Search Results for Medical Obituaries

First Title value, for Searching Jones, Barry Justin (1935 - 2025)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Kate Jones
Publication Date 2025-09-03
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010700-E010799
Occupation Oral surgeon
Details Barry Jones was a consultant oral surgeon at Stoke Mandeville and High Wycombe hospitals. He was born on 3 April 1935 to John Jones, a dentist, and Olga Jones née Cowan, in Hartlepool. He used to tell how his father would recruit him and his brother to administer anaesthetic gases at his surgery. After education at Perse School, Cambridge, he studied dentistry at King’s College, University of Durham, based in Newcastle. Whilst there, he was a prominent member of the drama society, acting, directing and even performing at the Edinburgh Fringe. After qualification in 1960, he moved to London to train in oral surgery, beginning at St George’s Hospital, Hyde Park Corner. He gained his fellowship of the Faculty of Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1964 and subsequently took up a consultant post in High Wycombe and Stoke Mandeville hospitals, where he worked until retirement. He was a kind and gentle family man, who enjoyed the theatre, opera, music, travel and rugby. He died on 10 July 2025 at the age of 90 and was survived by his wife Brenda (née Porter) and three children, Aaron, Kate, an anaesthetist, and Oliver.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010789
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset
Publication Date 2026

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Gilmour, Andrew Graham (1955 - 2016)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Arthur, Ian Hugh (1957 - 2018)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Webb, Anthony John (1929 - 2024)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Hase, Michael Paul (1946 - 2018)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2023-07-04
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010200-E010299
Occupation Oral and maxillofacial surgeon
Details Michael Paul Hase was a consultant oral and maxillofacial surgeon in Melbourne, Victoria. He was born on 16 May 1946 and studied dentistry at the University of Melbourne, gaining an LDS and MDSc. He became a fellow of the Faculty of Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1976 and was also a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Dental Surgeons. He was appointed to the staff of the Western General and Prince Henry’s hospitals in Melbourne and had a special interest in the surgical management of TMJ degenerative joint disease. Hase died on 15 July 2018 in Melbourne at the age of 72. He was survived by his wife Tania and children Dylan, Kyle, Tim, Chris and Melinda.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010279
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset
Publication Date 1976

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Lynch, James Brendan (1921 - 2018)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Kolb, Thomas Axel Thor (1935 - 2022)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Alexander, Albert Geoffrey (1932 - 2010)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Bharucha, Pesi Beramsha (1920 - 2018)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Adams, Rosemary Helen MacNaughton (1926 - 2018)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Wright, Peter (1932 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-26
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/372331372331
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details Peter Wright was a consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields Hospital and a former President of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists. He was born in London on 7 September 1932, the son of William Victor Wright and Ada Amelie (née Craze). He was educated at St Clement Danes, and then went on to study medicine at King’s, London. After house jobs at King’s and Guy’s Maudsley neurosurgical unit, he joined the RAF for his National Service and became an ophthalmic specialist. He returned to Guy’s as a lecturer in anatomy and physiology, and then went to Moorfields to train in ophthalmology. He was appointed as a senior registrar at King’s and made a consultant in 1964. In 1973, he was appointed to Moorfields as a consultant, and in 1978 became full-time there. In 1980, he was appointed clinical sub-dean at the Institute of Ophthalmology. At Moorfields he was responsible for the external disease service, dealing with infection and inflammation in the anterior part of the eye. His research included collaborative studies on skin and eye diseases, and ocular immunity. These led to the identification of the Practolol oculocutaneous reaction, work that gave him an ongoing interest in adverse drug reactions. He was invited to lecture all over the world, and was a visiting professor at universities in India and Brazil. In 1991, he became the second President of the College of Ophthalmologists, and it was under his presidency that the College was granted a royal licence. He was the last President of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom, President of the ophthalmic section of the Royal Society of Medicine, ophthalmic adviser to the chief medical officer and consultant adviser to the Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain. He received many honorary awards. In 1960, he married Elaine Catherine Donoghue, a consultant psychiatrist, by whom he had two daughters, Fiona and Candice, and one son Andrew, who sadly died in the Lockerbie air disaster. There are two granddaughters. His marriage was dissolved in 1992 and in the following year Peter retired from Moorfields and moved with his partner John Morris to Bovey Tracey, where he had time to renovate his Devon house and enjoy his major interest, classical music. He was an excellent pianist, superb cook, and fine host. He was a keen gardener and a founder member of the Nerine and Amaryllid Society of the Royal Horticultural Society. He died on 26 May 2003 from the complications of myeloid leukaemia.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000144
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Haward, John Warrington (1841 - 1921)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002100-E002199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374346374346
Occupation General surgeon Orthopaedic surgeon
Details John Warrington Haward (pronounced Hayward) was born on November 18th, 1841, the youngest of ten surviving children of James Haward, of Great Baddow, Essex, and grand-nephew of Francis Haward (1759-1797), engraver (*Dict Nat Biog*). He entered St George's Hospital in October, 1860, gained the William Brown Scholarship, and took four prizes in clinical medicine and surgery at a time when the staff included Henry Hawkins, Prescott Hewett, and George Pollock, Henry Gray being Demonstrator of Anatomy. He was House Surgeon at Westminster Hospital in 1864; Demonstrator of Anatomy at St. George's in 1867; Assistant Surgeon to the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, in 1870; Surgical Registrar at St George's from 1870-1872; and Curator of the Museum and Demonstrator of Morbid Anatomy from 1878-1875. From 1875-1880 he was Assistant Surgeon and Surgeon to the Orthopaedic Department; in 1880 Surgeon and Lecturer on Surgery and Operative Surgery, retiring, after twenty years' service in this post, in 1900. He then became Consulting Surgeon, member of the Weekly Board, Chairman of the Nursing Committee, and Treasurer of the Hospital Medical School. From 1874-1882 he was Surgeon to the Cripples' Nursery. In 1906 he gave a Hunterian Lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons on "Phlebitis and Thrombosis". He served through various offices of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society up to President in 1907, the year of the amalgamation to form the Royal Society of Medicine. He had been also Vice-President of the Clinical and Pathological Societies, and in 1908-1909 was President of the Surgical Section of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was a notable figure in the charitable world, serving on the committee of the Charity Organization Society, on the Mansion House Committee on "The Dwellings of the Poor", on the Invalid Children's Association as Chairman of the Executive Committee, and President. He was also Treasurer of the Society for the Relief of Widows and Orphans of Medical Men. His delightful personality made him loved as well as respected, and there was a complete absence of any leaning towards self-assertion. He had practised at 5 Montagu Street, Portman Square, at 18 Savile Row, and at 57 Green Street. On retiring he went to reside at Manor End, Berkhamsted, where he died on August 20th, 1921, and was buried at Potten End. He married in 1876 Amy Caecilia, daughter of James Nicholls (q.v.), of Chelmsford and Wiveliscombe, who survived him, as also did two sons, the elder, Lawrence Haward, being in charge of the Manchester Art Gallery. A portrait of Haward in *St George's Hospital Gazette*, 1900, represents him on his retirement from the active staff. His surgical practice was influenced by the revolution in surgery brought in by Lister, which he followed slowly and not without glances back. It was limited, moreover, by the line of work experienced at the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital and the Orthopaedic Department at St George's. Publications: *A Treatise on Orthopedic Surgery*, 1881. *Phlebitis and Thrombosis*, 1906. Several articles in Holmes and Hulke's *System of Surgery*; Heath's *Dictionary of Surgery*; *St George's Hosp Rep*. "On Fracture of the Skull with Pulsating Tumour of the Head." - *Lancet*, 1869, ii, 79. This paper includes one of the first descriptions of the bony metastases of primary carcinoma of the thyroid.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002163
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Eddey, Howard Hadfield (1910 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23 2012-03-22
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/372240372240
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Howard Eddey was a former professor of surgery at Melbourne University. He was born on 3 September 1910, in Melbourne. His father was Charles Howard Eddey, a manager, and his mother was Rachel Beatrice née Hadfield, the daughter of a teacher. He was educated at Melbourne High School, where he was captain of boats and featured in many winning crews. He was also in the school lacrosse team. He went on to the University of Melbourne, where he won a university blue. He was subsequently a resident at the Royal Melbourne Hospital for two years. He then went to the UK, where he studied for his FRCS, winning the Hallet prize in the process. During the second world war he served in the Australian Imperial Force with the 2/13 Australian General Hospital, becoming a Major in the Australian Army Medical Corps. He was captured by the Japanese and spent time in prisoner of war camps in Changi and then in North Borneo. While he was captured he was involved in 'kangkong' harvesting and the treating of a local wild vegetable, to produce a drink that was rich in vitamins. Howard made sure the soldiers drank this frequently, as it reduced the incidence of beriberi and pellagra. During his time in captivity Howard also wrote notes on anatomy on scrap paper. This later became a key anatomy text, used by generations of medical students. He returned to the Royal Melbourne Hospital after the war as an honorary surgeon. He was dean of the clinical school there from 1965 to 1967. As a clinician he gained an impressive reputation as a head and neck surgeon. In particular his parotid gland surgery and cancer work with radical neck dissection gained considerable prominence. In 1966 the University of Melbourne decided to establish a third clinical school at the Austin Hospital and Eddey was invited to become the foundation professor of surgery. He had no background in research, but recruited a team of young surgeons with research skills and the research reputation of the department of surgery was rapidly established. In 1971 Eddey became dean and held this position until 1975. He was a member of the board of management from 1971 to 1977, and was vice-president from 1975 to 1977. In honour of his contribution to the development of Austin as a clinical school, the new operating theatres and library have been named after him. Eddey was regarded as an outstanding teacher and, through his role with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS), helped surgical education in South East Asia. He made many visits to Asian hospitals and was involved with examinations and giving lectures. The RACS created the Howard Eddey medal in recognition of his work in Asia. He was a member of the board of examiners at the RACS from 1958 to 1973, and was chairman from 1968 to 1973. He was a member of council from 1967 to 1975 and served as honorary librarian from 1968 to 1975. He served on many other bodies, including the Cancer Institute and the Anti Cancer Council. His service to the community was recognised by his appointment as honorary surgeon to Prince Charles and he was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George. He was married to Alice née Paul from Kew, Victoria, for 30 years. They had three children - Robert Michael, Peter and Pamela Ann. Eddey died on 16 September 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000053
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Evans, Arthur Briant (1909 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372241372241
Occupation Obstetric and gynaecological surgeon Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Briant Evans was a former consultant obstetric and gynaecological surgeon at Westminster Hospital, Chelsea Hospital for Women and Queen Charlotte’s Maternity Hospital. He was born in London in 1909, the eldest son of Arthur Evans, a surgeon at the Westminster Hospital. He was educated at Westminster School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, before completing his clinical studies at the Westminster Hospital. On the day he qualified in April 1933 his father, who had a large number of theatrical clients, took him to the theatre. They went to see Sir Seymour Hicks in his dressing room in the interval. On hearing that Briant had just qualified, he asked “How do I look?” Briant said, “Very well sir.” “Good, here’s your first private fee,” he replied, handing him a £1 note from his coat pocket. Following junior appointments at Westminster Hospital, Chelsea Hospital for Women and Queen Charlotte’s Maternity Hospital, he acquired his FRCS and the MRCOG. During the war he served in the Emergency Medical Service in London and was in the RAMC from 1941 to 1946, serving in the UK, Egypt (with the 8th General Hospital, Alexandria), Italy and Austria (where he was officer in charge of the No 9 field surgical unit) and was obstetric and gynaecological consultant to the Central Mediterranean Force. He ended the war as a lieutenant colonel. He was subsequently appointed obstetric and gynaecological surgeon to Westminster Hospital, obstetric surgeon to Queen Charlotte’s Maternity Hospital and surgeon to the Chelsea Hospital for Women. He examined for the Universities of Cambridge and London, and for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Briant was much loved and respected by his patients and colleagues. He made operating appear easy. Quiet in manner and ever courteous, he loved teaching and was never happier than when accompanied by students on ward rounds and in the theatre. After retiring he bought a farm in Devon and his son Hugh was brought in to run it. He loved country life. He was a keen gardener, enjoyed sailing and had been a good tennis player in earlier days. His last home was in Buckinghamshire. In 1939 he married Audrey Holloway, the sister of David Holloway, who was engaged to Briant’s sister, Nancy. His wife died before him. They leave three sons (Roddy, Martin and Hugh), eight grandchildren and six great grandchildren. He died from a stroke on 3 March 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000054
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Falloon, Maurice White (1921 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Fiddian, Richard Vasey (1923 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23 2007-08-23
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/372243372243
Occupation General surgeon
Details Richard Vasey ‘Dick’ Fiddian was a consultant general surgeon at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital from 1964 to 1989. He was born on 6 October 1923 in Ashton-under-Lyne in Lancashire, where his father, James Victor Fiddian, was a general practitioner-surgeon. His mother, Doris Mary née White, came from a farming family. Dick was the last of five children, and the second son. From the age of eight he attended the Old College boarding school in Windermere, and then, at 11, went to Manchester Grammar School. In October 1941 he went up to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, to read for the natural sciences tripos. In 1943 he was drafted into the Army and spent three years as a fighting soldier in the Royal Engineers, rising to the rank of captain. As well as serving in the field with the 14th Army in Burma, he also helped to oversee the rebuilding of the Burma Road with the help of Japanese POWs. In October 1946 he returned to Emmanuel College, completing his first and second MB. He was also awarded an MA in anthropology, physiology, pathology and biochemistry. Whilst at Emmanuel, Fiddian became captain of the golf team, and was awarded a Cambridge blue. After qualifying, he did two years of house appointments at Bart’s, including anaesthetics, and a further year as junior registrar (SHO) to Rupert Corbett and Alec Badenoch. He then took a year off as a ship’s doctor on the Orsova of the Orient Line, before taking his Fellowship in 1956. He then became a registrar to Norman Townsley and John Stephens at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. When the Queen came to open the new operating theatres, Fiddian escorted the Duke of Edinburgh round the male Nightingale ward and introduced him to his patients, one of whom had been operated on by Dick, but failed to recognise his surgeon. He was heard to say in a broad Norfolk accent: “Nice to meet the Duke, but who was that good-looking young man in a white coat walking with him?” Dick returned to Bart’s in 1958 as chief assistant to John Hosford, whom Dick greatly admired. He also worked with Sir Edward Tuckwell, whose rapidity as an operator was legendary. After two years he went to the North Middlesex Hospital under Basil Page, the urologist. Spending a year in Boston, Massachusetts, he worked as an assistant in surgery at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital under Francis Moore, professor of surgery at Harvard and chief surgeon at the Brigham. In 1963 he completed a Milton research fellowship in surgery at Harvard Medical School. In 1964 he was appointed as a consultant to the Luton and Dunstable Hospital. There he developed a special interest in wound infection and made some useful contributions on the use of metronidazole. He retired from the NHS in 1989. In 1985 he started learning Spanish at the local adult education college in Luton, continuing to study the language until he was 80. He visited Spain many times and often went on cultural trips, which he thoroughly enjoyed. After his retirement he studied Spanish literature at Birkbeck College, and received an award from the Institute of Linguists for his command of the language. He married twice. His first wife was Aileen, an Australian he met on board ship. They had one son, Jonathan. After her death he married Jean née Moore, a medical secretary, by whom he had a son, James, and two daughters, Emily and Sarah. They also adopted the child of one of Jean’s friends. Although they became estranged, they remained good friends and Jean cared for him in his latter days, which were marred by a degree of dementia. He died on 30 December 2004. Dick Fiddian was an extremely affable man who was everyone’s friend, not because of a wish to be universally liked, but for his capacity to see the best in people. He was a self-effacing man, describing his contributions to the literature as “numerous, none of which were important”. Conversation with him was always a pleasure, as was listening to his after-dinner speeches which were interspersed with bon mots and limericks which probed the idiosyncrasies of the company, never with malice but always with a twinkle in his eye.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000056
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Guthrie, George James (1785 - 1856)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-06 2018-06-08
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/372188372188
Occupation General surgeon Military surgeon Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Born in London on May 1st, 1785. His grandfather, a Scotsman, served with the army at the Battle of the Boyne. His father succeeded his maternal uncle, a retired Naval Surgeon, as manager of a business for the sale of lead plaister. Guthrie learnt French from the Abbé Noel when quite a boy, and spoke it so perfectly that he was often mistaken in after-life for an émigré. At the age of 13 he accidentally came under the notice of John Rush, Inspector of Regimental Hospitals, who had him apprenticed to Dr Phillips, a surgeon in Pall Mall. He attended the Windmill Street School of Medicine, and was one of those into whose arms William Cruikshank - Dr Johnson's 'sweet-blooded man' - fell when he was delivering his last lecture on the brain on June 27th, 1800. From June, 1800, to March, 1801, Guthrie served as Hospital Mate at the York Hospital, Chelsea, which then occupied what is now a part of Eaton Square. Surgeon General Thomas Keate issued an order that all hospital mates must be members of the newly formed College of Surgeons. Guthrie presented himself for examination on the day following the issue of the order, was examined by Keate himself, and made so favourable an impression that he was at once posted to the 29th Regiment. He was then 16 years of age; his Colonel was 24 - but, notwithstanding, it was generally agreed that no regiment was better commanded or better doctored. Guthrie accompanied the 29th Regiment to North America as Assistant Surgeon, remained there until 1807, then returned to England with the regiment and was immediately ordered out to the Peninsula. There he served until 1814, seeing much service and earning the especial commendation of the Duke of Wellington. He acted as Principal Medical Officer at the Battle of Albuera, though he was only 26 years old, and one evening had on his hands 3000 wounded with four wagons, and such equipment as regimental surgeons carried in their panniers, and the nearest village seven miles away. He was appointed in 1812 to act as Deputy Inspector of Hospitals, but the Medical Board in London refused to confirm the appointment on the ground of his youth. He was placed on half pay at the end of the campaign, began to practise privately in London, and attended the lectures of Charles Bell and Benjamin Brodie at the Windmill Street School of Medicine. He hastened to Brussels directly after the Battle of Waterloo in June, 1815, was received enthusiastically by his former comrades, amputated at the hip with success, extracted a bullet from the bladder, and tied the peroneal artery by cutting down upon it through the calf muscles, the latter operation being afterwards known as 'Guthrie's bloody operation'. On his return to London he was placed in charge of two clinical wards at the York Hospital [The Duke's or York Hospital - military - was in Grosvenor Place where Hobart Place now is], with a promise that the most severe surgical cases should be sent to him. He discharged this duty for two years, during which he was amongst the first in England to use lithotrity. He also began a course of lectures which was continued gratuitously to all medical officers of the public services for the next twenty years. At the end of the first course, 1816-1817, the medical officers of the Army, Navy, and the Ordnance presented him with a fine silver loving-cup appropriately inscribed. The cup has become an heirloom in the family of Henry Power (qv), to whom it was presented by his last surviving child, Miss Guthrie. In 1816 Guthrie was instrumental in establishing an Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye, which became 'The Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital', long situated in King William Street, Strand, next to the Charing Cross Hospital, but removed in 1928 to Broad Street, Bloomsbury. Guthrie was appointed Surgeon and remained attached to the hospital until 1838, when he resigned in favour of his son, C W G Guthrie (qv) [but retained his connection with the hospital until 1856]. In 1823 he was elected Assistant Surgeon to Westminster Hospital, becoming full surgeon in 1827, when the Governors made a fourth Surgeon to mark their esteem for his surgical reputation and personal character. He resigned his office in 1843, again to make way for his son. At the Royal College of Surgeons Guthrie was a Member of Council from 1824-1856, a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1828-1856, Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1853, Hunterian Orator in 1830, Vice-President five times, and President in 1833, 1841, and 1854. He was Hunterian Professor of Anatomy, Physiology, and Surgery from 1828-1832. He was elected FRS in 1827. He married twice and had two sons and one daughter, none of whom left issue. He died suddenly on his birthday - May Day 1856, and was buried at Kensal Green. [See entry for his younger son Charles W G Guthrie; the elder son Lowry Guthrie (1814-48) became a clergyman, see Venn's Alumni Cantabrigienses.] Guthrie is described as a man of active and robust frame, keen and energetic in appearance, with remarkably piercing black eyes. Shrewd and quick, he was at times very outspoken and somewhat inconsiderate in regard to other people's feelings; but behind his military brusqueness was much kindness of heart. He was very popular as a lecturer, his lectures being full of anecdotes and illustrative cases, and his Hunterian Oration is memorable; it was given fluently and without notes, as was afterwards done by Sir James Paget, Savory, Henry Power, Butlin, and Moynihan. He was noted for his coolness as an operator and for the delicacy of his manipulations. His unrivalled experience in military surgery, gained during the later years of the Peninsular War and at the most receptive period of his life, justly entitles him to be called 'the English Larrey'. It enabled him to advance the science and practice of surgery more than any other army surgeon since the days of Richard Wiseman. Before his time it was usual to treat gunshot wounds of the thigh by placing the limb on its side. Guthrie introduced the straight splint. He differed from John Hunter in the treatment of gunshot injuries requiring amputation. Hunter was in favour of the secondary operation; Guthrie advocated immediate removal of the limb. After Albuera he introduced the practice of tying both ends of a wounded artery at the seat of the injury; Hunter contented himself with its ligature above the wound. Guthrie also advocated the destruction with mineral acids of the diseased tissues in cases of 'hospital gangrene'. In connection with ophthalmic surgery he taught that the cataracting lens should be extracted, not 'couched', and he was one of the first to describe congenital opacity of the lens. He was heterodox in the treatment of syphilis for he recommended that mercury should not be used, and his advice was largely followed by his pupils. At the College of Surgeons he was in favour of Reform, and did much to secure the passing of the Anatomy Act in 1832. He was opposed to the Charter of 1843. A life-size half-length portrait by Henry Room (1802-1850) hangs in the Secretary's Office at the Royal College of Surgeons. It was presented by his daughter, Miss Guthrie, in 1870. There is a bust by E Davis, also presented by Miss Guthrie in 1870; there are two copies of a fine mezzotint in the College Collection. The plate was engraved by William Walker after Room, and was published by the London Publishing Co on May 10th, 1853. A crayon portrait by Count D'Orsay is in the Westminster Hospital. There is also a clever but rather spiteful pencil sketch in the College Collection. It represents Guthrie lecturing on emphysema - May 6th, 1830 - "Mr Guthrie's 11th Lecture" appears in the handwriting of William Clift below the sketch. It is initialled T M S in the bottom right-hand corner. It was probably made by T Madden Stone, Library Assistant in 1832, who was unfriendly to Guthrie - and not without reason. PUBLICATIONS: - Guthrie is best known by his *Treatise on Gunshot Wounds*, which was first published in 1813 [changed to 1815]. It may still be read with pleasure for the graphic accounts of the Military Surgery of a bygone age. The Commentaries on the Surgery of the War in Portugal, Spain, France and the Netherlands from the Battle of Roliça in 1808 to that of Waterloo in 1815, revised to 1853, of which a new edition was published in 1855, is a digest of the Treatise on Gunshot Wounds. It forms the substance of Guthrie's public lectures and contains his matured opinion on military surgery. In 1819 he published a Treatise on the Operation for the Formation of an Artificial Pupil, which he included in a larger work entitled, Lectures on the Operative Surgery of the Eye. These lectures reached a 3rd edition in 1838. Remarks on the Anatomy Bill in a Letter to the Right Hon Lord Althorp, 1832. The Wounds and Injuries of the Arteries of the Human Body, with the Treatment and Operations required for their Cure, 1846. In these lectures Guthrie drew attention to the anastomotic circulation.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000001
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Levy, Ivor Saul (1941 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-21 2012-03-14
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/372434372434
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details Ivor Levy was a consultant ophthalmologist at the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel. He was born in Manchester on 29 June 1941 and educated in Manchester, at Pembroke College, Oxford, and at the London Hospital. After junior appointments, he held a research fellowship at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, USA, which led to his special interest in neuro-ophthalmology. He was appointed to the Royal London Hospital in 1973. He had a particular interest in collecting books, especially those of Sir Frederick Treves. In 2000 he developed a tremor, which was found to be caused by a communicating hydrocephalus, for which he underwent shunt surgery. He died at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, on 21 March 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000247
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Shawcross, Lord Hartley William (1902 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-21 2006-10-11
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/372435372435
Occupation Politician
Details Hartley Shawcross, a barrister, Labour politician and an honorary fellow of the College, will be perhaps best remembered as the leading British prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. He was born on 4 February 1902, the son of John and Hilda Shawcross. He was educated at Dulwich College, the London School of Economics and the University of Geneva. He was called to the bar in 1925. He successfully stood for Parliament as a Labour candidate in 1945 and immediately became Attorney General. From 1945 to 1949 he was Britain’s principal UN delegate, as well as Chief Prosecutor at Nuremberg. He later served as President of the Board of Trade before leaving politics and resigning from Parliament in 1958. He went on to help found the University of Sussex and served as chancellor there from 1965 to 1985. He a board member of several major companies. He married three times. His first wife, Alberta Rosita Shyvers, died in 1944. He then married Joan Winifred Mather, by whom he had two sons and a daughter (who became a doctor). In 1997, at the age of 95, he married Susanne Monique Huiskamp. Tall, handsome and with a commanding presence, Shawcross was a most distinguished member of his party, and a good friend to the College.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000248
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Siegler, Gerald Joseph (1921 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-21 2009-05-07
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/372436372436
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Gerald Joseph Siegler, or ‘Jo’ as he known to colleagues, was an ENT consultant in Liverpool. He was born in London on 3 January 1921, and studied medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. He held junior posts in Huddersfield, Lancaster, Nuneaton and Birkenhead, before completing his National Service with the RAF. After passing his FRCS he specialised in ENT, becoming a registrar at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital and then a senior registrar at Liverpool, where he was appointed consultant in 1958. He was past president of the North of England ENT Society and an honorary member of the Liverpool Medical Institute. After he retired in 1986 he continued to be busy, working for Walton jail until 1995. He died from the complications of myeloma on 4 October 2005, leaving a wife, Brenda, two daughters, Sarah and Pauline, and three grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000249
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Yellowlees, Sir Henry (1919 - 2006)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-21 2012-03-08
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/372437372437
Occupation Chief Medical Officer
Details Sir Henry Yellowlees was Chief Medical Officer for England from 1973 to 1983. He was born on 16 April 1919 in Edinburgh, the son of Sir Henry Yellowlees, a psychiatrist, and Dorothy Davies, a cellist. He was educated at Stowe and University College, Oxford, but deferred his medical training to join the RAF, where he became a flying instructor. After the war he went up to Oxford to read medicine, going on to the Middlesex Hospital for his clinical studies. After house appointments he became a resident medical officer at the Middlesex. His skilful handling of an epidemic among the staff drew him to the attention of Sir George Godber and before long Henry was involved in medical administration, first as medical officer at the South West and later the North West Regional Hospital Boards, and finally the Ministry of Health. There he became Deputy Chief Medical Officer in 1966 and finally Chief Medical Officer in 1973, despite having suffered a coronary thrombosis. During his time the NHS went through a series of massive and destructive reorganisations, wrought by Barbara Castle and her successors just at a time when important new developments were taking place in medicine and surgery. After he left the Department of Health he worked at the Ministry of Defence, restructuring the medical services of the Armed Forces. He married Gwyneth 'Sally' Comber in 1948. They had three children, Rosemary (a nurse), Lindy (a psychiatrist) and Ian (an anaesthetist and pain specialist). After his wife's death in 2001 he married Mary Porter. He died on 22 March 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000250
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Harrison, William Anthony (1801 - 1873)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Harston, Alfred Dew ( - 1896)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hartigan, Thomas Joseph Patrick (1861 - 1909)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hartle, Robert (1775 - 1860)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hartley, John (1857 - 1914)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Cummins, Brian Holford (1933 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372232372232
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Brian Cummins was a consultant neurosurgeon at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol. He was born in Somerset on 10 March 1933, the son of Peter Cummins (known as ‘Cecil’ or ‘Pop’) and his wife, Rita. His early years were spent in Bath, but he moved to Edmonton, Alberta, in 1946, when his family emigrated to Canada. At the age of 16 he entered the University of Alberta to study classics and modern languages, at the same time as helping his father build the family home. He spent his vacations working as a foreman in pipeline construction in Manitoba. He graduated with honours in 1953. A chance encounter with a book on the surgery of epilepsy by Wilder Penfield, director of the Montreal Neurological Institute, raised in him an ambition to become a neurosurgeon and he spent two years on the medical course at Alberta, before returning to England to complete his studies at Bristol in 1961, when he won a gold medal. After qualifying, he held a junior post in neurosurgery in Oxford under Joe Pennybacker and John Potter, where he developed his interest in head injury management, brain tumour and spinal injury. He returned to Bristol in 1968 as senior registrar. He became a consultant neurosurgeon at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, in 1973. He retired in 1999. Cummins’ interests in neurosurgery were wide, encompassing tumours, spinal surgery and head injuries. He was instrumental in bringing the main technological advances in neurosurgery to Bristol and pioneered teleradiology. He was involved in improving the standards of head injury care in the region by education and guidance on management, and helped the College and the Society of British Neurological Surgeons in producing their booklet on the topic. He was an advocate of multidisciplinary clinics and this, plus his interest in the rehabilitation of head injuries, led to his setting up a head injury unit at Frenchay in 1992, of which he was director for three years. He also took part in the charity Headway which sought to help these patients. He also established a combined clinic for managing brain tumours. In spinal surgery he developed a steel prosthetic joint for implanation into the cervical spine. He was an enthusiastic and patient teacher of junior staff and would spend much time supervising them in operations. Consultant surgeons from at least half the neurosurgical units in the UK trained with him at some stage. He was an adviser on head injury to the Department of Health, the Royal Colleges, and to the World Health Organization in Bosnia. He advised on neurosurgical services in India and South East Asia, and raised funds for a children’s unit. His character was enthusiastic and extroverted. Love of outdoor activities resulted in him breaking both hips rock climbing in 1970. He was so grateful for the help he received from the mountain rescue team that he joined the organisation to advise and teach. He enjoyed skiing, canoeing, hill-walking and travel to remote places, and he was an extremely knowledgeable gardener, studying for a degree in botany during his early retirement. He married Annie in 1961 and they had two sons, Sean and Jason. He died on 16 August 2003 after a short illness of carcinoma of the pancreas.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000045
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Darné, Francois Xavier ( - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Davey, William Wilkin (1912 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23 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/372234372234
Occupation General surgeon
Details Will Davey wrote the first textbook on surgery in tropical countries. He was born on 28 February 1912 in Dunmurry, near Belfast, in Northern Ireland. His father, Robert, was a minister of religion. His mother was Charlotte née Higginson. One of a family of five, he studied medicine at Queens University, graduating in 1935. During his studies his mother gave him a copy of *For sinners only*, which led to his involvement in Moral Rearmament, an international movement for moral and spiritual renewal. During the second world war he joined up, but was given time to complete his exams, and became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland. He was then assigned to the RAF as a medical officer to a number of operational squadrons. In early 1944 he was part of a medical team assisting the Normandy landings. After the war he trained in gastroenterology at St James's Hospital, Balham, and subsequently became a consultant at the Whittington Hospital, where he ran a gastroenterological unit covering the whole northern area of London. In 1958 he was a Hunterian professor at the College. He ran courses to prepare students for the FRCS. His skills as a teacher led to an invitation from London University to go to Nigeria to become professor of surgery at University College, Ibadan, an offshoot of the British University. The first 14 doctors ever to graduate in Nigeria were among his students. Returning to London, Will wrote *Companion to surgery in Africa, etc*, (Edinburgh and London, E & S Livingstone, 1968), the first textbook on surgery for tropical countries. In 1969 he decided to settle in Australia, and set up as a surgeon in general practice in Portland, where he was also the port and quarantine officer, and medical officer to the town's large meatworks. In his later years he made several visits to India and four to Papua New Guinea, where he was pleased to find his book on tropical surgery being used. He was a past President of the Australian Provincial Surgeons Association. He retired in 1984. He played tennis into his 80s, took on computers at 90 and, latterly, the intricacies of digital cameras. He married Gill née Taylor in Reading, in 1950, after meeting her in the hospital laboratory where she worked. They had five children, ten grandchildren and a great grandson. He died on 30 May 2004 in Altona in Melbourne, Australia.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000047
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Davis, Abram Albert (1904 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23
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/372235372235
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Albert Davis was an obstetrician and pioneering neuro-gynaecologist. He born on 4 January 1904 into a Jewish family in Manchester, where he studied medicine and became resident at the Manchester Royal Infirmary to Sir Harry Platt and Sir Geoffrey Jefferson, who greatly influenced him. He soon developed an interest in neurology and gynaecology. He was a Dickeson research scholar in the gynaecology research laboratory in Manchester, studying the innervation of the pelvis. He visited Cotte in Lyons, the founder of presacral neurectomy, and performed meticulous work on the cadaver, leading to an MD and a Hunterian professorship at the College. His lifelong concern was with chronic pelvic pain, which he treated with alcohol injection or open presacral neurectomy. After resident posts at Guy’s and Chelsea Hospitals, he was appointed as a consultant to Dulwich, St Giles, the London Jewish, Bearsted Maternity, the Prince of Wales and French Hospitals, and, after the war, King’s College Hospital. During the second world war, he was obstetrician to the south east London metropolitan sector, and later also to the north east sector. Here he honed his surgical skills, being able to perform a caesarian section in 20 seconds. In one day in Hackney he performed 11 of these operations in a single day. In 1950, together with Purdom Martin at Queen Square, he drew attention to the horrors of back street abortion in a *BMJ* paper. The paper reviewed 2,655 cases, describing their neurological consequences. In retirement, he continued his interests in literature, music, art and numismatics. He was a fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society. When he was 90 he was delighted to hear that presacral neurectomy had been reintroduced in the United States with the laparoscope. In 1947, he married Renate Loeser, a cytopathologist, who survived him along with two children, one of whom is Charles Davis, the neurosurgeon. He died on 21 October 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000048
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Denham, Robin Arthur (1922 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Young, Terence Willifer (1931 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Connell, Anthea Mary Stewart (1925 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Enid Taylor
Publication Date 2005-11-02 2008-12-12
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/372333372333
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Anthea Mary Stewart Connell was a senior ophthalmic consultant at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Barbados, from 1969 to 1996. She was born on 21 October 1925, the daughter of two medical doctors. Her father, John S M Connell, was a surgeon and gynaecologist and had served as a colonel in the RAMC on wartime hospital ships. Her mother, Constance B Challis, had trained at Cambridge and the University of Birmingham Medical School, and became a public health doctor. Anthea was educated at Edgbaston High School, before moving to City Park Collegiate Institute, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and then to the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. She completed her medical education at the University of Birmingham Medical School, qualifying in 1952. Her ophthalmic training was at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, firstly as a resident, then as a registrar and subsequently as a senior registrar/first assistant in joint appointments at Moorfields, Guy’s Hospital and the London Hospital. In 1969 she moved to Barbados as a senior consultant and head of the department of ophthalmology and assistant lecturer at the University of West Indies until 1991. She initiated the Barbados Eye Study and was its director from 1987 to 1996. This group investigated glaucoma in the Barbadian population and founded the Inter-Island Eye Service. Although living in Barbados, she held courses and organised diploma of ophthalmology examinations in the Caribbean, which were recognised by the Royal College of Surgeons. She was also a fellow of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, giving presentations at their annual meetings. She wrote extensively, covering her work and research in Barbados and the islands. In 1963 she married George E P Dowglass, a master of wine, who was a wine merchant. They had one child, Charlotte, born in 1965, who became financial director to Hampton Court Palace and the Tower of London. Anthea supported the local community, was chairman of the local Conservative Policy Forum, and enjoyed painting in oil and acrylic, showing her work both locally and in London. She died on 23 September 2003 after a long series of strokes.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000146
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Littlewood, Arthur Henry Martin (1923 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Glaser, Sholem (1912 - 2006)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hayward, Henry ( - 1855)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hayward, Thomas Ernest (1855 - 1906)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002100-E002199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374359374359
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Tewkesbury in 1855, was educated at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he gained an Entrance Scholarship. After qualifying he held the following appointments: House Physician, Westminster Hospital; Resident Medical Officer, East London Hospital for Children; Registrar and Chloroformist, Evelina Hospital for Children. He then settled at Haydock, a colliery town near St Helen's, Lancashire, living at Clipsley Lodge, and having as partner Dr Andrew Thomson. He was appointed Medical Officer of Health for Haydock, which he made the source of original observations in the form of "Local Life Tables". He calculated from returns over the years 1881-1890 that an elimination of pulmonary tuberculosis would lengthen the average life of the individual by two and a half years, the elimination of cancer would increase the expectation of life at birth by 0.39 year in males, and 0.83 year in females. Dr and Mrs Hayward founded the Haydock Cottage Hospital and he did much surgical work in it, especially in connection with accidents among colliers. He gave important evidence, from knowledge gained among the Lancashire labouring classes, to a Select Committee of the House of Commons considering the Midwives Bill. He died at Haydock on June 8th, 1906. Publications:- "On Local Life Tables by Abbreviated or 'Short' Methods." - *Public Health*, 1897-8, x, 330. "On Life Tables: their Construction and Practical Application." - *Jour Roy Statistical Soc*, 1899, lxii, 443. "A New Life Table for England and Wales." - *Ibid*, 1903, lxvi, 366. "On the Construction and Use of Life Tables from a Public Health Point of View." - *Jour of Hygiene*, 1905, ii.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002176
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hardy, James Daniel (1918 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-15 2007-08-09
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/372351372351
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details James Daniel Hardy was an organ transplant pioneer and the first chairman of the department of surgery and surgeon in chief at the University Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi. Board certified by both the American Board of Surgery and the Board of Thoracic Surgery and a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, Hardy worked to improve medical and surgical care in Mississippi throughout his career of teaching, caring for patients and clinical research. Over 200 surgeons trained with him during his tenure as chairman of the department of surgery from 1955 to 1987. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, on 14 May 1918, the elder of twin boys, he was the son of Fred Henry Hardy, owner of a lime plant, and Julia Poyner Hardy, a schoolteacher. His early childhood was tough and frugal, thanks to the Depression. He was educated at Montevallo High School, where he played football for the school, and learned to play the trombone. He completed his premedical studies at the University of Alabama, where he excelled in German, and went on to the University of Pennsylvania to study medicine, and during his physiology course carried out a research project (on himself) to show that olive oil introduced into the duodenum would inhibit the production of gastric acid - an exercise which gave him a lifelong interest in research. At the same time he joined the Officers Training Corps. In his last year he published research into the effect of sulphonamide on wound healing. After receiving his MD he entered postgraduate training for a year as an intern and a resident in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and also conducted research on circulatory physiology. Research became a vital part of his professional life. His military service in the second world war was with the 81st Field Hospital. In the New Year of 1945 he found himself in London, before crossing to France and the last months of the invasion of Germany. After VE Day his unit was sent out to the Far East, but when news arrived of the Japanese surrender his ship made a U-turn and they landed back in the United States. He returned to Philadelphia to complete his surgical residency under Isidor Ravdin. He was a senior Damon Runyon fellow in clinical research and was awarded a masters of medical science in physiological chemistry by the University of Pennsylvania in 1951 for his research on heavy water and the measurement of body fluids. That same year Hardy became an assistant professor of surgery and director of surgical research at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine at Memphis, later he was to become an associate professor, and continued in this position until 1955, when he became the first professor of surgery and chairman of the department of surgery at the newly established University of Mississippi Medical Center, School of Medicine, Jackson. As a surgeon charged with establishing an academic training programme, Hardy became known as a charismatic teacher and indefatigable physician. He also actively pursued and encouraged clinical research in the newly established department of surgery. His group’s years of research in the laboratory led to the first kidney autotransplant in man for high ureteral injury, and to advances in the then emerging field of human organ transplantation. The first lung transplant in man was performed at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 1963 and in 1964 Hardy and his team carried out the first heart transplantation using a chimpanzee as a donor. Hardy authored, co-authored or edited more than 23 medical books, including two which became standard surgery texts, and published more than 500 articles and chapters in medical publications. He served on numerous editorial boards and as editor-in-chief of *The World Journal of Surgery*. He also produced a volume of autobiographical memoirs, *The Academic surgeon* (Mobile, Alabama, Magnolia Mansions Press, c.2002), which is a most readable and vivid account of the American residency system and its emphasis on research, which has been such a model for the rest of the world. Over the course of his career he served as president of the American College of Surgeons, the American Surgical Association, the International Surgical Society and the Society of University Surgeons and was a founding member of the International Surgical Group and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary tract. He was an honorary fellow of the College, of the l’Académie Nationale de Médicine and l’Association Français de Chirurgie. The proceedings of the 1983 surgical forum of the American College of Surgeons was dedicated to Hardy, citing him as “…an outstanding educator, investigator, clinical surgeon and international leader.” In 1987 Hardy retired from the department of surgery and served in the Veteran’s Administration Hospital system as a distinguished VA physician from 1987 to 1990. He married Louise (Weezie) Scott Sams in 1949. They had four daughters: Louise, Julia Ann, Bettie and Katherine. He died on 19 February 2003. An annual James D Hardy lectureship has been established in his honour at the department of surgery, University Medical Center, Jackson.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000164
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ferguson, William Glasgow (1919 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-15 2014-08-11
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/372352372352
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details William Glasgow Ferguson, or 'Fergie' as he was known, was a thoracic surgeon in Victoria, Australia. He was born in Whitley Bay, Northumberland, on 4 March 1919, the son of William and Sara Ferguson. He studied medicine at Durham, where he qualified in 1942. After four months as a house surgeon at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne, he joined the RAMC and was posted to 144 Field Ambulance, Hull, and in the following March went to Accra, where he served in 2 (WA) Field Ambulance until April 1944, when he went with his field ambulance to Burma. There he was promoted to major and, in the following year, commanded 4 (WA) Field Ambulance with the rank of lieutenant colonel, being mentioned in despatches. At the end of the war he brought his field ambulance back to West Africa and was demobilised in 1946. On his return to the UK, he became a demonstrator of anatomy at the University of Durham, did general surgical training at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, completed the Guy's course and passed the final FRCS. He then decided to specialise in thoracic surgery, undergoing specialist registrar and senior registrar posts at the Royal Victoria Infirmary and the Shotley Bridge Regional Thoracic Surgical Centre. He was awarded the American Association for Thoracic Surgery travelling fellowship in 1953 as a post-doctoral first assistant. In 1958 he moved to Australia, as staff superintendent of Sydney Hospital. Two years later, he became a consultant at Goulburn Valley Base Hospital, Victoria, where he remained until he retired in 1985. He then continued in general practice in Omeo, Victoria, until 1992. He was previously married to Helen née Cowan. He had three children - two sons (Tim and Richard) and a daughter (Lisa). He died in Omeo, Victoria, on 20 July 2005, aged 86. He was also survived by a partner, Anne.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000165
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jagose, Rustom Jamshedji (1918 - 1991)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2005-11-23 2014-07-23
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/372354372354
Occupation General practitioner
Details Rustom Jamshedji Jagose, known as 'Rusty', passed the fellowship in 1957 and emigrated to New Zealand, where he was a general practitioner in Cambridge, in the Waikato region of the North Island. Although he did not continue to practise surgery, he regularly attended grand rounds at Waikato Hospital. He died on 16 September 1991 and was survived by his wife Anne and their five children - Pheroze, Maki, Annamarie, Una and Fiona.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000167
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Kathel, Babu Lal (1932 - 2002)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-23
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/372355372355
Occupation General surgeon
