian, a plastic surgeon. In 2002 he married Anne Elizabeth Mary Stott née Binnie. Peter Wilson died on 19 November 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000373
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bateman, Henry (1806 - 1880)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372970372970
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Burton-on-Trent, and after education at the Grammar School was apprenticed for five years to Septimus Allen. Entered St Bartholomew’s Hospital in October, 1825, dissected, with Richard Owen, a fellow-student, and attended the lectures of John Abernethy. He was appointed Librarian of the Medical School. After acting as assistant to Mr Jones for two years at Henley-in-Arden he returned to St Bartholomew’s to qualify as LSA in 1828, and MRCS, in 1829. He attended the Moorfields Eye Infirmary, the École de Médecine in Paris, and Dupuytren’s lectures at the Hôtel Dieu. He was appointed Surgeon to the Islington Dispensary in Jan, 1830, and began the practice which he carried on for the ensuing fifty years. During the epidemic of cholera in 1832 he acted as Surgeon to the Islington Cholera Hospital in River Lane. The general belief in infection through the air from dead bodies involved the belief in the danger of making post-mortem examination. Having first made his will, Bateman examined post mortem every patient who died under his charge. He married three years later, resigned the active post at the dispensary for the appointment of Consulting Surgeon, and then started what became well known afterwards, the practice of seeing patients gratuitously from 6 o’clock in the morning, or even earlier in summer time, until 9 o’clock, when the door of his room at the end of his garden was closed with severe punctuality. As many as fifty to a hundred patients attended of a morning, who preserved his prescriptions with a reverence that testified to their utility. For eight years he continued this course daily, and subsequently three times weekly until a few years before his death. He was a most ardent believer in the mystical doctrines of Swedenborg, and was one of the mainstays of the ‘New Church’, Devonshire Street, Islington, in which he used to preach on Sundays. This and his large private practice absorbed his time, so that he said he never dined out except on the occasion of the Hunterian Festival at the College. In middle life he had an attack of haemoptysis, but continued active work until the long and trying illness from which he died on Nov 21st, 1880, at 13 Canonbury Lane, N. He left a son in the medical profession, Alfred G Bateman, who was secretary of the Medical Defence Union. Publications: Bateman found time to publish accounts of cases in his practice including: “On Strangulated Hernia.” – *Lond. Med. Gaz.*, 1832, x, 154. “On Cancer.” – *Med. and Surg. Jour.*, 1832, i, 595. “Case of Lyssa (Hydrophobia).” – *Lancet*, 1844, i, 13. “Successful Operation for Hare-lip four Hours after Birth.” – *Med. Times*, 1850, xxii, 383. “The Treatment of Naevus.” – *Lancet*, 1869, ii, 660.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000787
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bates, William (1819 - 1874)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Batt, Frederic Collins (1810 - 1854)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Batten, Thomas ( - 1885)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Baxter, Francis Hastings (1819 - 1888)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Beale, John Evans (1794 - 1858)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Beaman, George (1803 - 1874)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Beard, Francis Carr (1815 - 1893)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bearn, Andrew Russell (1886 - 1927)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bearpark, George Edmundson (1806 - 1871)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Beatson, William Burn (1825 - 1911)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Beaumont, Thomas Mills (1812 - 1879)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Beaumont, William Rawlins (1803 - 1875)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-12-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372982372982
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Beaumont Street and entered as a student at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he gained the favourable notice of John Abernethy, and subsequently of Amussat, under whom he studied anatomy in Paris. He was for a time Surgeon to the Islington Dispensary. In 1841 he settled in Toronto and was appointed Professor of Surgery in King’s College, now the University, in 1843, retaining the Chair until 1853, acting at the same time as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. He succeeded Dr Widmer as Consulting Surgeon to the Toronto General Hospital, and had charge of the hospital at Port Colborne during the Fenian raid in 1866. Whilst he was Surgeon to the Islington Dispensary he invented an instrument for the insertion of quilled sutures in cases of vesicovaginal fistula. It is described and figured in the *London Medical Gazette*, 1836-7, xix, 335, and also in *Medico-Chirurgical Transactions*, 1838, xxi, 29, P1. 1. The instrument had scissor handles and lock, the blades were curved like calipers; one blade ended as a curved pointed-eyed needle and was armed with a loop of thread. The other arm ended in a slot. On closing the instrument the pointed end penetrated the two margins of the fissure and carried the suture loop through the slot. On the outer side of the slot was a slide ending in a blunt point, which being pushed down, the point passed into and held the loop as the instrument was reopened. A quill could be passed through the loop, and the free ends of the sutures were then knotted over a second quill on the opposite side of the approximated fissures. The title of the paper in the *Medico-Chirurgical Transactions* adds a use for cleft palate. The operation was limited to the soft palate of young children. For this the instrument appears unsuitable. But Beaumont invented a modification, or rather a different instrument altogether, of which an example is preserved in the College Museum (D 34), entitled “Beaumont's Sewing Machine Suture Carrier for Operations on Cleft Palate”. It is a straight instrument carrying a needle, like the present sewing-machine needle armed with thread; the thread was caught by a fine hook and held as the needle was drawn back. At right angles are two flat jaws closing like a bracket by pushing down a slide. These grasped the margins of the cleft palate, and the needle carried the loop of thread through them. The hook held the loop as the needle was withdrawn, and on shifting the grasp on the palate and again protruding the needle, a chain stitch was made by the second loop passing through the first. This is apparently the instrument referred to by Sir James Paget as tried by Mr Lawrence at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. An annotation in the *Lancet*, 1866, i, 302, stated that Singer took his idea from the Beaumont instrument exhibited in the shop of Freeman, a surgical instrument maker in New York. But the statement is not confirmed by the *Encyclopoedia Britannica*, Art. “Sewing Machine”. (*Vide* A E J Barker.) Beaumont also described and figured in the *London Medical Gazette*, 1837, xx, 122 (Figs. 1, 2) a vaginal speculum which revived an idea found in Hippocrates. He had used it in his vesicovaginal fistula operations. Five steel blades were hinged at one of their ends, much as the ribs of an umbrella. The place of the projecting stick of the umbrella was taken by a rounded cap, over the ends of the blades. After the instrument had been passed closed into the vagina, a handle occupying the place of the stick of an umbrella, was rotated to separate the blades, after which the handle was withdrawn and the fistula came into view between two of the separated blades. Beaumont also published papers in 1833, “On the Treatment of Fracture of the Leg and Forearm by Plaster of Paris”, and in 1838, “On Polypi of the Uterus, Nose, and Ear”. In 1841 he went to Canada, and in 1843 was elected Surgeon to the University, then of King’s College, later of Toronto; and Surgeon to the Toronto General Hospital, where he gave Clinical Lectures. He described in the *Medico-Chirurgical Transactions*, 1850, xxxiii, 241, with woodcut, the case of a boy, aged 7, from whom he had removed a cartilaginous tumour weighing 8 oz and measuring 3 4/16 x 2 8/10 in in diameter. The tumour first noticed three months before, being then the size of a nutmeg, had replaced completely the left side of the mandible, except the condyle and its neck, as far forwards as the second bicuspid tooth. The boy healed quickly after disarticulation of the left half of the lower jaw. Increasing difficulty of vision ending in blindness enforced Beaumont’s retirement in 1873, and he was elected Emeritus Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto. He died on Oct 13th, 1875, in Toronto. Beaumont was an accomplished anatomist, perfectly versed in surgery, most painstaking and correct in diagnosis, most skilful in the use of the knife, engrossed in his subject, and capable of communicating knowledge. As a man he was singularly polite, as gentle as a woman, neat in person, and possessed of a charity which thinketh no evil. His work at the Toronto General Hospital, where he delivered his clinical lectures, was worthy of his great teacher Abernethy. Publications: In addition to the articles already mentioned, Beaumont also published: Clinical lectures on *Traumatic Carotid Aneurysms*, 1854, and on *The Several Forms of Lithotomy*, 1857. Beaumont’s Lithotomy Knife is preserved in the Museum of the College (G 106 and 8). In the *Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1863, xlvi., 174, drawing, p.176, Beaumont described a variation of Langenbeck’s and Graefe’s iridectomy hook or forceps. A fine pointed hook protected by a guard was passed through a corneal puncture, and on withdrawing the guard the hook caught in the iris. In 1862 he described a wound of the orbit penetrating 5 1/2 in, yet followed by recovery.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000799
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Beavan, James (1830 - 1879)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Beck, Marcus (1843 - 1893)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-12-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372984372984
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Isleworth of the same Quaker family that produced Lord Lister and Rickman J Godlee, as is shown in the following genealogy. Edward Beck married twice, his second wife being Susannah Lucas, of Hitchin, who numbered among her ancestors Thomas Young (1773-1829), physician, physicist, and Egyptologist. She died at the age of 84, a few years before her son, Marcus. Marcus Beck was educated at Queenwood College, Hants, under George Edmonstone whose science masters were Frankland, Tyndall, and Debus; and afterwards at Hitchin, in the school kept by Arthur Abbott. He entered the University of Glasgow in 1860, where Joseph Lister, his first cousin once removed, was Professor of Surgery, and with him he lived during his residence in the University. He returned to London in 1863, entered University College Hospital, and was appointed in due course House Surgeon to Sir John Eric Erichsen (qv). He also served as Physician’s Assistant to Sir William Jenner and to Dr C J Hare, and acted as Demonstrator of Anatomy under Professor Viner Ellis (qv). He was appointed Surgical Registrar to the hospital in 1870 and at once established his reputation by the elaborate analysis of surgical cases which he published in the *University College Hospital Reports*. During this period, and with the assistance of S G Shattock (qv) and Charles Stonham (qv), he catalogued the surgical pathological specimens in the Museum of University College. He was appointed Assistant Surgeon to University College Hospital in 1873; in 1875 he succeeded Christopher Heath (qv) as Teacher of Operative Surgery; in 1883 he became Professor of Clinical Surgery; and in 1885 was elected Surgeon to the Hospital and Professor of Surgery in succession to John Marshall (qv). He was elected a Member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1890, and a Member of the Court of Examiners in 1892. He was then practising at 30 Wimpole Street. He died unmarried at Isleworth on Sunday, May 21st, 1893, after suffering for twenty years from diabetes, and was interred in the Friends’ burial ground at Brentford End. Beck became most widely known as the Editor of the 8th and 9th editions of Erichsen’s *Science and Art of Surgery*, which appeared respectively in 1884 and 1888. He had been closely associated with Erichsen and had acted as his private assistant since 1869. He most skilfully included recent advances in the science of surgery and surgical pathology, including the pathology of wounds and septic diseases. The researches of Pasteur and Koch with the work of Lister were thus made known to all students of surgery, for the two volumes were re-issued in America and were translated into German and into Russian. Beck was an inspiring teacher, who was equally good at the bedside and in the lecture theatre. He soon gathered round him assistants who were to become distinguished in surgery: William Meredith, Stanley Boyd, Victor Horsley, and Raymond Johnson were his pupils. His lectures were models of lucidity and were in the highest degree stimulating. An abscess, an ulcer, or a fracture were to him living things and he made the processes of disintegration and repair actually visible to the mind’s eye of his students. He taught that a ground-work of scientific pathology was the only safe basis of surgical practice. The Pathological Society of London was in its full vigour at the time as the focus for the study of morbid anatomy, for bacteriology had not yet come into its own. The Society set up a ‘Morbid Growths Committee’, Beck was elected a member and thus had the opportunity of advancing the systematic histological examination of obscure specimens exhibited before the Society. He was joint author of the *Report on Pyoemia* in 1879. Beck contributed articles on “Diseases of the Kidney and Secondary Affections of the Lower Urinary Tract, misnamed Surgical Kidney,” to Volume V of Reynold’s *System of Medicine*. He also wrote on “Erysipelas” for the 1st edition of Quain’s *Dictionary of Medicine*, and on “Diseases of the Breast” for Heath’s *Dictionary of Surgery*. Beck was a man of most attractive personality, good looking and somewhat cynical. He lived retired at Isleworth, rarely going into society on account of prolonged ill health, though he continued to attend the hospital and to fill the calls of an ever-increasing practice nearly to the end of his life. There is a good portrait of him at the Royal Society of Medicine and a photograph in the Council Album at the Royal College of Surgeons. Mr Roger Beck gave an endowment in 1914 to the Royal Society of Medicine as a tribute to the memory of his brother. It was utilized to establish an experimental laboratory where David Thomson and John Gordon Thomson carried out an able research by cultivating living tissues *in vitro*. After the war it was decided to discontinue the laboratory and use the room for books issued before the beginning of the nineteenth century. This room is known as “The Marcus Beck” Library, and the portrait hangs over the fireplace. Publications: “Descriptive Catalogue of Specimens Illustrating Surgical Pathology in the Museum of University College Hospital, London.” – Part I, edited in collaboration with S G Shattock, 1881; Part II, in collaboration with C Stonham, 1887. “Galvano-puncture of Aortic Aneurysm.” – *Lancet*, 1873, ii, 550. “Three Cases of Trephining for Haemorrhage from the Middle Meningeal Artery.” – *Med. Times and Gaz*., 1877, ii, 199. “Case of Nephrolithotomy.” – *Trans. Clin. Soc.*, 1882, xv, 103. *The Science and Art of Surgery*, by John Eric Erichsen, 8th ed revised and edited by Marcus Beck. 2 vols., 1884, and 9th ed, 1888.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000801
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Beck, Thomas Snow (1814 - 1877)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Beckingsale, John Edgar (1810 - 1885)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-12-11 2013-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372986372986
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He was a member of the British Medical Association and Medical Officer of the Coastguard in the Isle of Wight. He practised at Newport, IOW, and died there on August 10th, 1885.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000803
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Beddard, James ( - 1889)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Starr, Philip Alan John (1933 - 2003)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

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

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372319372319
Occupation Otolaryngologist ENT surgeon
Details Philip Stell had an outstanding career as a reconstructive surgeon, dealing with head and neck cancers, and went on to a successful second career in mediaeval history. He was born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, on 14 August 1934, the son of Frank Law Stell, a tailor’s manager, and Ada née Davies. He was educated at Archbishop Holgate Grammar School, York, and Edinburgh University. After junior posts in Edinburgh and Liverpool, he won a fellowship to Washington University, St Louis, in 1956. He returned to Liverpool as a senior lecturer. In 1976 he wrote his masters thesis on skin grafting techniques, and in 1979 he became a professor. He dealt with all aspects of head and neck malignancies, and developed exceptional expertise in reconstruction, keeping detailed outcomes of his operations using a computerised database. He published some 346 articles in scientific journals, edited 12 books and contributed to a further 39. In 1975 he founded the journal *Clinical Otolaryngology* and set up the Otorhinolaryngological Research Society in 1978 (he was President from 1983 to 1986). He was President of the laryngological section of the Royal Society of Medicine, the Association of Head and Neck Oncologists of Great Britain and the Liverpool Medical Institution. He was Hunterian Professor of our College in 1976 and a regional adviser in ENT for the Mersey region. He was the recipient of numerous awards and medals, including the Yearsley gold medal, the Semon prize of the Royal Society of Medicine, the Harrison and the George Davey Howells prizes of the University of London, the Sir William Wilde gold medal of the Irish Otorhinolaryngolical Society in 1988, the Walter Jobson Horne prize of the British Medical Society in 1989, the gold medal of the Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center and the Institute of Oncology, 1989, and the gold medal of the German ENT Society in 1991. An associate member of the Institute of Linguists, he was fluent in Dutch, German, French and Spanish, and made it his practise to deliver overseas lectures in the local language, though his size (he was 6 feet 7 inches) made air travel uncomfortable. He translated 11 foreign language textbooks into English. In 1992, when he was only 57, he took early retirement due to ill health. He moved to York, the city he had grown up in, and began a second career in mediaeval history. He enrolled for an MA at York University, writing a thesis on medical care in late mediaeval York. He taught a speech recognition computer programme to recognise Latin, and set up unique databases for mediaeval Yorkshire wills and other documents, some going back to the 13th century, more than 300 years before parish registers began. For his contribution to history he was made a fellow of both the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Historical Society. He married Shirley Kathleen Mills in 1959, by whom he had four sons and a daughter. Shirley predeceased him in April 2004. He died on 29 May 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000132
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bedwell, Henry ( - 1873)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Beecroft, Samuel (1821 - 1880)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Beevor, Charles (1805 - 1872)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching MacCormac, Sir William (1836 - 1901)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-04 2012-03-13
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372403372403
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Belfast on January 17th, 1836, the elder son of Henry MacCormac, a physician at Belfast, and Mary Newsham his wife. The younger son, John, became a director of the Northern Linen Company. His father gained notoriety in the North of Ireland as a strenuous advocate of the fresh-air treatment of phthisis. William was educated at the Belfast Royal Academical Institution and afterwards studied at Dublin and Paris. He entered Queen's College, Belfast, in October, 1851, as a student of engineering, and gained scholarships in engineering during his first and second years. He then turned aside to the arts course, graduated B.A. at the Queen's University in 1855, and proceeded M.A. in 1858. He won the senior scholarship in natural philosophy in 1856 and was admitted M.D. in the following year. The honorary degree of M.Ch. was conferred upon him in 1879, and the D.Sc. in 1882 with the Gold Medal of the University. The honorary degrees of M.D. and M.Ch. were also bestowed upon him by the University of Dublin in June, 1900. After graduation MacCormac studied surgery in Berlin, where he made lasting friendships with Langenbeck, Billroth, and von Esmarch. He practised in Belfast from 1864-1870, becoming successively Surgeon, Lecturer on Clinical Surgery, and Consulting Surgeon to the Belfast General Hospital. MacCormac volunteered for service on the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, undertook hospital duties at Metz, was treated as a spy and was returned to Paris. Here he joined the Anglo-American Association for the care of the wounded, and with others arrived at Sedan on the night of August 30th, 1870, bivouacking in the waiting-room at the station. MacCormac wandered up and down the platform until 2 am, when an engine with a single cattle-truck stopped and Napoleon III stepped out with two attendants. MacCormac followed the party and was the sole spectator of the Emperor's hardly gained admission to the town, which he left soon afterwards as a prisoner. The Battle of Sedan began at 4 a.m. on Sept. 1st, and during the first day more than a thousand soldiers were brought for treatment to the Caserne d'Asfeld, a deserted infantry barracks on the ramparts which MacCormac and his companions had hastily converted into a hospital of 384 beds. Some attempts were made to follow out the new Listerian methods, but for the most part the old rates of mortality prevailed. Returning to London at the end of the war, he settled at 13 Harley Street, where he died more than thirty years afterwards. MacCormac was admitted in 1871 to the rare distinction of an ad eundem Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and in February of the same year was elected, after a sharp contest, Assistant Surgeon to St. Thomas's Hospital, which had just moved to the new buildings on the Albert Embankment. He became full Surgeon in 1873 on the resignation of Frederic le Gros Clerk (q.v.) and lectured on surgery for twenty years. He was elected Consulting Surgeon to the hospital and Emeritus Lecturer on Clinical Surgery after resigning his active posts in 1893. In 1876 MacCormac was present at the Battle of Alexinatz as chief surgeon of the National Aid Society for the Sick and Wounded in the Turco-Servian Campaign. He contributed largely to the success of the brilliant Seventh International Congress of Medicine which was held in London in 1881, when he was General Secretary and Editor of the *Transactions*. For his services in this capacity he received the honour of knighthood on Dec. 7th, 1881. He was President of the Medical Society of London in 1880, and of the Metropolitan Branch of the British Medical Association in 1890. He was Surgeon to the French, Italian, Queen Charlotte's, and the British Lying-in Hospitals, and was an Examiner in Surgery at the University of London and for Her Majesty's Naval, Military, and Indian Medical Services. He was created a baronet in 1897, was appointed Surgeon-in-Ordinary to the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII, and was decorated K.C.V.O. on September 27th, 1898, in recognition of services rendered to the Prince when he injured his knee. At the Royal College of Surgeons MacCormac was elected a Member of the Council in 1883, and of the Court of Examiners in 1887. He served as President during the years 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899, and 1900, being specially re-elected on the last occasion that he might occupy the Chair at the centenary of the College. He delivered the Bradshaw Lecture in 1893, and was Hunterian Orator in 1899. War claimed him again in 1899-1900, when he was appointed Consulting Surgeon to the South African Field Force, and in this capacity visited military and civil hospitals in Cape Colony and Natal, going to the Front on four occasions. For these services he was created K.C.B. in 1901, and was gazetted Hon. Serjeant Surgeon to King Edward VII. He abducted and married in 1861 Katherine Maria, daughter and heiress of John Charters, of Belfast. She survived him, but there were no children of the marriage. He died at Bath on December 4th, 1901, and was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery. MacCormac was a strikingly handsome man, standing six feet two inches in height and being proportionally well built. He was soft-voiced, singularly courteous in manner, and apparently - but only apparently - inattentive to what was being said to him. His industry, mastery of detail, rapidity of work, and Irish bonhomie made him a first-rate organizer. He was as widely known on the Continent of Europe as he was in England and Ireland, and he did much to break down the insularity which militated so long against the progress of British surgery, for he learned and taught what was done at home and abroad. MacCormac was the best decorated practising surgeon of his generation. He was, in addition to the honours already mentioned, an Hon. Member of the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg; an Hon. Fellow or Member of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland, Paris, Brussels, Munich, and Rome; a Commander of the Legion of Honour; of the Orders of Dannebrog of Denmark, of the Crown of Italy, and the Takovo of Servia; of the Crown of Prussia, St. Iago of Portugal, North Star of Sweden, Ritter-Kreuz of Bavaria, Merit of Spain, and the Medjidie. An oil painting of MacCormac by H. Harris Brown was presented to Queen's University, Belfast, on March 9th, 1897. There are two oil paintings by the Russian painter, Prince Troubetskoi; the better of these was presented to the College on the death of Lady MacCormac in 1923. Another oil painting hangs in the Medical Committee Room at St. Thomas's Hospital. A marble bust by Alfred Drury, A.R.A., is in the Central Hall at St. Thomas's Hospital; a replica in white marble was presented to the College by subscribers in 1903. A caricature by 'Spy' in *Vanity Fair* in 1906 gives a good idea of MacCormac's height. PUBLICATIONS:- *Notes and Recollections of an Ambulance Surgeon, being an Account of Work done under the Red Cross during the Campaign of 1870*, London, 1871. This was translated into German by Professor Louis Stromeyer, Hanover, 1871, and into Italian by Dr. Eugenio Bellina, Florence, 1872. *Surgical Operations*, Part I, 1885; 2nd ed. 1891. Part II, 1889. *On Abdominal Section for the Treatment of Intraperitoneal Injury*, 1887; translated into German, Leipzig, 1888. The most noteworthy of his occasional publications is "Some Observations on Rupture of the Urinary Bladder, with an Account of Two Cases of Intraperitoneal Rupture Successfully Treated by Abdominal Section and Subsequent Suture of the Hernial Rent." - *Lancet*, 1886, ii, 1118. (The accident is uncommon, attracts little notice at the moment, and is followed by a latent period until fatal peritonitis sets in.) Recovery followed in both instances, the first on record so far as is known. *An Address of Welcome on the Occasion of the Centenary Festival of the Royal College of Surgeons of England,* 1900; with the biographical accounts, often with portraits, of the sixty-one Masters or Presidents. There are two issues of this work, which was presented to the distinguished delegates attending the Centenary Meeting - the first in July (220 pp.); the second, with additional matter and illustrations (232 pp.), at Christmas, 1900. MacCormac was materially helped in its preparation by Victor G. Plarr, M.A., Librarian of the College, and by D'Arcy Power, F.R.C.S. He also published an illustrated Souvenir of the Centenary of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 4to, London, November, 1900.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000216
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Howse, Sir Henry Greenway (1841 - 1914)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-04 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372404372404
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Lyncombe Hall, Lyncombe Vale, Bath, on Dec. 21st, 1841. His father was a landowner and an ardent Unitarian, acting sometimes as a lay preacher. His mother, Isabella Weald, daughter of a London merchant, was married at St. Saviour's, Southwark, now Southwark Cathedral, close to Guy's Hospital. His parents removed to Frenchay, near Bristol, and during boyhood Howse was educated irregularly at home until he entered University College School, London, in 1855. His father had meanwhile moved to Reading, and on leaving school at 16 Howse was apprenticed to J. W. Workman at Reading. In 1859 he passed the Matriculation examination with honours in chemistry, and entered Guy's Hospital in October, 1861. In 1863 he passed the Preliminary Scientific Examination with the Exhibition in Biology. At the 1st M.B. Examination in 1864 he took the Exhibition and Gold Medal in Physiology, Histology, and Comparative Anatomy, and Honours in Anatomy. In 1866 Howse passed the final M.B. with Honours in Medicine and Forensic Medicine and the Gold Medal in Midwifery. In 1867 he passed the B.S. Examination with the Scholarship and Gold Medal, and the M.S. in 1868, qualifying for the Medal, but coming second to Marcus Beck (q.v.). He was dresser to John Hilton, House Surgeon in 1867, Demonstrator of Anatomy in 1868, to which he added for the first time a class in histology. He became Joint Lecturer on Anatomy in 1871 and Lecturer on Surgery in 1888. He was appointed Assistant Surgeon to Guy's Hospital in 1870, and acted as full Surgeon from 1875 until 1901, when he became Consulting Surgeon. In addition to teaching histology Howse improved the methods of injecting cadavers for dissection, using glycerin preliminary to the injection with red wax. From 1874-1883 he was editor of the *Guy's Hospital Reports*, looking after the finance as well as the literary contributions. His full knowledge of anatomy and surgery made him a successful teacher, and he kept the attention of his class by constantly asking questions. He was naturally cautious and deliberate, constitutionally fitted to adopt the methods of Listerism which he had learnt directly by a visit to Lister in Edinburgh. So fortified, he practised freely the excision of tuberculous joints in children. It was common for him to have four to six cases of excision of the knee under him at one time; he superintended the dressing of each case himself. The Evelina Hospital for Sick children opened in 1869, and Howse was appointed Surgeon in 1871; thus he obtained more material of the same kind. From the point of view of mortality his results were splendid; as to the usefulness of the limbs there was more criticism. His results were not well known outside Guy's Hospital until his publication of "130 Cases of Excision of the Knee" in the *Guy's Hospital Reports* (1892, xlix) with an analysis by Newton Pitt occupying 106 pages. He made a striking advance by raising gastrostomy to a relatively safe operation when carried out in two stages; for a time his method was universally adopted. The drawback that, on penetrating the gastric wall and inserting a tube, the stomach might become detached led to his procedure being modified. It had become practicable to operate on varicose veins under Listerian methods without danger from septic thrombosis and pyæmia. Howse introduced the operation into regular practice. He also operated successfully for ovarian cysts and on a case of intussusception in an adult. At the Truss Society, where he was Surgeon, he was conservative as to the radical methods of treating hernia. At the Royal College of Surgeons Howse was appointed on the Board of Examiners in Anatomy and Physiology in 1883, on the Court of Examiners he served from 1887-1897. He was elected to the Council in 1889, was re-elected in 1897 until 1905. He was Vice-President from 1897-1900, and President from 1901-1903, in succession to Sir William MacCormac, and was succeeded by Sir John Tweedy. It was during his Presidency that he was knighted in 1902, and the D.Sc. (Hon.) Victoria University was conferred on him. He was Bradshaw Lecturer in 1899, and Hunterian Orator in 1903. At the University of London he was Examiner in Surgery, and later the representative of the College of Surgeons on the Senate under the older conditions. He was also interested in the higher education of women and sat on the Council of Bedford College. Living close to Guy's Hospital for twenty-five years, in St. Thomas's Street, he was in and out of the building most frequently; in the country he devoted himself to gardening; his holiday was occupied with Alpine climbing. In 1887, having married, he moved to 59 Brook Street until 1903, when he retired to Tower House, Cudham, Kent, situated on high ground over against Darwin's house at Downe. He married Alice, youngest daughter of the Rev. T. Lethbridge Marshall, and had three daughters and one son. In retirement he suffered from osteo-arthritis and kept much at home, gardening and caring for his poultry. He shrank in stature, had intense pain, became exhausted, and died on Sept. 15th, 1914. He was buried at St. Luke's Cemetery, near Bromley. He had followed his father as a Unitarian and attended Stopford Brooke's Chapel. There is a portrait in oils by Lance Calkin in the Court Room of Guy's Hospital, painted in 1903 when he was aged 63.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000217
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Tweedy, Sir John (1849 - 1924)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-11 2012-03-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372405372405
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Born at Stockton-on-Tees, the son of John Tweedy, a solicitor. He was educated at Elmfield College, York, and at University College, London, from which he went to University College Hospital for his medical course. He qualified in 1872, and in 1873 became a Clinical Assistant at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields, thus beginning a long and distinguished association with that institution. Tweedy was never a robust man, and always suffered from an embarrassment of respiration, a wheeziness, the nature of which was obscure. It is said that his frail physique determined Tweedy not to attempt the career of general surgery and led him to become an ophthalmic surgeon. In this line he soon showed himself something above the ordinary, by his work, his early publications and his wide interest in the whole field of medicine. At Moorfields he was appointed Assistant Surgeon in 1877 on the resignation of Sir Jonathan Hutchinson (q.v.), Surgeon in 1878, Consulting Surgeon in 1900, when he was placed upon the Committee of Management in recognition of the "numerous occasions he had pleaded the cause of the Hospital in powerful and most interesting public addresses, endorsing his advocacy with liberal donations to its funds". He was likewise appointed Ophthalmic Surgeon to the Great Northern Hospital in 1878, Assistant Ophthalmic Surgeon to University College Hospital in 1881, and Professor of Ophthalmic Medicine and Surgery in University College. In addition to his professional work, Tweedy was interested in music, politics, books, history, and journalism. He was the editor of the "Mirror of Hospital Practice" in the *Lancet* and became the close friend of Dr. James Wakley, the editor of that journal, for which he was a constant leader-writer. The centenary number of the *Lancet* speaks of his being offered the editorship and refusing it. It is said that he was largely responsible for the utterance of the editorial views of the *Lancet* on the constitution of the Royal College of Surgeons, and it was as a reformer that Tweedy stood for and was elected to a seat on the Council in 1892. Here, however, he expressed moderate views and gained for himself the warm friendship and hearty co-operation of the leaders of the medical profession, so much so that in 1903 he was elected President of the College, and retained office for three years, being succeeded in 1906 by Sir Henry Morris (q.v.); in his final year as President (1906) he received the honour of knighthood. Tweedy was the first surgeon practising purely as an ophthalmologist to obtain the presidency of the College, and during his term of office he gave the presidential badge to the College to be worn by future Presidents when in their robes of office. While President of the College, Tweedy was also President of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom, President of the Medico-Legal Society, of the Medical Defence Union, and of the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund. He took an active share in King Edward's Hospital Fund, serving on the Distribution Committee, for which his powers of organization peculiarly fitted him. He was admitted to the Livery and Court of the Barbers' Company, where he was chosen Master and thus brought about a *rapprochement* between the Company and the College of Surgeons. The Barbers' Company having founded the Vicary Lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons, he was appointed to deliver the first lecture in December, 1919, when he chose as his subject "Surgical Tradition". Tweedy was an excellent speaker, whether in a set lecture or after dinner. He showed precision, making his points deliberately, and his speeches were always imbued with a kindliness and modesty which were characteristic of the man. In 1905 he was Hunterian Orator, and in his later years one of the Hunterian Trustees. On the occasions when the Hunterian Trustees met at the College, the sound of his horses' hoofs might be heard with measured tat-tat in front of the portico, for Sir John was perhaps the last consulting surgeon in London to keep a brougham instead of a car. Almost immediately afterwards a measured but laboured breathing announced the arrival at the door of the Librarian's room of Sir John himself, who, after making his courteous old-world greetings, would proceed to the discussion, and nearly always the presentation of valuable books, for which benefactions the Library is grateful. He lived at 100 Harley Street, where he had a large library of some 6000 volumes. By his will he bequeathed to the Royal College of Surgeons such of his medical and surgical books and instruments as the College might select, and to University College Hospital Medical School any others to be selected by that body after the College had made its choice. He left over £61,000, ultimate residue as to one-half, after other bequests, to go to the College in case of the failure of his heirs. In 1895 Tweedy married the daughter of Mr. Richard Hillhouse, of Finsbury Place, and left two sons and one daughter. He died on Jan. 4th, 1924, after a short illness following an operation, and his ashes were interred at Holder's Green Crematorium on Jan. 8th. Though Tweedy published no large work he had written a great deal, as the following list of his publications shows. Possibly his best-known original observation was that the physiological 'lens star' could be recognized clinically. He also advanced a theory as to the causation of conical cornea being due to developmental defect and brought the idea before the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom, in whose *Transactions* (xii, 67) it appears. He was also a pioneer in practising the extraction of immature cataracts. There are several portraits of him in the College Library, the largest a photograph from a portrait by Frank B. Salisbury. PUBLICATIONS: "On a Visible Stellation of the Normal and of the Cataractous Crystalline Lens of the Human Eye," - *Royal London Ophthal. Hosp. Rep.*, 1876, viii, 24. This paper, accompanied by drawings, attracted a good deal of attention and was a sequel to one published in the *Lancet*, 1871, ii, 776. "On an Improved Optometer for Estimating the Degree of Abnormal Regular Astigmatism," 8vo, illustrated, London, 1876; reprinted from *Lancet*, 1876, ii, 604. "Treatment of Hardness of the Eyeball by Mydriatics and Myotics." *Practitioner*, 1883, xxxi, 321. "On an Improved Optometer for Estimating the Degree of Astigmatism and other Errors of Refraction." *Lancet*, 1886, i, 777. "On the Meaning of the Words 'Nyctalopia' and 'Hemeralopia' as disclosed by an Examination of the Diseases described under these Terms by the Ancient and Modern Medical Authors," 12mo, London, 1882; reprinted from *Royal London Ophthal. Hosp. Rep*., 1882, x, 413. "On a Case of Large Orbital and Intracranial Ivory Exostosis," 8vo, London, 1882; reprinted from *Royal London Ophthal. Hosp. Rep.,* 1882, x, 303. "An Inaugural Address delivered in University College, London, on October 1st, at the Opening of the Session 1883-4," 8vo, London, 1883; reprinted from *Lancet*, 1883, ii, 577. "Lectures on the Ætiology of Constitutional Diseases of the Eye," 12mo, London, 1887; reprinted from *Lancet*, 1887, i, 57. "Extraction of Immature Cataract." - *Lancet*, 1888, i, 966, "On Some Phases of the Constitutional History of the College of Suregons," 8vo, London, 1889; reprinted from *Lancet*, 1889, i, 957, 1112. "On Cicatricial Ectropion of the Lower Lid following Caries of the Orbit," 8vo, illustrated, London, 1890; reprinted from *Ophthal. Soc. Trans.*, 1890, x, 211. "The Physical Factor in Conical Cornea," 8vo, London, 1892; reprinted from *Ophthal. Soc. Trans*., 1892, xii, 67. "The Relation of Ophthalmology to General Medicine and Surgery and to Public Health" (Presidential Address to the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom), 8vo, London, 1904; reprinted from *Ophthal. Soc. Trans.*, 1904, xxiv, 1. *A Clinical Lecture on the Forms of Conjunctivitis, with Special Reference to the Treatment of Ophtalmia Neonatorum*, 8vo, London, 1895. *An Address delivered by the President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in Norwich Cathedral on the Occasion of the Unveiling of the William Cadge Memorial Window on the 6th of December,* 1904. *The Hunterian Oration delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England on the 14th of February, 1905,* 8vo, London, 1905. *An Address to Medical Students delivered at University College Hospital Medical School on the 1st of October, 1909, on the Occasion of the Opening of the Winter Session,* 8vo, London, 1909. "Presidential Address on the Influence of Social and Legal Restrictions on Medical Practice. Delivered before the Medico-Legal Society on the 25th October, 1910," 8vo, London, 1910; reprinted from *Medical Mag*., 1910, xix, 701. "The Mutual Relations and Influence of Law and Medicine. A Presidential Address," 8vo, London, 1910; reprinted from *Trans. Medico-Legal Soc*., 1910, vii, 1. *The Medical Tradition; being the Annual Oration delivered before the Medical Society of London on May 12th*, 1919, 8vo, London, 1920. *The Surgical Tradition; being the First Thomas Vicary Lecture delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons of England, on December 3rd*, 1919, 8vo, London, 1920. "Eyelids," "Cornea," and "Sclerotic," in Heath's *Dictionary of Practical Surgery*. "Cataract," "Hemeralopia," "Nyctalpoia," and "Pupil," in Quain's *Dictionary of Medicine*, "Diseases of the Skin" in Roberts's *Text-book of Medicine*.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000218
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Carter, Robert Brudenell (1828 - 1918)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-02-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373042373042
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Little Wittenham, Berkshire, on October 2nd, 1828, traced his descent from Thomas Carter, armiger, of Higham, Bedfordshire, who lived in the reign of Edward IV. When he had authenticated his descent to the satisfaction of the Heralds’ College, and established his right to armorial bearings, he became qualified in the Order of St John of Jerusalem to be promoted from a Knight of Grace to a Knight of Justice. A later ancestor, the Rev Nicolas Carter, preached before the Long Parliament. His grandfather, the Rev Henry Carter, was Rector of Lower Wittenham for fifty-seven years. The sister of his grandfather was Elizabeth Carter (*Dict. Nat. Biog.*), the Greek scholar who translated Epictetus, and was the friend of Johnson, Edmund Burke, and Horace Walpole. His father, Major Henry Carter, Royal Marines, and his wife were staying with the grandfather when he was born. He was christened Robert Brudenell, the name of his father’s neighbour and lifelong friend Robert, sixth Earl of Cardigan, the father of Lord Cardigan of the Light Brigade. Carter’s mother died soon after his birth, and he was brought up by Mrs Fearne. After serving an apprenticeship to a general practitioner, he entered the London Hospital at the age of 19, and qualified in 1851. He then acted as an assistant to a practitioner in Leytonstone, during which he made his first publication, *The Pathology and Treatment of Hysteria* (1853). In 1854 he moved to Putney and published a second book, on *The Influence of Education and Training in Preventing Diseases of the Nervous System*. One may smile at the subjects adopted by a young medical assistant, but his account of hysteria, which he based upon the teaching of Stephen Mackenzie, to whose memory he dedicated the book, shows remarkable literary talent together with much observation, apparently made during his apprenticeship in the country. The obituary in *The Times* noted this first evidence of his talent. With the Crimean War he volunteered and was appointed a staff surgeon in Turkey, where he came under the notice of W H Russell, correspondent of *The Times*; with this introduction he wrote letters to *The Times* from the front, which subsequently determined his future; also letters and contributions to the *Lancet*. He received both the English and Turkish War Medals. On his return he moved from Putney to Fulham, then to Nottingham for five years. There in 1859 he took part in founding the Nottingham Eye Infirmary, and at the same time began to direct special attention to ophthalmology. Once again, in 1862, he moved to Stroud to a partnership with George Samuel Gregory, and had a share in establishing the Gloucestershire Eye Institution. Meanwhile he published *The Physiological Influence of Certain Methods of Teaching, The Artificial Production of Stupidity, The Principle of Early Medical Education, The Marvellous*. In spite of all this, he said: “Nevertheless I was able to go up from my country practice for the FRCS examination without either rest for study or coaching – and to pass.” He married at the age of 40, and looking around for better opportunities he applied to *The Times*. Concerning this crisis he referred to himself in a letter to the *Lancet* as “a conspicuously unsuccessful general practitioner in the country.” His Crimean letters were looked up, and as a result he was put upon the editorial staff. This determined him to settle in London. In the following year, 1869, he was appointed Surgeon to the Royal Eye Hospital, Southwark, and held the post until 1877. He became Ophthalmic Surgeon to St George’s Hospital in 1870 in succession to Henry Power (qv), and was appointed Consulting Surgeon in 1893. His literary abilities gave distinction to his writing on ophthalmology, and his *Students’ Manual* was the most widely used of the day. Another of his appointments was that of Ophthalmic Surgeon to the National Hospital for Paralysis and Epilepsy. In addition to *The Times* Carter joined the staff of the *Lancet*, and at that time James Wakley (qv) was desirous of initiating the ‘Hospital Sunday’. Carter wrote on this and also in *The Times*. On the start of the Mansion House Fund Carter was elected a member of the first Council. He was Hunterian Professor at the College in 1876-1877; Orator in 1874; Lettsomian Lecturer in 1884, and President in 1886, of the Medical Society of London. From 1887-1900 he was the representative of the Apothecaries’ Society on the General Medical Council, and was instrumental in introducing a modification in the procedure of that body, whereby before deciding upon an offence an interval of probation might be afforded by postponing a definite decision until the following session. But it was his position on the staff of *The Times* which enabled him to place the views of the medical profession on subjects of the day before the general public, and the lucidity of his style always enabled him to do so with effect. Said the *Lancet*: “Eloquent, incisive, more than occasionally bitter, he was also a generous writer, and few members of the Medical Profession have wielded greater power with the pen, while he possessed the equally valuable gift of being able to speak in public with the same command of language and high level of literary style. Carter’s ‘leaders’ belong to an older day; he used the Latin ‘period’ and a rotund full-dress method; but any appearance of pomposity thus given to his writings was purely superficial; no writer of to-day is more fastidious than was Carter in his choice of language, or more resolutely averse from the use of ‘stale metaphors, trite tags and obvious morals’.” Although his handwriting was good, he was the first on *The Times* to use a typewriter. Carter sat on the first London County Council, and obtained a special committee to report upon the Care of the Insane. The Council did not accept the recommendations, and he was not re-elected. At the age of 87 he volunteered to write again for the *Lancet* whilst the staff were depleted by the War. He died at his house on Clapham Common on October 23rd, 1918, in his ninety-first year, and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery. There is a portrait of him by ‘Stuff’ in the *Vanity Fair Album* wearing two pairs of spectacles, a habit also noted by ‘Jehu Junior’ in the biographical note, *Vanity Fair*, April 9th, 1892. There is also a portrait in the *Leicester Provincial Medical Journal*, 1890. Carter was twice married: (i) to Helen Ann Beauchamp, daughter of John Becher, and (ii) to Rachel Elizabeth, daughter of Stephen Hallpike, and widow of Walter Browne. He had four sons. Publications:– *On the Pathology and Treatment of Hysteria*, London, 1853. *On the Influence of Education and Training in Preventing Diseases of the Nervous System*, London, 1855. “Hints on the Diagnosis of Eye Disease,” Dublin, 1865; reprinted from *Dublin Quart. Jour. Med. Sci.*, 1865. “The Training of the Mind for the Study of Medicine” (Address at St George’s Hospital), London, 1873. *A Practical Treatise on Diseases of the Eye*, with plates, Philadelphia, 1875. Translations of Schaller on “Ocular Defects”, 1869, and of Zänder on “The Ophthalmoscope”, 1864. Contributions to Holmes’s *System of Surgery*, and to Quain’s *Dictionary of Medicine*. *Ophthalmic Surgery* (with W A Frost), 1887; 2nd ed. 1888. *On Defects of Vision remediable by Optical Appliances* (Hunterian Lecture RCS), London, 1877. *Eyesight Good and Bad.* A treatise on the exercise and preservation of vision, London, 1880; translated into German, Berlin, 1884. Cantor Lectures on “Colour Blindness” delivered at the Society of Arts, London, 1881. “Eyesight in Civilization,” London, 1884; reprinted from *The Times*, 1884. “The Modern Operations for Cataract” (Lettsomian Lectures, Medical Society of London), London, 1884. “Eyesight in Schools” (Lecture before the Medical Officers of Schools), London, 1885; reprinted from *Med. Times and Gaz.*, 1885. “On Retrobulbar Incision of the Optic Nerve in Cases of Swollen Disc.” – *Brain*, 1887, x, 199. “On the Management of Severe Injuries to the Eye.” – *Clin. Jour.*, 1894, iv, 317. *Sight and Hearing in Childhood* (with A H Cheatle), London, 1903. *Doctors and their Work; or Medicine, Quackery and Disease*, London, 1903. “Medical Ophthalmology” in Allbutt’s *System of Medicine*, vi.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000859
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cartwright, Samuel (1815 - 1891)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Carver, Edmund (1824 - 1904)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bennett, William Charles Storer (1852 - 1900)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bennett, William Edward (1865 - 1927)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bergmann, Ernst von (1836 - 1907)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-02-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373047373047
Occupation General surgeon
Details Came of a family of Lutheran Pastors, of long standing in East Prussia and Livonia, his father being Pastor of Rujen in Livonia; but his mother, having to take refuge from an epidemic, he was born at Riga, then the capital of the Russian Baltic Provinces, in December, 1836. On leaving school he failed to get permission from the Czar to enter the theological faculty, so he matriculated in the medical faculty of the Germano-Russian University of Dorpat in 1854. He graduated in 1860 with a “Dissertation on the Passage of the Balsams of Copaiba and Cubebs into the Urine”. After visits to German Hospitals he settled down in Dorpat as a Clinical Assistant and qualified as Dozent in Surgery in 1863. Inspired by the renown of Pirogoff, he volunteered for employment in the Prussian and Austrian War of 1866, and after the battle of Königgrätz, which ended the fighting, was appointed to a Prussian Lazaret. Later he returned to Dorpat for the autumn session. Similarly he served as Chef-Artz at Base Hospitals in Alsace, at Mannheim, and Carlsruhe during the Franco-German War of 1870-1871. Upon this in 1871 followed his appointment to the Professorship of Surgery at Dorpat in succession to Adelmann. When in April, 1877, Russia declared war upon Turkey, Bergmann became Surgeon Consultant to the Army of the Danube invading Roumania. During the campaign up to the battle of Plevna he had the additional advantage of treating wounded under the better conditions supplied by the Baltic Hospital of the Red Cross. He then made a name for himself in the History of Military Surgery by adopting Lister’s antiseptic methods for the first time, for Lister’s proposals had been ignored in the Franco-German War. Moreover, Larrey’s immediate amputation had dropped out of use, being rendered largely impracticable by the wider manoeuvres of war. Bergmann had learnt the principles of Listerian surgery through Nussbaum and Richard Volkmann, and thus replaced the vague ideas concerning putridity and fermentations, about which Bergmann himself had written in 1865. Statistics from the American Civil War stated that of 1000 gunshot wounds of the knee-joint 837 died, of 1000 gunshot wounds of the elbow 194 died. After the battle of Gorni-Dubnik Bergmann dressed 15 cases of gunshot fractures involving the knee-joint, and that for the first time, some thirty to sixty hours after the injury, by thoroughly exploring and cleaning the wound and joint, using as fluid 5 per cent carbolic acid; 8 healed without suppuration, or as good as none; in 7 cases there was suppuration, in 2 slight, in 5 severe and prolonged; 2 dressed forty-eight and sixty hours after wounding underwent secondary amputation through the thigh and recovered. One dressed forty-eight hours after the injury, suffered from pyaemia, underwent secondary amputation, and died. There was much limitation of movement in all the healed cases, in many ankylosis. Among a more inclusive number of 59, 30 healed, 2 after secondary amputations; 24 died, 9 of whom had been amputated; and 5 cases were lost sight of. Even so, this was an enormous advance both in respect to the saving of life, and avoidance of amputation. Bergmann’s service was cut short by severe dysentery complicated by pyaemia. Upon his recovery he accepted the call to become Professor of Surgery at Würzburg, the title of his inaugural lecture in October, 1878, being “The Treatment of Gunshot Wounds of the Knee-joint in War”. There he remained until 1882, when the call to become Professor of Surgery at the Universität’s Klinik in Berlin placed him in the highest rank of German surgeons. Later he was raised to Geheimrath. Bergmann’s second memorial in the history of surgery is the establishment of the aseptic method. Lister’s antiseptic method reached its acme of fame and of general use on the occasion of the 7th International Congress held in London in 1881. After Koch’s report upon the effect of sublimate in destroying anthrax bacilli, Bergmann substituted for carbolic acid the use of perchloride of mercury. The further work of Koch at the Gesundheit’s Amt in Berlin introduced the bacteriological apparatus necessary to produce sterilization by heat. Numbers of Koch’s pupils explored all possible modes of infection of wounds, through the surgeon and his assistants, through the patient’s skin, the dressings, the hospital, the operating theatre, instruments, and apparatus, also the means of sterilizing by steam under pressure, by boiling water, to which salt or bicarbonate of soda was added. Neuber began, at a special hospital in Kiel, to attain sterility in everything coming in contact with a wound. Bergmann in his Klinik, together with his Assistant, Schimmelbusch, and others, adapted bacteriological apparatus and methods to the purposes of surgery. Thus at the 10th International Medical Congress at Berlin in July, 1890, Bergmann and Schimmelbusch demonstrated the methods which ensured sterility of dressing and apparatus, using the bacillus of blue pus as the naked-eye indicator. The Preface by Bergmann to the book by Schimmelbusch begins: “During the 10th International Medical Congress the undersigned exhibited in the Klinik the apparatus for the sterilization of dressings, and entrusted his surgical Assistant, Dr C S Schimmelbusch, with the demonstration of their efficacy against the micro-organisms which affect the course of healing and the treatment of wounds”. The illness and death of Frederick, Crown Prince and Kaiser, was a severe trial and a grave misfortune to Bergmann. The Crown Prince began to suffer from hoarseness in January, 1887. At the beginning of the following March, Gerhardt saw an irregular projection of the left vocal cord and on the diagnosis of a polypoid thickening the galvano-cautery was applied. There followed a further growth and a diminution of movement of the cord. On May 15th epithelioma was definitely diagnosed, and in consultation on May 16th Bergmann recommended laryngofissure and the removal of the affected cord, also possibly part of the thyroid cartilage if involved. It was common knowledge that Hahn in Berlin had successfully operated upon Montague Williams (*Dict Nat Biog*) in that way for the same disease. On May 18th Tobold confirmed the recommendation, and to the proposed operation the Crown Prince agreed, using the words, “Fort muss die Schwellung auf jeden Fall” (Buchholtz, s 462). The operation was fixed for the morning of May 21st, the Crown Princess, the promoter of nursing in Germany, in full accord and supervising preparations. Throughout the operation of complete laryngectomy had been specifically excluded. However, by a telegram sent to Queen Victoria, Morrell Mackenzie had been summoned, and he arrived at 5 pm on the 20th. He brought no instruments with him, and if the use of strange instruments had anything to do with his primary mistakes, quite apart from his persistence in them subsequently, then upon him lay the responsibility. At the consultation held at 6 pm immediately upon his arrival Mackenzie gave the opinion that the growth was of a non-malignant polypous or fibromatous nature. Gerhardt objected on the ground of his previous observations of the fixation of the vocal cord. Mackenzie proposed to nip off a bit for examination, to which Bergmann objected as complicating the operation and its result. On the following day Mackenzie punched off what proved to be a bit of normal mucous membrane, and there was afterwards visible a wound of the *right* vocal cord which had previously been seen to be quite sound. On June 8th, in the absence of Gerhardt, Mackenzie removed two superficial bits of tissue which Virchow reported to be specimens of ‘pachydermia’. As to Virchow’s aloofness in using an indefinite term ‘pachydermia’ instead of ‘leukoplakia’, already defined as a precursor of epithelioma, there is to be noted that the galvano-cautery had already been applied, and there was the uncertainty as to what Mackenzie had actually removed. As far as it went it was claimed for Virchow’s report that it favoured the diagnosis of a non-cancerous growth. Mackenzie persisted in making optimistic assertions as regards prognosis, whilst attributing the fixation of the cord and the steady progress of the disease to perichondritis. Even when Bramann, Bergmann’s first assistant, had been compelled to perform tracheotomy at San Remo on Feb 9th, 1888, Mackenzie continued to make and publish what he afterwards printed in his *Frederick the Noble* about the diagnosis and the adoption of the tracheotomy. Bergmann was urged to go to San Remo, where he arrived on Feb 11th, and spent miserable days arguing with Mackenzie over tracheotomy tubes (*see* his Diary in Buchholtz). After the return to Berlin on March 10th a piece of necrosed cartilage was coughed up, attributed by Mackenzie to perichondritis, but on April 12th Mackenzie had to send to Bergmann for help. When he arrived with Bramann they found the patient nearly asphyxiated, but when another tube was skilfully inserted the asphyxia was relieved and life was prolonged for a further six weeks. A local post-mortem examination was made on June 30th which fully confirmed the correctness of the original diagnosis. Henry Butlin (qv) on November 21st, 1888, addressed a letter to Bergmann on behalf of himself and colleagues expressing sympathy and appreciation. The College conferred the Honorary Fellowship on Bergmann on July 25th, 1900. His speech on receiving the diploma, delivered in vigorous German, was an *apologia pro vita sua*. Bergmann, in conjunction with his assistants, made a great number of contributions to surgery, including articles in the *Deutsche Chirurgie*. He continued active as the Professor of Surgery to the age of 70; towards the end it was noticed that his hand was becoming shaky. His remarkable position at the head of German surgery of his day is shown by the Festschrift in commemoration of his 70th birthday which fills two volumes of the *Archiv für klinische Chirurgie* (1906, lxxxi, with portrait), the first composed of contributions by friends and colleagues, the second volume by assistants and pupils. A fine portrait is included. He died at Wiesbaden on March 25th, 1907, after undergoing two operations for intestinal obstruction, due, as was shown at the post-mortem examination, to an inflammatory stricture of the splenic flexure of the colon. There was a State Funeral at Potsdam. Publications:– *Das putride Gift und die putride Intoxication*, Dorpat, 1868. *Die Resultate des Gelenkresectionen*, Giessen, 1874. “Die Diagnose der traumatischen Meningitis.” – *Volkmann’s Sammlung, klin. Vortr.*, 1876, No. 101, 837. “Kopfverletzüngen.” – *Pitha’s Handbuch*, 1873, Bd. iii, Abt. 1. *Die Behandlung der Schusswunden der Kniegelenks im Kriege*, Stuttgart, 1878, 274, 1. “Die Lehre von den Kopfverletzungen.” – Billroth und Leuke: *Deutsche Chirurgie*, 1880, Lief. 30. “Die Hirnverletzungen.” – *Volkmann’s Sammlung*, 1881, No. 190. “Die Erkrankungen der Lymphdrüsen.” – Gerhardt’s *Kinderkrankheiten*, 1882, Bd. vi, Abt 1. “Die isolerten Unterbindungen der Vena femoralis communis.” –* Würzburg Universität Festschrift*, 1882, Bd. i. Von Bergmann, E, und O Angerer: “Das Verhältniss des Ferment-intoxication zur Septicæmie.” – *Würzburg Universität Festchrift*, 1882. *Die Schicksale der Transfusion im letzten Decennium*, Berlin, 1883. “Die chirurgische Behandlung von Hirnkrankheiten.” – *v. Langenbeck’s Arch.*, 1888, 36, 2 Auf., 1889; 3 Auf., 1899. “Die chirurgische Behandlung der Hirngeschwülste.” – *Volkmann’s Sammlung*, N.F. 200, C 57. “Die Behandlung der Lupus mit dem Koch’schen Mittel.” – *Volkmann’s Sammlung*, N.F., 22, C 7. *Anleitung zur aseptischen Wundbehandlung von Dr. C. Schimmelbusch*. Mit einem Vorwort des Herrn Geheimrath Professor E. von Bergmann, Berlin, 1892. Von Bergmann, Von Bruns, und Von Mikulicz:– *Handbuch der praktischen Chirurgie*, 1902. *Arch. f. klin. Chir.*, 1906, Bd. lxxxi, Th. I, II.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000864
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bernard, Ralph Montague (1816 - 1871)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Berney, Edward ( - 1890)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-02-25 2013-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373049373049
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at Guy's Hospital. He practised at 73 High Street, Croydon, and died at his residence, Kirby Bedon, Lower Addiscombe Road, Croydon, in the period between November, 1889, and November, 1890.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000866
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Berry, Samuel (1808 - 1887)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Duthie, Robert Buchan (1925 - 2005)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-08-15 2007-08-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372563372563
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Robert Duthie was Nuffield professor of orthopaedic surgery at Oxford University. He was born in Detroit, USA, on 4 May 1925, the second son of James Andrew Duthie, an engineer with the Ford Motor Company, and Elizabeth Jean née Hunter. He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and King Edward VI Grammar School Chelmsford, Essex, before reading medicine at Edinburgh University, where he won the Robert Jones prize. After qualifying in 1948, he spent a year as orthopaedic house surgeon to Sir Walter Mercer, which determined his decision to follow an orthopaedic career. Following National Service as a captain in the RAMC in Malaya he returned to Edinburgh as an orthopaedic registrar at the Royal Infirmary, before becoming a senior registrar at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in London. Then followed two years as the Crichton research scholar in Edinburgh, researching the histochemistry of osteogenesis, for which he was awarded the ChM with gold medal. Duthie was appointed chairman of orthopaedic surgery at the University of Rochester, New York, and surgeon in chief at the Strong Memorial Hospital. In 1966 he returned to the UK on his appointment to the Nuffield chair of orthopaedics in Oxford, with a professorial fellowship at Worcester College. There he developed structural undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and training programmes, and encouraged active participation in research, establishing collaborative clinical and research units in the management of haemophilia, arthritis, metabolic bone disease and bioengineering. His textbook on haemophilia was widely recognised and *Mercer’s Orthopaedic surgery* under his editorship retained its place as a leading orthopaedic textbook. In addition he published many papers in collaboration with his juniors and served on the editorial boards of the *Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery* and the *British Journal of Surgery*. In 1971 he was appointed adviser in orthopaedics and trauma surgery to the Department of Health and Social Security, and in 1973 chairman of the advisory committee for research into artificial limbs and was appointed a member of the Royal Commission on Civil Liability and Personal Injury. Duthie believed that the English College had undue influence when compared with its counterpart in Edinburgh, to which he devoted lifelong loyalty, encouraging Oxford trainees to take the Edinburgh rather than the English fellowship. When he became president of the British Orthopaedic Association in 1984 he promoted a fundraising campaign, which afterwards became the Wishbone Trust, to raise money for the funding of a separate College of Othopaedic Surgery, an aspiration with recurs from time to time in some quarters. In 1956 Robert Duthie married Alison Ann Macpherson Kittemaster, a nurse to whom he remained devoted, both occupying the same old people’s home towards the end of their lives. They had two sons and two daughters. He included tennis, gardening and sailing among his recreations. He died on Christmas Day 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000377
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Roaf, Robert (1913 - 2007)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-08-16 2007-12-12
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372564372564
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Robert Roaf was a distinguished orthopaedic surgeon and one of the few remaining pre-war Himalayan climbers. He was born into a Canadian academic family in Golders Green, London, on 25 April 1913, the second son of Herbert Eldon Roaf, professor of physiology at Liverpool, and Beatrice Sophia, the daughter of Sir William Herdman, foundation professor of zoology at Liverpool University. The Roaf family hailed from Kent, and one had been a ships’ carpenter at Trafalgar. Pneumonia in childhood left Robert with asthma, but this did not stop him from winning a scholarship to Winchester, or later on the Frazer scholarship and domus exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford. There he gained a first in the final honour school of physiology and biochemistry, though in later years he confessed to finding the lectures boring. He spent his vacations climbing in the Alps. In 1933 a chance encounter with the mountaineer and writer Marco Pallis was to have a lasting influence on Roaf’s life. Two years later Roaf was delegated to a conference in the Soviet Union and, just before his departure, Pallis invited him to join his next climbing expedition in Sikkim and Tibet. The Himalayan expedition, which included the explorer Freddie Spencer Chapman, was modest, but Roaf, as medical officer, had to learn Tibetan in order to cope with the patients he was invited to treat, many of whom suffered from disorders long since extinct in England. He returned to Liverpool to complete his training. Although he was by now a Quaker and a pacifist, the air raids on Liverpool made him decide that he could not eat food that had been brought to England at the expense of so many sailors’ lives. He joined the Merchant Navy as a ship’s surgeon, but undulant fever invalided him out in 1943 and he moved to the emergency hospital in Winwick, Cheshire. In 1946 he was appointed as an assistant surgeon at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary. The following year he moved to the Orthopaedic Hospital, Oswestry. There he developed new methods for treating scoliosis. In 1952 he set up a training programme in Delhi, as part of the Colombo Plan, and on his return, in 1955, was appointed director of clinical studies and research at Oswestry. In 1963 he became professor of orthopaedics in Liverpool. There he encouraged his students to do something adventurous and imaginative during their electives. He continued to make overseas trips, especially to the Himalayas, long after he retired. He published extensively, including *Scoliosis* (Edinburgh/London, E & S Livingstone, 1966), *Spinal deformities* (Tunbridge wells, Pitman Medical, 1977), *Textbook of orthopaedic nursing* (Oxford, Blackwell Scientific, 1971) and *The paralysed patient* (Oxford, Blackwell Scientific, 1977). He married Ceinwen Roberts in 1939, who predeceased him by one week. They had two sons and two daughters. Roaf died aged 93 on 16 February 2007.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000380
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Milton, Catherine Maureen (1951 - 2003)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Neil Weir
Publication Date 2007-08-16 2009-05-07
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372565372565
Occupation Otolaryngologist ENT surgeon
Details Catherine Milton was a consultant otolaryngologist at Kent and Sussex Hospital, Tunbridge Wells. She was born in Bristol on 6 April 1951, the middle of three children. Her brothers were Kevin and Richard. Her parents, Maureen and Robert, were both primary school teachers. The family moved in Catherine’s early teens to Littlehampton in West Sussex, her parents pursuing new opportunities at the local primary school. Catherine attended Worthing High School for Girls from 1962 to 1969 and subsequently read zoology at King’s College, London, graduating with a BSc honours degree in 1972. From there Catherine transferred to medicine, to the Middlesex Hospital, where she qualified in 1977. As part of her student training at the Middlesex she was attached to the Ear, Nose and Throat department under Sir Douglas Ranger, Dick Williams and Garfield-Davies, kindling her interest in ENT. Catherine then secured a training post at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital in Gray’s Inn Road, where Sir Donald Harrison was the patriarchal head of department. Catherine was one of three mercurial female senior surgical trainees at Gray’s Inn Road at this time. Of the others, Vicky Moore-Gillon was later appointed to St George’s, London, and Valerie Lund became chair of ENT at the Institute of Laryngology and Otology. Catherine was subsequently a senior registrar at St George’s Hospital, where in addition to advancing her surgical training, Brian Pickard, the senior surgeon in the department, enthused Catherine with his love of flying. She embarked on, but never completed, her private pilots licence. Following a six month sabbatical in Hillbrow Hospital, South Africa, with Theo Gregor, she returned to the UK and was appointed to her consultant point at the Kent and Sussex Hospital in Tunbridge Wells, joining Robert Sergeant. Catherine’s main interests lay within her paediatric practice, particularly otology. Outside medicine, Catherine maintained her earlier interest in zoology and kept a keen interest in animal husbandry, accumulating copious dogs, Jacob sheep, Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, New Forest ponies and a number of chipmunks, the latter she had inherited from Donald and Audrey Harrison. Catherine married a medical school classmate, Graham Venn, later a cardiothoracic surgeon at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, in 1979 and the couple had two children. James, the elder, followed his mother’s leanings, studying zoology at University College London before converting to law and being called to the Bar in 2006. Jonathan, following a music exhibition at Tonbridge School, studied commercial music at Leeds and Cambridge. The marriage ultimately ended in 2002. Catherine retired prematurely from practice at 50 with progressive ill health, finding the stresses of a changing and pressing surgical practice increasingly arduous. Following her retirement her health deteriorated and, following a short illness, Catherine died of hepatic failure with concomitant breast carcinoma on 18 August 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000381
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-08-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372566372566
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Christopher Jefferiss was a consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon in Devon. He was the son of Derek Jefferiss, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist in Exeter. Like his father, he was an undergraduate at the Middlesex Hospital, where he qualified in 1964. He held a variety of junior posts at the Middlesex, Weymouth and District, and the Royal Devon and Exeter hospitals, before becoming a senior house officer at the Princess Elizabeth Orthopaedic Hospital in Exeter in 1970, gaining the FRCS in the same year. He then abandoned his intention of becoming an obstetrician and gynaecologist in favour of orthopaedics, becoming successively registrar, senior registrar and finally consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at the Princess Elizabeth and Royal Devon and Exeter hospitals, eventually specialising in the surgery of the hand and the foot. He was an active member of the Hand Society and also the British Society for the Surgery of the Foot, and published 14 papers as author and co-author, mostly to do with the hand. Christopher played a leading part in the postgraduate orthopaedic training programme in Exeter. He became lead clinician in orthopaedics in 1996, and in 1997 clinical director for trauma, orthopaedics and rheumatology. In 2001 he was awarded a certificate of commendation by the BMA and the chairman’s award from the Devon and Exeter NHS Trust in recognition of his outstanding service. He was much sought after as a medico-legal specialist and was regarded by all as a man of great integrity and wisdom. He died on 26 November 2004 from a cerebellar tumour, and is survived by his wife Madlen, a former Bart’s theatre sister and by their three children, Fred, Lizzie and Emily.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000382
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Howat, Douglas Donald Currie (1920 - 2006)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-08-23 2008-12-05
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/372568372568
Occupation Anaesthetist
Details Douglas Donald Currie Howat was a consultant anaesthetist at St George’s Hospital, London. He was born on 10 January 1920, in Denholm in Roxburghshire on the Scottish borders. His grandfather ran a muslin factory in Glasgow, but his father, Reginald Douglas Howat, preferred the life of a country gentleman and had become a general practitioner. His mother, Christine Evelyn née Ireland, came from a long line of Church of Scotland ministers. His father soon left Scotland for Bradford, where he was an assistant medical officer of health. When Douglas was six years old the family moved to London, and, at the age of eight, he gained a scholarship to Dulwich College. An only child, Douglas’ childhood was, by his own admission, lonely, but rather than dwelling on his solitude, he developed considerable self-sufficiency, exploring London on long cycle rides and reading voraciously. He greatly enjoyed being sent to Scotland for his holidays. At the age of 16 he was expected to choose a profession. He thought of becoming a barrister, but his father claimed he could not afford this and suggested he do medicine, as he knew the dean of St George’s Medical School who would accept him. Douglas switched to science and took his first MB from school, won a scholarship, and was accepted by King’s College to study medicine. At King’s, he met Joan Overstall, then secretary to the University Conservative Society. She was from Lancashire, reading French, Italian and law. They kept in touch during his clinical years at St George's Hospital and in 1943, after Douglas qualified, they married. After he qualified, he had a short flirtation with medicine and gained the MRCP, but changed to surgery. He completed a resident surgical officer post in Slough, before accepting an anaesthetist post at St George’s, having enjoyed his student experience in this field under the inspiration of Joseph Blomfield, who was noted for supervising his students administering ether whilst holding a cup of tea and a cigarette in his hands. Douglas passed the diploma in anaesthetics, was called up into the RAF and served at Cosford, being demobilized in 1948. By this time his three children had been born, Catherine (1944), David (1946) and Michael (1947). Joan always fully shared in Douglas’ professional life. Douglas continued his anaesthetic training at St George’s, working half his time at the Brompton Hospital with anaesthetists Ruth Mansfield and Bernard Lucas and surgeons Brock, Cleland, Price Thomas, Barrett and Tubbs. He was appointed as a consultant anaesthetist in Nottingham in a tuberculosis unit, but did not settle there and soon returned to London, to a post where he worked at Woolwich, Lewisham and Maidstone, until appointed to St George’s, where he started cardiac anaesthesia, working with Charles Drew. Later he worked extensively with Rodney (later Lord) Smith in pancreatico-biliary surgery. Meanwhile, Douglas was extending his horizons, attending the Royal Society of Medicine regularly, and he started travelling overseas, reading papers at the Second World Congress of Societies of Anaesthesiologists in Toronto and visiting hospitals and lecturing in Europe and USA. At home he served as vice-dean at St George’s and chaired the regional postgraduate advisory committee and became examiner for the fellowship at the Faculty of Anaesthetists. In 1965 he took on the highly responsible task of organising secretary for the Fourth World Congress of Societies of Anaesthesiologists, held in 1968 in London. Douglas subsequently held office in all the important anaesthetic organisations in the UK. He was president of the section of anaesthetics of the Royal Society of Medicine (from 1976 to 1977) and its international affairs secretary. In the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland he was honorary treasurer (from 1969 to 1974), vice-president (1974 to 1976) and an honorary member (1986). He became regional adviser to the Faculty of Anaesthetists, served on the board of the Faculty of Anaesthetists of the Royal College of Surgeons, becoming vice-dean, quietly revolutionising this rather vaguely defined post. His contribution to the College was noted by his being elected FRCS in 1984. In 1979 he delivered the biennial Frederic Hewitt memorial lecture. Douglas became extensively involved in international affairs. Not only his linguistic skill but even more his wise counsel was immensely valuable. He had an ability to establish rapport with all sorts of people and where diplomacy was needed, he was asked to go. From 1976 to 1980 he was consecutively chairman of the executive committee of the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiology and its vice-president, but it is as a European figure that he is best known. As early as 1966 he was, with members of the Royal College of Physicians, one of the UK representatives considering the implications of Britain joining the European Economic Community. When Britain eventually joined in 1973 he continued to represent British anaesthesia on the council of the European Union of Medical Specialists and chaired its anaesthetic monospecialist committee. He was involved with the foundation of the European Academy of Anaesthesia that notably strengthened the links with our overseas colleagues and established anaesthesia as a major specialty in countries where this had not before been the case. Douglas’ childhood interests continued throughout his life. He was always a great reader, though long solitary walks in the Chilterns succeeded long cycle rides in London and these he meticulously recorded in a diary. The Times crossword, chess, history of anaesthesia and the music of Beethoven were added. In 1984 Douglas retired from St George’s and this gave him more time to pursue his interest in the history of medicine. A steady stream of small research projects were reported at professional meetings, always in an entertaining way. He was president of the History of Anaesthesia Society during 1993. Douglas died on 15 November 2006, following gall-bladder surgery, a year and nine months after Joan. He had achieved much. He worked in an unobtrusive yet effective way, never losing his sense of humour, however provoked. He was just as happy carrying out the mundane chores as the most prestigious ones, indeed he said he enjoyed being given a job to do, but not becoming a figurehead. Although a national and international figure, he never forgot that the prime responsibility of a clinician is to serve his patients with skill and knowledge, and to support his surgeons and his trainees in all their endeavours.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000384
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching McMullin, Joseph Patrick O'Byrne (1921 - 2003)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-12-19
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372502372502
Occupation General surgeon
Details Joseph Patrick O’Byrne McMullin (initially known as ‘Shos’) was a general surgeon at St Vincent’s Hospital, St Stephen’s Green/Elm Park, Dublin. He was born in 1921, the eldest son of Joseph Columba McMullin, a surgeon at the Shiel Hospital, Ballyshannon, and later county surgeon in Cavan, and Mary Frances O’Byrne. He was educated at Clongowes Wood College, for which he played scrum half, and University College Dublin. After qualifying he was a house officer at St Vincent’s, St Stephen’s Green. He then went to London, where he was casualty officer at the Westminster Hospital and surgical registrar at St John and Elizabeth’s Hospital. In 1956 he was appointed surgeon to St Vincent’s Hospital, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, from which he won a travelling scholarship to the Lahey Clinic in 1957. He was also general surgeon to St Luke’s and St Anne’s hospitals. He was president of the Irish Society of Gastroenterology from 1983 to 1984. In Dublin he was generally known to his colleagues as ‘Joe Mac’. After he retired he went to Baghdad as medical director and general/transplant surgeon at the Ibn Al Bitar Hospital until 1990. There he carried out more than 300 live donor renal transplants, as well as a large range of complicated general surgery, especially of the thyroid and biliary tree. Apart from surgery, his passion was his home, ‘Hawthorn’ in Blackrock. There he designed and built a tennis court and swimming pool, and re-roofed and redecorated the entire house with his own hands. An avid skier, he continued into his seventies, and was devoted to classical music and opera. He married Raphael Aglaia Devlin in 1949. They had two daughters, Daireen and Raphael (both nurses), and three sons, one of whom, Liam, is a general surgeon at the County Hospital, Roscommon. McMullin died on 10 May 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000315
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Innes, Alexander James (1912 - 2005)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-12-19
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372503372503
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Alexander James Innes was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Stirling Royal and Falkirk and District Royal infirmaries. His father, James Innes, of Fochabers in Moray, was a farmhand who enlisted in the Seaforth Highlanders at the age of 16 and rose to the rank of sergeant. His mother was Jessie Tulloch, a domestic servant. In 1912 the regiment was posted to Agra, in India, and Alexander was born en route in Folkestone on 5 April, the day the *Titanic* was sunk. At the outbreak of the First World War James Innes was sent to France, where he was killed in action in 1915 at Neuve Chapelle. Alexander and his mother returned to Nairn, near Inverness, where Alexander lived for the next 15 years, being educated at Rose’s Academy, where he was *dux* in 1929. He also learned to play the clarinet, flute and bagpipes. Assisted by a Kitchener scholarship, Alexander went to medical school in Edinburgh, where he graduated with honours in 1934. He then spent a short time as anatomy demonstrator before going to London to study for the FRCS, working first at the Royal Marsden and later at the Middlesex hospitals. Having passed the FRCS, he went to Leeds. He then volunteered for the RNVR and at the outbreak of the Second World War he was seconded to the Royal Marine Commando. His first active service was in Crete in 1941, when he worked in a forward tented hospital throughout the German airborne attack, and was evacuated to Egypt. In 1942 his unit was sent to the Maldives, where he dealt with an outbreak of typhus, and then on to Burma with Force Viper, working behind enemy lines sabotaging communications and oil depots. Having scuttled their boats, the unit made their way overland to Assam. On returning to the UK in 1943 he married his favourite theatre sister, Nora Louise Jenkinson, whom he had met in Leeds. On his demobilisation in 1946 he returned to Nairn, working as an orthopaedic registrar at Raigmore Hospital, Inverness. He then went on to Glasgow Royal Infirmary, where he worked as a senior registrar. In 1947 he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon to Stirling Royal Infirmary and Falkirk and District Royal Infirmary, where he remained until he retired in 1977. By then he could not walk down the street without being greeted by ex-patients. A modest man with simple interests, he travelled extensively, read widely and was a brilliant conversationalist. He died in Stirling Royal Infirmay on 9 September 2005 at the age of 93, having been predeceased by his wife. He had three children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000316
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Robertson, Douglas James (1919 - 2005)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-12-19
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/372504372504
Occupation General surgeon
Details Douglas Robertson was a consultant general surgeon at the Royal Hospital, Sheffield. He was born in London in 1919 of Scottish parents. His father, Falconer Robertson, was a banker, and his mother, Jane Mary Duff, was a teacher. Douglas was educated at the Stationers’ Company School. He entered St Bartholomew’s Hospital at the age of 17 in 1936, being interviewed by Sir William Girling Ball. He passed the Primary at the age of 20 and qualified in 1942, winning the gold medal in obstetrics and the Brackenbury prize in surgery. He was invited by Sir James Patterson Ross to be his house surgeon on the professorial unit, but Douglas had already joined the Royal Navy and soon found himself as a surgeon lieutenant on Arctic convoys. Later he was posted to Ceylon with the Fleet Air Arm. He returned to Bart’s in 1946 and at once became interested in the new specialty of vascular surgery. He was appointed second assistant to Sir Edward Tuckwell in 1947 and chief assistant to the surgical unit under Ross in 1950. Having won a travelling fellowship, he took the opportunity to visit the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Eric Hüsfeldt in Copenhagen and Sir James Learmonth in Edinburgh. He was a Hunterian Professor at the College in 1954. He was finally appointed consultant surgeon to the Royal Hospital, Sheffield in 1955. At the Royal Hospital he continued to practise a wide range of general surgery and to build up a large practice. He was secretary and later president of the Moynihan Club, and was a moving figure in establishing St Luke’s Hospice, under the aegis of Dame Cicely Saunders, the first such hospice to be set up in the provinces. He married Alison Duncombe, née Bateman, a medical social worker and had two daughters, Joanna and Fiona. He was a popular figure, clever, quick-witted, funny, mercurial and very effective. A contemporary recorded that ‘there was never any hurry or worry about his surgery’. He enjoyed driving fast cars, music, reading and walking in the hills of Galloway, where they had a second home. He died on 7 December 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000317
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Windsor, Colin William Ombler (1933 - 2005)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2007-08-29 2018-05-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372571372571
Occupation General surgeon
Details Colin Windsor was a general surgeon in Worcester. He was born on 26 February 1933 in Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire, and attended grammar schools in Kidderminster and Stourbridge. He excelled in sports, especially rugby, as well as academic subjects. Qualifying from the University of Birmingham, he did pre-registration jobs in West Bromwich and then undertook a short service commission in the Royal Navy. During this time he served on HMS *Collingwood* and HMS *Victorious* and was proud to have performed one of his first appendicectomies on the high seas. He also passed his primary FRCS during this time, having subscribed to a correspondence course. On demobilisation he undertook a short period of general practice, but in 1960 was appointed to the Birmingham surgical training circuit, where he developed an interest in gastro-intestinal surgery, being influenced by Jack Collis, Victor Brookes and John Alexander-Williams. In 1964 he gained a Fulbright scholarship to spend a year as a research fellow at Harbour Hospital, UCLA, under Marshall J Orloff, where he studied factors influencing gastric secretion as well as porto-systemic shunts. On his return to the UK he was appointed senior registrar and then lecturer in surgery, where he came under the influence of Pon d'Abreu and Geoffrey Slaney and learned skills in peripheral vascular surgery. He was awarded his masters in 1968 for his thesis on gastric secretion after massive intestinal resection and a year later was appointed consultant surgeon at Worcester Royal Infirmary, where he spent the rest of his career. Oesophageal surgery and major vascular reconstruction were established and he set up a vasectomy service to support his wife's endeavours as clinical director of family planning. With the help of Michael Baum he set up a one-stop breast clinic, aided by colleagues in radiology and pathology. He quickly developed a reputation as a first class opinion in the fields of gastro-intestinal and vascular surgery and was a fine technician to boot. He was also recognised by countless trainees as a first class teacher and educator and as a consequence his registrar job was hotly sought after. He was widely believed to be an 'ideal chief' and he acted as a role model for many who later became leaders of the profession. He was quick to recognise the potential value of minimal invasive surgery and was one of the first UK surgeons to travel to the USA to learn the emerging technique of laparoscopic cholecystectomy. He first performed this operation in Worcester in September 1990 and two days later the patient was photographed playing snooker! He was a founding member of the Society of Minimally Invasive General Surgery, which later became the Association of Laparoscopic Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. Notably uninterested in hospital politics and committee work, he was an active contributor to several professional organisations. He became a member of the Court of Examiners of the College, a regional adviser in general surgery, president of both the West Midlands Surgical Society and the West Midlands Gastroenterological Society and was active in the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. His outside interests were fly-fishing, shooting, ratting with his beloved Jack Russell terriers, rugby and fast cars. He was the loving owner of a beautifully restored 1962 Porsche 356. Married to Joan, a specialist in family planning who had been a medical student with him, he had a daughter and two sons, one of whom became a consultant surgeon. He died on 19 April 2005 in the Royal Marsden Hospital of a metastatic neuroendocrine tumour after a protracted illness.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000387
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Morrison, Andrew William (1925 - 2006)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-08-29
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372572372572
Occupation Otolaryngologist ENT surgeon
Details Andrew Morrison was born on 3 December 1925 in Huelva, southern Spain, where his father, William Andrew Morrison, was a mining engineer. His mother was Violet Mary née Common, the daughter of a dentist. The family returned to Scotland and Andrew attended Stirling High School, where he excelled both academically and in athletics, being victor ludorum several years running. He went on to study medicine at the University of Glasgow. After qualifying in 1948 he was a house surgeon at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, living in on the surgical ward for six months with only two weekends off, but he could watch the ships leaving port from the hospital window. He joined the Merchant Navy as a ship’s medical officer and sailed to South Africa and the Far East. On one occasion he performed an emergency lower-limb amputation on the deck of the ship when a member of the crew had been crushed by heavy equipment, not only operating but giving his anaesthetic. He did his National Service in the RAMC and was posted to Lubbecke, where he met Maureen Rawlings who was serving in the Control Commission, and they married in December 1950. On demobilisation he specialised in otolaryngology, and did a series of registrar posts in Carlisle and at the London Hospital, becoming senior registrar in 1956. He was appointed as a consultant to Whipps Cross in 1959 and to the London in 1964. Later he became a consultant at the Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital, where he worked from 1965 to 1979 as a lecturer at the University of London. It was a time when the surgery of the ear was evolving exponentially, thanks to precise high-speed drills and the operating microscope. Andrew became one of the exponents of this, thanks to his precise surgical skill. He was a pioneer and refiner of surgical technique for stapedectomy, publishing his series of 1,000 operations with outstanding results, and later made a study of its genetic basis. In the early 1960s, he visited the House Otologic Institute in California, where he learned the trans-labyrinthine surgical approach to the inner ear, developing this, in collaboration with T T King, the neurosurgeon, into their own technique for removing acoustic nerve tumours. Its superior results soon led it to be adopted throughout Europe and America. Over the next four decades he became pre-eminent in the surgery of the inner ear, leading on to the earliest multi-channel cochlear implantation. He headed Project Ear in the late 1970s and 1980s, developing purpose-built hardware for speech-processing, and was amongst the first to undertake multi-channel intra-cochlear electrodes. His trainees included many of today’s leading otologists and skull base surgeons. He travelled extensively, forging links with the leading otologists in the Western world, and was one of the few British surgeons to have been made an honorary member of the American Otologic Society. In his retirement and until his death, he continued his research into Ménière’s disease, determined to locate the gene responsible for this distressing condition, research which is being continued today by his co-workers, Mark Bailey in Glasgow, and his son, Gavin Morrison. Andrew was one of the first directors and a trustee of the British Academic Conferences in Otolaryngology, being its master in 1995. In the College he was a Hunterian Professor in 1966, on the Court of Examiners for the DLO and the FRCS, and on the SAC for otolaryngology. His interest in medico-legal work took him onto the council of the Medical Defence Union between 1971 and 1996. He was president of the section of otology at the Royal Society of Medicine, and a member of many prestigious organisations, including the Barany and Politzer Societies, the South African ORL, the Prosper Ménière’s Society of the USA. Ambitious, competitive and successful at work and sport, he was modest about the things he did best and was always a most jovial companion. Outside surgery, golf was his passion. His first hole in one was achieved as a schoolboy in Stirling; his second came some 50 years later. He was well known at St Andrews, Rye and Chigwell golf clubs, and was a member of the R & A for many years, supporting their meetings and enjoying many friendships there. He died on 6 January 2006, leaving his widow, Maureen, his daughter Claire and son Gavin, who followed him into ENT surgery.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000388
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brooks, Donal Meredith (1917 - 2004)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Ong, Guan Bee (1921 - 2004)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-09-13
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372574372574
Occupation General surgeon
Details Guan Bee Ong, or ‘G B’ as he was known to his many friends and colleagues throughout the world, was a pioneering surgeon in Hong Kong. In the many tributes following his death, he was described as “a giant among surgeons”, “a craftsman, innovator and statesman” and “a far-sighted and dynamic leader”. He was born into a traditional Chinese family in Kuching, Sarawak, on 29 September 1921. After schooling in Singapore, he intended to become an electric engineer, but his father suggested medicine. He was turned away from Singapore Medical College in April 1940 and was unable to go to Europe to study because of the second world war, so he went to Hong Kong University. Here his studies were interrupted by the Japanese invasion in April 1941. Together with several other students, he sneaked into China, making a hazardous journey on foot to Chungking, where he resumed his studies at Shanghai Medical School. He eventually graduated with his MD. After the war, he returned to Hong Kong, where he obtained his MB BS in 1947. For the next ten years he honed his skills, both locally and internationally, training in the UK, where he gained the FRCS diplomas of both the English and Edinburgh Royal Colleges. In 1956 he was awarded the Harkness Commonwealth University fellowship to study in the USA at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard University in Boston and the Bellevue Hospital in New York City. On his return he became surgeon in charge of Kowloon Hospital until 1963, when he was appointed to the chair of surgery at the University of Hong Kong, the first ethnic Chinese to hold this post. The department was poorly equipped, had a budget of $1,000, no operating facilities and 96 empty and unused surgical beds. The contrast with the magnificent facilities in that department today is a tribute to G B’s vision, determination and ability to achieve his goals. He quickly developed a reputation as a master surgeon, his repertoire encompassing the full gambit of surgical specialties, initially including neurosurgery and cardiac surgery. Natural technical brilliance allowed him to become a courageous and innovative surgeon in the biliary tract, the liver, reconstruction of the oesophagus and the urinary bladder using colon and stomach, in the surgical management of oral and pharyngeal cancers and the transphenoidal approach to the surgery of the pituitary gland, to name but a few procedures. Twice a week, on Wednesday and Saturday, this diminutive figure would sweep through the wards at Queen Mary Hospital like Napoleon leading the Grande Armee. Inspiring a generation of young surgeons to promote surgical specialties to the highest standards, he was recognised as a perfectionist, an extremely strict disciplinarian and a marvellous teacher. According to his successor John Wong, he managed to “cultivate a spirit of original research and encourage innovations in surgery”, in many ways unusual for an academic. He published more than 250 papers and ten books and monographs, many using work performed by his trainees whom he encouraged to maintain high standards. Becoming emeritus professor of surgery after his retirement in 1982, G B continued in a busy private practice. G B loved to travel and was elected to the James IV Association of Surgeons travelling professorship in 1967, was a governor of the American Association of Surgeons from 1974 to 1979 and was President of the International Society of Surgery from 1983 to 1985. He received the gold medal from the College of Surgeons of Malaysia, the Abraham Colles medal from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and was awarded numerous honorary fellowships by a host of surgical colleges throughout the world. In 1979 he was awarded the PSM, the equivalent of a knighthood, by the King of Malaysia. His connection with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh was particularly strong, and receipt of the first John Bruce gold medal in 1970 was a particular pleasure, as was his appointment as Regent to the College in 1998. In 2001 he paid his last visit to that College to receive the award of the Pehin Aziz medal. G B spearheaded the introduction of surgical fellowship examinations in Hong Kong, first with the Edinburgh College and then other Royal Colleges, as early as the mid sixties. He was a Hunterian professor of the College and a Moynihan lecturer in 1974. He married Christina Chow in 1950 and they had six children – Patricia, Peter, Michelle, Josephine, Catherine and Caroline. He married for a second time, to Paula, and they had two children – Elizabeth and Michael. He died on 10 January 2004 after battling with liver cancer since 1999. Ironically, he had carried out extensive research into this disease during his long career.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000390
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-09-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372575372575
Occupation General surgeon
Details Andrew Maclean was a consultant surgeon in Cumbria. He was born in Glasgow on 29 April 1918, the son of Andrew Bruce Maclean, a consultant radiologist, and Harriet Thomson, the daughter of a woollen manufacturer. From Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh he went to Glasgow University, where he won the Hunter medal in clinical surgery. After qualifying in 1942 he completed house jobs in Glasgow Western Infirmary, where he was much influenced by Sir Charles Illingworth. He then joined the Royal Navy, rising to the rank of surgeon lieutenant commander. On demobilisation he continued his surgical training at Cumberland Infirmary, Carlisle, and in Newcastle as lecturer in surgery, before being appointed consultant surgeon in Carlisle. There he was surgical tutor and regional adviser to the College. Andrew married a Miss Lancaster in 1949. They had three sons, a doctor, lawyer and land agent. He counted sailing, shooting and fishing among his hobbies. He died on 28 May 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000391
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Copeland, Thomas (1781 - 1855)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18 2013-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372576372576
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in May, 1781, the son of the Rev William Copeland, Curate of Byfield, Northants. He studied under Mr Denham at Chigwell in Essex, and under Edward Ford, his maternal uncle, and he attended medical classes at Great Windmill Street and at St Bartholomew's Hospital. In 1804 he was appointed Assistant Surgeon in the 1st Foot Guards, with which regiment he embarked for Spain under Sir John Moore, and was present at the Battle of Corunna in 1809. He resigned 29th June, 1809, settled in his uncle's resident at 4 Golden Square, and was appointed Surgeon to the Westminster General Dispensary. He attained distinction in his profession, particularly in the field of rectal surgery. He was elected FRS in 1834, Hon Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1843, and Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria in 1837. He died of an attack of jaundice at Brighton on Nov 19th, 1855, and his wife died on Dec 5th of the same year. He left £180,000, bequeathing £5000 both to the Asylum for Poor Orphans of the Clergy and to the Society for the Relief of Widows and Orphans of Medical Men.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000392
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Briggs, James ( - 1848)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