Details Babu Lal Kathel, known as ‘Brij’, was a consultant surgeon at Grantham General Hospital. Born on 11 November 1932 in Jhansi, India, he was the son of Har Prasad Kathel and Durga Devi Kathel. He was educated at a Christian school and studied medicine at Lucknow University, where he qualified in 1955. He went to England in 1959 to specialise in surgery, doing junior jobs in Ipswich and elsewhere, and becoming a registrar at Whiston Hospital, Liverpool, where he completed a masters degree in surgery from Liverpool University and met his future wife, Cynthia Wigham, a hospital administrator. He was appointed consultant general surgeon at Grantham Hospital in 1973, with administrative responsibility for the accident and emergency department. At that time there were only two general surgeons in Grantham and Brij was on call on alternate nights, and every night when his colleague was ill or absent. It was not long before he was chairman of the hospital management committee. Despite a heart attack in 1975, he continued to work with enthusiasm, building up the surgical service in Grantham. He married Cynthia in 1975 and they had two daughters (Kiran and Camilla) and a son (Neal). An enthusiastic gardener, he enjoyed visits to the Lake District, walks by the sea, freemasonry and Rotary. He died on 25 November 2002 in Grantham Hospital.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000168
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Kelly, John Peter (1943 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-23
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/372356372356
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details John Kelly was born in Ayr, Queensland, on 12 September 1943, the son of John Kelly, a general practitioner and superintendent of the Ayr District Hospital. He was educated at the Marist Brothers College in Ashgrove, Brisbane, and studied medicine at the University of Queensland. After junior posts at the Royal Brisbane Hospital, where he met his future wife Shelly Parer, he went to England to specialise in ENT surgery, and was a registrar at the Royal Surrey County Hospital, being on duty when the victims of the 1974 Guildford IRA bombing attack were admitted. Later, he was at the Royal Free Hospital under John Ballantyne and John Groves. On his return to Australia he set up in practice at Southport and Palm Beach, where, in addition to surgery, he developed a passion for windsurfing, gardening and classical music. Early in 2004 he was found to have metastatic colorectal cancer, and died on 23 May 2004, leaving his widow and three daughters (Caroline, Krissi and Georgie).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000169
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Fussey, Ivor ( - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2007-08-15
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/372442372442
Occupation General surgeon
Details After qualifying from St James’s Hospital, Leeds, Ivor Fussey studied neurophysiology for nine years, gaining his PhD in 1972, during which time he devised platinum microelectrodes that could be implanted in the brain and used to locate vagal afferent impulses. After this experience he decided to specialise in surgery and did registrar jobs with George Harrison in Derby and Duthie in Sheffield, where he met his future wife Kate, a medical student. He was appointed as a consultant general surgeon to Lincoln County Hospital in 1980, where he developed a special interest in surgery of the breast and, together with Jenny Eremin, established the breast unit in the 1990s. After he retired in 1996 he went to Leicester, where he was a mentor to preclinical staff and students, with whom he was very popular. He died suddenly on 30 November 2003, leaving his wife, Kate, and two daughters, Tamsin and Miekes.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000255
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cronin, Kevin (1925 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2007-02-01
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/372443372443
Occupation General surgeon
Details Kevin Cronin was born on 24 July 1925, the son of M J Cronin, a general practitioner. He was educated at the Beaumont School, Berkshire, and entered the London Hospital Medical College in 1942. After qualifying, he completed house jobs in neurosurgery under Douglas Northfield, chest medicine under Lloyd Rusby, and ear, nose and throat surgery. His later training in surgery was at the Radcliffe Infirmary. During this time he spent a research year at the University of Oregon, as a result of which he obtained his masters degree in surgery. He was appointed as consultant surgeon to Northampton General Hospital. He was an Arris and Gale lecturer of the College. He married Madeleine and they had a son (Philip) and daughter (Caroline). They had four grandchildren - Sam, Chloe, Christian and Rory. He died on 20 May 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000256
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Galloway, James Brown Wallace (1930 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372444372444
Occupation General surgeon
Details James Galloway was a consultant general surgeon in Stranraer, Scotland. He was born on 26 March 1930 in Lanark, the son of William Galloway, a farmer, and Anne née Wallace, a secretary. He received his early education at Lanark Grammar, followed by McLaren High in Callendar when the family moved there after his father’s death. At an early stage he showed the academic bent that was to remain with him throughout his life. School was followed by Glasgow University, where he graduated MA before embarking on a medical degree. After gaining his MB Ch in 1956 he undertook his National Service as a captain in the RAMC, spending a large part of his time in Hong Kong. Returning to civilian life, he opted for surgery as a career, and received his training in Glasgow. In 1966 he moved to Ballochmyle Hospital in Ayrshire. Here he made an indelible impression. He was an outstanding doctor whose interest in his subject seemed insatiable, his knowledge of it being encyclopaedic. His practical skills were also of a very high order, and he gave of himself unstintingly. He could truly be said to be dedicated to his work, and he was held in the highest regard by his medical colleagues and nursing staff alike. Though a quiet man, even self-deprecating, he had a remarkable ability to get what he wanted; where his patient’s interests were concerned he could be tenacious, to say the least, and he provided a service second to none. His interest in new developments, and his enthusiasm for new devices, were infectious. He was a most likeable colleague and he was held in considerable affection by all. His time in Hong Kong had given him a taste for travel and during the 1970s, while working in Ayrshire, he answered an advertisement placed by the Kuwait Oil Company and spent three months there as a general surgeon. His work so impressed that he was invited back for two further tours of duty. In 1981 he was appointed consultant general surgeon at the Garrick Hospital in Stranraer. Ayrshire’s loss was Stranraer’s gain, and he quickly established himself there as he had at Ballochmyle, becoming a most valued member of the community. He believed firmly that medical services should be provided locally whenever possible, and fought hard to prevent the surgical service being transferred to Dumfries. James’s other great love was sailing, and he had a succession of boats, starting with a 14-foot dinghy and culminating in *Eliane*, a very capable traditional yacht which was his pride and joy. He happily related that all his boats had one thing in common – they were so full of his beloved gadgets and equipment that they all had to have their waterlines redrawn. He was a very relaxed skipper who, though a lifelong teetotaller himself, was not in the least put out by the occasional excesses of his crew members. There can be no part of the Clyde, and few parts of the Western Isles, that he had not sailed to, and he never ceased to be glad of his origins. After retirement in 1991 he remained as active as ever, embracing the computer age with typical enthusiasm. He was a very kindly, widely read and thoughtful man who made a most interesting companion. He took up scuba diving and continued to be a very active sailor, crossing the Minch to Eriskay in his last summer. Sadly this was to be his last cruise, and thereafter he became increasingly weak. Typically he preferred to discuss the differential diagnosis rather than to complain. He died in the Ayr Hospital on 11 December 2005. He was predeceased by Janet and Anne, his two older sisters. He is greatly missed by his many friends.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000257
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Rajani, Manohar Radhakrishnan (1935 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-23 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/372359372359
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 19 January 1935, Manohar Rajani qualified in Bombay and after junior posts went to England to specialise in surgery. After passing the FRCS he did a series of training posts, before going to Canada in 1965, where he passed the Canadian FRCS and settled down in practice in Toronto. He died on 13 April 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000172
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Griffiths, Donald Barry (1921 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372253372253
Occupation General surgeon
Details Donald Griffiths was a consultant general surgeon in Aberystwyth. He was born in Colwyn Bay on 12 March 1921, the son of Thomas Owen Griffiths, a science master, and Alice Adelaide, the daughter of a tailor. He was educated at Penmaenrhoe Council School and Colwyn Bay County School, and was Denbighshire county scholar. He studied medicine at University College Hospital, with a physiology scholarship, qualifying in 1943. He held house appointments at New End Hospital and at Queen Mary's, Carshalton, and was a registrar at Bethnal Green Hospital and Epsom District Hospital. During the war he served with the RAMC in West Africa and Greece. After the war, he returned to the professorial surgical unit at UCH, where he held the John Marshall fellowship. He was appointed as a consultant general surgeon at Aberystwyth in 1960 and later at the newly built Bronglais Hospital. He was President of the Aberystwyth division of the BMA in 1972 and was awarded the BMA certificate of commendation in 1994. A member of the Welsh Surgical Society, he travelled widely to their meetings. Late in his career he developed a severe illness of the hands, caused by surgical gloves, but recovered and resumed his duties. A delightful, gregarious person, he knew everyone in the little village of Llanon in Cardiganshire where he retired. A keen football supporter, he was a former chairman of Aberystwyth Town Football Club. Recovering for surgery for aortic stenosis, he remained active until shortly before his death from heart failure on 12 April 2004. He leaves a widow, Mary, and five children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000066
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hall, Hedley Walter (1907 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hall, Rodney John (1928 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372255372255
Occupation General surgeon
Details Rodney John Hall was a surgeon in Adelaide, South Australia. He was born on 7 April 1928 at Waikerie, South Australia, and studied medicine at the University of Melbourne, graduating in 1957. He was a resident medical officer at the Bendigo and Northern District Bone Hospital from 1957 to 1958. He then spent almost as year as a locum in suburban practices in Melbourne. From March 1959 to December 1960 he was a full-time demonstrator in anatomy at the University of Melbourne. He was then appointed as a surgical registrar at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woodville, South Australia, a post he held until February 1963. He then travelled to the UK, where he was a registrar at Oldchurch Hospital, Essex. He returned to Australia, where he was a registrar at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Adelaide, from 1966 to 1970. He was a visiting medical officer at the hospital between 1972 and 1977. From 1979 to 1998 he was on the staff of the University of Adelaide. He was a medical officer to the Adelaide Community Health Service from 1981 to 1991. He died on 24 November 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000068
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Green, Sydney Isaac (1915 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Sarah Green
Publication Date 2006-01-13 2015-09-23
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/372362372362
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Sydney Green was a neurosurgeon based in Washington DC and Bethesda. He was born in Glasgow on 10 June 1915 and lived in a one bedroom apartment with his parents and four older siblings, Lionel, Fagah, Mae and Lillah. He often spoke lovingly about his parents Hymen Harry and Sarah Sayetta Green, and told many stories of life at Springhill Gardens. As he played in the courtyard, he would yell up to his mother, 'Ma, throw me a piece!' and his mother would fix him a bread, butter and sugar sandwich and lower it down to him on a pulley which she rigged up on the fourth floor. The family moved to London when Syd was 10. He decided to become a doctor like his brother Lionel and went on to study medicine at Guy's Hospital. He qualified in 1938. During the Second World War, he served as a captain in the RAMC and was aboard the *Dinard* when it was sunk after hitting a mine on D-Day. Later, he crossed the Rhine as surgeon in charge of the Glider Ambulance Unit, 6th Airborne Division, and was one of the first to liberate the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen, an experience which profoundly shaped his feeling toward religion and his Jewish heritage. After the war he returned to specialise in neurosurgery under Hugh Cairns and Murray Falconer and in 1958 went to the United States, where he was in practice in Washington and then Bethesda, working mainly at the Sibley Memorial Hospital. He was much appreciated by his patients and admired by his peers, and was meticulous and incredibly thorough. Intensely devoted to each and every patient, he told how, during the war, he insisted on using more and more blood in an attempt to save one soldier. He was disciplined for his commitment to his patient. Throughout his career, his waiting room was often crowded. He simply wouldn't take shortcuts with any person, much less his patients - but he was well worth waiting for. In 1961 he met a widow, Phyllis Leon Brown. The story goes that she took him on a walk on their second date, and before he knew it they were in a jewellery store choosing rings. They married in 1962 and Syd instantly became a father to three boys, Stuart, Myles and Ken. A daughter, Sarah, was born in 1964. His pride in his family was transparent: family defined his life. He always tried to be home for dinner every night, even if it meant he would have to go back to work late into the evening. He didn't have many hobbies that would take him away from home, but he was passionate about his garden. He would drive up the driveway and, before going inside, he would take off his jacket and lie down in a patch of grass, painstakingly picking out the crabgrass. He would sometimes lose his glasses in the garden, only to find them crunched by the lawnmower weeks later or would come in the house frantically looking for them, only to realise that they were still on the top of his head. He loved to sing off key and tell jokes, good and bad, and to play games. He was intensely alive at every moment and took incredible pleasure in food, whether marmite on burnt toast, over ripe bananas and really crusty bread. Syd had the eccentric habit of grading every meal he ate. While his wife learned to accept a solid B with some satisfaction, other hostesses weren't so thrilled to accept that their meal was anything less than an A+. With Syd, there was no such thing as grade inflation. He was thrilled to see each of his children find his or her life partner, and was passionate about his grandchildren. As Sydney's family tree grew, so did his life force, it seemed. He was famous for travelling to new cities, finding phone books in hotel rooms and looking up anyone who had a name that vaguely resembled his mother's maiden name 'Sayetta'. If he found someone, he would call them and invite them for tea. Whether or not they were related, it was a new person to meet with the potential of connecting with them on some intellectual or emotional level: Syd was a people person to the very end. He saw a great deal during his long life, including two world wars and the horrors of the Holocaust. He was also around to see some of the most fantastic advances in technology and he made sure he kept up with the latest medical breakthroughs, even into his eighties. In 1996 he underwent a pneumonectomy and, after a prolonged battle with chest disease, he died on 14 September 2005. He was 90.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000175
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Harris, Walter Graham (1928 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-13
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/372363372363
Occupation General surgeon
Details Graham Harris was a consultant surgeon at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary with a particular interest and expertise in surgery of the breast. He was born in Swindon village, Gloucestershire, on 5 June 1928, the son of Walter Albert Harris and Sarah Anne née Pitman. He was educated at Wycliffe College before joining the RAF in 1946, where he served with the radar section. In 1948 he entered St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School, where he completed the early part of his surgical training, becoming junior registrar. He was an assistant lecturer in anatomy at University College, where he published on degeneration in the cerebral cortex following experimental craniotomy. He went on to be senior registrar at Leeds, from which he obtained his consultant post in Huddersfield. There he led one of the then four breast screening units in the UK. An active member of the Moynihan Travelling Surgical Club, he was President of the Yorkshire Regional Cancer Research Group in the 1970s and 1980s. Outside medicine, he was President of the Honley Male Voice Choir. He took early retirement after a myocardial infarction, but continued with his music and his hobby as a caterer. He married Patricia Mary Tippet and they had five children. He died on 29 April 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000176
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lowden, Thomas Geoffrey (1910 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-13
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/372364372364
Occupation Casualty surgeon Accident and emergency surgeon
Details Thomas Lowden was a casualty surgeon in Sunderland. He was born in Leeds on 25 March 1910, where his father, Harold Lowden, was an engineer and his mother, Ethel Annie Lamb, a schoolteacher. From Leeds Grammar School he won a Holroyd scholarship to Keble College, Oxford, and went back to Leeds for his clinical training, qualifying in 1934. After junior posts in Leeds General Infirmary and the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne (from which he passed the FRCS), he joined the RAMC as a surgical specialist in 1941. He served in India, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, North Africa and Egypt, before taking part in the Sicily landings and the invasion of Italy, rising to the rank of acting lieutenant colonel. He remained for a time in Germany, before returning to specialise in accident and emergency surgery, becoming consultant in that specialty in Sunderland in 1946 and establishing its casualty department. He published The casualty department (Edinburgh and London, E & S Livingstone, 1956), and developed a subspecialty of hand surgery and was an early member of the Hand Club (later the British Society for Surgeon of the Hand). After he retired in 1970 he continued to do locums at Hexham General Hospital. He married Margaret Purdie, a doctor, in 1945. They had a daughter, Catherine, who became a teacher, and a son, Richard, a lawyer. Among his hobbies were mountain walking, especially in Norway, 16 mm photography and the history of the Crusades. He died on 9 October 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000177
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Reid, Douglas Andrew Campbell (1921 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-13
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/372365372365
Occupation Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Campbell Reid was a leading hand surgeon. He was born on 25 February 1921 in Cardiff, the son of David William Reid, a general practitioner, and Edith Mary née Smith, a nurse. His grandfather, David Spence Clark Reid, had also been a GP. He was educated at Christ’s College, Finchley, where he played in the first XI in football and cricket, and won prizes for shooting. After premedical studies at Queen Mary College he entered the London Hospital Medical College, which at that time was evacuated to Cambridge. After qualifying he was a house surgeon at Chase Farm Hospital and then at Hackney Hospital, where he worked through the V1 air raids. He was then a casualty officer, assistant anaesthetist and house physician at the London Hospital. From 1945 to 1946 he was a casualty officer at Chase Farm Hospital, and then went on to be an anatomy demonstrator at the London Hospital, passing his primary in April 1946. He then passed the final from a registrar post at Haslemere. He decided to specialise in plastic surgery, first as senior registrar to Sir Harold Gillies at Park Prewett, Basingstoke, and later as senior registrar to R G Pulvertaft at Derbyshire Royal Infirmary and at the Royal Hospital, Sheffield. During this time he was awarded a research prize for an essay on reconstruction of the thumb and was later the first to undertake pollicisation in the UK using the Littler neurovascular pedicle. In 1962 he was appointed consultant plastic surgeon to the United Sheffield Hospitals, the Sheffield Children’s Hospital and Chesterfield Royal Hospital. He won the Frank Robinson silver medal from the United Hospitals of South Manchester in 1980, and was the Sir Harold Gillies lecturer and gold medallist of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons in 1981. He served on the council of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons from 1952 and was on the editorial board of the British Journal of Hand Surgery. He published widely on all aspects of hand surgery, including *Surgery of the thumb* (London, Butterworths, 1986) and *Mutilating injuries of the hand* (Edinburgh, Churchill Livingstone, 1979). Outside surgery he was a keen ornithologist and photographer. In 1946 he married Margaret Joyce née Pedler, who was an archivist and head of her division at the Foreign Office. They had a son and two daughters. In 1969 he underwent an emergency replacement of the aortic valve and in 1982 he retired to Eastbourne. He died on 16 August 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000178
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Rhind, James Ronald (1943 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-13
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/372366372366
Occupation General surgeon
Details Ron Rhind was a general surgeon with an interest in urology based in Hartlepool. He was born in Calcutta on 7 July 1943, where his father, James Albert Rhind, was a general surgeon. His mother was Dorothy Cornelia née Jones. From Sedbergh School Ron went to Leeds to study medicine and did house jobs there after qualifying in 1965. He remained on the surgical rotation, working in Yorkshire hospitals and developing a special interest in urology thanks to the influence of Philip Clarke, R E Williams and Philip Smith, to whom he became senior registrar before going to the Institute of Urology as an RSO. He became a consultant surgeon at Hartlepool General Hospital, where he continued to practice general surgery but concentrated increasingly on urological work. Small, dapper and bustling, Ron was full of energy and self-confidence which was sadly dented in 2001 when, already ill with cancer, he was accused of making errors in the treatment of patients with carcinoma of the bladder and faced with a GMC enquiry. He married Valerie Ross, a nurse, in 1968. They had a son and daughter. He died on 12 March 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000179
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Richardson, John Samuel, Lord Richardson of Lee in the County of Devon (1910 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-13
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/372367372367
Occupation Physician
Details John Samuel Richardson was a former President of the General Medical Council and the British Medical Association who inadvertently played a key role in the resignation of Macmillan in 1963. The son of a solicitor, he was born on 16 June 1910 in Sheffield, where his grandfather had been Lord Mayor, Master Cutler, an MP and Privy Councillor. He was educated at Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge, going on to St Thomas’s to do his clinical studies, where he won the Bristowe medal and Hadden prize. After qualifying, he did his house jobs at St Thomas’s, winning the Perkins fellowship. He served in the RAMC in North Africa with the rank of lieutenant colonel, and there, in 1943, was assigned to be physician in attendance to King George VI (whom he treated successfully for sunburn), on which occasion he met and treated Harold Macmillan, with whom he became a close friend. After the war Richardson returned to St Thomas’s as a consultant physician, where he became very successful thanks to his considerable charm. In due course he became President of the General Medical Council, British Medical Association and the Royal Society of Medicine, and was the recipient of innumerable honours. Rather unfairly he is probably remembered today not for his many and considerable contributions to his profession but for being on holiday when Harold Macmillan developed acute-on-chronic retention of urine, formed the (wrong) impression that he was going to die of cancer and handed over the reins of government to Alec Douglas Home. Lord Richardson married the portrait painter Sybil Trist, who predeceased him. They had two daughters. He died on 15 August 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000180
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Guthrie, Charles W Gardiner (1817 - 1859)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-07 2012-07-19
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/372193372193
Occupation General surgeon
Details The younger son of George James Guthrie (q.v.) by his first wife Margaret Paterson, daughter of the Lieutenant-Governor of Prince Edward's Island. He was educated at the Westminster Hospital, where he was elected Assistant Surgeon in 1843 on the resignation of his father in his favour. He became Surgeon and Lecturer on Surgery, and resigned on the ground of ill health shortly before his death. He was also Assistant Surgeon to the Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital, where his father was Surgeon, and succeeded him as Surgeon. He practised at 18 Pall Mall East, but retiring to Clifton died there of ascites due to a liver complaint in August, 1859. He never married, his elder brother left no children, and his sister died unmarried, so that the family of Guthrie ended. Charles Guthrie was a capable surgeon and a dextrous operator, both in the large operations of general surgery and the more delicate ones on the eye. He was kindly, generous, and very sociable; a cause of much anxiety to his father, who on more than one occasion had to pay for cattle shot on the Thames marshes under the impression that they were big game. He might have done well. PUBLICATIONS: - *On the Cure of Squinting by the Division of one of the Straight Muscles of the Eye*, 8vo, London, 2nd ed., 1840. *Report on the Result of the Operations for the Cure of Squinting performed at the Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital between 18 April and 30 October,* 1840, 8vo, Westminster, 1840. *On Cataract and its Appropriate Treatment by the Operation Adapted for each Peculiar Case*, 8vo, plate, London, 1845.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000006
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hames, George Henry ( - 1909)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-20 2012-03-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372194372194
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Lincolnshire; entered St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1871 and distinguished himself there, gaining the Foster Prize in 1872, being Brackenbury Medical Scholar in 1875, and Kirkes' Scholar and Gold Medallist. He was House Surgeon to G W Callender (qv) in 1875 and House Physician to Reginald Southey in 1876-1877. Meanwhile in 1873-1874 he was Prosector at the Royal College of Surgeons and for some years Hon Secretary of the Abernethian Society. After leaving St Bartholomew's he studied at the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, was Chloroformist at the Cheyne Hospital for Children, and Surgeon to the Western General Dispensary. He became a well-known practitioner in Mayfair at 29 Hertford Street, 125 Piccadilly, 113 Sloane Street, and died at 11 Park Lane on May 28th, 1909. Publication:- Hames was a contributor to the *Saturday Review*.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000007
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Keate, Robert (1777 - 1857)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-20 2012-07-19
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/372195372195
Occupation General surgeon
Details The fourth son of William Keate, D.D., rector of Laverton, Somerset; was born at Laverton on March 14th, 1777. John Keate, his elder brother (1773-1852), was the well-known and ferocious head master of Eton. Robert Keate was educated at Bath Grammar School until 1792, when he was apprenticed to his uncle, Thomas Keate, who in 1798 was elected Surgeon to St. George's Hospital in succession to Charles Hawkins, and was also appointed in the same year Surgeon General to the Army in succession to John Hunter. Robert Keate entered St. George's Hospital in 1793, and was made Hospital Mate in 1794 and Deputy Purveyor to the Forces on Sept. 26th, 1795. In 1798 he became a member of the Surgeons' Corporation and was appointed Staff Surgeon in the Army, from which he retired on half pay on March 25th, 1810, with the rank of Inspector-General of Hospitals. In 1800 he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to his uncle at St. George's Hospital, where he succeeded him as full Surgeon in 1813, and held the post until 1853, outstaying his powers. He was early introduced to practice among the royal family. In 1798 he attended the Princess Amelia at Worthing, who was suffering from a "white swelling of the knee". The Duke of Clarence, later King William IV, always showed great confidence in him, and made him Serjeant-Surgeon Extraordinary, and in 1841 Queen Victoria continued him as Serjeant-Surgeon. Keate used to say, "I have attended four sovereigns and have been badly paid for my services. One of them, now deceased, owed me nine thousand guineas"; but William IV always paid, though there is no doubt that Keate's frequent visits to Windsor led to some loss of practice. It is told of him that he one day received an urgent summons to Windsor to see Queen Adelaide, and he arrived there about the breakfast hour. The Queen, who was suffering from a pain in the knee, gave Keate a hint that the presence of the King might be dispensed with. Keate accordingly said to the King, "Will your Majesty be kind enough to leave the room?" "Keate," replied the King, "I'm damned if I go." Keate looked at the King for a moment and quietly said, "Then, your Majesty, I'm damned if I stay." When Keate got as far as the door the King called him back and said, "I believe you are right, and that you doctors can do anything; but had a Prime Minister or the Lord Chancellor ventured to do as you have done, the next day I should have addressed his successor." Keate contributed little to the literature of his profession, yet he rose to the highest eminence in it. He was anxious to avoid operations, yet he was a good operator, accurate in diagnosis, and a sound practitioner. Timothy Holmes (q.v.) remembered Keate as a very old man when he but seldom visited the hospital. He once saw him operate and his hand shook terribly. Holmes, too, recollected his saving the limb of a lad from amputation after the Assistant Surgeon had actually ordered the boy into the operating theatre. He was a terror to his house surgeons and dressers from the violence of his temper and language. He clung to office at the hospital - there was no rule as to retirement then - until he was bullied into giving up by certain of the governors, who persisted in inquiring at every meeting how often the senior surgeon had visited the hospital, and for how long, and who did the work there which he did not do. Keate was sensible of the value of the scientific advancement of surgery, and deserves our recollection as a good surgeon and an honest man. Sir Benjamin Brodie spoke highly of Keate, who was slightly his senior; and he joined with Brodie in the effort, which the latter began, to raise the surgical practice of the hospital to a higher level, by more careful and systematic visits to the patients, and by more constant and regular instruction of the students. He won the warm friendship of his great contemporary, who speaks of him in his autobiography in the following terms: "He was a perfect gentleman in every sense of the word; kind in his feelings, open, honest and upright in his conduct. His professional knowledge and his general character made him a most useful officer of the Hospital; and now that our *game has been played*, it is with great satisfaction that I look back to the long and disinterested friendship that existed between us." With his death was ended the direct connection of the Serjeant-Surgeoncy with the Army. At the College of Surgeons he was co-opted to the Court of Assistants in 1822, being the last person to be so chosen, and continued as a life member of the Council until 1857. He was President in the years 1831 and 1839, and he served and acted as Examiner from 1827-1855. He married the youngest daughter of H. Ramus, an Indian Civil Servant, by whom he had two sons and four daughters. [One daughter married W E Page FRCP and was the mother of H M Page (1860-1942) FRCS 1886, qv in Supplement.] One of his sons, Robert William Keate (1814-1873), was successively Governor of Trinidad, of Natal, and of the Gold Coast. Keate is described as being a square, compact little man, with a rough complaining voice. He was unmistakably a gentleman, but there was something of the 'Scotch terrier roughness' in all that he said and did. He was always a favourite with the pupils, who never turned him into ridicule in spite of his trying ways. Keate was perfect in minor surgery, the placing of limbs, and bandaging, and was reputed to be the only man who could make a linseed-meal poultice to perfection. He did marvels, too, with red precipitate ointment, saying, "My uncle used it for many years. I have used it all my life, that's why I use it." In standard operations, such as amputation of the thigh by the circular method, he excelled even Robert Liston (q.v.). In chronic and painful diseases of joints he used the cautery freely, and his judgement of tumours was good but wholly empirical. He did not care for anatomy, and he had no other tastes but surgery. He died in Hertford Street, Mayfair, on Oct. 2nd, 1857. A portrait of him hangs in the Board Room at St. George's Hospital. PUBLICATIONS: - Keate wrote only two papers: - "History of a Case of Bony Tumour containing Hydatids Successfully Removed from the Head of a Femur." - *Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1819, x, 278. "Case of Exfoliation from the Basilar Process of the Occipital Bone and from the Atlas after Excessive Use of Mercury." - *Lond. Med. Gaz*., 1834-5, xvi, 13 (with drawing): Le Gros Clark referred to the specimen and reproduced the drawing in the Med.-Chir. Trans., 1849, xxxii, 68.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000008
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Welbourn, Richard Burkewood (1919 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-19
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/372373372373
Occupation Endocrine surgeon
Details Richard Welbourn was professor of surgery at Belfast and then at the Hammersmith Hospital, London, where he developed a reputation for endocrine surgery. He was born in Rainhill, Lancashire, on 1 May 1919, the son of Burkewood Welbourn, an electrical engineer, and Edith Annie Appleyard, a teacher. From Rugby School he went to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and did his clinical studies at Liverpool University. He qualified in 1942 and, after his first house job, joined the RAMC, where he served in field ambulances and a field dressing station, and took part in the invasion of Normandy in June 1944, after which he was posted to general hospitals in Belgium and Germany. He eventually became a graded surgeon in Hamburg, where he remained until he was demobilised in 1947. On returning to England he became a registrar with Charles Wells in Liverpool, becoming a senior registrar in 1948. In 1951 he spent a year at the Mayo Clinic under James Priestley, then pioneering adrenalectomy for Cushing’s syndrome under cover of the newly described cortisone. He returned as consultant lecturer in surgery at the Queen’s University, Belfast, in Harold Rodgers’ department, where he continued to study the role of adrenalectomy in Cushing’s and later in carcinoma of the breast and prostate. He became a consultant surgeon to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, in 1951 and later to Belfast City Hospital. In 1958 he was appointed professor of surgical science. On the death of Ian Aird, Welbourn was invited to the vacant chair at Hammersmith in 1963, taking with him to the new post Ivan Johnston, his senior lecturer from Queen’s, who soon afterwards went on to the chair at Newcastle. His department was active, particularly in endocrine surgery, but supervised all the other disciplines, including urology. A keen teacher, his postgraduate courses at Hammersmith were widely sought-after. He wrote many publications and among other honours was a Hunterian Professor of our College in 1958, received the James Berry Prize in 1970, and was a visiting professor at Yale and many other universities. Among his many interests, stemming from his early involvement with the Student Christian Movement, were the philosophy and ethics of medical care, and he was one of the founders of the Institute of Medical Ethics and was a joint editor of the *Dictionary of Medical Ethics* (Bristol, J Wright, 1977 and London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1981). Unfortunately his last years were marred by a cardiac condition, worsened by the medication he was given. After retiring from Hammersmith in 1983 he was visiting scholar for research at UCLA, where he carried out a study of the history of endocrine surgery, which led to his last book in 1990. In 1944 he married Rachel Haighton, a dentist, by whom he had four daughters, Philippa Mary, Edith Rachel, Margaret June and Dorothy Alice, and one son, Charles Richard Burkewood Welbourn, a surgeon. He had 15 grandchildren. After a series of strokes he died in Reading on 3 August 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000186
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hopper, Ian (1938 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Neil Weir
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2009-05-07
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/372447372447
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Ian Hopper was an ENT consultant in Sunderland. He was born in Newcastle upon Tyne on 19 May 1938, the son of John Frederick Hopper, an insurance manager, and Dora née Lambert. He was educated at Dame Allans School, Newcastle upon Tyne, and High Storrs Grammar School, Sheffield, where he played rugby in the first XV. At Sheffield University, although he boxed for a short while, he turned away from contact sports and played table tennis for the university and the United Sheffield Hospitals. He was much influenced by the skills of the professor of surgery, Sir Andrew Kay. He held house physician and house surgeon posts at Sheffield Royal Infirmary and Wharncliffe Hospitals. Having obtained his primary fellowship, he chose to specialise in ENT surgery. He became registrar and later senior registrar in ENT at the Sheffield Royal Infirmary. In 1969 he was appointed ENT consultant at Sunderland Royal Infirmary and General Hospital, where he stayed until his retirement in 1997. Ian Hopper was regional adviser in otolaryngology, a member of the Overseas Doctors Training Committee and the College Hospital Recognition Committee. He was on the council of the British Association of Otolaryngologists (from 1983 to 1997), honorary ENT consultant at the Duchess of Kent Military Hospital, president of the North of England Otolaryngological Society, a council member of the Section of Otology at the Royal Society of Medicine and chairman of the Regional Specialist Subcommittee in Otolaryngology. He married Christine Wadsworth, a schoolteacher, in 1961. Their son, Andrew James, was bursar at Collingwood College, Durham University, before entering the private student accommodation market and their daughter, Penelope Anne, teaches art at Poynton High School, Cheshire. In retirement Ian Hopper made bowls his main sport and subsequently became vice-chairman of Sunderland Bowls Club. He was also a keen snooker player. He died peacefully in hospital after a long illness on 4 March 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000260
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Herdman, John Phipps (1921 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22 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/372448372448
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Herdman was born on 15 December 1921. He studied medicine at Oxford, qualifying in 1945. He completed house jobs at the United Oxford Hospitals and at Ancoats, Manchester, from which he passed the FRCS. He then returned to the Nuffield Institute for Medical Research for two years, before undergoing further registrar posts in Oxford. In 1953 he went to Canada and worked as a general surgeon at the St Joseph's Hospitals, Sarnia, Ontario, until 1973. He then studied health services planning under D O Anderson in the University of British Columbia, where he wrote a graduate thesis on patterns in surgical performance in the Province of British Columbia, and revealed a natural aptitude for epidemiological research. In 1976 he joined the staff of Riverview Hospital, Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, becoming surgical consultant in June 1976, where his duties were administrative. By 1978 he was the chief physician of North Lawn in charge of the entire medical and surgical service. By 1985 he was involved in a successful application for re-accreditation of Riverview Hospital and its mental health services. He was also involved with the care of patients who developed megacolon as a side effect of their medication. He retired in 1991. He died on 4 April 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000261
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Halvorsen, Jan Frederik (1935 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2007-08-09
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/372449372449
Occupation General surgeon
Details Jan Frederik Halvorsen was director of the department of surgery and professor of surgery at the University of Bergen, Norway. He graduated from the University of Bergen Medical School in 1960, becoming a general surgical specialist in 1968 with a special interest in intestinal surgery. He gained a PhD for his work on blood pressure within the liver. His first appointment was at Stavanger Hospital, followed by the Rikshopitalet in Oslo. He also worked at the United Nations Hospital in Gaza. In 1964 he was appointed to Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, where he remained until illness forced his retirement in 2001. He moved through the department of pathology and the gynaecology clinic, but his main focus was surgery. He initially specialised in endocrine surgery, but eventually developed his interest in GI surgery, particularly the diagnosis and treatment of bowel disorders. He published over 100 papers on diseases of the GI tract. He took a sabbatical, spending time at St Mark’s Hospital, London. He became professor of surgery at Bergen University and, as a result of his involvement with the Norwegian Medical Association, he was responsible for the coordination of postgraduate studies. His door was always open to students and colleagues. The organisation of training and the decentralising of courses were a demanding project. He organised the coordination of 1,100 courses involving 25,000 participants. In 1992 he was chosen to coordinate university exchanges between the Hanseatic towns of Lubeck in Germany and Bergen. His enormous experience, knowledge, friendly amiability and dynamism helped him to establish important international contacts and successful exchanges. He was a generous man and established great and permanent friendships with both the students and the specialists in both these cities. He also organised many visits of groups of surgeons from other countries, including the UK. He was a great communicator and spoke impeccable English. He was extremely interested in English literature. He belonged to a British surgical travelling club and was one of its most enthusiastic members. Even when he was suffering from serious cardiac problems he determinedly joined the group on a visit to Spain. In 1988 he was made an honorary Fellow of the College. This particular honour he cherished more than the other many honours he received. Jan Frederik Halvorsen was an extremely skilled surgeon, with vast theoretical knowledge and practical experience. In addition to the qualities he showed as a surgeon, his organisational skills in health management were used to great effect in improving postgraduate education in Norway. Patients and doctors benefited from these attributes. He left a great legacy. He was a strong family man. He leaves his wife Sissel and four children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000262
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jayasekera, Kodituwakku Gnanapala ( - 2001)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372268372268
Occupation General surgeon
Details Kodituwakku Gnanapala Jayasekera was a distinguished surgeon in Sri Lanka and Australia. He was born in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). He travelled to the UK, where he became a Fellow of the College in 1948. Soon after, he returned to Sri Lanka. In 1954 he was appointed as honorary surgeon to the Queen, during Her Majesty’s visit to the country on her coronation tour. In 1970, alarmed by the prospect of political violence in Sri Lanka, he emigrated to Australia with his family, with the help of his good friend Sir Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop. At the time of his departure he was the senior consultant surgeon at the General Hospital, Colombo, and President-elect of the Sri Lanka Society of Surgeons. In Australia he practised general surgery in Melbourne for a further 20 years. When he finally retired from surgery, he continued to practise general medicine until his death on 26 September 2001.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000081
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wahed, Mohammad Abdul ( - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2012-04-13 2014-03-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002100-E002199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374377374377
Occupation General surgeon
Details Mohammed Abdul Wahed was a surgeon in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002194
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wakeley, Sir John Cecil Nicholson (1926 - 2012)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Linda de Cossart
Publication Date 2012-04-13 2013-05-23
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002100-E002199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374378374378
Occupation General surgeon
Details Sir John Cecil Nicholson Wakeley was a consultant general surgeon in Cheshire. He was born in London on 27 August 1926, the first of three boys of Cecil Pembrey Grey Wakeley and Elizabeth Muriel Wakeley née Nicholson-Smith. At the time of John's birth, his father was a surgeon and on the staff at King's College, and was at the beginning of a highly influential career, which would see him become president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and made a baronet in 1952. From the start John was therefore immersed in the surgical life, and he himself summed up his childhood as 'life with father'. The influence of his father never left him throughout his clinical career. Following school at Canford, John followed in his father's footsteps and became a medical student at King's College Hospital, qualifying in 1950. His medical school report records a keen student who was easy to teach. He won the Legg prize in surgical pathology and the Blair Bell prize in obstetrics and gynaecology. His postgraduate career began as a pre-registration house officer to his father and then as a lecturer in anatomy, both at King's College. He won the Hallet prize in the primary examination of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1952. He then spent a year (between 1953 and 1954) as a squadron leader in the Royal Air Force, returning to the Postgraduate Medical School in Hammersmith, as a registrar and senior registrar. In 1961 John was appointed as a general surgeon to the Royal Infirmary Chester. Here he developed a successful practice with a specific interest in breast and urological surgery. His neatness and attention to administrative detail would have delighted a modern manager. His careful note-keeping, beautiful handwriting in distinctive green ink and his same-day GP letters are an example to current medical administration. During his surgical career he held many offices, including chief inspector for the City of London Special Constabulary, membership of the Liverpool Regional Hospital Board, honorary consultant adviser (civilian) to the RAF, and liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Barbers and the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. He was awarded the Cross of St John in 1958. He particularly cherished his election to the council of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1971. His main interests outside surgery were wildlife and photography. His electric train collection was legendary. John met June, a physiotherapist and daughter of Donald Leney, whilst working in London. They were married in 1954. They had three children, of whom he was immensely proud. Nicholas, the eldest, is a missionary in Albania. Charles is a consultant radiologist, but qualified in surgery and became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and of Edinburgh before taking up radiology, meaning three successive generations of Wakeleys have qualified in surgery. Amanda is an internationally renowned fashion designer. John will be particularly missed for his wicked sense of humour and compassion. He died on 10 March 2012, aged 85.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002195
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Weliwita-Gunaratne, Lucien Gladwin (1930 - 2012)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Anne Weliwita-Gunaratne
Publication Date 2012-04-13 2013-12-19
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002100-E002199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374379374379
Occupation Accident and emergency surgeon General surgeon Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Lucian Gladwin Blaise Weliwita-Gunaratne was an accident and emergency surgeon in Kidderminster, and later returned to Sri Lanka, where he was a consultant surgeon at the Central Hospital (Nawinne). He was born on 3 February 1930 at Teldeniya, near Kandy, Ceylon. His parents, Don Zacharias Weliwita-Gunaratne and Theresa Weliwita-Gunaratne (née Perera Illanganratne), were headmaster and headmistress of boys' and girls' schools in Ragama, near Colombo. He attended secondary school at St Joseph's College, Colombo. He displayed a talent for languages. He was introduced to Sanskrit and Pali at home by his father (who was a linguist and hymn writer), had the obligatory Latin at school, was bilingual in Sinhala and English, and, as an adult, learned Tamil and French. He contemplated following his cousins, Julian and Paulinus, into the Catholic priesthood, but was dissuaded by his (otherwise devout) mother, who had already lost three of her young children to illness, leaving only him and his older brother Michael. The loss of his younger brothers, Paul Leslie and Peter Kingsley, were formative experiences in his childhood, and pointed him towards his calling to become a surgeon. The loss of four-year-old Peter had an especially painful impact, about which he found it difficult to speak, even 60 years later. He entered the University of Ceylon, and graduated MB BS in 1954. He then worked for two years as a medical officer in charge of a peripheral unit in Hingurakgoda, and then moved to England. His surgical education began as a junior house officer at Birch Hill Hospital, Rochdale. He was then a senior house officer at Louth, Coventry and Bromsgrove, and at Battle Hospital, Reading. From 1959 to 1962 he was a surgical registrar in Bromsgrove, and subsequently a registrar in the thoracic unit at Yardley Green Hospital, Birmingham. He gained his FRCS in 1962. Returning to Ceylon in 1963, he worked as a resident surgeon at the General Hospital Colombo, and then as a general surgeon at the General Hospital Ratnapura. He was also a consultant surgeon in two missionary hospitals in Jaffna and Marawila, and at Sulaiman Hospital Colombo (from 1969 to 1973). In 1973 he returned to the UK, joining Kidderminster General Hospital in Worcestershire, where he worked variously as a locum registrar, accident surgeon, and associated specialist in the accident and emergency dept. In 1985 he returned to Sri Lanka, where he worked as a consultant surgeon in trauma, orthopaedics and general surgery in Central Hospital (Nawinne) until 1990. His professional life as a surgeon spanned two very different countries, but he was always aware, in his own words, that 'a human being in pain, is a human being in pain'. Well into his retirement he was always ready to listen, give advice, alleviate worries and make judicious use of his first aid kit when necessary. He truly felt that his profession was a calling, a vocation. So much so that when there was a dearth of surgeons in the war-torn area of northern Sri Lanka, he volunteered in 1996 for five months of what could only be termed gruelling surgery, taking care of civilians and soldiers alike. The most heart-breaking cases, in his view, were the children with abdominal injuries from anti-personnel mines, designed to injure the legs of adults. While he was no stranger to trauma from his previous work in accident and emergency, the cruelties of war and the lack of post traumatic care for caregivers took a toll on his psyche. He did however have a great sense of humour. He was an avid philatelist, and was a member of the Kidderminster and District Philatelic Society and the British Society of Australian Philately. He had enjoyed ballroom dancing in his youth, and loved reading, listening to bird song, jazz, classical music, opera and Gregorian chant, playing chess and bridge, collecting (in both countries) a fascinating group of bridge partners. Manual dexterity was another skill, which remained with him to the end - it is not an exaggeration to say that he repaired every man-made object in and around his home. He died on 6 February 2012 from cancer of oesophagus, aged 82, and was survived by his wife Anne (née Balasuriya), whom he married in 1955, his daughters Chintra and Cherine, and grandchildren Nina and Martin. Perhaps his greatest legacy was the National Institute for the Care of Paraplegics in Sri Lanka, which he founded in 1988, the first meetings taking place at his home in Kurunegela. Today it is in the capable hands of professionals from Kandy Teaching Hospital and other volunteers from Digana Rehabilitation Hospital.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002196
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Heaton, George (1861 - 1924)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002100-E002199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374380374380
Occupation General surgeon