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

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Callaway, Thomas (1791 - 1848)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Babington, George Gisborne (1795 - 1856)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18 2016-01-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372580372580
Occupation General surgeon
Details Fourth son of T Babington, MP, of Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, who was brother-in-law of Zachary Macaulay, father of the historian, Thomas Babington Macaulay. Babington was attached to St George's Hospital, where he was Assistant Surgeon in 1829-1830, and Surgeon from 1830-1843. He was also at one time Surgeon to the London Lock Hospital. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member of the Council from 1836-1845, and in 1842 delivered the Hunterian Oration. In 1817 [1] he married Sarah Anne, daughter of John Pearson, of Golden Square. He died at his house, 13 Queen's Gardens, Hyde Park, on Jan 1st, 1856. Babington was eminent as a surgeon, and made some important contributions to medical literature on the subject of syphilitic diseases. Publications:- "Cases Illustrative of the Different Forms of Phagedenic Ulcer." - London Med. and Physical Jour., 1826, lvi, 204. "Observations on Sloughing Sores." - Ibid., 1827, Iviii, 285. Hunterian Oration, 8vo, London, 1842. Several contributions in the Lancet and Med.-Chir. Rev. Was one of the editors of John Hunter, more especially the Treatise on Venereal Disease in Palmer's edition of the works, 1837, ii. [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] '1817' is deleted and '18.9.1816' added]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000396
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Liston, Robert (1794 - 1847)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372581372581
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on Oct 28th, 1794, in the Manse of Ecclesmachan, Linlithgowshire, the eldest child of Henry Liston (1771-1836) by his wife Margaret, daughter of David Ireland, Town Clerk of Culross. Henry Liston was the inventor of the ‘Euharmonic’ organ designed to give the diatonic scales in perfect order, and had a natural bias for mechanics; his younger son, David, became Professor of Oriental Languages at Edinburgh. Robert Liston spent a short time at a school in Abercorn, but was chiefly educated by his father. He entered the University of Edinburgh in 1808 and gained a prize for Latin prose composition in his second session: in 1810 he became assistant to Dr John Barclay (1758-1826), the Extra-academic Lecturer on Anatomy and Physiology, and continued as his prosector and assistant until 1815. In 1814 he became ‘Surgeon's Clerk’ or House Surgeon at the Royal Infirmary, first to George Bell, afterwards to Dr Gillespie, holding office for two years. He came to London in 1816, putting himself under Sir William Blizard and Thomas Blizard at the London Hospital, and attending the lectures of John Abernethy at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He then returned to Edinburgh and taught anatomy in conjunction with James Syme. In 1818 he was admitted a Fellow of the Edinburgh College of Surgeons on his thesis – “Strictures of the Urethra and Some of their Consequences”. He worked in Edinburgh from 1818-1828, gaining a great reputation as a teacher of anatomy and as an operating surgeon. During some years of this period he was constantly engaged in quarrels on professional subjects with the authorities of the Royal Infirmary, which culminated in 1822 in his expulsion from the institution. He was, however, appointed one of the Surgeons in 1827, apparently by the exercise of private influence, and in 1828 he was made the Operating Surgeon. He failed in his application for the Professorship of Clinical Surgery in 1833, when James Syme (qv), his younger rival and former colleague, was preferred before him. In 1834 Liston accepted an invitation to become Surgeon to the newly founded hospital attached to the University of London (now University College). He accordingly left Edinburgh and settled in London, where in 1835 he was elected Lecturer on Clinical Surgery in the University of London. On the death of Sir Anthony Carlisle in 1840 Liston became a Member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, and in 1846 he was chosen a Member of the Court of Examiners. He was also Consulting Surgeon to the Hospital for Diseases of the Chest. He died on Dec 7th, 1847, of aneurysm of the arch of the aorta, at his house, 5 Clifford Street – subsequently occupied by Sir William Bowman (qv). Liston was not a scientific surgeon, neither was he a good speaker nor a clear writer. His claim to remembrance is based upon the marvellous dexterity with which he used the surgeon's knife, upon his profound knowledge of anatomy, and upon the boldness which enabled him to operate successfully on cases from which other surgeons shrank. Living at a time immediately antecedent to the introduction of anaesthetics, he appears to have attained to a dexterity in the use of cutting instruments which had probably never been equalled and which is unlikely to be surpassed. When chloroform was unknown it was of the utmost importance that surgical operations should be performed as rapidly as possible. Of Liston it is told that when he amputated, the gleam of his knife was followed so instantaneously by the sound of the bone being sawn as to make the two actions appear almost simultaneous, and yet he perfected the method of amputating by flaps. At the same time his physical strength was so great – and he stood over six feet in height – that he could amputate through the thigh with only the single assistant who held the limb. He excelled, too, in cutting for stone, but his name is best known by ‘Liston's straight splint’, which has now been replaced by better methods of treating fractured thighs. The first successful operation under ether by a surgeon in a London hospital was performed by him at University College on Dec 21st, 1846. Liston, like many contemporary surgeons, was rough and outspoken to rudeness, but he had many sterling qualities and was devoted to outdoor sports, especially to yachting. A bust by Thomas Campbell (1790-1858) was presented to the Royal College of Surgeons of England on Dec 23rd, 1851, by a ‘Committee of Gentlemen’. An oil painting by A Bagg was engraved by W O Geller and published on Jan 25th, 1847. Publications:- *The Elements of Surgery*, in three parts, Edinburgh and London, 1831 and 1832; 2nd ed. in one volume, 1840. *Practical Surgery*, London, 1837; 2nd ed., 1838; 3rd ed., 1840; 4th ed., 1846.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000397
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Morgan, John (1797 - 1847)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372582372582
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Stamford Hill on Jan 10th, 1797, the second son of William Morgan, the noted Actuary to the Equitable Life Assurance Office and a native of Glamorganshire, where the family had been landowners for centuries. His father began life as a medical student and is said to have come from Glamorganshire to London “with sixpence in his pocket and a club foot”. After education at home, John Morgan became an articled pupil of Sir Astley Cooper at the School of St Thomas's and Guy's Hospitals, having as a fellow-pupil Aston Key. He showed an intense interest in natural history, and began to stuff birds and small animals almost as soon as he could use a knife and his fingers. After his pupilage he became Demonstrator of Anatomy at the private school near to the Hospital. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to Guy's Hospital in 1821, and in 1824, at the early age of 27, he was elected (together with Aston Key) Surgeon to Guy's Hospital on the retirement of Forster and Lucas. He thus became a colleague of Sir Astley Cooper, who on his retirement was succeeded by his nephew, Bransby Cooper. For many years Morgan was joint Lecturer on Surgery; latterly he only gave a course of ophthalmic lectures in the Eye Infirmary attached to the Hospital. He suffered himself from iritis, and was instrumental in establishing a ward at Guy's Hospital for the treatment of diseases of the eye. On the death of Frederick Tyrell, Morgan was elected a Member of the College Council on June 9th, 1843. Much interested in comparative anatomy, he dissected ‘Chum’ the elephant, whose skeleton is in the College Museum. Many of his anatomical preparations are there, others are in Guy's Hospital Museum. His remarkable collection of stuffed British birds is preserved at Cambridge. As a surgeon Morgan was distinguished by the attention he paid to the medical state of his patient previous to operating, whilst he became one of the best operators in London. On two or three occasions he removed considerable portions of the lower jaw. He tied the external iliac artery successfully on a very stout patient who was suffering from a large inguinal hernia on the same side as the aneurysm. For a highly vascular naevus – an aneurysm by anastomosis – occupying one entire side of the face which had been previously treated by the crucial ligature under crossed pins and by the actual cautery, he followed the similar case operated upon successfully by F Travers, and ligatured the common carotid artery. The patient recovered, but was not benefited. Morgan was one of the first, and certainly one of the most energetic, originators of the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park. He practised early at Broad Street Buildings, later in Finsbury Square, and for seven or eight years before his death he lived at Tottenham. After suffering with albuminuria, he died at Tottenham on Oct 14th, 1847. He married in 1831 Miss Anne Gosse, of Poole, sister of William Gosse (qv); he left two sons: the eldest succeeded his grandfather and uncle in the Equitable Life Assurance Company, the younger entered the medical profession. In person Morgan was of middle height and a thick-set heavy man, very different from his colleagues Key and Bransby Cooper, the one striding in the hospital with head erect waiting for everyone to do him reverence, the other in a jaunty manner greeting those around him in familiar and pleasant tones; whilst Morgan walked straight in with a white impassive face, went to work without a word of gossip, taking heed of nothing or nobody, gave his opinion of the case in a few words, and then went on to the next bed. His work was done well and in a business-like manner, his colleagues highly respecting his opinion and his pupils being much attached to him. As it was the habit of surgeons to take snuff, so did Morgan to excess; it was often possible to mark his traces in the wards by the snuff he let fall. He practised in Finsbury Square and had a country house at Tottenham. Publications:- *Lectures on Diseases of the Eye*, 8vo, London, 1839; 2nd ed., 1848, by JOHN F. FRANCE; this contains a life of Morgan. *Essay on the Operation of Poisonous Agents upon the Living Body* (with THOMAS ADDISON), London, 1829. Contributions to *Guy's Hosp. Rep.* and *Trans. Linnean Soc*. He communicated to the *Transactions of the Linnean Society* (1833, xvi, 455) an interesting paper on the mammary organs of the kangaroo, and the Museum of Guy's Hospital contains two preparations made by him, one “the pouch of a young and virgin kangaroo showing the teats in an undeveloped state, one of them artificially drawn out: the second, the mammary gland of an adult kangaroo, showing the marsupial teat in an undeveloped state, the ducts filled with mercury.” The specimens were perhaps prepared from animals sent to him by his brother-in-law, William Gosse (qv).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000398
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Turk, John Leslie (1930 - 2006)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-12-19
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/372505372505
Occupation Pathologist
Details John Turk was a former professor of pathology at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences at the College. He was born on 2 October 1930 in Farnborough, Hampshire, where his father was a solicitor. From Malvern, where he specialised in classics, John went up to Guy’s Hospital to read medicine, qualifying with honours and two gold medals in 1953. He did house jobs at Lewisham, where he met his future wife, Terry, and then did his National Service in the RAMC in Egypt and Cyprus, where he developed his interest in pathology. On demobilisation he was appointed senior lecturer at the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, working at the Medical Research Council research unit at Mill Hill, going on to be reader at the Institute of Dermatology in the University of London. He was one of the pioneers in clinical and experimental immunology, building on the work of Medawar and Humphreys, and was a founder of the British Society of Immunology. John Turk made important links with deprived and developing nations, where he was able to use his linguistic skills, and became in time an international authority on leprosy. He was appointed Sir William Collins professor of pathology at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences in our College. The author of many articles, he wrote two classic textbooks, *Delayed hypersensitivity* (Amsterdam, North-Holland Publishing Co., 1967) and *Immunology in clinical medicine* (London, William Heinemann Medical Books, 1969), which became very popular and was translated into many different languages, including Bulgarian and Japanese. In addition he and Sir Reginald Murley edited the collected case books of John Hunter. He was curator of the Hunterian Museum for many years. He was editor of *Clinical and Experimental Immunology* and *Leprosy Review*, was president of the British Society for Immunology and of the section of immunology of the Royal Society of Medicine, and adviser to the World Health Organization on leprosy. His wife Terry was a general practitioner; they had two sons, Simon and Jeremy (a psychiatrist), and three grandchildren. A delightful companion, John Turk was a kind and sensitive man, and a devoted servant of the College, who made him FRCS by election. He suffered from diabetes and died from renal failure and small vessel cerebral disease on 4 June 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000318
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Makin, Myer (1919 - 2005)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-12-19
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/372506372506
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Myer Makin was professor of orthopaedics at Hadassah University, Jerusalem. He was born in Birkenhead in March 1919, the son of Leon Makin and Rebecca nee Goldman, furniture dealers. He studied medicine at Liverpool University and was house surgeon at Walter Municipal Hospital, Liverpool, before joining the RAMC. He was mentioned in despatches in 1945 and was awarded the Croix de Guerre in France. In 1946 he was appointed to the staff of the Rothschild Hadassah University Hospital. In the early 1950s he spent two years in New York, at the New York Orthopaedic Hospital, Columbia University, as a clinical fellow in orthopaedic surgery and then the senior Annie C Kane fellow. In 1952 he returned to Jerusalem, becoming director of the department of orthopaedic surgery in 1955. At the College he was a Hunterian Professor in 1957, and in the same year was the Lord Nuffield research scholar at Oxford. He was awarded the Robert Jones gold medal and prize of the British Orthopaedic Association in 1960. In 1965 he was made a Fellow of the College by election. He was a member of many prestigious associations, and was invited as visiting professor to the Albert Einstein Medical College and elsewhere. He was corresponding editor of the *Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery* in 1962 and of *Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research* in 1967. His method of transposing the flexor pollicis longus tendon to make the thumb opposable is widely used. He was declared a Distinguished Citizen of Israel in 1960. He died on 27 October 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000319
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Pilcher, George (1801 - 1855)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-10-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002900-E002999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375134375134
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on April 30th, 1801, the son of Jeremiah Pilcher, of Winkfield, Berkshire. He began to practise in Dean Street, Soho, as soon as he had qualified, and was appointed Lecturer on Anatomy, Physiology, and Surgery at the Webb Street School of Medicine in Snow's Fields, then belonging to his brother-in-law, Richard Dugard Grainger (qv). He was for many years Consulting Surgeon to the Surrey Dispensary, and in 1838 he won the Fothergillian Prize at the Medical Society of London for his essay, *On the Structure and Pathology of the Ear* (8vo, London, 1838). When the Webb Street School closed in 1842 Pilcher became attached to "The School of Anatomy and Medicine adjoining St George's Hospital" which was known as "Lane's School", lecturing on surgery and aural surgery from July, 1843, and giving the introductory address on Oct 1st in that year. He was elected a Member of the Council of the College in 1849 and served until his death. He died suddenly on November 7th, 1855, and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. Pilcher was an able surgeon and a good physiologist. He entered upon the practice of aural surgery when it was in disrepute and was one of those who materially raised its status. Publications: "An Essay on the Physiology of the Excito-motory System" read before the Medical Society in 1835. *The Structure, Economy and Diseases of the Ear*, 8vo, with plates, London, 1838; 2nd ed, 1842. *Some Points in the Physiology of the Tympanum, read before the Physiological Section of the Medical Society of London*, Feb 23rd, 1854, 8vo, London, 1854.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002951
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Pilcher, Jesse Griggs (1839 - 1917)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Pilcher, William John (1837 - 1897)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Pilgrim, Herbert Wilson (1858 - 1914)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-10-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002900-E002999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375137375137
Occupation General surgeon Physician
Details Born in Barbadoes on October 10th, 1858, the son of Henry Pilgrim, a planter. He is said to have been educated at Cheltenham, Boyce's House, but his name does not appear in the College Register. He then went to University College and St Bartholomew's Hospitals, as well as to Edinburgh University, and passed into the Indian Medical Service second in a very long list. He was gazetted Surgeon on September 30th, 1886, Major on September 30th, 1898, Lieutenant-Colonel on September 30th, 1906, and placed on the selected list from December 25th, 1911. He served in the Lushai Campaign on the North-East Frontier in 1889, receiving the Frontier Medal with Clasps; otherwise he was in Civil employ in Bengal, to which province he was posted in June, 1890. After two years as Civil Surgeon of the Nadiya District, he was appointed 2nd Resident Surgeon of the Presidency European General Hospital, Calcutta; he became First Resident Surgeon in 1896. On the retirement of Lieut-Colonel Alexander Crombie in the spring of 1898, Pilgrim was appointed to succeed him, although only a Surgeon Captain, in a post previously held by senior members as one of the most important, professionally, in the whole service. He proved himself to be a first-class man, both as a physician and surgeon. He had great business ability, and supervised and in part planned the construction of an entirely new and up-to-date hospital, at a very large expense to the Government of Bengal - the most important hospital in Eastern India. After twelve years' work he took, in April, 1912, two years' furlough, and at the outbreak of the European War was selected for appointment to the Medical Charge of one of the two hospitals in England for Indian sick and wounded, but died before he took up his duties. On October 1st, 1914, he was speaking through the telephone at Brighton, when he had a cerebral haemorrhage and died in ten minutes.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002954
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Pinhey, Robert (1792 - 1860)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Berry, Sidney Herbert (1874 - 1901)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Berry, Titus (1779 - 1868)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Besemeres, William ( - 1871)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Best, Alexander Vans (1837 - 1875)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Makins, Sir George Henry (1853 - 1933)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-11 2012-03-14
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372410372410
Occupation Military surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Born at St Albans, Herts, 3 November 1853, the only son of George Hogarth Makins, MRCS, and his wife Sarah Ellis. His father practised medicine at Walton-on-Thames and was Master of the Society of Apothecaries in 1889, but his chief interests lay in chemistry and metallurgy. He was at one time professor of chemistry at the Middlesex Hospital, and was advisor to H.M. Mint in matters concerning the coinage. He also played the organ at Hook Church, Surrey, having previously made a pitch-pipe for the vicar, which is preserved in the church. George Henry Makins was educated at the King's Collegiate School, Gloucester, and entered St. Thomas's Hospital, London in 1871, when George Rainey lectured and William Anderson was demonstrator of anatomy. He was house physician to J. Syer Bristowe in 1876, and at the end of his term of office went to Bethlehem Hospital, where he made a life-long friendship with Sir George Savage, who was afterwards superintendent of the hospital. From Bethlehem he went as house surgeon to the Seamen's Hospital at Greenwich, and then returned to St Thomas's, where he was house surgeon during the year 1878 to Francis Mason and William MacCormac. He spent some months at Halle and Vienna in 1879, and on his return to London in 1880 he was appointed resident assistant surgeon at St Thomas's Hospital, a post he held for five years. During this period he worked with Charles Smart Roy, who was then superintendent of the Brown Institute in the Wandsworth Road. He was elected surgical registrar to St Thomas's Hospital in 1885, and became assistant surgeon at the Evelina Hospital for Children. In 1887 he was elected assistant surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital in place of Francis Mason, becoming surgeon in 1898, and resigning under an age limit in 1913. His services at this time were so well recognized that he was given the title of emeritus surgeon with the care of patients for an additional term of two years. During 1887-99 he was demonstrator of anatomy in the Medical School, and in 1890 he succeeded Edward Nettleship as dean of the School. In this position he did much to complete the school buildings by the addition of two wings. In 1900 he was appointed lecturer on anatomy conjointly with William Anderson. His war service began in November 1899, when he accompanied Sir William MacCormac to South Africa as a civilian consulting surgeon, at the beginning of the Boer War. He first treated the wounded at the base, but was at the front during the fighting about the Modder River and with Sir Frederick Roberts' advance to Bloemfontein and Pretoria. For his services he was decorated C.B. He returned to England in 1900 and in 1901 published *Surgical experiences in South Africa*, which became a textbook at the Staff College and was used both in France and Germany. In 1908 he joined the Territorial Force, received a commission as major RAMC, à la suite, and busied himself with work for the British Red Cross at Devonshire House. In September 1914 he left for France as consulting surgeon, having Sir A. A. Bowlby as his colleague. He landed at St Nazaire and gradually made his way to Paris, where he worked for a short time in the British hospitals. From Paris he moved with G.H.Q. to St Omer, and spent a short time at Boulogne with F. F. Burghard and Percy Sargent as his colleagues. He finally took over the supervision of the newly established hospital centres at Camiers and Étaples, and made frequent trips up the line to the front. At Étaples he established a research centre, where new methods of wound treatment were put on trial. He left France in July 1917 and was appointed by the Government of India chairman of a commission to report on the British station hospitals. The Commission occupied seven months, which were spent in travelling over 11,000 miles in a special train, reporting and inspecting on hospitals all over India. Whilst in India he heard that H. M. King George V had conferred upon him the unusual honour of Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George. He returned home in March 1918 and retired from military service with the rank of major-general. He then gave up private practice, left 49 Upper Brook Street, and moved to 33 Wilton Place. He was for some years a member of the executive committee and later chairman of the Athenaeum Club. It was during his chairmanship that an additional storey was added to the Club buildings. At the Royal College of Surgeons Makins was a member of the board of examiners in anatomy for the Fellowship, 1884-94; and a member of the Conjoint examining board, 1894-99. He served on the Court of Examiners 1901-08; elected to the Council in 1903, he was a vice-president in 1912 and 1913 and president 1917-20. In 1913 he delivered the Bradshaw lecture, and in 1917 he was Hunterian orator. In April 1929 he was awarded the honorary gold medal of the College in recognition of his services, more especially in arranging and describing the specimens in the Army Medical War Collection. He was for some years treasurer of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, and chairman of the distribution committee of the Hospital Sunday Fund. He married in 1885 Margaret Augusta (d. 1931), daughter of General Vesey Kirkland of Fordel, Perthshire, and widow of Major-General B. Fellowes; there were no children. As Miss Kirkland she accompanied her father wherever he was engaged in military service; as Mrs Fellowes she went with her first husband to South Africa, the West Indies, and Ireland. When he died in 1879 she entered the Nightingale School of Nursing at St Thomas's Hospital and, after a short training, was selected by Florence Nightingale to accompany Sir Frederick Roberts' force to the Transvaal in February 1881. On her return to England she was appointed sister-in-charge of Leopold ward at St Thomas's Hospital, and in 1882 she was seconded for service in the Egyptian war. She again returned to St Thomas's Hospital, and in 1884 was amongst the first to receive from Queen Victoria the decoration of the Royal Red Cross, which had been instituted in the previous year. She accompanied her second husband, G. H. Makins, to the Boer War in 1899. During the war of 1914-18 she was in charge of the Hospital for Facial Injuries in Park Lane. Makins died after a short illness at 33 Wilton Place, S.W., on 2 November 1933, the eve of his eightieth birthday; he was buried in Kensal Green cemetery. He left £1,000 to St Thomas's Hospital Medical School's war memorial fund. Makins was possessed of great administrative and constructive ability, which was shown so early that MacCormac as secretary-general of the International Medical Congress held in London in 1881 made him the assistant secretary. In this position Makins, by his mastery of detail, did much to ensure the running of the huge meeting, whilst MacCormac took general control and by his personality and linguistic powers supplemented the work. In 1913 Makins as treasurer was most helpful at the International Medical Congress, which was again held in London. As a surgeon he stood in the first rank, skilful, imperturbable, conservative, but resourceful. His wartime experience made him especially interested in diseases and wounds of the blood-vessels. As a man he was certainly the best loved surgeon of his generation. Absolutely honest in thought and purpose, he was a genuine friend, and had a keen desire to help in every good cause. Courteous to all, quiet and unassuming, he was seen at his best sitting before the fire in an old jacket with a pipe in his mouth and his elbow on his knee. In disjointed sentences and with a characteristic smile he would then thresh out a difficult problem in surgery, or give good practical advice. When necessity arose he spoke impressively, shortly, and always to the purpose. Tall, but of a spare and active habit, he took early to mountaineering and was a member of the Alpine Club. He was too a skillful dry-fly fisherman, and shared a cottage on the Test with Sir George H. Savage. A bronze bust by Mrs Bromet stands in the inner hall at the Royal College of Surgeons; it does not do him justice. Makins himself presented it to the College in 1931. *Publications:* *Surgical experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900, being mainly a clinical study of the nature and effects of injuries produced by bullets of small calibre.* London, 1901; 2nd edition, 1913. A case of artificial anus treated by resection of the small intestine. *St Thos. Hosp. Rep.* 1884, 13, 181. Rickets, in Treves, *System of surgery,* 1895, 1, 363. Surgical diseases due to microbic infection and parasites. *Ibid.* 1895, 1, 294. Injuries of the joints; dislocations, in Warren and Gould, *International text-book of surgery*, 1899, 1, 589. *Gunshot injuries of the arteries* (Bradshaw lecture, R.C.S.). London, 1914. *On gunshot injuries to the blood-vessels, founded on experience gained in France during the great war 1914-1918.* Bristol, 1919. *Operative surgery of the stomach,* with B. G. A. Moynihan. London, 1912. The influence exerted by the military experience of John Hunter on himself and the military surgeon of today. (Hunterian oration, R.C.S.). *Lancet,* 1917, 1, 249. *Autobiography*:- typescript copy, with portrait-photograph, in the R.C.S. library.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000223
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Birmingham, George ( - 1878)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-03-04 2013-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373070373070
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at Middlesex Hospital, and entered the Bengal Army as Acting Assistant Surgeon on December 9th, 1824. He retired in October, 1827. He saw active service in Burma, 1824-1825, was afterwards in the Portuguese Navy. He was in practice in London in 1871 and he died in or before 1878. The name is spelt 'Bermingham' in the *Medical Directory* for 1871. In 1853 he gave his address as in Kentish Town.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000887
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Birt, Hugh (1814 - 1875)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Birtwhistle, John (1800 - 1863)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Birtwhistle, Richard L ( - 1846)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bishop, Edward Stanmore (1848 - 1912)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-03-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373074373074
Occupation General surgeon Gynaecologist
Details Educated at the Pine Street Royal School of Medicine in Manchester, which was also known as Mr Turner’s School, and gained the Turner Scholarship in three successive years – 1868-1869, 1869-1870, and 1870-1871. He settled in the Ardwick District of Manchester, where he was in general practice until his appointment as Surgeon to the Ancoats Hospital. He qualified himself for this appointment by coming to London and taking out courses of anatomy and physiology at the London Hospital and of surgery at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, and thus passing the Fellowship examination. Returning to Manchester, he devoted himself to the surgery of the abdomen and to gynaecology. He was appointed Operating Surgeon to the Jewish Memorial Hospital. At the time of his death he was President of the Manchester Clinical Society and Vice-President of the Manchester Medical Society. He died at 3 St Peter’s Square, Manchester, on July 25th, 1912, and his remains were cremated. Bishop was a man of great energy, somewhat reserved in manner, and a lover of music. He had at heart the best interests of Ancoats Hospital, and did much to place it in the position which it now occupies both as a hospital and as a centre of medical teaching. His resources in the technique of abdominal operations were very considerable. Publications:- Bishop’s publications, which were well known both here and in America, include:- *Enterorraphy*, 8vo, Manchester, 1885, from *Med. Chron*. *Lectures to Nurses on Antiseptics in Surgery*, 12mo, 11 plates London, 1891. *The Etiology of Chronic Hernia, with Special Reference to the Operation for Radical Cure, with Additional Tables*, 12mo, 1894, from *Lancet*. “A New Operation for Vesico-vaginal Fistula.” – *Med. Soc. Trans*., 1897, xx, 123. *Sealing of Operative Wounds about the Abdomen versus Treatment by Dressing*, 8vo, Manchester, 1899, from *Med. Chron*. *Uterine Fibromyomata; their Pathology, Diagnosis, and Treatment*, 8vo, 49 illustrations, London, 1901. The book is full of information, though somewhat biased towards operative surgery. “Changes observed in Uteri the seat of Fibromyomata.” – *Brit. Gynaecol. Jour.*, 1901, xvii, 286. *The Essentials of Pelvic Diagnosis, with Illustrative Cases*, 1903. This is an attempt to clarify the mental processes necessary in deducing disease from the absence or presence of symptoms. “Evolution of Modern Operations for Hysterectomy.” – *Practitioner*, 1908, lxxxi, 776. *Lectures on Surgical Nursing*, 1909. “Points in Gastric Surgery.” – *Surg. Gynecol. and Obst*., 1909, viiii, 559. “Address on Surgical Gastric Disorders” delivered before the Blackburn Medical Society, 1911. – *Lancet*, 1911, ii, 743.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000891
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bishop, John (1797 - 1873)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-03-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373075373075
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born September 15th, 1797, fourth son of Samuel Bishop of Pimperne, Dorsetshire; educated at the Child-Okeford Grammar School in Dorsetshire. It was intended that he should be a lawyer, but at the age of 25 he was induced by his cousin, John Tucker, of Bridport, to become a doctor. He entered St George’s Hospital as a pupil of Sir Everard Home, and attended the lectures of Sir Charles Bell, George James Guthrie (qv), and George Pearson. He was also a regular attendant at the chemical courses given at the Royal Institution. He became Surgeon to the Islington Dispensary, to the Northern and St Pancras Dispensaries, and to the Drapers’ Benevolent Institution. In 1844 Bishop contributed a paper published in the *Philosophical Transactions* on the “Physiology of the Human Voice”, and was shortly afterwards elected FRS and a Corresponding Member of the Medical Societies of Berlin and Madrid. The Royal Academy of Science of Paris awarded him two prizes for memoirs “On the Human and Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Voice”. He was also the author of: “On Distortions of the Human Body”, “On Impediments of Speech”, and “On Hearing and Speaking Instruments”. These works were remarkable for the careful examinations which the author had made on the subjects under investigation and for the mathematical demonstration given of each theory advanced by him. He contributed several articles to Todd’s *Cyclopœdia* and many papers of more or less importance to the medical literature of the day. Bishop was a man of varied attainments; he was conversant with Continental as well as with English literature, and to within a few months of his death he was deeply interested in the progress of science. He died on September 29th, 1873, at Strangeways-Marshale, Dorsetshire, within a few miles of his birthplace.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000892
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bissill, John Henry (1817 - 1895)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Black, Cornelius (1822 - 1886)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-03-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373077373077
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on August 2nd, 1822, at Radcliffe-on-Trent, Notts. Educated at the University of Edinburgh until 1844, apprenticed to John Cartledge Botham, of Catherine Street, Hartlepool, who was Surgeon to the Hartlepool Iron Works. He settled at Chesterfield, Derbyshire, where he practised at St Mary’s Gate, and died there on June 24th, 1886. He was Physician to the Chesterfield Dispensary; a Fellow of the Medical Society of London; a Member of the Pathological Society of London; a Corresponding Fellow of the Imperial Society of Physicians, Vienna, and of the Société Medicale, Lyons. Publications: “The Management of Health.” “The Pathology of the Broncho-Pulmonary Mucous Membrane,” 8vo, Edinburgh, 1853; reprinted from *Monthly Jour. Med. Soc. Lond. and Edin*. “The Clinical Examination of the Urine in Relation to Disease,” 8vo, London, 1840; reprinted from the *St Andrews Med. Grad. Assoc. Trans.,* London, 1869, iii. “Hydatids from the Left Lung, Subsequently to the Occurrence of Typhoid Fever, Complicated with Double Pneumonia,” 8vo, plate, London, 1853; reprinted from *Trans. Pathol. Soc.*, iv, 44-61. *The Pathology of Tuberculous Bone*, 8vo, Edinburgh, 1859. *The Insanity of George Victor Townley*, 8vo, London ; 2nd ed., 1865. “How to Prevent Pitting in Small-pox.” – *Lancet*, 1867, i, 792. “On Arsenic a Remedy for Cholera.” – *Assoc. Med. Jour.*, 1854, N.S. ii, 971. “On Conception.” – *Med. Gaz*. “On Caries of the Tarsal Bones and Amputation at the Ankle-joint.” – *Monthly Jour. Med. Sci. Edin.*, 1852, xv, 113. “Case of Ileus, in which a Portion of the Ileum was Discharged per Anum, followed by Recovery of the Patient.” – *Trans. Pathol. Soc.*, 1855-6, vii, 199. “On Perforating Ulcer of the Stomach.” – *Ibid.*, 191. “Melanic Cancer of the Horse.” – *Ibid.*, 1851, vii, 400. “On Ovariotomy.” – *Lancet*, 1857, i, 110, 138; 1863, 62. “On the Value of Arsenic in Cholera,” (serial). – *Ibid.*, 1857, ii, 388, 541, 573.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000894
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Blackmore, Edward (1808 - 1883)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Blades, William Dawson ( - 1869)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Blake, James (1815 - 1895)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-03-18 2013-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373080373080
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Gosport; educated in London and Paris. He practised at 16 Pall Mall, SW, migrated to America in 1847, and was immediately appointed Professor of Special, General, and Surgical Anatomy in the University at St Louis. Two years later he took part in the gold rush to California and settled at Sacramento. He then moved to San Francisco, where he practised until 1862, was a Professor in Toland's Medical College, and was one of the promoters of the California Academy of Natural Sciences. He moved later to Middletown, where he hoped to carry on some original research. Here he is said to have died late in June, 1893, but this may be incorrect, as it is possible that he returned to England and died at Horbury Crescent, Notting Hill, W, between 1894 and 1895. Blake was a voluminous writer who devoted much time to the study of chemistry, more especially on the molecular weight and constitution of chemical compounds and their physiological action, upon which subject he wrote a special work. The following letter from Laurence F Kenny, S J, Registrar of the Jesuit University of St Louis, gives a good picture of the man:- My Dear Mr Plarr, I have your interesting communication, dated the 22nd day of December, 1919, in which you inquire for further information about Dr James Blake. I submitted your request to Dr Louis C Boislinière, Assistant Professor of Medicine of this University, Chief of Staff of the Mount St Rose Hospital, and recently President of the St Louis Medical Society. He says: "My father (the late Dr L Charles Boislinière) came to St Louis in 1846, and lived for a time in the same house as Dr Blake. He often referred to him as a most indefatigable research worker, investigating especially the action of lethal poisons in animals, the chemical changes in the blood, and the pathological alterations in the viscera incident thereto….His was the honour of being among the very first in this western country to have carried out *systematic* scientific research by means of animal experimentation. "He was a tall, slender man, and quite eccentric; for instance, when feeling indisposed or out of sorts, he would take what he called a little walk - to Iron Mountain, Missouri, a distance of eighty miles, where he would satisfy his scientific cravings by examining the interesting geological formations in that vicinity. He would return in a few days, always with renewed vigour. After a few years in St Louis, he departed with the gold-seekers for California, walking all the way. "Among my father's books and papers I found two copies of a monograph written by Dr Blake, which, I imagine, was originally presented by him to or read before the French Academy. This article treated of the changes of blood-pressure in animals after certain alkaline salts had been injected in the veins. This pressure was measured by an instrument that he called a (?) 'hydrodynamometer'. One of these copies I gave to the late Professor Gustav Baumgarten. Seven or eight years ago I exhibited the other copy at a display of rare medical books and antiques held by the St Louis Medical History Club. The pamphlet greatly interested Professor C W Greene, Professor of Physiology at present at the University of Missouri. His interest arose from the fact that he was well acquainted with a daughter of Dr Blake, resident at that time in San Francisco." Dr Blake's name first appears in the catalogue of this University in the prospectus for the year 1847-8: JAMES BLAKE, MD, Professor of Special, General, and Surgical Anatomy. No catalogue was issued for the following year, when the city was decimated by the Asiatic cholera. The generous heroism of the medical profession during the scourge is one of the bright pages in the history of the profession. It would have been difficult for Dr Blake to have distinguished himself where all acted so nobly. His name appears again in the bulletin for 1849-50 with the same wording descriptive of his work as was used in 1847-8. He is not in the books for 1850-1. Dr Charles W Stephens held the professorship of General, Descriptive, and Surgical Anatomy. Perhaps I should add the names of some of Dr Blake's fellow-professors; all the names are familiar in their offspring here in St Louis, except perhaps Dr M M Pallen, whose son is Condé B Pallen, editor of the *Catholic Encyclopedia*, and who now lives in New York; and Dr Charles A Pope, who was Dean of the Medical Faculty, whose only son is the Rev John O'Fallon Pope, recently Head Master of Pope Hall at Oxford University, England. The others were M L Linton, A Litton, Thomas Reyburn, R S Holmes, W M McPheeters, and J V Prather. I have sent a word of inquiry to Professor Greene at the seat of our State University, asking him to put me in touch with Miss Blake. You will doubtless hear from me again if they let me have any item that will appear important for your purposes. With best wishes for the success of your arduous undertaking, I am, very sincerely yours, Laurence J Kenny, SJ Publications: Blake's publications include: Forty-two papers mainly on the geology, hydrology, climate, etc., of California and a few on the action of metals, published for the most part in the *Proc. Calif. Acad. of Nat. Sci.* The following papers were published by him before leaving Europe:- "Observations and Experiments on the Mode in which Various Poisonous Agents Act on the Animal Body," 8vo, Edinburgh, nd, from *Edin. Med. and Surg. Jour.*, 1840, liii, 35. "Mémoire sur les Effets de diverses Substances salines, injectées dans le Système circulatoire," lu à l'Académie des Sciences le 3 juin, 1839, 8vo, Paris, 1839, from *Arch. Gén. de Méd.*, 1839, Nov. "Physiological Essays on the Action of Poisons, and on the Introduction of Saline Substances into the Veins," 8vo, Edinburgh, 1839-1841, etc., from *Edin. Med. and Surg. Jour*., Nos. 139, 142, 148, 149, and *Arch. Gén. de Méd.*, 1839, Nov. "Observations on the Physiological Effects of Various Agents introduced into the Circulation as indicated by the Hæmadynamometer," 8vo, Edinburgh, n.d., from *Edin. Med. and Surg. Jour.*, 1839, l, 330. "On the Action of Certain Inorganic Compounds when introduced directly into the Blood." Read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Jan 21st and 28th, 1841, 8vo, Edinburgh, 1841, from *Edin. Med. and Surg. Jour*., 1841, lvi, 104. "On the Action of Poisons," 8vo, Edinburgh, n.d., from *Edin. Med. and Surg. Jour.*, 1841, lvi, 412. "Report on the Physiological Action of Medicines," 8vo, London, 1844, from *Rep. Brit. Assoc.*, 1843; *Ibid.*, 1846. "Introductory Lecture, Med. Dept. of the St. Louis University, Session of 1848-9," 8vo, St Louis, 1848.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000897
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Blake, Valentine Walshman (1818 - 1881)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Blakeney, Edward Hugh (1809 - 1885)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Blakeway, Harry (1884 - 1919)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-03-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373083373083
Occupation General surgeon
Details Second son of James Blakeway, MRCVS, of Stourbridge, Worcestershire. Educated at Stourbridge; entered St Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1903, where he won the Harvey Prize for Practical Physiology, the Brackenbury Scholarship in Surgery, the Willett Medal in Operative Surgery, the Walsham Prize for Surgical Pathology, and the Matthews Duncan Medal in Obstetrics. He was appointed House Surgeon at the Great Northern Central Hospital in 1908, and became House Surgeon at St Bartholomew’s Hospital to C B Lockwood (qv) in October of the same year. He was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1910, a position he held for several years. He proved himself a good teacher, and produced some original work on the anatomy of the palate which was put to practical use in the treatment of hare-lip and cleft palate when he became Surgeon to Out-patients at the Victoria Hospital for Children in Tite Street, Chelsea. In 1915 he lectured, as Hunterian Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons, on “The Operative Treatment of Cleft Palate”. He was appointed Surgical Registrar at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1913, and at this time he was holding the office of Surgeon to the City of London Truss Society. On the outbreak of war in 1914 he was specially retained, much against his will, as one of the younger surgeons necessary to treat the civil population at the hospitals in London. In this position he acted, in addition to his ordinary work, as Demonstrator of Morbid Anatomy, Temporary Assistant Surgeon, and Resident Assistant Surgeon at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, whilst he continued to take classes and give demonstrations in the Medical School and to attend professionally those of his colleagues and their families who required surgical assistance. All these duties he performed gladly. They overtaxed his strength, and he died in the Etherington-Smith Ward of the hospital on February 15th, 1919, from pneumonia during an epidemic of influenza. He married Margery Campbell, daughter of Frank Griffith, of Woking, and left a son and two daughters. He practised at 145 Harley Street and lived at 1 Weymouth Street, W1. A portrait illustrates the obituary notice in the *St Bartholomew’s Hospital Journal*. Blakeway’s death was deeply regretted, for he would have maintained the surgical reputation of the hospital both as teacher and as operator. He was an admirable practical anatomist, and his dissections of the pharynx and the palate are preserved in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. As a man he was most unassuming, of a somewhat frail appearance, courteous in address, a loyal friend, a lover of books and music, a rider to hounds by heredity, and in all things trustworthy. Publications:- Blakeway wrote an article of first-rate importance, illustrated with drawings, on the anatomy and physiology of the parts concerned in cleft palate in *Jour. Anat. and Physiol.*, 1914, xlviii, 409-16. “Congenital Absence of the Gall-bladder associated with Imperfect Development of the Pancreas and Imperforate Anus.” – *Lancet*, 1912, ii, 365. *Operative Treatment of Cleft Palate*, 1912. “Teratoma of Unusual Size affecting the Testicle of a Horse.” – *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1913, i, 704. “Treatment of Hare-lip and Cleft Palate.” – *Practitioner*, 1914, xcii, 219.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000900
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gunning, John (1773 - 1863)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372589372589
Occupation General surgeon Military surgeon
Details The nephew of John Gunning, Master of the Surgeons' Company (1789-1790). He began a distinguished career as a military surgeon by being appointed Surgeon's Mate on the Hospital Staff, not attached to a regiment, and on Nov 20th, 1793, was commissioned Staff-Surgeon under the command of the Earl of Moira. He received permanent rank as Staff-Surgeon on Sept 12th, 1799, and on Aug 13th, 1805, was superseded, having asked leave to resign on being ordered on foreign service. He was reinstated on June 9th, 1808, and on Sept 17th, 1812, rose to the rank of Deputy Inspector of Hospitals. In February, 1816, he was promoted Inspector of Hospitals (Continent of Europe only), and was placed on half pay on Oct 1st, 1816. His war service included the campaigns of Holland and Flanders (1793-1795), the Peninsular War, and Waterloo. Towards the close of the day at the Battle of Waterloo, Lord Raglan, Military Secretary to Wellington, was standing by the Duke's side, when he was wounded in the right elbow by a bullet from the roof of La Haye Sainte. The arm had to be amputated, and Gunning performed the operation. Raglan bore it without a word, and when it was ended called to the orderly: "Hallo! don't carry away that arm till I have taken off my ring" - a ring which his wife had given him. Gunning went to Paris with Wellington's army, and practised there after the conclusion of peace to the end of his life. He was nominally Surgeon to St George's Hospital from 1800-1823. On New Year's Day, 1863, he was having a dinner party. An attack of bronchitis prevented his receiving his friends on the day expected. His medical attendant thought it serious; but he got better, and on the Saturday was thought to be out of danger. On Sunday morning, Jan 11th, 1863, however, he expired in his arm-chair, without pain, and with scarcely any previous symptoms to denote his approaching end. His daughter, Mrs Bagshawe, the wife of the Queen's Counsel, and two of his grand-daughters were with him at the time of his death. He was then 90 years old, and was the senior member of the Royal College of Surgeons. He is noted by Lieut-Colonel Crawford as being one of the seven officers of the Army Medical Department on whom the CB (Mil) was conferred when medical officers were first made eligible for that honour in 1850.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000405
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hey, William II (1772 - 1844)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372590372590
Occupation General surgeon
Details William Hey II was the second son of William Hey I (1736-1819); he followed his father as a surgeon at Leeds, and, like him, was Surgeon to the Leeds Infirmary. He died at Leeds, after being twice Mayor, on March 13th, 1844. He was succeeded in turn by his son William Hey III (qv). Publication:- *Treatise on the Puerperal Fever in Leeds in* 1809-12, 8vo, London, 1815.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000406
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Pollock, Robert James (1805 - 1892)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Pollock, Timothy (1798 - 1881)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Pomfret, Henry Waytes (1858 - 1912)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-10-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002900-E002999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375154375154
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Hollingworth, Cheshire, in the Longdendale Valley, where his father had settled in medical practice whilst the railway, which became the Great Central Railway, was being made, and had gathered a large and wide country practice. Pomfret went to Marlborough School, and then to Owens College Medical School, and, having qualified, was appointed House Surgeon at the Royal Infirmary, Manchester. Next he worked for and passed the FRCS, and then returned to Owens College for the degree of the Victoria University, was elected to a Berkeley Fellowship, and carried out in the Pharmacological Laboratory a research on nitrous and nitroso groups of organic compounds, their physiological actions and therapeutic uses, which formed a thesis for the MD, under the title *Nitrosophenol or Quinonoxine* (Manchester, 1889), awarded a Gold Medal, and "Organic Oximides: a Research on their Pharmacology" (*Phil Trans*, 1896, clxxxvi, 223). Reverting to surgery, he became Surgical Registrar at the Royal Infirmary, and practised in Moseley Street. On the death of his brother-in-law, Dr Harold Wylde, who had succeeded to the elder Pomfret's practice, he returned to Hollingworth in 1900, carried on the family medical practice, was Medical Officer of Health and Public Vaccinator for the District, and Referee under the Workmen's Compensation Act. He likewise kept up his Manchester connection, and acted as Assistant Surgeon and Pathologist to the Ancoats Hospital. Pomfret was an alert and genial personality, a warm friend, and an able surgeon. He travelled, and devoted his leisure to music. He died at Hollingworth on November 18th, 1912.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002971
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Pooler, John ( - 1850)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Pooley, Charles (1817 - 1890)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Joseph, Laji (1930 - 2004)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2006-12-21 2013-02-14
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/372510372510
Occupation General surgeon
Details Laji Joseph became a professor in Bangalore. He passed the fellowship of the College in 1961 and returned to India where he practised in Bangalore. In June 2004 the College was informed of his death.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000323
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Clarke, David Glyn (1950 - 2004)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-02-01
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/372511372511
Occupation Public health officer
Details David Clarke developed multiple sclerosis just before passing his surgical fellowship and never practised as a surgeon. He was able, despite his difficulties, to pursue a career in public health, and became project officer for public health and health policy for London, with the Lambeth, Southward and Lewisham Health Commission. He died of metastatic melanoma on 6 January 2004, leaving a widow, Susan Clarke, also a doctor.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000324
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ward, Michael Phelps (1925 - 2005)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-02-01
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372512372512
Occupation General surgeon Mountaineer
Details Mike Ward, a pioneering climber and expert on altitude medicine and physiology, and a member of the 1953 expedition team which made the first ascent of Everest, was a consultant surgeon in London’s East End. He was born in London on 26 March 1925, the son of Wilfred Arthur Ward, a civil servant in Malaya, and Norah Anne Phelps, a former nurse. He was educated at Marlborough, where his housemaster was a veteran of two Everest expeditions, and went on to win the Ironmonger’s Company exhibition to read medicine at Peterhouse, Cambridge. There he climbed with the university club in France and sustained a fractured skull. He completed his clinical training at the London Hospital and, after house jobs, did his National Service in the RAMC, during which time he was able to study aerial photographs taken by the RAF of the south face of Mount Everest and plan a new route to the summit through the treacherous ice cliffs of the Khumbu glacier. He took his ideas to the Himalayan committee of the Alpine Club and the Royal Geographical Society, who backed his scheme, and so launched the 1951 expedition, which paved the way for the successful 1953 ascent. After the Everest expedition, Ward joined in the ensuing lecture tour, but did not care for its razzmatazz, and returned to train as a surgeon, as a registrar at the London, passed the FRCS, experienced the misery of thoracic surgery under Vernon Thompson, and the exhilaration of Hal Morton’s exchange residency at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal, and was finally appointed consultant surgeon to two East London hospitals, Poplar and St Andrew’s, Bow. There he gave a first rate service to his poor patients, eschewed private practice, and carried on a mostly successful campaign against the administrators who got in the way of his work. Whenever he could he went off to take part in mountaineering expeditions in the Himalayas and Pamirs, carried out important research into high altitude physiology, and wrote many papers and the classic textbook *High altitude medicine and physiology* (London, Chapman and Hall Medical, 1989), which ran to three editions. For this work he was widely honoured, receiving the Cuthbert Peek award and the Founder’s gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society, and the Cullum medal of the American Geographical Society. He was president of the Cambridge Alpine Club, vice-president of the Alpine Club and master of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. Superbly fit and lean, Mike Ward was not always easy to get to know: seemingly aloof, if not sardonic, he was always gentle and kind to his patients, continuing as his own locum after he retired. He married Felicity Jane Ewbank in 1957, by whom he had one son, Mark William. In 2002 he suffered a dislocation of the neck in a collision, which was successfully operated upon. Then, to much surprise, this superb athlete was found to have a cardiac valvular defect. He died as the result of an aortic aneurysm on 7 October 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000325
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bradley, Richard Holland (1820 - 1897)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bradley, Samuel Messenger (1841 - 1880)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373133373133
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at Manchester and the Manchester Infirmary; soon after he was qualified he served as Resident House Physician. He then had a varied experience as locum tenens for six months of a general practice in Bowness, Windermere, and next for twelve months he made several voyages between Liverpool and New York in the Cunard Company’s service. He began general practice at Longsight, which involved him in a warm controversy with the Manchester Board of Guardians over the treatment of the sick. At an inquiry by the Poor Law Board he produced such strong evidence as to justify his statements, and his legal expenses were paid by a public subscription. For a time he acted as Surgeon to the Ancoats and Ardwick Dispensary and lectured on physiology at Stonyhurst College, for he was a successful and popular lecturer on natural history subjects, and a brilliant conversationalist. He published the first of numerous books, a *Manual of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology*, in 1869, of which a third edition appeared in 1875. Having qualified as FRCS in 1869, he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to the Manchester Infirmary and Lecturer on Anatomy at Owens College; later he lectured on practical surgery, and in 1879 became Surgeon to the infirmary. In 1870 he joined Walter Whitehead and edited the *Manchester Medical and Surgical Reports*, later amalgamated with the *Liverpool Reports*. He wrote much in a popular style on the “Shape of English Skulls”, “On Controversial Aspects of Syphilis”, “On the Relationship of Anatomy to the Fine Arts”. Besides he was so skilful a painter as to be elected an honorary member of the Manchester Limners’ Club and exhibited pictures. He was also a member of the Literary Club and a composer of casual verses. He had striking clear-cut features, a slightly aquiline nose, high forehead, and massive jaw; he was a good linguist and possessed of musical talents. His contributions to surgery appear to have been limited to the “Treatment of Hydrocele” (*Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1872), and *Injuries and Diseases of the Lymphatic System*, 1879. His health not being good he went to Ramsgate for rest, where after getting wet he was seized with acute pleurisy and pericarditis, from which he died on May 27th, 1880, and was buried at Ramsgate. Publications: *Retrospect of Advance of Modern Medicine: an Introductory Address, Manchester Royal School of Medicine*, 8vo, Manchester, 1869. “The Unity of the Syphilitic Virus.” – *Med. Press and Circ.*, 1871, ii, 269. *Notes on Syphilis, with an Appendix on the Unity of the Syphilitic Poison*, 8vo, London, 1872. “A New Method of Treating Hydrocele.” – *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1872, i, 508. *Manual of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology*, 8vo, 1st ed., 1869; 3rd. ed., 1875. “Moral Responsibility,” 8vo, Lewes, n.d.; reprinted from *Jour. Ment. Sci.*, 1875-6, xxi, 251. *A Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the Art of Surgery: a Lecture*, 8vo, Manchester, 1876. *Injuries and Diseases of the Lymphatic System*, 8vo, London, 1879. “The Evolution of Disease.” – *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1871 ii, 19. *The Collateral Statistics of English Surgery in Public Medical Charities for* 1870 (with Walter Whitehead), 8vo, 1871. “Description of the Brain of an Idiot.” – *Jour. Anal. and Physiol.*, 1872, vi, 65. *The Relationship of Anatomy to the Fine Arts*. A Lecture delivered in the Royal Institution, Manchester, 8vo, Manchester and London, 1880, etc. *A List of S. M. Bradley’s Published Writings* (1863-1876), was issued from the press without date. Bradley was Editor, in conjunction with Walter Whitehead, of the *Manchester Medical and Surgical Reports* in 1870-1871, and remained as an Editor for some time after the amalgamation of the publication with a similar one at Liverpool, when it became the *Liverpool and Manchester Medical and Surgical Reports*. He contributed several papers to these *Reports*, including one on the “Shape of English Skulls”, his object being to show that the existing classification of crania was no longer accurate. With the same object in view he also wrote on Australian crania (1871-1872). His paper on the shape of English skulls was based upon his measurements of the heads of male prisoners in the Manchester Borough Gaol, and he concluded that the skull is greatly modified by civilization.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000950
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bradley, William Henry (1807 - 1881)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Smith, Beatrice Gwendoline (1903 - 1990)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-02-01
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/372516372516
Occupation General surgeon
Details Beatrice Smith was a surgeon at the South London and Marie Curie hospitals. She was born on 21 April 1903 in Stowmarket, Suffolk, the only child of Walter James Smith, a corn merchant, and Beatrice Amy née Gostling. She was educated at the Mount School, York, and University College Hospital, where she did house appointments in medicine and obstetrics and gynaecology. After a period as house surgeon at the County Hospital in York she returned to London as a surgical registrar at the Royal Free Hospital. She was appointed consultant surgeon at the South London and Marie Curie hospitals. During the war Beatrice served in the Emergency Medical Service. She married in 1936. Her married name was Riekie. After her retirement she devoted herself to music and gardening.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000329
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Philip, Peter Forbes (1922 - 2009)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by R M Kirk
Publication Date 2009-12-17
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373004373004
Occupation Urologist
Details Peter Forbes Philip was a consultant urologist at Charing Cross Hospital and a prime mover in organising the hospital’s rebuilding. Philip was born on 6 January 1922 in Walthamstow, where his father, George Stuart Bain Philip, was a general practitioner who had qualified at Charing Cross. His mother, Janet Mallinson, had been a nurse. He went to St Aubyn’s Preparatory School and then to Bancroft’s School in Woodford. He did his preclinical training at King’s College, London (then at Leeds), and Birmingham University, before winning the David Livingstone scholarship to Charing Cross Hospital. There he was influenced by Stibbe and McDowall, Norman Lake, Jennings Marshall, David Trevor and Gordon Holmes. He qualified in 1945 and was house surgeon at Ashridge Base Hospital (part of Charing Cross) and then in the Strand to Norman Lake and Jennings Marshall. He was then a resident surgical officer at Lincoln County Hospital, where G A B Walters inspired his interest in urology. He then joined the RAF as a graded specialist in surgery at Ely Hospital and Nocton Hall with the rank of squadron leader. On demobilisation, he was senior surgical registrar at Harold Wood Hospital in Essex for two years during which time he was seconded to Tilbury, Orsett and Billericay. He was then resident surgical officer at St Peter’s Hospital for the Stone. He was appointed as a consultant urologist at Charing Cross Hospital in 1951 and was assistant director to the professorial surgical unit. Later he was also a consultant urologist at the Bolingbroke Hospital and the Royal Masonic Hospital. He published on urethral strictures and urinary diversion and edited the section on urology in Bailey and Love’s *Short textbook of surgery* from 1967 to 1983. He played a major part in organising the rebuilding of Charing Cross Hospital and described this colossal undertaking in the *Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England* 1973:53;335. In 1947 he married Joyce Audrey Grant, a nursing sister at Charing Cross. They had three children: Susan Jane, John Stuart Forbes and Jane Elizabeth. He was a skilled cabinet maker and enjoyed rebuilding old Alfa Romeo cars. He was a quiet caring man who was liked by all and respected for his optimistic, pragmatic, good nature and honesty. An anaesthetist colleague summed him up: “No histrionics, no prima donna acting to the gallery to impress the students, no temper tantrums, just elegant surgery performed in an atmosphere of friendly co-operation for the benefit it the patient.”
Resource Identifier RCS: E000821
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Stirk, David Ian (1916 - 2009)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-12-17
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373005373005
Occupation General surgeon
Details David Stirk was a consultant general surgeon in Barnstaple and an authority on golf. He was born in Exeter on 1 March 1916, the son of a doctor. He was educated at Blundell’s and studied medicine at St Mary’s Hospital. After five years in the RAMC, three of which were spent in India, he returned to London to specialise in surgery and passed the FRCS in 1952. He then went to Singapore to take up an appointment as a general surgeon, returning in 1959 as the first consultant general surgeon at the North Devon Infirmary in Barnstaple, where he remained until his retirement in 1980. Hitherto the North Devon Infirmary had been looked after by GP specialists, but David now built up a department of surgery, which, on its new site at the North Devon District Hospital, now has seven consultant surgeons. He published papers on duodenal haematoma, strangulated inguino-femoral hernia, pneumothorax and penetrating abdominal injuries. Although he was the leading surgeon in north Devon during the latter phases of his working life, he was better known throughout Great Britain as an outstanding golfer and made many friends in the golfing world. After retiring from his medical work, he became a leading authority on old golf equipment, particularly clubs, of which he had an impressive collection. With Ian Henderson, he wrote the leading work on the subject, *Golf in the making* (Crawley, Hants, Henderson and Stirk Ltd, 1979), as well as 11 other books on golfing subjects. He advised many of the oldest golf clubs in the country on their collections and one of the leading auctioneers of old golfing equipment. He played an important role in the establishment of a museum at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, of which he was a member. Amongst his achievements as a player, he was runner up in the British Seniors’ Championship, twice winner of the Devon Open Championship (a competition open to professionals as well as amateurs), winner of the Devon Amateur Championship and of the Singapore Amateur Championship. In later years he was one of the few golfers who have completed a round of golf in fewer strokes than their age, a feat which he accomplished frequently, although he himself did not think it really counted unless it was done under strict medal competition conditions from the very back tees. David and his wife Joan-Anne were married on 3 September 1949 and celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary in 2009. He is survived by Joan-Anne, their three sons (Ian, Denzil and Graeme) and five grandchildren. He died peacefully in Exmouth Hospital on 15 September 2009, aged 93.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000822
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Singh, Pritam (1920 - 2009)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Manmeet Singh
Publication Date 2009-12-17 2010-05-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373006373006
Occupation General surgeon
Details Pritam Singh was chief medical officer, director of health services and deputy secretary of health to the Punjab government in India. He was born in Patiala, India, on 9 January 1920. His father, Harcharan Singh Seraph, was an architect who had worked with Lutyens on the building of New Delhi. His mother was Gurdevi Kaur. After attending the celebrated Mohindra College, Patiala, he did his pre-clinical studies at the Forman Christian College, Lahore, where he was first in the college and third in the university. His clinical training was undertaken at King Edward Medical College, Lahore, where V R Mirajkar was the professor of surgery. He qualified with the Rahim Khan gold medal and became house surgeon to Mirajkar. In 1945 he was awarded the Maharaja of Patiala scholarship for further studies in England. He was registrar to Basil Page, the pioneering urologist at the North Middlesex Hospital, for three years, during which time he attended courses at St Peter’s Hospital and other teaching hospitals in London and passed the FRCS in 1948. In 1949 he went to the USA for two years, to the Massachusetts General Hospital, Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and the Mayo Clinic. In 1951 he was invited to become a surgical specialist at Mulago Hospital, Kampala, Uganda. He was a colleague of Dennis Burkitt and they shared a passion for photography. Together they made a particular study of lymphoma, especially of the jaw, which was common in children. His reputation grew and in 1962 he was recommended by Sir Cecil Wakeley to Pandit Nehru as the right man to set up the new medical school at Chandigarh. There he organised and accomplished the transformation of a small cottage hospital into a modern teaching hospital, to which he attracted outstanding teachers from all over the world, including his old friend Burkitt. His achievement was recognised by his appointment as chief medical officer and later director of health services and deputy secretary of health to the Punjab government. Pritam Singh had many interests. He was a keen artist and illustrated many of his own papers. He photographed the 16th century Kangra Valley paintings for Mohinder Singh Randhawa’s monograph, was a keen golfer, gardener and woodworker. He married Harjit in 1953. They had four children – Sukhwant Singh (a businessman), Kanwal Chopra (a schoolteacher), Gitanjali Johar (an importer of stone) and Anjali Sawhney (a teacher at Imperial College, London). He died on 30 May 2009.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000823
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bennett, George (1804 - 1893)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-12-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373007373007
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Plymouth on Jan 31st, 1804. While still a boy he visited Ceylon in 1819, returning to England by way of Mauritius, where he stayed for six months. Entering on the study of medicine in his native town, he went afterwards to London and entered the Middlesex Hospital and the Windmill Street School, where his masters were Charles Bell, Herbert Mayo, and Caesar Hawkins. After qualifying he went on a voyage to New Zealand, and there studied coniferous trees including the Thuja pine, the Kawaka of the Maoris. (See Lond. Jour. of Botany, 1842, i, 570.) He also described the ‘moki’, or method of preparing heads, of the New Zealanders. His greatest discovery, however, during this early voyage was the Pearly Nautilus in its living state. It was found on Aug 24th, 1829, floating in Marakini, or Dillon’s Bay, Island of Erromango in the New Hebrides group. (See Bennett’s Gatherings of a Naturalist.) He sent this unique specimen to his friend Richard Owen, at that time assistant to William Clift at the Royal College of Surgeons’ Museum, and thus enabled Owen to write his brilliant description of it which was published in 1832. During this early expedition he visited and described several islands in the New Hebrides group. The child Elau, a native of Erromango, was brought home by the expedition in 1831, and was the first of her race to appear in England. She died at Plymouth in 1834. Other islands visited by him were the Philippines and the Caroline Group, Tahiti and the Sandwich Islands. He published in the Asiatic Journal an account of the Polynesian dialects and of the practice of medicine among the New Zealanders and other Polynesians. He revisited New South Wales in 1832 to study the natural history of the Colony, especially the habits and anatomy of the Ornithorhyncus. Many descriptions of the animal occur in some thirty letters which he wrote to Owen. They are preserved in the College (Owen Collection). In one letter he tells of two specimens brought by him to Sydney from the interior, whence they were with difficulty conveyed some two hundred miles on horseback. One has died, but the other is running about the room as he writes. These familiar letters are most interesting as showing the manner in which Owen obtained his specimens. The letters date from 1833 to 1840, and some are written from ship-board in the Indian Ocean when he was using the drag-net. Bennett visited Java, Sumatra, Singapore, and China after leaving Australia, and embodied his observations in his well-known work, The Wanderings of a Naturalist in New South Wales, Batavia, Pedir Coast, Singapore and China, published in two volumes by Bentley in 1834. In this and in his Gatherings of a Naturalist is much for which we look in vain in the letters to Owen. Bennett sent numbers of specimens to the College in 1833 (see “Minutes of the Board of Curators”). His donations amounted to some five hundred. In the year 1834 the Royal College of Surgeons awarded him the Honorary Gold Medal for his discovery of the Pearly Nautilus and for preparations illustrating the developmental history of the Kangaroo and Ornithorhyncus. In 1832 he was elected a Corresponding Member of the Zoological Society of London, and was the first to present to the Society’s collections a living specimen of the Mooruk or Morrup (Casuarius Bennettii or Bennett’s Cassowary), from New Britain, in 1857-1858, and specimens of the Kagu (Rhinochetus jubatus) from New Caledonia (1862-1863), the Tooth-billed Pigeon, or Little Dodo (Didunculus strigirostris) (1864), Eyton’s Tree Duck (Dendrocygna Eytoni) (1867), the New Caledonia Rail, the Wood Hen Rail from Lord Howe’s Island, and the Yellow Bellied Phalanger. He also presented specimens of the Ursine Dasyure or Tasmanian Devil, and the Australian Bustard (1859-1867). The Zoological Society awarded him its Silver Medal on May 7th, 1862. Bennett settled in New South Wales after 1834, and began to practise in Sydney in 1836 in order to add to the income (£100 per annum) derived from the Secretaryship of the Australian Museum Committee, to which he was appointed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies on the advice of the President of the Royal College of Surgeons and other College authorities. He continued constantly on the alert for fresh discoveries in natural science, and his liberality and energy in procuring new objects in order to make them known to the world, were frequently and widely recognized. In 1835, soon after reaching Sydney, he was appointed by Government to report upon the epidemic catarrh of sheep, which was very prevalent in the Colony and which threatened its wealth and resources. He pronounced it to be influenza. His findings, to which he refers in a letter to Owen, were published by Government after careful investigation. His connection with the Australian Museum was a long one. He was its first Secretary. In January, 1836, he writes to Owen to say that it is “arranged, classified and contains about 320 specimens”. He published a catalogue in 1837, and resigned in 1841, but, when this famous institution was incorporated in 1853, he was appointed a trustee and remained so for more than twenty years. He was active in establishing the Sydney School of Arts (1838-1850), and worked hard both as a Lecturer on Zoology and on the Committee, being Vice-President for many years. He allowed himself a respite from his many labours in 1859, and made a long European tour. When in London he published his best-known book Gatherings of a Naturalist (1860). It is a store-house of facts as to the natural and general history of Australia. He was appointed an Associate and a Member of the Committee of the Biological Section of the British Association (Aberdeen) in 1859, and held the same positions at the Oxford (1860) and Plymouth (1877) Meetings. He was elected a Member of the Board of Examiners in the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Sydney in 1856, and three years later Professor Harvey dedicated to him Volume II of his Phytologia Australica. In 1860 he was appointed a Member of the Imperial Australian Zoological and Botanical Society. An Acclimatization Society having been formed in Sydney in 1861, he delivered a lecture on “Acclimatization and its Adaptation to Australia”, which was afterwards published by the Melbourne Acclimatization Society and largely distributed in Sydney. He was Hon Secretary of the Sydney Acclimatization Society from 1863-1871. At the end of his tenure of office a long correspondence was carried on with the Government of India on the subject of the cultivation of silk, and that portion of it which related to New South Wales was published by the Government (1870). Bennett also corresponded with Japan on the same subject, and was sent full information and a collection of choice eggs to found an Australian silk-worm industry. He became a member by election of the Imperial Society of Cherbourg in 1864 and a corresponding member of the Royal Society of Tasmania. In 1871 he began a search for fossil mammalia and reptilia and discovered many important new specimens in the Queensland drifts. Professor Owen published his letter on his journey and his mode of search in the Annals of Natural History 1872 (4th Ser., ix, 314-21). Bennett was awarded the Silver Medal of the Acclimatization Society of Victoria in 1873 in recognition of his services in their cause, and in 1874 he was appointed Hon Consulting Physician to St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney. He took a trip to Europe in 1877, travelling via North America, and returned in 1879 via Bombay and Ceylon. During this visit he was elected Corresponding Member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, Hon Member of the Geographical Society of Rome, Fellow of the Royal Colonial Institute, and Hon Corresponding Secretary. He acted as Executive Commissioner representing the Ceylon Government at the Sydney International Exhibition (1879-1880), and in 1882 was elected President of the New South Wales Zoological Society. In 1888 he was elected President of the Natural History Association, and was re-elected in 1891, when the Society was re-named the Field Naturalists’ Society of New South Wales. In this year he presented a stained glass window to the Medical School of Sydney University. The Clarke Memorial Medal of the Royal Society (NSW), awarded “for Meritorious Contributions to the Geology, Mineralogy, or Natural History of Australia to men of science, whether resident in Australia or elsewhere”, was bestowed upon him in December, 1890, and the same year he bequeathed scientific works to the value of over £2000 to the Library of Sydney University. The gift included the valuable works of John Gould, with whom he had been much associated, and whom, with many other leading naturalists, such as Cumming, he often mentions in his letters. For the last ten years of his life Bennett took little active part in the work of his profession, though he continued to act as Co-examiner in Materia Medica and Therapeutics at the University, subjects in which he had always been greatly interested. His mental faculties remained remarkably clear to the close of his long life, and he died, full of honours – in fact, the Patriarch of Colonial Science – on Sept 29th, 1893, at his residence, 167 William Street, Sydney. He was then within four months of being a nonogenarian. He was buried in the Monumental Division of the Church of England Cemetery at the Rookwood Necropolis, Sydney, where his widow erected a handsome memorial. There is a fine photograph of George Bennett in the Council Album, which is reproduced in the Australasian Medical Gazette. There is an early photograph of him by Maull and Polyblank in the College Collection. Bennett’s name is remembered by Zoologists and others at every turn. “Bennett’s Wallaby” (Dendrolagus Bennettianus) is the Queensland Tree Kangaroo which he was the first to discover. It is figured in the Cambridge Natural History. Birds named after him are the Casuarius Bennettii, or Moruk of New Britain and the Ægotholes Bennettii (Bennett’s Cross Toad, Castlereagh River), and Diporophoron Bennettii, a lizard, discovered by Sir George Gray in North-West Australia. The following have also been named after him by various naturalists, etc: – Phanerogams – Eupomatia Bennettii, Queensland; Flindersia Bennettiana, Queensland; Mucuna Bennettii, New Guinea; Ficus Bennettii, South Sea Island; Antiaris Bennettii, Tucopia, Fiji. Cryptogams – Claudea Bennettiana, Spectacle Island. Insecta – Eupholus Bennettii, New Guinea. Mollusca – Helix Bennettii, Ipswich, Queensland; Goniodorus Bennettii, Angas, Port Jackson. Finally, Richard Owen commemorated his friend by naming two paleontological specimens after him – Diprotodon Bennettii, from Mandoona, NSW, and Chlamydosaurus Bennettii, from Gowrie Station, Darling Downs. Publications:– Bennett wrote voluminously, and to reconstruct his bibliography, even approximately, is no easy matter. The following are indications only:– Papers, descriptive of his first expedition to the South Seas, in the Asiatic Jour., United Service Jour., Med. and Phys. Jour., Med. Gaz., Loudoun’s Mag. Nat. Hist., and other scientific journals. Observations on the Coniferous Trees of New Zealand in Lambert’s Description of the Genus Pinus, Feb 6th, 1832. “The Mode of preparing Heads among the New Zealanders.” – Roy. Inst. Jour., 1831, June. Papers in the Mirror, 1831, edit. Timbs, including the first published account, with engraving, of the monument of La Pérouse, at Botany, Sydney. Papers on several of the Polynesian Islands, viz., Rotuma, Tongatalu, and some of the New Hebrides, in United Service Jour., 1831. Papers on the Islands of Erromango and Tanna, New Hebrides, Asiatic Jour., 1831-2. An Account of Elau, a Malayan Papuan Child, Native of the Island of Erromango, one of the New Hebrides Group, Southern Pacific Ocean, 8vo, with photograph, privately printed, Sydney, n.d. Papers on Manilla and on the Pulowat Islands, and on the Polynesian Dialects, Asiatic Jour., 1831. A number of papers, including “Notes on the Karaka Tree and on the Tutu or Wine-Berry Tree, the Puredi, and other New Zealand plants”, with engravings by Vizetelley, Lond. Med. Gaz., 1831-2, ix and x. Extracts from “A Journal of Natural History”, from England to New South Wales, Batavia, Sumatra, Singapore, etc., and notes on the Practice of Medicine among the New Zealanders and others of the Polynesians. Papers on the Kava, and on other plants, and on the intermittent fever of Erromango in Med. Phys. Jour. 1832. Notes on the Island of Tahiti, 1831. Notes on the Sandwich Islands, 1831. “Botany of Tahiti.” – Loudoun’s Mag. Nat. Hist., 1832, v. “Notices on the Native Plants of the Island of Rotuna.” – Ibid. “An Account of the Ungka Ape of Sumatra.” – Ibid. 1832, v, 131. “An Account of the Sandalwood Tree, and Observations on some Plants of the Sandwich Islands.” – Ibid. The Wanderings of a Naturalist in New South Wales, Batavia, Pedir Coast, Singapore and China, 2 vols., 8vo, London, 1834. “Notes on the Natural History and Habits of the Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus.” – Proc. Zool. Soc., 1834, Part 2, 191; and Trans. Zool. Soc., 1835, i, 229. Report on the Epidemic Catarrh affecting Sheep, NSW Govt. publication, 1835. Catalogue of the Australian Museum, 1837. Papers on various subjects, Lit. News, 1837. Gatherings of a Naturalist in Australasia, 8vo, 8 col. plates, London, 1860. Acclimatization: its eminent Adaptation to Australia: a Lecture, 8vo, Melbourne, 1862. Selected portions of “Correspondence relating to the Cultivation of Silk in New South Wales”, published by Govt., Sydney, 1870. Series of illustrated articles on the results of an expedition to Queensland in search of fossil mammalia, etc., Sydney Mail, 1872; published as a Trip to Queensland in search of Fossils. “Notes on a Visit to Melbourne, Tasmania, and South Australia.” – Leisure Hour, 1879. Papers in the N.S.W. Med. Gaz., Australasian Med. Gaz., Zoological Proc. and Trans., Jour, of Botany, Gardener’s Chron., Sci. Gossip, Lancet, etc. Among the College Archives is the “General Account of Specimens of Comp. Anatomy and Natural History collected and presented to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons by George Bennett”, MS. dated May 17th, 1834.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000824
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brady, George Fraser (1820 - 1877)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Murley, Sir Reginald Sydney (1916 - 1997)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-03-08 2007-03-21
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372520372520
Occupation General surgeon
Details Reginald Murley, known universally to friend and foe alike as ‘Reggie’, was a consultant surgeon at the Royal Northern Hospital and a former President of the College. He was born on 2 August 1916. His father, Sydney Herbert, was a fur trader and a general manager of the Hudson Bay Company. His mother, Beatrice, was a cousin of Lillian Bayliss, founder of the Old Vic theatre. Reggie was educated at Dulwich College, where some of the features of his rugged extrovert personality rapidly became apparent. In 1934 he entered St Bartholomew’s Hospital, then at its zenith as one of the leading teaching hospitals, where he won several prizes in anatomy and physiology. Anticipating that war was inevitable, he joined the Territorial Army early in 1939 and a week before the second world war began found himself in the No 168 City of London Cavalry Field Ambulance, and as a consequence had to wear breeches, spurs, and learn to ride a horse. He travelled widely in the Army, seeing service in Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia, gaining invaluable experience, mainly in plastic surgery. He returned to England in 1944 and was posted as a surgeon to No 53 Field Surgical Unit in France, Holland and Germany, and gained extensive experience of the surgical aspects of modern warfare prior to his demobilisation as a Major. Following his return to civilian life, he was appointed as an anatomy demonstrator at Bart’s. From 1946 to 1949 together he was surgical chief assistant there, with clinical assistantships at St Mark’s and St Peter’s Hospitals. He passed the final FRCS examination in 1946. In the same year, he was appointed consultant surgeon to St Alban’s City Hospital, and in 1952 as consultant surgeon to the Royal Northern Hospital in London. He continued to serve both these institutions with distinction for the remainder of his professional life. He did some excellent research on Geoffrey Keynes’ conservative approach to breast cancer and demonstrated that it had advantages in survival rate over the then widely practised radical mastectomy. He also worked on the detection and prevention of venous thrombosis, was awarded an Hunterian Professorship on this subject, and became an early advocate of emergency pulmonary embolectomy. Although he always saw himself first and foremost as a practising surgeon, by the mid 1940s Reggie became increasingly apprehensive about the introduction of a National Health Service and his interest in, or rather his disillusionment with, medical politics dates from this time. As a senior surgical registrar at a special meeting of the Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons just before the NHS began he had the courage and temerity to criticise the College and the President for “*a tactical blunder which had confused and divided the profession, weakened the position of the BMA and strengthened the hand of the minister*”. Though he and his fellow rebels lost the ensuing vote, Reggie remained opposed to ‘nationalised medicine’ and he firmly believed that the profession had been sold out by the machinations of a few senior members. He was a founder member of the Fellowship for Freedom in Medicine and was its President in 1974. As one of the College’s first surgical tutors and a regional adviser, he was elected to the Council in 1970, and as President on Bastille Day (14 July) in 1977. He devoted himself with his customary vigour to that office: he was frequently controversial, loyally adherent to his principles, acerbic but amusing, argumentative but endearing, and, above all, devoted to the College and its history. He was an accomplished public speaker and punctiliously disciplined in keeping to his allotted time span, which was remarkable given that he was an inveterate chatterer who attempted to dominate every conversation. Much as he enjoyed his three years as President, he came to feel in his latter years that his most important contribution to the College was his eight years as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Hunterian collection. John Hunter, the founder of scientific surgery, was Murley’s hero and his devotion to the collection of Hunter’s specimens knew no limits. Ever alert to the slightest whiff of a threat, he fiercely opposed any attempt to diminish the importance of Hunter in the College’s scheme of priorities. During a particularly difficult period, when his health was already in decline, he earned the unfailing support of the elected trustees during a long period of arduous meetings and only relinquished the chair when he felt that the ship was in calmer waters once more. Reggie’s appointment to the 1st Cavalry Division in 1939 was apposite, for this ambience suited his attributes well, and he remained a cavalryman at heart throughout his life. With his booming, resonant voice, accompanied by a hearty guffaw, staff and patients alike became aware of his arrival long before he appeared in person. Not for him the constraints of devious Machiavellian diplomacy which he generally termed ‘pussy-footing around’. He remained firmly wedded to the Cardigan principle of a full-blooded frontal assault, sabre drawn, no matter how great the odds. It was these very qualities which made him such a steadfast ally and stalwart opponent: no one was left long to linger in anguished doubt as to the respective camp to which they had been assigned. Reggie was without question a member of that rapidly dwindling band of men known as ‘characters’: a quality composed of a judicious mixture of intelligence, ability and individuality; difficult to define but instantly recognisable features common to many men who made our country great and now in very short supply. In 1947, he married Daphne Butler née Garrod who had been twice widowed in the war; he inherited a step daughter, Susan, and they had a further two daughters, Jennifer and Hilary, and three sons, David, Gavin and Anthony. There are nine grandchildren. Sadly his final years were clouded by steadily progressive disability and he died on 2 October 1997.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000334
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Alpar, Emin Kaya (1943 - 2005)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-03-15 2007-08-02
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/372521372521
Occupation Trauma surgeon
Details A trauma surgeon, Emin Alpar was a former medical director of the Birmingham Accident Hospital. He was born on 30 August 1943, in Istanbul, Turkey, the son of Mithat Alpar, an industrialist, and Nevin Alpar, a housewife. He was educated at Ankara College, where he gained a baccalaureate in 17 subjects, and went on to study medicine at Ankara University. In 1966 he graduated with first class honours. He trained in surgery at Bristol, the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Oswestry, Liverpool and Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, New York. He was particularly influenced by Donal Brooks, Robert Owen and Sir Reginald Watson-Jones. In 1973 he returned to Turkey to complete his National Service, working as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Sarikamis Military Hospital. In 1975 he was appointed associate professor of orthopaedic surgery at Hacettepe University. Five years later, in 1980, he transferred to Birmingham, as a senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham department of surgery. He was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon at the Birmingham Accident Hospital (1981), Birmingham General Hospital (1993) and University Hospital Birmingham (1995). From 1990 to 1993 he was medical director of the Birmingham Accident Hospital. In 1994 he set up a MMedSci course in surgery of trauma at the University of Birmingham, and was course director until 2000. He was chairman of the Institute of Accident Surgery from 1993 to 2002. Essentially a trauma surgeon, he felt that the trauma surgeon must be a generalist because trauma does not observe anatomical boundaries. He was particularly interested in the treatment of whiplash injury and the association with atypical carpal tunnel syndrome. A committed teacher and trainer, he was supportive of all staff. As a result of his experience he was much in demand as an expert witness in medico-legal disputes. Alpar played basketball as a young man and enjoyed swimming and walking later in life. He was interested in history and specifically the history of medicine. In 1966 he married Oya, now professor and head of the centre for drug delivery research at the School of Pharmacy, University of London. They divorced in 2003. They had two sons – Bora and Burak, both of whom work in the finance sector. Alpar died early in November 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000335
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bendall, Robin (1933 - 2006)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-03-15 2007-05-24
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/372522372522
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Robin Bendall was an orthopaedic surgeon in London. He was born on 1 April 1933 in Notthingham, where his father, Oliver Francis Bendall, was a wholesale grocer. His mother was Winnie May née Barrett. He attended West Bridgford Grammar School, Nottingham, and then went on to Guy’s Hospital Medical School, where he qualified in 1956. After serving as house surgeon to J S Batchelor at Guy’s he did his National Service in the RAF, with postings to Christmas Island and Nocton Hall Hospital. Following demobilisation he became a general surgical registrar at Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup, gaining his FRCS in 1964. He was then an orthopaedic registrar at St George’s Hospital, London, and subsequently held a senior orthopaedic post at Charing Cross Hospital, where he was influenced by David Trevor. He was appointed as a consultant to St George’s Hospital, St James’s Hospital, Balham, and Queen Mary’s Hospital for Children at Carshalton. Influenced by Douglas Freebody, he developed an interest in the treatment of low back pain and published on the subject. At Carshalton he treated children with scoliosis. He set up the St George’s orthopaedic training scheme, and was secretary of the south west metropolitan orthopaedic advisory committee and a member of the clinical and orthopaedic sections of the Royal Society of Medicine, serving as secretary of the latter in 1980. He was a fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association. In 1958 Robin Bendall married June Mary Nicholls, a nursing sister, by whom he had two sons, Stephen (a consultant orthopaedic surgeon) and Timothy, and a daughter, Claire. He later divorced and married Tricia. Sadly, Tricia died and he brought up their son, Olly, on his own. His grandchildren were Emma, Gabby, Georgie and Max. Robin Bendall died quite suddenly from a heart attack on 5 October 2006 whilst removing his luggage from an airport conveyor belt.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000336
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Dixon, James William Theodore (1921 - 2003)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-03-15 2009-05-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372523372523
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details James Dixon was an ENT surgeon in Glasgow and later Devon. He was born on 28 September 1921 in Trong, Perak, Malaya, where his father, William John Dixon, was working as a doctor. His mother was Grace Gertrude née Holmes. He was educated at St Peter’s, Exmouth, and Epsom College, from which he went to University College Hospital with an entrance scholarship. There he was much influenced by Gwynne Williams, Myles Formby, Gavin Livingstone and Ronald Macbeth. On qualifying he did his house jobs at University College Hospital, Hampstead General Hospital, the Postgraduate Medical School Hammersmith and the Royal Ear Hospital. He served in the RAMC from 1946 to 1948, reaching the rank of major. He returned to University College Hospital as a registrar and senior registrar, specialising in ENT. He was a senior registrar at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, before being appointed surgeon in charge of the ENT department, at the Royal Infirmary, Glasgow, in 1959, with the honorary position of lecturer in otolaryngology. In 1970 he moved to Devon, as a consultant for the Devon and Exeter clinical area, based at Torbay Hospital. He published articles on acute otitis media in children, carcinoma of the larynx and solitary neurilemmomata. Dixon was honorary secretary of the section of laryngology of the Royal Society of Medicine from 1966 to 1968 and a member of the council of the British Association of Otolaryngologists from 1970. Whilst in Glasgow he examined for the final FRCS in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Ireland. He married a Miss McCay in 1955, and had three sons and a daughter. He died suddenly on 6 April 2003. Neil Weir