Details The eldest son of George Heaton of Handsworth, connected with the Birmingham Mint and later of Milan, was educated at Clifton College (1873-1880), where he became Head Boy, and then at Magdalen College, Oxford, having obtained a Demyship in Science, from Oct 16th, 1880, to 1885. He obtained 1st Class Honours in the Natural Science School in 1883, but did not graduate BA until 1885. He entered St Bartholomew's Hospital in October, 1883, winning the Senior Entrance Scholarship and later the Brackenbury Scholarship and the Lawrence Scholarship and Gold Medal. After serving as House Surgeon under Alfred Willett, he returned to Birmingham in 1890 as Resident Surgical Officer at the General Hospital. Whilst holding that post he suffered the misfortune of an infected wound which in some degree lowered his general health and vitality. Elected Assistant Surgeon to the General Hospital in 1891, he acted as Demonstrator of Surgical Pathology and Assistant to the Professor of Surgery, and for eleven years was Lecturer on Operative Surgery. Becoming full Surgeon in 1894 at the age of 33, he served until 1909, when he became Consulting Surgeon. He also acted as Examiner in Surgery at the University of Oxford, and was Surgeon to the Birmingham and Midland Counties Hospital for Sick Children, and Consulting Surgeon to the Corbett Hospital, Stourbridge, the Sutton Coldfield Hospital, the Birmingham General Dispensary, the Royal Institution for Deaf and Dumb Children, and the Birmingham Bluecoat School. In 1911 at the Birmingham Meeting of the British Medical Association he was Vice-President of the Section of Diseases of Children. He took a full share in Boards of Management, including the Medical Societies and the Birmingham Medical Benevolent Society. He was a keen golfer and devoted to sailing. He had practised at 47 Newhall Street and had a country house at Woodgate Four Oaks, Warwickshire. He seemed to be recovering from a prolonged attack of phlebitis, when he relapsed and died on August 12th, 1924. He was buried at Handsworth Parish Church. Publications:- Heaton's publications chiefly related to abdominal surgery "Surgical Interference with Diseases of the Stomach." - *Birmingham Med Review*, 1901, xlix, 257. "Operative Treatment of Enlarged Prostate." - *Ibid*, 1903, liii, 355. "Clinical Observations on Some Acute Abdominal Disorders." - *Brit Med Jour*, 1906, I, 142, etc. "Surgical Treatment of Colitis." - *Lancet*, 1909, I, 1678. "Abdominal Section Twice on the Same Patient for Volvulus." - *Ibid*, 1912, I, 430.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002197
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Helm, George Frederick (1838 - 1898)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002100-E002199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374381374381
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details The youngest son of the Rev Joseph Helm, Vicar of Worthing; educated at Marlborough College, then at St Catherine's College, Cambridge, where he took his BA degree as a Fellow Commoner in 1864. At the same time he became a pupil of Sir George Humphry, Surgeon to Addenbrooke's Hospital, for three years, during which he acted as Demonstrator of Anatomy. He distinguished himself also as a cricketer, especially as a bowler, and played twice in elevens against Oxford, also in the Sussex County Eleven, and formed one of the representative eleven which for the first time visited Australia. At the end of his apprenticeship he won an open scholarship at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he gained the approval of Sir James Paget, and became House Surgeon. After a study in Paris and becoming FRCS he was appointed Physician to Rugby School when Dr Temple was Head Master. In 1867 a failure of health forced him to travel; he was in Australia for two years, and then returned to Marazion, Cornwall, where the climate so far restored his health that about 1888 he was able to accept the appointment of Ophthalmic Surgeon to the Royal Cornwall Infirmary, Truro, and won a consulting practice in that specialty. He was a member of the Ophthalmological Society, and as a member of the Penzance Board of Guardians was largely instrumental in obtaining an efficient water-supply for Marazion. Besides he practised in Truro at 81 Ferris Street. Although he suffered from heart disease he continued in active work until he expired suddenly in his carriage as he was driving home to The Greenfield, Marazion, on March 31st, 1898. Helm married: (1) in 1863 a daughter of the Rev F Thomas, Rector of Parkham, Devon, and (2) a daughter of Mr Edward Shearme, of Stratton, North Cornwall, who with a son and two daughters survived him. Publications: *Long Sight, Short Sight, and Astigmatism*, 1886. "Retinoscopy in Errors of Refraction." - *Prov Med Jour*, 1890, ix, 455. "Sympathetic Ophthalmia 14 Years after the Receipt of Original Injury." - *Lancet* 1890, ii, 1157. "Advantage and Use of Lang's Knives in Division of Anterior Synechiae." -*Ibid*, 1891, i, 655.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002198
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Blaiklock, Christopher Thomas (1936 - 2018)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by David Currie
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2018-05-01
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/372451372451
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Christopher Thomas Blaiklock was a consultant neurosurgeon at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. He was born on 27 July 1936 in Newcastle upon Tyne and raised in Northumbria. His parents, Thomas Snowdon Blaiklock and Constance Rebecca Blaiklock, were both doctors. He attended Oundle School, Northampton, and then carried out his National Service (from 1954 to 1956) in the Royal Navy. He went on to study medicine at Durham, qualifying in 1961. Chris was influenced by his medical house officer post with the Newcastle neurologist, Sir John Walton. His original intention was to pursue a career as a physician, but, having passed the MRCP in 1966, he came to the view that, with the resources available at the time, he could achieve more for patients as a surgeon and he did his basic surgical training in Cardiff. He decided on a career in neurosurgery which, at the time, could not be said to be the most successful of surgical specialties, but he was fortunate to be regularly in the right place at the right time. He was a neurosurgical registrar at Atkinson Morley Hospital in London, which was famous (or notorious) for giving a rigorous training. While he was there the first CT (computed tomography) scanner in the world was installed and Chris was among the first neurosurgeons to experience the revolutionary transformation of neurological imaging and the huge improvement that brought to patients' experience of neurological diagnosis. In 1972, he was appointed as a senior registrar in neurosurgery in Glasgow with Bryan Jennett at a time when Glasgow was being recognised as a centre of excellence in neurosurgical research. The first CT scanner in Scotland was installed in Glasgow during his training there. In 1974, he was appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. He was only the third neurosurgeon in Aberdeen after Martin Nichols and Bob Fraser. The department covered the whole of the North of Scotland, including the Northern and Western isles. In addition to providing a comprehensive neurosurgery service, the department housed, prior to the advent of intensive care units, the only ventilation unit in the region and the two neurosurgeons were responsible for its management along with a single trainee. Chris brought his experience of CT imaging and saw the installation of the first CT scanner in Aberdeen. He introduced the operating microscope and effectively brought neurosurgery in Aberdeen into the modern era. When the world's first MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner was built and became available for clinical use, Chris was the first neurosurgeon in the world to employ it and gain experience in its use in neurosurgery. Chris was unusual in being a neurosurgeon who was also a member (and subsequently a fellow) of the Royal College of Physicians, and his diagnostic skills were evidence of his broad general knowledge. For many years, the neurosurgeons in Aberdeen also offered the out-of-hours neurology service, handing patients over to the well-rested neurologists in the morning. Chris often remarked that he could just as easily have enjoyed being an engineer. He had a fascination with how things worked. He carried a skill with tools and his manual dexterity into his operative surgery. He was a true craftsman. His operative surgery was calm, precise and quick, and an inspiration to his trainees. He was an NHS partisan. Despite a heavy workload, his waiting times were negligible and he was offended on occasions when it was suggested to him that he might see a patient 'privately'. He was intensely proud of the local service and of the beautiful territory he served. He enjoyed demonstrating the extent of the territory he covered by placing a pair of compasses on Aberdeen and passing it through his most distant centre of habitation - one of the North Sea oil platforms. The circle also passed through Watford. He contributed extensively to NHS administration, both locally and nationally. With the introduction of clinical management, he became director of surgery for Grampian - a post that he accepted without dropping any clinical sessions. He lacked self-importance or pomposity, and was genuinely interested in people and their occupations and he was always available. For a year, while the other consultant post was unfilled, he provided the service single-handedly. Chris Blaiklock died at home on 8 February 2018 at the age of 81 and was survived by his wife Judith, an anaesthetist, and by his son, Ian, and daughter, Fiona. He will be remembered with great affection by former patients, colleagues in all health professions and by his trainees who have occupied consultant posts in Scotland and in other countries.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000264
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Johnson-Gilbert, Ronald Stuart (1925 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12 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/372269372269
Occupation Administrator College secretary
Details Ronald Stuart Johnson-Gilbert, or 'J-G' as he was known with affection throughout the College, was our secretary from 1962 to 1988. He was born on 14 July 1925, the son of Sir Ian A Johnson-Gilbert CBE and Rosalind Bell-Hughes, and was proud to be a descendant of Samuel Johnson. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy and Rugby, from which he won an exhibition in classics and an open scholarship to Brasenose College, Oxford. During the second world war he served in the Intelligence Corps from 1943 to 1946 and learnt Japanese. On demobilisation he became a trainee with the John Lewis partnership for a year and then joined the College on the administrative staff in 1951, becoming the sixth secretary in 1962, having previously been secretary of the Faculties of Dental Surgery and Anaesthetists. He worked under 13 presidents, from Lord Porritt to Sir Ian Todd, bringing to everything he did an exceptional administrative skill, an ability to write succinct and lucid prose, an unrivalled knowledge of the most arcane by-laws of the College and above all an unruffable charm. He served as secretary to the board of trustees of the Hunterian Collection, the Joint Conference of Surgical Colleges and the International Federation of Surgical Colleges. He was the recipient of the John Tomes medal of the British Dental Association, the McNeill Love medal of our College and the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons medal. He served the Hunterian Collection as a trustee for 10 years. A skilled golfer, his other interests included music, painting, literature and writing humorous verse. He married Anne Weir Drummond in 1951 and they had three daughters, Clare, Emma and Lydia. He died on 23 April 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000082
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jonas, Ernest George Gustav (1924 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372270372270
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details George Jonas was a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Hillingdon Hospital. He was born in Berlin in 1924, and qualified from the Middlesex Hospital in 1947. After National Service and training posts in London and Liverpool, he was appointed to Hillingdon in 1964. He played an important part in developing women’s services and setting up training schemes for students and junior doctors with London teaching hospitals. His interests included the study of foetal growth retardation, and he developed a cervical screening programme. He was a pioneer in the computerisation of clinical obstetric records. He examined for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. He retired to Herefordshire, where, despite failing health, he continued to pursue many interests, including painting, pottery and bridge. He died from cardiac failure on 1 December 2003, leaving a wife, Gill, two daughters and four grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000083
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-25 2012-03-13
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/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 Bonham, Dennis Geoffrey (1924 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Brodie, Sir Benjamin Collins (1783 - 1862)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-28 2012-07-19
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/372203372203
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details Was the fourth child of the Rev. Peter Bellinger Brodie, M.A., of Worcester College, Oxford, Rector of Winterslow, Wilts, by Sarah, daughter of Benjamin Collins, Banker and printer, of Milford, near Salisbury. The Brodies were originally a Morayshire clan, and the family was fortunate in relations. Dr. Denman, then the accoucheur, had married Brodie's aunt; Sir Richard Goff ['Goff' is crossed out, and the following added: Croft (Lady Croft & Mrs Baillie were Dr Denman's daughters)] had married a cousin; and Dr. Baillie, nephew of William and John Hunter, had married another cousin. Dr. Denman's son afterwards became Lord Chief Justice, and was well known as one of the advocates at the trial of Queen Caroline, whilst Peter Brodie, Benjamin's eldest brother, held a high position as a conveyancer. In 1797 Brodie and his brothers raised a company of volunteers at a time when a French invasion was much dreaded. He was privately educated by his father, and at the age of eighteen went up to London, devoting himself from the first to the study of anatomy. Brodie joined the medical profession without any special liking or bent for it, and in after-days he said he thought those best succeeded in professions who joined them, not from any irresistible prepossession, but rather from some accidental circumstance inducing them to persevere in their selected course either as a matter of duty or because they had nothing better to do. He rose to be the first surgeon in England, holding for many years a position similar to that once occupied by Sir Astley Cooper. Brodie had always a philosophical turn of mind. He learnt much at first from Abernethy, who arrested his pupils' attention so that it never flagged, and what he told them in his emphatic way never could be forgotten. Brodie used to say "that he had always kept in mind the saying of William Scott [afterwards Lord Stowell] to his brother John [subsequently Lord Eldon], 'John, always keep the Lord Chancellorship in view, and you will be sure to get it in the end.'" And a similar aim and distinction were Brodie's. In 1801 and 1802 he attended the lectures of James Wilson at the Hunterian School in Great Windmill Street, where he worked hard at dissection. It was about this time that he formed what proved a lifelong friendship with William Lawrence (q.v.). In 1803 Brodie became a pupil of Sir Everard Home at St. George's Hospital, and was successively appointed House Surgeon and Demonstrator to the Anatomical School, after which he was Home's assistant in his private operations and researches in comparative anatomy, and he did much work for him at the College Museum. "The latter employment," says Mr. Timothy Holmes (q.v.) in his *Life of Brodie*, "was of critical importance for Brodie in several ways - chiefly because it obliged him to work on scientific subjects, and thus prevented a too exclusive devotion to the pursuit of practical surgery. We cannot be wrong in attributing to this cause mainly his connection with the Royal Society, and the many-sidedness of his intellectual activities." At the College he came into contact with Clift, and, through Home, became an intimate in the learned coterie of Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, and the chief link between distinguished men of science of two centuries. Brodie still diligently pursued his anatomical studies at the Windmill Street School, where he first demonstrated for, and then lectured conjointly with, James Wilson until 1812. In 1808, before he was twenty-five, he was elected Assistant Surgeon at St. George's, thus relieving Home of some part of his duties. Brodie remained in this position fourteen years, and his "regular attendance at the hospital was an immense improvement, in the interests both of the patients and the students, on the practice obtaining in the metropolitan hospitals of that day". All through life Brodie was consumed with the rage for work which his father had originally instilled into him. So devoted was he to every phase of his duties that he found no time to travel, only once visiting France for a month and often going without a summer holiday. His very recreations were arduously intellectual. Thus he took a leading part in the life of various learned societies - the Academical Society, banished to London from Oxford in the French revolutionary epoch, the Society for the Promotion of Medical and Chirurgical Knowledge, the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society, of which he was President in 1839 and 1840. He contributed several valuable papers to the last-named society, and at its meetings he stimulated discussion, and had always something of interest to say. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1810, he soon communicated a paper "On the Influence of the Brain on the Action of the Heart and the Generation of Animal Heat", and another "On the Effects produced by certain Vegetable Poisons (Alcohol, Tobacco, Woorara)". The first paper, the subject of which he doubtless derived from John Hunter, formed the Croonian Lecture: the two papers taken together won him the Copley Medal in 1811, an honour never before bestowed on so young a man. In 1809 Brodie entered upon private practice, and in 1822 became full Surgeon at St. George's Hospital, from which time forward his career was one of ever-increasing success. He became a Member in 1805, a Fellow in 1843, and from 1819 to 1823 he was Professor of Anatomy, Physiology, and Surgery at the College. He lectured upon the Organs of Digestion, Respiration, and Circulation, and on the Nervous System, the most interesting of his discourses being upon "Death from Drowning", a subject which Hunter had investigated without hitting upon the scientific explanation of that form of asphyxia eventually brought out by Brodie. While Professor at the College, Brodie was summoned to attend George IV, and with Sir Astley Cooper, who was the operator, and a formidable array of medical men of that time, assisted at an operation for the removal of a small sebaceous cyst from the king's scalp. He became Surgeon to George IV, and attended him during his last illness, when he went every night to Windsor, slept there, and returned to London in the morning. "His habit", says Mr. Timothy Holmes, "was to go into the king's room at about six o'clock, and sit talking with him for an hour or two before leaving for town." The king became warmly attached to him. He was Surgeon to William IV, and in 1834, when he was made a Baronet, he was appointed Serjeant-Surgeon. In this capacity he became examiner by prescriptive right in the College, a privilege abolished by the Charter of 1843, which Brodie was largely instrumental in obtaining. He was a Member of Council from 1829-1862, Hunterian Orator in 1837, Vice-President in 1842 and 1843, and President in 1844. He retired from St. George's Hospital in 1840, but for some time continued his activity at the College, which owes to him the institution of the Order of Fellows. The object of this institution, he maintained, was to ensure the introduction into the profession of a certain number of young men who might be qualified to maintain its scientific character, and would be fully equal to its higher duties as hospital surgeons, teachers, and improvers of physiological, pathological, and surgical science afterwards. The Fellowship may be said to have been largely instrumental in raising the college to what it now is - "the exemplar of surgical education to the whole kingdom". Brodie was the first President of the General Medical Council, having been elected in 1858. Within a week after receiving this honour he became President of the Royal Society, an office which he filled with great dignity and wisdom till 1861. He died, nearly blind following double cataract for the relief of which he had been operated upon by Sir William Bowman (q.v.), at Broome Park, Betchworth, Surrey, on Oct. 21st, 1862. Of the immediate cause of his death, Holmes says: "It seems that nearly thirty years [see BLOXHAM, THOMAS] previously he had suffered from a dislocation of the right shoulder. I am not aware that he ever made any complaint of the part after the dislocation had been reduced, but it was in this same joint that in July he began to complain of pain accompanied by much prostration; and this was succeeded in September by the appearance of a tumour, doubtless of a malignant nature, in the neighbourhood of the shoulder." It thus happened that he who had spent his life treating diseased joints died of a joint disease. He married in 1816 Anne, the third daughter of Serjeant Sellon by his wife Charlotte Dickinson, his brother-in-law being Monsieur Regnault, the French physicist. Three children survived to maturity: Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie F.R.S. (1817-1880), who became Professor of Chemistry at Oxford; a daughter who married the Rev. E. Hoare; and another son, the Rev. W. Brodie. [His granddaughter Mary Isabel married Sir Herbert Warren K.C.V.O. President of Magdalen College Oxford - 1885-1928] Brodie was distinguished as a surgeon with the bent of a physician. He was not a great operating surgeon, nor did he regard operations as the highest aim of surgery. His power of diagnosis was great, and he was a distinguished teacher with an elegant and clear deliverance. He attained high success by the legitimate influence of a lofty order of intellect, by his great stores of surgical knowledge, and the sound decided opinions he based upon them. He was single-minded and upright in character and free from all affectations. He knew his duty and did it well. He lived for a great end, the lessening of human suffering, and for that he felt no labour was too great, no patience too long. As a scientific man his object was truth pursued for its own sake, and without regard to future reward. He recognized the great traditions of wisdom, benevolence, and self-denial as the everlasting bases on which true medicine and surgery rest, and he was in truth a master of medicine. Of Brodie's manner as a lecturer, Sir Henry Acland says: "None who heard him can forget the graphic yet artless manner in which, sitting at his ease, he used to describe minutely what he had himself seen and done under circumstances of difficulty, and what under like circumstances he would again do or would avoid. His instruction was illustrated by the valuable pathological dissections which during many years he had amassed, and which he gave during his lifetime to his hospital." Mr. Timothy Holmes says: "It was Brodie who popularized the method of lithotrity in England, and by so doing chiefly contributed to the ready reception of an operation which has robbed what was one of the deadliest diseases that afflict humanity of nearly all its terror. This will remain to all time one of Brodie's greatest claims to public gratitude." Brodie used to tell that he once prescribed for a fat butler, suffering from too much good living and lack of exercise. Sir Benjamin told him "he must be very moderate in what he ate and drank, careful not to eat much at a time or late at night. Above all, no spirituous liquors could be allowed, malt liquor especially being poison to his complaint." Whilst these directions were being given the butler's face grew longer and longer, and at the end he exclaimed, "And pray, Sir Benjamin, who is going to compensate me for the loss of all these things?" Brodie's personal appearance is admirably portrayed in the picture by Watts. He was not, perhaps, strictly handsome, but no one can deny that the features are striking. A fine forehead, keen grey eyes, a mobile and sensitive mouth, and facial muscles which followed all the movements of one of the most active minds, lent to the countenance a charm and an expressiveness to which no stranger could be insensible. His frame was slight and small; but there was nothing of weakness about it. Those who knew him only as a public man would little suspect the playful humour which sparkled by his fireside - the fund of anecdotes, the harmless wit, the simple pleasures of his country walk. The following is a list of portraits of Brodie: (1) A bust by H. Weekes, R.A., in the Royal College of Surgeons. (2) A portrait in middle life, which appeared in the Medical Circular (1852, I, 817). The copy in the College is accompanied by a strikingly picturesque and vivid appreciation of Brodie as a teacher making his round of the wards. (3) A half-length by G. F. Watts, R.A., painted in 1860, which is reproduced in Timothy Holmes's *Life of Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie*, 1897. (4) A medal presented to Sir Benjamin Brodie in 1840 when he retired from office as Surgeon to St. George's Hospital. There is a bronze replica in the Board Room at St. George's Hospital, and an illustration of it in the *British Journal of Surgery* (1918-19, vi, facing p.158). PUBLICATIONS: - As an author Brodie achieved fame by his treatise on *Diseases of the Joints*, 1818, which went through five editions and was translated into foreign languages. He wrote also on local nervous affections, diseases of the urinary organs, the surgery of the breast, lighting-stroke, besides an important work, published anonymously in 1854, under the title of *Psychological Enquiries* [Times 21 Jan 1938. BRODIE - On Jan. 20, 1938. at Brockham Warren, Betchworth, Surrey, of pneumonia, SIR BENJAMIN VINCENT SELLON BRODIE, Bt., M.A. (Oxon), D.L., J.P., aged 75. Funeral at Betchworth Church, 3 p.m. Monday, Jan. 24. SIR BENJAMIN BRODIE. Sir Benjamin Vincent Sellon Brodie, Bt.,. died at his home, Brockham Warren, Dorking, yesterday at the age of 75. He succeeded as third baronet on the death of his father in 1880. Educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, and a barrister at Lincoln's Inn, he was a county councillor and then a county alderman for Surrey, High Sheriff in 1912, and a member of the Surrey Education Committee. He owned about 1,000 acres in Surrey. Sir Benjamin married in 1887 Caroline, daughter of the late Captain J. R. Woodriff, R.N., his Majesty's Serjeant-at-Arms, and they had one son and two daughters. Lady Brodie died in 1895. The heir is Captain Benjamin Colin (amended to Collins) Brodie, who was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. He served throughout the War with the Surrey Yeomanry and the 4th Battalion, The Gordon Highlanders, winning the M.C. and bar. Later he became a captain in the Army Educational Corps. He is married and has two sons and one daughter.] [SIR BENJAMIN BRODIE Captain Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, MC, the fourth baronet, died on Monday. He served with the Surrey Yeomanry at Gallipoli, with the Gordon Highlanders and the 1st Highland Brigade, British Army of the Rhine, in the First World War. He was joint headmaster of Holyrood School, Bognor Regis, from 1927 to 1940. He was twice chairman of the governors of Tonbridge School; and from 1945 to 1960 of Judd School, Tonbridge. He was twice Master of the Skinners' Company. Brodie succeeded his father in 1938 and the heir to the baronetcy is Brodie's son, Benjamin David Ross Brodie.]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000016
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hammick, Sir Stephen Love (1777 - 1867)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-02-21
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/372635372635
Occupation General surgeon
Details The eldest son of Stephen Hammick, surgeon and Alderman of Plymouth, and Elizabeth Margaret, daughter of John Love, Surgeon of Plymouth Dockyard. He studied under his father at the Royal Naval Hospital, Plymouth, in 1792, and in 1793 was appointed Assistant Surgeon there. In 1799, after further study for a few months at St George’s Hospital, he qualified at the Corporation of Surgeons and returned to Plymouth. He was elected full surgeon to the Hospital in 1803. Debarred from private practice by this appointment, he gave gratuitous opinions in difficult cases. He was Surgeon Extraordinary to George IV as Prince of Wales, Prince Regent, and King, also to the household of William IV. He resided from 1829 in Cavendish Square and was one of the original members of the Senate of the University of London. He was created a baronet on July 25th, 1834, and died at Plymouth on June 15th, 1867. He married in 1800 Frances, only daughter of Peter Turquand, merchant, of London. She died in 1829, leaving issue two sons and a daughter. His eldest son, Stephen Love Hammick (1804-1839), MD, of Christ Church, Oxford, Radcliffe Travelling Fellow in 1831, died just as he was about to commence practice in London, in 1839. He had attended E Mitscherlich’s lectures on chemistry in Berlin, and published a translation of a part in 1838. Hammick was succeeded in the baronetcy by his second son, the Rev St Vincent Love Hammick (1806-1888).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000451
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hester, James Torry (1802 - 1874)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hetley, Frederic (1822 - 1902)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hewlett, Thomas ( - 1872)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hewson, John ( - 1867)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hey, Samuel (1815 - 1888)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Leighton, Susanna Elizabeth Jane (1959 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12 2011-07-20
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/372279372279
Occupation Paediatric otolaryngologist
Details Susanna Elizabeth Jane Leighton née Hurley was a consultant paediatric otolaryngologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London. She was born in Kobe, Japan, on 20 January 1959. She qualified at St Thomas's Hospital, London, where she completed an intercalated BSc in anatomy, and was vice-president of the Amalgamated Clubs and secretary of the Medical and Physical Society. After house jobs, she decided to train as a surgeon, and became the lead surgeon on the cochlear implant team at Great Ormond Street. She also developed an interest in airway management in craniosynostosis and wrote extensively on the subject, producing guidelines. She married Barry and had a daughter (Claudia) and two sons (John and Finn). She died from metastatic breast cancer on 6 August 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000092
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hickman, Edward (1796 - 1859)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Tomes, Sir Charles Sissmore (1846 - 1928)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-03-07
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/372644372644
Occupation Dental surgeon
Details Born in London on June 6th, 1846, the eldest son of Sir John Tomes (q.v.). He was educated at Radley College during the Wardenship of the Rev W Sewell and rowed in the School Eight in 1863. He matriculated at Oxford from Christ Church on May 27th, 1863, rowed in the Trial Eights in 1865, and graduated BA in 1866 after gaining a 1st class in the honours school of Natural Science. His name appeared in one of the shortest honours lists ever issued at the University, for he was alone in the first class, there were two names in the second, and none in the third or fourth classes. He became a student at the Middlesex Hospital, where his father was Surgeon Dentist, in October, 1866, and also attended at the Dental Hospital. He gained prizes in medicine and surgery in 1869. The Natural Science School at Oxford, in which he had been educated, was a school of biology under Professor George Rolleston; and histology, then a new science, was being taught by Charles Robertson. Tomes immediately showed the effects of their training and published in rapid succession a series of remarkable papers on the structure and development of the teeth in the Batrachia, Reptilia, Ophidia, and Pisces, as well as one on the enamel organ of the armadillo. The papers contained much that was original, and in 1878 he was elected FRS. He practised at 37 Cavendish Square, at first in partnership with his father, later with E G Bett and Sir Harry Baldwin. He lectured on anatomy and physiology at the Dental Hospital, where he was afterwards Surgeon and Consulting Surgeon. In 1898 he was appointed Crown representative on the General Medical Council when the Dental Board was established, and he acted as Treasurer of the General Medical Council from 1904-1920. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was an Examiner in Dental Surgery, 1881-1895, and in 1920 he presented to the Museum the microscopic preparations of teeth made by himself and by his father. The collection thus presented consists of more than 1300 specimens of ground, or otherwise prepared, sections of the teeth of vertebrate animals. The dental anatomy of all forms of mammalian teeth is depicted more fully than in any other collection. The ‘Tomes Collection’, which is thus accessible at the Royal College of Surgeons to students of dental anatomy, proves of the utmost use to those who are investigating problems in dental structure. Many of the specimens used by Sir Richard Owen in the preparation of his Odontography are also preserved in the Museum of the College. The oldest microscopic preparations of teeth in the College collection are those made by Hewson in the later part of the eighteenth century. During the European War Tomes served as Chairman of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital and was Inspector for the Norfolk Red Cross. For his services he was gazetted Knight Bachelor in 1919. He married in 1873 Lizzie Eno, a daughter of Charles D Cook, MD, of Brooklyn, New York, who with one daughter survived him. He died at his home, Mannington Hall, Aylsham, Norfolk, on Oct 24th, 1928. Like his father before him Tomes was a pioneer in the scientific advancement of dentistry, by which means alone it could attain the status of a learned profession. Less concerned with the political aspect of the movement to advance dentistry, he showed by his high character and hard work that there was such a scientific side which might be usefully investigated and profitably applied to the advancement of orthodontics. Publications:- “On the Development of the Teeth of Newt, Frog, Slowworm and Green Lizard.” — *Phil. Trans.*, 1875, clxv, 285. “On the Structure and Development of Teeth of Ophidia.”— *Ibid.*, 297. “On the Development and Succession of Poison-fangs of Snakes.” — *Ibid.*, 1876, clxvi, 377. “On the Development of the Teeth of Fishes.” — *Ibid.*, 257. “On the Structure and Development of Vascular Dentine.”— *Ibid.*, 1878, clxviii, 25. Tomes edited the 4th, 5th, and 6th editions (1894-1904) of *A Manual of Dental Anatomy, Human and Comparative*, and *A System of Dental Surgery*, 4th and 5th editions (1897-1906), originally written by Sir John Tomes (q.v.).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000460
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brand, Paul Wilson (1914 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-14
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/372215372215
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Paul Brand, a celebrated orthopaedic surgeon, devoted his life to the care of patients with leprosy. He was born in a remote mountain district in south east India, 150 miles from Mysore, on 17 July 1914, the son of Jesse Brand and his wife, Evelyn, both Baptist missionaries. Paul was sent away to England at the age of nine to attend the University College School, Hampstead, and for the next six years did not see his parents. After leaving school, he first decided on a career in building and construction, and in 1930 began a five-year building apprenticeship. In 1936 he began training to become a missionary at Norwood, Surrey. The following year he changed direction, and entered University College Medical School in London. There he met his future wife, Margaret Berry (they were married in 1943). During the second world war, he and his fellow students were on constant call during the Blitz. It was while treating these patients that Brand first began to develop an interest in hand surgery. The medical school was later evacuated to Watford, where he became interested in physiology and the control of pain. In 1944 he was appointed as a surgical officer at the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street, and then became assistant in the surgical unit at University College Hospital. In 1946 Brand and his wife were invited by Robert Cochrane, the foremost authority on leprosy, to join him at the Christian Medical College Hospital at Vellore, Tamil Nadu, southern India. Cochrane challenged Brand to use his skills as an orthopaedic surgeon to research and treat the disabilities associated with leprosy. Through his subsequent research Brand changed the world’s perceptions and treatments of leprosy-affected people. Firstly, he pioneered the idea that the loss of fingers and toes in leprosy was due to the patient losing the feeling of pain, and was not due to inherent decay brought on by the disease. Secondly, as a skilled and inventive hand surgeon, he pioneered tendon transfer techniques with leprosy patients, opening up a new world of disability prevention and rehabilitation. His original tendon transplantation, using a good muscle from the patient’s forearm, became known as the ‘Brand operation’. In 1953 the Brands joined the staff of the Leprosy Mission International and continued to develop their research and training work at Vellore and the newly founded Schieffelin Leprosy Research and Training Centre, Karigiri. In 1964 Brand was appointed as the International Leprosy Mission’s director of surgery and rehabilitation. Two years later, the Brands were seconded to the US Public Health Service Hospital in Carville, Louisiana, a renowned centre for leprosy research. He became chief of rehabilitation and for more than 20 years taught surgery and orthopaedics at the Medical College at Louisiana State University. He served on the expert panel for leprosy of the World Health Organization. He was medical consultant and then international president of the Leprosy Mission, from 1992 to 1999, co-founded the All-Africa Leprosy and Rehabilitation Training Centre (ALERT) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and served on the board of the American Leprosy Missions. After retiring in the mid-1980s, Brand moved to Seattle to become emeritus clinical professor of orthopaedics at the University of Washington. He authored more than 100 clinical papers, as well as the textbook *Clinical mechanics of the hand* (St Louis, Missouri, Mosby, 1985), and two books on religion and medicine (*Fearfully and wonderfully made* [Grand Rapids, Michigan, Zondervan Publishing House, c.1980] and *The forever feast: letting God satisfy your deepest hunger* [Crowborough, Monarch, 1994]). He was appointed CBE in 1961, and was awarded the Damian Dutton award in 1977. He was Hunterian Professor at the College in 1952 and received the Albert Lasker award in 1960. He died on 8 July 2003 from complications related to a subdural haematoma. He is survived by his wife, an expert on the ophthalmic effects of leprosy, his children (Estelle, Chris, Jean, Mary, Patricia and Pauline) and 12 grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000028
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Higginbottom, John (1788 - 1876)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002200-E002299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374402374402
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on June 14th, 1788, at Ashton-under-Lyne, the son of a highly respected solicitor. He was sent to several small private schools unsuited to a delicate young boy. His father intended him for a solicitor, but the boy hated desk work, had a taste for drawing, and a love of angling and books about fishing. He was, however, apprenticed to an uncle, a surgeon at Stockport, where his duties included the grooming of the horse, taking it to water night and morning, sweeping out the surgery, cleaning all the bottles and shelves in the shop every third morning, preparing powders, mixtures, and blisters, ointments, plasters, and a large stock of pills, without a fire in the surgery, hence much chapping of hands. He went to Edinburgh in October, 1809, and his course there completed, he became assistant to Mr Attenburrow, who had a large practice in Nottingham. The country round involved journeys of twenty miles on horseback, often starting before breakfast, the rest of the day on foot. He also acted as Dresser at the General Hospital, to which Attenburrow was Surgeon. Among his friends were the family of Corrie, one of whom became Bishop of Madras and another Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. After two years at Nottingham, Higginbottom attended lectures by Astley Cooper and others in London, and qualified in 1818. He then returned to Nottingham and rapidly acquired a large practice. In this he was favoured by his marriage with Ann, daughter of Robert Hall (1755-1827), of New Basford, who developed the bleaching of linen by chlorine, replacing the slow process in the open air. She was the sister of Marshall Hall, who practised in Nottingham between 1817 and 1826. Higginbottom, from the days of his apprenticeship onwards, was a convinced advocate of teetotalism, and, at a time when alcohol was prescribed as a stimulant to excess, was an avowed abstainer who did not prescribe alcohol as a tonic. He long retained a large practice, and his tall figure and handsome and benevolent face were well known in Nottingham to two generations. He died of old age at St Alban's Villas, Gill Street, Nottingham, on April 7th, 1876. Publilcations: Among Higginbottom's writings was his advocacy of the application of nitrate of silver to wounds and ulcers, which he claimed as having a curative influence on inflammation, a claim time has not confirmed. *An Essay on the Application of the Lunar Caustic to the Cure of Certain Wounds and Ulcers*, 1826; reprinted with slight alterations in 1829, 1850, and 1865. "Observations on the Development of the Triton and Frog." - *Philosophical Trans*, 1850, cxl, 431; *Proc. Roy. Soc.*, 1843-50, v, 669, 949; 1860-2, xi, 532. Observations undertaken at the suggestion of Marshall Hall. Articles against alcohol in the *Lancet*, 1857, ii, 166, etc., and *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1861, ii, 425, etc; 1868, i, 26. "Advocacy of Ipecacuanha as an Emetic." - *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1869, i, 143.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002219
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Higgins, Charles Hayes (1811 - 1898)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hill, Alexander (1856 - 1929)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002200-E002299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374404374404
Occupation General surgeon
Details Son of John Hill, a member of the London Stock Exchange; born at Loughton, Essex, and educated at University College School. He matriculated at Cambridge in 1874 as a scholar of Downing College, and graduated BA in 1877, after obtaining a first class in the Natural Science Tripos. He then entered St Bartholomew's Hospital, took the MD degree, and was elected a Fellow of Downing College in 1880. There he lectured lucidly and charmingly on histology and the anatomy of the brain. He was elected Master of Downing College in 1888 and served as Vice-Chancellor of the University for the years 1897-1899, when he entertained the Mayor and Corporation of Cambridge at an official banquet in the hall of Downing College. He thereby perpetuated the foundation of happy relations between the town and the university. Hill desired to remodel Downing College somewhat on the lines of All Souls' College, Oxford. The proposal did not commend itself to the governing body, and he resigned his mastership in 1907. He accepted the post of Principal of University College, Southampton, in 1912, and retained it until the end of the European War, when he was elected Vice-President. During the War he acted as Medical Officer to the Military Hospital which was established in the residential hostel of the Southampton College, and made cross-channel voyages in hospital ships in charge of the wounded. From 1922 he represented the University of Cambridge on the governing body of University College, Southampton. He served from 1901-1906 as a Treasury Commissioner to report on the various University Colleges of England, and from 1888-1908 he was Chairman of the National Home Reading Union which stimulated a love of learning among quiet fireside readers. He married in 1878 Emma, daughter of Benjamin Woodward, of Liverpool, who survived him with a son and daughter. He died at Southampton after some months of failing health on February 28th, 1929. Hill devoted himself unselfishly to the cause of education in the humbler as well as in the higher spheres. He attained eminence as a public speaker and was able to attract as large audiences as any other scientific teacher of the day. He did not, however, allow his zeal for education to wean him entirely from scientific pursuits, for he was Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1885-1886, when he gave three lectures on "The Mutual Relation of the Grey Masses of the Cerebrospinal System and their Connections with Peripheral Nerves". He was President of the Neurological Society in 1896. Publications: Hill published in the *Philosophical Trans. Roy. Soc.*, 1893, clxxxiv, B, 367, a paper on Ornithorhynchus ; and another on the Cerebral Hippocampus, *Ibid*, 389. His well-annotated translation of Obersteiner's *Central Nervous Organs* attained a wide circulation. *A Primer of Physiology*, 1901. *Notes to Browning's Poems*.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002221
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hillas, George Leicester (1806 - 1871)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hilliard, John (1810 - 1876)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Mayo, William James (1861 - 1939)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-03-11
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372648372648
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Le Sueur, Minnesota on 29 June 1861, the elder son of William Worrall Mayo and Louise Abigail Wright, his wife. The younger son Charles Horace Mayo was also an Honorary FRCS. For an account of W W Mayo, their father, see the life of C H Mayo, above. William J Mayo, was educated at the Rochester High School and at Niles Academy, working in a local drug store during the vacations. When a tornado struck Rochester in 1883, W Worrall Mayo was appointed to take charge of an improvized hospital and a number of Sisters of St Francis worked with him to help the wounded. The Mother Superior proposed to build a permanent hospital in memory of the catastrophe, provided sufficient money for the purpose and nominated Mayo to take charge of it. The hospital was opened in 1889 under the name of St Mary's Hospital with thirteen patients. It was always the rule that each patient paid according to his means, that fees would not be required from charitable organizations, and that the patient's promise to pay was a sufficient guarantee. The institution quickly became known, first as the Mayo Clinic, later (1915) as the Mayo Foundation. The Mayo brothers gave $1,500,000, and on making the endowment William Mayo, speaking also for his brother, said “We never regarded the money as ours; it came from the people, and we believe it should go back to the people.” The two brothers worked throughout in the utmost harmony and to the end of their lives had a common pocket book in which each wanted the other to have the greater share. Both had the essential attribute of a true gentleman, consideration for others. At first neither brother specialized in surgery; later William was the more inclined to operate upon the abdomen, Charles upon the head and neck. Of the two “Willie” was the better administrator, “Charlie” the more original. Both were simple in their lives and actions, both were humble-minded in spite of their great success in life, and both were witty, each in his own way. During the war William, who had received a commission as a first lieutenant in the Medical Reserve Corps in 1913, was promoted major in 1917 and later colonel in the United States Army Medical Corps. During 1917-19 he was chief consultant for the Medical Service; he was appointed colonel, Medical Reserve Corps in 1920 and brigadier-general in 1921. A regent of the University of Minnesota since 1907, William Mayo was president of the Minnesota State Medical Society in 1895, president of the American Medical Association 1905-06, president of the Society of Clinical Surgery 1911-12, president of the American Surgical Association 1913-14, president of the American College of Surgeons 1917-19, and president of the Congress of American Physicians and Surgeons 1925. In 1919 he was awarded a gold medal by the National Institution of Social Sciences for his services to mankind. In 1933 he received a special award from the University of Minnesota in recognition of his distinguished services in the furtherance of scientific studies. He married Hattie M Daman of Rochester, Minnesota. She survived, him with two daughters: Mrs Waltman Walters, wife of a director of the Mayo Clinic, and Mrs Donald C Balfour, wife of the director of the Mayo Foundation. He died in his sleep at Rochester, Minnesota, on 28 July 1939, after suffering from a sub-acute perforating ulcer of the stomach, for the relief of which he had been operated upon in the previous April.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000464
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Rumsey, Henry Wyldbore (1809 - 1876)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-03-11 2012-03-09
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/372649372649
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Chesham, Buckinghamshire, on July 3rd, 1809, the eldest son of Henry Nathaniel Rumsey, a surgeon, by his wife, Elizabeth Frances Catherine, second daughter of Sir Robert Murray, Bart, whom he had married late in life. His grandfather, the youngest son of an old Welsh family, had settled and practised in Chesham from the middle of the eighteenth century. Rumsey's father had taken shorthand notes of John Hunter's lectures in 1786 and 1787. His notes were printed by James F Palmer in his edition of Hunter's works, who says of them, "one might almost suppose that the writer had had access to the Hunterian manuscript: for besides being generally more full, it never omits examples and illustrations in proof of opinions. The style too is characteristically Hunterian." Rumsey received a desultory education, one of his tutors being the Rev Joseph Bosworth, DD (1789-1876), the eminent Anglo-Saxon scholar. He was apprenticed at the age of 16 to Dr Attenburrow at the Nottingham Hospital, and afterwards became a house pupil of Caesar Hawkins (q.v.), Surgeon to St George's Hospital. In 1831 he was Resident Physician for three months to Lord Dillon at Ditchley, in Oxfordshire, after which he returned to Chesham and took over the family practice. Three years later he went to Gloucester, where he remained for twelve years, acting as Surgeon to the Dispensary, and being appointed Cholera Inspector in 1849. Having overworked himself in this office, he retired to Cheltenham, and from 1851 built up a large practice by his delicate generosity, untiring industry, his suavity, and his kind-heartedness. He got into financial difficulties towards the close of his life owing to the failure of *The European*, and his friends - Dr William Farr being Chairman of the fund - presented him in 1876 with a handsome sum of money, a service of silver plate, and obtained for him a Civil List pension of £100 a year. He died at Prestbury, near Cheltenham, on Oct 23rd, 1876. Rumsey was one of the leading sanitarians of his generation. Lacking the science, philosophic insight, organizing power, and literary genius of Sir John Simon, and the masterly command of statistics possessed by Dr William Farr, he was none the less a great man. In 1835, after having devoted much attention to the establishment of provident societies among the working classes, he commenced his labours as Hon Secretary of the Sick Poor Committee of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association - labours which were continued for ten years. He furnished materials for a series of Reports, on which was founded a Bill, introduced into the House of Commons in 1840 by Mr Serjeant Talfourd, for the better regulation of Medical Relief under the Poor Law. This led to his being examined, first in 1838 by the Poor Law Committee of the House of Commons, and again in 1844 by Lord Ashley's Select Committee on Medical Poor Relief, when he submitted a mass of evidence, collected with much labour, relating to the sickness prevalent among the poor in towns, and forcibly showing the need of preventive measures, under the superintendence and control of a General Department of Public Health. The results of these investigations, and of his previous inquiries into the working of the so-called self-supporting Dispensaries, were embodied in two pamphlets, one published in 1837, on *The Advantages to the Poor of Mutual Assurance against Sickness*, the other in 1846, in connection with Lord Lincoln's Public Health Bill and Sir James Graham's Bill for the Regulation of the Medical Profession, on *The Health and Sickness of Town Populations*. After the publication in 1836 of his paper on the "Statistics of Friendly Societies", with suggestions and forms for an improved Registration of Sickness in connection with them, Rumsey on many occasions, either singly in papers of remarkable ability, or in co-operation with others, pointed out with much clearness and force certain "Fallacies of Vital and Sanitary Statistics", and the difficulty of drawing correct conclusions regarding the Public Health from returns of mortality, apart from records of sickness. In 1848, in his "Remarks on the Constitution of the Authorities under the Public Health Bill", then before Parliament, he anticipated and indicated with great precision the defects - many of which had remained unremedied - of that important measure. The same high intelligence and remarkable mental activity and acuteness were conspicuously manifested by him in the prominent part he took in all the subsequent phases of sanitary legislation, and in the valuable evidence given by him before the Royal Sanitary Commission in 1869. He was consulted in 1849 by the authorities of the Colony of St Christopher's, and in 1850 by the nascent Colony of New Zealand, on their sanitary schemes. His merits and public services were repeatedly recognized. In 1863, by the advice of the Privy Council, he was nominated by the Queen a Member of the General Medical Council; in 1868 and 1869 he was nominated a Member of the Royal Sanitary Commission. It was mainly under Rumsey's guidance, and largely at his instigation, that the British Medical Association procured the appointment of the Royal Sanitary Commission, whence has sprung the improved sanitary legislation of our days; and he will be remembered among the band of workers - Farr, Simon, Stewart, Michael, Acland, Stokes, Clode, and Chadwick - who have placed the health of the people upon a new and surer footing. He died at the beginning of November, 1876, and at the time of his death was an honorary member of the Metropolitan Association of Health Officers and a Fellow of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society. Rumsey's best-known book, which for many years was the only work on the subject, was his *Essays on State Medicine* (8vo, London, 1856). To attempt to write his full bibliography would be useless in any short notice of his life, but the following remarks by his able biographer in the *British Medical Journal* may be taken as covering most of the ground: "The very numerous and able papers presented by him...to the British, the Social Science, and the British Medical Associations, and to the Manchester Statistical Society, or published either separately or in various reviews, form a record of unwearied literary and philanthropic activity such as not many public men can boast of. Amongst the most important of these, not already adverted to, are his Address on Sanitary Legislation and Administration read at the first Meeting of the Social Science Association in 1857; Public Health, the right use of Records founded on Local Facts, in 1860; A Proposal for the Institution of Degrees or Certificates of Qualification in State Medicine, in 1865; Comments on the Sanitary Act, in 1866; an Address on State Medicine, delivered at the Dublin Meeting of the British Medical Association in 1867, and followed by the formation of the Joint Committee of the British Medical and Social Science Associations, which applied for and obtained from Her Majesty's Government the appointment of the Royal Sanitary Commission in 1868. On Population Statistics, with reference to a County Organization for Sanitary Administration, in 1870; and a paper on The State Medicine Qualification, which was read before the London Meeting of the British Medical Association in 1873, and led to the appointment of a Committee for the promotion of legislation on that subject."