Resource Identifier RCS: E000337
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gleave, John Reginald Wallace (1925 - 2006)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-03-15 2011-12-20
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372524372524
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Gleave was a consultant neurosurgeon at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, and an accomplished oarsman. He was born in Walsall, Staffordshire (now West Midlands), on 6 April 1925, the son of John Wallace Gleave, a priest, and his wife, Dorothy (née Littlefair). He was educated at Uppingham School, to which he won a scholarship in 1938. He then went to Magdalen College, Oxford, with an exhibition and took an honours degree in natural sciences, before completing his clinical studies at the Radcliffe Infirmary, where he won the Gask clinical prize in 1947. His house jobs were at the Radcliffe Infirmary with A Cooke, A Elliott- Smith and Sir Hugh Cairns (with whom he had done an elective period as a student). Cairns, Nuffield Professor of Surgery at Oxford, had established the neurosurgical department at Oxford before the war. Gleave completed his National Service in the neurological unit at Wheatley Military Hospital. There he worked under the neurologist Ritchie Russell, Honor Smith (who had done important research on the treatment of meningitis with Cairns) and the neurosurgeon Walpole Lewin. After his National Service, he became a registrar to the professorial surgical unit in Liverpool and then senior registrar in neurosurgery at Oxford. In 1962 he was appointed second consultant neurosurgeon at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, in the unit set up by Walpole Lewin. He remained there until his retirement in 1990. The department at Adenbrooke's became a large regional centre. When Lewin died in 1980, Gleave became the senior consultant and the department expanded with new appointments and the establishment of the Bayer chair of neurosurgery. Gleave was a skilful general neurosurgeon with a special interest stereotaxic neurosurgery, which he advocated for the accurate diagnostic biopsy of intracranial lesions. In 1990, together with R Macfarlane, he wrote a paper, which suggested that, while urgent surgery for acute central disc protrusion with cauda equina compression was wise, the unfavourable prognosis of the condition was determined so early in the course of the disease that unless delay was shorter than was ordinarily possible, it did not greatly influence the outcome. This suggestion, which had clear medico-legal implications, was resisted in the United States, where the paper was rejected on principle. It was, however, published in this country. Gleave was a fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge, from 1976 until 1990, praelector from 1982 to 2002, a tutor in neuroanatomy at Magdalene College between 1974 and 1992, and an examiner in surgery to the University of London from 1985 to 1991. He was a notable sportsman. He represented Oxford University in fives and squash, and played rugby for Oxfordshire and the Royal Army Medical Corps, but his great sporting interest was rowing. He was in the Oxford VIII for three successive years, and was invited to try for the Olympic crew in 1948, but his father vetoed this. He then rowed for Leander in crews that were beaten only in the final at Henley of the Stewarts' cup and the Silver Goblets in 1948, but in 1949 won the Grand Challenge cup in record time. In 1979 he won a gold medal in the veteran coxed fours at the World Championships. He coached Lady Margaret crews at Cambridge for a number of years with enthusiasm and success. Gleave was a classical scholar, accomplished in Latin and Greek. In retirement he undertook the translation of his own copy of Willis's *Cerebri anatome*, though he was unable to finish the last chapter because of illness. He married Anne Newbolt in 1953. There were six children. He died on 6 August 2006 from the effects of a carcinoma of the kidney.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000338
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hadfield, James Irvine Havelock (1930 - 2006)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-03-15 2014-07-24
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372525372525
Occupation General surgeon
Details James Hadfield was a consultant general surgeon with a urological interest at Bedford Hospital. He came from a distinguished medical family: his father, Geoffrey Hadfield, was professor of pathology at the London School of Medicine for Women at the Royal Free Hospital. His mother was Sarah Victoria Eileen Irvine. His elder brother, Geoffrey John, became vice-president of our College and his elder sister, Esmé Havelock Hadfield, was an ENT surgeon at High Wycombe and Amersham hospitals. James was born at Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, on 12 July 1930. He was educated at Winchester House School, Brackley, Radley College, and then Brasenose College, Oxford. He completed his clinical training at St Thomas' Hospital, qualifying in 1955 and winning the Clutton medal and the Beaney prize in surgery. At Oxford he rowed for his college and the Isis VIII, and gained an Olympic trial in 1952. He continued to row at St Thomas', becoming captain of the United Hospitals Boat Club in 1953 and of his hospital in 1954. James won the senior IV pairs sculls, and double sculls at the United Hospitals Regatta, competing in no fewer than ten races in one day. He was house surgeon at St Thomas' to R H O B Robinson, a general surgeon specialising in urology and one of the founder members of British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS). From 1962 to 1966 James was surgical tutor and first assistant in surgery, and George Herbert Hunt scholar to Oxford University in 1965. He was appointed consultant general surgeon at Bedford Hospital in 1966, and was medical director there for several years. In retirement he taught anatomy at Cambridge and was tutor to undergraduates at Jesus College. His main interests were in urology and the surgery of the parathyroid gland, and he had a great interest in training young surgeons from overseas. He examined for Oxford, Cambridge and the conjoint, as well as for the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. As an examiner he was fair, but sometimes a little fearsome in his approach to candidates. His publications reflected his surgical interests, including stone formation in the urinary tract, the management of bladder outflow obstruction and diseases of the parathyroid glands. He was an Arris and Gale lecturer at our College in 1973. James was a family man who enjoyed country pursuits, painting and collecting watercolours, as well as gardening. For a time he bred and trained gun dogs. In 1957 he married Ann Pickernell Milner, a sister-tutor at St Thomas', also from a medical family. They had three children. Esmé Victoria became a general practitioner in Birmingham, and married a consultant head and neck surgeon. Another daughter, Countess Helen Sarah Orsich, entered television as a producer, and their son Geoffrey Havelock became a translator. There were six grandchildren. He died on 17 May 2006 from carcinoma of the duodenum.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000339
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Harding-Jones, David (1936 - 2005)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-03-15 2014-04-09
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/372526372526
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details David Harding-Jones was an orthopaedic surgeon in Carmarthen, Wales. He was born in Stratford, East London, on 3 August 1936, one of a pair of identical twins. His father, William, was a Presbyterian minister. His mother was Gertrude Alice née Roberts. He was educated at Bancroft's School, Woodford Green, and Charing Cross Hospital. After junior posts, he specialised in orthopaedics, becoming a registrar at the Westminster Hospital, rotating registrar at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital, Oswestry, and Hereford General Hospital, and senior registrar at the United Cardiff Hospitals. He was appointed consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at the West Wales General Hospital, Carmarthen. At the College he was regional adviser in orthopaedics for south Wales. He died on 27 March 2005 after a short and sudden illness and is survived by his wife June née Hitchens, whom he married in 1960, and by his three sons (Andrew, Ian and Neil), two daughters (Alison and Fiona) and five grandchildren (Bethan, Thomas, Iestyn, Ella and Angus).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000340
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Amdrup, Erik (1923 - 1998)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-05-10 2014-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372527372527
Occupation Gastroenterological surgeon
Details Erik Amdrup was director of surgical gastro-enterology and professor of surgery at Aarus Kommune Hospital, Denmark. He was born on 21 February 1923. His PhD thesis in 1960 was on the dumping syndrome. Later he developed a method of 'precise antrectomy' to avoid that complication and carried out research into the effect of vagotomy on parietal cell function, work which led to the Arhus county vagotomy trial. This won him international fame, the Novo Nordisk prize in 1977 and the *Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology* Prize for 1987. As a supervisor of research he was an unpretentious and highly regarded teacher, and published (together with J F Rehfeld) *Gastrins and the vagus* (London, Academic Press, 1979). In addition he had another career as an author of detective novels, several of which were made into films. Some of his short stories made their way into anthologies alongside Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers. Erik Amdrup died on 22 February 1998, the day after his 75th birthday.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000341
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Challis, Margaret Thornton (1934 - 2005)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Blasson, Thomas ( - 1867)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Blathwayt, William (1811 - 1880)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bleeck, Charles James (1805 - 1878)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Blenkins, George Eleazar ( - 1894)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Blenkinsop, Henry (1813 - 1866)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Blomfield (or Bloomfield), Josiah (1824 - 1905)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bloxham, John Astley (1843 - 1926)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bloxham, Robert William (1808 - 1868)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Blundell, Thomas Leigh (1788 - 1872)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bodington, George Fowler (1830 - 1902)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-03-25 2013-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373093373093
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in 1829 or 1830, the eldest son of George Bodington, of Sutton Coldfield, the well-known pioneer in the outdoor treatment of tuberculosis, whose claim to fame was brought forward by Dr Tucker Wise, in 1902, who drew attention to his work on *The Treatment and Cure of Pulmonary Consumption* in 1840 (see *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1902, i, 447). George Fowler Bodington was educated at Queen's College, Birmingham. After qualifying he held the post of House Surgeon at Queen's Hospital, Birmingham, and then, as a ship's surgeon, visited Natal and India. He spent some time practising his profession in the back settlements of Pietermaritzburg, where his fees were paid him in elephants' tusks, of which he brought away some hundreds of pounds' worth as the fruits of about eight months' work. At that time the elephant still roamed the forests of Natal, and life there suited Bodington's hardy frame and adventurous disposition. He might have made his mark in those primitive regions, but he preferred to return to England, where he married and settled in practice at Kenilworth in partnership with his uncle, William Bodington (qv). He removed to Middlesbrough-on-Tees in 1866, where he was Surgeon to the North Riding Infirmary, and to Saltburn, where he remained till he was summoned to take the management of a private asylum which his father had established at Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham. The asylum was prosperous, and Bodington, being only about seven miles from the great Midland city, was brought into touch with its 'vivid medical life'. He became an active member of its medical societies and took a leading part in establishing the Birmingham Medical Institute, of which he was an early President. He was President of the Birmingham and Midland Branch of the British Medical Association in 1876, and was full of activity, taking an immense interest in all that made for social and political progress. He associated himself in particular with Donald Dalrymple in the movement to obtain legislation for the care and control of inebriates. The asylum, owing to the falling in of the lease, was removed to Ashwood House, Kingswinford, Staffs, and here the second Mrs Bodington, whom he married at this time, fell into ill health and so continued for several years. This set Bodington to seek a new home for his family; he sold the asylum, and after some wanderings eventually settled in British Columbia, where he bought a farm and started in practice, not, apparently, with much success. The march of Western civilization brought with it insanity, and Bodington was appointed in 1895 Medical Superintendent of Provincial Asylum, New Westminster, BC, a large new state lunatic asylum. Here, though not in robust health, he achieved great results and popularity. He resigned after six years of most arduous toil, during the greater part of which he was in sole charge of the asylum. The Government of British Columbia voted him a retiring allowance in recognition of his services, and he came back to England the year before his death. At the last he settled in Paris, where his son, Mr Oliver Bodington, was well known in the Anglo-American Colony. His death occurred in Paris, after a very short illness, on May 8th, 1902. He was then a widower and was survived by a large family of children settled in Europe and Canada. He was a Member of the Medico-Psychological Association of Great Britain. He is described by his biographers as a man of magnificent physique and fine presence, a delightful companion, and an enthusiastic man of letters. Publication: "Restraint in the Treatment of Insanity," 8vo, Birmingham, 1878; reprinted from *Birm. Med. Rev.*, 1878.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000910
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bodington, William (1790 - 1872)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bolton, David (1806 - 1878)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bolton, George Buckley ( - 1847)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bond, John ( - 1880)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Peters, Lenrie Leopold Wilfrid (1932 - 2009)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-01-27
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373012373012
Occupation General surgeon Poet
Details Lenrie Peters was a distinguished poet and surgeon. He was born in Bathurst (now Banjul), the capital of Gambia. Both his parents, Kezia and Lenrie Peters, had emigrated from Sierra Leone. His father, Lenrie, was editor of the Gambia Echo. His mother Kezia had been brought up in England. Of Lenrie’s four sisters, Bijou became a journalist, Florence, a historian, Ruby, a UN administrator, and Alaba, a movie director. He was educated at the Methodist High School in Bathurst and the Prince of Wales School in Freetown, Sierra Leone, from which he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was elected president of the African Students’ Union. He then went for his clinical training to University College Hospital and qualified in 1959, during which time he was also working for the BBC Africa Programme. After qualifying, Lenrie Peters did junior posts in Guildford and, after passing the FRCS, returned to Banjul in 1969 as surgeon to the government Bansang Hospital. Two years later, in partnership with Samuel J Palmer, he opened the Westfield Clinic, Gambia’s first private hospital. He began to write novels and poetry as an undergraduate. His first collection of poetry was published in Ibadan in 1964, and his first novel *The second round* (London, Heinemann) in London in 1965. His 1981 poetry collection was published to widespread acclaim, despite his criticism of his fellow-countrymen. He played an active part in politics, working for the National Consultative Committee which worked for the reestablishment of constitutional democracy. In addition to his writing and his surgical practice, Peters ran Farato Farms Export Ltd, a company that exported potatoes and mangoes to the United Kingdom. He was a fellow of the West African and the International Colleges of Surgeons, Officer of the Republic of Gambia, and in 1995 nominated as the Gambia News and Report man of the year. He was president of the Historic Commission of Monuments of The Gambia and on the board of directors of the National Library of The Gambia. He married Rosemary and was divorced in 1965. He died in Dakar, Senegal, on 27 May 2009 aged 76.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000829
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bennett, Henry (1804 - 1872)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bennett, Joseph Blacker (1819 - 1897)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bennett, Samuel Nevitt (1779 - 1844)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-02-04 2018-03-05
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373015373015
Occupation General surgeon
Details Practised at Chester. He died apparently soon after becoming a Fellow. [Date of death confirmed as 27 October 1844. Ancestry.co.uk 23 February 2018.]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000832
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cadge, William (1822 - 1903)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-02-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373016373016
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born of a well-known Norfolk family of farmers. Served an apprenticeship at Kingston-on-Thames with Mr Taylor, father of Professor Sadler Taylor, Trinity College, Cambridge, who contributed an “Appreciation” to his Obituary Notes. He then entered University College Hospital, and after qualifying MRCS in 1845 became private assistant to Robert Liston (qv), until that surgeon’s death in 1847. He was present at Liston’s amputation through the thigh, with the patient under ether anaesthesia for the first time in this country, on Dec 21st, 1846, at 2 pm, and he contributed an account of the operation to the *British Medical Journal* on the occasion of the Jubilee of the use of general Anaesthesia. Moreover, he performed the post-mortem examination on Liston and published the description in the *Lancet*. Death had been due to a rupture of an aortic aneurysm situated at the commencement of the innominate artery. Cadge afterwards became Demonstrator of Anatomy at University College, and joined Thomas Morton in publishing his *Surgical Anatomy*, contributing the part on the head, neck, and upper limbs. In 1850 he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to University College Hospital upon John Eric Erichsen (qv) becoming Surgeon. In 1851 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society, and in 1854 contributed his only paper, “On Dislocation of the Femur Upwards and Forwards beneath the Crural Arch”. It was a case of unreduced dislocation of sixteen years’ standing in which a serviceable false joint had formed. But the dislocation differed in certain respects from the four forms given by Astley Cooper. After two years as Assistant Surgeon to University College Hospital he joined Frederick Anthony Mills in partnership at Norwich; later he practised in partnership with Donald Dalrymple, and after that with Michael Beverley in St Giles’s Street. He was appointed Assistant Surgeon to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in 1854, becoming Surgeon in 1857 and Consulting Surgeon in 1890, which included the right of using a few beds for his patients. His services to the hospital were especially marked in the rebuilding of the hospital, to the Endowment Fund of which he twice gave a sum of £10,000 and left £5000 in his will. He was also much interested in the organization of nursing, and the development of the museum. The prevalence of stone in the bladder occupied his chief attention, and is that with which his name is connected. At the Norwich Meeting of the British Medical Association in 1874 Cadge gave the Address in Surgery, and in 1886 three lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons, “On the Surgical Treatment of Stone in the Bladder”. The first Norwich lithotomist to become famous was Benjamin Gooch of Shotesham (d. 1776). William Donne, one of the first four surgeons appointed to the hospital in 1772, in the course of thirty-two years performed perineal lithotomy on 173 patients, with a mortality of 1 in 7, or 14.5 per cent. Following him Martineau did 149 operations, with a mortality of 1 in 8, or 12.5 per cent. John Greene Crosse (qv), who gained the Jacksonian Prize Essay for Stone in 1835, operated on 52 cases, whilst Lubbock, a contemporary and, strangely, one of the hospital physicians, operated upon 52. Between 1772 and 1885 there were admitted to the Norwich Hospital 1270 males and 56 females with vesical and renal calculi, and there were 1050 specimens of stone which Muller removed by operation or after death. Cadge thought that the numbers had increased during the previous five years – 90 cases had been admitted in that period, or 1 in 55 of all patients. In the Norwich Children’s Hospital the number admitted was 1 in 30; into the Yarmouth, one case of calculus among 32 patients. Cadge had performed lateral lithotomy in 169 cases, with 29 deaths – or 1 in 6, a mortality of 16.5 per cent. Suprapubic lithotomy had not been done at Norwich until 1884 and Cadge had operated on two cases. The statistics of suprapubic lithotomy then stood at a mortality of 24 per cent among Garcia’s 94 cases, and at 27 per cent among Tuffier’s 120 cases. But the mortality after lateral lithotomy greatly increased in the case of stones above 2 oz, for among 86 cases of stones weighing from 2 to 8 oz the mortality after lateral lithotomy had amounted to 45 per cent. Cadge first mentioned lithotrity, and the improvement in lithotrites and evacuators and lithotrites for children. But he was speaking of diagnosis before the introduction of the cystoscope. He occupied much of his address in discussing the geographical variations in the incidence of vesical calculus without reaching any conclusion which met with general acceptance. And the disappearance of stone cases from the areas he considered in subsequent years further confused theories. Perhaps he approached nearest to an explanation when he discussed the influence of diet, the importance of milk over the small beer with a strong infusion of hops, especially in the case of children. It is a remarkable fact that in the years which followed there was a considerable diminution in the number of cases, even in the Norwich area. In 1910, in response to an inquiry by W F Haslam, the reply from Norwich was: “We scarcely get any cases of stone in the bladder now, though fairly common in the kidney; this is a great change, as I can remember about thirty years ago seeing three lithotomies in a morning.” Cadge practised in St Giles’s Street. He served as a Justice of the Peace, and in 1876 as Sheriff of Norwich. The Freedom of the City of Norwich was conferred on him in 1890. For the sixteen years 1880-1896 he was a member of the Council of the College, and he appears in H Jamyn Brooks’s portrait group of the Council, 1884. On his retirement from the active staff he was appointed Consulting Surgeon, and his portrait by Herkomer was placed in the Board Room of the hospital. After a period of failing health he died at Lowestoft on June 29th, 1903. He was buried by the side of his wife at Earlham, near Norwich, the Mayor and Sheriffs of Norwich, among others, attending the funeral. He had married the sister of Richard Quain (qv); there were no children and she had predeceased him many years. He left over £110,000, and made bequests of £5000 to the Norwich Hospital and £1000 to Epsom School. The Earl and Countess of Leicester added a like donation of £5000 to the hospital in his memory. A William Cadge Memorial Window, the result of subscription, was placed in Norwich Cathedral, a photograph of which appeared in the *British Medical Journal*. Publications: “The First Operation under an Anaesthetic in England. Note from Memory.” – *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1896, ii, 1140. “Death of Robert Liston, FRS.” – *Lancet*, 1847, ii, 633. *The Surgical Anatomy of the Principal Regions of the Human Body* (with T Morton), London, 1850. “On Dislocation of the Femur Upwards and Forwards Beneath the Crural Arch.” – *Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1855, xxxviii, 87. “Address on Surgery at the Norwich Meeting of the British Medical Association.” – *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1874, ii, 207. “Lectures on the Surgical Treatment of Stone in the Bladder.” – *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1886, i, 1149, 1205.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000833
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cadman, Arthur Wellesley ( - 1928)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Cahill, John (1857 - 1919)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Caldwell, Robert (1859 - 1919)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Callaway, Thomas (1822 - 1869)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Callender, George William (1830 - 1878)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Cam, Thomas (1816 - 1890)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Campbell, Sir John (1862 - 1929)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bond, Thomas (1841 - 1901)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-03-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373098373098
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Durston Lodge, Somerset, on October 7th, 1841; his father, who came of a well-known county family, farmed and at one time kept a pack of harriers. His boyhood gave the son a love of hunting, horses, and country life, but financial straits prevented him from following it. After leaving King Edward VI’s Grammar School at Taunton, Thomas Bond was apprenticed to his maternal uncle, Dr Edward Hearne, of Southampton, with whom he attended the sufferers from the railway accident at Bishopstoke Station in 1856. He matriculated at King’s College, London, in 1861; graduated MB in 1865, and became House Surgeon to Sir William Fergusson (qv), about whom he used to tell many stories. Once Fergusson, in removing a tumour from the neck, nicked the common carotid artery, which spouted freely. Fergusson did not stir, but said to Bond, “Put your finger on it, mon”. Fergusson was excising a knee-joint, when he cut the popliteal artery and forthwith amputated. Then, turning to the gallery, he said, “You notice, gentlemen, that in the middle of the operation I changed my mind”. His experience under Fergusson gained him the Gold Medal at the BS in 1866, and enabled him to pass the FRCS examination. On the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War in 1866 Bond was appointed a Surgeon in the Prussian Army, and had full experience of a cholera epidemic. He was himself saved by an heroic dose of castor oil taken at the onset. He further risked his life by carrying a despatch from the Prussian through the Austrian into the Italian lines. Returning home, he set up practice in Westminster, succeeding to that of ‘old Dr McCann’, of Parliament Street, and lived for a time in Delahay Street before going to Broad Sanctuary. One day he was called into the Law Courts at Westminster to Mr Justice Hayes seized with apoplexy; the case introduced him to the judge’s daughter, whom he married, and started a legal connection which became very large, both on the criminal side in connection with the police, and in relation to railway accidents. His house being near the headquarters of the police, he was appointed Surgeon to the ‘A’ Division. He thus became a principal medical witness in the case of Kate Webster, the Lamson case, the Pearcey case, Dr Baddeley’s trial, the Richmond murder, the Whitechapel murders, the Lefroy case, and others. By common consent he was the best medical witness of his day; he could not be upset by the cross-examination. His reminiscences of personal experiences surpassed in actuality the stories contained in detective novels. He gained likewise a special reputation as a witness for the Railways. There was much debate over cases of ‘railway spine’ at a time when neurological diagnosis was lacking in precision. Bond was himself in a train which overturned in shallow water. Whilst suffering in his latter days after the Slough accident, he travelled as far as Balmoral on the one hand and Penzance on the other. He was the Surgeon to the Great Western Railway, and was not only called in concerning accidents, but was consulted by the personnel at Paddington and throughout the line. He was also Consulting Surgeon to the Great Eastern and other railways. Having set his mind on a staff appointment at Westminster Hospital, he faced several contested elections until 1873, when his local connections overcame objection that he was a busy general practitioner. But as a matter of fact he had no time to advance beyond what he had learnt under Fergusson. Those special experiences of the results of major surgery prevented him from venturing much beyond what he himself termed surgery ‘of the fore-and-aft sort’. He thus remained Assistant Surgeon for most of his life, attending surgical out¬patients when his other manifold duties permitted; at the Medical School he had no time for teaching, except for the delivery of his lectures on forensic medicine. Nottidge Charles MacNamara (qv) was elected Surgeon over the heads of both Thomas Cooke (qv) and Bond. When, after some twenty years, he was appointed Surgeon in 1893, he had neither the time nor the health to take up such duty, which fell mainly to his corresponding assistant surgeon; but he was for many years the Medical Officer attending the nurses in sickness. He was appointed Consulting Surgeon to the Hospital in 1899. Bond had been brought up to horses from a boy; he rode well with a good seat and at a pace which did not spare his horse. He hunted regularly, especially with the Badminton Hounds from Chippenham. Altogether he had hunted with forty-three packs. But he looked forward most of all to the Exmoor Stag-hunt in August and September, riding out to meets from his house at Dunster. He knew his way among the bogs like a native; he could get down and up again out of a combe quicker than most, and none knew better where to wait for the stag to break out from the woods by the sea near Glenthorne. Perhaps of all his accomplishments he himself set most store on his knowledge of horseflesh – as controversial a matter as medico-legal subjects; he often acted as judge at important horse shows. He would return to Paddington by night, and sleep on in the carriage until morning and then do a day's work. Riding tended in later years to irritate a slight organic contraction of the urethra, and the spasm set up led to instrumentation whilst out in the hunting field or in the lavatory of a swaying railway carriage. A terrible vicious circle was established: the necessity for instrumentation, spasm and radiating pains, attacks of general pain with rigors and sweatings, relief by narcotics. Insomnia, even in middle life, and overwork had tempted him. Morphia was employed too often. Perhaps he could have been relieved by surgery, but the narcotics had already undermined his resolution. For four months he had recurring agonies of pain, and on June 6th, 1901, whilst his nurse was out of the room, he threw himself from his bedroom window in Broad Sanctuary, falling 40 feet. At the post-mortem examination there was found inflammatory scirrhus of the prostate and urethra; no malignant disease. He was buried at Orchard Portman, Somersetshire, the home of his ancestors. There is an excellent photograph of him in the *Westminster Hospital Reports*. He married: (1) The daughter of Mr Justice Hayes, by whom he had six children; she died in 1899; (2) In 1900, an acquaintance of his younger days, Mrs Nairne Imrie, daughter of Mr Lancelot Dashwood, of Overstrand, who survived him. Publications: “Railway Injuries.” – Heath’s *Dictionary of Surgery*. “On the Contagious Diseases Acts.” – *Lancet*, 1868, ii, 686. *Midland Medical Miscellany*, 1882, i. *Accidents and Emergencies in the Hunting Field*, 1892. “Report to Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for the Home Department on the Sanitary Conditions and Requirements of the Metropolitan Police Stations” (in conjunction with Colonel Pearson and Captain McHardy).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000915
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Boon, Alfred Pearl (1850 - 1892)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bossey, Peter (1807 - 1862)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bottomley, George ( - 1868)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Boult, Edmund (1815 - 1863)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Boultbee, Henry ( - 1850)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Boulter, Harold Baxter (1853 - 1916)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Boutflower, John (1797 - 1889)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Sanderson, Robert James (1960 - 2006)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Neil Weir
Publication Date 2010-04-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373106373106
Occupation Otolaryngologist ENT surgeon
Details Robert Sanderson was a consultant otolaryngologist in Edinburgh and Livingstone. He and his twin brother, Paul, were the first identical twins to pass the FRCS in general surgery together. ‘Rob’ elected to study otolaryngology and trained with Arnold Maran in Edinburgh, before doing a fellowship in head and neck surgery in Rotterdam with Paul Knegt. There he learnt Dutch and met his wife Christine, with whom he subsequently had three children. He was appointed as a consultant otolaryngologist to Edinburgh and Livingstone hospitals. A keen teacher, he lectured frequently and was a regular guest speaker at national and international meetings. He was lead clinician in the Scottish head and neck audit. He died on 13 December 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000923
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hassall, Harold (1916 - 2009)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-04-28
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373107373107
Occupation General surgeon
Details Harold Hassall was a consultant surgeon to the South Cheshire Group of Hospitals and the driving force behind the new Leighton Hospital. He was born in Radcliffe, Bury, Greater Manchester, on 3 February 1916, the son of Harold Hassall, a clockmaker, and Mary Hannah Hassall, a schoolteacher. He was educated at Radcliffe Council School, Bury Technical College and Stand Grammar School, before going to Manchester University to study medicine. He qualified in 1940 with a distinction in medicine, and then was a house surgeon to Sir Harry Platt and to the professorial unit. He joined the RNVR as a surgeon lieutenant in 1941 and served until 1946, both at sea and on shore, finishing as the senior medical officer in the Royal Naval Yard at Trincomalee, Ceylon. On demobilisation, he returned to Manchester Royal Infirmary as a demonstrator in pathology and then became a surgical registrar in the department of urology in Salford Royal Hospital. This post was followed by registrarships at the Manchester Northern and the Withington hospitals, from which he passed the FRCS and was appointed surgical chief assistant at the Manchester Royal Infirmary in 1949. He was appointed consultant surgeon to the South Cheshire Group of Hospitals, based at Crewe Memorial Hospital in 1952, where he served until his retirement in 1981. During his career he was also on the staff of Cranage Hall and Mary Dendy hospitals. Harold Hassall was very active in the administration of his hospital and led the commissioning team for the new Leighton Hospital, during which he frustrated plans to cut down on medical staff, forming a successful alliance in this cause with Gwyneth Dunwoody, his local MP. Later he became chairman of its surgical division. He was a notably neat surgeon, a trait perhaps inherited from his father, the clockmaker, but this did not prevent him from volunteering during a strike to help in the laundry or to mix concrete. A popular teacher, he was postgraduate clinical tutor and surgical tutor for our college. He was chairman of the Crewe division of the BMA. From 1971 to 1973 he was president of the Manchester Regional Association of Surgeons. His many outside interests included the Royal British Legion, where he was chairman of the Sandbach branch and president of the South Cheshire district. He was patron of the Crewe Sea Cadet Corps and branch secretary of his branch of the Soldiers Sailors and Air Force Association. After retirement he threw himself into raising funds for the new St Luke’s Hospice, Winsford, Cheshire, of which he became chairman. He was an expert on naval history. He was appointed OBE in 1988. Harold Hassall was married twice. From his first marriage (which was dissolved) he had one son, Richard, who became a clinical psychologist in Leeds, and one daughter, Claire, who is an economist. His second marriage was to Jenefer Jane Hassall, a former medical secretary. They had one son, John, who is a sales executive in Crewe. Harold Hassall died in Leighton Hospital on 20 October 2009.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000924
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Baxter, Harley Kilgour (1946 - 2009)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-04-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373108373108
Occupation General surgeon
Details Harley Kilgour Baxter was a surgeon in Melbourne, Australia. He was born in Melbourne on 6 August 1946, the son of Rex Ransley Baxter, a businessman, and Kathleen Anne née Hyland. His grandfather was J M Baxter, an ENT surgeon. He was educated at Trinity Grammar School, Kew, Victoria, and Melbourne University, doing his clinical studies at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. He did his early training at Austin Hospital and demonstrated anatomy at Melbourne University, and passed the FRACS in 1974. He then came to London to be a registrar at Charing Cross Hospital, passed our FRCS, and then returned to Melbourne. In 1973 he married Kathryn Nicholson. He died on 31 January 2009.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000925
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Eastcott, Harry Hubert Grayson (1917 - 2009)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Averil Mansfield
Publication Date 2010-04-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373109373109
Occupation Vascular surgeon
Details Harry Hubert Grayson Eastcott, known as ‘Felix’, was the first man to perform carotid endarterectomy, thereby preventing strokes in countless patients. He was born in Montreal, Canada, on 17 October 1917, the son of Henry George Eastcott, a resident engineer with the Canadian Pacific Railway, and Gladys née Tozer. The family returned to England in 1920 and he was educated at Hoe Grammar School, Plymouth, the Latymer School, Edmonton, and St Mary’s Hospital Medical School. When a student in the anatomy class, he was observed by Neil Pantin to walk along leaning forwards with his hands behind his back, like the cartoon cat, and henceforward became known as ‘Felix’. As a student he played the piano in a honky-tonk band, which included Harding Rains on trumpet. He qualified with honours in 1941 and without delay went on to sit and pass the primary FRCS. He was house surgeon at the Hammersmith Hospital under Grey Turner and Dick Franklin, where he met a theatre nurse, Doreen Joy (‘Bobbie’), the daughter of Brenchley Ernest and Muriel Mittell. They were married in 1941. He then joined the RNVR and served throughout the war, reaching the rank of surgeon lieutenant-commander, and during his service visited Australia for the first time. On demobilisation, he returned to St Mary’s to work for Dickson Wright and Sir Arthur (later Lord) Porritt, and passed the final FRCS at the sixth attempt. An exchange sponsored by Arthur Porritt took him in 1949 to the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston, where he came under the surgical mentorship of Charles Huffnagal and learned the latest techniques of vascular surgery. On his return, he passed his masters in surgery, gave a Hunterian Lecture on arterial replacement with grafts, and became assistant director (honorary consultant) of the surgical unit under Charles Rob. It was in 1954 that he performed the first operation to prevent strokes. The patient was Ada Tuckwell, who had had many transient ischaemic attacks. The decision was taken by Denis Brinton and Pickering to carry out arteriography – in those days a hazardous procedure. This revealed a short stenosis of the internal carotid artery, the source of the previous emboli. Charles Rob delegated the operation to Felix. He had grave concerns that this might induce a stroke during the operation, but Rob and Pickering took the view that without it this would happen inevitably. May 19th was a cold day. The operating theatre was chilled. Ice packs were placed over the patient to reduce the risk of brain damage. Felix remarked that you could almost hear the nurses’ teeth chattering. The operation was carried out in the presence of some members of the council of the American College of Surgeons who were visiting the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Happily, the operation was successful and the patient lived for another 20 years without neurological symptoms. It was a superb outcome for the patient, but even more for mankind as this opened the doors for stroke prevention surgery on a major scale. Felix always referred to it as ‘my little operation’, but its impact was anything other than little. In a later article he quoted Winston Churchill as saying: ‘We have reached the end of the beginning’. He remained anxious about its scientific credentials until the results of a large multicentre trial showed once and for all just how valuable it had been in preventing stroke. Eastcott’s vascular surgical practice grew steadily from then on and he attracted the complex and difficult cases to St Mary’s and the other hospitals with which he had a connection, the Royal Masonic Hospital and King Edward VII Hospital for Officers. His book *Arterial surgery* (London, Pitman Medical) was another major contribution. It had been suggested to him by Zachary Cope, but it took several years to prepare and was finally published in 1969. It was a big success. Two further editions followed, the third in 1992, almost 10 years after he retired. He published extensively and was the editorial secretary of the *British Journal of Surgery*. Felix received many invitations to lecture around the world, particularly in the USA and Australia. In 1973 he was the King’s Fund travelling fellow to Australia and New Zealand. He was honoured in many countries and by many colleges and received honorary fellowships from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, the American College of Surgeons and the American Surgical Association. He received the Fothergill gold medal of the Medical Society of London 1974 and the Galen medal of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries in 1993. At the Royal College of Surgeons, he was an examiner from 1964 to 1970, a council member from 1971, vice-president from 1981 to 1982, and was acting president for a few weeks after the untimely death of Sir Alan Parks. He was a Hunterian professor and Bradshaw lecturer and was awarded the Cecil Joll prize. An enthusiastic Freemason, he ensured a continuous and major source of funding for the College from the Grand Lodge. He was later appointed to the Court of Patrons. Long after his retirement, Felix would attend early morning meetings in the vascular unit at St Mary’s, when he would recall in vivid detail some of his old patients and their problems. He loved his work: on one occasion in the middle of an operation he turned to his anaesthetist, Harry Thornton, and said, ‘Harry, I can’t believe they are paying us to do this’. Felix had many other interests. He always supported the music society at St Mary’s and sometimes participated. He loved to play the piano and did so most days after dinner: he called this ‘washing-up music’. Since his prep-school days he had been fascinated by flying and flew his own Tiger Moth. He was an elegant skier, an accomplished linguist, and a member of the Garrick Club. He had a few helpful encounters with the medical world. Once, in Australia, he choked on a piece of meat. He whispered hoarsely ‘Heimlich, Heimlich’. Sir Peter Bell responded with life-saving speed. Long before many of his contemporaries he appreciated the importance of non-invasive measurements in vascular disease, and so began the Irvine Laboratory, established by John Hobbs and W T Irvine. Felix supported Andrew Nicolaides and made sure that he combined vascular and cardiac surgical skills, at that time unique in the UK though common in the USA. At St Mary’s he worked closely with a wide group of colleagues, especially Ian Kenyon, Lance Bromley and Mike Snell. He also maintained close contact with other surgeons both in London, like Roger Greenhalgh at Charing Cross, and the USA, such as Michael de Bakey. He was president of the Vascular Surgical Society, the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland and the Medical Society of London. He contributed to the design for the tie of the Vascular Surgeons, which was based on a postcard received from Dickson Wright showing an artery dancing with a vein. He was the college visitor to the council of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists from 1972 to 1980. He was president of the section of surgery of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1997. A romantic soul, he dearly loved his wife and family. He died on 25 October 2009. A memorial service in St Clement Danes was attended by the president and council of our college and the council of the Vascular Society of Great Britain.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000926
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Price, William (1785 - 1867)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Higgitt, Alan Carstairs ( - 2005)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Enid Taylor
Publication Date 2008-10-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372750372750
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Alan Higgitt was an honorary consultant ophthalmologist at Charing Cross Hospital, London. He qualified at University College Hospital. After junior posts he joined the RNVR as a surgeon lieutenant, ophthalmic specialist, on a hospital ship which was on active service in the Indian Ocean. After the end of the Second World War, he returned to start his formal ophthalmic training as a registrar at University College Hospital, working for Shapland and Neame. He worked in several hospitals, being first appointed as consultant ophthalmologist to St Mary Abbott’s Hospital, Kensington, and then to Ashford Hospital, Middlesex, and the South Middlesex Hospital. He was then appointed to Fulham Hospital, west London, which evolved into Charing Cross Hospital and he was honorary consultant ophthalmologist to this hospital until he retired in 1986. There he established a contact lens department and was involved in the treatment of diabetic eye disease. He had two great interests – sailing and music. This enjoyment extended to repairing early pianos and he also built two harpsichords and a spinet by hand. In July 2005 he had a fall, fractured some ribs and developed pneumonia, from which he died on 24 July 2005. He is survived by his wife Joan, a daughter who is a consultant psychiatrist, and two sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000567
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bowring, George (1818 - 1902)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Chippendale, John (1805 - 1895)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-05-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001100-E001199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373351373351
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at University College, London, and in Paris. He practised before 1850 at 69 Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, WC, and was for seventeen years Surgeon to the Farringdon General Dispensary, and for six years Lecturer on Anatomy and Physiology at the Hunterian School of Medicine. For seven years of his life, probably after 1850, he was Surgeon in the Royal West India and Brazil Mail Service. During the last decades of his long life he practised at 16 Upper Phillimore Place, Kensington. He was the first Annual President of the Medical Society of University College, London, and was a Fellow, and at one time Member of Council, of the Medical Society of London. He died in Kensington on December 23rd, 1895, at which time the Lancet (1895, ii, 1659) describes him as "a venerable and well-known member of the Profession", but, after promising to publish an extended notice of his life, omitted to do so. Publications: Chippendale's writings prior to 1847 include the following contributions to the Lancet: "A Statistical Account of the Different Dispensaries of the Metropolis." "On Vivisection: a Defence thereof." "On the Non-contagiousness of Gonorrhoea." "On the Cause of Constipation in Hernia." "On an Operation for the Radical Cure of Prolapsus Uteri." "On Catheterism in Disease of the Prostate Gland." "On the Use of Tobacco in Neuralgia." "On a Flap Operation for the Removal of Tumours." "On Idiopathic Erysipelas"; etc.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001168
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Campbell, George Gunning ( - 1858)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

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

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

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

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

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

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

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Sieff of Brimpton, Rt Hon Lord Marcus Joseph, Baron Sieff of Brimpton (1913 - 2001)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

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

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

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

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

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

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Dawson, James (1779 - 1875)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-04-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372672372672
Occupation General surgeon
Details At one time was busily engaged in practice in Liverpool, but for the last thirty years of his life lived in Wray Castle, near Ambleside, on Windermere, where he was long gratefully remembered for the ready help he was always willing to give to the poor of the district when in search of sympathy and advice. The least curious of medical men would be dissatisfied till he learned more of one so honourable to his profession - and the more he learned, the more he would wish to know of the Squire of Wray Castle. Perhaps he ventured on a visit of respect only to find a venerable man of ninety years, of dignified appearance, of extreme courtesy, of well-judged liberality, of high culture, and in thorough sympathy with all his neighbours. Neither weather nor the weight of ninety years kept him from visits of charity or courtesy. He died at Wray Castle on Jan 17th, 1875.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000488
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Baird, Robert Hamilton (1915 - 2006)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Enid Taylor
Publication Date 2008-10-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372752372752
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details Robert Hamilton Baird was an ophthalmologist in Belfast. He was born in Belfast on 19 September 1915. His father, William Baird, was a district inspector with the Royal Irish Constabulary and his mother was Mary McAdam. He was educated in Belfast, at the Methodist College, from 1929 to 1934, and then went on to study medicine at Queen’s University in the city, qualifying in 1939. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1939 to 1946, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel and was mentioned in despatches in May 1945. After leaving the Army, he trained as an ophthalmologist, as a resident surgical officer in Birmingham and Midland Eye Hospital. He was appointed consultant ophthalmic surgeon to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, and North Down Hospital Group. He was a clinical lecturer and an examiner to Queen’s University, Belfast. In 1962 he married a Miss Drayson and they had two sons. He was interested in electronics and enjoyed playing golf. He died on 19 April 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000569
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Graham, Norman Garrick (1932 - 2010)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Broadhurst, John (1818 - 1888)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Brodhurst, Bernard Edward (1822 - 1900)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373155373155
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at the Friary, Newark, on February 4th, 1822, and in 1840 was articled at the Royal College of Surgeons to John Goldwyer Andrews (qv), the Senior Surgeon of the London Hospital. After qualifying he was appointed House Surgeon, and after serving a year went to Paris, where he attended the hospitals and made the acquaintance of Maisonneuve, whose private surgical operations he attended. He then went to Vienna and studied ophthalmic surgery with Jaeger and Rosas, and pathological anatomy with Rokitansky. In the large Viennese school, with its 4000 beds, he studied for twelve months. Prague was next visited by him, then Berlin. He afterwards turned south and visited the schools of Pavia, Pisa, and Florence. He arrived in Rome at the end of 1848, or more likely early in 1849, in company with Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), the poet, who during his stay there wrote his “Amours de Voyage”. Garibaldi at this time occupied the city with his troops, and on April 30th, 1849, 5000 French under Oudinot advanced against it. The French general expected to enter Rome without firing a shot; he brought no cannon with him, and his men carried unloaded rifles, Garibaldi, who had planted guns on the French road of approach outside the city, repulsed the invaders with great loss, and took 300 prisoners. An ambuscade was formed in the gardens of the Vatican, where for a short time the fight was very bloody, and many students and other young men of the Roman States were slain. About thirty of the prisoners who were brought within the walls were badly wounded. They were conveyed to the Hospital della Spirito Santo. The beds which they occupied were arranged along one side of the ward, whilst their enemies, the wounded Italians, were placed along the opposite side. After this exploit the French retreated to Palo, there to await reinforcements. The French prisoners had not sufficient faith in their victors to trust their bodies to the Italian surgeons, and in consequence requested that they might be attended by any foreigner who chanced to be in Rome. The triumvirs, of whom Mazzini was chief, made this request known to the English then residing there, and added their own desire that they should undertake the duty. This was agreed to. But after the event of April 30th strangers were anxious to get away, and departed as fast as they could; so that in a short time only a few were left. Brodhurst agreed to remain with a non-medical friend to see the end of the matter, and during the greater part of the siege, which continued until June 30th, they were, with the exception of a few artists and three or four other English residents, the only English remaining in Rome. Thus it devolved upon Brodhurst to superintend the treatment of the wounded. When it is mentioned that on the side of the French 5000 men were slain, wounded, or prostrated by malaria, it will at once be seen that the siege of Rome afforded a good opportunity for observations in military surgery. The invading army consisted of 45,000 men. On leaving Rome Brodhurst was presented with the cross of the Legion of Honour by the Commander-in-Chief of the French troops, Marshal Baraquay d’Hilliers. Lord Palmerston is said to have offered him a baronetcy for his services. Returning to London, he was elected in 1852 a Surgeon on the staff of the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, and in 1862 was elected Assistant Surgeon at St George’s Hospital. In 1869 he intimated his inability, owing to pressure of private practice, to continue to devote so much time to hospital work, and he was then elected Surgeon with Orthopaedic Wards and held this post till 1874. He was Surgeon to the Orthopaedic Hospital at the time of his death. He was also for a time Lecturer on Orthopaedic Surgery at St George’s, and was on the staff of the Royal Hospital for Incurables, and Consulting Surgeon of the Belgrave Hospital for Children. For many years he had the chief orthopaedic practice in England, and he roused some jealousy in the profession by what were then thought to be unduly high fees for his operations. He was well known abroad, and was an Associate of the Academy of Sciences of Rome, and Corresponding Member of the Medical Societies of Lyons, Odessa, and Rome, of the Chirurgical Society of Paris, and of the American Orthopaedic Association. His London address was first at 14 Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, then at 20 Grosvenor Street for many years, and finally at 21 Portland Place, W. He died on January 30th, 1900. Publications:- Brodhurst’s extensive bibliography includes: *Of the Crystalline Lens and Cataract*, 8vo, 2 plates, London, 1850. *On Lateral Curvature of the Spine, its Pathology and Treatment*, 8vo, London, 1855; 2nd ed., 1864. “*On the Nature and Treatment of Club-foot and Analogous Distortions involving the Tibio-tarsal Articulation*, 8vo, London, 1856. “On the Restoration of Motion by Forcible Extension and Rupture of the Uniting Medium of Partially Anchylosed Surfaces,” 8vo, London, 1858; reprinted from *Med. Times and Gaz*. *The Deformities of the Human Body: a System of Orthopoedic Surgery*, 8vo, illustrated, London, 1871. *Lectures on Orthopoedic Surgery delivered at St George’s Hospital*, 8vo, illustrated, London, 1876. *On Curvatures and Disease of the Spine*, 8vo, illustrated, London, 1888 (4 editions). *On the Nature and Treatment of Talipes Equinovarus or Club-foot*, 8vo, London, 1893. “On Congenital Talipes Equinovarus, with Observations on Tarsectomy,” 8vo, London, 1894; reprinted from *Prov. Med. Jour*. *Practical Observations on the Diseases of the Joints involving Anchylosis, and on the Treatment for the Restoration of Motion*, 8vo, London, 1861; 4th ed., 1881. “Gonorrhoeal Rheumatism” in Reynold’s *System*, i, 1866. “Congenital Dislocation and Intra-uterine Fracture” in Holmes’s *Surgery*, iv, 1864, 1871, and 1883. *Observations on Congenital Dislocation of the Hip*, 8vo, London, 1896 (3 editions). Many contributions to English and foreign medical journals. In a paper read before the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society he advocated the exhibition of mercury and arsenic in cases of hydrophobia. His paper on ankylosis read before the same Society (*Trans. Med.-Chin Soc.*, 1857, xl, 125) gave rise to a very lively discussion, Mr Coulson contending that the cases were not correctly reported, and that such results were impossible. Fortunately, however, a young officer who had been operated on was present – he of whom it had been said by Sir Benjamin Brodie that “he must take his stiff hip with him to the grave!” Coulson examined him, and then withdrew his statement in complimentary terms. But the patient made them all laugh by expressing his surprise, not only that Sir Benjamin should have reported of him as he did, but that Coulson should have made such observations, seeing that he had as good a hip-joint as ever he had in his life.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000972
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Pheils, Murray Theodore (1917 - 2006)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-11-21
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372756372756
Occupation General surgeon
Details Murray Pheils was professor of surgery at the University of Sydney. He was born in Birmingham on 2 December 1917, the younger of the two sons of Elmer Theodore Pheils, an osteopath, and Lilian Mary née Cole. His father Elmer was a colourful character: he was born in Toledo, Ohio, and trained as an osteopath under George Still, the founder of that profession, subsequently qualifying in medicine from Ohio. He went to London in 1907, and soon built up a successful practice, including among his patients George Bernard Shaw and Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother), who he cured of torticollis by massage. Despite early hostility, he was widely accepted by regular members of the profession, and insisted that both his sons went to medical school. Murray was seven when Shaw became his father’s patient and soon got to know the great man well, describing their friendship in ‘Thank you Mr Shaw’ (*Brit med J* 1994 309 1724-1726). Murray Pheils was educated at Leighton Park School and followed his elder brother to Queens’ College, Cambridge, before going on to St Thomas’ Hospital for his clinical training. There he was influenced by B C Maybury, B W Williams, R H O B Robinson and T W Mimpriss. After qualifying, he was house surgeon and casualty officer at St Thomas’ and St Peter’s, Chertsey, before joining the RAMC in 1942. There he served in Africa and in the South East Asia Command and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Whilst still on the house at St Thomas’ he married Unity Louise McCaughey, who came from a family long established in New South Wales. Her grandfather Sir Samuel McCaughey had set up the Murrumbidgee irrigation scheme which transformed agriculture in New South Wales. After the war, Murray obtained an ex-serviceman’s registrar post at St Thomas’ and then held further general surgery and urology posts at St Thomas’ and St Peter’s. In 1951 he was appointed as a consultant at St Peter’s, having obtained his Cambridge MChir. He became a very successful surgeon with a lucrative private practice, particularly after the Nuffield Private Hospital was built and opened. However, as the years passed Murray became restive – he had always wanted a teaching hospital post but, because of his late arrival back from the Far East after the war and, by that stage, having three young mouths to feed and educate, he had to take the post at Chertsey. Following a trip out to Australia in 1965, Murray had renewed his friendship with John Lowenthal, who was chairman of the Sydney University department of surgery. He was informed that there was to be a teaching department established at the Repatriation Hospital at Concord and they were looking for a mature surgeon to run the new teaching department. Murray returned to the UK, saw the post advertised, applied and was appointed to start in mid 1966. He rapidly made his mark not only as a clinician but also as a teacher. Casualties were being received from the Australian Forces in Vietnam. The condition of the evacuees was very poor and the whole process needed urgent attention as preventable deaths were all too common. Murray went to the Army hospital at Ingleburn and triaged the evacuees so they were transferred to an appropriate hospital for treatment. Furthermore, surgical teams of senior registrars and junior consultants were sent to Vietnam to improve the standard of care. With the backing of his colleagues, Murray was instrumental in transforming the management of the Australian Vietnam War casualties. His Second World War experience was invaluable in this respect. He became a full professor in 1973 and chairman of the university department in 1979. As the Concord department grew and evolved (the hospital became an acute hospital), so Murray’s department developed a special interest in bowel cancer. He published extensively on colorectal cancer, as well as writing a landmark paper on ischaemic colitis with Adrian Marston and others. He also published on abdominal actinomycosis, vesicocolic fistula and cholecystitis. He set up the section of colon and rectal surgery at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and endowed the Murray and Unity Pheils travel fellowship. Until he was over 80 he had a medico-legal practice in Sydney. He was a consultant to the New South Wales Law Reform Commission on informed decisions about medical procedures. He continued his interest in the Army, as a colonel in the RAAMC and as a consultant surgeon to the Australian Army. Outside surgery, he had a keen interest in his family and that of his wife, and wrote *The Return to Coree: the rise and fall of a pastoral dynasty* (St Leonards, New South Wales, Allen & Unwin, 1998). He died on 19 December 2006, leaving his wife, Unity, two sons (Michael Murray and Peter John) and two daughters (Diana and Johanna). Peter John Pheils is a consultant surgeon in Broadstairs, Kent.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000573
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Auden, Rita Romola (1942 - 2008)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-12-05
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372757372757
Occupation General surgeon
Details Rita Auden was a surgeon at the London Hospital, until mental illness forced her to abandon her career. She was born in Simla, India, on 22 August 1942. Her father, John Bicknell Auden, was a geologist with the Geological Survey of India, and the last European to be appointed to the permanent cadre of the Survey. His brother, Wystan, was the poet W H Auden. Her paternal grandfather was George Augustus Auden, a physician who became the first school medical officer in Birmingham and professor of public health at Birmingham University. He liked to quote an aphorism that a doctor should “care more for the individual patient than for the special features of his disease” and that “healing is not a science but an intuitive art of wooing nature”, ideas which influenced his family, including Rita. Rita’s mother was the painter Sheila Bonnerjee. She trained at the Oriental School of Art in Calcutta and the Central School of Art in London, and had various exhibitions in Calcutta and Bombay. Some of her work was exhibited in Paris. Her father, R C Bonnerjee, had read Greats at Balliol and then practised as a barrister in Calcutta. Sheila’s grandfather was W C Bonnerjee, a leading Indian barrister at the Calcutta High Court and the first president of the Indian National Congress. Calcutta in the 1940s was an interesting and cosmopolitan place, and Rita’s parents had a wide circle of friends, including journalists, artists, diplomats and businessmen. The Auden family lived in a flat in Lansdowne Road with Sheila Bonnerjee’s sister Minnie and her husband Lindsay Emmerson. Summer holidays were occasionally spent in Darjeeling at Point Clear, a house on the Jalaphar Road which belonged to an aunt. The children were sometimes taken to festivals by their bearer, ‘Mouse’, where the brightly painted statues garlanded with flowers would be carried to the Hooghly river and then left to float away. In 1951 the girls left India to be educated in England, travelling via the island of Ischia, where they stayed with their uncle Wystan. They initially went to school at the Convent of the Holy Child of Jesus in Edgbaston, Birmingham, near their grandfather George Augustus Auden, who lived in Repton. Later, when their mother settled in London, they went to More House, a Catholic day school, initially in South Kensington. Rita then went to Cambridge to do science A levels, as More House did not offer science teaching. Influenced perhaps by memories of the poverty and disease of Calcutta, she decided to choose medicine as a career, going to St Anne’s in Oxford in 1959 and then the London Hospital Medical College. There she stood out for her striking beauty and daunting intelligence, winning praises from all her chiefs and gaining the Andrew Clark prize in clinical medicine. After qualifying, she became house physician to Lawson McDonald and Wallace Brigden and then house surgeon to Clive Butler and Alan Parks, who all found her outstanding. She went on to win the Hallett prize for the primary FRCS. She was senior house officer in casualty in 1969, and then spent two years doing research with Charles Mann, before returning to the surgical unit. During this time she took study leave at the Mayo Clinic and spent a year in Belfast, where she gained experience with gun-shot injuries, and a year in Vietnam, seeking always to meet fresh challenges in the most dangerous and difficult situations. It was the same when she took a vacation: she thought nothing of spending a month going down the Amazon accompanied only by tribesmen. She returned to the London as a clinical assistant on the surgical unit in 1974 under David Ritchie, one of a group of exceptional young people, four of whom had been Hallett prize winners. There she showed herself to be an excellent organiser, a competent operator and a kind and caring doctor. When the time came for her to enter for an appointment as senior registrar to J E (Sam) Richardson in 1976, it was agreed that she was the outstanding candidate even though her appointment was vehemently opposed by the senior surgeon. Within a year however he had completely changed his opinion, saying she was the best senior registrar he had ever had. Indeed, so strongly did he advocate her further promotion that at his retirement dinner in 1981 he announced that Rita was to be appointed as a consultant. This was strongly opposed by some within the department. In the event she was appointed as a senior lecturer on the surgical unit, with consultant status. In 1984 she became ill and had a breakdown. At first Rita declined the offer of expert help, but within a few weeks she was sectioned and treated as an inpatient. After some three months it was thought she was fit to return to work, but unfortunately soon after her return she deteriorated again and had to be readmitted to a psychiatric unit. She resigned in 1987. She led a full life after her retirement. Until their deaths, she lived with her parents in Thurloe Square and her medical skills and instinct for care meant that neither had to go into a home, despite ill health. She also cared for and supported her wider family and friends, including her sister Anita, her nephew Otto and her aunt Anila Graham, who suffered a series of strokes. She would visit people in hospital even if this meant travelling up to Yorkshire. She was extremely interested in and concerned about the people around her, and would recount stories about her 90 year old neighbour who still drove a car and spent holidays in France, her Italian hairdresser, her Polish cleaner, and the regulars she would chat to in the local coffee shop. Her observations made them all the more human. While still an undergraduate she had met Peter Mudford, an English scholar at Christ Church who later lectured in English and European literature at Birkbeck College, London, eventually becoming a professor emeritus. They married in 1965 and divorced in 1985, though they kept very much in touch until her death. Because of her family and educational background her interests ranged widely. She used to play the piano and listen to music. She liked gardens and used to go to talks at the British Museum. She also regularly did crosswords and had a penchant for detective stories, tastes shared by her mother and her uncle Wystan. She died on 3 January 2008. Her family and friends will miss the special quality of her presence and her sense of humour and her sensitivity to the quirks and oddities of life.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000574
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Brookes, Andrew Good (1814 - 1894)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Knipe, John Augustus (1778 - 1850)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-04-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372674372674
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on Aug 1st, 1778, and entered the service of the HEIC. He was appointed Regimental Mate to the 89th Foot on April 1st, 1797, and a month later, May 1st, became Assistant Surgeon to the same regiment. He was transferred to the 5th Dragoon Guards on Aug 10th, 1799, and was gazetted Surgeon to the 95th Foot on Oct 3rd, 1805, being again transferred to the 15th Dragoons on July 20th, 1809. On May 28th, 1812, he was put on the Staff. He was appointed Deputy Inspector of Hospitals (Brevet) on July 17th, 1817. He retired on half pay on April 25th, 1819, and on Oct 20th, 1826, was gazetted full Deputy Inspector of Hospitals. He had been present at the Battle of Copenhagen, when the forts were bombarded by the English fleet in 1807, and had served in the Peninsular War, in 1809. After his retirement Knipe apparently lived in London, his address in 1843 being the United Service Club. He died on Jan 15th, 1850.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000490
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brookes, William Philpot (1819 - 1865)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Brookhouse, Joseph Orpe (1835 - 1905)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Brooks, James Henry (1807 - 1886)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Broughton, Francis (1817 - 1882)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Brown, Arthur Thomas F. (1865 - 1893)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-13 2013-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373164373164
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on January 12th, 1865, and was educated at Guy's Hospital, where he was House Surgeon and Resident Accoucheur. He entered the Madras Army as Surgeon on July 28th, 1891, and resigned on account of ill health on July 29th, 1892, when he held the rank of Surgeon Captain, a designation introduced in November, 1891. He died on August 29th, 1893. (In the Fellows' *Register* he appears as Arthur Thomas Brown.)
Resource Identifier RCS: E000981
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brown, Frederick James (1824 - 1879)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Brown, George (1801 - 1870)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Brown, George (1814 - 1874)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Brown, Henry John (1819 - 1885)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Brown, Isaac Baker (1812 - 1873)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373169373169
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Colne Engaine, Essex, the second son of a gentleman farming his own land; his mother was a daughter of the Rev James Boyer, well known as Head Master and rigid disciplinarian of Christ’s Hospital – the Blue Coat School – when S T Coleridge, Charles Lamb, and Leigh Hunt were pupils. Baker Brown was educated under William Eve and was apprenticed to Benjamin Gibson, a surgeon practising at Halstead, Essex. He entered Guy’s Hospital in 1830 as a house pupil of John Hilton (qv), and at the end of the session of 1831 won the anatomical prize given by Bransby Cooper (qv) in memory of his uncle Sir Astley Cooper. From this time until 1833 he devoted himself more particularly to midwifery under the guidance of Dr James Blundell, who was then Lecturer on Obstetrics to the hospital. He also studied at Lane’s School, adjoining St George’s Hospital, in 1833, and as soon as he had qualified he settled in Connaught Square, and entered into partnership with Samuel Griffith, who practised in the Edgware Road, and remained with him until 1840. He gave up general practice in 1847, and, devoting himself entirely to the diseases of women, was appointed Consulting Physician to the Paddington Lying-in Charity. Impressed with the want of hospital accommodation in the west and the north-west of London, he took a leading part in the foundation of St Mary’s Hospital in 1848. The first committee met in his dining-room and he was appointed Surgeon-Accoucheur, and, on the opening of the medical school, Co-lecturer in Midwifery and Diseases of Women. His later title was Surgeon-Accoucheur to the hospital, Dr Tyler Smith being Physician-Accoucheur. He retired from St Mary’s in 1858, when he established the London Surgical Home, at which his subsequent operations were performed. During the ten years of its existence he operated upon nearly twelve hundred patients, and it was here that Nélaton, who resided with him as his guest for a few days in 1861, watched his ovariotomies, afterwards giving his celebrated clinical lecture in Paris. In 1865 he was President of the Medical Society of London, and in 1866 he published *Curability of some Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, and Hysteria*, for which he was arraigned before the Obstetrical Society of London in 1867. From this time onwards he was a ruined man, and during the last few years of his life was helpless from several paralytic seizures. He was twice married. Lennox Browne, FRCS Edin, a distinguished laryngologist, was a son by his first wife; by his second wife he left three young children, one of whom was educated at Epsom College. He died, almost destitute, at 2 Osnaburgh Place, Regent’s Park, NW, on February 3rd, 1873. Baker Brown filled an important place in the early history of ovariotomy in England. He found a disease called ‘ovarian dropsy’; he left it as ‘ovarian cyst’. He appears to have proceeded by the method of trial and error, for he made repeated attempts to cure the condition by tapping and pressure, by injection of iodine, by excision of a portion of the cyst wall, and by the formation of a fistulous opening. It was only after these methods failed that he advanced to complete removal of the cyst and undertook his first operation in 1851. The initial mortality aroused fierce opposition in the profession, not so much against himself and his fellow-pioneers as against the operation as an operation. Baker Brown met it by showing his own sister, his fourth, and first successful, ovariotomy; she had afterwards married and had several children. Then came the battle of the pedicle; Baker Brown used a clamp and cautery, which was in general use until a ligature free from sepsis was obtained. In the end he left ovariotomy a recognized operation, but still susceptible of great improvement with the growth of abdominal surgery. In addition to his work in connection with ovariotomy he made considerable advances in the repair of ruptured perineum. In later life he became obsessed with the idea that removal of the clitoris was a panacea for many mental troubles occurring in women. The hypothesis was fundamentally wrong and was based on imperfect physiological knowledge, so that the operation was unjustifiable. Baker Brown is described as a man of middle height and of a spare figure, his face being of the Jewish type, his eyes sagacious, his nose prominent, and his mouth indicating sagacity. He dressed always in black with a white tie. He was spruce in his attire, and on every day in the year had a flower in his buttonhole. He was a skilful operator, but was rash and impetuous, being deficient in reflection and jumping too hastily to conclusions. Publications: *On Rupture of the Perinoeum and its Treatment*, Illustrated by Cases, 8vo, London, 1852. *On Scarlatina and its Successful Treatment by the Acidum Aceticum Dilutum of the Pharmacopoeia*, London, 1846; 2nd ed., 1857. *On Vesico-vaginal Fistula, and its Successful Treatment*, 8vo, London, 1858 *Sull’ idrope ovarico, sua natura, diagnosi: e cura, risultato di trent anni d’ esperienza.* Traduzione sulla 2a edizione Inglese con note e aggiunte sulla ed una memorial intitolata l’ovariotomia in Italia fino al giugno, 1865, 8vo, Sinigaglia, 1865. *On some Diseases of Women admitting of Surgical Treatment*, 8vo, plates, London, 1854. *On Surgical Diseases of Women*, 8vo, 15 plates, 3rd ed., London, 1866. *On the Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy and Hysteria in Females*, 8vo, London, 1866. *On Ovarian Dropsy: its Nature, Diagnosis and Treatment*, 8vo, London, 1862. *On Sterility: its Causes and Treatment* (read before the Medical Society of London), 16mo, London, 1871 (?). “Ovarian Dropsy Treated by Pressure.” – *Lancet*, 1844-9. “Clinical Lectures on Uterine Haemorrhage, Retroversions, Retroflexion and Ante version of Uterus, Remediable by Operation, etc.” – *Ibid.*, 1864, ii, 5, 34.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000986
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Alcock, Sir Rutherford (1809 - 1897)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-08-21 2016-01-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372838372838
Occupation General surgeon
Details Son [1] of Thomas Alcock, a medical man practising at Ealing. Educated at Westminster Hospital, where he filled the post of House Surgeon, and in 1832 was appointed Surgeon to the British Portuguese forces acting in Portugal. In 1836 he was transferred to the Marine Brigade engaged in the Carlist war in Spain, and within a year was appointed Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals. [2] On his return to England he lectured on Surgery at the Sydenham College, [3] but in 1844 he was nominated Consul at Foochow, one of the ports newly opened to trade by the treaty of 1842. He was transferred to Shanghai in 1846 and had with him Sir Harry Smith Parkes. Under Alcock's direction the municipal regulations for the Government of the British Settlement of Shanghai were established and the foundations were laid of the city which has since arisen there. In 1858 he was appointed the first Consul and in 1859 British Minister in Japan, where the admission of foreigners proved so distasteful that an attack was made upon the British Legation on July 5th, 1861, and Alcock with his staff were in serious danger. Alcock returned to England in 1862 and, having already been decorated CB, was promoted KCB on June 19th, 1862, receiving the Hon DCL at Oxford on March 28th, 1863. He returned to Tokio in 1864, leaving in the following year on his appointment as Minister-Plenipotentiary at Pekin. Here he conducted affairs with such delicacy and tact that Prince Kung said: "If England would only take away her missionaries and her opium, the relations between the two countries would be everything that could be desired." In 1871 he retired from the service of diplomacy, settled in London, and interested himself in hospital management, more especially at the Westminster and Westminster Ophthalmic Hospitals, and in hospital nursing establishments. He served as President of the Geographical Society (1876-1878) and as Vice-President of the Royal Asiatic Society (1875-1878). [4] He married: (1) Henrietta Mary, daughter of Charles Bacon, in 1841; (2) Lucy, widow of the Rev T Lowder, British chaplain at Shanghai. He died without issue at 14 Great Queen Street, London, on Nov 2nd, 1897. There is a portrait of him late in life in the Board Room of the Westminster Hospital, a copy is in the collection of the Royal College of Surgeons [5], and one, made in 1843, by L A de Fabeck, is reproduced in Michie's *Englishman in Japan*. Publications: *Notes on the Medical History and Statistics of the British Legion in Spain*, 8vo, London, 1838. *Life's Problems*, 8vo, 2nd ed., London, 1861. *Elements of Japanese Grammar*, 4to, Shanghai, 1861. *The Capital of the Tycoon*, 2 vols., 8vo, London, 1863. *Familiar Dialogues in Japanese with English and French Translations*, 8vo, London, 1863. *Art and Art Industries in Japan*, 8vo, London, 1878. He also edited in 1876 the *Diary of Augustus Raymond Margary* (1846-1875) (the traveller in China). [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] ? Nephew; [2] He was honored with the Knighthood of the Royal Spanish order of Charles III in 1839-40 (*London medical gazette* 1839-40, xxv, 720.); [3] He won the Jacksonian Prize in 1839 and again in 1841.; [4] He was a member of the Board of Guardians of St George's Hanover Square and took "a deep personal interest" in the scheme for emigrating pauper children to Canada. (see his letter to the *Spectator* 5 July 1879 [reprint in the Library]); [5] The words 'a copy is in the collection of the Royal College of Surgeons' are deleted and 'no!' added; Rutherford Alcock contributed to the *London Medical Gazette* on lithotripsy (?) 1829, 4, 464; 1830, 5, 102; on transport of wounded 1837-8, 21, 652; on medical statistics of armies 1838 22 321 & 362; on gunshot wounds & other injuries 1839 24 138 etc; on clinical instruction 1839 25 694, & on his Jacksonian prize 1840, 26, 607 and to *The Lancet* 1839/40, 1, 929 on concussion & 1840-41, 1 & 2 on amputation (a series of lectures); Portrait (No.47) in Small Photographic Album (Moira & Haigh).]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000655
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Alford, Richard (1816 - 1893)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-09-18 2013-08-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372850372850
Occupation General surgeon
Details Son of the Rev Samuel Alford, of Curry Rivel, and younger brother of Henry Alford (qv). Educated at University College. Practised at Tewkesbury, where he was Surgeon to the Dispensary, and removed to Weston-super-Mare in 1855, continuing to practise there until 1886. He was one of the founders of the old Dispensary which developed into the Weston-super-Mare Hospital. He acted as Surgeon to the Dispensary and as Consulting Surgeon to the Hospital. He died at 6 Ozil Terrace, Weston-super-Mare, on March 30th, 1893. Publications: "A Case of Spasma Glottidis." - *Prov. Med. and Surg. Jour.*, 1847, 625. "A Case of Jugular Vein Opened by Ulceration: Death." - Quoted in Liston's *Practical Surgery*, 6th ed. "A Case of Mortification from Head of Fibula to Crest of Ilium; Recovery." -* Assoc. Med. Jour.*, 1853. "Induction of Premature Labour by Ergot of Rye and Puncturing the Membranes." - *Lond. Med. Rev.*, 1861-2, ii, 511.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000667
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Allingham, Herbert William (1862 - 1904)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