Resource Identifier RCS: E000465
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cameron, Alexander (1933 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-14 2006-12-21
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/372220372220
Occupation General surgeon
Details Alexander Cameron, known as ‘Alistair’, was a consultant surgeon at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. He was born in Tranent, East Lothian, on 1 August 1933, the son of Alexander Cameron, a miner who became vice-president of the National Union of Mineworkers for the Scottish area, and Margaret née Hogg, a shop assistant. He was educated at Tranent Public Primary School and then Preston Lodge School, where he gained a distinction in literature and was *dux* of his class. He studied medicine in Edinburgh and then did house jobs at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. From 1957 to 1959, he served as a surgeon lieutenant, first in Portsmouth, and then as a medical officer aboard HMS *Torquay* and then HMS *Scarborough*, part of the Fifth Frigate Squadron of the Mediterranean fleet, visiting Malta and Syracuse. In July 1958, he was present at the nuclear test explosions on Christmas Island. His meticulous medical records of this and his formal instructions for decontamination and cleansing remain intact for safe keeping with his wife. He then sailed back to the UK via Samoa, Auckland, Sydney, Perth, Sri Lanka and the Suez Canal. Returning to civilian life south of the border as senior house officer at the North Middlesex Hospital, he gained his FRCS in 1962. An appointment as research assistant to Leslie Le Quesne and Michael Hobsley from 1964 to 1967 was followed by a rotating registrar post to the Middlesex and Central Middlesex hospitals, where he fell under the influence of Sir Rodney Sweetman, P Newman, Sir Thomas Holmes Sellors and Peter Gummer. He became senior registrar to O V Lloyd Davies from 1967 to 1970, followed by his appointment as senior lecturer with honorary consultant status in 1970. Gaining his masters degree in 1973, he went to Sweden and Germany to learn the techniques of the Koch continent ileostomy, which he went on to popularise in the UK. Appointed consultant surgeon to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in 1973, he was the first person with a specialist colo-proctological interest: the unit is now much expanded. It was usual in those days for the ‘junior’ surgeon in Norwich to have a paediatric interest, so Alistair spent some time at Great Ormond Street to help him in his new venture. He was surgical tutor from 1976 to 1979, and was a popular and outstanding teacher at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. A series of myocardial infarcts obliged him to retire early in 1988. He was operated on at Papworth in 1981 and 1989 by J Wallwork, using a procedure pioneered by his own boss, Sir Thomas Holmes Sellors. Distancing himself from medicine, he was able to continue his interests in astronomy, botany, microscopy, modern languages (French, German, Spanish and Italian), together with his passion for philosophy, poetry, history and politics. It was in these areas he was a formidable opponent in debate. An earlier interest in classical Greek and Latin was rekindled and, with an outstanding knowledge of computer technology, he managed to fill his life restricted by cardiac disability. An article on his experiences as a cardiac patient ‘Reflections in a glass box’, showed true and amusingly thoughtful insight into the NHS, its staff and his own condition. He met Elizabeth (‘Widdy’) neé Padfield when she was a surgical ward sister at the Middlesex. They married in 1970 and had four sons, Duncan, Angus, Hamish and Dougal. Alistair died on 20 February 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000033
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Campbell, Sir Donald (1930 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-14
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/372221372221
Occupation Anaesthetist
Details Sir Donald Campbell was a former professor of anaesthesia at the University of Glasgow and President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow from 1992 to 1994. He was born on 8 March 1930 at Rutherglen, near Glasgow, the son of Archibald Peter and Mary Campbell. He attended Hutcheson’s Boys’ Grammar School and then went on to the University of Glasgow, where he studied medicine. After completing resident posts, he left for Canada to begin his training in anaesthesia, working in Edmonton and in Lethbridge, Alberta. In 1956 he returned to Glasgow to complete his training at the Royal Infirmary and Stobhill. From 1959 to 1960, he was a lecturer in anaesthetics at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. In 1960 he transferred to the health service department as a consultant anaesthetist, a post he held for the next 16 years. While training in Canada he had developed an interest in anaesthesia for heart surgery and also noted the early development of intensive care units. Using his diplomatic skills, he succeeded in persuading his colleagues that this was the way forward for their patients. The respiratory intensive care unit was opened in 1966, with Campbell as its first director. His research interests covered the development of ventilators, the pharmacology of new analgesic drugs, and the effects of smoke inhalation on the lungs. His published works included over 100 papers on anaesthesia, intensive care, and related subjects in peer-reviewed journals. He was the author of two textbooks. In 1976 he was appointed to the chair of anaesthesia in Glasgow. In this post he was able to develop his interest in medical education. For a period of four years from 1987 he was dean of the medical school. From 1985 to 1990 he was Chairman of the Scottish Council for Postgraduate Medical Education. As a member of the medical advisory committee of the British Council he was involved in arranging attachments to UK departments for many young trainee anaesthetists from overseas and also from the Royal Navy. On the national stage, he was vice-president of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland in 1977, and President of the Scottish Society of Anaesthetists in 1979. He was an examiner and board member of the Faculty of Anaesthetists (the forerunner of the Royal College of Anaesthetists), and was elected dean of the faculty for three years from 1982. He went on to become vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1985 to 1987. Before he retired, he was elected President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, the first anaesthetist to hold this post. He was awarded the CBE in 1987 and he received his knighthood in 1994, in recognition of his contribution to medicine. He suffered a stroke soon after his retirement, and this limited his ability to enjoy his favourite sports of fishing, curling and shooting. It did not, however, suppress his enjoyment of people and his skill as a raconteur. He married twice. His first wife was Nancy Rebecca McKintosh, ‘Nan’. They married in 1954 and had a son and a daughter. After her death in 1974 he married Catherine Conway Braeburn. They had two daughters. He died on 14 September 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000034
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Carr, George Raymond (1922 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Rees, Neville Clark (1922 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Raffle, Philip Andrew Banks (1918 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 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/372302372302
Occupation Occupational physician
Details Andrew Raffle, former chief medical officer of London Transport Executive, was an expert on medical standards for driving. He was born on 3 September 1918 in Newcastle upon Tyne, where his father, Andrew Banks Raffle, a barrister and a doctor, was medical officer for health for South Shields (he was later divisional medical officer to the London County Council). His mother was Daisy née Jarvis, the daughter of a farmer. His two uncles were both doctors. He studied medicine at Middlesex Hospital, qualifying in 1941, and was subsequently a house surgeon at Cheltenham. He then spent five years with the RAMC, becoming a specialist in venereology in Egypt during the North African campaign with the rank of Major. After demobilisation, he was a medical registrar in Bristol and then took the diploma in public health at the London School of Hygiene. In 1948 he joined London Transport under the aegis of Leslie Norman, whom he succeeded in 1969 as chief medical officer. There he carried out research to find evidence of the relationship between exercise and heart disease, by comparing the health of drivers and conductors. He also worked on the medical aspects of fitness to drive, becoming an acknowledged expert in this field. He advised the Department of Transport and other organisations on safe levels of alcohol in the blood, and the effects of diabetes and various medications on the ability to drive. He edited *Medical aspects of fitness to drive: a guide for medical practitioners* (London, Medical Commission on Accident Prevention, 1976), which became a key text for doctors to use when assessing patients. He was a member of the Blennerhasset committee on drinking and driving legislation. He continued to write papers on health standards for drivers up to 1992. He gave the BMA McKenzie industrial health lecture in 1974 and the Joseph Henry lecture at the College in 1988. He wrote many chapters in textbooks and was co-editor of *Hunter's diseases of occupations* (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1987). He taught occupational medicine to postgraduates and was an examiner, and later convenor, for the diploma in industrial health at the Society of Apothecaries. He became chief medical officer of the St John Association and masterminded the Save-a-Life campaign, to teach resuscitation to a wider public. He was a fellow of the BMA and deputy Chairman of the occupational health committee. He was President of the Society of Occupational Medicine in 1967, and treasurer and subsequently vice-president of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was a member of the standing committee which led to the establishment of the new Faculty of Occupational Medicine in 1978. He was a founder fellow and served on the first board of the new faculty. He married Jill, the daughter of Major V H Sharp of the Royal Horse Artillery, in 1941. They had no children. In 1982 they retired to an isolated Oxfordshire village, where he took up gardening. He died of heart failure on 23 January 2004 and is survived by his widow.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000115
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cobb, Richard Alan (1953 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hartridge, Gustavus (1850 - 1923)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Harvey, Richard Sutton (1803 - 1882)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Haslam, Arthur Charles (1873 - 1927)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Haslehurst, Thomas (1800 - 1866)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Havers, John (1815 - 1884)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Haward, Edwin (1815 - 1902)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hawkins, Charles (1812 - 1892)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002100-E002199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374347374347
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on May 29th, 1812, his father, of an old Monmouthshire family, being a Doctor of Medicine and Roman Catholic who, in 1836, settled in practice in Upper Brook Street. He with two brothers were sent to Oscott, another brother became well known as a barrister, an active Governor of St George's Hospital, and a protestant. Charles Hawkins was unrelated to the great Hawkins family of surgeons. He entered St George's Hospital on January 28th, 1829, as a perpetual pupil of Sir Benjamin Brodie, and in 1886 he was House Surgeon. He then became assistant to Brodie, who had more patients than he was able to attend to. He thus obtained a large practice and gained experience. But in 1843, in spite of Brodie's support, Henry C Johnson (qv) was appointed Assistant Surgeon to St George's Hospital after an election contest in the old style. In 1848 he did not contest the next vacancy, when Prescott Hewett (qv) was appointed. In spite of all, Hawkins continued a warm supporter of the hospital, and took a leading part in its government and in the development of the convalescent branch at Wimbledon. For some years he was acting Treasurer of the hospital and was afterwards elected a Vice-President. He laboured constantly to promote the Medical School which Brodie had rendered well known. He was Hon Secretary and Treasurer of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society. He served from 1866-1873 on the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons as one of the reform party of the time. As a Roman Catholic he attended Cardinal Wiseman in Rome in 1860, receiving from Pope Pius IX a gold medal in recognition of his services; he was also consulted at the beginning of Cardinal Manning's last illness. He was Consulting Surgeon to Queen Charlotte's Hospital, and for many years, until his death, Inspector of Schools of Anatomy. He had attended Brodie in his last illness, and is chiefly to be remembered as the editor of Brodie's collected works, together with an autobiography and a short biographical notice by Hawkins, published in 1865 in three volumes. Until within a few years of his death he had lived and practised at 27 Savile Row, then at 9 Duke Street, when he frequented the Athenaeum and loved to talk over old times with his friends. At the end of 1891 he was attacked by bronchitis and was found dead in his chair on April 4th, 1892. He never married. Publications: In Holmes's *System of Surgery* Hawkins wrote the article on Lithotrity in 1864, which he republished with additions in 1870. "An Exceptional Case of Faecal Accumulation in the Bladder following on a Rectovesical Fistula in a Man, Successfully Relieved by Lithotrity." - *Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1858, xli, 441; 1859, xlii, 423.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002164
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brennan, Thomas Gabriel (1937 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Gatehouse, David (1944 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Porter, Richard William (1935 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-21 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/372431372431
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Richard William Porter was a distinguished orthopaedic surgeon in Aberdeen. He was born on 16 February 1935 in Doncaster, the son of J Luther Porter, a china merchant and Methodist minister, and Mary Field. He was educated at Oundle and Edinburgh University, and completed his surgical training at Edinburgh. Following house appointments he became a ships' surgeon for three months before returning to Edinburgh as a senior house officer and passing the FRCS Edinburgh and the DObstRCOG. He began his surgical training as a registrar in Sheffield and after obtaining the FRCS England in 1966 he became a senior registrar on the orthopaedic training programme at King's College Hospital, where he was much influenced by Hubert Wood and Christopher Attenborough. He returned to Doncaster as consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Royal Infirmary and soon took an interest in low back pain, a common problem among the coal miners. He set up a research programme and established a department of bioengineering which attracted postgraduate students from home and abroad. He became an authority on the use of ultrasound in the investigation of back pain published papers and a book on the subject and was awarded an MD in 1981 for this work. His reputation resulted in the presidency of the Society for Back Pain Research and a founder membership of the European Spine Society. He was also on the council of the British Orthopaedic Association and the Society of Clinical Anatomists. In 1990 he was appointed to the Sir Harry Platt chair of orthopaedic surgery in Aberdeen and developed links with China and Romania, and later became the first Syme professor of orthopaedics in the University of Edinburgh and director of education and training at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Following his retirement he returned to Doncaster and, as a devout Christian, played a very full part in the local Evangelical Methodist Church. He published extensively and was the author of three textbooks. In 1964 he married Christine Brown, whom he had known since his schooldays. They had four sons, one of whom is an orthopaedic surgeon, two are Anglican ministers and one a Methodist minister. He died on 20 July 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000244
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Booth, John Barton (1937 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-21 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/372432372432
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details John Barton Booth was a consultant ENT surgeon at St Bartholomew's and the Royal London Hospitals. He was born on 19 November 1937, the son of Percy Leonard Booth and Mildred Amy née Wilson. He was educated at Canford School and at King's College, London, where he became an Associate (a diploma award given by the theology department), flirted with politics (the Conservative Party) and law, but in the end qualified in medicine. After house appointments at the Birmingham Accident Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, he started ENT training at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital. He subsequently became a senior registrar at the Royal Free Hospital, working with John Ballantyne and John Groves, and for one day a week he was seconded to the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases as clinical assistant to Margaret Dix, who was famous as an audiological physician with a particular interest in balance problems. The influence of these mentors very much guided John into a career in otology and he later confirmed his position in that field by being elected a Hunterian Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons. His lecture was based on his work on Ménière's disease. He was appointed consultant surgeon to the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital and consultant ENT surgeon to the London (later Royal London) Hospital and subsequently to the Royal Hospital of St Bartholomew's. John was never happy with the fusion of the Royal London and Bart's, particularly as the ENT department was relocated at Bart's. He was appointed as a civilian consultant (otology) to the RAF, which gave him the opportunity to practise otology in Cyprus for two weeks in June every year. John Booth had a strong Christian belief and moral code, which underpinned his life. He was always immaculately dressed, precise in his manner, thoughtful in his approach to problems and determined in his belief that a job should be well done and with no half measures. He was always a person who could be relied upon, which explains the succession of responsible positions he held. He edited the *Journal of Laryngology & Otology* from 1987 to 1992, as well as the volume on diseases of the ear in two editions of *Scott-Brown's Otolaryngology*. For the Royal Society of Medicine he was president of the section of otology and council member, honorary secretary and subsequently vice-president of the Society. For the British Academic Conference in Otolarynoglogy he was honorary secretary of the general committee for the eighth conference, becoming chairman of the same committee for the ninth. John inherited the significant voice practice of his father-in-law, Ivor Griffiths, and continued his association with the Royal Opera House, the Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain, the Concert Artists Association and the Musicians Benevolent Fund, until his retirement in 2000. In addition, he was honorary consultant to St Luke's Hospital for the Clergy. John had a great interest in the history of his specialty and in art. He was able, with Sir Alan Bowness, to combine these two interests in a publication on Barbara Hepworth's drawings of ear surgery, which appeared as a supplement in the *Journal of Laryngology & Otology* (April 2000). He married Carroll Griffiths in 1966. They both enjoyed playing golf, either at the RAC Club or on the Isle of Man, where they retired. John took great pride in his membership of the MCC and the R and A at St Andrew's. On retirement he switched from ENT and became a physician at St Bridget's Hospice in Douglas. He managed to combine part-time work at the hospice with the care of Carroll, who had been ill for eight years. She died on 3 July 2004 and John died of a massive coronary thrombosis on 22 July 2005. He left their son, James. Neil Weir
Resource Identifier RCS: E000245
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Witte, Jens (1941 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-02 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/372347372347
Occupation Colorectal surgeon Oesophageal surgeon Upper gastrointestinaI surgeon
Details Jens Witte, doyen of German surgery, was born on 4 February 1941 in Perleberg, Mark/Brandenburg, the eldest of three sons of a surgeon father. He studied medicine at the Universities of Homburg/Saar, Hamburg and Berlin. After qualifying, he became a medizinalassistent in Bielefeld and Hamburg, spent some time in a mission hospital in Tanzania, and returned to work under Egerhard Weisschedel in Konstantz. There followed a series of brilliant appointments under Georg Heberer, first in Cologne and then in Munich, becoming professor in 1982 and head of viszeralchirugie in 1984. His special interests were in oesophageal and colorectal surgery. He was a prominent member of the professional surgical organisation, becoming its President in 1998. Active in the European Union of Medical Specialists, he was President of the section of surgery in 2002 and devoted himself to the integration and training of surgeons in the former East Germany. He was the recipient of many honours, including that of our College. He died unexpectedly on 12 June 2003 in Augsburg.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000160
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hawkins, Thomas Henry (1838 - 1881)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002100-E002199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374351374351
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Studied at King's College Hospital and in Paris. He was House Surgeon at King's College Hospital, then at the Royal Ophthalmic Hospital. He later practised at Newbury, where he was Surgeon to the Speen Cottage Hospital, Ophthalmic Surgeon to the Newbury Dispensary, and Coroner for the Borough. Shortly before his death he migrated to South Australia, began practice in Adelaide, and died there on July 2nd, 1881.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002168
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hawthorne, Arthur Neville (1820 - 1866)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England Updated obituary: Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2012-04-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002100-E002199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374352374352
Occupation General surgeon Apothecary
Details Practised at Eccleshall, Staffordshire, and died on January 20th, 1866. *See below for an expanded version of the published obituary uploaded 02/04/2025:* Arthur Neville Hawthorne was a surgeon who practised at Eccleshall, Staffordshire. He was born in Ireland in around 1820. He started his medical career as an apothecary: in January 1833 he signed up as an apprentice to an apothecary in Dublin. He went on to become a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England on 17 June 1840 and a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries of London in 1843. On 8 June 1859 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He also gained a licence in midwifery in Dublin. He was a fellow of the Obstetrical Society of London. For most of his career he worked from a practice on the High Street in Eccleshall. In September 1860, listed as ‘gentleman’, he became an honorary assistant surgeon to the Staffordshire Rifle Volunteer Corps. In April 1850 he married Anne Buckley. They had five children: Arthur, Jane Kathleen, Archibald Stewart, Frederick Buckley and Edith Mary. Hawthorne died on 20 January 1866 of ‘apoplexy’, according to his *Lancet* death notice, aged 46. He was survived by his wife and children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002169
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Haydon, Nathaniel John (1814 - 1884)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002100-E002199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374353374353
Occupation General surgeon
Details Studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he gained the Senior Prize for Clinical Surgery in 1886, and afterwards in Paris. He practised first at Bodmin, then at Bovey Tracy, Devonshire, where he was Certifying Factory Surgeon, Surgeon to the Oddfellows, and Local Medical Referee to the Home for Incurables. In the early seventies he removed to Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, where he was Surgeon to the Dispensary. Finally he returned to Devonshire, and practised at Bampton Street, Tiverton, where he died on December 6th, 1884.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002170
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Annis, David (1921 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-06 2012-07-19
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/372191372191
Occupation General surgeon
Details David Annis was a consultant surgeon at Liverpool's Royal Infirmary. His father was a Polish Jew who emigrated from England to Canada and served with distinction in the Canadian Army during the first world war, being decorated for his conduct at Vimy Ridge. After the war, he returned to England to set up a pharmaceutical company in Manchester and married a Christian Protestant woman, much to the displeasure of his family, who held a funeral service for him. David was educated at Manchester Grammar School, and then studied medicine at Liverpool. He always wanted to be a surgeon. He took his primary FRCS after his second MB in 1939. After house jobs at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary, he gained his FRCS. He was appointed research fellow in experimental surgery at the Mayo Clinic from 1949 to 1951, but refused a third year and returned to Liverpool University as senior lecturer in the department of surgery. He was appointed consultant surgeon at the Royal Infirmary in 1954. For the next 25 years he had a distinguished academic career. He was director of studies in surgical science and of the bioengineering unit. He was an examiner at many British universities, as well as in Lagos and Riga, and was a member of the Court of Examiners, accompanying them to India, Ceylon, Burma and Singapore. In 1981, he left his hospital post to set up a new department of clinical engineering at Liverpool University where, together with a polymer scientist, he used electrostatic spinning to produce elastic polyurethane grafts which provided pulsatile vessels for implanting into pigs and sheep. He was a member of the editorial committee of the Bioengineering Journal and the British Journal of Surgery and of the physiological systems and disorders board of the Medical Research Council. A physician colleague described him as a physician/physiologist who operated. He was a popular member and sometime President of the Moynihan Chirurgical Club, where he and his wife Nesta were superb hosts. As a young man David enjoyed playing the clarinet and writing verse. He enjoyed the countryside and motoring abroad. A shy, diffident, kind, amusing and courageous man, he was a role model for a generation of young surgeons. He and Nesta had four children, three of whom work in the NHS. For the last two years of his life he was affected by Alzheimer's disease. He died on 3 February 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000004
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Salz, Michael Heinz (1916 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Scott, James Steel (1924 - 2006)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Lawrence, Sir William (1783 - 1867)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Travers, Benjamin (1783 - 1858)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Bond, Kenneth Edgar (1908 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Cook, Charles Alfred George (1913 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hickey, Brian Brendan (1912 - 2006)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hickinbotham, Paul Frederick John (1917 - 2006)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Katz, Gerson (1922 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-10-26
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/372455372455
Occupation Cardiothoracic surgeon
Details Gerson Katz was a cardiothoracic surgeon in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was born in Johannesburg and studied medicine at Witwatersrand University. After qualifying he completed junior posts in Durban at King Edward VIII Hospital. He then went to the UK, to specialise in surgery. He was a house surgeon at the National Temperance Hospital in 1947, subsequently doing registrar jobs at the London Chest and Harefield hospitals and then becoming a senior registrar in Southampton. In 1952 he returned to Johannesburg, to join Fatti and Adler in developing the cardiothoracic unit at the Johannesburg General Hospital. He entered private practice in 1956. He was appointed part-time consultant in the faculty in 1962. He worked at Rietfontein, Natalspruit, the old Johannesburg General, and former J G Stydom hospitals, before moving to Johannesburg Hospital. He retired in 2000. During his career he saw the evolution of open heart surgery. He was an outstanding teacher, winning an exceptional service medal from the Faculty of Health Sciences in 2001. He married Beatrice and they had five children. He had a great love for the arts. He died from acute myeloid leukaemia on 17 February 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000268
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gray, John Gowan (1927 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-10-26
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/372456372456
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Gowan Gray, known as ‘Ian’, was a consultant surgeon at the North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary, Stoke-on-Trent, and the Leek Memorial Hospital. He was born in Dalkeith, Midlothian, and qualified at Edinburgh, where he completed junior house posts. During the Korean War he served his National Service in the RAMC in the Far East. He returned to train in surgery, first at Glasgow Royal Infirmary and then at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, where he was a lecturer on the surgical unit. During this time he won a research fellowship to the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, doing transplant surgery under Paul Russell and carrying out the research which gained him a Hunterian Professorship in 1966. In 1965 he was appointed consultant surgeon in North Staffordshire, remaining there until he retired in 1992. His main interest was in transplant surgery, but latterly he turned his attention to the surgery of tumours of the breast and parathyroid. A keen golfer, he was captain of the Trentham Golf Club in 1987. His wife Margaret predeceased him. He died on 11 December 2005 from carcinoma of the pancreas, leaving six children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000269
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Luke, James (1799 - 1881)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-08-10 2012-07-19
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/372206372206
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details Born at Exeter on Dec. 12th, 1799, the third son of James Luke, merchant and banker, by his wife, who had been a Miss Ponsford, of Drewsteignton. He entered Blundell's School at Tiverton in 1813 and remained there until 1816, when, on the death of his father, he came to London and was articled to John Goldwyer Andrews (q.v.), of the London Hospital. He attended the lectures of Abernethy and Sir Astley Cooper, and was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy at the London Hospital in 1821; he became Lecturer on Anatomy in 1823 and on Surgery in 1825. He was elected Assistant Surgeon on Sept. 5th, 1827; Surgeon on Dec. 18th, 1833, and resigned on Aug. 13th, 1861, when he was elected Consulting Surgeon. During the whole of his active life in London he lived and practised at 37 Broad Street Buildings, E.C. He retired to Maidenhead Thicket in 1864, moving in 1878 to Fingest, Bucks, where he lived as a country gentleman and employed himself in wood carving until his death on Aug. 15th, 1881. He was buried in the cemetery at Kensal Green. He married: (1) Ann, daughter of William Rayley, and by her had a family, all of whom he outlived; and (2) Irene, daughter of Arthur Willis, of Bifrons, Essex. She survived him with one son and two daughters. The son - Arthur George - became a distinguished civil engineer at Chepstow and died in 1911. One daughter, Irene, married Dr. Reginald Wall, of Bayswater, father of Cecil Wall, M.D., who became Physician to the London Hospital. At the Royal College of Surgeons Luke was a Member of the Council from 1846-1866; a Vice-President in 1851, 1852, 1860, and 1861; President in 1853 and 1862; and Hunterian Orator in 1852. He was also a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1851-1868, Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1852 and 1861, and of the Dental Board from 1865-1868. He was elected F.R.S. on June 7th, 1855. He was also Surgeon to the Marine Society, to St. Luke's Mental Hospital, and to the West of England Insurance Company. Luke invented a suspensory apparatus for slinging fractures of the leg by means of a cradle, and described it in 1841. He also described in the same year a bedstead by which the patient could be raised without changing his position. Both inventions came into general use. He strongly advocated Petit's operation for strangulated hernia without opening the sac, and summed up his teaching in the words: "Make a small longitudinal incision over the seat of stricture, and a subsequent division of the stricture with as little disturbance of the tissues as possible, and the result will be cure not death." How much general improvement was necessary is shown by the fact that between the years 1816 and 1842 one half of all the cases operated upon for femoral fracture at Würzburg died; in the hospitals at Paris between 1836 and 1840, 133 cases of strangulated hernia died out of 220 operated upon; at the London Hospital more than one-third died; and at St. Thomas's Hospital the proportion of deaths as recorded by J. Flint South (q.v.) was 1 in 2 1/2. Luke's method of relieving the constriction without opening the sac remained in vogue until the antiseptic period was well advanced. James Luke stood six feet in height and was of an irascible temper. He was scrupulously careful as to the cleanliness of his instruments, a peculiarity which drew upon him the satire of his less careful colleagues. A rapid operator, he once amputated at the hip and removed the limb in twenty-seven seconds. He was especially interested in the treatment of cleft palate and was amongst the first to use an obturator. The College possesses a Maguire lithograph of Luke in Stone's Medical Portrait Gallery, and a lithograph by G. B. Black dated 1861. A painting by Edward Hughes, and a miniature dated 1825, are in the possession of the family. PUBLICATIONS: - "Suspensory Apparatus for Fracture of the Leg." - *Lond. Med. Gaz*., 1840-1, xxvii, 652. "Elevating Bedstead." - *Ibid.*, 1840-1, xxviii, 274. "Operation for Strangulated Hernia." - *Ibid*., 863. "On the Uses of the Round Ligament of the Hip-joint." - *Ibid*, 1842, N.S. I, 9. "Cases of Fistula in Ano Treated by Ligature." - *Lancet*, 1845, I, 221. The operation described is practically that used by John Arderne (1307-1380?), which had long been forgotten. "A Case of Tubular Aneurysm undergoing Spontaneous Cure: with Observations." - *Lond. Med. Gaz.*, 1845, N.S. I, 77. In this paper Luke introduced the classification of aneurysms usually employed by surgeons until quite recently. "On Petit's Operation for the Relief of Strangulated Hernia." - *Trans. Med.-Chir. Soc*., 1848, xxxi, 99.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000019
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Nevill, Gerald Edward (1915 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-09
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/372467372467
Occupation General surgeon
Details Gerald Nevill was a consultant surgeon in Kenya. He was born on 22 December 1915 in Nurney, County Carlow, Ireland, the son of Alexander Colles Nevill, Archdeacon of the Church of Ireland, and Rosettah Fitzgerald, a teacher of modern languages and one of the first women to graduate from the University of Dublin. He was educated at Kilkenny College, where he gained a scholarship to Campbell College, Belfast. He subsequently won the McNeil medal for mathematics and played rugby for his school. He won an entrance sizarship to Dublin University, won first class honours in all his examinations, came first in the final examinations, was awarded the Hudson medal and scholarship, and played rugby for the university. After qualifying, he was house surgeon at the Adelaide Hospital, Dublin, Salford Royal Hospital, St Mary’s Hospital, Portsmouth, and the Royal Children’s Hospital, Brighton. From 1940 to 1944 he served with the East African Forces. He went to London to do the Guy’s FRCS course and, having passed the FRCS, returned to Kenya as the successor to Roland Burkitt in Nairobi. He was appointed honorary consultant surgeon to the Native Civil Hospital, later the King George VI Hospital, and subsequently the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi. He held honorary lecturer appointments at the Makerere University Hospital, Kampala, and the University of Nairobi Medical School, and was on the organising committee of the new medical school. He published many articles on general surgical topics in the *East African Medical Journal* and was a foundation member and later president of the Association of Surgeons of East Africa. Gerald Nevill married twice. His first wife was Hilda Francis Lurring, a school teacher, by whom he had three sons, one of whom became a doctor. His second marriage was to Mary Evelyn Furnivall née Brown. He continued on the rugby field for many years as a referee and was chairman of the Kenya Referees Society from 1965 to 1980. He was a keen fisherman and freemason. He died on 23 January 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000280
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Moshakis, Vidianos (1946 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hill, Matthew Berkeley (1834 - 1892)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-13
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002200-E002299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374409374409
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on June 12th, 1834, at the Vale of Health, Hampstead, the youngest son of Matthew Davenport Hill, Recorder of Birmingham, and later Bankruptcy Commissioner in Bristol. He was educated in part at Bruce Castle, Tottenham, a school belonging to the Hill family, previously to one uncle, Sir Rowland Hill, and then to another uncle, Arthur Hill. He resembled his uncle Sir Rowland Hill, both physically and in tenacity of purpose, resource, and public spirit. Hill also attended University College School, London, under Mr Key. He next entered Bristol Medical School in 1852, with the intention of becoming an analytical chemist, and studied chemistry under Thornton Herapath, Lecturer on Chemistry, but he also attended a course of lectures on descriptive and surgical anatomy, which led him to change over to surgery and to proceed to University College Hospital, with which he was to remain connected for the rest of his life. After qualifying he was for a year House Surgeon at the Children's Hospital, Great Ormond Street, in 1861 he went to study in Berlin under Virchow, later in Vienna, and then in Paris, where Ricord determined him in the direction of the study of venereal disease. After further travel in Italy, at the end of 1862 he was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy at University College, and soon after Assistant Surgeon to the hospital. In 1863 he acted as deputy in the absence of Sir Henry Thompson when he was operating upon the King of the Belgians. In 1867 he was appointed upon the staff of the Lock Hospital. In 1864, 1866, and 1869 he took a great part in the controversy over the Contagious Diseases Acts which ended in their abrogation in 1870. Berkeley Hill along with Curgenven had acted as Secretary to the Society for the Extension of the Contagious Diseases Acts to the civil population, and he spared neither strength, time, nor professional prospects. All the abuse showered on him never caused him for a moment to swerve from what he thought right in the attempt to restrict venereal disease. Looking back, we can now see that the methods of diagnosis and treatment were defective. The compulsory measures adopted on the Continent to an extent exceeding that proposed for this country had failed to diminish the incidence of venereal disease. Berkeley Hill turned his attention from attempts to prevent the condition to the improvement of the diagnosis of 'syphilis and local contagious disorders'. For this purpose he recommended the development of endoscopic examination as better than attempting Holt's forcible dilatation of urethral stricture, which was often followed by external urethrotomy. He was for three years in succession Dean of the Medical Department of University College, and was elected as the representative of his colleagues when Professors first gained seats on the Council of University College. Having become full Surgeon in 1874, and as Professor of Clinical Surgery and Teacher of Practical Surgery, he took a full share in the growth of the Medical School, also in the movement for rebuilding University College Hospital. He was elected a Member of the Council of the College of Surgeons in 1886, and became a Vice-President in 1891; he also served on the Court of Examiners from 1886 until his death. He died at his house, 66 Wimpole Street, on January 7th, 1892. At the funeral in Finchley Cemetery wreaths were placed on his grave, some from men who, young and careless, had been in danger of wrecking their lives, had not the wise counsel and the timely help of the older man arrested them. The pleasure he felt when such a young man gave evidence that the exertion had not been in vain was indeed keen. He married in 1868 Alice Campbell (d1929), the youngest daughter of Sir Thomas Howell, of the War Office, by whom he had six children, five of them surviving him. His portrait appears in the Council Portrait Group by Jamyn Brookes 1884. His photograph is in the Council Album. Publications: *The Essentials of Bandaging, including the Management of Fractures and Dislocations*, 1867; 2nd ed, 1869; 6th ed, 1887. *Treatment of the Sick and Wounded, illustrated by Observations made at the Seat of War*, 1870. "Foreign Opinions on Syphilis." - *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1862, ii, 407, etc. *Syphilis and Local Contagious Disorders* (with ARTHUR COOPER), 1868; 2nd ed., 1881. *The Students' Manual of Venereal Diseases* (with ARTHUR COOPER), 1877; 4th ed 1887. *Statistical Results of the Contagious Diseases Act*, 1870. "Illustrations of the Working of the Contagious Diseases Act." - *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1867, ii, 583; 1868, 1, 21, etc. "A Clinical Lecture on the Treatment of Incipient Stricture by Otis's Operation." - *Lancet*, 1876, i, 522. *Chronic Urethritis and other Affections of the Genito-urinary Organs*: Three Lectures delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons, June, 1889, 1890. "Should the Principle of the Contagious Diseases Act be applied to the Civil Population?" - *Trans. Nat. Assoc. for Promotion of Social Sci*., 1869, London, 1870, 428. *A Few Remarks on the Errors in the "Westminster Review" on Prostitution: Govern¬mental Experiments in Controlling it by John Chapman, MD*, London, 1870.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002226
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hill, Samuel (1811 - 1874)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hills, George (1807 - 1880)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hill, William ( - 1846)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hind, George William (1802 - 1885)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hinds, Richard Brinsley (1812 - 1847)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-13 2015-06-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002200-E002299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374414374414
Occupation botanist General surgeon
Details Entered St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1829 and matriculated at the London University in 1830, where he obtained honours. He must have shown some unusual interest in botany, for he is reported to have gained the Gold Medal of the Society of Apothecaries for botany, though there is now no record of the award. He entered the Royal Navy as Assistant Surgeon on February 28th, 1835, being appointed to the Royal Naval Hospital at Haslar, and was appointed Surgeon to HMS *Sulphur* on the China Station on September 26th, 1835, being invalided home on April 30th, 1841. HMS *Sulphur* was one of the hydrographer's surveying vessels, and was employed on the Pacific Survey with officers specially chosen for their scientific attainments. She went north on the outbreak of war with China, and her commanding officer, Commander E Belcher, won promotion to Captain, on May 6th, 1841, for his war services in the *Sulphur*, and received the honour of knighthood on January 21st, 1843. Whilst serving as Surgeon to the *Sulphur* Hinds made the first collection of Hong Kong plants which reached England. His stay was only a few weeks in January and February, 1841, but he was enabled on his return to England to place in the hands of G Bentham, Hong Kong specimens of nearly 140 species the enumeration of which Bentham published in Hooker's *London Journal of Botany* (1842, i, 482-94) at the end of Hinds' "Remarks on the Physical Aspect, Climate and Vegetation of Hong Kong". In 1844 he edited the *Botany of the Voyage of HMS Sulphur*, the botanical descriptions being by G Bentham. Hinds was promoted Surgeon on Jan 31st, 1843 for his meritorious work on the China Station, having already (August 6th, 1842) been appointed to HM Yacht *William and Mary* to arrange the specimens brought to England in the *Sulphur*. The unofficial record states that he accompanied Captain Edward Belcher round the world from 1836-1842 inclusive, and that he obtained great praise from the Lords of the Admiralty for his care in collecting various species of natural history. He was employed by them to edit the natural history of Captain Belcher's voyage, towards the expenses of which they contributed £500. In 1844 Sir William Barnett, Director-General of Naval Hospitals and Fleets, nominated Hinds for election to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons as a representative surgeon from the medical service of the Royal Navy. His health was impaired by fever caught in the performance of his duties, and on Jan 23rd, 1845, he received permission to proceed to Australia. He was discharged from the *William and Mary* on Jan 31st, 1845, and was placed on the unfit list with a diagnosis of phthisis on May 19th, 1845. He died at Swan River, Western Australia, in 1847. Mr John Hendley Barnhart, of the New York Botanical Garden, Bronx Park, New York City, writes regarding him:- "Richard Brinsley Hinds, Surgeon in the British Navy, and Member from 1833 and Fellow from 1844 of the Royal College of Surgeons, is known to science almost exclusively by his labours in connection with the voyage of the *Sulphur*, to which he was 'Assistant Surgeon' and later 'Surgeon', from 1835 to 1842. He made rich zoological and botanical collections, contributed an extended account of the regions of vegetation to Captain Belcher's narrative of the voyage, edited the volumes dealing with zoology and botany, and himself wrote the entire volume on shells; yet scarcely a word seems to be on record concerning his life before the voyage began or after the publication of the volumes mentioned. "The *Sulphur* sailed from Plymouth on December 24th, 1835, visited Madeira and Teneriffe, arrived at Rio de Janeiro on Feb 19th, 1836, stopped at the island of Santa Catharina and at Montevideo, and reached Valparaiso on June 9th. Here Beechey, the Commander, was invalided home, and Kellett temporarily succeeded him. The *Sulphur* then proceeded up the coast, being at Callao, Payta, and Guayaquil in August, and at Gorgona Island in January, 1837, and arriving at Panama on the 29th of that month. Here Belcher, the new Commander, joined the expedition in February, and the *Sulphur* continued the voyage on March 15th, stopping for several days at an island off the Panama coast, named by them Magnetic Island, remaining for over a week, April 4th-l3th, at Realejo (Corinto), Nicaragua, and another week, April 15th-22nd, at La Libertad, Salvador; while here, Hinds probably accompanied the Commander to San Salvador. The next stop was at Manzanillo, Colima, and after two weeks at San Blas, Tepic, the mainland was left behind on June 10th, and, after a visit at Honolulu, July 17th-27th, again regained Alaska, at Port Etches (Nutchek), in Prince William Sound, August 23rd. Then came a voyage southward along the coast, including stops at Sitka, San Francisco, Monterey, San Blas, and Acapulco, the first Central American port visited being Realejo (Corinto), Nicaragua, February 4th to March 20th, 1838. Here Hinds and Barclay accompanied the Commander on a land trip to El Viejo volcano, and by Chinandega, Posoltega, Leon, Pueblo Nuevo, Nagarote, Maliares, and Managua, as far as Tipitapa, returning by nearly the same route. "Sailing from Culebra, Costa Rica, on March 27th, the *Sulphur *proceeded by way of Cocos Island and the Galapagos to Callao, June 3rd, remaining there until Aug 28th, and returning, with stops at Payta and Puna, to Panama on October 17th, 1838. Leaving Panama on Nov. 1st, and spending three days, November 14th-17th, at Realejo, the vessel anchored at San Carlos (La Union), Salvador, Nov 19th-30th, while a land-party, including Hinds, visited San Miguel and Chinameca. "After revisiting Realejo, November 30th to December 2nd, San Carlos, December 2nd-30th (Hinds, with others, visited the volcano Coseguina, across the bay, in Nicaragua), and Realejo, December 31st, 1838, to January, 1839, a month and a half was spent at Puntarenas, in the Gulf of Nicoya, Costa Rica, and about two weeks at Panama, and on March 26th, 1839, the *Sulphur* finally left the shores of Central America, stopping at Cocos and Clipperton Islands, and arriving at Honolulu on May 31st. Later the *Sulphur* again cruised along the North American coast, in the same year, from Alaska to Mexico, and then visited various islands of the Pacific and the Malayan region, China and Ceylon, and returned by way of Madagascar, Cape of Good Hope, St Helena and Ascension, arriving in England on July 19th, 1842. "Hinds spent the next two years and a half studying his collections and publishing his results. Early in 1845 he again left England, and died a year or two later in Western Australia." Publications: Hinds published many articles in Sir William Hooker's *Annals of Natural History*, and a small octavo of 137 pages in 48 chapters in 1843 (G J Palmer, Savoy Street, Strand) entitled, *The Regions of Vegetation, being an Analysis of the Distribution of Vegetable Forms over the Surface of the Globe*, the result of personal observations on geographical botany whilst serving in HMS *Sulphur*. The nucleus of the book appeared in *The Annals of Natural History* and in Sir William Hooker's *Journal of Botany* for June, 1842.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002231
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hind, Wheelton (1860 - 1920)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002200-E002299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374415374415
Occupation General surgeon Geologist
Details Born at Roxeth, near Harrow, the third son of the Rev William Marsden Hind, at one time Rector of Hornington, Suffolk, and author of *The Flora of Suffolk*. He studied at Guy's Hospital, where he was House Surgeon and Resident Obstetric Physician. At the London University he won the Gold Medal and Scholarship in organic chemistry and gained 1st class honours in physiology. He then settled in practice at Stoke-on-Trent, was Surgeon to the North Stafford Infirmary and Eye Institution, Consulting Medical Officer to the Union Infirmary, Medical Officer to the North Stafford Deaf and Blind School, and Surgeon to the North Stafford Railway. From the first he began researches into the geology of the district, and he published some eighty papers on the subject in the course of the following years. Richard Dixon Oldham, FRS, in his Presidential Address to the Geological Society in 1920, said: "Possessed of extraordinary energy and application, he attained eminence in his own profession and, as a by-product, threw off an amount of valuable geological work, which would have made a creditable life record for many an ordinary individual." He began by a search of the colliery pit banks for fossils whilst gathering what he could from miners as to their original position in strata. His first publication in 1887 was an account of "The Natural Features of Geology of Suffolk" in his father's work *The Flora of Suffolk*. Next in the *Transactions* of the North Staffordshire Naturalists' Field Club, he began his observations on the carboniferous rocks and their fauna. He distinguished the Rendleside series lying between the carboniferous limestone and the millstone grit. In the revision of stratigraphical series of life zones, he re-investigated the carboniferous Mollusca, and produced a monograph on the Lamellibranchiata. The bibliography of his geological works is contained in the *Royal Society's Catalogue of Scientific Papers*, 1916, xv. He was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1891, received the Lyell Award and Medal in 1902, and the Keith Gold Medal of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1910. At the outbreak of the War (1914-1918) he raised a battery of Garrison Artillery, recruiting his men in three weeks, brought them to a high state of efficiency, and led them to the Western Front, where the battery saw some hard fighting in important engagements. He was then transferred as Temporary Lieutenant-Colonel RAMC, in the Army Medical Service. He returned after four years' service, and died on June 21st, 1920, at Roxeth House, Stoke-on-Trent.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002232
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Percival, William ( - 1849)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Norman, George (1783 - 1861)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-03-27
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/372653372653
Occupation General surgeon
Details The son of a surgeon in good practice in Bath. After a short stay in London he returned to Bath and began professional life as his father’s assistant in the year 1801. On the death of an elder brother, a surgeon, he began to practise on his own account. In 1817 he succeeded his father as surgeon to the Casualty Hospital, and in 1826 was the first surgeon appointed to the Bath United Hospital, then newly formed by the Union of the Casualty Hospital and the City Dispensary. He continued to hold office till 1857, discharging his duties with the utmost attention. This long period of service was the more honourable to him because, during the greater part of it, from the wide extent of his private practise, the calls upon his time were so incessant that his gratuitous labours must have entailed upon him sacrifices which few are found willing to make. In his private practice he took the highest position in Bath, and while he was at his zenith his practice probably exceeded that of any other provincial surgeon. For a long period his receipts verged upon, if they did not exceed, £4,000 a year. On his retirement from the hospital he was at once made one of its Vice-Presidents, and his bust, executed in marble by the then popular sculptor Behnes, was set up in the hall of the institution. After this honour had been paid him the working men of Bath presented him with a handsome testimonial to mark their sense of his services to the public. His professional character stood very high, and he has been described as the very type of an English gentleman – simple, unaffected, perfectly self-possessed. In politics he was a strong Liberal and was an active politician. For forty years he was a member of the Bath Corporation and twice Mayor of the City. He was also Deputy Lieutenant of the County. At the time of his death he was Consulting Surgeon to the United Hospital, Surgeon to the Puerperal Charity, Vice-President of the British Medical Association, and Fellow of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society. He died of pleuropneumonia after a few days’ illness on Jan 17th, 1861, at his residence, 1 Circus, Bath. Norman contributed three papers to the *Medico-Chirurgical Transactions*, of which the first (1819, x, 94) on aneurysm, contains the history of two hospital patients in whom he had successfully tied the external iliac artery. In a second paper (1837, xx, 301) he described the dissection, twenty years afterwards, of one of these men. In a third paper (1827, xii, 348) he describes a remarkable case of extra-uterine foetation, which, in the ninth month of pregnancy, the foetus was extracted by means of an incision through the posterior wall of the vagina. He communicated also some three or four other papers, dealing with remarkable cases, to the Bath and Bristol Branch of the British Medical Association. A numerous and valuable series of preparations made by him for the Museum of the United Hospital, of which they constituted the first nucleus, must not be omitted form the list of his scientific labours. A fine mezzotint portrait of Norman is in the Young Collection (No 59). It was published by Henry Benham on Oct 16th, 1840, and is engraved after the painting by W O Geller. It represents a seated figure in the typical professional costume of the period.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000469
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hoare, William Parker (1807 - 1888)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Rue, Dame Elsie Rosemary (1928 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 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/372310372310
Occupation Civil servant Physician
Details As regional medical officer for Oxford Regional Health Authority Rosemary Rue pioneered part-time specialist medical training for women doctors. She was born in Essex on 14 June 1928, the daughter of Harry and Daisy Laurence. The family moved to London when she was five, and during the Blitz she was sent for safety to stay with relatives in Devon, where she contracted tuberculosis and peritonitis, an experience which determined her to be a doctor. She was educated at Sydenham High School and entered the all-women Royal Free Hospital. In 1950 she married Roger Rue, an instructor in the RAF and was told by the dean that she could not stay on at the medical school if she were married. She was however accepted at Oxford, but took the examinations of London University. Her first job was at a long-stay hospital on the outskirts of Oxford, but was sacked when it was revealed that she was married and had a newborn son. She moved into general practice in 1952, and there contracted poliomyelitis from a patient in 1954, the last person in Oxford to catch the illness. This left her with one useless leg, which made it impossible to carry a medical bag. For a time she taught in a girls' school. By 1955 she and her husband had separated and she went to live in Hertfordshire with her parents, whose GP needed a partner. This was a success, and she combined the practice with being medical officer to the RAF, Bovingdon. In 1960 she became assistant county medical officer for Hertfordshire and five years later assistant senior medical officer for the Oxford region, proceeding to become regional medical officer in 1973 and regional general manager in 1984. She oversaw the building of new hospitals in Swindon, Reading and Milton Keynes, designing basic modules that could be incorporated into every hospital, so obviating architects' fees. Her most important contribution however was to set up a part-time training scheme for women doctors who wanted to become specialists. She discovered 150 women doctors in the Oxford region who were insufficiently employed. She sought them out, interviewed them and found jobs for 50 within a few months, and went on to set up a scheme for training part-time married women. This was a great success and spread from Oxford all over the country, and it was with Rosemary's active help that our College set up the Women in Surgical Training scheme. In 1972 she became one of the founders of the Faculty of Community Health (now the Faculty of Public Health). She was a founding fellow of Green College, Oxford, a President of the BMA and was awarded the Jenner medal of the Royal Society of Health. Small, birdlike, with an intense interest in everything and everybody, she had great charm as well as a formidable intellect. She died of bowel cancer on 24 December 2004, leaving two sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000123
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Harris, John (1803 - 1861)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Badley, John (1783 - 1870)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Vaux, Bowyer (1782 - 1872)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Scales, John Tracey (1920 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372312372312
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details John Tracey Scales was a distinguished professor of biomechanical engineering at the Institute of Orthopaedics, University of London, who pioneered the use of biologically inert plastic materials in orthopaedic surgery. He was born an only child, in Colchester, on 2 July 1920. His family later moved to Stanmore, and he was educated a Haberdasher’s Aske’s School. He then went on to King’s College, London, before proceeding to Charing Cross Hospital for his clinical studies. He held junior appointments at Charing Cross Hospital and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, before spending two years in the National Service as a captain in the RAMC. He then held further junior posts in London. He managed to convince H J Seddon, director of the Institute of Orthopaedics, of the need to develop biologically inert plastic for use in orthopaedic surgery, and a department of plastics was established under his direction. In November 1954 a knee prothesis made of stainless steel and acrylic polymer was successfully used to replace the diseased joint of a 20-year-old woman, the first operation of its kind in the world. Scales went on to develop the first Stanmore total hip replacement, made in collaboration with J N Wilson. With Alan Lettin he developed replacements for the knee, elbow and shoulder. In 1974 the department became the first university department of biomedical engineering in Britain, with Scales as its first professor. He also developed porous wound dressings, and created a low air loss mattress for use in the treatment of severe burns and severe pressure sores. This work led to his appointment as honorary director of research at the RAFT Institute for Plastic Surgery at Mount Vernon Hospital, Northwood. He continued his research work at the RAFT Institute after his retirement. From 1997 to 1998 he was a visiting professor at Cranfield University. Scales contributed 175 articles to professional journals and books. He was a member of various committees and professional bodies, including the European Society of Biomechanics and the Society for Tissue Viability. In 1986 he was awarded the OBE for his work, and was made a freeman of the City of London in 1995. He died in a nursing home on 30 January 2004. His wife died in 1992. They had two daughters. He is survived by his daughters and his partner, Phyllis Hampson.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000125
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wells, Sir Thomas Spencer (1818 - 1897)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-22 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/372395372395
Occupation General surgeon Obstetric and gynaecological surgeon Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Born at St. Albans, Hertfordshire, on February 3rd, 1818, the son of William Wells, a builder, by his wife Harriet, daughter of William Wright, of Bermondsey. He soon showed a marked interest in natural science and was sent as a pupil, without being formally apprenticed, to Michael Thomas Sadler, a general practitioner at Barnsley in Yorkshire. He afterwards lived for a year with one of the parish surgeons at Leeds, where he attended the lectures of William Hey II (q.v.) and Thomas Pridgin Teale the elder (q.v.), and saw much practice at the Leeds infirmary. In 1836 he went to Trinity College, Dublin, where he learnt more surgery from Whitley Stokes, Sir Philip Crampton, and Arthur Jacob. In 1839 he entered St. Thomas's Hospital, London, to complete his education under Joseph Henry Green (q.v.), Benjamin Travers, senr. (q.v.), and Frederick Tyrell. Here, at the end of the first session, he was awarded the prize for the most complete and detailed account of the post-mortem examinations made in the Hospital during the time of his attendance. He joined the Navy as an Assistant Surgeon as soon as he had qualified, and served for six years in the Naval Hospital at Malta. He combined a civil practice with his naval duties, and was so highly spoken of that the Royal College of Surgeons of England elected him a Fellow in 1844. His term of service at Malta being completed, he left the Navy in 1848, having been promoted Surgeon on Feb. 3rd of that year. He then proceeded to Paris to study pathology under Magendie and to see the gunshot wounds which filled the hospitals after the struggle in June, 1848. He afterwards accompanied the Marquis of Northampton on a journey to Egypt, where he made some valuable observations on malarial fever. Wells settled in practice at 30 Brook Street, London, in 1853 and devoted himself at first to ophthalmic surgery. In 1854 he was elected Surgeon to the Samaritan Free Hospital for Women and Children, which was then an ordinary dwelling-house - 27 Orchard Street, Portman Square - with hardly any equipment. It had been established for seven years and was little more than a dispensary, as there was no accommodation for in-patients. About the same time he was editor of the *Medical Times* and *Gazette* for seven years (1851 ?-1858). Wells temporarily abandoned his work in London on the outbreak of the Crimean War, volunteered, and was sent first to Smyrna, where he was attached as Surgeon to the British Civil Hospital, and afterwards to Renkioi in the Dardanelles. He returned to London in 1856, and in 1857 lectured on surgery at the School of Anatomy and Medicine adjoining St. George's Hospital, which was commonly known as 'Lane's School'. Wells did an unusual amount of midwifery in his youth, but never thought seriously about ovariotomy until one day in 1848 when he discussed the matter at Paris with Dr. Edward Waters, afterwards of Chester. Both surgeons came to the conclusion that, as surgery then stood, ovariotomy was an unjustifiable operation. Spencer Wells and Thomas Nunn (q.v.) of the Middlesex Hospital assisted Baker Brown (q.v.) in his eighth ovariotomy in April, 1854. This was the first time that Wells had seen the operation, and he admitted afterwards that the fatal result discouraged him. The ninth ovariotomy was equally unsuccessful, and Baker Brown himself ceased to operate on these cases from March, 1856, until October, 1858, when Wells's success encouraged him to recommence. The experience of abdominal wounds in the Crimea had shown Wells that the peritoneum was much more tolerant of injury than was generally supposed. He therefore proceeded to do his first ovariotomy in 1858 and was not disheartened although the patient died. He devoted himself assiduously to perfect the technique, and the rest of his life is practically a history of the operation from its earliest and imperfect stage, through its polemical period, to the position it now occupies as a well-recognized and most serviceable operation, still capable perhaps of improvement, but advantageous alike to the individual, the family, and the State. It has saved many lives throughout the world, has opened up the field of abdominal surgery, and has thereby revolutionized surgical practice. Wells completed his first successful ovariotomy in February, 1858, but it was not until 1864 that the operation was generally accepted by the medical profession. This acceptance was due chiefly to the wise manner in which Wells conducted his earlier operations. He persistently invited medical men in authority to see him operate. He published series after series of cases, giving full accounts of the unsuccessful as well as the successful cases, until in 1880 he had performed his thousandth ovariotomy. He had operated at the Samaritan Free Hospital for exactly twenty years when he resigned his office of Surgeon in 1878 and was appointed Consulting Surgeon. He frequently modified his methods throughout the whole of this time, and always towards greater simplicity. The hospital never contained more than twenty beds, and of these no more than four or five were ever available for patients needing ovariotomy. At the Royal College of Surgeons Spencer Wells was a Member of Council from 1871-1895; Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology, 1877-1888, his lectures dealing with "The Diagnosis and Surgical Treatment of Abdominal Tumours"; Vice-President, 1880-1881 ; President, 1882 ; Hunterian Orator, 1883 ; Morton Lecturer "On Cancer and Cancerous Diseases", 1888 ; and Bradshaw Lecturer "On Modern Abdominal Surgery" in 1890. He received many honours, acting as Surgeon to the Household of Queen Victoria from 1863-1896 ; he was created a baronet on May 11th, 1883, and he was a Knight Commander of the Norwegian Order of St. Olaf. He married in 1853 Elizabeth Lucas (*d*. 1886), daughter of James Wright, solicitor, of New Inn and of Sydenham, by whom he left five daughters and one son, Arthur Spencer Wells, who was Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1893-1895. Spencer Wells's operations were models of surgical procedure. He worked in absolute silence, he took the greatest care in the selection of his instruments, and he submitted his assistants to a rigorous discipline which proved of the highest value to them in after-life. At the end of every operation he personally superintended the cleaning and drying of each instrument. He was an ardent advocate of cremation, and it was chiefly due to his efforts and to those of Sir Henry Thompson (q.v.) that this method of disposing of the dead was brought into early use in England. Almost to the last Wells had the appearance of a healthy, vigorous country gentleman, with much of the frankness and bonhomie of a sailor. He was an excellent rider, driver, and judge of horseflesh. Besides his London residence, 3 Upper Grosvenor Street, he owned the house and fine gardens at Golder's Green, Hampstead, which were bought for public recreation in 1898. He drove himself daily in a mail phaeton with a splendid pair of horses down the Finchley Road from one house to the other, dressed in a grey frock-coat with a flower in the buttonhole and a tall white top hat. A half-length oil painting by Rudolph Lehmann executed in 1884 represents Wells sitting in the robes of a President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. It was bequeathed to the Royal College of Surgeons at his death. A bust executed in 1879 by Oscar Liebreich is in possession of the family. He appears in Jamyn Brookes's portrait group of the Council. PUBLICATIONS:- *The Scale of Medicines with which Merchant Vessels are to be Furnished…with Observations on the Means of Preserving the Health and Increasing the Comforts of Seaman*, 12 mo, London, 1851 ; 2nd ed., 8vo, 1861. *Practical Observations on Gout and its Complications,* 8vo, London, 1854. *Cancer Cures and Cancer Curers*, 8vo, London, 1860. *Diseases of the Ovaries : their Diagnosis and Treatment,* 8vo, London - vol. i, 1865 ; vol. ii, 1872. It was also issued in America, and was translated into German, Leipzig, 1866 and 1874. *Note-book for Cases of Ovarian and other Abdominal Tumours*, 8vo, London, 1865 ; 2nd ed., 1868 ; 7th ed., 1887. Translated into Italian, Milan, 12mo, 1882. *On Ovarian and Uterine Tumours, their Diagnosis and Treatment*, 8vo, London, 1882. Translated into Italian, 8vo, Milan, 1882. *Diagnosis and Surgical Treatment of Abdominal Tumours*, 8vo, London, 1885. Translated into French, 8vo, Paris, 1886.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000208
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Forster, John Cooper (1823 - 1886)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-22 2012-03-22
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/372397372397
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details Born in Mount Street, Lambeth, where his father and grandfather had carried on a successful practice. The house was at the junction of the Westminster Bridge Road with Kennington Lane. It had a large garden, which Forster tended as a boy, and thus gained his lifelong love for flowers and ferns. He was educated at King's College School, then under the headmastership of Dr. Major, and entered Guy's Hospital in 1841. He acted as dresser for Aston Key (q.v.), and was captain and trainer of the Guy's Hospital Boat Club, which he raised to a high state of efficiency. He graduated M.B. at the University of London in 1847 after gaining the Gold Medal in Surgery. Between 1844 and 1850, whilst waiting for an appointment at Guy's, he held the post of Surgeon to the Surrey Dispensary, and was one of the very first to administer anaesthetics in the hospital. He was also Surgeon to the Royal Hospital for Women and Children in the Waterloo Bridge Road, a position he held for many years. In 1848 he visited Paris to study gunshot wounds. He was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy at Guy's Hospital in 1850, and in the same year married Adela, the only daughter of Munden Hammond, of Kennington, by whom he had seven children. At this time he was living at 11 Wellington Square, the back of his house looking on to St. Saviour's Church, and the front into the large square of St. Thomas's Hospital. He was bequeathed a considerable fortune in 1859, and in 1864 he moved to 10 St. Thomas's Street, where two of his children died of diphtheria, and later in life he lived at 29 Upper Grosvenor Street. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to Guy's Hospital in 1855, and in 1870 he succeeded John Hilton (q.v.) as full Surgeon. This post he resigned in 1880, when Senior Surgeon, the occasion being an unfortunate dispute with the Treasurer and Governors of the hospital caused by some necessary changes in connection with the nursing staff introduced by a new matron somewhat untactfully. Dr. Habershon, the Senior Physician, resigned at the same time. Their action met with the sympathy of many former members of the school, four hundred of whom subscribed to a testimonial and a presentation of silver plate. Cooper Forster was a member of the Council of college from 1875-1886, of the Court of Examiners from 1875-1884, Vice-President in 1882-1883, and President in 1884. During his year of office he did much to promote the establishment with the Royal College of Physicians of a Conjoint Examining Board for England which enabled students to be examined satisfactorily both in medicine and surgery. On the day he ceased to be President he ceased to practise, although for many years his easy circumstances had led him not to desire private patients. He died of an obscure illness, which was not elucidated by a post-mortem examination, at his house in Upper Grosvenor Street on March 2nd, 1886, and was survived by his wife, one son and three daughters. Cooper Forster had a good, bold, and neat hand, which made him a skilful operator. When Dr. Habersohn, his medical colleague, proposed that he should follow Sédillot in opening the stomach in the case of cancer of the œsophagus in 1858 he did so readily, and thus performed what was practically the first gastrostomy in England. The operation was undertaken too late and the patient died forty-five hours after its completion. He went to Aberdeen in 1867 to study Pirie's methods of arresting hæmorrhage by acupressure, practiced it enthusiastically for a few months, and then returned to torsion of the arteries, known as 'the Guy's method' of stopping bleeding during amputations. He is described as quick in forming an opinion and in deciding upon a line of treatment, impatient of 'fads', deficient in scientific knowledge, and essentially a practical surgeon. His clinical lectures were noted for their decisiveness, terseness, and abounding common sense ; but he disliked lecturing, and having been appointed Lecturer on Surgery in succession to John Poland (q.v.), he soon resigned. Personally as well as socially he was a striking figure : considerably over six feet in height and of a commanding presence, he had a handsome expression ; his head was covered with bushy black hair ; quick and lively in manner, always courteous, he was, as he seemed, a great gentleman. He loved rowing, and his dinghy and four-oared boat manned by his family were well known on the Thames from Richmond to Oxford. When rowing became too strenuous for him he took to fly fishing, and later still in life he was accustomed to take a country walk on every fine Sunday. He carefully ascertained the direction of the wind before starting, took the train against it, and walked back with the wind behind him. He was a keen horticulturist, and his house in Grosvenor Street contained one of the best ferneries in London. After his death Mrs. Forster gave his *Trichomones reniforme* to the Conservatory at Kew Gardens. Cooper Forster was also a gourmet, and nothing pleased him more than to entertain his friends either at home or at Greenwich with a very carefully chosen bill of fare and the most choice wines. He is the central figure as President in Jamyn Brookes's portrait group of the Council, which hangs in the Hall of the College, and there is a portrait in the Council Album. Both are good likenesses.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000210
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Savory, Sir William Scovell (1826 - 1895)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-22 2012-03-09
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/372398372398
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Monument Yard, London, on Nov. 30th, 1826. His father, William Henry Savory, a surgeon long resident at St. Mary-at-Hill, was churchwarden of the parish ; his mother was Mary Webb, the second wife. The younger son, Charles Tozer Savory (1829-1913), who was M.D. St. Andrews, practised in Canonbury. His father dying young, both children were brought up by their mother and appear to have been educated privately. William entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1844 and distinguished himself by winning the chief prizes. He served temporarily as House Surgeon to Edward Stanley (q.v.), and afterwards won the Scholarship and Gold Medal in Comparative Anatomy and Physiology in 1848 ; the Gold Medal in Surgery ; the Gold Medal in Midwifery, and honours in medicine at the London University. At St. Bartholomew's Hospital he was appointed a Demonstrator of Anatomy and Teacher of Operative Surgery in 1849, posts he held until June 21st, 1859. It was resolved by the Committee of the Medical School on Sept. 21st, 1850, that a tutor should be appointed to supervise the studies of students reading for degrees in the University of London. Savory was chosen and retained office until 1859. In 1859 he was appointed Lecturer on General Anatomy and Physiology in succession to Sir James Paget (q.v.). The post carried with it the Curatorship of the Museum, to the enrichment of which he especially devoted himself, adding many pathological specimens and leaving everything in admirable order when he resigned it in 1869. Eusebius Lloyd (q.v.) resigned the office of Surgeon of the Hospital in 1861. He was succeeded by Thomas Wormald (q.v.), and Savory was elected Assistant Surgeon, becoming Surgeon in 1867 on the retirement of Wormald. He followed Paget as Lecturer on Surgery in 1869, at first jointly with Holmes Coote (q.v.), then with George William Callender (q.v.) ; finally from 1879-1889, and at the special request of his colleagues, he remained the sole Lecturer, worthily maintaining and even enhancing the reputation made by his predecessors Abernathy, Lawrence, and Paget. The emoluments which he received for his clinical duties in the hospital and for his lectures in the medical school during the year 1881-1882 exceeded £2000 exclusive of 'dressers' fees', and was probably the largest income ever received for surgical teaching in London. He resigned all his appointments in 1891 on reaching the age limit of 65, when he was elected Consulting Surgeon and a Governor of the Hospital. Early in his career he was Surgeon to the Royal General Dispensary, and for many years was Surgeon to the Foundling Hospital. At the Royal College of Surgeons Savory was Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology from 1859-1861, a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1870-1884, and of the Dental Board, 1873-1878. Elected a Member of the Council in 1877, he was Vice-President in 1883 and 1884 ; President for the years 1885, 1886, 1887, and 1888, a sequence which had never before occurred ; and a Trustee in 1893. He delivered the Bradshaw Lecture, "On the Pathology of Cancer", in 1884, and was Hunterian Orator in 1887. His oration was as unique in its style as in its substance. It was an admirable exposition of Hunter's work and character, delivered without a note, in faultless periods, in the presence of those who were themselves masters of oratory. He was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria in 1887, and in 1890 he was created a baronet. Savory wrote little. He read a paper at the Royal Society on Dec. 18th, 1851, on "The Valves of the Heart" (published 8vo, London, 1852), in which he explained thoroughly the structure, connections, and arrangements of the valves. He also contributed papers to the *Proceedings of the Royal Society* "On the Development of Striated Muscular Fibre in Mammalia" (1854-5, vii, 194), and in 1857 an account of experiments "On the Relative Temperature of Arterial and Venous Blood", and was elected F.R.S. in 1858. He published in 1863 (8vo, London) four lectures on *Life and Death*, which had been delivered before the Royal Institution. He lived at first at 13 Charterhouse Square - a house on the east side - because the unwritten rule of the hospital required the Assistant Surgeons to live within a reasonable distance, which was interpreted as a mile. Most of his professional life was spent at 66 Brook Street, Grosvenor Square. Shortly before his death he bought Woodlands, Stoke Poges, Bucks, where he had intended to spend the evening of his life. He married on Nov. 30th, 1854, Louisa Frances Borradaile (*d.* 1868), by whom he had one child, Borradaile (*d.* 1906), who became M.A. Cantab. and Rector of St. Bartholomew's-the-Great adjoining the hospital in West Smithfield. Savory died at 66 Brook Street on March 4th, 1895, of a cardiac attack associated with influenza, shortly after the death of his friend, J. Whitaker Hulke (q.v.), which had greatly affected him. A marble bust of Savory was executed by Hope Pinker, R.A., in 1888. It was subscribed for by his thirty-five house surgeons, each of whom received a terra-cotta miniature. The original is in the possession of his grandson, Sir William Borradaile Savory, Bart., at Stoke Poges. A replica stands in the Council Room at the College of Surgeons in Lincoln's Inn Fields and is a very striking likeness. A seated portrait by Walter Ouless, R.A., hangs in the Great Hall at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. It was painted for his colleagues and friends in 1891 and has been engraved. It is a fair likeness, but is wanting in the forceful character which was always expressed in Savory's face. He appears as a Vice-President in Jamyn Brookes's portrait group of the College Council in 1884. Savory was an outstanding figure in the surgical world of his time. A clear thinker and a great orator, he dominated every assembly in which he took a part, and he did this by sheer force of character, for he never raised his voice nor did he lose his temper. At the College of Surgeons he was masterful, and as President guided its fortunes through several perilous years. As an examiner he was just, critical, and sufficiently sarcastic to be a terror to the idle and ignorant, though he honours candidate had nothing to fear. At St. Bartholomew's Hospital he upheld the great surgical traditions of the school, which taught that each should act to the best of his ability, be scrupulously honest in word and deed, fear no one, and act together for the good of the Institution. In the operating theatre he showed himself to be a great surgeon of the old anatomical school. He was ambidextrous, and performed the classic operations of amputation, lithotomy, and the ligature of arteries in their continuity with great skill and extraordinary rapidity ; but he struck out no new line, was averse to opening the sac in operations for strangulated hernia, and viewed interferences with the venous system with horror. These limitations led him to oppose the teaching of Lister in his celebrated address at the Cork Meeting of the British Medical Association in 1879, when he uttered the last formal pronouncement against Lister. The address is in perfect good taste, but shows that he was quite unable to follow advances which had been made in the science he had taught so long. Savory was a born orator. He spoke without notes and without preparation, in full rounded periods and with slight but appropriate gesture to emphasize the point he was making. He thus differed entirely from Paget, after whom he usually spoke at hospital meetings. It was of the greatest interest to compare the two - the one suave, fluent with a cadence in his sentences which could be recalled ; Savory more rugged, with a deeper voice, arresting by the matter as well as the delivery, and without compromise - yet both great speakers and remarkably fluent. As a man Savory was considerably above middle height, loosely built, somewhat shambling in gait - for he was flat-footed - clean-shaven, with sharp-cut features, and hair that curled slightly at the end. His face was expressive and marked him out at once as a man beyond the ordinary. He had various little mannerisms which betrayed his state of mind to those who knew him best - the working of his masseters when he was out of humour, the scratching of is right ear when he was pleased or puzzled. He never laughed, and rarely smiled. He made no pretence of clinical teaching, but he inspired all his house surgeons with respect, and they learnt from him the art of so treating patients after operation as to ensure a speedy convalescence. In private life he was wholly different. He was a lover of home, and, belonging to a generation which played no games, he spent much of his life in his study. A lonely man, who felt keenly the loss of his wife, he was cared for at first by Miss Borradaile, his sister-in-law, and afterwards by his daughter-in-law, Florence Julia (*d.* 1902), the daughter of his old friend Dr. F. W. Pavy. To his friends, like Hulke (q.v.) and Henry Power (q.v.), he was as true as steel. Throughout his life he showed evidence of his Cockney upbringing, for he systematically failed to pronounce the aspirate *h*. He was conscious of the omission, but took no steps to amend it, and showed no feeling except that of amusement when his son used to go round the room with a hearth-broom and fire-shovel, saying, "Father, I am sweeping up the *h*'s you have dropped."
Resource Identifier RCS: E000211
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Mapleton, Henry (1815 - 1879)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-07-31
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002600-E002699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374838374838
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Devonshire on May 16th, 1815, the second son of Commander Mapleton, RN. He was educated at Tiverton School, became a pupil in Exeter Hospital, and then studied at the University of Edinburgh. He was appointed Assistant Surgeon on the Staff of the Army on July 12th, 1839, and gazetted to the 62nd Foot on the following November 17th. He went to Madras in the spring of 1840, and on October 30th was transferred to the 40th Foot, with which he served in the Scinde and Gwalior Campaigns, 1841-1843, being present at the Battle of Maharajpore, for which he received the Bronze Star. On April 14th, 1846, he was appointed to the 3rd Dragoon Guards, was promoted to Surgeon of the 40th Foot on July 13th, 1847, was placed on the Staff (2nd Class) on December 22nd, 1848, transferred to the 55th Foot on April 5th, 1850, and transferred back to the 3rd Dragoon Guards on November 8th, 1850. He was selected to accompany Lord Raglan to Turkey as Surgeon on the Staff (2nd Class) on May 5th, 1854, and he served there until Lord Raglan's death on June 28th, 1855, which had followed the repulse of the attack on the Redan with loss. Mapleton returned home and was gazetted Surgeon to the 15th Dragoons on July 6th, 1855. On February 19th, 1858, he was transferred to the 18th Dragoons, a new regiment. He was promoted Staff Surgeon Major on July 12th, 1859, and placed at the head of the reorganized Medical Department of the War Office. Promoted Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals on August 26th, 1859, he served in that office until 1864. Meanwhile he superintended the equipment of two steamships, the *Mauritius* and *Melbourne*, as hospital ships for China, and a detailed account of the fittings appeared in the Army Medical Department Reports. On September 9th, 1864, he retired on half pay with the honorary rank of Inspector-General, and lived at Exeter until his death on January 1st, 1879. Publication: *Report called for by the Director-General of the Army Medical Department relative to the Sanitary Condition of the Army of the East*, June, 1857; fol, London, 1858.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002655
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Margerison, Richard (1852 - 1906)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Markwick, Alfred (1822 - 1887)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 O'Malley, Eoin (1919 - 2007)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-08-21
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/372731372731
Occupation Cardiac surgeon
Details Eoin O’Malley was a cardiac surgeon and a past president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He was born on 5 April 1919 in Galway, where his father was professor of surgery. From Clongowes Wood College he went to medical school, at first in Galway and later at University College, Dublin, where he proved himself a formidable debater and rugby football player, and won prizes and distinctions in every subject. He completed house appointments in the Mater Misericordiae Hospital and went on to specialise in surgery at Southend General Hospital and the Lahey Clinic in Boston. He was appointed to the consultant staff of the Mater Hospital as a general and cardiac surgeon in 1950 and became professor of surgery in 1958. At first an all round general surgeon, he was one of the first to specialise in cardiac surgery and succeeded in setting up a specialist unit, which was later named after him. As a teacher he was noted as a skilled and thoughtful lecturer and a sympathetic examiner. As a trainer of young surgeons he took care to see that his pupils expanded their vision by going abroad to other centres for clinical experience and research. Indeed, to encourage his colleagues to travel, he founded the Irish Surgical Travellers Club. Together with other Irish professors of surgery, Eoin organised a national surgical training programme, a planned rotation scheme, entry to which was to be by competitive examination. He soon became involved in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, was elected to its council in 1965 and became president in 1983. His presidency was marked by the celebration of the bicentenary of the college. His interests outside surgery included fishing, meteorology, literature, theatre, history and politics. Eoin married Una O’Higgins, a young solicitor, in 1952. Una was the daughter of the Irish national hero Kevin O’Higgins, the hard man of the liberation movement and first minister of justice in the new republic, who was assassinated when Una was only five months old. Later Una became a nationally celebrated poet, whose verse sang of peace and forgiveness. Una was a prime mover in the reconciliation movement and a founder of the Glencree Reconciliation Centre. They had six children, of whom Kevin has followed his father and grandfather into surgery. A man of great dignity, utterly without bombast or arrogance, Eoin was the recipient of numerous honorary degrees and distinctions, including the honorary Fellowship of our College. Enid Taylor
Resource Identifier RCS: E000547
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Kilpatrick, Francis Rankin (1908 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372518372518
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Francis Rankin Kilpatrick, known as ‘Kilp’, was a urological surgeon in London. He was born in Windsorton near Kimberley in Cape Province, South Africa, on 18 September 1908. His father had been a draper’s assistant who emigrated from Northern Ireland to South Africa in 1897, where he flourished, ending up as the owner of his store. He returned only once to Ireland, to bring back his wife, Annie Rankin. He died in 1923, leaving Annie to bring up Kilp (then only 14) and three other children. Kilp and his brother John went to England before the war to study medicine at Guy’s Hospital. Kilp qualified in 1933, and held house jobs and junior surgical posts. He left Guy’s to be RMO at Putney Hospital for a few years, where his reputation grew, and he was invited back to Guy’s. But for the war he would have been appointed to the staff (according to his backer, Nils Eckhoff). Instead he was appointed surgeon to the Emergency Bed Service, working at Guy’s and the Wildernesse (where he was surgeon superintendent). At the outbreak of war Hedley Atkins was responsible for the surgical organisation: Kilp and Sam Wass were the surgical registrars who took turns to deal with the emergency surgery throughout the Blitz, the anaesthetics being provided by another South African, Abe Shein. Those days have been vividly described: the casualties were operated on in an improvised four-table operating theatre in a cellar. The operations went on day and night, even though the hospital itself was heavily damaged. On five occasions the daily total of admissions was more than 100. This intense activity was to be repeated later in the war during the V1 and V2 attacks of 1944 and 1945. After the war Kilp was appointed consultant surgeon to Guy’s in 1946 and to St Peter’s Hospital in 1948. At St Peter’s Kilp was worshipped by the younger RSOs for his meticulous technique of retropubic prostatectomy, which in his hands was notably gentle and bloodless, and for the endless pains he took in teaching. In a day when some surgeons were famous for their arrogance, few people were so courteous and friendly to people of every walk of life. His juniors like his patients regarded him as their friend. He married Eileadh Morton, a radiographer, in 1939. They had three children – Stewart, Bruce and Fiona. He retired to Fittleworth, where he developed a keen interest in bird-watching and photography. He died on 19 August 2005, aged 96.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000331
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Marshall, Peter (1809 - 1877)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Banks, Sir William Mitchell (1842 - 1904)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-11
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372931372931
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Edinburgh on Nov 1st, 1842, the son of Peter S Banks, Writer to the Signet. He received his early education at Edinburgh Academy and passed from there to the University of Edinburgh. Graduated MD with honours, and won the Gold Medal for his thesis on the Wolffian bodies in 1864. Acted for a time as Prosector to Professor John Goodsir and later as Demonstrator of Anatomy under Professor Allen Thomson at the University of Glasgow. Served as dresser and as House Surgeon to James Syme (qv) at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, and visited Paraguay to act as Surgeon to the Republican Government. He became assistant to E R Bickersteth (qv) at Liverpool in 1868 in succession to Reginald Harrison (qv), and joined the staff of the Infirmary School of Medicine, first as Demonstrator and afterwards as Lecturer on Anatomy. This post he retained with the title of Professor when the Infirmary School was merged in University College, Liverpool. He resigned the Chair in 1894 and was then honoured with the title of Emeritus Professor of Anatomy. Meanwhile, having served the offices of Pathologist and Curator of the Museum, he succeeded Reginald Harrison as Assistant Surgeon to the Royal Infirmary, Liverpool, in 1875, served as full Surgeon from 1877 till Nov, 1902, when he resigned and was appointed Consulting Surgeon. The Committee of the Infirmary paid him the unique compliment of assigning him ten beds in his former wards. Mitchell Banks was the first representative of the Victoria University on the General Medical Council, and was a Member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England from 1890-1896. He was one of the founders of the Liverpool Biological Association and was elected the first President. He was placed on the Commission of the Peace as JP of Liverpool in 1892 and in 1899 he received the honour of knighthood. He was an honorary LLD of Edinburgh. He married in 1874 Elizabeth Rathbone, daughter of John Elliot, a merchant of Liverpool, and by her had two sons, one of whom survived him. He died suddenly at Aix-la-Chapelle on Aug 9th, 1904, whilst travelling home from Homburg, and was buried in the Smithdown Road Cemetery in Liverpool. Mitchell Banks deserves recognition both as a surgeon and as an organizer. The modern operation for removal of the cancerous breast is largely due to his practice and advocacy. He recommended, in the face of strenuous opposition, an extensive operation that should include removal of the axillary glands when most surgeons were contented with local amputation. He drew attention to his method in 1878 and made it the topic of the Lettsomian Lectures at the Medical Society of London in 1900. As an organizer he formed one of the band who built up the fortunes of the Medical School at Liverpool. Finding it a provincial school at a very low ebb, Banks and his associates raised it by dint of hard work first to the rank of a medical college and, finally, to that of a well-equipped medical faculty forming part of a modern university. The plan involved the rebuilding of the infirmary, and Banks was a member of the medical deputation which, with characteristic thoroughness, visited many continental hospitals to study their design and equipment before the foundation stone of the Liverpool building was laid in 1887. Mitchell Banks had a sound knowledge of the history of medicine. His collection of early medical works was sold in seventy-eight lots by Messrs Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge in June, 1906. He wrote good English in a pleasant style, as may be seen in “The Gentle Doctor”, a scholarly address to the students of the Yorkshire College at Leeds in Oct, 1892, and in “Physic and Letters”, the Annual Oration delivered before the Medical Society of London in May, 1893. His portrait, painted by the Hon John Collier, was presented to him by his colleagues and students, when he retired from active duties at University College, Liverpool. “The William Mitchell Banks Lectureship” in the University of Liverpool was founded and endowed by his fellow-citizens in his memory in 1905. Publications:- A paper dealing with a more extensive operation in cases of cancer of the breast appeared in the *Liverpool and Manchester Medical and Surgical Reports*, 1878, 192. *Some Results of the Operative Treatment of Cancer of the Breast*, Edinburgh, 1882. *The Gentle Doctor*, Liverpool, 1893. *Physic and Letters*, Liverpool, 1893.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000748
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Banner, John Maurice ( - 1863)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372932372932
Occupation General surgeon
Details Lecturer on Surgery at the Liverpool School of Medicine, and Hon Surgeon to the Liverpool Northern Hospital, where at the time of his death on April 2nd, 1863, he was Consulting Surgeon. He was one of the signatories in association with Henry Stubbs (qv) to refute an attack on the Liverpool Northern Hospital, entitled – “Reply from the Surgeons of the Liverpool Northern Hospital to a pamphlet, published by J P Halton, one of the Surgeons of the Liverpool Infirmary”. Published in revised edition, London, 1844.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000749
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Carden, Henry Douglas ( - 1872)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Carpenter, William Guest (1815 - 1885)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Marson, James Furness ( - 1877)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Crabtree, Norman Lloyd (1916 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Harty, John Percy Ingham (1881 - 1928)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Dinning, Trevor Alfred Ridley (1919 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23 2010-01-27
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/372237372237
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Trevor Dinning, known since childhood as ‘Jim’, was the architect of neurosurgical services in South Australia and the creator of a very successful research foundation. He was born in Dulwich, Adelaide, on 16 February 1919, the second child of Alfred Ernest Dinning, a school inspector and later headmaster of Adelaide Boys High School, and Maud Isabel née Ridley, who died two years after his birth. He was educated at his father’s school and then went on to study medicine at the University of Adelaide, qualifying in 1942 in the top three of the year after completing a shortened wartime course. In 1943 he joined the Army, serving as a captain in the Northern Australia Observer Unit and then in the 2nd 17th Australian Infantry Battalion. He developed pulmonary tuberculosis, which incapacitated him for some two years. He was discharged from the Army in 1946. It was at this time that he decided to make a career in neurosurgery. After his recovery, he took an appointment as lecturer in anatomy at the University of Adelaide, under the brilliant neuro-anatomist Andrew Abbie. During this time he wrote a paper on healed fractures in aborigines, based on the collection of skeletons in the South Australian Museum. Work as an anatomist doubtless contributed to his success as a surgeon: as an operator he was at his best in procedures demanding exceptional anatomical skill. At that time, it was virtually impossible to train as a specialist neurosurgeon in Australia, so, on a grant from the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Jim went to the UK. He entered neurosurgical training at Guy’s Hospital under Murray Falconer. During this appointment he was first author of a paper on ruptured intracranial aneurysm as a cause of sudden death, the work being based on forensic cases. Falconer had been a pupil of Sir Hugh Cairns, who was a pupil of the pioneering American neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing. Jim was to exemplify the best qualities of the Cushing/Cairns school – great interest in the neurosciences, unhurried and meticulous operative technique and total commitment to the welfare of patients. Jim returned to Australia in 1953 and took up an appointment in the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where he was to work for the next 30 years under a variety of titles – first as a member of the honorary staff, then from 1970 as full-time director of neurosurgery. After his resignation in 1979 he remained as a visiting consultant until 1983. He was also chief of neurosurgery in what is now the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. In both hospitals he rapidly established modern neurosurgical units, with rigorous attention to quality control and case audits. He was not the first neurosurgeon to serve these two hospitals – he was preceded Sir Leonard Lindon, one of the founders of Australian neurosurgery. Sir Leonard welcomed and supported Jim, but it is true to say that the development of an integrated state-wide neurosurgical service was very largely Jim’s achievement. He gave special attention to the needs of South Australians living in country areas, and in the 1960s persuaded the then minister of health to equip country hospitals with instruments to care for head injuries. Although he was happiest in his work in public hospitals, he ran a well-organised private service, chiefly at the Memorial Hospital, where after his retirement he treated cases of intractable pain. As a consultant neurosurgeon, Jim was liked and trusted by his colleagues, and admired as a superb diagnostician. As a doctor, he was warm and compassionate. Jim planned his unit with research in mind. When he had promising trainees, he placed them in overseas units with good research facilities, where they learned the skills that have since helped to make Adelaide a leader in head injury research. Most imaginatively, he created in 1964 what is now the Neurosurgical Research Foundation (NRF) to raise funds to sustain research work. The foundation received support because community leaders knew Jim and trusted him, and it received donations from those who knew him as a good doctor. In 1988, when Jim was president of the NRF, fundraising for an academic chair in surgical neuroscience was initiated, and in 1992 the University of Adelaide established a chair of neurosurgery research. This very productive chair is one of Jim’s greatest achievements. Jim was a master of bedside teaching, and he also taught by example. No one who worked with Jim could fail to know that he practised medicine according to the highest ethical standards and expected that his pupils would do the same. His teaching was fruitful. Today, Adelaide’s neurosurgeons are all in a sense his pupils. Some were directly recruited and trained by him. Others came to him trained elsewhere but are proud to have learned from him. Even those who came after his retirement were taught by his trainees and worked in the environment that he made. On a national level, Jim was a major force in the creation of neurosurgical training systems in Australia, which began around 1970, when he was president of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia. Outside Australia, some of Jim’s pupils now hold distinguished neurosurgical positions in Scotland, England and New Zealand. One of his earliest interns, J K A Clezy, was the first professor of surgery in Papua New Guinea, and brought neurosurgery to that country. Jim married Beatrice Margaret née Hay in 1943 and they had one son, Andrew, and three daughters – Anthea, Josephine and Nadia. He had many interests outside his profession, including photography, farming, stock-breeding, bee-keeping and sailing. He died on 22 September 2003 from chronic renal failure after a long illness. He has many memorials. He is commemorated by the Dinning Science Library at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, which is appropriate – he was a very scholarly man. He is remembered in the research foundation that he created. And, lastly, his example and his teaching have entered into the fabric of Australian neurosurgery.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000050
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Doey, William David (1922 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Drew, Alfred John (1916 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Weaver, Edward John Martin (1921 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Webster, John Herbert Harker (1929 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372330372330
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Herbert Harker Webster was a consultant surgeon in Southampton. He was born in Heswall, Cheshire, on 2 October 1929, the son of Herbert Webster, a biscuit manufacturer, and Doris Louise née Harker, the daughter of a chandler. In 1935 the family moved to Prenton in order to be near to Birkenhead Preparatory School. However, in 1939 he was evacuated to mid-Cheshire because of the war. The schooling there proved unsatisfactory and in 1940 John was sent to Ellesmere College, a school with a fine tradition of choral music, piano and organ teaching. From there he gained a place at Cambridge. He admitted to being absolutely hopeless at ball games, although in his own words he did “become a competent small bore .303 shot” and became a competent rower, rowing fairly consistently in all the major meetings at Cambridge, Putney, Bedford, Chester and Henley. He obtained an upper second degree in anatomy, physiology, pathology and pharmacology. He went up to London and studied for his clinical examinations at the Westminster Medical School, where he won prizes in medicine, surgery, pathology and obstetrics. After qualifying he became house surgeon to Sir Stanford Cade. He then did his National Service in the Royal Air Force from 1955 to 1957, ending up as a medical officer on an Army troop ship, being involved in the preparation of Christmas Island for the first British hydrogen bomb test. On returning to civilian life in 1959 he met Joy, his wife, at St Albans and they were married the following year at Epsom. He was a junior hospital doctor in Sheffield as registrar, lecturer and then senior registrar. He was given the most enormous responsibilities and, as was the case in those days, given wide knowledge of practically all surgical procedures. In 1967 he was appointed to the Southampton hospitals as a consultant general surgeon with a special interest in vascular surgery, more specifically to his favourite, the Royal South Hants. John noted that he had operated not only from his base at the South Hants, but in places as far flung as Southampton General Hospital, Southampton Western Hospital, Romsey and Lymington Hospitals, the Isle of Wight, Haslar, Basingstoke, Torquay and even the Royal Free. John was a member of the Peripheral Vascular Club, a club made up mostly of so-called ‘second-generation’ vascular surgeons. These surgeons had learnt their trade from single-handed vascular surgeons in the teaching hospitals such as London, Leeds and Edinburgh. They in turn became consultants in their own right in what were then considered to be provincial hospitals. This club formed a great part of John's life; he and Joy enjoyed travelling widely with the fellow members. His teaching abilities, particularly at technical surgery, were renowned. Many of his students were endowed with a sense of confidence, the major characteristic needed in a vascular surgeon. In its heyday his unit attracted excellent senior registrars and lecturers, many of whom have become famous in their own right across the country. He had a particular interest in cervical rib surgery and, together with Peter Clifford, David Whitcher and Richard Bolton from the teaching media department, produced an excellent film on first rib resection, which, in 1988, received an award from the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland for the most outstanding contribution of the year to surgical education. He was a council member of the Vascular Society. He retired in 1994. John was a rather retiring person and sometimes taciturn, but he was a great raconteur once he got going and told many stories. He was a character, a good friend and an excellent surgeon. There was an intellectual side of John's character. If you looked at the bookshelves in his office you were more likely to find works on art and poetry, rather than the latest textbook of anatomy. He made sure he filled in *The Times* crossword every day, and actually became a semi-finalist in a crossword competition. His main regret was not to pursue music, but in retirement he improved his skill on the keyboard and built his own clavichord. He was also a great fly fisherman, fishing with his old chief and mentor from the Westminster Hospital, Robert Cox. Mixed in with all this was a love of golf and, above all, a love of his family, his son, two daughters and eleven grandchildren. He died on 31 August 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000143
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Richmond, David Alan (1912 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-02
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/372335372335
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details David Richmond was an orthopaedic surgeon in Burnley. He was born on 1 September 1912 in Stockport, where his father, George, was Manchester’s last private Royal Mail contractor. His mother was Edith Lilian née Hitchin. He was educated at Stockport Grammar School and went up to University of Manchester to read medicine. In 1933 he was awarded a BSc in anatomy and physiology and won the Dickinson scholarship in anatomy. On qualifying he won the Dumville surgical prize and the surgical clinical prize. He was captain of the lacrosse university team and was presented to the Duke of York, later King George V. After qualifying, he was house surgeon and demonstrator in anatomy at Manchester Royal Infirmary, and then became registrar to H H Rayner and Sir Harry Platt. From 1940 to 1946 he was a surgeon in the EMS Hospital at Conishead Priory under the supervision of T P McMurray and I D Kitchin, and was involved in the treatment of many casualties. After the war he went with his family to work as a surgeon to a general practice in Stratford, North Island, New Zealand, which proved to be a low point in his career. The family returned to England in 1947, when he joined the RAMC as an orthopaedic specialist with the rank of Major, and served in Malaya and Japan. Whilst in Japan he worked in the American Military Hospital in Tokyo with several reputed American surgeons. He returned to England in 1949 as first assistant to I D Kitchin at Lancaster Royal Infirmary. In 1950 he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Burnley with the task of setting up an orthopaedic and trauma service where none had previously existed. This soon proved to be a success and he was joined by two other consultant colleagues. In 1960 he won a WHO travelling fellowship to work with Carl Hirsch in Sweden, and later his special interest in the surgery of the hand took him to the United States for several sabbaticals. In Burnley he was a respected member of the medical community, branch President of the BMA, and devoted much time to training junior medical staff and students, who remembered his freshly cut rose buttonhole. He married Eira Osterstock, a theatre sister, in 1939, and they had one son William David Richmond, a surgeon and a fellow of the College, and one daughter, Jennifer, who became a nurse. He retired in 1977 and the following year moved to Gatehouse of Fleet in Dumfries and Galloway, where he could devote himself to gardening and walking. Eira predeceased him in 1983 and he learned to cook and continued to be active in the Gatehouse Music Society. In 1996 he moved to Suffolk to be near his daughter, but began to develop signs of a progressive debilitating illness, from which he died on 9 August 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000148
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Stephens, John Pendered (1919 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-02 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/372342372342
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Stephens was a general surgeon at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. He was born on 29 March 1919 in Northamptonshire, where his father was an engineer with farming interests. Educated at Stowe School, his scholastic achievements were complimented by a flair for sport, particularly rugby. At Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, he read natural sciences, played for the University XV (winning a wartime blue) and represented the University at tennis. Clinical training followed at St Bartholomew's Hospital during the Blitz, where he captained a strong Bart's rugby XV. He held house appointments with J Basil Hume at Friern Barnet, one of the hospitals used by Bart's during its evacuation from London. On joining the RAMC in 1943, he served as regimental medical officer to the 1st Battalion Sierra Leone African Regiment in Sierra Leone, Burma and India. His release testimonial described him as "…a first class officer who fully understands the African soldier and as a result exerts an excellent influence over the whole battalion". Returning to civilian life in 1947, he passed the Cambridge qualifying examination, followed by the FRCS a year later. Further surgical experience was gained as a supernumerary registrar with J Basil Hume and Alan Hunt at Bart's, during which time he continued to play rugby for Bart's, Blackheath, Northampton and Kent. In 1952, John went to Norwich as a surgical registrar to the Norfolk and Norwich and allied hospitals, including the Jenny Lind Hospital for Children and the West Norwich Hospital. This widened an already good general surgical base, to which he added thoracic and cardiac procedures. He gained his masters in surgery in 1953 and in 1955 he was appointed as a consultant general surgeon in Norwich. He developed an interest in breast diseases and, as an enthusiastic protagonist of immunology and the use of BCG therapy for breast cancer, was ahead of his times. Sadly, he never published his results. He was a modest, charming man, with an excellent sense of humour. Despite having large hands, he was a gifted surgeon - those working with him admired his all round ability and remarkable clinical judgement. Norfolk suited his balanced life, combining medical practice with his outside pursuits. Ever a countryman at heart, he loved his thatched house at Bergh Apton, with its large garden, greenhouses and trees. He was a golfer, fly fisherman, ornithologist, skier and an excellent shot, rearing pheasants for his own shoot. Sailing was an abiding interest. In retirement he kept his boat on the west coast of Scotland. Retiring in 1984, his last few years were dogged by immobility due to spinal stenosis. John died on 11 April 2004 at the age of 85, and is survived by his wife, Barbara, two daughters and a son.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000155
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Stephenson, Clive Bryan Stanley (1933 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-02 2007-02-09
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/372343372343
Occupation General surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details Clive Stephenson was born in Wellington, New Zealand, on 12 November 1933 and was educated at Scots College. He studied medicine at Wellington, where he qualified in 1957, held house posts and was a surgical registrar. After a year demonstrating anatomy in Otago, he went to London in 1962 to specialise in surgery and completed SHO jobs at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital for a year, and registrar posts at Bristol Royal Infirmary and Hackney General Hospital. In 1965 he was a lecturer in surgery at St Mary’s Hospital, London, where he became particularly interested in vascular surgery. He went on to be a senior registrar at Chelmsford for two further years. In 1969 he returned to Wellington as a full-time vascular and general surgeon, becoming surgical tutor in 1970, and finally visiting vascular and general surgeon at Wellington Hospital in 1971, a post he combined with that of visiting general surgeon at Hutt Hospital. He died in Lower Hutt on 3 July 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000156
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Thackray, Alan Christopher (1914 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Williams, Robert Edward Duncan (1927 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-23 2006-12-21
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/372360372360
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Bob Williams was a distinguished urological surgeon based in Leeds. He was born on 18 December 1927 in Motherwell, Lanarkshire, the son of Robert Williams, a steelworker, and Janet McNeil. He was educated at Dalziel High School, Motherwell, and Glasgow Medical School. After house jobs in Glasgow he did his National Service in the RAMC, serving as resident medical officer to the Northumberland Fusiliers in Hong Kong. On his return, he received his general surgical training under Sir Charles Illingworth in Glasgow and John Goligher in Leeds, before deciding to specialise in urology, which in those days was emerging as a separate entity. He became senior registrar to Leslie Pyrah in Leeds, who had set up a pioneering stone clinic. There he carried out a painstaking and far-reaching study of the natural history of renal tract stone, which won him his MD. After this he went to work with Wyland Leadbetter at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, in 1964, where he carried out research on total body water and whole body potassium, which was to win him a commendation for his MCh thesis. On his return he was appointed to the consultant staff of the University of Leeds urological department in 1966. He had many interests which were shown in his numerous publications, most notably on urinary calculi, bladder cancer and lymphadenectomy. He followed Leslie Pyrah in the energetic pursuit of the establishment of urology as a separate discipline in the British Isles, which won him the admiration and respect of his colleagues. Bob was president of the section of urology of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1989 and a very active member of BAUS, of which he was president from 1990 to 1992. He was awarded the St Peter’s medal of the Association in 1993. He examined for the Edinburgh and English Colleges, and was an invited member of Council of our College from 1989 to 1992. In 1958 he married Lora Pratt, an Aberdeen graduate who was a GP and part-time anaesthetist. They had a son (Duncan) and two daughters (Bryony and Lesley), all of whom became doctors. A genial, cheerful and amusing colleague, Bob was struck down by renal failure caused by polycystic disease of the kidneys, but continued with great courage to work and publish and play an active part in BAUS, despite the need for regular dialysis. A renal transplant unfortunately underwent rejection, and he was, reluctantly, obliged to retire in 1991. He died on 26 August 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000173
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gough, David Christopher Simmonds (1947 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-13
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/372361372361
Occupation Paediatric urologist
Details David Gough was consultant paediatric urologist at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. He was born on 7 July 1947 in Almondsbury, near Bristol, to Alan Gough, an electrical engineer, and Gillian née Shellard. He was educated at Bristol Grammar School and Liverpool University, where he helped to build a magnificent steam engine float for rag week, and met his future wife, Elizabeth. After qualifying he completed junior appointments at Broadgreen, the Royal Liverpool Children’s Hospital, Addenbrooke’s and the Welsh National School of Medicine, during which time he was greatly influenced by Walpole Lewin and P P Rickham. He then spent two years at the Royal Melbourne Children’s Hospital before being appointed to Manchester. At first he was a paediatric surgeon with a special interest in neonatal surgery, and gradually moved on to paediatric urology, where he was particularly interested in congenital abnormalities, including exstrophy (for which he set up the National Bladder Exstrophy Service) and spina bifida, for which he set up a special unit, the second in England. He was an enthusiastic proponent and founder-member of the British Association of Paediatric Urologists and of the European Society for Paediatric Urology. He inherited a passion for restoring old cars from his father, and in later life was interested in collecting art and enjoying good wine. A committed Christian, he worked tirelessly for the underprivileged in Manchester and Salford, for whom he established a refuge. He married Elizabeth Brice in 1970. They had three children, one of whom became a doctor. He died on 29 March 2005 after a short illness.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000174
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Harrison, Sir Donald Frederick Norris (1925 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372256372256
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Donald Harrison was a leading ear, nose and throat surgeon who campaigned against chewing tobacco. He was born in Portsmouth on 9 March 1925, the son of Frederick William Rees Harrison OBE JP, the principal of the College of Technology for Monmouthshire, and Florence Norris. He was educated at Newport High School and then went on to study medicine at Guy’s. After junior posts at Guy’s and the Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport, he did his National Service in the Royal Air Force, during which time he developed an interest in ear, nose and throat surgery. As a registrar at Shrewsbury Eye and Ear Hospital he saw a five-year-old child who had just had a tonsillectomy bleed to death because there was no blood bank at the hospital. This led Harrison to campaign against unnecessary tonsillectomy. In 1962, he was appointed to the Royal National Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital as a consultant surgeon and a year later, in 1963, became a professor at the Institute of Laryngology and Otology. Early in his career he became interested in malignant disease of the upper respiratory tract, especially of the larynx and upper jaw, and gained an international reputation in this area, publishing more than 200 articles and several books. He warned the public about the hazards of chewing tobacco and campaigned for the Government to ban the sale of Skoals Bandits. A brilliant speaker who used no notes, he was widely sought after as a lecturer. In 1972, he gave the Wilde oration, given in memory of Oscar’s father, Sir William Wilde, and in 1974 the Semon lecture, named after Sir Felix Semon, a Victorian laryngologist whose biography he had written. He also gave talks on Richard III and the princes in the Tower and was convinced that while one of the princes’ jaws was not authentic, the other was, since it showed traces of hereditary disease. He retired in 1990, was knighted for his services to ear, nose and throat surgery, and was made an emeritus consultant to Moorfields Eye Hospital. In 1993, he was made a fellow of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists. A keen supporter of the Royal Society of Medicine, he became its President in 1994. In 1995 he published *The anatomy and physiology of the mammalian larynx* (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), based on his personal collection of more than a thousand mammalian larynges, many of which came from the London Zoo, including that of Guy the gorilla. He married Audrey Clubb, who predeceased him. They had two daughters. He had many leisure interests, notably radio-controlled model boats and heraldry, and, after the death of his wife, gourmet cooking. He died on 12 April 2003 of bowel cancer.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000069
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Nixon, John Moylett Gerrard (1913 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Rowntree, Thomas Whitworth (1916 - 2006)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372536372536
Occupation General surgeon
Details Tom Rowntree was a consultant surgeon in Southampton. He was born at 9, Upper Brook Street, London, W1 on 10 July 1916. His father, Cecil Rowntree, was a consultant surgeon at the Cancer (now Royal Marsden) Hospital, London, and held several other honorary posts in and around the city. His mother was Katherine Aylmer Whitworth Jones, the daughter of an opera singer. After his preparatory education, Tom went to Radley, where he passed the Higher School Certificate and matriculated for St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1933. He went up in the autumn of 1934 after an agreeable intervening six months in Rome – where he became fluent in Italian and attended anatomy classes at the university. He graduated from Cambridge in 1937 with a 2:1 degree in the natural sciences tripos (gaining a first in anatomy). He then went to St Bartholomew’s Hospital for his clinical training, where he also joined the Territorial Army (as a second lieutenant). At Bart’s he won the Matthews Duncan prize and qualified in 1941. At the outbreak of the Second World War Bart’s was moved to Hill End Hospital and there Tom was appointed house surgeon to James (later Professor Sir James) Paterson Ross, and then to John O’Connell, neurosurgeon. He then got a job demonstrating anatomy at Cambridge and passed the final FRCS in 1942. He returned to Hill End as chief assistant and was commissioned as a full lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps. 1942 was a landmark year for Tom for another very particular reason; it was while back at Cambridge that he met his future wife, Barbara – Dr Barbara Sibbald as she then was. They became engaged that year and married the next. They had four children, a boy and three girls. Their son became an orthopaedic surgeon and one of their daughters qualified at Bart’s, like her father, and became a general practitioner. In 1944 Tom was posted to India as a captain in the RAMC. He was released from the Army with the rank of major in 1947. After various jobs, including accident room surgeon at Reading, a registrarship at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and an honorary post at the Italian Hospital in London, he successfully applied for a consultant general surgical job in Southampton and started there in 1951. Tom was the quintessential general surgeon, the very embodiment of the best. He emphasised the importance of a detailed history, taken patiently, claiming it made up some 80 per cent of a diagnosis. He advocated, for instance, that the clinician sit at the bed/couch-side when examining the abdomen, the better to ensure, through the examiner’s bodily ease, that the examination is both gentle and unhurried; just one valuable lesson amongst many others. He independently discovered the curious phenomenon of abdominal wall tenderness in patients with non-specific abdominal pain, an immensely valuable physical sign. Tom’s clinical honesty demanded a searching but always kind and constructive analysis of any complication. His surgical technique was superb, always anatomical and scrupulously protective of vital structures. This manual felicity transferred readily to a long-time recreational interest, cabinet making, at which he excelled. He worked extraordinarily long hours at the hospital. His, too, was a most intelligent and enquiring mind. Its rigour – a notable characteristic – found expression in his concern that words, the vehicles of thought, be appropriate and joined in clear, simple, sentences. His intelligence, too, dominated the newly formed Southampton medical executive committee, of which he was the first Chairman, and through it deftly managed the birth of the Southampton Medical School. Tom’s surgical standing was recognised in his presidency of the surgical section of the Royal Society of Medicine. His presidential address was constructed from his large personal series of parathyroidectomies. He retired in 1981 to fish, make beautiful desks for each of his grandchildren and to interest himself in almost anything; it seemed, as with Dr Samuel Johnson, that there was no fact so trivial that he would rather not be in possession of it. Two weeks before he died he won the *Times Literary Supplement* crossword puzzle. On top of all this it should be added that Tom was a fair man, a good companion and had a lovely sense of humour. In short, he was quite a chap. He died on 26 February 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000350
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Helsham, Hector ( - 1910)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-13 2013-08-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002100-E002199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374382374382
Occupation General surgeon
Details The son of Arthur Helsham, MD, in practice at 16 Park Place, Mile End Road, London, E; studied at the London Hospital and in Paris, after which he practised at his father's address. In 1855 he had moved to South London, and was Surgeon to the Brixton, Streatham Hill, and Herne Hill Dispensary. In 1871 he was practising at 4 Park Place, Brixton Road, and was Surgeon to the 19th Surrey Rifle Volunteers and Medical Referee to Assurance Companies. Later his address was Sussex House, 341 Brixton Road, when he was Surgeon to the Western Division of the Metropolitan Police and Physician to the St James's Home for Inebriates. On retirement he lived at Elm Croft, Burpham, Arundel, and then at 11 Warren Road, Bournemouth, where he died in 1910.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002199
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hembrough, John (1807 - 1876)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Hemsted, Henry (1807 - 1879)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Henderson, Thomas Bonhôte ( - 1920)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Henry, Mitchell (1826 - 1910)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002200-E002299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374386374386
Occupation Businessman General surgeon Politician
Details Born at Ardwick Green, Manchester, in 1826, he was the younger son of Alexander Henry (d1862), Liberal MP for South Lancashire, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of George Brush of Dromore, Co Down, Ireland. Educated privately and at University College School in London. He afterwards joined the Pine Street School of Medicine at Manchester, which was subsequently incorporated with the medical department of the Owens College. He began to practise as a Consulting Surgeon at 5 Harley Street, London, W. He was elected Surgeon to the North London Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye in Charlotte Street, Portland Place, W. In 1857 he was elected Assistant Surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital, becoming Surgeon in 1858. He lectured on morbid anatomy and later on surgical jurisprudence. He abandoned his profession in 1862 and became a partner in the family firm of A & S Henry, merchants and general warehousemen, of Manchester and Huddersfield. In 1865 he contested Woodstock unsuccessfully in the Liberal interest, and was defeated at Manchester both at a by-election in 1867 and at the general election in 1868. During his second Manchester candidature he founded the *Evening News* as an electioneering sheet, and after his defeat sold it to William Evans. He finally entered Parliament in 1871 as Member for Co Galway, being a warm supporter of Isaac Butt and a Member of the Home Rule League. His first important speech in Parliament was in support of Butt's motion for an inquiry into the judgement of Mr Justice Keogh in the matter of the Galway election petition in 1872. He opposed Gladstone's Irish University Bill, and when Butt was ill in 1877 he became the Leader of the Irish Party in the House. When the Land League came into existence he supported Forster as opposed to Parnell, and was unseated at the general election in 1885. He was, however, returned to Parliament by the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow, voted against Gladstone's Home Rule Bill on June 7th, 1886, failed to obtain re-election at the general election in that year, and retired from Parliament. Meanwhile he had bought from the Blakes a large estate of some 14,000 acres, mostly bog, in Co Galway between Letterfrack and Galway, and at the edge of Kylemore Lough he built a stately house in the baronial style, which passed afterwards to the Duke of Manchester and is now a convent. Here he lived on good terms with the peasantry until the days of the Land League. The firm of A & S Henry became a limited company in 1889 and Mitchell Henry remained chairman till 1898. His interest in Ireland declined, Kylemore was sold, and he retired to Leamington, where he died on November 22nd, 1910. Mitchell Henry married in 1850 Margaret, daughter of George Vaughan, of Quilly House, Dromore, Co Down, by whom he had three sons and three daughters. His wife died before him, and in her memory he built a very beautiful chapel in the grounds of Kylemore which has survived the recent 'bad times'. A cartoon by 'Spy' appeared in *Vanity Fair* in 1879. Publications:- Although Henry soon deserted surgery for politics he wrote - "Description of a Brain with Deficient Corpus Callosum." - *Med-Chir Trans*, 1848, xxxi, 239. "Case of Abscess in Vesicula Seminalis perforating the Bladder Peritoneum." - *Ibid*, 1850, xxxiii, 307. Translation of Velpeau on "Diseases of the Breast" for the Sydenham Society.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002203
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hensman, Arthur (1842 - 1893)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Herman, George Ernest (1849 - 1914)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002200-E002299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374388374388
Occupation Obstetric and gynaecological surgeon Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Born February 8th, 1849, son of the Rev G L Herman, of Kilwarlin, Co Down, entered the London Hospital in 1866, where he became Resident Accoucheur in 1870, Medical Registrar in 1873, and Junior Resident Medical Officer in 1874. He was deeply influenced by Dr Henry Gawen Sutton's teaching of pathology, which afforded a real understanding of many abnormal physical signs in place of traditional explanations or want of explanations. He was much guided by Dr Matthews Duncan's expositions of midwifery, at first in Edinburgh and then at St Bartholomew's Hospital; also by the older obstetricians, Smellie and Ramsbotham. In February, 1876, Herman was elected Assistant Obstetric Physician, and in June, 1883, Obstetric Physician, to the London Hospital on the death of Dr Palfrey. For the succeeding two years he also carried on the Out-patient Department until he was given a junior colleague. In those nine years he collected notes whilst he gained much further experience on obstetrics as Physician to the General Lying-in Hospital and to the Royal Maternity Charity. Much attention was then concentrated on the flexions and versions of the uterus, and his notes enabled him to relegate these conditions to their proper place in gynaecology. For puerperal eclampsia he advocated early morphia and opposed rapid methods of emptying the uterus. During his time operative gynaecology enormously developed. Herman started under the conditions laid down in particular by Spencer Wells and Lawson Tait; he was a brilliant operator, and his results were very good, but he did not advance altogether in attention to detail. He was an excellent teacher, basing himself always on common sense and observation, but rather sparing of words. The same applies to his style of writing. He was an active member of the Obstetrical Society of London, serving as Librarian 1880-1881, Secretary 1882-1885, and President 1893-1895. He also attended the Hunterian Society and was President in 1896-1897. He was Examiner in Midwifery at the Conjoint Board and at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London, Durham, and the Victoria University. He practised at 20 Harley Street, and his advice there was sought especially by Jews, among whom he enjoyed a great reputation. After twenty years as Obstetric Physician he was elected in July, 1903, Consulting Obstetric Physician, and on that occasion his former Residents entertained him to dinner. He began his speech to them in a paraphrase of a familiar text: "As has been well said, there is more joy over one senior that resigneth, than over ninety and nine just appointed persons." In 1913 he retired to Caer Glou, Cam, Gloucestershire, and died from acute pneumonia on March 11th, 1914. He was survived by his wife, daughter, and four sons. He had married in 1884 Miss Emily Gibbings, of Chichester. Good portraits accompany his obituary notices in the *London Hospital Gazette*, 1914, xx, 211, and the *British Medical Journal*, 1914, I, 857. Publications:- *Difficult Labours*, 1894; editions appeared in 1895, 1901, 1910, 1912. *Diseases of Women*, 1898, and subsequent editions. Many other works on midwifery and gynaecology.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002205
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Heslop, Alfred Herbert (1880 - 1929)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Heslop, Luke Coates (1816 - 1861)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Langstaff, Joseph (1778 - 1856)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-02-21
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/372636372636
Occupation General surgeon
Details Joined the Bengal Army as Assistant Surgeon on Sept 18th, 1799, being promoted to Surgeon on March 5th, 1813, and to Superintending Surgeon on June 24th, 1826. He became a member of the Calcutta Medical Board on July 23rd, 1833, and President on Feb 25th, 1834. He saw active service in the Third Maratha or Pindari or Dekkan War in 1817-1818. Through his many years of active service in the East he proved an energetic and valuable public servant. He played his part as a medical officer in Indian affairs. Thus he was Medical Attendant to Lord Metcalfe’s Embassy, to Runjeet Singh, ruler of the Punjab and annexor of Cashmere, and personally received many evidences of his chief’s esteem. In the campaign in 1817 he was attached to the Army under the command of the Marquis of Hastings, when the cholera is said to have made its disastrous appearance. He retained to the last a vivid recollection of all the circumstances connected with the onset of this pestilence, which has since then devastated large areas. Langstaff returned to England in good health, having retired on July 23rd, 1838, and lived for many years in the bosom of his family. At the time of his death he was one of the oldest medical officers of the Bengal Presidency. He died of apoplexy at his house, 9 Cambridge Square, on Dec 6th, 1856.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000452
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Evans, Ieuan Lynn (1927 - 2006)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-10-26 2014-06-18
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/372458372458
Occupation General surgeon
Details Lynn Evans was a consultant surgeon to the Lewisham groups of hospitals in London. He was born in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, Wales, on 15 July 1927, the son of the Rev. Thomas John Evans and Jenny Lloyd Williams, daughter of a newspaper editor and publisher. His brother, Thomas Arwyn Evans, is also a surgeon and a Fellow of the College. Lynn was educated at Bradford Grammar School on a Nuttall scholarship, and then went on to Haverfordwest Grammar School. He studied medicine at St Mary's Hospital, where he won a prize for pathology, and, on qualifying, became house surgeon to Dickson Wright and John Goligher. He was then house surgeon to Seddon, Jackson Burrows and David Trevor at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. Lynn Evans did his National Service in the RAMC, where he was new growth registrar at Millbank, a post which brought him into contact with Sir Stanford Cade. After National Service he returned to St Mary's as a senior registrar, spending a Fulbright year as a research fellow at Baylor University, Texas, under Michael De Bakey. On his return he was appointed consultant surgeon to the Lewisham group of hospitals and honorary tutor in surgery to Guy's Hospital. He practised as a general surgeon with a special interest in vascular surgery, at a time when this specialty was beginning to develop. He married in 1956 and had a son and daughter. His hobbies included skiing, book collecting and music. He died on 27 June 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000271
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Chakrabarti, Ramakanta (1945 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-10-26 2012-03-22
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/372459372459
Occupation General surgeon
Details Ramakanta Chakrabarti was a respected surgeon in Calcutta. He was born in Calcutta on 1 October 1945, the son of Rajchandra and Kadambini Chakrabarti. He studied medicine at Calcutta National Medical College, where he subsequently held intern and house surgeon posts. In 1973 he was appointed as a senior house surgeon in general surgery and urology at the Rama Krishna Mission, Seva Prathishthan. He then became a senior surgical resident and postgraduate student at the Willingdon Hospital and Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi, where he was awarded a masters degree in surgery with a thesis on emergency prostatectomy in clinically benign enlargement of the prostate. He was subsequently surgeon to the Lalbag Hospital in Murshidabad. He then went to the UK for further surgical training. He was a senior house officer in the trauma and accident department at Queen Elizabeth II Hospital, Welwyn Garden City, and then senior house officer in orthopaedics at Oldham Royal Infirmary. He then held appointments at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, in urology and transplantation, and at Hull Royal Infirmary in orthopaedics. During this period he passed his FRCS from the London and Glasgow Colleges. He was then a registrar at Withybush General Hospital, Haverfordwest, under David Bird, where he further developed his interest in vascular and urological surgery. In 1986 he returned to Calcutta as a visiting general surgeon to the Dum Dum Municipal Hospital, where he became an outstanding figure, keeping up-to-date with the latest developments in endoscopic surgery by attending seminars and meetings, and becoming a popular member of the Dum Dum branch of the Indian Medical Association. He was married to Maitreyee, a teacher, and they had one daughter, Madhumanti, who is studying at Queen Mary College, London. He died on 3 August 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000272
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Anderson, John Douglas Chalmers (1924 - 2006)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-10-26
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/372460372460
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details John Douglas Chalmers Anderson, known as ‘Jock’, was an ophthalmologist who spent much of his career working in Afghanistan. He was born in Redbourne, Lincolnshire, on 21 August 1924, the second of three sons of William Larmour Anderson, a general practitioner, and Eileen Pearl née Chambers. He was educated at Bedford School, where he won the Tanner prize in science, and then went to Peterhouse, Cambridge, on a state bursary. After a year his studies were interrupted by the war and he joined the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, where he was a technical assistant, working on magnetrons. During the war he also served in the Home Guard and found time to obtain a BSc and a certificate of proficiency in radiophysics from London University. He returned to Cambridge in 1947 to complete his preclinical studies, and then went on to Middlesex Hospital, where he won the Mrs Charles Davis prize in surgery. After qualifying he completed house jobs at Bedford General Hospital and, after a year as a trainee assistant in general practice, returned as a demonstrator in anatomy at Cambridge. He was then an orthopaedic registrar at Bedford General Hospital. Influenced by his deeply held Christian beliefs, he accepted an invitation to work as a general surgeon at the Church Mission Society in Quetta, Pakistan. He was later an ophthalmic registrar at the Christian Medical College in Ludhiana, Punjab, India. In 1959 he returned to the UK, as an ophthalmic registrar at Northampton General Hospital and completed a course in London for the diploma in ophthalmology. He also raised funds for Afghanistan, returning there in 1961 to set up a moveable ‘caravan hospital’, taking general medical, surgical and ophthalmic services to remote desert communities. He returned to the UK as a clinical assistant in ophthalmology at Southampton Eye Hospital to study for the final FRCS. In 1967, having gained his FRCS, he was appointed consultant ophthalmologist with the National Organisation for Ophthalmic Rehabilitation in Kabul, establishing a 100 bed eye hospital and teaching centre there, from which subsidiary outpost treatment camps were organised. His centre survived the invasion by the Russians and the enmity of the Taliban, with only occasional interruptions. In 1973 he was appointed associate director (West Asia) of the Bible and Medical Missionary Fellowship, which involved two tours of three months every year in west Asia, taking him to Kunri, on the edge of the Sind Desert. In 1978 he returned to Southampton as a lecturer in ophthalmology, where he remained until 1980, when he returned to Kabul. Civil unrest meant he had to return to the UK earlier than expected. By now a world expert on trachoma, he joined the newly formed department of preventive ophthalmology at Moorfields and was appointed OBE in 1981. He carried out studies on the prevention of blindness in Zanzibar and the Sudan, and in 1984 was made an honorary consultant at Moorfields. He retired in 1988 after developing a tumour of the spinal cord. After several operations he became paraplegic. He married Gwendoline Freda Smith (‘Gwendy’), a Middlesex Hospital nurse, on 25 July 1953. They had two daughters (Ruth and Jean) and a son (Christopher). He died on 16 June 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000273
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bradbury, Sir Eric Blackburn (1911 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-10-26 2009-01-09
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/372461372461
Occupation General surgeon
Details Surgeon Vice Admiral Eric Blackburn Bradbury RN was the medical director general of the Royal Naval Medical Service from 1969 to 1972, a period when many changes were being made in the services. He was born on 2 March 1911, the son of A B Bradbury of Maze, County Antrim. His education was at the Royal Belfast Academical Institute and Queen’s University, Belfast. After qualifying in 1934, he decided on a career with the Royal Navy and was commissioned as a Surgeon Lieutenant. After basic training, he was soon at sea and from 1935 to 1936 served in HMS *Barham*, *Endeavour* and *Cumberland*. Essential hospital service was spent at the RN hospitals in Haslar, Chatham, Plymouth and Malta. His wartime sea service was spent in HMS *Charybdis* and HM Hospital Ship *Oxfordshire*. Promotion to flag rank arrived in 1966 when he became a Surgeon Rear Admiral and was appointed medical officer in charge of Haslar Hospital, the senior teaching hospital of the Royal Navy. He also became the command medical officer of Portsmouth and an honorary physician to HM the Queen. In 1968 he became a Companion of the Bath. He was soon selected as the medical director of the Royal Naval Medical Services and was appointed in 1969, serving until 1972. He was promoted Surgeon Vice Admiral in 1971 and appointed Knight Commander of the British Empire. In 1972 our College conferred the fellowship on him. In 1939 he married Elizabeth Constance Austin, daughter of J G Austin of Armagh. They had three daughters – Ann, Elizabeth and Valerie. After retirement he was chairman of the Tunbridge Wells DHA from 1981 to 1984, during which time advances were made in the accident and emergency services. He died on 6 January 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000274
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hey, Richard ( - 1860)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Walker-Brash, Robert Munro Thorburn (1920 - 2006)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372549372549
Occupation General surgeon
Details Munro Walker-Brash was a consultant general surgeon at Orpington and Sevenoaks hospitals. He was born in London on 15 November 1920, the second son of John Walker-Brash, a general practitioner, and his wife Gloria Lilian née Parker. He was educated privately at Colet Court in Hammersmith and Cliveden Place School, Eaton Square, and then entered Westminster as a King’s scholar, remaining there from 1934 until 1939. He was a chorister for Royal events in Westminster Abbey, including the coronation of King George VI. From Westminster he went up to Christ Church, Oxford, and on to St Bartholomew’s for his clinical training in 1942, spending part of his time in Smithfield during the Blitz, and part at Hill End Hospital, a former mental hospital to which Bart’s students were evacuated. After qualifying, he was house surgeon to Sir James Paterson Ross and John Hosford, by whom he was greatly influenced. He did his National Service in the RAMC, rising to the rank of major, and returned to Bart’s to be junior registrar to Basil Hume. After six months at Great Ormond Street he returned to the surgical unit at Bart’s under Sir James Paterson Ross, and then went to Norwich as registrar to Charles Noon and Norman Townsley, and the Jenny Lind Hospital for Sick Children. He returned to Bart’s in 1954 as chief assistant to Rupert Corbett and Alec Badenoch, progressing after one year to senior registrar on the ‘Green’ firm. He was noted for his dexterity, clinical judgment and teaching ability. At this time senior registrars continued their training in Bart’s sector hospitals, in Munro’s case this was at Southend General Hospital, where he worked with Rodney Maingot, who was also at the Royal Free Hospital, and Donald Barlow, who also worked at the Luton and Dunstable and London Chest hospitals. In spite of spending so much time on the road, both were prolific writers and had thriving private practices. During this period Munro was much influenced by his namesake Andrew Munro, who later moved to the Royal Postgraduate Medical School. Munro’s definitive consultant posts were at Orpington and Sevenoaks hospitals, from 1960 until his retirement in 1984. He used his extremely wide general surgical training and admitted that ‘he was overworked at two peripheral hospitals’. Surgical Tutor at these hospitals for five years from 1970, he said he wrote ‘nothing of importance’. Despite his sizeable frame, his main hobby was riding: he was a show-jumping judge and an early supporter and helper of Riding for the Disabled. He married Eva Frances Jacqueline Waite, a Bart’s nurse in 1945. They had two children, Angela, who became a personal assistant in the legal department at Scotland Yard, and Robert, who emigrated to Auckland, New Zealand, to work as an insolvency accountant. Munro’s wife was diabetic and predeceased her husband, dying in 1985. Following her death, he was befriended by Pauline Smeed. Munro had a fall in May 2006 and died in hospital on 15 September 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000363
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Hey, William III (1796 - 1875)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Curling, Thomas Blizard (1811 - 1888)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372386372386
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Tavistock Place, London, on Jan. 1st, 1811, the son of Daniel Curling, F.S.A., Secretary to the Commissioners of His Majesty's Customs, and Elizabeth, daughter of William Blizard and sister of Sir William Blizard. He was educated at The Manor House, Chiswick, and was afterwards apprenticed to his uncle Sir William Blizard (1743-1835), Surgeon to the London Hospital. During his apprenticeship he was a student at the London Hospital and attended the lectures of Edward Stanley (q.v.) and Sir William Lawrence (q.v.) at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where Blizard, his master, had himself been educated. Curling began to write before he was qualified, and communicated an article on the cranium to Partington's *Cyclopoedia*, and another, on cases he had observed at the London Hospital, to the Hospital Reports in the *London Medical Gazette*. Sir William Blizard resigned his office of Surgeon to the London Hospital in 1833, James Luke (q.v.) was promoted, and Curling was elected Assistant Surgeon in January 1834, after a severe contest with William Coulson (q.v.). In the same year he gained the Jacksonian Prize at the Royal College of Surgeons for his essay "On Tetanus", which was published in 1836. About a year after his election Curling was required to reside in the immediate neighbourhood of the hospital, and for seven years he occupied a place called 'The Mount', in the Whitechapel Road, a name given, it is said, because of the accumulated rubbish carted there after the Great Fire of London. He devoted much time to surgical pathology whilst acting as Assistant Surgeon, made the post-mortem examinations, and lectured on morbid anatomy. In 1841 he was appointed, in conjunction with James Luke, Lecturer on Surgery at the London Hospital, and in 1849 was appointed Surgeon in the place of John Goldwyer Andrews (q.v.). He was admitted a F.R.S. on June 6th, 1850, and bequeathed at his death the sum of £200 to the Scientific Relief Fund of the Royal Society. Curling was Consulting Surgeon to the Jewish, to the German, and to the Portugese Hosptials: he was also Consulting Surgeon to the London Orphan Asylum and a member of the Medical Board of the Royal Sea-Bathing Hospital at Margate, in the affairs of which he took an active interest. At the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society he filled the office of Surgical Secretary in 1845-1846 and President in 1871-1872. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member of Council from 1864-1880, a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1871-1879, Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1872, Vice-President in 1871 and 1872, and President in 1873. He discovered during his long tenure of office in the out-patient room of the London Hospital that the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the testicle needed revision. He published a paper in 1841, "Some Observations on the Stucture of the Gubernaculum and the Descent of the Testis in the Foetus", and in 1843, *A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of Testicle, Spermatic Cord, and Scrotum. *The book met with a hearty reception, ran through many editions, and was translated into foreign languages, the Chinese version being made by Sir Patrick Manson in 1866. Curling published in 1851 *Observations on the Diseases of the Rectum*, which also had a large sale, and, like "Curling on the Testis", became a standard work. His paper at the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society seems to have been the first to draw attention to the occurrence of duodenal ulcer after burns of the skin. He died at Cannes on March 4th, 1888. Curling's punctuality at the London Hospital was proverbial; he entered the gates as the clock struck the hour. In the wards he was exact and conscientious to a degree, his strong sense of duty to the patient leading him into the minutest supervision of the dresser's work. His sound judgement was grounded on vast clinical experience; he was consequently opposed to fanciful inductions. "His practice and his teaching were not at variance; both were sound, upright, and just." He was not personally popular, for his manner was cold, yet he was a staunch and sincere friend, whom to know was to trust and to honour. He was punctual in the performance of his duty in a remarkable way. He was not a good speaker, and instructed his pupils rather by what he did than by what he said. They could readily perceive that Curling's treatment of his patients was guided by fixed princicples, and that they could gain from him much valuable information. He was a careful and cautious operator, whose first consideration was a regard for the good of the individual patient. At the College he enjoyed the complete confidence of his colleagues on account of his zeal and the great interest he took in his work. The estimation in which his judgement was held by his contemporaries was shown by the fact that he was appointed five times to the important post of Surgical Referee at the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society, the last time succeeding the period of his Presidency. Curling was a man of commanding stature. There is an engraving of him from a daguerrotype in the *Medical Circular*, a photograph in the Fellows' Album, and another in *Photographs of Eminent Medical Men* (Barker and Edwards, 1867, i), and there is an engraving in the possession of the London Hospital. In later life he is described as a gentleman, tall, erect with white hair, pale complexion, and an inheritor of the large nose which marked the Blizard family.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000199
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Evans, Ivan Tom Gwenogfryn (1938 - 2006)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-07-25 2009-01-16
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/372555372555
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Ivan Tom Gwenogfryn Evans, known to colleagues, friends and patients as ‘Og’, was a consultant surgeon in Newport, Gwent. He was born in London on 11 November 1938, in a house between Battersea Power Station and the Dogs Home. His parents Evan Evans and Margaret née Jones were Welsh and kept a family general store. Like many other children living in the heart of the capital at the time of the Blitz, the infant Og was evacuated to an aunt in west Wales and when time and circumstances permitted after the war he was joined by his parents, who returned permanently to Wales to live near Newcastle Emlyn in Cardiganshire. He was educated at the local Aberbanc Primary School and Llandysul Grammar School, and then won a place at the Welsh National School of Medicine in Cardiff in 1957, where for a time he trained with Cardiff City Football Club. He did house officer posts in Cardiff, where he married his childhood sweetheart, Marion, who was a teacher in Cardiff. He trained in general surgery before selection for a training post in ENT in Cardiff. His mentors in ENT were Hector and Alun Thomas, and he especially enjoyed the variety of surgical skills in this specialty, whether it was the exacting microsurgery of the middle ear or the use of the knife in the head and neck. Also in Cardiff was Stephen Richards who had worked with Hal Schucknecht in Boston. He persuaded Og to take up a fellowship in Detroit in 1974 with Ted McGee, one of the doyens of ear surgery at that time. His appointment was to the Providence Hospital, Southfield, Michigan. This proved to be a very fulfilling professional experience for Og and a happy year for Og, Marion and their young son, Andrew. After a year they returned to Cardiff and Og was appointed consultant surgeon in Gwent with appointments at the Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport, Nevill Hall in Abergavenny, and Pontypool and District Hospital. At the Royal Gwent he established a first class otological service for the county of Gwent in collaboration with audiology colleagues Gavin Davies and Ann Thomas. Due to his wide training he was an all-round surgeon in his specialty and was as comfortable with delicate ear surgery as with the demands of major head and neck work. He was widely read and meticulously conscientious in his standards and care for patients, and he enjoyed teaching, so that he attracted trainees. He was appointed College surgical tutor for ENT in south Wales. His colleagues elected him chairman of the Gwent Medical Society and he served for several years with distinction as secretary to the Welsh Otolaryngological Society. He enjoyed family life with Marion, and especially their grandson Dylan, in their favourite location, Newport Pembrokeshire, where they had a second home. Og was passionately proud of his Welsh language and heritage. A practical man, he did all the do-it-yourself jobs around the house and, until the advent of electronics, serviced his cars himself. He had been a keen cricketer and continued to follow soccer. Og had a remarkable gift of communication with people and could speak as easily and kindly to a child as to an old person. He died in September 2006 from metastatic cancer of the pancreas that only revealed itself two months before his death.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000369
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Jonasson, Olga (1934 - 2006)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-07-25
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/372557372557
Occupation General surgeon
Details Olga Jonasson was professor of surgery at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a pioneer in organ transplantation. Born in Peoria, Illinois, the daughter of a Swedish Lutheran pastor and a nurse, she was first attracted to medicine by following her father round on his hospital visits. After Lyman Trumbull Elementary School and North Park Academy, she attended Northwestern University as an undergraduate, and won honours for her MD from the University of Illinois, a tough medical school whose practice included the notorious Cook County Hospital. She did her residency under Warren Cole at the Illinois Research and Education Hospital at a time when the department was devoted to the hunt for cancer cells in the venous blood draining cancers, many of those being actually monocytes. Exceptionally tall and blonde, she stood out from her fellow residents for her fearless and outspoken criticism of her peers and her seniors. After her residency Olga did a fellowship in immunochemistry at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, which was followed by a second fellowship in transplantation immunology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1969 she did the first renal transplant in Illinois. She was one of the first to realise the importance of HLA (human leukocyte antigen) matching, setting up a nationwide matching scheme. In 1967 she became chairman of the department of surgery at Ohio State University College of Medicine, the first woman in the United States to become head of a department of surgery. She served as director of education and surgical services at the American College of Surgery from 1993 to 2004. Her interests were not limited to transplantation: she studied inguinal hernia, pointed out that watchful waiting was appropriate in many cases, and carried out clinical trials comparing open versus laparoscopic repair. She was also a determined advocate of helmets for motorcycle riders. Despite having a formidable reputation as an ‘ice queen’, she was highly regarded by her peers, and went out of her way to encourage young women to take up careers in surgery, although she warned them not to marry or, if married, to get divorced. However, this did not stop her from being a sympathetic friend to them and their spouses. She was involved in the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany, Chicago, raising huge sums of money to repair its fabric, and was an expert cook and a lover of opera. She was made an honorary FRCS in 1988. She died on 30 August 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000371
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Moore, Keith Arthur (1911 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19
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/372291372291
Occupation General surgeon
Details Keith Moore was a consultant surgeon at North Middlesex Hospital. He was born on 30 June 1911, at Rose Bay, Sydney, Australia, the son of Frank Joshua Moore, an engineer, and Adela May née Bailey. He was educated at Brisbane Grammar School, and then Wesley College, Sydney University. He went to England to work for his FRCS. In 1941 he enrolled in the RAMC and then served in the Middle East prior to the fall of Tobruk. He subsequently escaped from an Italian prisoner of war camp and walked south through enemy territory to rejoin the Allied Forces, who were by then advancing northwards. After demobilisation he returned to Australia with an English bride, Evelyn Sarah Cowdeney (‘Sally’). They went on to have three daughters (Sarah, Charlotte and Jacqueline) and a son (Richard). He was soon appointed as a surgeon to the Children’s Hospital in Brisbane. He was unhappy with the ethos of private practice in Australia and in 1950 returned to England to work in the newly established National Health Service, the principles of which he admired. His subsequent appointment at the North Middlesex Hospital became his life’s work. He retired in 1976. He was a cutting surgeon rather than a writing surgeon, despite having kept detailed personal diaries since he was a young man. His forte throughout his surgical career was discussing the rationale for his decisions concerning the treatment of his patients with his junior staff. Much of his retirement was spent in fulfilling his life-long ambition to restore an old mill, which he had bought very cheaply and which finally became an idyllic residence and garden in Wiltshire. In his later years he was afflicted with rapidly increasing glaucoma-related blindness, which he accepted with remarkable stoicism. During this time he was ably supported by his devoted and understanding wife, Sally. He died on 4 January 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000104
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hill, John Daniel (1837 - 1875)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Owen, William Jones (1945 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 2007-08-09
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/372295372295
Occupation General surgeon
Details William Jones Owen was a consultant surgeon at Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospitals and a senior lecturer at King’s College, London. He spent his early life in north Wales, where he excelled at his academic work, rugby, music and Welsh. He won first prize in a recital group at the Urdd National Eisteddfod and the Evanson scholarship from Llandovery College. He went on to Guy’s, where he took a BSc in anatomy, with a distinction in pathology. He held house posts in the south east of England, and gained his FRCS, winning the Hallet prize. He returned to Guy’s for his higher surgical training, and during this period obtained his masters degree in surgery from the University of London for his studies on intestinal adaptation. At the end of his training, in 1981, he was appointed to the staff of Guy’s, as a senior lecturer with Ian McColl. He remained in this position until he died. For many years he also worked at Lewisham and later at St Thomas’s Hospitals, and took on management responsibilities. He was considered a warm and loyal colleague, becoming a surgeons’ surgeon. He established one of the best oesophageal laboratories in the country, producing over 100 excellent papers. He played a prominent role in the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, and was Chairman of the oesophageal section of the British Society of Gastroenterology. He was an examiner at the College and an honorary surgeon to the Army and the Royal Society of Music. He loved music and was an enthusiastic follower of sport. He was married to Wendy, a doctor who worked with him in the oesophageal laboratory. They had a daughter, Sarah, and a son, David. He died from a brain tumour on 3 April 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000108
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Pearce, Roger Malcolm (1943 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Clarke, Samuel Henry Creighton (1912 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-14
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/372224372224
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Henry Clarke was a consultant urological surgeon in Brighton and mid Sussex until his retirement in December 1976. He was born in Derby on 1 January 1912, the son of Samuel Creighton Clarke, a general practitioner in Derby and the son of a gentleman farmer from Newtownbutler, Ireland, and Florence Margaret Caroline née Montgomery, a descendent of the Montgomery who accidentally killed Henry II of France in a jousting match in 1559. Clarke was educated at Monkton Combe junior and senior schools, and then went on to St Bartholomew’s medical school, where he was a medical clerk to Lord Horder and a surgical dresser to Sir James Paterson Ross. From 1937 to 1938 he was a casualty officer, house surgeon and senior resident at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton. He enlisted in July 1939, joining the 4th Field Hospital, as part of the British Expeditionary Force. In 1940, at Dunkirk, he organised the evacuation of men on to the boats, under aerial attack. He left Dunkirk on one of the last boats out. In 1942 he was sent out to North Africa, and was present at the Battle of El Alamein. At the end of the North African campaign, as part of the 8th Army, he took part in the invasion of Italy. He ended the war as a Major in the RAMC. After the war, he returned to Bart’s, where he was much inspired by A W Badenoch. After appointments at Bart’s, as a chief assistant (senior registrar) and at St Peter’s Hospital for Stone (as a senior registrar), he became a consultant in general surgery at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital in 1950. In 1956 he was appointed as a consultant urological surgeon to the Brighton and Lewes, and mid Sussex Hospital groups. He was a member of the council of the British Association of Urological Surgeons from 1961 to 1964, and a former Chairman of the Brighton branch of the BMA. He married Elizabeth Bradney Pershouse in 1947 and they had a daughter, Caroline Julia Creighton. There are three grandchildren – Rachel, Brittany and Alexander. He was interested in rugby, tennis and golf, and collected liqueurs and whiskies. He retired to St Mary Bourne, and became an active member of his parish. He died from heart failure on 15 September 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000037
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Rees, Richard Lestrem (1916 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Richards, Brian (1934 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Rickham, Peter Paul (1917 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Roddie, Robert Kenneth (1923 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Plaut, Gustav Siegmund (1921 - 2006)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-30
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/372489372489
Occupation General surgeon
Details Gustav Siegmund ‘Gus’ Plaut was a consultant surgeon at Tooting, London. He was born on 2 September 1921 to Ellen Warburg and Theodor Plaut in Hamburg, both from eminent Jewish banking families. His father was dismissed by the Nazis, and took the post of professor of economics at Hull University, where Gus was educated at Hymers College. He went up to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in 1940, where he obtained a double first in natural sciences, and went on to win the Price entrance scholarship to the London Hospital. He qualified with the Andrew Clarke prize in clinical medicine, and after junior posts did his National Service in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Following demobilisation he went on to do junior surgical jobs at Addenbrooke’s, the London Hospital, Chase Farm and the Gordon Hospital in London, from which he passed the Edinburgh and English fellowships and then did a series of locum posts, including one in the Anglo-Ecuadorian oil fields. He had great difficulty in finding a regular consultant post, eventually being appointed at Tooting in 1960. A most entertaining and agreeable companion, Gus was a keen Territorial and spent much of his energy in charitable work, with Rotary, the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families’ Association and PROBUS. He was a keen sailor and swimmer. Always very modest, he concealed his intellect and his wealth with great urbanity. He married Ivy in 1977, who predeceased him in 1999. He died on 17 January 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000302
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Peel, Sir John Harold (1904 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-30
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/372490372490
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Sir John Peel was perhaps the most celebrated obstetrician and gynaecologist of his era. Born in Bradford on 10 December 1904, he was the son of the Rev J E Peel. From Manchester Grammar School he went to Queen’s College, Oxford, going on to his clinical studies at King’s College Hospital where, after junior posts in surgery and obstetrics and gynaecology, he was appointed to the consultant staff in 1936, and to Princess Beatrice Hospital the following year. During the Second World War he was surgeon to the Emergency Medical Service, and in 1942 was put on the staff of Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead. Together with Wilfred Oakley, he studied the management of women with diabetes, research that led to a reduction in maternal and infant mortality. A council member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1955, he was president in 1966, when he chaired a debate on reform of the abortion law, driven by his anxiety to reduce the morbidity of illegal abortion. In 1971 he was the author of a report that recommended that all women should give birth in hospital and remain there for several days, a report which wrought a great change in maternity practice, though it did not go unchallenged. Peel assisted at the birth of Prince Charles and Princess Anne, and in time succeeded Sir William Gilliatt as surgeon-gynaecologist to the Queen, in which capacity he delivered Prince Andrew and Prince Edward (all these, paradoxically, being home deliveries). A quiet, unflappable Yorkshireman, Peel was unfazed by media interest in his royal patients. He married Muriel Pellow in 1936, and divorced her in 1947, to marry Freda Mellish, a ward sister. Their long and happy marriage was terminated by her death in 1993. He married for the third time in 1995, to an old family friend, Sally Barton. He died on 31 December 2005, leaving her and a daughter by his first marriage.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000303
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wilson, Sir William James Erasmus (1809 - 1884)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-22 2014-07-23
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/372394372394
Occupation Dermatologist
Details William James Erasmus Wilson, generally known as Erasmus Wilson, was the son of William Wilson, a native of Aberdeen, who had been a Surgeon in the Navy and had settled as a parish surgeon at Dartford and Greenhithe in Kent. He afterwards opened a private asylum at Denham in Buckinghamshire. Erasmus was born on November 25th, 1809, in High Street, Marylebone, the house of his maternal grandfather, Erasmus Bransdorph, a Norwegian. He was educated at the Dartford Grammar School and afterwards at Swanscombe in Kent, but was soon called upon to help in his father's practice. At the age of 16 he became a resident pupil with George Langstaff (qv), Surgeon to the Cripplegate Dispensary, and began to attend the anatomical lectures given by John Abernathy at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. At his master's house he became acquainted with Jones Quain, Sir William Lawrence, and Thomas Wakley, whilst his skill in drawing and his neat dissections soon attracted general attention. Wilson was one of the first students at the Aldersgate School of Medicine, and won prizes for surgery and midwifery in the session 1829-1830. In 1831 he was asked by Jones Quain, Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at the London University, to become his Assistant. He accepted the post and was soon afterwards appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy. He filled this post until Jones Quain retired from the London University in 1836, when Wilson established a School of Anatomy, called Sydenham College, which proved unsuccessful. In 1840 he lectured upon anatomy and physiology at Middlesex Hospital, and in the same year he became assistant editor of the *Lancet* under Thomas Wakley, whose son, Thomas Henry Wakley (qv), he had 'coached'. He was also Consulting Surgeon to the St. Pancras Infirmary, and on Feb 20th, 1845, he was elected FRS. Erasmus Wilson began to devote himself more particularly to dermatology about 1840, largely, it is said, at the suggestion of Thomas Wakley, who advised him to link himself so closely with skins that when he entered a room the company would scratch themselves. He did so with such success that he left a fortune of £200,000. At the Royal College of Surgeons Erasmus Wilson sat on the Council from 1870-1884, was Vice-President in 1879 and 1880, and President in 1881. In 1870, at an expense of £5,000, he founded the Chair of Dermatology, of which he was the occupant till 1878. The Trust was varied in 1879, in 1881, and in 1908. The Professorship has now become the "Erasmus Wilson Lectureship". In 1870 he presented to the Museum his very extensive and valuable collection of drawings and models illustrative of diseases of the skin. In 1883 he gave to the Museum a valuable collection of anatomical specimens. The College marked its appreciation of these benefactions by presenting him with the Honorary Medal, which has only been bestowed thirteen times since it was instituted in 1802. Wilson was particularly fond of foreign travel. He visited the East to study leprosy, Switzerland and the Vallais to examine goitre, and Italy to become more closely acquainted with tinea pellagra and other diseases of the skin in the underfed and dirty vegetarian peasantry. He became particularly interested in the study of Egyptian antiquities, and in 1877 he paid the cost (about £10,000) of the transport of 'Cleopatra's Needle' to London. He was President of the Biblical Archæological Society and was President of the Medical Society of London in 1878 after he had given the Oration in 1876. One of the most notable incidents of Wilson's career occurred on the occasion of an inquest taking place at Hounslow upon the body of a soldier who had died from the effects of a regimental flogging. Owing greatly to Wilson's evidence a final verdict was returned by the jury, after ten adjournments, to the effect that the man had really died of his injuries. The coroner on this occasion was Wakley, and the result of the inquest was a Parliamentary inquiry, which led to the abolition of flogging in the army. He married Miss Doherty in 1841. She survived him, but there were no children. He died on August 7th, 1884, at Westgate-on-Sea, after two years of ill health. Erasmus Wilson ranks as one of the first and best of English specialists in diseases of the skin. He found the field of dermatology almost virgin. To his teaching we owe in a great measure the use of the bath which has since become a conspicuous feature in the life of our upper and middle classes, and to his advocacy is to be attributed the spread of the Turkish bath in England. Skillful investments in the shares of gas and railway companies made him a rich man, and he devoted his wealth to various charitable objects, for he was a prominent Freemason. He restored Swanscombe Church; he founded a scholarship at the Royal College of Music; and was a large subscriber to the Royal Medical Benevolent College at Epsom, where he built a house for the head master at his own expense. At a cost of nearly £30,000 he built a new wing and chapel at the Sea-Bathing Hospital at Margate, where diseases of the skin were extensively treated, and in 1881 he founded the Erasmus Wilson Professorship of Pathology at the University of Aberdeen in memory of his father. The bulk of his fortune reverted to the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1884 on the death of Lady Wilson. A bust by Thomas Brock, RA, stands in the Library of the College. It was ordered by the College on May 14th, 1885. A three-quarter-length portrait in oils in the robes of a Lecturer at the College of Surgeons is in the possession of the Medical Society of London. The Silver Medal presented to him by the Royal Humane Society is in the possession of the College. It was awarded for saving the life of Olivia Green, who attempted to commit suicide by jumping into the Regent's Park Canal on April 22nd, 1857. Publications: It is unquestionable that Wilson knew more about skin diseases than any man of his time. He identified the dermatological terms used by Celsus (vi, i-v) and thereby showed himself to be a learned as well as a practical physician. Hs works on dermatology, though they met with pretty searching criticism at the time of their appearance, have nearly all maintained their position as text-books. These works were: - *Diseases of the Skin*, 1842; 4th ed., Philadelphia, 1857. *On the Management of the Skin as a Means of Promoting and Preserving Health. Ringworm*, 8vo, London, 1847. *Atlas of Portraits of Diseases of the Skin*, folio, London, 1848-55. *The Anatomist's Vade Mecum*, 8vo, London; 2nd ed, 1842; 11th ed, 1892. "Skin" in Cooper's famous *Surgical Dictionary*. He also prepared elaborate anatomical plates in conjunction with Jones Quain, and published various articles and reports in the scientific journals. *History of the Middlesex Hospital during the First Century of its Existence*, 8vo, London, 1845. In 1867 he established the *Journal of Cutaneous Medicine and Diseases of the Skin*, and acted as editor until 1870.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000207
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wood, Richard Frederick Marshall (1943 - 2003)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Graham Pockley
Publication Date 2007-08-23 2009-02-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372569372569
Occupation General surgeon
Details As professor of surgery at the University of Sheffield, Richard Wood was an academic surgeon who was recognised internationally in the fields of transplantation and vascular surgery. He was a founding fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (1998), a founding member of the British Transplantation Society, council member of the Vascular Surgical Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1990 to 1998) and secretary of the Surgical Research Society (1986 to 1990). He was also secretary, councillor and vice-president of the International Transplantation Society. He served as a member of the management committee of the UK Transplant Service (the national coordinating organisation for transplantation). As an accomplished surgeon he was always totally committed to the care and welfare of patients in his charge. Richard Wood was born in Cheshire, but spent the majority of his formative years in Scotland. He studied medicine at the University of Glasgow, following which were a series of hospital appointments in Glasgow. The award of the ‘Medical News’ essay prize for the design of his own medical curriculum in 1966 set the scene for his life-long commitment to the teaching of medical undergraduates. Following his basic surgical training in Scotland, when he was a member of a team establishing a kidney transplantation programme in Glasgow, he gained his higher surgical training as a senior registrar in Leicester. He then helped to set up a kidney transplantation programme, for which he assumed day-to-day responsibility on his appointment to a senior lectureship at the University of Leicester in 1978. His special interest in kidney transplantation was further developed following a six-month research fellowship at Harvard medical school in Boston, when he was appointed clinical reader in surgery with (now Sir) Peter Morris at the University of Oxford in 1981. Richard Wood was appointed to the chair of surgery at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, in 1994. He expanded the vascular surgical practice and introduced innovative clinical work on the use of lasers for unblocking blood vessels in patients with atherosclerosis. He also assumed directorship of the renal transplantation programme. The proposed re-organisation of the medical schools in London with its attendant uncertainty prompted him to move to the University of Sheffield in 1994. He was responsible for coordinating the introduction of a unified vascular service for the city and at the time of his retirement had been director of the Sheffield Vascular Institute since its inception in 1995. In 1997, the Institute was the first winner of the *Hospital Doctor* ‘Surgical Team of the Year’ competition. Although kidney transplantation had been performed for a number of years, effective, coordinated clinical programmes were still in their infancy when Richard Wood first became interested in the field in 1968. The potent immunosuppressants that provide the mainstay of current anti-rejection treatment had yet to be introduced, as did better techniques for identifying the development of rejection. He became interested in the immunology of the rejection response and presented some of his work at the inaugural meeting of the British Transplantation Society in 1972. He was awarded an MD for his research work. His interests in transplantation immunology continued throughout his career, and it was during his time at St Bartholomew’s Hospital that he became interested in the field of small bowel transplantation. He conceived and organised the first international symposium on the subject in 1989. This biennial series of symposia continues to thrive, and the eighth meeting was dedicated to his memory. He was involved in the first isolated small bowel transplantation from a live-related donor performed in the UK at Leeds in February 1995. Richard Wood was a prolific writer who had published more than 200 scientific and clinical papers in the medical literature, as well as numerous chapters in medical and scientific books. His clinical handbook on renal transplantation published in 1983 is always at hand and he co-edited the first comprehensive text on small bowel transplantation published in 1993. His interest in small bowel transplantation continued until his retirement. Latterly, he also became interested in the capacity of exercise to improve the clinical status of patients with peripheral vascular disease using funding provided by the British Heart Foundation. Richard Wood was a committed surgeon-scientist and was a great source of inspiration and motivation for clinical trainees. His passion for academic surgery was boundless and his enthusiasm infectious. He took great pride in the progression of his former protégés, and always followed their developing careers with great interest. Despite his demanding career, he served in the Royal Naval Reserve both as a seaman officer and as a surgeon lieutenant commander with a reserve decoration. He was a devoted husband and father and as a passionate sailor, spent many holidays cruising in the Western Isles with his wife, Christine, and their two sons, Douglas and Alastair. Richard Wood’s legacy lies in his two sons and in the countless clinical and scientific trainees with whom he worked. It is a great pity that countless others will not now benefit from his expertise and wise counsel.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000385
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Vane, Sir John Robert (1927 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-26 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/372326372326
Occupation Pharmacologist
Details John Vane shared the Nobel prize in 1982 with Bergström and Samuelsson for discovering how aspirin works, based on the research he had carried out at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences in our College, where he was successively senior lecturer, reader and then professor between 1955 and 1973. Born on 29 March 1927 in Tardebigg, Worcestershire, he was the son of Maurice Vane and Frances Florence née Fisher. As a boy he blew up the kitchen with a chemistry set, so his father built him a shed in the garden to serve as a laboratory. He read chemistry at Birmingham University, graduating at 19, and then went on to St Catherine's College, Oxford, to read pharmacology, winning the Stothert research fellowship of the Royal Society in 1951. Between 1951 and 1953 he was assistant professor of pharmacology at Yale, coming back to our College where the head of the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences was William Paton, succeeded by Gustav Born, then both leading pharmacologists of their day. It was at a time when prostaglandins were being discovered, and Vane had a notion that aspirin might work by inhibiting their formation, and went on to show that aspirin and indomethacin did in fact inhibit prostaglandin synthetase. Later he developed the anti-inflammatory drugs which inhibited cyclo-oxygenase-2 (the Cox 2 inhibitors) and captopril, the first of the ACE inhibitors. In 1973 he left the College to become director of research and development at the Wellcome Foundation, where his research group discovered prostacylin, the agent which dilates blood vessels and prevents platelets from sticking together. He retired from the Wellcome in 1985 to set up a new research establishment, the William Harvey Research Institute at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He retired again in 1995, but continued as the director of the institute's charitable foundation. He was an inspiring teacher and many young surgeons spent a profitable year under his supervision at the College learning the principles of basic scientific research. He married Elizabeth Daphne Page in 1948. Basically shy, he was a most agreeable companion. He and Daphne built a house in Virgin Gorda in the Caribbean, where he enjoyed underwater swimming. He died from pneumonia on 19 November 2004, leaving Daphne and their two daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000139
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Walker, Victor Gordon (1919 - 2004)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Carter, James Francis (1933 - 2008)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Patrick G Alley
Publication Date 2009-08-14
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372829372829
Occupation General surgeon
Details James Francis ‘Jim’ Carter was a general surgeon in Auckland, New Zealand. He was born on 17 March 1933 in Rawene Northland, New Zealand, one of six children of hardworking share milkers and agricultural labourers who frequently had to move to seek work in those days of depression. He was educated at Kawa Kawa High School and Kaitaia College, before studying medicine in Otago. He did his junior posts in Wellington and then spent two years in Blackball, on the west coast, serving the mining community. In 1959 he married Dorothy Rees, a staff nurse at Wellington Hospital, and in 1962 they went to England, where he passed the FRCS and worked as a registrar in London, ending as senior registrar at St Mark’s Hospital. He returned to New Zealand in 1968 as a surgical tutor and specialist in general surgery at Green Lane Hospital in Auckland. He introduced the resection and immediate anastomosis for acute left colonic conditions, which was at that time regarded as revolutionary. Two years later he founded the northern regional training scheme for surgical registrars, whereby registrars would rotate outside the main teaching centres, then a novelty in New Zealand. From 1972 he entered and developed a successful private practice, but at the same time was given an honorary academic appointment at the Auckland Medical School by Eric Nanson, who recognised his ability in clinical research. There he set up a unit for the investigation of disorders of oesophageal motility. The North Shore Hospital was opened in 1984, with Jim Carter, P G Alley, John Gillman and Kerry Clark running the general surgical service, which soon became sought-after by trainees studying for the FRACS. He was active in the Australasian College, serving on the court of examiners and its New Zealand committee, which was to become the New Zealand board of surgery and was a founder member of the New Zealand Association of General Surgeons. He was a truly general surgeon, excelling in endocrine, head and neck, colorectal and upper GI surgery. He established breast clinics at the North Shore and Mercy hospitals. A keen athlete, he was a member of the Owairaka Running Club, with several marathons to his credit, always doing his training in the early mornings. He died on 19 September 2008, leaving his widow, Dorothy, a daughter Rosemary and son Richard.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000646
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Cape, Henry (1817 - 1866)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Cardell, John Magor (1832 - 1875)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Alford, Henry (1806 - 1898)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372849372849
Occupation General surgeon
Details Third son of the Rev Samuel Alford, of Queen's College, Oxford, who graduated BA in 1797 and MA in 1800. He was born at Curry Rivel, near Taunton. The Alford family had held property in West Somerset from the middle of the sixteenth century, and son had succeeded father in the church for several generations. Henry Alford (1810-1871), Dean of Canterbury, and Bishop Alford were cousins of Henry Alford, FRCS. Alford became a house pupil at the Bristol Infirmary in 1822, and five years later came to London to complete his medical education at St Bartholomew's Hospital. After qualifying, he practised at Ilminster until he was appointed Surgeon to the Somerset and Taunton Hospital in 1830, when he settled in Taunton. He resigned his office in 1859 and was appointed Consulting Surgeon. He was Bailiff of Taunton, a churchwarden of St Mary's Church, a keen politician, and a hearty supporter of Sir Robert Peel in his policy of repealing the Corn Laws. He died at South Road, Taunton, in his 92nd year on June 29th, 1898. He married twice, and by his first wife left four children. His son, Henry J Alford, MD MRCS, was also educated at St Bartholomew's Hospital, and was Medical Officer of Health for Taunton.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000666
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Carpmael, Norman (1875 - 1912)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Parkin, Henry (1779 - 1849)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Kidd, Thomas (1777 - 1849)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372598372598
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on Aug 25th, 1777. He was Regimental Mate in the 49th Foot from June 17th, 1796, to Jan 23rd, 1797, and Surgeon's Mate on the Hospital Staff, not attached to a regiment, from Jan 24th to April 5th, 1797. He was gazetted Assistant Surgeon to the 13th Regiment of Foot on April 6th, 1797, was transferred to the 14th Dragoons on March 15th, 1799, and became Surgeon to the 4th Battalion of the 60th Foot on April 25th, being transferred to the 63rd Foot on July 25th. He became Staff Surgeon on Aug 27th, 1803, and Deputy Inspector of Hospitals, afterwards Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals (Brevet), on July 17th, 1817. The last-mentioned grade was abolished from 1804-1830, but the rank Deputy Inspector-General (Brevet) seems to have been conferred during that period. Kidd was again gazetted Deputy Inspector-General on Jan 27th, 1837, and became Inspector-General of Hospitals on Dec 16th, 1845, on which date he retired on half pay. He had served in the Peninsular War in 1810-1813, and had devoted his life to the service of his country in various parts of the globe, being stationed at one time at Corfu. He was held in high esteem by his brother officers. He died from bronchitis after a few hours’ illness on Dec 24th, 1849.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000414
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Martin, Henry Victor (1811 - 1901)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Martin, John Michael Harding (1847 - 1906)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Martin, Sir James Ranald (1796 - 1874)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-08-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002600-E002699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374854374854
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Kilmuir, Isle of Skye, on May 12th, 1796, the twin son of the Rev Donald Martin, and was educated at the Royal Academy, Inverness. He remained a student at St George's Hospital and at the Windmill Street School of Medicine until 1817, when on September 5th, he was appointed Assistant Surgeon on the Bengal establishment of the HEICS. In 1818 he was Assistant Garrison Surgeon at Fort William, and then spent three years in Orissa. In 1821 the Governor-General appointed him Surgeon to his Bodyguard. Towards the end of 1823, on the advice of Simon Nicolson, then the leading physician in Calcutta, he was selected by the Governor-General, Lord Amherst, to go to Haidarabad to attend Sir Charles Metcalfe, the Resident, who was seriously ill. He treated him successfully, brought his patient to Calcutta, and resumed his position in the Bodyguard. He served with this corps in the First Burmese War of 1824-1826 and was present at the capture of Donabew. On his return from Burma he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to the General Hospital in Calcutta, and on September 22nd, 1828, reached the rank of Surgeon. Later in the year he was appointed Surgeon to the Governor-General, Lord William Bentinck. In 1829 Martin was Garrison Surgeon at Fort William and Officiating Surgeon of the General Hospital. In 1830 he became a Presidency Surgeon, and in November of the same year succeeded Simon Nicolson at the Calcutta Native Hospital - appointments he held until January, 1840. Martin retired from the Indian Medical Service on May 20th, 1842, settled in London, and lived for some time in Grosvenor Street. On March 31st, 1860, being then Physician to the Secretary of State for India, he was nominated one of the seven members of the Senate of the newly established Army Medical School at Fort Pitt, Chatham, and on October 31st, 1864, he was appointed President, with the rank of Inspector-General, of the Medical Board of the India Office. He was also a member of the Army Sanitary Commission. Martin resigned his appointments on November 17th, 1874, and died of bronchitis ten days later at his house in Upper Brook Street, Grosvenor Square. He married in 1826 a daughter of Colonel Patten, CB. Martin was considered by Lieut-Colonel Crawford (*History of the Indian Medical Service*, 165) to have been "one of the most distinguished officers who have ever served in the Indian Medical Service". Whilst carrying on a large practice in Calcutta he found time to put forward many plans for improving the condition of the city and of the Indian Medical Service. For the latter he recommended in 1835 that medical officers should be called upon to write medico-topographical reports on their stations and districts, and set them an example by his *Notes on the Medical Topography of Calcutta*. In 1838 he submitted minutes on promotion and pension in the IMS, and in 1856, after his retirement, he wrote an important minute on the status of the army medical officer. He was also instrumental in obtaining the grant of such military honours as the Victoria Cross, the CB, and KCB to officers of the Army Medical Department and of the Indian Medical Service, though it was not until 1860 that he was himself decorated CB and made a Knight Bachelor. He had been elected FRS in 1845. Martin also recommended that the Medical Corps should be looked upon as a scientific corps and should rank next after the Royal Engineers. Sir Ranald Martin was one of the first surgeons who used injections of iodine for the treatment of hydrocele. Publications: *Notes on Medical Topography of Calcutta*, 1837, Calcutta, 2nd ed, 1839. *On the Influence of Tropical Climates on European Constitutions*, 1841; 7th ed., 1856, re-written; 8th ed, 1861. *A View of the Formation, Discipline and Economy of Armies* (with JOHN GRANT), London, 1845. It contains an account of Robert Jackson, the famous Army Surgeon (1750-1827).
Resource Identifier RCS: E002671
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Martin, Robert (1792 - 1873)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Bancroft-Livingston, George Henry (1920 - 2007)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-11-08
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/372600372600
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details George Bancroft-Livingston was a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Lister Hospital, Stevenage. He was born in Ross, California, on 13 October 1920, one of two children of Henry Livingston, a diplomat, and Barbara née Bancroft. He was educated at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, from the age of eight, the second of three generations to attend the school. He went on to study medicine at Middlesex Hospital, qualifying in 1944. From 1946 to 1949 he served as a squadron leader in the RAF, based in Wales. Formerly a senior registrar and research assistant at the Middlesex Hospital, he moved to Belfast in 1953 and became the Barnett tutor in obstetrics and gynaecology in 1954, and subsequently lecturer in midwifery and gynaecology at Queens University, Belfast. He moved to England in 1958 to take up the post of consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist to the North Herts Hospital, Hitchin, and the Luton and Dunstable Hospital, before moving to the Lister Hospital in Stevenage. He was awarded his FRCOG in 1960, and went on to examine for the college, especially in Northern Ireland and Basra, Iraq. George married Stella Pauline Deacon in 1950. They had a son, Mark, who became a general practitioner, and four daughters. George upheld his Catholic faith during his professional life, steadfastly refusing to undertake any abortion work as a gynaecologist. He retired in 1985 and became a Brother of the Order of St John in 1996, receiving his ten-year medal of service posthumously at his funeral. He died suddenly on 16 April 2007 after a short illness.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000416
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Pratt, David (1930 - 2006)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2008-10-17
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/372747372747
Occupation General surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details David Pratt was a consultant general and vascular surgeon at St James’s University Hospital, Leeds. He studied medicine in Leeds, where he had a distinguished undergraduate career, gaining first class honours and graduating with distinctions in surgery and forensic medicine. After house appointments, he served as a surgeon lieutenant on HMS Eagle during the Suez Crisis. He returned to Leeds, where he completed his surgical training. In 1962 he gained his FRCS, winning the Wilson Hey gold medal. He was appointed as a consultant to St James’s and Chapel Allerton hospitals, Leeds. His consultant career was marked by great diagnostic flair and superb technical skills: but above all he is remembered by patients for his caring personality and by his colleagues for the help he gave them in difficult times. Behind an unassuming demeanour there was a lively mind and a gentle sense of humour. David was a valued member of the Travelling Surgical Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1971 onwards. He and his wife, Libby, made many friends when attending overseas and home meetings. He was greatly respected in this forum of surgeons whose members represent most parts of the UK and many specialties. He was also a member of the Vascular Society and many of his publications reflected this interest; his wider knowledge of surgery was apparent in other papers and lectures. During a visit of the Travelling Surgical Society to Gibraltar and southern Spain he gave a paper on ‘Delorme’s procedure’ illustrated by his own pastel drawings: colo-proctologists present were surprised at the depth of his knowledge and his carefully assessed results. His other interests included photography, domestic cooking and watercolour painting in which in retirement he took lessons. He died suddenly at home of acute coronary insufficiency on 23 May 2006. He is survived by Libby and three sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000564
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching de Fonseka, Chandra Pal (1919 - 2008)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by John Blandy
Publication Date 2008-10-17 2015-09-11
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/372748372748
Occupation Accident and emergency surgeon
Details Chandra Pal de Fonseka was an accident and emergency surgeon in Bristol. He was born in Panadura, Ceylon, on 22 December 1919 into a family with many medical connections. His grandfather and two uncles were medical practitioners. His father, Hector Clarence de Fonseka, was a landowner who managed his own rubber and coconut estates. His mother was Inez Johanna née Gunewardene, whose three brothers studied medicine in London. Three of his cousins were also in medicine. Chandra qualified in medicine from the University of Ceylon with the Sir Andrew Caldecott and Dadabhoy gold medals in his final examination. He then held house appointments in his own teaching hospital. At the end of the war it was difficult to get a passage to England, so he signed on as ship's doctor to the Blue Funnel liner SS Demodocus, which was a naval auxiliary that had been held up in Colombo because her doctor had fallen ill and had been sent back to England. After a seven-month voyage, he arrived in Liverpool in November 1946. He attended the primary course at the Middlesex Hospital, passed the examination, and returned to Ceylon, where he underwent an arranged marriage to his first wife Rukmani Dias. He returned to London to specialise in surgery, doing registrar jobs at Hammersmith, the North Middlesex and St Mark's hospitals, enriching his experience by attending rounds and courses in a number of hospitals, among which he particularly valued his experience at St James's, Balham. Having passed the FRCS in 1949, he became a resident surgical officer at St Bartholomew's Hospital, Rochester, for two years and was then a registrar in Bath under Sholem Glaser who, with the other five general surgeons, gave him a glowing testimonial. There he met Peter London, then the senior registrar in orthopaedics. From Bath he went to Bristol to widen his experience in cardiothoracic surgery under Ronald Belsey in the Frenchay Hospital thoracic unit for another two years. Belsey was unstinting in praising his clinical and operative skills. Whilst there he did his best to learn neurosurgery and plastic surgery, experience which he found particularly valuable on his return to Ceylon in 1956 as senior lecturer in the university department of surgery in Colombo. Celyon had won its independence from Britain in 1948 without a drop of blood being shed. In 1958 communal riots broke out between the Tamil and Sinhalese populations. Chandra was in the theatre round the clock, dealing with gun-shot and knife wounds under the most difficult circumstances. His Tamil anaesthetist was beaten up by a Sinhalese mob. Buddhist priests complained to the administrator (a Tamil) that another doctor was treating Tamils rather than Sinhalese and the doctor was duly dismissed. The Prime Minister was assassinated in September. Laws were passed to outlaw the Tamil language and make Sinhalese the only official language. Chandra was appointed professor of surgery in July 1960. The workload increased, especially in cancer. In 1962 his marriage was dissolved and he married his second wife, Maria Thérése Bertus in Colombo. In 1963 he was asked to set up a new department of surgery in Kandy. By now Chandra was one of the senior figures on the medical scene, having become president of the medical section of the Ceylon Association for the Advancement of Science. He had been granted a sabbatical year to study in the UK and had planned visits to the foremost centres in Britain and Germany, with introductions from Ronald Raven and Sir James Patterson Ross among others. But permission was repeatedly refused for his wife to accompany him until eventually she was allowed to go as a pilgrim to Rome with their new baby daughter. They eventually made their way to the UK in 1964. There Chandra was appointed senior research fellow to set up the road accident research unit in Birmingham, the report of which was published in five volumes in 1969. During this period he was a clinical assistant to the accident department of Dudley Road Hospital. In 1969 the Medical Research Council invited him to set up a similar study into accidents in the home and he was appointed honorary lecturer in accident epidemiology in the department of public health in the University of Bristol. This project developed into the National Home Accident Monitoring Scheme of the Home Office. From then on he continued to work in the accident and emergency department until he retired in 1985. He was a man of great integrity, charm and courtesy, who was widely admired for his qualities not only as a technical surgeon but as a teacher. He published extensively on road and domestic accidents, and was in demand as a lecturer in Europe and America. His many outside interests included geology, cosmology and astronomy, and with Thérése he was a keen traveller and photographer. He was for many years treasurer of the Society of St Vincent de Paul, a charity for the disabled that was affiliated to the Catholic Church. He died on 5 April 2008, leaving his widow and the youngest of their two daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000565
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Friedmann, Allan Isadore (1916 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372749372749
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Allan Isadore Friedmann was a consultant ophthalmologist at the Royal Eye Hospital. He was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, on 15 June 1916 to Joseph and Matilda Friedmann. His father was a pharmacist. He was educated locally at Grey College School in Bloemfontein, matriculating with first class honours. His undergraduate medical education was at Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg, and he then held house jobs in the General Hospital, Johannesburg, including the department of ophthalmology. He served the rest of the war in the South African Medical Corps, attaining the rank of captain. After going to England, he was initially senior lecturer to the College from 1963 to 1966 and was subsequently reader to the department of ophthalmology. At the same time, in 1963, he was appointed consultant ophthalmologist to the Royal Eye Hospital. His work was greatly influenced by two London ophthalmologists – A Sorsby and H B Stallard. He was interested in and wrote about the causes of blindness in children. He played tennis most of his life and was also interested in music and photography. He married twice. He married Marion Bernstein in 1940 and they had one son, who was “non-medical”. He died on 20 November 2005 and is survived by his second wife, Shu Qi Zhang.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000566
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ellis, James Stokes (1912 - 2007)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-11-08 2009-01-16
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372605372605
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Jim Ellis was professor of orthopaedic and accident surgery at the University of Southampton. He was born on 13 April 1912 in Selborne, Hampshire, the son of Frank Stokes Ellis, a wine merchant who went on to serve in the First World War with the Royal Fusiliers, and Ada née Parkes, whose family were jewellers in London. Ellis was educated at Eastbourne Preparatory School and then Charterhouse, where he decided to become a doctor. He went on to study at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he met Monica Verdon-Roe, then at Girton. After a five-year engagement the couple eventually married in 1938. After Cambridge, Ellis went to St Thomas’ Hospital in London, qualifying in 1937. Two years later he gained his FRCS, and the Cambridge MChir in 1941. After qualifying he worked in the casualty department at St Thomas’, as Bernard Maybury’s house surgeon. He was then appointed to the senior casualty post and, at the outbreak of the Second World War, was surgical registrar to W H C Romanis. During the war he was in the Emergency Medical Service, first on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, as a general surgeon. He then attended Watson-Jones’ first trauma course in Liverpool, and was sent to Park Prewett Hospital, Basingstoke, in charge of what was later to become the orthopaedic department under V H Ellis from St Mary’s Hospital. In 1946 he transferred to the Army, as a major in the RAMC, in charge of the orthopaedic department at the Cambridge Military Hospital, Aldershot. In 1948, Jim was a member of the first group of ABC (American-British-Canadian) Travelling Fellows, visiting North America. He retained his links with his North American colleagues, and was often host to United States and Canadian doctors. He returned to the UK, as chief assistant to the orthopaedic department at St Thomas’ under George Perkins. In 1950 he was appointed as a consultant surgeon to the Winchester and Southampton group of hospitals. In 1968 he began to work part-time for the Wessex Regional Hospital Board, first as director of postgraduate studies and later also as chairmen of the board’s medical advisory committee. When the new medical school at Southampton was opened he became the first professor of orthopaedic and accident surgery in 1971. He retired in 1976. Ellis became a member of the editorial board of the *Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery* in 1964 and completed two four-year terms of office. From 1970 to 1971, he was president of the orthopaedic section of the Royal Society of Medicine, and was later chairman of the orthopaedic higher surgical training committee of the College and vice president of the British Orthopaedic Association (1975 to 1976). His main professional interest was in the surgery of the hand, and he was a member of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand. He was an examiner for Liverpool and Edinburgh universities and visited Iraq in 1973 and South Africa in 1976. Since childhood, Ellis had been fascinated by the theatre, with all aspects of costume and staging, as well as performance. His early memories included attending performances at Eastbourne’s Variety Theatre with his father. As a student at St Thomas’ he played in the hospital’s Christmas shows for five years before the war and then again ten years later, in the late 1940s. His performances were legendary and he might have pursued a successful stage career had he not chosen medicine. After becoming a consultant he performed in the local village drama group in Hampshire, in the annual pantomime, but also in plays and play readings. While he wrote outstanding music and lyrics for the pantomime, he himself would play the dame. These performances were superb and, with his exceptional comic talent and timing, he was able to reduce audiences to helpless laughter night after night. His last work in the theatre was directing *The Boy Friend* for the Winchester Amateur Dramatic Society, put on at the newly re-launched Theatre Royal Winchester. In retirement, Ellis and his wife went regularly to the theatre, to Chichester, Southampton and Salisbury, and, while on breaks to London, saw two plays a day for two or three days, keeping up with the latest performances. He was also interested in architecture, archaeology and, in earlier years, gardening. Ellis and his wife lived in a large early 19th century house near Otterbourne for 20 years, where they brought up their family of three children, two of whom survive him. They also had a holiday home at Welcombe, in north Devon, which they bought in the 1960s. Always adept with his hands, Ellis gradually modernised the cottage, undertaking all the plumbing and electrical work himself. Jim’s eyesight became increasingly compromised by macular degeneration, which he suffered without complaint. Monica died after a short illness in 2001. Jim continued to live alone in their house in Otterbourne village for a further two years, helped by a team of carers. He finally moved to a nursing home for the last years of his life, where he died on 3 May 2007, just after his 95th birthday.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000421
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Butlin, Sir Henry Trentham (1845 - 1912)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-11 2012-03-22
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/372407372407
Occupation General surgeon
Details The fourth son and fifth child of the Rev. W. Wright Butlin, M.A., of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, who died in 1902 at the age of 88. His mother was Julia Crowther Trentham, a clever and strong-minded woman coming of an evangelical Northamptonshire family who, in spite of delicate health, lived to be 84. The Butlins were a Rugby family who carried on the business of Butlin's Bank which was established in 1791 and was absorbed by Lloyds Bank in 1868. The Rev. W. W. Butlin was Curate of Camborne, then held the joint living of Cury and Gunwalloe, Cornwall, and was finally Victor of Penponds, near Camborne, where he is said to have been instrumental in building the church. Later in life he came into some property at Rugby which had been left to his father - a medical man - by Mr. Benn, a cousin. It had belonged to Mrs. Anne Butlin, who carried on Butlin's Bank after the death of her husband. Henry Trentham Butlin was born on Oct. 24th, 1845. He was educated at home with his brothers by a resident tutor until he entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital in October, 1864, where he lived in the residential college of which Dr. James Andrew was Warden. The appointment of House Surgeon to Sir James Paget (q.v.) became vacant unexpectedly in 1868 by the resignation of William Square (q.v.), of Plymouth, and Butlin was appointed in his place from April to October. When the House Surgeoncy ended Butlin went to Charing, in Kent, with a view to partnership with Charles Wilks, who had taken his M.R.C.S. in 1825 and was a devoted adherent to this old medical school. An agreement was drawn up but never signed, as Butlin felt himself unsuited for a country practice after the stimulus of acting as House Surgeon to Sir James Paget, and had determined to settle in London as a surgeon. He was appointed Medical Registrar to the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street and held the post until July, 1872. It was generally recognized on his resignation that he could have been elected an Assistant Physician had he chosen to apply. Whilst he was Registrar he passed the F.R.C.S. examination, and was appointed Surgical Registrar at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in December, 1872. The duties were arduous, for the Registrar had to examine every patient admitted to the surgical wards and write a note with his own hand in specially kept books. He had to attend in the operating theatre, verify the diagnosis of tumours by microscopical examination, and conduct the surgical post-mortems. All these duties Butlin performed to the entire satisfaction of the staff, and soon made such a reputation for himself that he was co-opted to the Morbid Growths Committee of the Pathological Society, of which he was Secretary from 1884-1886. Being as poor as Job, he married in 1873 Annie Tipping, daughter of Henry Balderson, merchant, of Hemel Hempstead, took a house, No. 47 Queen Anne Street, and kept the wolf from the door with resident pupils who paid £126 a year apiece. The marriage was singularly happy, and Butlin rightly attributed much of his success in life to the sterling qualities of his wife, who relieved him of all domestic anxieties. By her he had two daughters and a son. The elder daughter, Olive, married Percy Furnivall, F.R.C.S., only son of F. J. Furnivall, the well-known Shakespearean scholar; the younger married Norman Morice, of the firm of J. C. & C. W. Moore, stockbrokers. The son, Henry Guy Trentham, survived his father, volunteered whilst still at Cambridge, and was reported missing and wounded from the Cambridgeshire Regiment near Beaumont Hamel, France, on Sept. 16th, 1916. Whilst acting as Surgical Registrar Butlin was elected Assistant Surgeon to the Metropolitan Free Hospital, a post he resigned on becoming Assistant Surgeon to the West London Hospital, where he remained from 1872-1880, having a few beds of his own, learning to do major emergency operations, and having Sir Alfred Cooper (q.v.) as his chief. He was also Surgeon to the Alexandra Hospital for Children with Hip Disease which then occupied a single house in Queen Square, Bloomsbury. He was appointed Demonstrator of Practical Surgery in the Medical School attached to St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1879, and in the following year he was elected Assistant Surgeon in the vacancy caused by the unexpected death of George W. Callender (q.v.). He was immediately put in charge of the Out-patient Department for Diseases of the Throat upon the resignation of Sir T. Lauder Brunton, M.D. He held the post for twelve years, and with the help of Dr. F. de Havilland Hall raised the department to as high a pitch of excellence as could be obtained in the cramped quarters assigned to it. He also made for himself a leading position amongst contemporary laryngologists, though he never pretended to specialize in surgery of the throat, and with Felix Semon and de Havilland Hall he was a principal founder of the Laryngological Society, which is now a section of the Royal Society of Medicine. He became full Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital when Morant Baker (q.v.) resigned in 1892, and was appointed joint Lecturer on Surgery with John Langton (q.v.) in 1896. He resigned the office of Surgeon in November, 1902, before he had reached the age limit, and was elected Consulting Surgeon and a Governor of the Hospital. He was placed on the Visiting Governors Committee in 1909. Butlin's connection with the Royal College of Surgeons began in 1873, when he won the Jacksonian Prize with his essay on "Un-united Fractures". He delivered the Sir Erasmus Wilson Lectures on Pathology in 1880 and 1881. The lectures were published in 1862 under the title *Sarcoma and Carcinoma, their Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment.* In 1892 he lectured, as Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology, "On Chimney Sweeps' Cancer". He delivered the Bradshaw Lecture in 1905, and in 1907 he gave the Hunterian Oration without a note or a falter - a feat which had only been accomplished in recent years by Sir James Paget, Sir William Savory, and Henry Power. He was a Member of the Council, 1895-1912. In 1909 he became President, was re-elected in 1910, and again in 1911. Failing health prevented him from completing his third year; he resigned, and Sir Rickman J. Godlee (q.v.) acted in his stead. Butlin had an equally brilliant career in the British Medical Association. A Vice-President of the Section of Pathology at the Worcester Meeting in 1882, he was President of the Section of Laryngology at the Leeds Meeting in 1889, and at the Portsmouth Meeting ten years later he was President of the Surgical Section. He delivered the General Address in Surgery at the Exeter Meeting in 1907, speaking of the "Contagion of Cancer in Human Beings". In 1910, as President of the Association, he spoke on the "Evolution of the British Medical Association and its Work". He was Treasurer of the Association from 1890-1893, and again from 1893-1896, being the only person who had been re-elected to that important and responsible office. At the University of London he was the first Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. He was President of the Pathological Society of London 1905-1907, during which he gave the Jubilee Address; and President of the Laryngological Society. During the latter years of his life he had the pleasure of acting as a Governor of Rugby School and thus renewing his ancestral ties with the County. He died after a long period of failing health due to laryngeal tuberculosis on Jan. 24th, 1912, and was cremated at Golder's Green. Butlin was a man of rather frail and slender physique, slightly above medium height, but possessed of such vitality, nervous energy, and endurance that after a long morning of private practice he would never leave the operating theatre at the hospital until the list was finished, so that he often remained standing from 1.30 to 7.30, when he was left in a state of profound exhaustion. He loved horses took his exercise in riding, and would often ride to St. Bartholomew's Hospital on a Sunday morning. His holidays were usually spent in travelling through France, Spain, and Italy. His carriage, always painted an olive green decorated with his coat-of-arms, and drawn by a well-groomed pair of excellent horses, made him recognizable everywhere, for, thanks to Lady Butlin, he always had a very smart turn-out. He was a good and fluent speaker, and it was clear that he had deliberately modelled his style on that of Sir James Paget. As a teacher of students both in the wards and in the lecture theatre he was excellent. He leant to the pathological side of surgery and was always much interested in tumours and their structure. As a surgeon he was bold, and undertook very extensive operations for the complete removal of malignant growths, so that he may be said to be one of the pioneers in England who adopted the radical cure of cancer and was not contented with the local removal practised by his predecessors. His practice was extensive and lucrative - beginning with nothing he left the sum of £90,996. He would have been equally successful had he gone into business, for he was far-seeing, had large ideas, was very careful in detail, and from a business point of view was one of the best occupants of the Presidential Chair at the Royal College of Surgeons. Honours came to him from many sources. He was created a baronet in 1911; he was an honorary D.C.L. of Durham (1893), and a LL.D. of Birmingham (1910). Butlin stood at the parting of the ways when Sir W. Mitchell Banks (q.v.) drew attention in 1877 and again in 1882 to the good results obtained by removing the axillary glands with the breast in cases of cancer. He had followed the example of his seniors, and especially of Sir James Paget, in adopting local removal. For a while he followed the new teaching, but it was breaking away from tradition and for a time he went back to the old methods. In the end he became a whole-hearted adherent, and, like a true convert, he practised larger and larger extirpations in every case of malignant disease, more especially of the tongue, and followed up the results with unusual energy. His lectures on diseases of the tongue were published in 1885 and were illustrated with water-colour drawings made by T. Godart and Dr. Leonard Mark. The original drawings are preserved in the Museum of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. This excellent manual was reprinted in Philadelphia in 1895, was translated into German in 1887 by Julius Beregszaszy and into French by Douglas Aigre in 1889. Large additions were made when a new edition was published in 1900. The patients seen by Butlin in his private practice came in a much earlier stage of the disease than the ordinary hospital patient. He was therefore able to state that in 197 cases where he had removed the tongue for cancer quite 30 per cent were alive and free from recurrence three years after the operation. He recommended local removal as soon as possible, with subsequent excision of any leucoplakic patches. He foresaw that treatment by radium was likely to be serviceable, but before his death he had attained to a degree of success which remained unsurpassed until the treatment by radium came into general use. Of his portraits the best is the photograph in the obituary notice in the *British Medical Journal.* A three-quarter length in oils by the Hon. John Collier hangs in the Museum Hall at the Royal College of Surgeons. This is a replica of the picture exhibited in the Royal Academy. PUBLICATIONS:- *Sacroma and Carcinoma, their Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment,* 8vo, London, 1882. *On Malignant Diseases (Sarcoma and Carcinoma) of the Larynx*, 8vo, 1883. *Diseases of the Tongue,* 12mo, London, 1885. An excellent manual on the subject. It was reprinted and an American edition was published in Philadelphia, 1885; it was translated into German (Vienna, 1887) and into French (Paris, 1889). The original water-colour drawings by T. Godart and Leonard Mark are in the Museum of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. 2nd ed. (with W. G. SPENCER), 1900. *On the Operative Surgery of Malignant Disease,* 8vo, London, 1887. *On Cancer of the Scrotum in Chimney Sweeps,* 8vo, 1892.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000220
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Carter, John Collis ( - 1866)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Barrett, Caleb (1821 - 1911)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372951372951
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at King’s College Hospital. Practised at Gloucester (5 Barton Street) and was Surgeon to the General Infirmary there, the Children’s Hospital, and the Magdalen Asylum. At some period between 1871 and 1875 he moved to Bath (Hanover House, Walcot, and then 12 Pierrepont Street), where he practised until his retirement in 1899. He was Medical Officer to the Southern Dispensary, Bath, and was for a long period Medical Officer to the Abbey and Weston Districts of the Bath Union. He was highly respected locally, and at the time of his death was one of the oldest medical men in the city. He died at his residence in Henry Street early in 1911 before February 11th, having survived his wife some years.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000768
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/373045373045
Occupation General surgeon
Details Studied at the Middlesex Hospital and at the London School of Dental Surgery, where he was a Prizeman. Having qualified he was first appointed Dental Surgeon to the St Marylebone General Dispensary, next Medical Tutor to the Royal Dental Hospital, then Surgeon and Lecturer on Dental Surgery. In 1881 he became Assistant Dental Surgeon, in 1882 Dental Surgeon, and in 1900 Consulting Dental Surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital. He was also Hon Curator of the Museum of the Odontological Society. Other offices held were: President of the Board of the British Dental Association, President of the Odontological Society; Examiner in Dental Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons. He practised at 17 George Street, and his death occurred suddenly on July 19th, 1900. Publications: Bennett published a number of papers in the *Odontological Society’s Transactions*, xiii-xviii, also in the *Transactions of the British Dental Association*, ii, vi.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000862
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ainley, Roger Gwynne (1932 - 2006)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Enid Taylor
Publication Date 2008-10-24
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/372751372751
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Roger Gwynne Ainley was an ophthalmic surgeon in the Merseyside area. He was born in Fringford, Oxfordshire, on 8 September 1932. His father, Joe Ainley, was a headmaster and his mother, Dora (née Carter), was a music teacher, both in schools and freelance. The family are related to the Shakespearian actor Henry Ainley. Roger Ainley attended Lord Williams’ Grammar School, Thame, and then the Old Grammar School, Bicester, from 1943 to 1950. His studies were then interrupted by National Service in the Royal Air Force for two years. In 1952 he went to Keble College, Oxford, to read zoology, but a year later changed to medicine. His clinical training was also in Oxford. His medical and surgical house jobs were at the Radcliffe Infirmary and then he began his formal ophthalmological training as senior house officer and registrar at Oxford Eye Hospital from 1961 to 1963. From 1965 to 1969 he was a lecturer and then senior lecturer at the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital. During this period, in 1968, he was awarded the George Herbert Hunt travelling scholarship and visited ophthalmic departments in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Ohio State University. In 1969 he was appointed consultant ophthalmic surgeon to Merseyside Regional Health Authority and was postgraduate medical tutor to the Wirral Group from 1974 to 1976. He was a member of the Oxford Ophthalmological Congress, a charter member of the International Association of Ocular Surgeons and a member of Wallasey Medical Society, becoming president in 1989. He wrote quite widely on ocular subjects, but was particularly interested in vitamin B12 levels in ocular fluids and tobacco amblyopia. His other interests were diverse – music, playing the clarinet, sailing, squash and particularly a lifelong interest in butterflies and moths. Initially he collected specimens and his collection covered all European countries, USA, Thailand, Morocco, Costa Rica, Kenya, the Gambia and Mediera. Later he became more interested in conservation and was a member of the Lancashire and Cheshire Entomological Society, Butterfly Conservation and Cheshire Wildlife Trust. Between 1963 and 1991 he had six papers on butterflies and moths published in *The Entomologist* and *The Entomologist’s Record*. In December 1959 he married Jean Burrows, a nurse at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. They had two children, Elizabeth Anne, born in 1965, who is a chartered accountant, and Timothy Charles, born in 1967, a linguist. Roger Ainley died in 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000568
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Latto, Conrad (1915 - 2008)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Bradshaw, William Wood (1801 - 1866)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/373135373135
Occupation General surgeon
Details The second son of John Bradshaw, of St James’, Bristol; educated at the Westminster and Middlesex Hospitals. He practised at Andover and then at Reading, where he was at one time Vice-President of the Pathological Society and of the Royal Berkshire Hospital. He was also a corresponding Member of the Royal Jennerian Society of London and of the National Vaccine Institute. He matriculated at the University of Oxford on Nov 14th, 1844, being then 43, as a gentleman commoner of New Inn Hall, and was created MA on June 17th, 1847. Whilst he was in residence he became a member of the Oxford University Art Society. He lived at Portland Place, Reading, and died there on Aug 18th, 1866. Bradshaw is described as being a quiet, home-loving, studious man, who diligently cultivated his mind both in literature and in science. Fourteen years after his death the Bradshaw Lectureships were founded by bequests of £1000 to the Royal College of Physicians and a similar sum to the Royal College of Surgeons. The bequests were made by the will of Mrs Sally Hall Bradshaw, dated September 6th, 1875, proved on August 26th, 1880, to institute a lecture to be given annually at each college, and to be called the Bradshaw Lecture. She desired that the lecture should be connected with medicine or surgery, and that the choice of the lecturer should rest with the President of the College for the time being. She made no stringent regulations, and seemed to have wished only to maintain her husband’s name in good repute by associating it with the advancement of the science which he loved, and to testify her gratitude for the happiness which she owed to him. Sir James Paget (qv) delivered the first Bradshaw Lecture on December 13th, 1882 (*Lancet*, 1882, ii, 1017). There is a portrait in Sir Rickman J Godlee’s Bradshaw Lecture for 1907. Publications:- “On the Use of Cod-liver Oil in Chronic Rheumatism.” – *Prov. Med. and Surg. Jour.*, 1845, 753. “On Chronic Abdominal Abscess.” – *Lancet*, 1846, ii, 529. Various articles over the signature Beta in (Bentley’s ?) *Miscellany* and other periodicals.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000952
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cullum, Victor John Leslie (1930 - 2008)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-11-14
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/372754372754
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Victor Cullum was an orthopaedic surgeon in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was born in Cape Town on 25 February 1930, the son of John Richard Leslie Cullum, a businessman, and Olive Mildred née Willmott, who owned a nursery school. He was educated at St George’s Primary School, Cape Town, and St John’s College, Johannesburg, before studying medicine at Witwatersrand University. After qualifying, he completed intern posts in medicine and surgery at Johannesburg Hospital and went to England to specialise in surgery. He did a series of house jobs at Derbyshire Royal Infirmary and the Birmingham Accident Hospital, and passed the FRCS in 1958. He was then a registrar in orthopaedics at the Hammersmith Hospital, working partly in Hammersmith and partly at the Ascot Infirmary. Returning to South Africa, he held registrar appointments in the orthopaedic department of Johannesburg Hospital and was registered as an orthopaedic specialist in 1963. He entered private practice in 1964, while continuing to hold part-time appointments at the Johannesburg and Germiston hospitals, and the Johannesburg branch of the General Mining Hospital Group. He married Joyce Grimes in 1957. They had two girls (Irene Alison and Jennifer Anne) and two boys (John Brian and Robert Victor). Victor Cullum was a keen dinghy sailor and a member of the South African Racing Yacht Association. He and his wife undertook a circumnavigation of Africa during the summer months of 1991, 1992 and 1993. He died on 26 May 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000571
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Sahoy, Ronald Rabindranath (1940 - 2008)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-11-14 2009-05-01
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/372755372755
Occupation Cardiothoracic surgeon General surgeon
Details Ronald Sahoy was a pioneering cardiothoracic and general surgeon in the Caribbean. He was born on 3 January 1940, in Essequibo, British Guiana (now Guyana). His father was Kunandan Ramdial Sahoy, a business man who owned a trucking service, and his mother was Baidwattee née Narayan, who had worked as a clerk in the civil service in London in the sixties. Ronald was educated at the Modern Educational Institute, which had been founded by a cousin, Ongkar Narayan, the Central High School, Guyana, and Queen’s College, Guyana, where he won the Guyana Government intercollegiate scholarship. He studied medicine at the University of the West Indies, where he qualified in 1965, winning the Wilson-James surgery prize. He completed internships at the University Hospital of the West Indies in general surgery and general medicine and cardiology, followed by a senior house officer post in general and cardiothoracic surgery and a casualty officer post. He then did a general surgical rotation for two years, from which he won a Commonwealth scholarship in 1969, which took him to London to study for the FRCS. In 1970 he was clinical assistant to Norman Tanner at St James’s Hospital, Balham. Having passed the FRCS, he returned to the University Hospital of the West Indies, where he was a senior registrar in general and cardiothoracic surgery for the next three years. In 1973 he became a consultant surgeon to the National Chest Hospital, formerly the George V Memorial Hospital. There he headed the cardiothoracic team. In 1976 he entered private practice at the Medical Associates Hospital, where he was the senior surgeon and medical director. He married Pauline Rohini Samuels in 1965. Their two sons both became airline pilots. He died suddenly on 6 April 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000572
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Seyal, Nur Ahmad Khan (1920 - 2008)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Masud Seyal
Publication Date 2008-12-05 2008-12-12
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/372758372758
Occupation Obstetric and gynaecological surgeon Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Nur Ahmad Khan Seyal was professor of obstetrics and gynaecology and a former principal of King Edward Medical College, Lahore, Pakistan. He was born on 16 July 1920 and received his early education in his home town of Jhang (Punjab). In 1936 he went to study medicine at Glancy Medical College, Amritsar, qualifying in 1940. He then went to Iran, in 1942, and joined the medical department of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in Abadan. Over a period of ten years he held various surgical appointments in the 500-bed Abadan Hospital and gradually rose to the status of a consulting surgeon. During this time he twice spent time in the UK, gaining his FRCS in 1951. A year later, in 1952, he returned to Pakistan, where he was appointed clinical assistant to the professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the King Edward Medical College, Lahore. In 1954, when Nishtar Medical College was established in Multan, Seyal was selected to take up the new chair of obstetrics and gynaecology, the first professorial appointment on the clinical side. He went on to establish a department that was recognised as “outstanding” by Sir Hector MacLennan, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, who visited in 1961. C M Gwillim, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at St George’s Hospital Medical School, London, also visited the hospital and recognized the department as easily comparable to the best abroad, and called Seyal’s devotion to duty “saintly”. In 1967 N A Seyal was appointed as professor of midwifery and gynaecology at King Edward Medical College and medical superintendent of Lady Willingdon Hospital Lahore. He completely reorganised the hospital and very markedly improved the clinical facilities available there. He took over as principal of the King Edward Medical College in 1969 and reorganised the teaching programme and formulated a number of schemes for the improvement of this premier institution. Seyal was nominated as a founder fellow of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan in 1962, and was elected to serve on its council. He was also a member of the Pakistan Medical Research Council for over six years. In recognition of his service to the medical profession, the government of Pakistan awarded him the Tamgha-i-Imtiaz, followed by the Sitara-i-Khidmat. After his retirement, Seyal was involved in the establishment of the Fatima Memorial Hospital and was the leading consultant for obstetrics and gynaecology. He retired to California in the early 1980s to be closer to his children. He died on 19 July 2008, just after his 88th birthday. He is survived by his wife (Iran Shafazand Seyal), his sons (Masud Seyal, professor of neurology at the University of California, Davis, and Mahmood Seyal, a business executive) and by his daughters (Mahnaz Ahmad, a scholar, and Farnaz Seyal Shah, a psychologist). He had seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000575
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Barter, Clement Smith (1837 - 1876)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372956372956
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at St Bartholomew’s Hospital; practised at Bath, after he had been House Surgeon and Resident Medical Officer of the Royal United Hospital and Surgeon to the Eastern Dispensary. At the time of his death he was Surgeon to St Catherine’s and Bellott’s Hospitals, Medical Registrar and Curator of the Museum of the Royal United Hospital, Surgeon to the Institute for Idiots, Medical Officer of Health for Bath and Bradford-on-Avon, and Assistant Surgeon of the 2nd Somerset Militia. He died at 13 Gay Street, Bath, on April 22nd, 1876. A Dr Richard Barter (1802-1870) was the first to set up hot-air baths and then Turkish baths in the British Dominions. Publication:- *A Report on the Sanitary Condition of the City and Borough of Bath, during the Years 1867 and 1868, with a Synopsis of that of Several Previous Years, together with a Geological, Meteorological, and General Topographical Sketch of the City and its Vicinity, in Relation to Matters connected with the Public Health*, 8vo, Bath, 1869.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000773
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Matthew, James Edward (1819 - 1886)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Bland, Nicholas Chandos (1932 - 2005)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-11-22
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/372610372610
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Nicholas Chandos Bland was a consultant ENT surgeon in Birmingham. He was born in Birmingham in 1932. His mother was Alice Harvey, Birmingham born and bred. He stayed in the city to study medicine, qualifying in 1956, and gaining his diploma in child health in 1959. After qualifying, he was resident at various Birmingham hospitals, including Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Birmingham General Hospital. He developed a great interest in audiology and was responsible for establishing the Centre for Hearing Impaired at Western Road, providing a hearing aid service and hearing tests for a vast number of patients. He played a very active part in the assessment of deaf children, both at Birmingham Children’s Hospital and aural services at Birmingham City Council. His interest in audiology was recognised by the British Association of Audiology, which elected him as their chairman. In 1967 he was jointly awarded the Alexander Wherner Piggott fellowship. He was a well-read man, with a passion for trivia, even remembering the timetable for rail services in Hong Kong! He was a member of the Edgbaston Convention Rotary Club and took an active part when able to do so. Following pancreatitis, he developed diabetes, which went out of control in the latter part of his life, giving rise to retinopathy, leading to early retirement as he could no longer carry out microsurgery. He was married to Hazel and they had two sons, Adrian and Symon. He died on 9 November 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000426
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Kmiot, Witold Andrzej Wladyslaw (1959 - 2006)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2007-11-22 2018-05-10
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/372611372611
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details Wit Kmiot was a consultant in general and colorectal surgery at St Thomas' Hospital, London. He was born in London on 15 August 1959, to Polish parents. He was an undergraduate at King's College, London, and Westminster Medical School, qualifying in 1983. House officer appointments in Poole and King's Lynn were followed by an accident and emergency post at Charing Cross Hospital. He then moved to the Midlands and spent his registrar and senior registrar years in different hospitals in Birmingham. During this time he developed an interest in colorectal surgery and was awarded a travelling fellowship to the Cleveland Clinic in Florida, where he gained special coloproctological experience. He spent time as a research fellow in the academic department of surgery in Birmingham, where he studied the aetiology of acute reservoir ileitis after restorative proctocolectomy. In 1991 the resulting thesis was accepted for the degree of master of surgery, and in the same year he was awarded a Hunterian Professorship by the college for this work. In 1994 he returned to London as senior lecturer and honorary consultant in colorectal surgery at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith, working with Robin Williamson. He remained in this post for two years, before moving to an NHS consultant appointment at the Central Middlesex Hospital. A year later, in 1998, he was appointed consultant in general and colorectal surgery to St Thomas' Hospital, where he worked until his untimely death at the age of 47. By the time of his death he had already established himself at the forefront of academic coloproctology, with a stream of published papers in peer reviewed journals, chapters in textbooks and oral presentations at meetings at home and overseas. His early research interests were in molecular biology and clinical immunology, but he later became particularly involved with anorectal physiology and 3-D endoanal ultrasound. He supervised the research of several trainees, all of whom gained a higher degree. He was a co-editor of the *International Journal of Colorectal Disease*. Married to a nurse, he had two sons to whom he was devoted. He was a gourmet and every year entertained his firm at St Thomas' to Christmas lunch at an exclusive private dining establishment. As an undergraduate he had been a first class rugby player, playing in the Wasps first 15 and representing Middlesex as well as the United Hospitals. Perhaps, therefore, it is no surprise that he was a large man physically. He also had a big personality and could at times be somewhat outspoken, a trait which did not always endear him. Very sadly, he was found to have a malignant brain tumour after being involved in a minor road traffic accident caused by impaired vision which he had not recognised. Despite surgery and chemotherapy he died within a few months of diagnosis on 17 November 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000427
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Renton, Charles James Crawford (1930 - 2007)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-11-22
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372612372612
Occupation General surgeon
Details Charles Renton was a consultant general surgeon in Hereford, specialising in vascular and breast surgery. He was born on 22 September 1930 in Glasgow, where his father and grandfather had been surgeons. He father was James Mill Renton, who worked at the Western Infirmary. His mother died three days after he was born and he was brought up by his grandmother, aunt and a governess, who became his stepmother. Charles was educated at Glenalmond College and Glasgow University. After house physician and house surgeon posts at the Western Infirmary and the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Glasgow, Charles completed his National Service, as RMO to the 4/7th Dragoon Guards in Germany, being briefly recalled for the Suez crisis. Following his National Service, he held posts at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow. He was a surgical registrar in Glasgow and Dumfries, and then senior surgical registrar at the Southern General Hospital, Nottingham General Hospital and at the Royal Hospital, Sheffield, where he was also a clinical tutor in surgery at Sheffield University. In 1969 he was appointed as a consultant surgeon in Hereford, with a special interest in vascular and breast surgery. Following his retirement, the oncology unit at Hereford County Hospital was named after him. He was president of the Herefordshire Medical Society and the local branch of the BMA. Always active, he played golf, fished and sailed, and in his retirement wrote and researched two books, *The story of Herefordshire’s hospitals* (Almeley, Logaston, 1999) and *The story of Hampton Park Church* (Wooton Almeley, Logaston Press, 2004). He married Margaret, also a Glasgow graduate, specialising in obstetrics and gynaecology, in 1959 and they had four daughters. He died on 9 February 2007 from complications following an atypical pneumonia.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000428
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching North, John (1790 - 1873)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Thorpe, Robert ( - 1851)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Wingfield, Charles (1787 - 1846)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Bidwell, Leonard Arthur (1865 - 1912)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-03-04
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/373060373060
Occupation General surgeon
Details Son of Leonard Bidwell, Chief Clerk in the General Post Office. Educated at Blackheath School, and entered St Thomas’s Hospital in 1882, where he was a House Surgeon. He then studied in Paris, was appointed Assistant Surgeon to the West London Hospital in 1891, and became Surgeon in 1906. There he distinguished himself in the surgery of the abdomen, and more especially as a teacher and administrator in the Post-Graduate College. The Post-Graduate College at the West London Hospital was initiated by Charles Bell Keetley (qv) in 1894, but to Bidwell was due, in the main, its rapid rise to success. He became Dean of the School in 1896 and held that position until his death. In the first three years of the School’s existence it was attended by 50 graduates, and in the last three years of Bidwell’s life (1909-1912) by 671 graduates. The number of entries during his term of office exceeded 2500. Bidwell was also Surgeon to the Florence Nightingale Hospital, to the Blackheath and Charlton Hospital, and to the City Dispensary. He served as Surgeon Major in the Buckinghamshire Yeomanry. His death occurred from acute appendicitis on September 2nd, 1912. He had married Dorothea, daughter of Sir J Ropes Parkington, Bart, in 1896; she survived him together with three sons and two daughters. He practised at 15 Upper Wimpole Street. Publications: Bidwell devoted his attention chiefly to abdominal surgery. His *Handbook of Intestinal Surgery*, 1905, 2nd ed 1910, was one of the best text-books of the day. In addition from 1893 he made many special communications upon abdominal surgery, on “Undescended Testicle”, “Gastro-jejunostomy”, “Fixation of the Colon in Inguinal Colotomy”, “Extra-uterine Gestation with Resection of 5 inches of Intestine”, “Intestinal Anastomosis”, “Transverse Colectomy and Ileo-sigmoidostomy”, “Pyloroplasty”, “Varieties of Dilated Stomach”, “Pulmonary Embolism after Abdominal Operations”. His *Minor Surgery*, published in 1911, with 88 illustrations, was so successful, that a second edition was required in the following year, and included 129 illustrations. He edited the *Proceedings of the West London Medico-Chirurgical Society*, and when this developed into the *Journal* he became Editorial Secretary.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000877
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brewer, Jehoida (1801 - 1876)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Bridge, Alexander (1814 - 1873)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Farrington, Graham Hugh (1934 - 2008)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2009-01-30 2012-03-22
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/372766372766
Occupation General surgeon
Details Graham Farrington was a consultant general surgeon to Kingston Hospital, Surrey, from 1971 until his retirement at the age of 60 in 1994. He was born in Whetstone, London, on 31 October 1934 into a non-medical family. His father, Percy Morgan Sibley Farrington, owned a garage and his mother, Iris Lilian Broughall, was a housewife. Graham received his early education at the Minchenden Grammar School, Southgate, before proceeding to the University of Leeds School of Medicine, graduating with distinction in 1958 and obtaining the Public Welfare Foundation Prize of the College of General Practitioners. House appointments and registrar posts followed, including some in East Anglia. When working at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital he showed an early interest in paediatric surgery. During training he demonstrated a meticulous care when dealing with children suffering with testicular maldescent who had been referred to the paediatric centre at the Jenny Lind Hospital for Sick Children. These children he followed up into their teens. Graham Farrington's definitive higher surgical training in general surgery was undertaken on a rotational scheme at St George's Hospital, Tooting. In 1968 he went to the USA as a research fellow in surgery at the Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Hospital, Boston. Here he was able to participate in work on pulmonary response in shock and sepsis, for which this centre had a worldwide reputation stemming from the work of Jacob Fine. His first major publication was in the paediatric field and co-authored by C Gordon Scorer, of Hillingdon Hospital, on *Congenital deformities of the testis and epididymis* (London, Butterworths, 1971). This original work established the important principle that few if any testicles descend spontaneously after the age of one. Scorer and Farrington went on to publish a chapter on the topic in *Campbell's urology* (fourth edition, Philadelphia/London, Saunders, 1979). A popular and highly respected teacher, Farrington was surgical tutor at Kingston Hospital from 1980 to 1985 and was an enthusiastic commissioning officer for the new surgical wing at the hospital. Outside medicine, he was fond of gardening, enjoyed classical music and was an avid reader, particularly on the history of civil aviation. Close to his mother, who died in 2000, Graham Farrington never married. He died on 30 August 2008 in St Helier Hospital, Carshalton, from pneumonia following a stroke.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000583
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bower, David Bartlett (1929 - 2007)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-01-30 2014-06-30
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/372767372767
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details David Bower was a consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician at St Stephen's Hospital, Chelsea, later amalgamated into Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. He was born on 1 July 1929 in northwest London, the eldest son of Bartlett St George Bower, a successful lawyer, and Vera Bower née Luson. He went to the Hall School, Hampstead, from which he won a bursary to Oundle. He suffered considerably from asthma in the days before Ventolin and antibiotics, and concentrated on school work rather than sports. He shone academically and won an exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge, to read law, as his father wished him to join his legal practice. However, David quickly decided that his real preference was medicine and he transferred to the medical faculty at Cambridge, whilst continuing his study of the law, and bought a motorbike so that he could commute between the Middle Temple and Cambridge. After being called to the Bar in 1950, he never in fact practised law. He completed his medical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital and obtained his FRCS in 1958. After a registrarship at Oldchurch Hospital, Romford, he became a senior lecturer at Charing Cross and Westminster, from which he gained the Berkeley research fellowship to Toronto General Hospital. Whilst in Canada, he went to rural Newfoundland, where he practised mainly gynaecology, frequently visited patients by snow cat, and operated on the kitchen table. After returning to London, he was appointed consultant gynaecologist at St Stephen's Hospital, Chelsea, which later joined with the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. David's research interests included vaginal surgery, where his skills became legendary. He was a patient and supportive teacher, and passed on his techniques to future generations until he retired at the age of 68. Unpretentious, pragmatic and compassionate, David was ideally suited to caring for women with reproductive health problems, and his help was sought by nurses and others who worked with him. Outside his professional life, David enjoyed music and at one time toured post-war Germany playing jazz on the piano for the US troops. At the end of his life he was learning to play the organ, having borrowed the keys to his local church. He was a keen sailor and for years took his boat to Cowes Week. Perhaps his greatest self-indulgence was big motorbikes and his holidays were spent touring abroad. Dressed in leathers and with a tangled beard, he was the original hairy biker, proud to be viewed with suspicion and even disallowed entry into country inns until he had proved his credentials. Enjoying a pint or two of local ale at lunchtime with him was a treat as he was singularly affable and philosophical. David was married with three children, however much of his later life was spent with his partner Maureen Sands, with whom he retired to The Barley Mow, a 15th century former alehouse in Oxfordshire. David struggled bravely with progressive complications from renal carcinoma and died at home on 18 March 2007, at the age of 77.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000584
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Onyeaso, Onyemara Nduche (1931 - 1979)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by E Olumbumni Olapade-Olaola
Publication Date 2009-02-10 2014-06-27
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/372768372768
Occupation General surgeon
Details Onyemara Nduche 'Dick' Onyeaso was chief consultant surgeon at Aba General Hospital, Nigeria. He was born on 7 July 1931 in Enugu, Nigeria, the son of Samuel Onyeaso, a clerk, and Minah Onyeaso, a housewife. He was educated at St Peter's Primary School, Enugu, the Methodist College, Uzuakoli, and Dennis Memorial Grammar School, Onitsha. He learnt his basic medical sciences at the University of Ibadan Medical School, which was then affiliated to the University of London, and went on to do his clinical studies at Westminster Hospital Medical School, London, where he won the class prize in midwifery and graduated MB BS on 16 November 1958. He completed his internship at University College Hospital, Ibadan, and thereafter returned to England, where he trained in general surgery and passed his FRCS in 1964. He was a senior registrar in cardiothoracic surgery at Bethnal Green Hospital in 1971, but thereafter his interest in cardiothoracic surgery waned. He worked variously in England, Switzerland and Nigeria, and as personal physician to the family of the president of Gabon, Omar Bongo, until 1974, when he returned to Nigeria to be the chief consultant surgeon at the General Hospital, Aba. He started his private practice in 1976. Outside medicine, he loved swimming and lawn tennis, and was fluent in French. Dick was a family man. He married Ibobo Antoinette Allgoa in 1971. They had four children - Nduche, Chinwe, Nkechi and Obinna. Nduche and Nkechi are physicians in the USA, Obinna is a physician in Nigerian, while Chinwe is a banker in Nigeria. Dick Onyeaso became sick in 1979 and was diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma. He died on 24 September 1979 in Westminster Hospital, London, aged 48.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000585
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lawrence, John ( - 1863)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Martin, Thomas (1779 - 1867)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Brown, Richard Willson ( - 1860)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Blagden, Richard (1789 - 1861)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Mayo, Charles (1788 - 1876)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-06-12
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/372707372707
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on Dec 29th, 1788, the third son of the Rev James Mayo, MA, Head Master of Queen Elizabeth’s Free Grammar School, Wimborne, and Rector of Avebury in succession to his father and grandfather. The Mayos may be described as a Wiltshire family, members of it having flourished there as clergymen and schoolmasters. To this Wiltshire family also belonged Thomas Mayo, MD, President of the Royal College of Physicians, Herbert Mayo, the distinguished physiologist, and others well known in literature. Charles Mayo received a sound education at the Grammar School under his own father. He became a good Latinist and Grecian and was taught French carefully by a French *émigré*, M Leprince, a man of good family compelled by the exigencies of the French Revolution, which had ruined him, to earn his living as a schoolmaster in England. The *émigré* lived nine miles from Wimborne at Ringwood, and was lent a horse by the head master in order to ride home half-way. “Young Mayo was sent to some appointed spot, whence he had to ride the horse back whilst Monsieur dismounted and finished his journey on foot. But it so happened that, some short time before, a frightful murder had been committed at Parley, a desolate village a mile or two to the south of the road between Wimborne and Ringwood, and the bodies of the two murderers were hung in chains from a gibbet on a heath within a very short distance from Parley, where, although the gibbet has vanished, the memory of the affairs surives to the present day (1876). On one occasion young Charles Mayo, when he was sent as usual to take the horse from the Frenchman, was tempted to leave the high road and go and inspect the remains of the murderers, whose bones and rags swung and creaked horribly in the wind, but when he returned to the high road, the Frenchman, not seeing him at the accustomed spot, had gone on towards Ringwood, and the truant did not return to Wimborne with the horse till long after the appointed time, and with no small fear of the consequences, for his father, amongst other accomplishments, was thought to excel in the use of the birch. Whether or not, however, this anatomical pilgrimage was considered to mark out his future destiny, the profession of medicine was chosen for him, and he began, at the age of fifteen, by being apprenticed to Mr Brown, a city apothecary, who flourished and kept a shop at the corner of Raven Row, Bethnal Green, just on the east of Bishopsgate Street. Mr Brown was a Member of the Society of Apothecaries - a body of men at that time of good culture and social position, amongst whom were many good botanists. The Society kept up the ancient and decent custom of examining the pupils of all its members in Latin at the beginning of their apprenticeship and gave them the opportunity, by means of herborising excursions, of cultivating a practical acquaintance with botany, a taste for which was preserved by the subject of this sketch up to a late period in life. In truth, the change from the life of the Wimborne schoolboy to that of the apprentice in Bishopsgate required some compensation. The business of an apothecary was a kind of compound between a trade and a profession, in which the professional skill supplied dignity, but the trading element supplied the means of living. Remuneration was obtained by supplying draughts, mixtures, and other forms of drugs, which were supplied profusely, and formed the items in a long bill of charges sent in at Christmas. That a medical practitioner shall supply his patients with medicine is reasonable and convenient, but that he shall make the medicine supplied the basis of remuneration, instead of his time and skill, is derogatory to himself and injurious to his patients. We have heard Mr Mayo describe the weak parts of this system, which were - the multiplicity of bad debts which crowded the ledger of the Bishopsgate apothecary, and the heavy cost of drugs, and particularly of bottles, which were taxed, in proportion to the receipts. “Meanwhile, the young apprentice’s life was not a cheerful one. The errand-boy slept under the counter, the apprentice had a bed in an adjoining closet, and the family lived in a dingy back-parlour; whilst a drawing-room upstairs, where the carpet and furniture were covered with brown holland, was used only about twice a year. “The apprentice had the recreation, if he chose, of accompanying the mistress once a week in a hackney-coach to hear a Calvinistic preacher at Clerkenwell. He had a book called ‘Tyrocinium Medicum; or, the Duties of Apothecaries’ Apprentices’, which will give some idea of the trade element amongst the general practitioners of the time (by William Chamberlaine, 1812, in the College Library). The dusting of shelves and bottles was held to be the chiefest of duties, and the writer enforces it on the medical apprentice in the terms in which Ovid excites the young men of his day to brush away the dust of the amphitheatre from off the clothes of the young ladies ‘Et si nullus erit pulvis tamen excute nullum’.” After some three years of this melancholy life young Mayo joyfully became a student at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where, by contrast, the medical atmosphere was ‘elevated and dignified’ in a high degree. He studied anatomy with great ardour, and was for long dresser to Sir Charles Blicke, the founder of our College Library and at that time a leading London surgeon. He also came under the favourable notice of Abernethy, Lawrence, Stanley, and Wormald, as well as others on the high road to repute. After qualifying he went down to Winchester and was elected Surgeon to the County Hospital in 1811, and here till 1870 he gained a high professional reputation both in general surgery and as a lithotomist. Quite at first he met with some opposition at the hospital, and appealed to Abernethy to support him on the eve of his first operation for stone. The great Surgeon wrote as follows: “MY DEAR SIR, - If the Governors of any hospital entrusted me with the care of the patients, I would take care to do my duty to the best of my ability. I would not bleed and purge a patient repeatedly prior to an operation for lithotomy, to the extent you describe, at the suggestion of any man, if it did not appear to me proper. There is but one general rule for a man’s conduct: Do as you would be done unto. I would not defer the operation beyond that time when it seemed most conducive to the patient’s welfare to perform it. You know I use a gorget, which cuts as well as any knife that ever I tried, and has the advantage of being a conductor for the forceps. If I used a knife it should be such a one as Mr Cooper uses. I know not what to advise you to do. You represent your patient as much reduced, and if the subject were unfavourable for an operation, I would rather send him to a London Hospital than run the risk of his dying after an operation, however well you might perform it. This is the beginning of lectures; I have scarcely time to write. Had it happened at any other season I would have gone to Winchester. “Yours most sincerely, J ABERNETHY. *August*, 1812.” The operation was successful, and Mayo thereupon began a remarkable career. His success as a lithotomist reached a climax when he extracted without mishap, in December, 1818, one of the largest stones so far recorded, which weighed over 14 oz. In 1848 he performed two lithotomies in one day, but both proved fatal. His last was on a man of his own age (74) in 1861, which was successful. His procedure and implements, in imitation of Cheselden, were bold and simple. When he came to Winchester he found the best practice in the hands of long-established surgeons, who debarred him from ‘the Close’ and the ‘County’, but among lesser patients his vogue was very extensive. He exhibited in the strongest possible degree that incongruous combination of professional work which linked together Raven Row and St Bartholomew’s Hospital. At one time of the day he would be tying the subclavian artery or diagnosing an obscure fracture, whilst at another he would be busily superintending the dispensing of medicines for sick paupers or club patients, for he took all the practice that offered itself. He performed a number of capital operations for axillary and other aneurysms (some of which were published in the *Medico-Chirurgical Transactions*), cases of complete transposition of the viscera, deep encysted tumours of the neck (*Lancet*), and epispadias. At the age of 84 we find him entering his last case, one of obturator hernia, with a youth’s carefulness and clearness. The practice of the Winchester County Hospital was ‘homely but effective’ under Mayo. He set fractures with rough wooden splints in a manner which it would have been hard to outrival. A contributor to the *Medical Times and Gazette* (1876, ii, 638) wrote: “There was one thing which comes to the remembrance of the writer pretty vividly - the air of the Hospital: a compound of bad breath, unwashed skin, and ulcerated legs, which could be tasted as well as smelt the moment anyone entered the hospital door. Thirty or forty years ago people lamented the frequent deaths after operations from pleurisy or other apparently eccentric causes; but it is easy to see now (1876) that, in a purer air, Mr Mayo would have had a much larger percentage of successful lithotomy cases, whilst many a life might have been spared which was sacrificed to puerperal fever and erysipelas in the hospital and town.” Mayo loved his work, though much of it was beneath his talent. Winchester in his day became a centre of professional education and Mayo’s many pupils were deeply attached to him. In manner he outdid the great Abernethy, whom he is supposed to have copied: he was blunt, outspoken, and testy to the greatest degree, and when made angry, as he often was, he relieved himself and amused his hearers by a stream of half-humorous vituperative epithets of the quaintest and most original description. He was a man of exuberant health and activity, up early and late, and never seeming to feel hunger or fatigue - so, at least, some of his pupils used to think when he summoned them to make post-mortem examinations, dress compound fractures, and to do other unsavoury work at the hospital before breakfast. In 1870 this grand old lion of the ancient school resented the honour done him at his hospital when he was removed from the active to the consulting staff: in 1874 he grew blind, but fully believed himself fit to continue in practice. Latterly he grew less restless and consoled his dark hours by listening to the music of the daily cathedral services. In 1851 his fellow-citizens gave him a grand entertainment in honour of the fortieth anniversary of his hospital appointment. He was elected Mayor of Winchester. His memory remained vigorous almost to the last, and he delighted in telling of his early days. At the, very end of his life he talked of ‘going home’, and died painlessly in great old age at his residence in St Peter Street, Winchester, on Nov 27th, 1876. He married in 1835 Miss Dennis, the daughter of a clergyman, and of his two sons one was Dr Charles Mayo of Fiji, Fellow of New College, Oxford, the other the Rev James Mayo. There were two daughters of the marriage. Mayo was one of the last of those who had been “in practice prior to 1815”. PUBLICATIONS: “Successful Case of Lithotomy.” - *Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1820, xi, 54. “Case of Aneurism in which a Ligature was placed on the Subclavian Artery.” - *Ibid.*, 1823, xii, 12. “Case of Axillary Aneurism Successfully Treated by Tying the Subclavian Artery.” - *Ibid.*, 1830, xvi, 359. “A Report on Lithotomy.” - *Prov. Med. Jour.*, 1846, 439. “Case of Strangulated Femoral Hernia Successfully Treated by Opium.” - *Ibid.*, 1847, 319. “Lithotomy and Hernia.” - *Prov. Med. Jour*., 1846-7. “Cervical Encysted Tumour.” - *Lancet*, 1847, i, 667.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000523
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bird, Robert (1866 - 1918)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Birks, Melville (1876 - 1924)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-03-04 2015-06-12
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/373069373069
Occupation General surgeon Occupational health specialist
Details The following was published in volume one of Plarr's Lives of the Fellows. Was a student of Adelaide University and Hospital, and at the London Hospital, acting at the former as House Physician and House Surgeon. He practised for many years at Petersburg, South Australia, and later became Surgeon Superintendent of the Broken Hill and District Hospital, New South Wales. He died in or before the year 1925. Publications: "Mine Accidents at Broken Hill and District Hospital." - *Med. Jour. Australia*, 1918, i, 507. "Health Conditions at Broken Hill Mines." - *Jour. State Med.*, 1921, xxxix, 121. See below for an amended version of the published obituary: Melville Birks was surgeon superintendent of Broken Hill Hospital from 1913 to 1923 and an authority on industrial diseases. He was born on 30 January 1876, the son of Walter Richard Birks and Jemima Scott Birks. He was educated at state schools and at Way College, and then attended Roseworthy Agricultural College in South Australia. He was awarded a silver medal and his diploma of agriculture in 1896. He went on to study medicine at the University of Adelaide, gaining his medical degree in 1902. He served for a year at Adelaide Hospital as a house surgeon and then went to England, where he spent three years. He gained his FRCS in 1907. While in London he met Miss MacIntyre, daughter of P B MacIntyre of Ross-shire, Scotland, a crofters commissioner, and they married shortly afterwards, on 5 March 1909. He returned to South Australia, where he practised at Peterborough until 1913. While he was in the town he was also involved in civic affairs and served for a time as mayor. He was then appointed surgeon superintendent at Broken Hill. Here he made a study of miners' diseases. He was also a referee under the Workers' Compensation Act; he had a reputation for fairness and was respected by both miners and employers. He worked for long hours in the operating theatre, supported only by nursing staff. After some time at Broken Hill he began to suffer from ill health. In 1918 he was granted leave for a year. He went to Europe and America with his wife and family, and made a study of occupational diseases, visiting factories and hospitals. He attended a Medical Congress in Brussels, where he read a paper on lead poisoning. He returned to Broken Hill in 1920, but in August 1922 his health broke down once again and he was advised to go to the eastern states of Australia. He was in a private Melbourne hospital for 11 months and then in Melbourne General Hospital for a further three months. He returned to his mother's home in Adelaide in December 1923 and died there on 24 April 1924 at the age of 48. He was buried in Payneham Cemetery, Payneham South, South Australia. He was survived by his wife and their children - two sons and a daughter. Sarah Gillam
Resource Identifier RCS: E000886
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Barwell, Richard (1827 - 1916)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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 Bass, Frederick (1852 - 1899)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Bassett-Smith, Sir Percy William (1861 - 1927)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-25
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372969372969
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at St Albans, the son of William Bassett-Smith, and educated at St John’s College, Hurstpierpoint. He then entered the Middlesex Hospital, and after acting as House Physician passed into the Navy in 1883. He was promoted to Staff Surgeon in 1895; Fleet Surgeon in 1899, Surgeon Captain in 1917, and retired with the rank of Surgeon Rear-Admiral on April 1st, 1920. During the Sudan campaign of 1884-1885 he served at Suakim as Surgeon on HMS Rambler, receiving the Egyptian medal and the Khedive’s bronze star. During this commission he made valuable reports on the geology and biology of coral reefs, and many of the specimens which he collected were transferred to the British Museum. He served in the surveying ship Penguin from 1891-1893, made valuable reports on subjects of natural history, collected many specimens, and received the thanks of the trustees of the British Museum. In 1899 he was specially promoted to Fleet Surgeon and was awarded the Gilbert Blane Gold Medal for his journal “evincing the proofs of skill, diligence, humanity and learning in the execution of his professional duties”. He was also Cragg’s Research Prizeman at the London School of Tropical Medicine in 1906. Bassett-Smith lectured on tropical medicine and bacteriology at Haslar from 1912-1921, when he became Professor of Clinical Pathology at the Royal Naval Hospital, Greenwich. He did most valuable work in this position, and on his retirement received a letter from the Lords of the Admiralty expressing appreciation of his services. He practised as a consultant in tropical diseases at 61 Queen Anne Street, W, after retiring from the Navy, and was elected Physician to Out-patients at the Hospital for Diseases of the Chest, Victoria Park, and at St John’s Hospital, Lewisham. He was Naval Secretary of the Section of Epidemiology at the Royal Society of Medicine from 1912 until his death, having also served as Vice-President of the Section of Tropical Disease at the annual meetings of the British Medical Association in 1903 and 1912, and of the Army, Navy, and Ambulance Section in 1910. He became a member of the Naval and Military Committee of the British Medical Association in 1921 and served continuously on the Council. In 1922 he was appointed a member of the Committee to consider the expansion of the Army Medical Service in time of national emergency. He married Constance Brightman (d. 1925), daughter of the Rev F Hastings, and by her had two daughters. For her services during the war she was decorated MBE. He died at his home, 8 Aberdeen Terrace, Blackheath, SE, after a short illness on Dec 29th, 1927. Bassett-Smith was for many years the authority on all things pathological in the Royal Navy, combining clinical teaching with his scientific knowledge. He was quiet and somewhat retiring in manner, with a charming personality, but so enthusiastic in advancing scientific knowledge in the Navy that he imperilled his promotion by preferring the laboratory and the hospital to service afloat.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000786
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

First Title value, for Searching Sames, Christopher Patrick (1912 - 2008)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2009-02-10
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/372773372773
Occupation General surgeon
Details Patrick Sames was a general surgeon in Bath with an interest in coloproctology. He was born on 17 January 1912 in Enfield, Middlesex, the only son of Christopher, a railway clerk, and Caroline née Radmore. He was a late entrant to medicine, leaving Harrow County School to become an apprentice in the fur trade, working at Debenham and Freebody in London for three years, before entering St Mary’s Hospital Medical School. There he was a good rugby player and excelled in academic studies, winning two prizes in pathology, as well as prizes in ophthalmology and surgery. On qualifying in 1937 he held house officer posts at St Mary’s and the Royal Northern Hospital, Holloway. He then became a registrar at St Mary’s, before passing his final FRCS examination in 1939. At the outbreak of war he was recruited into the Emergency Medical Service (EMS), in which he obtained considerable surgical experience with the victims of London bombing raids and evacuees from Dunkirk. He also obtained part-time appointments at St Mark’s Hospital for Diseases of the Rectum and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and gained the MS (London) in 1943. The terms of his engagement with the EMS meant that he was unable to join the armed services until 1945, when he was conscripted into the Royal Army Medical Corps as a surgical specialist with the rank of major. After spending two years in Nigeria he returned to civilian life and obtained the post of assistant director of the professorial surgical unit at St Mary’s. During his early years in training, Sames was greatly influenced by the various chiefs for whom he worked – Charles Pannett, Arthur Dickson Wright, Hamilton Bailey, R J McNeil Love, Zachary Cope, W B Gabriel and Lancelot Barrington Ward. Appointed as consultant surgeon to the Bath clinical area in 1950, Sames developed a special interest in coloproctology, publishing a number of articles in this field and becoming president of the section of proctology of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1967. He also served as a member of council of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland and as a member of the editorial committee of the *British Journal of Surgery*. He was a founder member and secretary of the Surgical Sixty Club. On retirement in 1977 he spent his time sailing, painting and rose-growing. A devoted Anglican and church warden, he published *Autumn leaves: some personal reflections on the Christian life* (Charter, 1999). His first wife, Margaret Porteus, by whom he had two sons and two daughters, died in 1970. He went on to marry Eleanor Brigham née Jenkins in 1971. She survives him. He died of heart failure on 3 January 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000590
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lett, Sir Hugh (1876 - 1964)

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-18 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/372416372416
Occupation General surgeon
Details Hugh Lett came of an Anglo-Irish family but was born on 17 April 1876 at Waddingham, Kirton, Lincolnshire, where his father Richard Alfred Lett (M.B. Dublin 1869) was in general practice; his grandfather had also been a doctor. He was educated at Marlborough College and kept a close connection with the school, becoming a life governor and chairman of the school club and helping to compile the Record of the Old Marlburians. His surgical career was spent at the London Hospital, where he came as a student from Leeds Medical School in 1896. He qualified from Leeds in 1899, took the Conjoint Diploma in February 1901, and the Fellowship in June 1902. He was appointed surgical registrar at the London in 1902, becoming assistant surgeon 1905, surgical tutor 1909-12, surgeon 1915, and consulting surgeon 1934 when he retired. In the first world war Lett served from its outbreak (1914) in France, and later in Belgium and Egypt, was promoted Major, R.A.M.C., and awarded the CBE in 1920. Though his main interest was urology, he was always a general surgeon and his writings, while not frequent, covered many topics. He was one of the first to advocate adequate operation for appendicitis, to prevent recurrence. Between the wars Lett began to find operating sessions wearisome, and it was noticed that in the theatre he lost his usual imperturbability. Fortunately he had great abilities as an administrator and medical statesman, which he became free to use for the benefit of his colleagues and the country by retiring relatively young. Lett's association with the College was long, close, and extremely valuable. He served on the Court of Examiners 1923-25 and on the Council 1927-43. He was elected President in 1938 and held office for the customary three years, which were sadly spoiled for him by the anxieties and disasters of the war. Already before war broke out he was taking a personal initiative in safeguarding the College's treasures. He travelled to Aberystwyth in the summer of 1939 and arranged the removal of the most valuable paintings, books and other treasures to the National Library of Wales, and during 1940 secured a generous grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to evacuate the library to the west country. In May 1941 the Museum was bombed and much of the collection destroyed, in spite of Lett's provision of a deep vault to protect thousands of the Hunterian specimens. After this disaster he actively supported his successor Sir Alfred Webb-Johnson (as he then was) in planning to restore the Museum. He became a Hunterian Trustee in 1942, was the first permanent Chairman of Trustees 1955-59, and lived to see the Museum successfully renewed. He had been Bradshaw Lecturer in 1936, speaking on "The early diagnosis and treatment of tuberculous disease of the kidney", and was Thomas Vicary Lecturer in 1942, when he described "Anatomy at Barbers' Hall", an address based on original research. Lett married in 1906 Nellie, only daughter of (Sir) Buckston Browne F.R.C.S., a leading London urologist and afterwards one of the College's most munificent benefactors. Lett took an active interest in his father-in-law's two foundations at Downe: the Darwin Museum and the Surgical Research Farm. Sir Buckston had also endowed a dinner at the College, and in the year of Lett's Presidency he gave each guest a silver box full of snuff. Lady Lett died before her husband, on 9 August 1963, and Sir Hugh was survived by their three daughters. Lett was created a Baronet in 1941 while President of the College, and KCVO in 1947 to recognise his work for King Edward's Hospital Fund for London, where he had been one of the honorary secretaries since 1941. He was particularly concerned with the King's Fund's work for nurses and was the first chairman of its Staff College of Ward Sisters. He had previously been President of the Hunterian Society in 1917, and its Orator in 1919, President of the Sections of Surgery and of Urology at the Royal Society of Medicine in 1932-33, and Master of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries in 1937-38. He was Chairman of the war-time Committee of Reference for allocation of medical man-power, and in 1946 succeeded his former surgical colleague Sir Henry Souttar as President of the British Medical Association. In this position his wise statesmanship proved invaluable to the profession and the nation in preparing for the start of the National Health Service. Lett was a tall man of serious demeanour, kindly and affable, utterly without affectation, and upright in all his ways. He was meticulous and regular in business, firm but courteous in personal contacts, and made an admirable chairman, with a wealth of experience and innate common sense. As a young man he enjoyed fencing and golf, but music was his favourite recreation, for he was an accomplished cellist. Lady Lett gave the College the portrait of her husband by Sir James Gunn R.A., which admirably catches his reserved, but slightly quizzical look, and gave a different portrait by the same artist to the Society of Apothecaries. Sir Hugh Lett died at his home at Walmer on 19 July 1964 at the age of 88. He had been so active and prominent in professional affairs that he was still widely known and held in affectionate regard by many colleagues much younger than himself, although he had retired from surgery thirty years earlier. Throughout his long life "he nothing common did or mean", but remained a pattern of unobtrusive and unselfish virtue.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000229
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372977372977
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at the University of London (now University College). Practised at 4 Prince’s Street, Hanover Square, at 44 Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square, and at 15 Bucklersbury, EC. He was Surgeon to the Margaret Street Infirmary for Consumption, to the Carlisle Memorial Refuge for Female Convicts, and to the 38th Middlesex (Artists’) Volunteer Rifles. He was, too, a Fellow of the Ethnological Society. He was the intimate friend and medical adviser of Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens. Forster’s *Life* makes very frequent mention of him and shows that to his care and skill Dickens owed much, especially during the last period of his life when he was giving the readings which proved so exhausting to his health and strength in 1869-1870. Beard died on Aug 10th or 13th, 1893.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000794
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z

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/372978372978
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Withington, Lancashire. Graduated with honours at the University of Edinburgh both in the MB and MD examinations. He further distinguished himself by passing his MRCS and FRCS examinations in immediate sequence. Meanwhile he made some biochemical researches and published with W Cramer a paper “On Zymoids and the Effect of Heat on the Activity of Enzymes” (*Biochem. Jour.*, Liverpool, 1907, ii, 174). He was successively House Surgeon at the Queen’s Hospital, Resident Surgical Officer at the General Hospital, Birmingham, and House Surgeon at the Cardiff Infirmary. During the War he became Major RAMC (T), and after the War settled in practice in Withington, until his death in 1927.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000795
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2026-04-20T15:45:15Z