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/372857372857
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on April 17th, 1862, the eldest son of William Allingham, (qv); was educated at Chatham House, Ramsgate, and University College School in London. He entered St George's Hospital in 1879, where Timothy Holmes (qv) and Pickering Pick (qv) were surgeons. Here he rapidly developed a marked talent for teaching and for surgery; at school he had been undistinguished. Served as House Surgeon in 1883-1884, and at the end of his term of office was appointed Surgical Registrar and Demonstrator of Anatomy. Elected Assistant Surgeon to St Mark's Hospital in 1885, resigning in 1890, and in 1887 he became Surgeon to the Great (now the Royal) Northern Hospital, a post he held until 1896. Elected Assistant Surgeon to St George's Hospital in 1894. [1] He was appointed Surgeon in Ordinary to the Prince of Wales, now His Majesty King George V, having been previously Surgeon to the Household of King Edward VII. He also filled the offices of Surgeon to the Surgical Aid Society and to the Osborne Home for Officers. He practised at 25 Grosvenor Street, W. He married in 1889 Fraülein Alexandrina Von der Osten, who died in January, 1904, when her husband had become inoculated with syphilis whilst operating in 1903. After her death he became mentally depressed, started for a holiday to Egypt, and died at Marseilles on Nov 4th, 1904, from an overdose of morphia. Allingham was a fine surgeon who did not confine himself to his father's specialty. As an operator he was rapid, neat, and accurate; as a man he was handsome, courteous, and helpful to his juniors. His affectionate nature was shown by the utter prostration into which he was thrown by the death of his lively and charming wife. Publications: Colotomy, Inguinal, Lumbar and Transverse, for Cancer or Stricture with Ulceration of Large Intestine, 8vo, London, 1892. The Treatment of Internal Derangements of the Knee-joint by Operation, 8vo, illustrated, London, 1889. Jointly with his father, Allingham on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Diseases of the Rectum, 5th ed., London, 1888. Operative Surgery, 8vo, London, 1903. [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] '1894' is deleted and '1895' put in its place, together with '[information from Sir Humphry Rolleston]'; Portrait in College Collection.]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000674
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ambler, Edward Holland (1821 - 1879)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Amphlett, Edward (1848 - 1880)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-09-25
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/372860372860
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on Oct 20th, 1848, the second son of Samuel Holmden Amphlett (qv), by Mary Georgiana, his wife. He was nephew of Sir Richard Amphlett, of Wychbold Hall, near Droitwich, at one time Lord Justice of Appeal. Edward Amphlett was the grandson of George Edward Male, an early nineteenth century authority on medical jurisprudence. He was educated for the sea, and served as midshipman in the Royal Navy for several years, seeing many parts of the world and acquiring great interest in nautical matters. At the time of his death he was Surgeon to the Naval Artillery Volunteers, with whom he had recently been a cruise on board HMS *Esk*. He suffered so severely from asthma that he was invalided out of the service. Determining to enter the medical profession, he first graduated at Cambridge from Peterhouse as a Junior Optime in the Mathematical Tripos (his uncle, Sir Richard Amphlett, who died in 1883, had been Sixth Wrangler). He is thus one of the first Cambridge man on our record. Entering at Guy’s Hospital, he was House Surgeon and Resident Obstetrician. After qualifying and passing the Fellowship examination he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to Charing Cross Hospital, and began to devote himself to practice and more particularly to diseases of the eye, which he had studied at Vienna. At the time of his death, besides being Assistant Surgeon, he was also Demonstrator of Surgical Pathology in Charing Cross Hospital Medical School and Assistant Surgeon at the Central London Ophthalmic Hospital. He practised at 40 Weymouth Street, Portland Place, W, and died there on Sept 9th, 1880. His elder brother was Richard Holmden Amphlett, QC, Recorder of Worcester.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000677
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Anderson, Alexander (1804 - 1880)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Anderson, Alexander Dunlop (1794 - 1871)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-10-02 2013-08-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372865372865
Occupation General surgeon
Details Son of Andrew Anderson, merchant, of Greenock, and nephew of Professor John Anderson, founder of the Andersonian University, Glasgow. Born in Greenock, he pursued his preliminary studies in Glasgow, and completed his medical training in Edinburgh and London. He was appointed a Surgeon's Mate (General Service) in 1813, and on March 13th was Hospital Assistant to the Forces. On May 12th, 1814, he joined the 49th Foot as Assistant Surgeon, but was afterwards placed on half pay, was re-employed by exchange on full pay, was again placed on half pay, and finally commuted on Sept 3rd, 1830. He served in Canada for a part of the time. He practised in Glasgow in 1820 and was elected Surgeon to the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in 1823, being appointed Physician to the Institution in 1838. Also served as Physician to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, and from 1852-1855 was President of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons. He married in 1829 a daughter of Thomas McCall, of Craighead, Lanarkshire, and had by her four sons and two daughters. Of the sons one, Dr T McCall Anderson, became Professor of Medicine in the Andersonian University. A D Anderson died at 159 St Vincent Street, Glasgow, on May 13th, 1871. He wrote only a few articles for professional papers, and is best remembered by that "On the Treatment of Burns by Cotton," published in the *Glasgow Medical Journal* for 1828. He is said to have enjoyed an extensive share of what is called "the best practice". He had a delicate sense of honour, and always showed himself acutely sensitive in regard to the feelings of others. His portrait by Sir Daniel Macnee, painted in 1870, hangs in the Faculty Hall at Glasgow.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000682
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Anderson, Henry Graeme (1882 - 1925)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-10-02
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/372866372866
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born Aug 1st, 1882, the younger son of Nicol Anderson, of Barrhead, Renfrewshire. Educated at Glasgow, King’s College, London, and the London Hospital. Graduated at the University of Glasgow, and was admitted a Member and a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England on the same day. He filled various minor posts at the London, St Mark’s, the Royal Orthopaedic, the Metropolitan, and the Cancer Hospitals before he was elected Assistant Surgeon at St Mark’s Hospital, where he devoted himself to the surgery of the rectum. He joined the Royal Navy on the outbreak of War in 1914 and was posted to the Royal Naval Air Service Expeditionary Force, serving at Antwerp, Ypres, and on the Belgian and Northern French coasts. Appointed Surgeon to the British Flying School at Vendôme in 1917, and from 1918-1919 was Surgeon to the Central RAF Hospital, and was afterwards transferred from the Royal Navy to the Royal Air Force as Surgical Consultant to the RAF, with the rank of Major. He returned to civil practice at the end of the war, living at 75 Harley Street, and died suddenly whilst playing in a lawn tennis tournament on June 28th, 1925. He was married and left a widow and one daughter. Anderson was one of the small number of Air Medical Officers who obtained a pilot’s certificate when flying was in its infancy. He gave much thought and research to the physical fitness of airmen, the prevention and treatment of aerial injuries, and the selection of aviators from the surgical point of view. He was a keen sportsman and was particularly interested in boxing. Publication: *The Medical and Surgical Aspects of Aviation*, Oxford Medical Publications, 1919.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000683
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Anderson, William Alexander ( - 1882)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Andrews, John Goldwyer (1782 - 1849)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Appleyard, John (1848 - 1905)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-10-02 2016-01-29
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/372878372878
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at University College and at the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin. House Surgeon at University College Hospital, at the Male Lock Hospital, and at the South Staffordshire General Hospital, Wolverhampton. He went to Bradford, where, for a time, he was Dispensing Surgeon at the Bradford Infirmary. Later he became Assistant Surgeon to the Eye and Ear Hospital, and after that was appointed to the Staff of the Bradford Royal Infirmary. At the time of his death, on Nov 4th, 1905, he was Consulting Surgeon to the Bradford Royal Infirmary and Honorary Surgeon to the Bradford Girls' Home. He practised at Clifton Villas, Manningham, Bradford. [1] [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] where his son William (d.1961) FRCS 1907 succeeded him.]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000695
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Archer, Edmond ( - 1869)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Archer, John (1809 - 1886)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Archer, William (1809 - 1891)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Arnold, James (1819 - 1866)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-10-07 2013-08-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372884372884
Occupation General surgeon
Details After being educated at Belfast and at Edinburgh University, he settled in practice in Liverpool, first in Abercromby Square, and then at 1 Rose Vale, Great Homer Street. He died on March 10th, 1866.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000701
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Atherstone, William Guybon (1814 - 1898)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-10-07 2016-01-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372893372893
Occupation General surgeon
Details Eldest son by his first wife of Dr John Atherstone, who married Elizabeth Damant, of Fakenham. He probably came from Atherstone in Warwickshire, she of a Flemish family settled in Norfolk after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Commissary-General John Damant married into the Korsten family, of Cradock Place, Port Elizabeth, and induced John Atherstone and Lieut Damant, of Fakenham, in Norfolk, to emigrate in 1820 in the ss *Ocean* as one of the settlers whom the Earl of Bathurst was introducing into the Colony. John Atherstone had been House Surgeon at Guy's Hospital, and he brought his wife, William Guybon, and three daughters with him. In August, 1820, he became District Surgeon of Uitenhage for a year, and then went to Cape Town in 1828, where he practised successfully for five years. In 1828 he was District Surgeon at Grahamstown and practised there until he was killed by falling out of a cart in 1858. Two of his sons by a second wife, and therefore half-brothers to William Guybon Atherstone, also practised medicine in the Colony. William Guybon Atherstone, born at Sion Hill, Nottingham, on May 27th, 1814, accompanied the family to South Africa and was educated at Grahamstown School in the old 'Messenger House' and afterwards at Uitenhage. He went with his father to Cape Town, where he attended the natural history lectures given by Dr Andrew Smith (afterwards Sir Andrew Smith, who, many years later, as Director-General of the Army Medical Department, was made a scapegoat for the medical scandals of the Crimean War). In 1829 he returned to Uitenhage, where he attended the academy kept by Dr Rose Innes, and seems to have stayed there for two years, as he was apprenticed to his father in 1831. In 1834 he acted as staff medical officer under Sir Benjamin D'Urban on the outbreak of the second Kafir war, and in 1886 he received his certificate as a qualified medical man. He then went to Europe and attended the lectures of Stokes and Graves in Dublin during the year 1887, and qualified MRCS Eng in the following year after being one of Michael Faraday's pupils. He was joined by his friend Fred W Barber, spent a year in Paris, and took the degree of MD at Heidelberg in 1839. He then returned to England, and having on April 13th, 1839, married his cousin, Catherine Atherstone, sailed back with her in the Robert Small, a vessel of 1000 tons. He settled in practice with his father in Grahamstown in December, 1839, and spent the rest of his life in the Colony except for a short period in 1876, when he again visited England. He at first acted as Gaol and District Surgeon at Grahamstown, and in 1847 he performed an operation under ether which must have been one of the first administrations in South Africa. He also did some original work jointly with his father in investigating horse-sickness and tick-fever. In 1857 and again in 1866 he was keenly interested in the development of railways, urging the annexation of the Congo area so that a line might be carried from the Cape to Cairo, and in 1878 he tried to get a telegraph line carried overland to Egypt. Both projects were defeated, but he familiarized his contemporaries with these schemes, which were afterwards carried into effect. Although Cecil J Rhodes was in South Africa during his lifetime there is no evidence that the two kindred spirits ever met. He fostered, too, the infancy of ostrich-farming at Heathertown Towers and Table Farm. As a prospector with a sound working knowledge of geology he made many important journeys, visiting Namaqualand in 1854; Stormberg in 1870; Kimberley and the Lydenburg goldfields in 1871. In 1867 he identified the first diamond found at Colesberg Kop - now Kimberley - examining it under a polariscope and trying its hardness on glass. The window pane on which he experimented has been framed and preserved. In 1888 the Kimberley Companies clubbed together and presented him with a 4-carat diamond in recognition of his services. Atherstone maintained his interest in science to the end of his life, for he was much more than a prospector, being a good field botanist, an artist, and a very competent musician. He founded in 1855 the Medico-Chirurgical Society which afterwards became the Albany Museum, esteemed the second best in the Dominion. In 1887 he helped to found the Bacteriological Institute in Grahamstown, and in 1888 he initiated the South African Geologists' Association. He became a member of the Legislative Assembly for Grahamstown in 1881, and in 1884 he was elected to the Legislative Council (the Upper House) for the Eastern District, a position he retained until 1891. His eyesight having failed about 1887 he retired from practice, but in 1896 he consented to serve as President of the South African Medical Congress when it met in Grahamstown. He died at Grahamstown on June 26th, 1898, his family consisting of two sons and three daughters. Atherstone was a man brimful of original ideas, who must be looked upon as one of the great pioneers of South Africa. He was energetic to a marvellous degree and he had the knack of imparting his enthusiasm to all about him. No one excelled him in patriotic feeling; he loved South Africa and everything in it. Geology was his particular branch, and his observations were keen and practical. There were few persons at the Cape in the early seventies of the nineteenth century who understood the bearing of geology on economics; but Atherstone fully appreciated the importance of thoroughly unravelling the geological problems of the country and thus assisting in its development. He had often to battle against adverse influences, but his good work lives after him and science in South Africa owes him much. He received no great recognition:- The Royal College of Surgeons elected him a Fellow of twenty years' standing in 1888, and he was made an Honorary Corresponding Secretary of the Royal Colonial Institute and a Fellow of the Geological Society. He left behind him an account of his life and works in 155 closely written notebooks. They begin in 1843, have not been published, and are still in possession of the family.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000710
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Connolly, Rainer Campbell (1919 - 2009)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by T T King
Publication Date 2009-10-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372898372898
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Campbell Connolly was a consultant neurosurgeon at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. He was born on 15 July 1919, the elder son of George Connolly, a solicitor who had served in the First World War, and his wife, Margaret, née Edgell, of Brighton. His grandfather, Colonel Benjamin Bloomfield Connolly was a distinguished military surgeon who had been principal medical officer of the Cavalry Brigade at El Teb (Sudan) and was commander of the Camel Bearer Company on the expedition to relieve General Gordon. Connolly’s education was at Lancing College, Bedford School and St Bartholomew’s Hospital, from which he graduated in 1941. Owing to the shortage of junior medical staff, he was immediately employed as a locum anaesthetic houseman and gave a number of anaesthetics for Sir James Paterson Ross who had, at the start of his career, an interest in neurosurgery. This position led to Connolly’s appointment as a house officer at the wartime hospital, Hill End, St Alban’s, to which the professorial surgical department of St Bartholomew’s had been evacuated. Though Paterson Ross was nominally in charge of neurosurgery, J E A O’Connell was the neurosurgeon within the professorial unit. While working at Hill End, Connolly was seconded to Sir Hugh Cairn’s head injury hospital at St Hugh’s, Oxford, to learn about electroencephalography, which it was thought might be useful in neurosurgical diagnosis. Oxford was one of the few places in the country where this new technique was being explored. This experience put him in contact with Cairns, who was responsible for the organisation of neurosurgery in the Army. Connolly eventually spent almost a year at St Hugh’s. Early in 1943 he found himself posted to an anti-aircraft battery in south London, where he had little to do until his commanding officer told him that he was to accompany the battery to a destination in West Africa. Alarmed, he wrote to Cairns and was almost immediately removed and placed in a holding post at Lancing. Connolly was one of the last survivors of the young neurosurgeons who staffed the mobile neurosurgical units that had been established by Hugh Cairns at the beginning of the Second World War. These saw action in France and Belgium in 1940, and the first one was captured at Dunkirk. Subsequently another six were formed and deployed in the Western Desert, Italy, Northern Europe and Burma. Through the influence of Cairns, Connolly was posted to mobile neurosurgical unit No 4 in Bari, Italy, when the senior neurosurgeon of the unit, Kenneth Eden died suddenly of poliomyelitis in October 1943. With its head, John Gilllingham, and John Potter, he accompanied the unit in the campaign up the east coast of Italy, ending at Ancona with the rank of major and with a mention in despatches. This unit treated over 900 head injuries from the battles at the Gothic Line and the Po Valley, as well as those from partisan activities in Yugoslavia. Many of the Yugoslavian patients had open head wounds for which treatment had been delayed by difficulties in transport, a subject on which Connolly contributed a paper to *War supplement No.1 on wounds of the head* published by the *British Journal of Surgery* in 1947 (*Br J Surg* 1947;55(suppl1):168-172). The results were surprisingly good, the mortality being 20 per cent. The use of penicillin, first clinically tested by Florey and Cairns, and then by Cairns in mobile neurosurgical unit No 4 in North Africa, was considered to be an important factor in these results. After VE day, Connolly returned to England in July. He was posted to the Far East, spending six unproductive months in India following the ending of the war in August. After demobilisation, he returned to Bart’s to a post created to accommodate ex-servicemen such as himself whose training and careers had been affected by war service. He obtained the FRCS in 1947. Cairns had plans for an organised training scheme for neurosurgeons, something not achieved until many years later, and he offered Connolly an appointment at Oxford to a training programme of some years’ duration, beginning as a house surgeon. At the same time Cecil Calvert, in Belfast, who had done much of the surgery at St Hugh’s during the war, invited him to the Royal Victoria Hospital as a consultant. The rigours of being a houseman at Oxford under Cairns were known to Connolly: he took the offer in Belfast and stayed there for four years. In 1952 he moved to the Midland Centre for Neurosurgery in Birmingham. In 1958 he was appointed as the second neurosurgeon to O’Connell at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and remained there until his retirement as senior neurosurgeon in 1984. He was also in private practice and established a reputation especially for judgement and skill in intervertebral disc surgery. He was on the staff of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and the King Edward VII Hospital for Officers and was a civilian consultant to the Royal Navy from 1971 to 1984. In the College he was Hunterian Professor in 1961, speaking on cerebral ischaemia in subarachnoid haemorrhage. He was president of the section of neurology of the Royal Society of Medicine from 1980 to 1981, a Freeman of the City of London and a liveryman of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. He married Elisabeth Fowler née Cullis, who was an anaesthetist at St Hugh’s. He died of cancer of the prostate on 14 August 2009, survived by his wife, two daughters and a son.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000715
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Glenn, James Francis (1927 - 2009)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by John Blandy
Publication Date 2009-10-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372900372900
Occupation Urologist
Details Jim Glenn was an internationally celebrated urologist, a former chief of urology at Duke University and dean of Emory University school of medicine. He was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and educated at the University High School there, from which he went to Rochester University and afterwards to Duke University to study medicine, qualifying in 1952. He specialised in urology and completed a surgical residency at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston and trained in urology at Duke University. He served briefly on the academic staff at Yale and at Wake Forest University, before returning to Duke in 1963 as a professor and later a chief of urology. He went on to Emory University in Atlanta as dean of the medical school and was later president of Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. He then returned to Kentucky, where he was director of the Markey Cancer Center at the University of Kentucky from 1989 to 1993 and chief of staff at the University of Kentucky Hospital from 1993 to 1996. He was acting chairman of surgery at the University of Kentucky from 1996 to 1998. He was a born organiser, becoming president of the American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons in 1993. A past president of the Société Internationale d’Urologie, in 2007 he received that organisation’s highest honour. He was a former governor of the American College of Surgeons and a former president of the American Urological Association. He received the Association’s lifetime achievement award in 1994. He was a frequent visitor to England, and always went out of his way to welcome visitors from the UK. He was made an honorary fellow of our College in 1987. He was awarded the St Paul’s medal of the British Association of Urological Surgeons in 1996. He died on 10 June 2009, leaving his widow Gay née Elste Darsie, two sons (Cambridge F Glenn II and James M Glenn), two daughters (Sarah Brooke Glenn and Nancy Carrick Glenn) and seven grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000717
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Atkins, James Ramsey (1802 - 1869)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Ball, Daniel (1799 - 1895)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Cudmore, Roger Edward (1935 - 2004)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Gayton, William Robertson (1912 - 2004)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372248372248
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details William Robertson Gayton was an orthopaedic surgeon at St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne. He was born in Richmond, Victoria, on 8 February 1912, the fourth child and second son of Henry John Albert Gayton, a bank official, and Mary Josephine née Brennan. He was educated at Xavier College on a junior government scholarship, and then went on to Newman College, Melbourne University, on a senior government scholarship. He went on to Melbourne Medical School, where he gained first class honours in medicine and obstetrics, and the Ryan prize in medicine. In 1936 he was a resident at St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne. He then went to the UK, where he was a resident medical officer in London and then Northampton. From 1940 to 1941 he was a resident surgical officer in Plymouth. He joined the Australian Army Medical Corps in London in April 1941. He was a surgeon with the 2nd/3rd Casualty Clearing Station at El Alamein, and also took part in the landings at Lai and Finchaven in New Guinea. He was a surgeon to the 119 Australian General Hospital at Cairns and also officer in charge of the surgical division of 116 Australian General Hospital in New Britain. He was discharged in January 1946. From 1946 to 1972 he was an orthopaedic surgeon at St Vincent’s Hospital. He then became a consulting orthopaedic surgeon at the same hospital. From 1946 to 1975 he was a visiting orthopaedic surgeon at Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital. He married Mary Thomson in 1949 and they had three sons and two daughters. He was a member of the Victoria Racing Club. He enjoyed fishing, watching cricket and lawn bowls. He died on 12 January 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000061
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-28 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372262372262
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details Norman Stanwell Hooton was a consultant thoracic surgeon in the south east Thames region. He was born in Warwick on 8 November 1921, the only child of Leonard Stanwell Hooton, a land commissioner, and Marion Shaw Brown née Sanderson. He was educated at Oundle School and then went on to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and King's College Hospital, where he won the Jelf medal in 1944 and the Legg prize in surgery in 1949. He was house physician to Terence East at the Horton Emergency Medical Service Hospital, Epsom, in 1945, and subsequently a registrar in the thoracic surgical unit. In 1950 he was a resident surgical officer at the Dreadnought Seaman's Hospital and from 1951 to 1955 a senior surgical registrar at Brook Hospital in south London. He was subsequently appointed as a consultant thoracic surgeon to the South East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board, working at Brook Hospital, Grove Park Hospital, at Hastings, and at Kent and Sussex Hospital, Tunbridge Wells. He married Katherine Frances Mary née Pendered, the daughter of J H Pendered, a Fellow of the College, in 1951. They had two sons and five grandchildren. Norman Hooton died on 6 September 2004 after a long illness.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000075
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Skey, Frederic Carpenter (1798 - 1872)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-25 2012-03-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372376372376
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Upton-on-Severn on Dec. 1st, 1798, the second of the six children of George Skey, a Russian merchant in London. He was educated at one or two private schools in early life, the last being that of the Rev. Michael Maurice, the Unitarian preacher, father of Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872), whose friendship he retained through life as they had been schoolfellows. A visit to his father's cousin, Dr. Joseph Skey, Inspector of Army Hospitals at Plymouth, was the beginning of Skey's professional education. During this visit Napoleon was brought to Plymouth in the Bellerophon, and Skey often referred in later life to the fact that he had seen the great Emperor on this occasion. From Plymouth he went to Edinburgh to begin his medical education, stayed there for a year or two, and then spent some months in Paris. He was apprenticed to John Abernethy on April 15th, 1816, paying the ordinary premium of 500 guineas. Abernethy had so high an opinion of his pupil's ability that he entrusted Skey with the care of some of his private patients whilst he was still an apprentice. By the interest of Abernethy, Skey was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1826. The appointment provoked considerable jealousy, more especially in the breast of William Lawrence (q.v.), and when other arrangements were made after the death of Abernethy, Skey resented them as unjust, and resigned in 1831. Associating himself with Hope, Todd, Marshall Hall, Pereira, and Kiernan, he reopened the Aldersgate Street School of Medicine, which had previously been a Cave of Adullam for discontented members of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. The school soon became famous, one of the largest in London, and a thorn in the side of its neighbour. In this school Skey lectured on surgery for ten years, his lectures proving very attractive to students, many of whom became his staunch personal friends. His bearing towards them showed a frankness and cordiality which drew into intimate and enduring friendship not only his own private pupils, but also the great body of students, over whom he exercised an amount of influence larger perhaps than that of any other contemporary teacher. When fresh arrangements had been made in the Medical School at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Skey was elected Lecturer in Anatomy in 1843, a position he resigned on Jan. 5th, 1864. Although the work of St. Bartholomew's Hospital was completely severed from the proprietary Medical School attached to it, Skey was nevertheless elected Assistant Surgeon on Aug. 29th, 1827, after an unsuccessful contest in 1824 when Eusebius Arthur Lloyd (q.v.) was chosen. He did not become Surgeon until May 10th, 1854, and retired under a newly established age limit at 65 on Jan, 18th, 1864. He was then appointed Consulting Surgeon and continued for some time to give clinical lectures. Skey was appointed Consulting Surgeon to the Charterhouse in 1827; on April 10th, 1837, he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society; and in 1859 he acted as President of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member of the Council from 1848-1867 and gave the Hunterian Oration in 1850. He was Arris and Gale Professor of Human Anatomy and Surgery, 1852-1854, when he lectured on "Muscular Action, Dislocations, and the Treatment of Disease"; a Member of the Court of Examiners, 1855-1870; Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1862, and of the Dental Board in 1865. He served as Vice-President in 1861 and 1862, and was elected President in 1863. In 1864 his friend Benjamin Disraeli caused him to be appointed Chairman at the Admiralty of the first Parlimentary Commission to inquire into the best mode of dealing with venereal diseases in the Navy and Army. The report of the Committee led to the framing and passing of the Contagious Diseases Act which was afterwards repealed. For his services Skey was decorated C.B. He practised at 13 Grosvenor Street, but failing health led him to move to 24 Mount Street, Grosvenor Square, where he died on Aug. 15th, 1872. There is a bust of Skey in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, of which there is a copy in the Royal Society of Medicine. A fine lithograph of J H Maguire's is in the College Collection. It was published in 1850 and is said to be a striking likeness, not only of his countenance and expression, but also of the very air and manner of the man. Skey was a man of great intelligence, energy, courage, candour, and good nature, a charming companion, with a genial disposition, full, even in advancing years, of youthful buoyancy. Sympathetic to all, he had in a special degree a fondness for animals. He was a good writer, a clear lecturer, and an excellent teacher. He concerned himself with the broad principles of his subject rather than with details. As a surgeon he was an able operator, and his great ability was conspicuously shown in his treatment of exceptional cases, for he was skilful and ingenious in diagnosis and, in the face of unusual difficulties, fertile in resource. PUBLICATIONS:- "On Structure of the Elementary Muscular Fibre of Animals and Organic Life." - *Proc. Roy. Soc.*, 1837, iii, 462. A creditable performance considering that abstract scientific research was not encouraged by the surgeons of his day and that he had to borrow the use of a microscope. *On a New Mode of Treatment employed in the Case of Various Forms of Ulcer and Granulating Wounds*, 8vo, London, 1837. The remedy was opium in small doses. He employed it with success in chilblains, and afterwards proposed to use it for troops on night duty in the Crimean trenches. *A Practical Treatise on Venereal Disease*, 8vo, London, 1840. The substance of his lectures at the Aldersgate Street School of Medicine in 1838-9. *On a New Operation for the Cure of Lateral Curvature of the Spine: with Remarks on the Causes and Nature of the Disease*, 8vo, London, 1841; 2nd ed., 1842. He divided the tendinous sheath of the longissimus dorsi subcutaneously. Pamphlets and a series of letters in *The Times* on the dangers of over-training. *Operative Surgery*, 8vo, Lond., 1850; 8vo, Phil., 1851; 2nd ed., Lond., 1858. This is a work of much merit, influenced throughout by the author's energetic protest against the use of the knife except as a last resource. He advocated the value of tonics and stimulants in preference to the bleeding and leeching which were still in use. His great energy of thought and action rendered him incapable of steady, constant labour, and it is reported that, when he undertook to write this work, incited by a friend who offered to publish it, he set about it forthwith without previous preparation or any special attention to the literature of his subject. He wrote chapter after chapter right off, mostly in the middle of the night or very early morning, for he slept but little. He lost one of the chapters between his house and hospital, and vehemently declared that he neither could nor would rewrite it, and that the work must either be given up or published without the missing portion. It was recovered by advertising in *The Times*. In his lectures on *Hysteria*, 8vo, London, 1867: 3rd ed., 1870, he maintains the advantages of the 'tonic' mode of treatment by 'bark and wine'.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000189
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hodgson, Joseph (1788 - 1869)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-25 2012-03-22
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372377372377
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Penrith, Cumberland, the son of a Birmingham merchant. He was educated at King Edward VI's Grammar School and was apprenticed to George Freer, who was Surgeon to the Birmingham General Hospital from December, 1793, to the day of his death in December, 1823. Hodgson thus had much experience at the hospital, but, his father having fallen on evil days, owed the completion of his education to an uncle, who gave him £100. He entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and in 1811 gained the Jacksonian Prize for his essay on "Wounds and Diseases of the Arteries and Veins". The essay was expanded and was published in 1815 with a quarto volume of illustrative engravings from drawings made by the author. It was well received and was translated into French by M. Breschet. The drawings show that Hodgson was no mean artist. He practised at King Street, Cheapside, and eked out his scanty resources by taking pupils and acting as editor of the *London Medical Review*. He also served at the York Military Hospital, Westminster, where he remained for some time in comparatively comfortable pecuniary circumstances, but insufficient practice and a desire to marry his future wife, who was a sister of J. F. Ledsam, took him back to Birmingham in 1818, where he was welcomed and elected Surgeon to the Birmingham General Hospital in December, 1821, on the death of Samuel Dickenson. He soon attained a good practice, and had amongst his patients Sir Robert Peel and many members of his family, who were living at Drayton Hall, near Tamworth. Many years later - in 1850 - he was in personal attendance when the Prime Minister, who had just resigned his office, fell from his horse in Constitution Hill and received the injury which proved fatal. Hodgson resigned his post of Surgeon to the Hospital in April, 1848, and the Governors presented him with the portrait which now hangs in the Committee Room. In the autumn of 1823 he started a movement to establish an Eye Infirmary in Birmingham. It was successful, and the Charity was opened for the reception of patients on April 13th, 1824. He acted as sole Surgeon until May, 1828, when at his request Richard Middlemore (q.v.) was elected as his colleague. He was asked in 1840 to become Surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital and Professor of Surgery at King's College, but declined both offers. It was not until 1849, after having made a considerable fortune in Birmingham, chiefly by lithotomy, that he gave up his house in Hagley Road and returned to Westbourne Terrace, Hyde Park. He was elected a Member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1849 and held office until 1868, being elected to the Court of Examiners, 1856-65; Chairman of the Midwifery Board, 1863; Vice-President, 1862 and 1863; and President, 1864. He delivered the Hunterian Oration in 1855. He was admitted F.R.S. on April 14th, 1831, and was President of the Medico-Chirurgical Society in 1851. He died on February 7th, 1869, twenty-four hours after his wife, and left one daughter. With the exception of Joseph Swan, Joseph Hodgson was the first provincial surgeon to become a Member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, and he was the first surgeon from the provinces to be elected President. He was chosen because his reputation was not confined to the locality of a country town, but was great even in London. He was not brilliant as an operator, and, like most provincial and many London surgeons his contemporaries, he acted as a family practitioner. He was celebrated for the accuracy of his diagnosis, but his caution and his pessimistic prognosis did something to limit his practice. He was a good teacher and was fortunate in his pupils; in Birmingham he taught D. W. Crompton, S. H. Amphlett, Alfred Baker, and Oliver Pemberton; in London, William Bowman and Richard Partridge. Born a Conservatice, he had some lively passages at arms with his Radical fellow-citizens, but his benevolence and kindness of manner made him respected and beloved. He was consistently opposed to all reforms and steadfastly opposed the formation of a School of Medicine in Birmingham. The presentation portrait by John Partridge, painted in 1848, was engraved by Samuel Cousins in 1849. A proof, 'for subscribers only', is in the College Collection.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000190
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wormald, Thomas (1802 - 1873)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-25 2012-03-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372378372378
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Pentonville in January, 1802, the son of John Wormald, who came of a Yorkshire family, a partner in Child's Bank, and Fanny, his wife. He was educated at the Grammar School of Batley in Yorkshire, and afterwards by the Rev. W. Heald, Vicar of Bristol in the came county. He was apprenticed to John Abernethy in 1818, lived in his house and became a friend. Abernethy used him as a prosector, caused him to teach the junior students, and made him assist Edward Stanley (q.v.) in his duties as Curator of the Hospital Museum. During his apprenticeship he visited the schools in Paris and saw something of the surgical practice of Dupuytren, Roux, Larrey, Cloquet, Cruveilhier, and Velpeau. When Abernethy resigned his lectureship Edward Stanley was appointed in his place, and it was arranged that Wormald should become a Demonstrator. But when the time arrived Frederic Carpenter Skey (q.v.), an earlier apprentice of Abernethy, was chosen, and 'Tommy', as he was known to everyone, was disappointed. He therefore became House Surgeon to William Lawrence, who was of the opposite faction, in October, 1824. It was not until 1826 that Wormald became Demonstrator of Anatomy conjointly with Skey, and when Skey seceded from the medical school to join the Aldersgate School of Medicine, Wormald remained as sole Demonstrator, and held the post for fifteen years. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital on Feb. 13th, 1838, on the death of Henry Earle, and spent the next twenty-three years teaching in the out-patient department without charge of beds. He became full Surgeon on April 3rd, 1861, on the resignation of Eusebius Arthur Lloyd (q.v.), and was obliged to resign under the age rule on April 9th, 1867, when he was elected Consulting Surgeon. He was Consulting Surgeon to the Foundling Hospital from 1843-1864, where his kindness to the children was so highly appreciated that he received the special thanks of the Court of Management and was complimented by being elected a Governor. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member of Council from 1840-1867, Hunterian Orator in 1857, a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1858-1868, and Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1864. He served as Vice-President in 1863 and 1864, and was elected President in 1865. He married Frances Meacock in September, 1828, and by her had eight children. He died of cerebral haemorrhage after a few hours' illness whilst on a visit to the sick-bed of his brother at Gomersal, in Yorkshire, on Dec. 28th, 1873, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery. A pencil sketch by Sir William Ross (1846) is in the Conservators' Room at the Royal College of Surgeons, and a photograph taken later in life hangs by its side. Wormald was the last pupil of John Abernethy, and his death snapped the link connecting St. Bartholomew's Hospital with Hunterian surgery; but it is as a teacher of clinical surgery and not as a surgeon that Wormald is remembered. The long years first as a Demonstrator of Anatomy and afterwards in the out-patient room made him a teacher of the highest class. He was so perfect an assistant that it was said in jest he ought never to have been promoted. He is reported to have been cool, cautious, and safe as an operator, and in diagnosis remarkably correct, particularly in diseases and injuries of joints. He had some mechanical skill, for he invented a soft metal ring which was passed over the scrotum for the relief of varicocele, known as 'Wormald's ring', and would forge his own instruments. He read but little and trusted almost entirely to observation and experience. He exercised a great influence over students and put a permanent and effective stop to smoking and drinking in the dissecting-room. His manner was brusque but not offensive, and was modelled upon that of his master, John Abernethy, whose gestures and eccentricities he often mimicked. He drew well, and illustrated his demonstrations and lectures with freehand sketches on the blackboard. His style of speaking was easy, clear, and forcible. There was no hurry or waste of words, and he had the art of arresting and keeping the attention of his class, partly by his quaintness and originality, partly by his frequent reference to surgical points in the anatomy he was discussing, and partly by his inexhaustible fund of humour and of anecdotes, many of which were not quite proper. In person he was of a ruddy countenance, with light-brown hair lying thin and lank over his broad forehead, his eyes twinkling and roguish; his coat and waistcoat were 'farmer-like', his trousers tight-fitting, with pockets in which he usually kept his hands deeply plunged; his boots were thick and laced. He looked, indeed, more a farmer than a surgeon. PUBLICATIONS:- *A Series of Anatomical Sketches and Diagrams with Descriptions and References *(with A. M. MCWHINNIE, q.v.), 4to, London, 1838; re-issued in 1843. These sketches from one of the best series of anatomical plates made for the use of students. They are true to nature and not overloaded with detail.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000191
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Partridge, Richard (1805 - 1873)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-25 2012-03-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372379372379
Occupation General surgeon
Details The tenth child and seventh son of Samuel Partridge, of Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. He was born on January 19th, 1805, and was apprenticed in 1821 to his uncle, W. H. Partridge, who practised in Birmingham. During his apprenticeship he acted as dresser to Joseph Hodgson (q.v.) at the Birmingham General Hospital. He entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, in 1827 and attended the lectures of John Abernethy, acting afterwards as Demonstrator of Anatomy at the Windmill Street School of Medicine. He was appointed the first Demonstrator of Anatomy at King's College, London, when the medical faculty was instituted in 1831, and held the post until 1836, when he was promoted Professor of Descriptive and Surgical Anatomy in succession to Herbert Mayo (q.v.). John Simon (q.v.) became Demonstrator in his place two years later, in 1838. On November 5th, 1831, occurred the 'resurrectionist' case in London which was instrumental in causing the passing of the Anatomy Act in 1832. Bishop, Williams, and May brought the body of Carlo Ferrari, an Italian boy, to King's College asking nine guineas for it. Partridge, being on the alert owing to the Burke and Hare case in Edinburgh in 1830, suspected foul play and delayed payment until the police were informed, saying that he only had a £50 note for which he must get change. Bishop and Williams were hanged, May was respited and sentenced to transportation for life. On Dec. 23rd, 1836, Partridge was elected Visiting or Assistant Surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital; he was promoted to full Surgeon on January 8th, 1838, and resigned the office on April 13th, 1840, when he was appointed Surgeon to the newly established King's College Hospital in Clare Market. He remained Surgeon to King's College Hospital until 1870. In 1837 he was elected F.R.S. He held all the chief positions at the Royal College of Surgeons, serving as a Member of Council from 1852-1868; he was a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1864-1873; Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1865; Hunterian Orator and Vice-President in the same year; and President in 1866. He filled many offices at the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society, where he was elected a Fellow in 1828; he was Secretary from 1832-1836; a Member of Council 1837-1838, and again in 1861-1862; Vice-President, 1847-1848, President, 1863-1864. Partridge succeeded Joseph Henry Green (q.v.) as Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy in 1853. He had himself some skill in drawing, having taken lessons from his brother John, the portrait painter. In the autumn of 1862 he went to Spezzia, at the request of Garibaldi's English friends, in order to attend the general, who had been severely wounded in the right ankle-joint at the Battle of Aspromonte. Having no previous experience of gunshot wounds, he unfortunately "overlooked the presence of the bullet", which Nélaton afterwards localized by his porcelain-tipped probe, and it was subsequently extracted by Professor Zanetti. This failure did him much harm professionally, though Garibaldi himself always wrote to him in the kindest terms, and he died a poor man on March 25th, 1873. Partridge has been described as a fluent lecturer, an admirable blackboard draughtsman, an excellent clinical teacher, and one who, though he operated nervously, paid close attention to the after-treatment of his patients. He was a painstaking but not a brilliant surgeon; minute in detail and hesitating in execution - a striking contrast to the brilliant performances of his colleague, Sir William Fergusson. He was somewhat of a wit, and it is recorded of him that, being asked the names of his very sorry-looking carriage-horses, he replied that the name of one was 'Longissimus Dorsi', but that the other was the 'Os Innominatum'. This was to a student. He wrote very little, and his copiously illustrated work on descriptive anatomy was never printed. There is a portrait of him by George Richmond, R.A., which was engraved by Francis Holl. There are in addition a lithograph by Maguire, dated 1845, and a photograph of a picture by an unknown artist representing Partridge attending the wounded Garibaldi; it is reproduced in the centenary number of the Lancet (1923, ii, 700, fig. 10).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000192
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hilton, John (1805 - 1878)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-01 2012-03-22
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372380372380
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details Born at Sible Hedingham, a small village on the River Colne in the heart of Essex, on September 22nd, 1805, the first son of John and Hannah Hilton. His parents were in humble circumstances when he was born, but his father afterwards made money in the straw-plaiting industry, became the owner of some brickfields, and built the house in Swan Street which is still called Hilton House. In addition to John, the Hilton family consisted of a brother, Charles, who inherited his father's property, and two sisters, one of whom, Anne, married Charles Fagge on December 27th, 1836. Hilton was educated at Chelmsford and afterwards at Boulogne, and became a student at Guy's Hospital about 1824. Guy's separated from St. Thomas's during his student career, and he was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy under Bransby Cooper (q.v.), his fellow-demonstrator being Edward Cock (q.v.), in 1828. The two demonstrators worked together in friendly rivalry, and when Sir Astley Cooper proposed that they should investigate the origin and distribution of the superior laryngeal nerve, Cock undertook the comparative and Hilton the human anatomy side of the question. The results were largely instrumental in causing his election as F.R.S. in 1839. From 1828 Hilton devoted himself so assiduously to the dissecting-room as to acquire the sobriquet 'Anatomical John'. When he was not dissecting or teaching he was making post-mortem examinations, and after sixteen years of this work he had gained an unrivalled knowledge of the anatomy of the human body and had become a first-rate teacher and lecturer. About 1838 he was engaged in making those dissections which, modelled in wax by Joseph Towne, still remain as gems in the Museum of Guy's Hospital. For this purpose Hilton spent an hour or two every morning in making a most careful dissection of some very small part of the body - usually not more than an inch or two. He then left, and Towne copied the dissection in wax. Towne worked alone in a locked room, and the secrets of his art died with him. Hilton was elected Lecturer on Anatomy in 1845 and resigned in 1853. As a lecturer and teacher he was admirable, for he had the power of interesting students by putting the trite and oft-told facts of anatomy in a totally new light, the result of his own observation and experience. He combined, too, elementary physiology with anatomy, for the two subjects had not then been separated. He was, however, a confirmed teleologist and tried to prove that anatomical distribution was due to design rather than to development. He had neither the education nor the inclination to appreciate anatomy in its scientific aspects. Hilton was elected Assistant Surgeon to Guy's Hospital in 1844, Thomas Callaway and Edward Cock being his colleagues, whilst John Morgan, Aston Key, and Bransby Cooper were full Surgeons. He thus had the distinction of being the first surgeon at one of the large London hospitals who was appointed without having served an apprenticeship either to the hospital or to one of its Surgeons. In 1847 James Paget was elected to a similar position at St. Bartholomew's Hospital without either of these qualifications, and the rule previously looked upon as inviolate soon became more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Hilton's period of probation in the out-patient room was of short duration. Aston Key (q.v.) died of cholera after an illness of twenty hours in 1849, and Hilton as the Senior Assistant Surgeon was promoted to fill his place. The ordeal was trying, for he had been an anatomist all his life and had never had charge of beds, but he came well through it. He did not acquire the brilliancy or expertness of the older surgeons, but the very exactness of his anatomical knowledge made him a careful operator. His caution is still remembered by that method of opening deeply-seated abscesses with a probe and dressing forceps after making an incision through the skin, which is known as 'Hilton's method'. He shone especially in clinical lectures, where he brought out the importance of every detail in a case, and so linked them together as to form a continuous chain which interested even the idlest student. He attracted to himself the best type of men, and to be a dresser to Hilton was considered a blue ribbon at the hospital. Yet he was no easy master to serve, for he was rough in speech and was prone to indulge in personalities designed to hurt the *amour propre* of those to whom they were addressed. At the Royal College of Surgeons Hilton was chosen a life-member of the Council in 1854. He lectured as Hunterian Professor of Human Anatomy and Surgery from 1859-1862, but it was not until 1865 that he became a Member of the Court of Examiners, a post he held for ten years. He served as Vice-President during the years 1865 and 1866, and was elected President in 1867, the year in which he delivered the Hunterian Oration. He resigned the Lectureship on Surgery at Guy's Hospital in 1870, though he continued to practise at 10 New Broad Street, E.C. In 1871 he was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria, and in the same year he was President of the Pathological Society. He married twice, and his children survived him. He died at Clapham of cancer of the stomach on September 14th, 1878. Hilton's claim to remembrance rests upon his essay "On the Influence of Mechanical and Physiological Rest in the Treatment of Accidents and Surgical Disease and the Diagnostic Value of Pain". The essay was delivered as his course of Arris and Gale Lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons in the years 1860, 1861, and 1862, with the title "Pain and Therapeutic Influences of Mechanical and Physiological Rest in the Treatment of Surgical Diseases and Accidents". It was published as an octavo volume in 1863; the second edition, with the shortened title *On Rest and Pain*, edited by W. H. A. Jacobson (q.v.), appeared in 1877; the third in 1880; the fourth in 1887; and the fifth in 1892. All the issues except the first are duodecimos; the third, fourth, and fifth contain no material changes. *Rest and Pain* is interesting historically as showing the state of surgery in a large general hospital when its practice was based entirely upon anatomy and was devoid of the assistance it now derives from histology, bacteriology, and anaesthetics. It bears perhaps the same relation to modern surgery as Chambers's *Vestiges of Creation* bears to modern geology and biology. There is much morbid anatomy, and great common sense mingled with very crude speculation. It remains a fascinating work, written by one who, though a master of one side of his subject, was unable to see the whole, partly because he was insufficiently acquainted with advances of his contemporaries, and partly because the means for developing the scientific aspects of surgery were not in existence. The particular points upon which Hilton laid stress in his lectures were the blocking of the foramen of Magendie in some cases of internal hydrocephalus; the cautious opening of deep abscesses; the pain referred to the knee by patients with hip disease and its anatomical explanation; the cause of triple displacement in chronic tuberculous disease of the knee; and the importance of the early diagnosis and treatment of hip disease. All this and many other things which are now the commonplaces of surgery, Hilton set out in *Rest and Pain*, in which the naïve description of his cases and their treatment is by no means the least attractive feature. It was said that no one looking at Hilton would have taken him for a great surgeon: he appeared much more like a prosperous City man. Short, rather stout, and plodding in his walk; dapper in a plain frock-coat with a faultless shirt front, a black stock or bow-tie, a fancy waistcoat festooned with a long gold chain which was hung from the neck; always in boots irreproachably blackened at a time when Warren's and Day & Martn's blackings were at the height of their vogue - such was the picture of Hilton as he sat on the bed of a patient in one of his wards examining an inflamed ulcer with a probe to determine the position of any exposed nerve. A life-size half-length oval portrait of Hilton by Henry Barraud (1811-1874) hangs in the Conservator's room at the College. It was presented by Mrs. Hilton in 1879. There is a photograph in the New Sydenham Society's "Portraits by President" portfolio; and a medallion given by Mrs. Oldham to C. H. A. Golding-Bird, F.R.C.S., in 1894 hangs in the Librarian's room at the College.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000193
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Quain, Richard (1800 - 1887)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-01 2012-03-09
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372381372381
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Fermoy, Co. Cork, in July, 1800, the third son of Richard Quain, of Ratheahy, Co. Cork, by his first wife - a Miss Jones. Jones Quain (1796-1865), the anatomist, was his full brother, and Sir John Richard Quain (1816-1876), Judge of the Queen's Bench, was his half-brother. Sir Richard Quain, Bart. (1816-1898) was his cousin. Richard Quain was educated at Adair's School in Fermoy, and after apprenticeship to an Irish surgeon came to London and entered the Aldersgate School of Medicine under the supervision of Jones Quain, his brother, for whom he acted as prosector. He afterwards went to Paris and attended the lectures of Richard Bennett, who lectured privately on anatomy and was an Irish friend of his father. Bennett was appointed in 1828 a Demonstrator of Anatomy in the newly constituted School of the University of London - now University College - and Quain acted as his assistant. Bennett died in 1830 and Quain became Senior Demonstrator of Anatomy, Sir Charles Bell being Professor of General Anatomy and Physiology. When Bell resigned the Chair Richard Quain was appointed Professor of Descriptive Anatomy in 1832, Erasmus Wilson (q.v.), Thomas Morton (q.v.), John Marshall (q.v.), and Victor Ellis (q.v.) acting successively as his demonstrators. He held office until 1850. Quain was elected the first Assistant Surgeon to University College - then called the North London - Hospital in 1834. He succeeded, after a stormy progress, to the office of full Surgeon and Special Professor of Clinical Surgery in 1848, resigning in 1866, when he was appointed Consulting Surgeon and Emeritus Professor of Clinical Surgery. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member of the Council from 1854-1873; a Member of the Court of Examiners, 1865-1870; Chairman of the Midwifery Board, 1867; Vice-President, 1866 and 1867; President, 1868; Hunterian Orator, 1869; and Representative of the College at the General Medical Council, 1870-1876. He was elected F.R.S. on Feb. 29th, 1844, and was Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria. He married in 1859 Ellen, Viscountess Midleton, widow of the fifth Viscount, but had no children. She died before him. He died on Sept. 15th, 1887, and was buried at Finchley. The bulk of his fortune of £75,000 was left to University College to encourage and promote general education in modern languages (especially the English language and the composition of that language) and in natural science. The Quain Professorship of English Language and Literature and the Quain Studentship and Prizes were endowed from this bequest. Quain himself had received a liberal education, and one of his hobbies was to write and speak English correctly. Quain was a short and extremely pompous little man. He went round his wards with a slow and deliberate step, his hands deep in his pockets and his hat on his head. As a surgeon he was cautious rather than demonstrative, painstaking rather than brilliant, but in some measure he made up for his lack of enterprise with the knife by his insistence on an excellent clinical routine, and he was a careful teacher. He had a peculiar but intense dread of the occurrence of haemorrhage. He devoted especial attention to diseases of the rectum. "Even such a matter as clearing out the scybala had to be performed in his wards in a deliberate manner, under his own superintendence." He had certain stock clinical lectures which he delivered each year, and one of these was on the ill consequences attending badly fitting boots, which he illustrated profusely by the instruments of torture called boots devised by some shoemakers. He edited his brother's *Elements of Anatomy* (5th ed., 1843-8), and was author of a superbly illustrated work, *The Anatomy of the Arteries of the Human Body* (8vo, with folding atlas of plates, London, 1844), deduced from observations upon 1040 subjects. The splendid plates illustrating this were drawn by Joseph Maclise (q.v.), brother of the great artist, and the explanation of the plates is by his cousin Richard Quain, M.D. (afterwards Sir Richard). He also published *Diseases of the Rectum* (8vo, London, 1854; 2nd ed., 1855), and *Clinical Lectures* (8vo, London, 1884). He was an unamiable colleague, for he was of a jealous nature and prone to impute improper motives to all who differed from him. He quarrelled at one time or another with most of the staff of University College Hospital. In these quarrels he sided with Elliotson and Samuel Cooper against Liston and Anthony Todd Thomson. At the College of Surgeons he was strictly conservative, and apt to urge views on educational subjects which did not commend themselves to the majority of his colleagues. A life-size half-length portrait in oils painted by George Richmond, R.A., hangs in the Secretary's office at the Royal College of Surgeons, and in the Council Room is a bust by Thomas Woolner, R.A.; it was presented by Miss Dickinson in December, 1887.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000194
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Halton, John Prince (1797 - 1873)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-01 2012-03-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372382372382
Occupation General surgeon
Details The eldest son of the Rev John Halton, MA, St Peter's, Chester; educated at the University of Edinburgh and at Guy's Hospital under Sir Astley Cooper. After Continental travel he settled in Liverpool, and in 1820 was elected Surgeon to the Royal Infirmary, an appointment he held until 1856, when he became Consulting Surgeon. In 1844 he published a pamphlet attacking the heavy mortality following operations at the Liverpool Northern Hospital, as compared with that at the Royal Infirmary during the previous twenty-two years. The reply by the Surgeons of the Northern Hospital as to the salubrity and ventilation of the building breathes a considerable spirit of deference to Halton. He caused a rule to be passed excluding the Surgeons at the Royal Infirmary from the practice of pharmacy, for a surgeon, he said, should restrict himself to cases in surgery. Further, he advocated education at universities and large centres of population. Thus, as a successor of Park and of Hanson, Halton did much to advance the reputation of surgery in Liverpool. He retired from practice in 1885 and died at Woodclose, Grasmere, Westmorland, on Jan 27th, 1873. He married in early life; his wife, a daughter of John Foster, of Liverpool, died in 1871.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000195
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-01 2012-03-22
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372383372383
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Prestonpans on March 20th, 1808, the son of James Fergusson. He was educated at Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire, at the High School, and at the University of Edinburgh. He was placed by his own desire in a lawyer's office at the age of 15, but finding the work uncongenial he changed law for medicine when he was 17. He became a pupil of Robert Knox, the anatomist, then at the height of his reputation, who appointed him demonstrator in 1828, when the class consisted of 504 students and the lectures had to be repeated thrice daily. Fergusson quickly became a skilled anatomist, and it is said that he often spent sixteen hours a day in the dissecting-room, and he soon began to lecture in association with Knox. He was elected Surgeon to the Edinburgh Royal Dispensary in 1831, and in that year tied the third part of the right subclavian artery for an axillary aneurysm, an operation which had been published only twice previously in Scotland. He described the appearances seen at the post-mortem examination in the *London and Edinburgh Journal of Medical Science* (1841, i, 617). In 1855 he employed the dangerous method of direct compression of a subclavian aneurysm (*Lancet*, 1855, ii, 197). He married Helen Hamilton Ranken on Oct. 10th, 1833. She was the daughter and heiress of William Ranken, of Spittlehaugh, Peebleshire, and the marriage at once placed Fergusson in easy circumstances. He continued zealous in his profession, and in 1836, when he was elected Surgeon to the Royal Infirmary and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, he shared with James Syme (q.v.) the best surgical practice in Scotland. In 1840 Fergusson accepted the Professorship of Surgery at King's College, London, with the Surgeoncy to King's College Hospital, which was then situated in the slums of Clare Market. He settled at Dover Street, Piccadilly, whence he removed in 1847 to George Street, Hanover Square. His fame brought crowds of students to King's College Hospital to witness his operations. He became Member of the College of Surgeons in 1840, Fellow in 1844, was a Member of Council from 1861-1877, and of the Court of Examiners from 1867-1870, Vice-President in 1869, President in 1870, and Hunterian Orator in 1871. As Arris and Gale Lecturer he delivered two courses on "The Progress of Anatomy and Surgery during the Present Century", in 1864 and 1865. In these lectures Fergusson mentioned three hundred successful operations for hare-lip performed by himself. In 1849 he was appointed Surgeon in Ordinary to Prince Albert, and in 1855 Surgeon Extraordinary to H. M. the Queen. He was made a baronet in 1866, and Serjeant-Surgeon in 1867. The occasion of his receiving a baronetcy was seized upon to make a presentation of a dessert service of silver plate which was subscribed for by three hundred of his old pupils. He was elected F.R.S. in 1848, President of the Pathological Society in 1859-1860, and of the British Medical Association in 1873, and Hon. LL.D of Edinburgh in 1875. He resigned the office of Professor of Surgery at King's College in 1870, but retained the post of Clinical Professor of Surgery and Surgeon to the hospital until his death. He invented the term 'conservative surgery', by which he meant the excision of a joint rather than the amputation of a limb. He introduced great improvements in the treatment of hare-lip and cleft palate, and his style of operating attracted general attention and admiration. As an operator, indeed, he is justly placed at the pinnacle of fame. Lizars said he had seen no one, not even Liston himself, surpass Fergusson in a trying and critical operation, and his biographer, Mr. Bettany, says in the *Dictionary of National Biography*: "His manipulative and mechanical skill was shown both in his mode of operating and in the new instruments which he devised. The bulldog forceps, the mouth-gag, and various bent knives for cleft palate, attest his ingenuity. A still higher mark of his ability consisted in his perfect planning of every detail of an operation beforehand; no emergency was unprovided for. Thus, when an operation had begun, he proceeded with remarkable speed and silence till the end, himself applying every bandage and plaster, and leaving, as far as possible, no traces of his operation. So silently were most of his operations conducted, that he was often imagined to be on bad terms with his assistants." Fergusson was celebrated as a lithotomist and lithoritist, and it was said that to *wink* during one of his cutting operations for stone might involve one's seeing no operation at all, so rapidly was the work performed by that master hand. On one occasion when performing a lithotomy the blade of the knife broke away from the handle. He at once seized the blade in his long deft fingers, finished the operation, and quietly told the class: "Gentlemen, you should be prepared for any emergency." He died in London of Bright's disease on Feb. 10th, 1877, and was buried at West Linton, Peebleshire, beside his wife, who died in 1860. He was succeeded in the title by his sons, James Ranken; a younger son, Charles Hamilton, entered the Army, and there were three daughters. Fergusson's personality was marked. Tall and of fine presence, with very large and powerful hands, he was genial and hospitable. He was beloved by hosts of students whom he had started in life, and of patients whom he had aided gratuitously. Those who could afford to pay sometimes gave him very large sums for an operation. Like John Hunter, he was a good carpenter, and had besides a number of social pursuits and accomplishments. He was a staunch friend, forgiving to those, such as Syme, who opposed him, and his best monument is the life and work of the many pupils whom he influenced and stimulated as few have ever done. He made many contributions to surgical literature, and wrote a *System of Practical Surgery*, of which a fifth edition appeared in 1870. An expressive and nearly full length oil painting of Fergusson by Rudolf Lehmann hangs in the Secretary's office at the College, and there are numbers of portraits in the College Collection. The portrait was painted in 1874, and a replica hangs in the Edinburgh College of Physicians. He was extremely social and given to kind and friendly hospitality in private life. He sometimes invited a small circle of friends to dine at a well-known city hostelry, The Albion Tavern. On one of these occasions he invited the then Editor of *Punch*, who responded in these terms: "Look out for me at seven, look after me at eleven. - Yours, Mark Lemon." PUBLICATIONS:- *A System of Practical Surgery*, of which the first edition in 18mo was published in London, 1842; 2nd ed., in 12mo, 1846; 3rd., 1852; 4th ed., 1857; 5th ed., 1870. The work deals with the art rather than the science of surgery, and was a good text-book for medical students. Paper on lithotrity in the *Edin. Med. and Surg. Jour.*, 1835, xliv, 80. Paper on cleft palate in the *Med.-Chir. Trans.,* 1845, xxviii, 273. The Hunterian Oration, 8vo, 1871, is chiefly remarkable for the generous eulogium of James Syme, his former colleague, with whom relations had been somewhat strained.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000196
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Busk, George (1807 - 1886)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Bigelow, Wilfred Gordon (1913 - 2005)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372210372210
Occupation Cardiac surgeon
Details Wilfred Gordon ‘Bill’ Bigelow, who helped develop the first electronic pacemaker, was a professor of cardiac surgery at the University of Toronto and a pioneering heart surgeon. He was born in Brandon, Manitoba, in 1913. His father, Wilfred Bigelow, had founded the first medical clinic in Canada. Bill trained in medicine at the University of Toronto and did his internship at the Toronto General Hospital, during which time he had to amputate a young man’s fingers because of frostbite, leading Bill to research the condition. During the second world war, he served with the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, in a field transfusion unit and then as a battle surgeon with the 6th Canadian Casualty Clearing Station in England and Europe, where he saw many more soldiers with frostbitten limbs. After the war, he returned to a surgical residency in Toronto, followed by a graduate fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He returned to Toronto in 1947 as a staff general surgeon. In 1950 he became a research fellow in the university department of surgery. He was made an assistant professor in 1953 and a full professor in 1970. He researched into hypothermia in a cold-storage room in the basement of the Banting Institute. He theorised that cooling patients before an operation would reduce the amount of oxygen the body required and slow the circulation, allowing longer and safer access to the heart. This work led to the development of a cooling technique for use during heart operations. He also discovered that he could restart the heart by stimulating it with a probe at regular intervals, work which led him on to develop the first electronic pacemaker, in collaboration with John Callaghan and the electrical engineer John Hopps. He published extensively and received many awards, including the Order of Canada and the honorary Fellowship of our College. He was President of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery and the Society for Vascular Surgery. He was predeceased by his wife, Margaret Ruth Jennings, and is survived by his daughter, three sons and three grandchildren. He died from congestive heart failure on 27 March 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000023
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lister, James (1923 - 2004)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372281372281
Occupation Paediatric surgeon
Details Jimmy Lister was an emeritus professor of paediatric surgery at the University of Liverpool and a former vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Born in London on 1 March 1923, the son of Thomas Lister, a chartered accountant, and Anna Rebecca Lister, two of his siblings – John and Ruth – also entered medicine. He was educated at St Paul’s School as a foundation scholar, and then went on to Edinburgh University, qualifying in 1945. He then served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve for three years. His training in Edinburgh and Dundee was followed by a year as Halstead research fellow at the University of Colorado, where he decided on a career in paediatric surgery. On returning to the UK, he went first to Great Ormond Street Hospital, as senior lecturer and honorary consultant. In 1963 he became a consultant to the Children’s Hospital, Sheffield. In 1974 he was appointed to the newly established chair at the University of Liverpool, taking charge of the regional neonatal surgical unit at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, establishing an international reputation in neonatal surgery. Here his observations provided new insights into the pathogenesis and management of many life-threatening congenital disorders. Certainly his years in Liverpool were rewarded by a drop in mortality, from 30-40 per cent in the sixties, to less than 10 per cent. His unit soon attracted many young surgeons from many parts of the world: his ‘boys and girls’, as they were called, became distinguished paediatric surgeons all over the world. He inspired bonds of friendship and loyalty, which he maintained for his lifetime. For all his pre-eminence, Jimmy Lister remained a gentle, modest and self-effacing man who had a ready smile for all those he met. Many honours came his way. He was a council member and then vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and, as convenor of examinations, he was largely responsible for making major changes in the curriculum. He was President of the British Association of Paediatric Surgeons, who awarded him the Denis Browne gold medal. He chaired the Specialist Advisory Committee on Paediatric Surgery in the UK, and was vice-president of the World Federation of Associations of Paediatric Surgeons. He was recognised for his many contributions, gaining some 18 honorary fellowships of medical and surgical bodies worldwide. His publications were many and included a major textbook *Complications of paediatric surgery* (London, Bailliere Tindall, 1986). He was also editor of *Neonatal Surgery* and associate editor of the *Journal of Paediatric Surgery. * He was married to Greta née Redpath, whom he had met while he was in the Navy, and they had three daughters. His wife and one daughter, Diana, predeceased him. He retired to the Borders, where he found it easier to fulfil his commitments to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He died on 9 May 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000094
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Longmire, William Polk (1913 - 2003)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372282372282
Occupation General surgeon
Details William Polk Longmire Jr was one of the founders of the school of medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and a former President of the American College of Surgeons. He was born in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, in 1913. After graduating from the University of Oklahoma, he entered Johns Hopkins Medical School, where he obtained his MD in 1938. He stayed on at Baltimore for two years, first as Cushing fellow in experimental surgery, and then as Halsted fellow in surgical pathology. This was followed by two years in practice in Sapulpa. He then returned to Johns Hopkins for his residency training, and was a member of the first surgical team to successfully perform the ‘blue baby’ operation, a groundbreaking procedure that allowed infants with a severe heart deformity to live a normal life. At Johns Hopkins he was appointed as an assistant professor and then an associate professor of surgery. Just before leaving, he was appointed as its first professor of plastic surgery. He returned to general surgery when he went to the University of California at Los Angeles as professor and Chairman of the department of surgery. He served as UCLA’s surgical Chairman until 1976 and continued in medical practice at UCLA, becoming professor emeritus in 1984. He published more than 350 published scientific articles and four books. In his later years, he wrote *Starting from scratch*, a book describing the founding of UCLA’s school of medicine. He served on the American College of Surgeons’ board of regents, ultimately as its President. He also served as President of the Society of Surgical Chairmen, the American Surgical Association, the International Federation of Surgical Colleges and the Los Angeles Surgical Society and as Chairman of the American Board of Surgery. He served as visiting professor in many universities, including the University of Berlin and the University of Edinburgh. He was recognised by surgical societies in Italy, Switzerland, France and Germany. He married Sarah Jane Cornelius and they had two daughters, Sarah Jane and Gil. There are three grandchildren. He died on 9 May 2003, from cancer.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000095
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lumb, Geoffrey Norman (1925 - 2005)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12 2012-03-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372283372283
Occupation Urologist
Details Geoffrey Lumb was a consultant urologist in Taunton, Somerset. He was born in Crewkerne, Somerset, on 1 January 1925, the son of Norman Lumb, a urologist in Portsmouth. He was educated at Marlborough and St Thomas's Hospital. After junior posts he did his National Service in the RAFVR, reaching the rank of Squadron Leader as an anaesthetist. On demobilisation he went to Bristol to work under Milnes Walker and John Mitchell, the latter kindling his interest in surgical diathermy, upon which he became an expert, writing many articles and a textbook in collaboration with Mitchell. After a sabbatical year in Boston and Richmond, Virginia, he was appointed as a consultant surgeon in Taunton in 1965. There he worked hard to set up an independent department of urology, achieving that aim in 1979. Taunton became the first district general hospital training department in the south west. Under his guidance research programmes flourished, and he set up a pioneer teaching programme using video endoscopy and laser surgery. He was also an enthusiastic proponent of transrectal ultrasound examination of the prostate. It was sadly ironic that he should die from the complications of cancer of the prostate. A talented and compassionate surgeon, he had a mischievous sense of humour. His many interests included model railway engineering, and he was an excellent craftsman, photographer, gardener, fisherman and golfer. He married Alison Duncan, a staff nurse at St Thomas's. They had a daughter, Christine (who became a theatre sister) and two sons, Hugh and Roger. He died on 25 April 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000096
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Mackie, David Bonar (1936 - 2005)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 2006-11-30
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/372284372284
Occupation General surgeon
Details David Bonar Mackie was a consultant general surgeon in Salisbury, Wiltshire. His parents David Taylor Mackie and Mary Gray née Chittick were Scottish. His father was a GP in Aberdour, Fife, and then moved to a general practice in Exeter, where Bonar was born in 1936. Bonar was educated at Sherborne School and Pembroke College, Cambridge, going on to the Middlesex Hospital for his clinical studies. After house appointments he completed surgical registrar jobs at the Middlesex and Central Middlesex Hospitals, working for, among others, Cecil Murray, Leslie LeQuesne and Peter Riddle. In 1969 he won a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Mississippi. He was appointed as a consultant to the Salisbury District Hospitals in 1972. There he developed a short stay ward, and breast surgery and specialised urology services. In 1964 he married Jennifer Bland. They had three children, one of whom is a dental surgeon. A keen sportsman, Bonar particularly enjoyed golf and racing. He was medical officer to the Salisbury race course and owned, with friends, several more or less successful horses. He died on 25 January 2005, after a prolonged and slowly deteriorating Pick’s disease.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000097
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Marchant, Mary Kathleen (1924 - 2003)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372285372285
Occupation Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Mary Marchant was a former plastic surgeon in Liverpool. Born in 1924, she qualified in medicine at Liverpool and began her career as a house officer at Smithdown Road Hospital. She trained in surgery and practised in and around Liverpool, before specialising in plastic surgery. She helped set up the first plastic surgery unit in Liverpool at Whiston Hospital. In 1965, she joined a missionary surgery in Uganda, spending four years there, returning to England in 1969 because of ill health. She joined a general medical practice in Penny Lane, Liverpool, and retired in 1983. She died on 18 August 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000098
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Marsh, John David (1925 - 2004)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 2007-03-08
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/372286372286
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Marsh was a consultant surgeon to the South Warwickshire NHS Trust. His father, Alfred Marsh, was a general practitioner in Chorley, Lancashire, where John was born on 8 April 1925. His mother was Dorothea Maud née Saywell. From the Terra Nova Preparatory School in Southport he won a scholarship to Clifton College, and from Clifton a minor scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge. He went on to St Thomas’s Hospital for his clinical studies, where he won the London prize for medicine. After house jobs under R H Boggon and R W Nevin, he entered the RAMC and spent his two years National Service at Tidworth. From there he returned to be senior house officer at the Henry Gauvain Hospital at Alton under Nevin, did a casualty post in Salisbury and was resident surgical officer at the Hallam Hospital, West Bromwich. Having passed his FRCS, he returned to be assistant lecturer on John Kinmonth’s surgical unit at St Thomas’s. He spent the next three years on rotation to the Royal Waterloo Hospital and Hydestyle, before becoming senior registrar at King’s College Hospital under Harold Edwards and Sir Edward Muir. He was appointed as a consultant surgeon to the South Warwickshire NHS in 1963. He said of his time there: “Warwick was a happy time. I like to think that my main contribution was those RSOs who we taught. We identified a gap in the market for people with the Primary who needed experience to get the Final. Basically, I did all the things that had not been done to me (with a few exceptions). I came in to help with emergencies and did not allow them to be loaded with things beyond their then experience. Then we tutored them through their exams. Most of them went on to do very well. When I retired after my coronary what I missed most was the stimulus of good juniors and the teaching.” He developed a particular interest in paediatric surgery, was the College surgical tutor for the West Midlands, and served as examiner and Chairman of the Court. In 1952 he married Elizabeth Catherwood, an artist. They had a son (Simon), two daughters (Alison and Catherine) and six grandsons. Among his many interests were walking, reading and history, but above all he was a dedicated Christian and editor of the Christian Graduate and Chairman of the council of the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (from 1970 to 1980). He had his first heart attack in 1980, miraculously surviving a cardiac arrest and, wisely, took early retirement in 1983. He died on 25 January 2004 at Warwick Hospital, where he had worked for 20 years.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000099
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Matheson, John Mackenzie (1912 - 2003)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

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/372287372287
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Matheson was a former professor of military surgery at the Royal Army Medical College, Millbank, London. He was born in Gibraltar on 6 August 1912, the son of John Matheson, the then manager of the Eastern Telegraph station, and Nina. The family later moved on to Malta and then to Port Said. John was educated at the Lycée Francaise and then at George Watson’s College in Scotland, where he had some problems using English, being more fluent in Arabic and French. He had an outstanding academic career, and managed to finance much of his education through bursaries and scholarships. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University, where he was captain of athletics, and qualified in 1936. He then did research into the treatment of tuberculosis. He had joined the Territorial Army at university, so that, at the beginning of the second world war, he was quickly mobilised into the 23 Scottish General Hospital. On the first day at the new hospital, at the newly requisitioned Peebles Hydro, he met Agnes, known as ‘Nan’, the nursing sister who became his wife three years later. He saw service in Palestine, the Middle East and North Africa, where he was largely responsible for the organisation of medical services in the Tunisian campaign, before and after El Alamein, for which he was mentioned in despatches. He stayed with the 8th Army as they advanced into Italy. After the war, he remained in the RAMC and gained his FRCS as a clinical tutor in the surgical professorial unit in Edinburgh. For the next 36 years he served as a surgical consultant all over the world. From 1948 to 1950, he was medical liaison officer to the surgeon general of the US Army and chief of the surgical section at the Walter Reed Hospital, Washington. For this work he was awarded an OBE. From 1952 to 1953, he was in Canada and Austria. He then spent three years in Egypt in the Suez Canal zone. From 1961 to 1964, he was in Cyprus, and then spent a year, from 1967 to 1968, in Singapore, Hong Kong and Nepal. He also consulted in hospitals throughout the UK. His final posting in the Army was as commandant of the Army Medical College at Millbank and professor of military surgery. He was an honorary surgeon to the Queen from 1969 to 1971. During his time in the Army he was largely responsible for introducing central sterile supply into medical services, and made important contributions to the surgical management of gunshot wounds. On his retirement, he became postgraduate dean of medicine at Edinburgh University, a job he enjoyed for nearly 10 years. He was President of the Military Surgeons’ Society, the RAMC Association, honorary colonel of 205 Scottish General Hospital, and Chairman of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary Samaritans’ committee and Scottish committee member of the Ex-Services Mental Welfare Society. He was a senior elder of the kirk of Greyfriars. His wife, Nan, predeceased him in 1995, but he continued to be active, taking classes in cookery, computing and Gaelic. He had an infectious sense of humour, and his genuine compassion and unfailing optimism made him a much-admired colleague. He died on 9 November 2003. One daughter survives him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000100
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-05-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372539372539
Occupation General surgeon
Details Anthony Stedman Till, known as ‘Tim’, was a consultant surgeon in Oxford. He was born in London, on 5 September 1909, the eldest son of Thomas Marson Till OBE, an accountant, and Gladys Stedman, the daughter of a metal broker in the City. Tim was educated at Ovingdean Hall, Brighton, and Marlborough, before winning a scholarship to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from which he went to the Middlesex Hospital to do his clinical training as a university scholar. After he qualified he was house physician, house surgeon, casualty officer and registrar, and then became an assistant to Sir Gordon Gordon-Taylor, who was a large influence on him. Tim also studied in Heidelberg and became fluent in German. In 1940 he joined the RAMC, and in the same year married Joan Burnyeat, the daughter of Colonel Ponsonby Burnyeat, who had been killed in 1918. Tim was posted to the Middle East, via Cape Town and Suez. He was taken prisoner during the battle for Lemros and was shipped, via Athens, to Stalag 7A. While a prisoner-of-war he operated not only on his fellow prisoners but also on the local civilians, and later, possibly as a result of his services to the local population, he was repatriated to the UK. He was soon back on the continent with the 181st Field Ambulance, and was with the first medical group to enter Belsen. He was always reluctant to talk about the sights he saw, which made a huge impression on him, but did remember how he picked a flower there, finding this a symbol of hope. Shortly after demobilisation in 1945 he was appointed as a registrar in Oxford and, soon afterwards, consultant surgeon. His special interests were thyroid and abdominal surgery, where he made notable contributions in both fields. He was President of the section of surgery of the Royal Society of Medicine, President of the Association of Surgeons, and a member of the Court of Examiners of our College. Outside the profession, he served as a magistrate. He hunted with the Heythrop, and when he gave up riding he bought himself a mountain bike so that he could ‘ride out’ every morning. In retirement he was the District Commissioner – an onerous task. He was also a skilled fisherman and an accomplished artist in oils and watercolour. He had a long and happy retirement in the Cotswolds with his wife Joan, who gave him stalwart support. He died on 31 August 2006, leaving his widow, three daughters (the eldest predeceased him), ten grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000353
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Smith, Rodney, Baron Smith of Marlow in the County of Buckinghamshire (1914 - 1998)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-05-10
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372541372541
Occupation General surgeon
Details Lord Smith was one of our great presidents. Successive holders of that office have faced many and various challenges, but by any measure the confrontation between the Labour government and the BMA from 1974 to 1975 was a major crisis that threatened the future of consultant practice. Rodney Smith, as he was then, was equal to the occasion; by behind the scenes diplomacy he played a vital part in the resolution of the conflict. Yet this was only one of the many tasks he successfully undertook on behalf of the College in a long and ambitious career. In parallel, he developed a formidable surgical skill, combined with a bold and innovative approach, which made him a world leader in the field of pancreatico-biliary surgery. Surgery was not however his only skill – he was endowed with an enviable array of talents which would have enabled him to succeed in any career of his choice. In his youth, he was an accomplished violinist and had contemplated music as a profession. He stayed with surgery because, he was wont to remark, a surgeon could enjoy music, but a musician could hardly undertake surgery as a hobby. As a medical student he still found time to play cricket for Surrey second XI and on a memorable occasion scored a double century at the Oval while working for the primary. Golf came easily to him, chess was a fascinating contest, but bridge was a more serious business, which brought him into contact with both sides of the political divide. In retirement, he took up painting with his customary success, maintaining at the same time his expertise in numismatics and opera. In all these fields he was driven by the urge to excel and, although in public his ambition was decently cloaked, it was never entirely concealed. His father, Edwin Smith, was a south London coroner, his mother, Edith Catherine née Dyer, a professional violinist, and it is hardly surprising therefore that medicine and music engaged his early interests. After schooling at Westminster, which he left early after a row with the headmaster, Dr Costley-White, about an intended performance at the Chelsea Music Festival, he crossed the river to St Thomas’s for his medical training, conceiving there an admiration for Philip Mitchiner, a forthright and plain spoken surgeon whose earthy sense of humour was to provide an endless source of anecdotes for later after dinner speeches. Rodney qualified in 1937, but the sudden death of his father precluded him from taking the unpaid resident posts at St Thomas’s to which his student achievements would have entitled him. After a spell of general practice in Wimbledon, he passed his FRCS examination and in 1939 was appointed surgical registrar at the Middlesex Hospital, then staffed by an outstanding group of general surgeons. Senior amongst these was Sir Alfred, later Lord, Webb Johnson, shortly to become the long-serving President of the College and chief architect of our post-war reconstruction. It was Webb Johnson who first impressed upon Rodney the importance of the College to the profession and the prestige which attached to those who attained high office in it. Thereafter the College was to be the focus of his ambitions and a determination to fit himself for its service was to be the mainspring of his working life. In the meantime, war provided for him, as for so many surgeons, invaluable opportunities. He joined the RAMC in 1941 and with both the MS and FRCS was recognised as a surgical specialist. He served in North Africa, Yugoslavia and Italy, being wounded at Anzio. War surgery gave him the necessary practical experience required for the development of technical excellence in the operating theatre and shortly after demobilisation, in 1946, he was appointed as consultant surgeon to St George’s Hospital. Rodney Smith made it the most famous centre in Britain for the treatment of major biliary and pancreatic disorders, with a reputation which rivalled that of his friend Cattell in Boston. He was a prolific author, writing books and contributing to surgical journals, and was a hard working editor of multi-volume standard texts. His *Operative surgery* (London, Butterworths, 1960), which ran to many editions, written and edited in co-operation with Charles Rob of St Mary’s, was particularly successful. His popularity as a lecturer brought him many invitations to centres abroad. A spell as a visiting professor in Sydney gained him an honorary Fellowship in the Royal Australasian College, the first of many such honours. The busy life of travel and practice left him little time to devote to his own medical school, but it did not divert him from the Royal College of Surgeons, which he was determined to serve, first in the humble, later in the most prestigious capacity. He gained the Jacksonian prize in 1951, he delivered Hunterian Professorial lectures in 1947 and 1952. In 1957, he took the post of Penrose May tutor and successfully organised clinical surgery courses for postgraduates. In 1962, he was appointed to the Court of Examiners and in 1965 was elected to the Council. In the following year, he became Dean of the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, an enterprise run jointly by the College and the University of London and in need of revitalising. He proved to be popular with both the staff and students, and the Institute thrived under his administration. There could never be any doubt that he would become President, but due to the death in office in 1973 of Edward Muir, he achieved that position earlier than expected. Rodney Smith came to the presidency fully prepared: he combined management skills with a proper regard for the ceremonial and had an agreeable affability on social occasions. He could of course be a hard task-master and intolerant of weakness or failure, but his zeal in the promotion of the high status of the College, paralleling his own ambitions, was unfaltering. His influence on the profession was far reaching, he had a wide circle of acquaintances, but few friends. His position and his acknowledged technical prowess brought him numerous invitations to be guest professor or eponymous lecturer, he received gold medals and no less than nine honorary fellowships, all of which he received with aplomb. In 1975, he was awarded the KBE and was clearly marked out for a role in national affairs, meanwhile the state of the NHS was causing a crisis of morale in the profession. Barbara Castle, Minister of Health in the incoming Labour government, was determined to create a whole-time salaried hospital service, eliminating private beds in NHS hospitals, which Bevan had allowed in 1948 to secure the co-operation of the consultants. The matter came to a head with a strike by hospital domestic staff unions, aimed at ousting private practice from the NHS, and the BMA reacted by calling for a work to rule by consultants. This was a strategy the College could not condone, even though its objectives were agreed. Overt political action was of course ruled out by the College’s charitable status and direct opposition to the BMA would clearly not unite the profession. Rodney Smith effectively used his diplomatic skills to help resolve the impasse, and emerged with great credit and with his leadership of the profession recognised by both government and opposition. Rodney Smith married Mary Rodwell in 1938 and they had four children – Martin, Andrew, Elinor and Robert. He divorced in 1971 and married Susan Fry in the same year. There are six grandchildren. He died on 1 July 1998 at the age of 84.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000355
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Morrah, Dermot Dubrelle (1943 - 2003)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 2018-03-07
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/372292372292
Occupation General surgeon
Details Dermot Dubrelle Morrah was born in Invercargill, New Zealand, on 26 October 1943, the second child and only son of Francis Dubrelle Morrah, a farmer, and Sheila Catherine née Douglas, the daughter of a banker. He attended primary and middle school in Invercargill and then, after winning a junior Somes scholarship, was educated at Christ's College in Christchurch. He studied science at Canterbury University and then went on to Otago University. He was a final year student at Christchurch Hospital and then held house surgeon and then registrar posts with the North Canterbury Hospital Board. In 1971 he travelled to the UK, as the ship's captain on the SS Imperial Star. From 1972 to 1973 he was a surgical registrar at Peterborough, where he carried out general, genito-urinary and vascular work. From March 1973 he attended the St Thomas's Hospital fellowship course, and subsequently passed the FRCS. He returned to New Zealand, as a senior registrar to the North Canterbury Hospital Board. In 1974 he gained his fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He was employed as an acting lecturer and research fellow in the department of surgery, Otago Medical School until October 1977, when he moved north to join the staff of the Whangarei Hospital, North Island, as a full-time general surgeon. In 1978 he took up the post of supervisor for the surgical training of registrars and subsequently established a successful private practice with particular interests in endoscopy, breast surgery and cutaneaous malignancy. He was a talented organist and pianist, interested in travel and New Zealand philately. He died on 25 May 2003 and is survived by his wife Diana, whom he married in 1976, and sons David and Michael.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000105
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Murray, Richard William Cordiner (1907 - 2003)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

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

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Hewett, Sir Prescott Gardner (1812 - 1891)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-01 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372389372389
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details Born on July 3rd, 1812, the son of William N. W. Hewett, of Bilham House, near Doncaster, by his second wife. His father was a country gentleman whose fortune suffered from his love of horse-racing. Prescott Hewett received a good education and passed some years in Paris, where he acquired a perfect mastery of French, and learnt to paint in the studios, having at first intended to become a professional artist - a notion which he relinquished on becoming intimate with the son of an eminent French surgeon. He thus became inspired with a love for the surgical profession, and remained always an admirer of the French school of surgery. He never abandoned the practice of art, and his "delightful and exquisitely elaborate drawings" were exhibited, shortly before his death, in the Board Room at St. George's Hospital, "where one of these charming pictures now hangs near Ouless's portrait of its painter". He learned anatomy in Paris and became thoroughly grounded in the principles of French surgery. On his return to England he entered at St. George's, where he had family influence, his half-brother, Dr. Cornwallis Hewett, having been Physician to the hospital from 1825-1833. The excellence of his dissections recommended him to Sir Benjamin Brodie, and he was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy and Curator of the St. George's Hospital Museum when he was on the point of accepting a commission in the service of the H.E.I.C. He became Curator of the Museum about 1840, the first record in his handwriting being dated Jan. 1st, 1841. Here he began in 1844 the series of post-mortem records which have been continued on the same pattern ever since, and constitute a series of valuable pathological material which for duration and completedness is perhaps unmatched. Many of Brodie's preparations in the Museum of St. George's were put up by Hewett. He was appointed Lecturer on Anatomy in 1845 and Assistant Surgeon on Feb. 4th, 1848, becoming full surgeon on June 21st, 1861, in succession to Caesar H. Hawkins (q.v.), and Consulting Surgeon on Feb. 12th, 1875. He was elected President of the Pathological Society of London in 1863, and ten years later occupied the Presidential Chair of the Clinical Society. He was admitted F.R.S. on June 4th, 1874. He was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria in 1867, Sergeant-Surgeon Extraordinary in 1877 on the death of Sir William Fergusson (q.v.)., and Sergeant-Surgeon in 1884 in succession to Caesar Hawkins (q.v.). He also held from 1867 the appointment of Surgeon to the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII, and on Aug. 6th, 1883, he was created a baronet. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was Arris and Gale Professor of Human Anatomy and Physiology from 1854-1859, a Member of the Council from 1867-1883, Chairman of the Board of Examiners in Midwifery in 1875, Vice-President in 1874 and 1875, and President in 1876. Prescott Hewett married on Sept. 13th, 1849, Sarah, eldest daughter of the Rev. Joseph Cowell, of Todmorden, Lancashire, by whom he had one son, who only survived his father a few weeks, and two daughters. He died on June 19th, 1891, at Horsham, to which place he had retired on being created a baronet. As a teacher Hewett was admirable, for he could make his pencil explain his work. Gradually - for he was of a shy and retiring disposition - he became known first in professional circles as a first-rate anatomist and one of the best lecturers in London, then as an organizer of rare energy and power; lastly, as a most accomplished surgeon and an admirable operator. He was equally skilful in diagnosis, and his stores of experience could furnish cases in point in all medical discussions. Hewett, when Professor at the College of Surgeons, delivered a course of lectures on "Surgical Affections of the Head" which attracted the universal admiration of all surgeons; their author could never be persuaded to publish them, though when his friend and pupil Timothy Holmes (q.v.), afterwards edited a *System of Surgery*, Hewett embodied their contents in the exhaustive treatise on "Injuries of the Head" which forms part of that work. His fastidious taste made him shrink form authorship, as indeed he shrank from all forms of personal display, for he had much professional learning which was always ready at command, and an easy lucid style. Lecturing he loved, and few lectured better. "He was," said one who knew him, "one of the fittest men in the world to instruct students, for he had all the clearness of expression which is required to impart knowledge of subjects teeming with difficulties of detail, his ready pencil would illustrate the most complicated anatomical descriptions, and his stores of experience could furnish cases in point in all discussions; the clinical instruction which he was wont to give in the wards was equally admirable. He was one of the most trustworthy of consultants, never failing to point out any error in diagnosis, yet with such perfect courtesy and delicacy that it was a pleasure to be corrected by him." He presided over the Clinical and Pathological Societies, but his increasing engagements prevented him from allowing himself to be nominated for the Presidency of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society, though he was deeply interested in its work, and had enriched its *Transactions* with some papers which became standard authorities on their respective subjects. Hewett started life as a poor man, and had every reason to feel the truth of the line, "Slow rises worth by poverty opprest". But he did rise gradually to eminence and distinction among the surgeons of London, and few men were more beloved by those who were connected with him in practice, whether as pupils or patients. "The reason", as one of his old pupils said, "was that he was emphatically a gentleman - a man who would not merely scorn a base action, but with whom anything base would be inconceivable." Hewett's collection of water-colour sketches was presented to the nation after his death, and were exhibited at the South Kensington Museum at the beginning of 1891. A half-length subscription portrait painted by W.W. Ouless, R.A., hangs in the Board Room at St. George's Hospital, and there is a photograph in the Council Album.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000202
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Birkett, John (1815 - 1904)

2025-06-18T18:31:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-01 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372390372390
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details Born April 14th, 1815, at 10 The Terrace, Upper Clapton, Middlesex, the only child of John and Mary Birkett. Educated at various private schools; at one the master was a Frenchman, at another a mathematician and astronomer, and at a third a Greek scholar. Birkett thereby gained a wide general knowledge. In September, 1831, he was bound apprentice to Bransby Cooper, then Surgeon to Guy's Hospital, being, as is thought, the last pupil to pay the customary fee of £500 which gave the apprenticeship some claim to consideration when a vacancy occurred on the hospital staff. Birkett did not begin his medical studies at Guy's Hospital until October, 1832. He was admitted M.R.C.S. on Oct. 6th, 1837, and was immediately appointed a Demonstrator of Anatomy. He held the post until 1847, and had in succession as his colleagues James P. Babington, Thomas Moody, and Alfred Poland. He was elected F.R.C.S. without examination in 1844 and signalized the session 1845-1846 by giving demonstrations on microscopic anatomy on certain evenings in each week, and in this way beginning the teaching of histology in the medical school. In 1847 he was appointed to make the post-mortem examinations in the hospital, and in May, 1849, he was elected Assistant Surgeon in consequence of the death of John Morgan and the promotion of Edward Cock (q.v.). In the same year he gained the Jacksonian Prize for his Essay on "Diseases of the Mammary Gland". In this year, too, making a bid for practice he moved from 2 Broad Street Buildings, where he had lived since 1840, to Wellington Street, Southwark. He lectured on anatomy jointly with John Hilton (q.v.) in 1851, and two years later he was elected Surgeon to Guy's Hospital on the resignation of Bransby Cooper, his former master, and this post he held until 1875, when he retired on reaching the age of 60. As full Surgeon he lectured on surgery conjointly with John Poland, and in 1856 he moved to Green Street, Grosvenor Square, where he spent the rest of his active life until he retired to Sussex Gardens in 1896, where he died after a prolonged illness on July 6th, 1904. At the Royal College of Surgeons he served on the Council from 1867-1883, and was Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology from 1869-1871, lecturing on the nature and treatment of new growths. He was an Examiner in Anatomy and Physiology (1875-1877), a Member of the Court of Examiners (1872-1882), of the Examining Board in Dental Surgery (1875-1882), Vice-President (1875 and 1876), and President (1877). He was one of the Founders of the Pathological Society of London and served as a Vice-President (1860-1862), doing good work by insisting upon the use of the microscope in the investigation of tumours at a time when such a method was unusual. He served for some years as Inspector for the Home Office of the Anatomical schools of Anatomy in the Provinces. He was Master of the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers in 1871 and 1892. In 1842 he married Lucy Matilda, daughter of Halsey Jansen; five sons and a daughter survived him out of a family of seven boys and three girls; two of his sons were distinguished football players. John Birkett was essentially a surgeon of the old school, a reliable operator, a good anatomist, and very careful in the after-treatment of his patients. He obtained good results because he was clean in himself, was not engaged in anatomy, and was accustomed to have the patient washed before he was brought into the operating theatre. The diagnosis and treatment of tumours of the breast, hernia operations, and the surgery of the arteries interested him most; abdominal operations and surgical interference with joints and veins were abhorrent to him. As a teacher he was slow and uninspiring; as an individual he was a cultured gentleman of wide knowledge, an excellent field botanist, and a great walker. In these walks he carried into private life the characteristics which had made him successful as a surgeon. Few men knew better than he how to use a map. To form one that could be serviceable and easily consulted even if the walk were no longer than from Sevenoaks to Maidstone or across the Yorkshire Moors from Danby to Goathland he would make the starting-point the centre by joining two or more of the ordnance survey plans. Then after bevelling the edges that the junction might be almost invisible, colouring the areas of equal height, describing concentric circles increasing by two or more miles, mounting on linen and constructing a case no whit inferior to that sold in the map-sellers' shops, he was secure from losing his way in his peregrinations, come fog, come snow, or blinding rain. Publications: - A. Von Behr's *Handbook of Human Anatomy, General, Special and Topographical.* Translated from the original German and adapted to the use of English students by John Birkett. 8vo, London, 1846. *Description of Some of the Tumours Removed from the Breast and Preserved in the Museum of Guy's Hospital,* 8vo, with 6 plates, London, 1848. *Diseases of the Breast and their Treatment* [Jacksonian Prize Essay], 8vo, plates, 1850. *Adenocele of the Mammary Gland, *8vo, London, 1855. *Contributions to the Practical Surgery of New Growths or Tumours. Series iii. Cysts* 12mo, plates, London, 1859. Articles on "Injuries of the Pelvis", "Hernia", and "Diseases of the Breast" in Holmes's *System of Surgery,* 1870, and again in Holmes and Hulke's *System of Surgery,* 1883.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000203
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset