Search Results for boulter

First Title value, for Searching Boulter, Patrick Stewart (1927 - 2009)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2010-05-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373176373176
Occupation General surgeon
Details Patrick Boulter, or ‘Paddy’ as he was affectionately known, was a consultant surgeon to the Royal Surrey County Hospital and the Regional Oncology Centre, Guildford, Surrey. He was elected president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and served from 1991 to 1994. He was born in Annan, Dumfriesshire, on 28 May 1927, the second child of Frederick Charles Boulter, a civil engineer, and his wife, Flora Victoria (née Black). The Boulters later moved to Wimbledon, where Paddy went to King’s School for his early education. The family then went north to Carlisle. His schooling continued at Carlisle Grammar School, where he developed his love of hill-walking and climbing, which was to become a life-long passion. He enjoyed cycling and on one occasion cajoled some friends to cycle from Carlisle to Coniston to climb ‘Coniston Old Man’. In school holidays he worked on Glasgow boats supplying the Highlands and Islands. Although appreciating the beauty of the Western Isles, he developed an aversion to kippers. In his final year at school Paddy decided to study medicine, having previously concentrated on the arts and classics. He entered Guy’s Hospital Medical School to study for the first MB examination, following his sister Joy, who trained as a nurse at Guy’s. Although brilliant at chemistry and physics, he failed botany (although he was later to become knowledgeable on alpine flowers). He decided to enter the RAMC for National Service, where he worked as an operating department technician. While in London he met and fell in love with Mary (Patricia Mary Eckersley) Barlow, a student. They married in 1946 while he was doing his National Service. In due course their two daughters were born in Carlisle. Jennifer (‘Jenny’) became a nurse and Anne, a physiotherapist. After demobilisation, he passed the first MB. While waiting to re-enter Guy’s Hospital to complete his medical education, he took a job at the Cumberland Royal Infirmary and worked with consultant surgeon Bill McKechnie, who had a profound effect on his future career. The two became life-long friends and shared a love of climbing and hill-walking. Paddy had a distinguished academic career at Guy’s Hospital Medical School, winning prizes in anatomy, pathology and clinical surgery, and graduating in 1955 with honours, a university gold medal and the Handcock prize from the Royal College of Surgeons of England. After house appointments at Guy’s Hospital, he became a lecturer in anatomy to Guy’s Hospital Medical School. Surgical training progressed as a registrar at the Middlesex Hospital, where he was greatly influenced by David Patey, and returned to Guy’s as a senior registrar to Sam Wass and Sir Hedley Atkins. He was appointed to the Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford, in 1962, where he was a general surgeon with endocrine and breast interests. Later he was appointed as an honorary professor in surgical science at the University of Surrey at Guildford. He enjoyed private practice at Mount Alvernia Hospital, which was run by a Franciscan order of nuns. This afforded him an even closer contact with patients. He kept fit by an early morning run across the Merrow Downs accompanied by his retriever. As a well-respected breast surgeon, his unit, with that of Sir Patrick Forrest in Edinburgh, did much to develop population screening for breast cancer in the UK. His reputation as a teacher and researcher resulted in visiting professorships to surgical centres around the world. Paddy wrote many papers and chapters in books on breast, skin and endocrine disorders. He was a popular and effective trainee of young surgeons, many of whom became friends and enjoyed the generous hospitality of the Boulter home, as did many other visitors from around the world. R C Bennett, giving the oration when Paddy received his honorary fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, noted: “He is a warm-hearted, generous man, with a wonderful wife, Mary…. She has been a great companion and constant help to him in his work, as well as a friend and second mother to the many overseas trainees passing through his, or should I say ‘their’, hands.” He was an active member of many societies, including the Association of Surgeons, British Breast Group, Australia and New Zealand Breast Cancer Study Group, Surgical Research Society, Melanoma Study Group, European Association of Surgical Oncology and International Surgical Society. He was an honorary member of the North Pacific Surgical Association and of the Association of Surgeons of India and was an honorary citizen of the State of Nebraska, USA. In our College, he was a regional surgical adviser and Penrose May tutor and was largely responsible for setting up the postgraduate centre in Guildford. He was an examiner for the universities of London, Edinburgh, Queensland, Singapore, Malaya, and the Edinburgh College. He represented the Edinburgh College for 10 years as a trustee for the Thalidomide Trust. He was elected a member of the Edinburgh College council in 1984 and succeeded Geoffrey Chisholm as president in 1991. Throughout his presidency, he conducted the business of the College with great skill and quiet authority and, in his seemingly endless round of international surgical diplomacy, he was able to use his natural charm to great effect. The citation he delivered on the occasion of Mother Theresa being awarded the honorary fellowship of the Edinburgh RCS was gracious and moving – Paddy at his eloquent best. He thrived on travel, on meeting people and many of his visits produced new contacts and new overseas partners for his College. His remarkable collection of honorary fellowships attested to the highest esteem in which he was held. He and Mary shared an interest in skiing and mountaineering. Paddy was active in the Alpine Club and Swiss Alpine Club, and in their travels relished the challenge of new mountain peaks in the Himalayas and Rockies. Another shared passion was angling, which they both enjoyed in retirement, within sight of his beloved Cumbrian hills. He was a member of Yorkshire Fly Fishers’ Club and the Penrith Angling Association. Uniquely conscious of his Scottish roots, it was with great pride that he kept his father’s Scottish number plate, OSM 420, on a series of cars. When examining overseas, as the team returned at a late hour from being entertained, Paddy took great delight in leading the singing of traditional Scottish airs with gusto. He was occasionally in tune. After many happy early years in Cumbria, Paddy and Mary bought ‘Quarry Cottage’, Great Salkeld, and spent as much time as they could preparing this for their retirement, creating a lovely garden, fishing in the river Eden and hill-walking. Patrick Stewart Boulter died peacefully on 30 November, 2009 at the age of 82. A Service of Thanksgiving was held at St Cuthbert’s Church, Great Salkeld, Penrith, Cumbria. Richard Notley, a long-time friend and colleague, gave a fitting tribute. Boulter is survived by Mary, his two daughters, Jenny Bond and Anne Wood, their husbands, five grandchildren and five great grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000993
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Boulter, Alison Wendy (1965 - 2013)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2023-11-30
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010500-E010599
Occupation Dental surgeon Paediatric dental surgeon
Details Alison Wendy Boulter was a dental surgeon from Woking, Surrey.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010540
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Boulter, Harold Baxter (1853 - 1916)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-03-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373104373104
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he was House Physician. During the eighties he began to practise at Richmond, Surrey (Barnard House), in partnership with Stacey Southerden Burn, MB Oxon. This partnership lasted many years. He was latterly Medical Referee to the New York Assurance Company. His death occurred at Richmond, after a long illness, on November 26th, 1916. Publication: “On the Action of Certain Drugs.” – *St. Bart.’s Hosp. Rep.*, 1879, xv, 163.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000921
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Bougher, Gordon James (1931 - 2016)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2016-07-29 2019-09-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009200-E009299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381400381400
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details Gordon James Bougher was a consultant ophthalmologist in Perth, Western Australia. Born on 17 March 1931 in Perth he was the son of Arthur Edward Bougher, a garage proprietor, and his wife Anna Flora née Schwatz who was a home economist. After attending Highgate Primary School and Perth Modern School he spent a year at the University of Western Australia before transferring to Queen’s College, Melbourne University where he studied from 1950 to 1954. Travelling to the UK he worked at the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital with Ogilvie Maxwell Duthie and then at Moorfields where he was mentored by the ophthalmologists Alexander Galbraith Cross, Arthur George Leigh and Redmond John Hamilton Smith. In 1960 he passed the fellowship of the College and returned to Perth to take up the post of consultant ophthalmologist at the Royal Perth Hospital in 1961. Later he held a similar appointment at the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. He was a member of the qualifications and education committee of the Royal Australian College of Ophthalmologists and president of their Western Australia branch. As a reserve in the RAAF he served as a consultant ophthalmologist with the rank of wing commander. A board member of the Blind Association of Western Australia he held the post of its president. A keen squash player when young, he enjoyed wilderness travel and backpacking trips, tennis, golf and wine appreciation. Since he embarked on semi retirement in 1992 he developed an interest in horticulture and began cultivating native Western Australian wildflowers. On 11 December 1954 he married Marie Arnold and they had four children. Two took up medicine; their daughter Suzanne became a GP and Richard was an anaesthetist. Linda married a Mr Gower and was a primary teacher and Anthony worked as an environmental scientist. He died on 4 February 2016 aged 84.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009217
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Myles, John Graeme Boulton ( - 2017)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2018-02-26 2020-11-18
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/381827381827
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details John Graeme Boulton Myles was an orthopaedic surgeon on Jersey. He studied medicine at Cambridge University and St Thomas’s Hospital, qualifying MB BChir in 1950. After house jobs in the orthopaedic and plastic surgery departments at St Thomas’s, he became a surgical registrar at St Peter’s Hospital in Chertsey. After passing the conjoint examination in 1949, he passed the fellowship of the college in 1958. His first orthopaedic consultant post was with the then Department of Health and Social Security before he moved to Jersey as consultant to the Jersey Group of Hospitals. He retired in 2003. His wife Barbara was also medically qualified and an expert in paediatric medicine. In 1980 she became the first female Jurat – a lay person who examined the facts of a case – to the Royal Court of Jersey and remained in post until 2001, when she was awarded the OBE. Barbara died on 23 August 2017 aged 88 and John died on 17 November that same year.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009423
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Butler, Dorothy Joy ( - 2004)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2023-12-01
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010500-E010599
Occupation Orthodontist
Details Dorothy Joy Butler was an orthodontist in Staffordshire, England. She studied dentistry in Birmingham and gained her LDS in 1952 and her BDS in 1953. She went to St Andrews for postgraduate study and in 1960 passed her diploma in orthodontics. She became a fellow of the Faculty of Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1962. Her husband notified the College of her death on 18 December 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010560
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Coulter, Jack Leonard Sagar (1907 - 1968)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006200-E006299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378422378422
Occupation Naval surgeon
Details The only child of Percival and Lilian Coulter, he was born on 18 October, 1907. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury and King Edward VI, Bath, entering medical school at Bristol University in 1925, from whence he qualified MRCS, LRCP in 1931. He entered the Royal Navy as a Surgeon Lieutenant on 7 August of that year. Coulter's naval career was varied and successful. He was awarded the Parkes Memorial Prize while still a Surgeon Lieutenant for original work on the problems of health in tropical climates. He chose urology as his professional specialty but did not pursue this after the conclusion of the second world war, through which he served in convoys to Russia, being awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in 1943. Coulter devoted his attention to literature and for the next seven years was employed on the production of the Naval medical history of the second world war, for which he was awarded the Gilbert Blane Medal in 1954. In collaboration with Christopher Lloyd he was responsible for the last two volumes of Medicine and the Navy, following the death of Surgeon Commander John Keevil, the author of the first two volumes. In October 1949 he was called to the Bar at Gray's Inn, and in April 1960 elected to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Promoted to Surgeon Captain in 1955, he served in that rank until 1961, when he retired at his own request, his last appointment being that of Medical Officer-in-Charge of the Royal Naval Hospital Medical School. On leaving the Navy he joined the staff of a pharmaceutical firm, and was appointed to the board of directors. Coulter was a splendid after-dinner speaker and gifted raconteur. He was also an accomplished cricketer, having been chosen to represent the Navy on several occasions. He was twice married, first to Margaret Helen May in 1933, by whom he had two sons and one daughter. His second marriage was to Frances Emily O'Driscoll in 1948. He died on 11 January 1968, aged 60 years. Publications: *Official Naval Medical History of the War*, 1954. *Medicine and the Navy*, 1960-1963.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006239
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Edwards, John Lewis (1940 - 2020)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Michael Bowler
Publication Date 2023-07-03
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010200-E010299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/386778386778
Occupation Maxillofacial surgeon Oral surgeon
Details John Edwards was an oral and maxillofacial surgeon at Dunedin Public Hospital and Otago University dental school in New Zealand for many years. He subsequently moved to Auckland, where he was appointed to Auckland Hospital as an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, and he also ran a private practice. John was born in Dunedin in 1940, the son of Gordon Edwards, a bank manager, and Hazel Skinner. He was educated at King’s High School and studied dentistry at the University of Otago, graduating with distinction in 1963. As an undergraduate, John was president of the Dental Students Association. He was awarded the University of Otago travelling scholarship in dentistry in 1965 and underwent his postgraduate training in oral surgery in the UK from 1965 to 1969. He worked in several prestigious specialist maxillofacial units in London including Central Middlesex Hospital and Mount Vernon. John was invited to return to Dunedin in 1969 by Sir John Walsh, the dean of the dental faculty, and was appointed as a senior dental surgeon and specialist oral surgeon to the Otago Hospital Board and a senior lecturer in oral surgery at the Otago University’s faculty of dentistry. He progressed within the dental school, becoming head of the department of hospital dentistry in 1975 and then associate professor in 1978. While still at the dental school he developed and directed a national postgraduate training programme in oral and maxillofacial surgery. In 1987 John moved to Auckland to pursue private practice as an oral and maxillofacial surgeon. For 20 years he continued to work in both the public and private sectors as a senior specialist oral and maxillofacial surgeon in Auckland. He was a visiting specialist oral and maxillofacial surgeon to the Auckland Hospital Board from 1987 until he retired in 2007. John’s curriculum vitae is as impressive as it is diverse and extensive. He had significant involvement in organised dentistry within the New Zealand Dental Association (NZDA). He was chairman of the general anaesthetic and sedation guidelines committee. He was an elected specialist representative of the NZDA board. He developed a code of practice for the control of cross infection, and he was editor of the clinical update section of the *New Zealand Dental Journal.* Within the Dental Council of New Zealand, John was chairman of the specialist registration committee and the education committee. He was a member of the Dental Council’s accreditation team for postgraduate courses at Otago University and he convened a working group on specialist registration. He was chair of the clinical competence review committee. John was New Zealand vice president from 1994 to 1997 and then president of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (ANZAOMS) from 1997 to 1999. He was awarded a distinguished service award by ANZAOMS in 2003 and subsequently chaired the ANZAOMS/Accident Compensation Commission alloplastic TMJ (temporomandibular joint) registry development group. He was director of the postgraduate programme in oral and maxillofacial surgery (advanced surgical training) in Auckland from 1997 to 2007 and acted as an external examiner at a number of universities in Australia and also Otago. John advised the New Zealand government as a member of the new prescribers advisory committee of the Ministry of Health. He was an expert adviser to the health and disability commissioner, a member of the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal and an external clinical adviser to the Accident Compensation Commission. Towards the end of his career, John was also involved in hospital development. He planned and developed Quay Park Surgical Centre in Auckland city and Ormiston Hospital in South Auckland. He was a founding director of Ormiston Surgical and Endoscopy Ltd. John was made a fellow of the NZDA in 2000 and an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to dentistry in the Queen’s birthday honours list in 2008. John is one of only very few dental practitioners to have ever received such an honour. John was a very high achiever during his long and distinguished career but as a true gentleman he was always particularly modest and understated. John was an impressive man at all levels; he had that rare ‘human touch’, enabling him to relate easily to a wide range of people and this made him very popular with patients, students and staff. John was an influential and talented teacher of oral surgery, anatomy and, in particular, aspects of medicine relevant to dentistry. He taught comfortably at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. John was a humble man but a gifted surgeon capable of elegantly performing a diverse repertoire of procedures with great skill and consummate ease. In particular, he was an expert temporomandibular joint surgeon. He was a caring, ethical practitioner and an astute diagnostician with excellent judgement. Patients lucky enough to have been treated by John were indeed fortunate, as were those who had the privilege of training under him. For many of today’s oral and maxillofacial surgeons in New Zealand (and some in Australia), their choice of career was as a direct result of John’s considerable, but subtle, influence. He also had a somewhat unrecognised but substantial mentoring role for many colleagues well beyond their training years. John loved squash and, as with everything else he did, played a gentleman’s game. His deft touch and agility on the court made him difficult to beat and he was a formidable opponent playing well into his fifties. John had an exuberant love of life; he was always upbeat with a characteristic friendly demeanour. He met Margaret McRae in 1961 while they were both students at Otago; they were married for 57 years and made an outstanding team. Margaret, whilst very successful in her own right, always found the time to act as a great advocate for the specialty, attending many meetings with John. They were beautifully matched, had many shared interests and were a very well-known couple on both the dental and oral and maxillofacial surgery circuits. They had a wide circle of friends from all walks of life. Together they built a unique and magnificent home on Waiheke Island and established a beautiful olive grove. They produced widely acclaimed, high quality olive oil and a hobby quickly became a very successful business. They were gracious hosts and, above all, very proud New Zealanders. John was a deeply committed family man, devoted to Margaret, his adult children Mark and Niki, their spouses Bridget and John and his grandchildren Angus, Ella, Anna, Tom and Nicholas. He was justifiably very proud of them all. John faced a terrible diagnosis and its associated treatment with considerable bravery. In his typically understated manner, he gave those who saw him during that time a master class in dying gracefully, and with great dignity. He passed away peacefully on ANZAC Day, 25 April, in 2020 surrounded by his family. There can be no better tribute than to say that John was a most remarkable man who left this world a better place for having lived in it. His passing is a monumental loss to the speciality of oral and maxillofacial surgery, but his profound and gentle influence will persist for many generations to come.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010260
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

First Title value, for Searching Butler, Michael Frank (1924 - 2013)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Christopher M Butler
Publication Date 2012-02-09 2014-01-24
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002000-E002099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374184374184
Occupation General surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details Mike Butler helped establish and develop general surgical services in the Isle of Thanet, Margate and Ramsgate, Kent. He was born on 21 January 1924 in London, the third child and first son of Frank Butler and Ailsa Butler née Beckwith. His father served in the First World War and was a dentist, originally in Harley Street and then in Finsbury Square in the City of London. He was also a keen and gifted amateur musician: his wide circle of musical friends included Gustav Holst, who was a regular visitor to the family home. Mike's early appreciation and love of music was to stay with him for the rest of his life. He was educated at Tollington Preparatory School in London and, from 1937, he was a boarder at Bishop's Stortford College in Hertfordshire. He played both cricket and rugby in the school first teams. He entered St Mary's Hospital to study medicine at the age of 17, in 1941. He gained a prize in anatomy and the Meadowe's prize in obstetrics, and qualified in 1945, at the age of 21. His first post was as a resident obstetric officer at St Mary's, and this was followed by a spell as a house surgeon at the Royal South Hants Hospital, Southampton. In addition to surgical duties, the house surgeon was also expected to give anaesthetics for procedures such as tonsillectomy or cystoscopy. In 1946 he joined the RAF for his National Service and was appointed medical officer to RAF Aldergrove in Northern Ireland. The posting proved quiet enough for him to complete the reading and study required to pass the primary FRCS in 1948. After leaving the RAF in early 1948, he took a further house job in surgery at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Bournemouth. After passing his final fellowship in 1949, he was appointed as a junior registrar to W J Lytle in Sheffield. The position provided ample experience and training in elective abdominal, thyroid, breast, hernia, prostate and basic children's surgery. He felt that he learnt from Lytle the basis of a sound and safe surgical technique and a practical common sense approach to surgical problems and administration. This was to provide the basis for his surgical practice for the rest of his career. After a further year as registrar in Sheffield, he was appointed to the Westminster Hospital in London as a middle grade registrar to E Stanley Lee and George Macnab. The work involved not only the usual general and urology cases, but also major head and neck and breast cancer surgery with Lee and some brain surgery with Macnab. There was a weekly combined clinic led by Sir Stanford Cade, which usually had a remarkable collection of cancer cases to consider. In 1954 he was appointed as a senior registrar to Kingston Hospital with Richard Franklin, a post he held for two years, before rotating back to Westminster as senior registrar to Lee, Macnab and the newly-appointed thoracic surgeon, Charles Drew. Drew was ploughing a fairly lonely furrow developing his technique for open heart surgery using profound hypothermia, at a time when most cardiac surgeons were using and developing the heart-lung machine for these cases. Mike was interested to see the development and practice of the technique, and recognised the heart-searching that the pioneering Drew endured - particularly in the early days when fatalities were not uncommon. During the latter part of his time at Westminster he took a post as a clinical assistant to the urological surgeon David Wallace at St Peter's and St Paul's. Early in 1960 he rotated into the post of research assistant to Charles Drew. Some unsuccessful attempts at heart and lung transplants in greyhounds and feasibility studies on the possibilities of coronary artery endarterectomy using cadaveric hearts were undertaken. Although he found research work interesting, Mike didn't see his future as an academic surgeon: he was appointed as a consultant general surgeon to the Isle of Thanet Hospital group in 1960. His sessions were all based in Thanet, with colleagues from Canterbury having sessions in Thanet and covering some of the emergency rota. Initially he covered general surgery for the hospitals in Margate and Ramsgate. A true general surgeon, he could turn his hand to most operations, including chest and urology. As sub-specialisation developed in general surgery he was able to drop urology. He developed an interest in the newly-developing peripheral vascular surgery and was able, by visiting London centres, to train himself to a good standard. He helped develop and rationalise surgical service provision in Thanet with the gradual upgrading of the Margate site and the closure of Ramsgate Hospital to acute admissions. It was not until the 1990s, after his retirement in 1989, that the development of hospital services in Thanet was finally completed with the opening of the new Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother hospital. In 1947 Mike married Marjorie (née Parsons), a theatre nurse from the Royal South Hants. They had two children, Christopher, a surgeon, and Nigel, a general practitioner. An accomplished pianist and choral singer, Mike also enjoyed dinghy sailing, wind surfing and skiing. A keen and devoted family man, during his retirement he enjoyed watching his seven grandchildren grow up and taught them all to sail and surf. In 2010 his knowledge of anatomy was still good enough to help one grandchild pass his MRCS examination. He was a very fit man and enjoyed good health for most of his life, with the only significant surgery being a successful coronary artery bypass operation after a myocardial infarction in 2001. The last few months of his life were frustrating as the effects of a failing tricuspid valve made him rather short of breath and not able to attend to his large garden as he wished. He was spared any significant failing of his mental faculties and died suddenly but peacefully on 16 August 2013, aged 89, with his wife of 66 years by his side at home in the house that they had shared together for 53 years on the cliff top at Broadstairs. He was survived by his wife, two sons, four grandsons, three granddaughters and two great granddaughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002001
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Gye, Richard Spencer Butler (1926 - 2012)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Louise Goldrick
Publication Date 2013-11-08 2014-03-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004600-E004699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376800376800
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Richard Gye ('Dick') was one of the foremost neurosurgeons in Australia and a pioneer in his field. He was born in Sydney on 18 January1926, the youngest of three sons of Eva and George Butler Gye, both professional journalists. In infancy his parents divorced, leaving Eva to raise her family on her own at the start of the Depression. With support from her extended family, her journalist career took her to England and Europe on three trips without her sons. In Sydney she joined *The Australian Women's Weekly*, owned by Sir Frank Packer, as a writer and later as editor. Richard's eldest brother died of influenza at a young age. Attending several schools throughout his education, his final years were completed at Knox Grammar School, Wahroonga, on the upper north shore of Sydney, from 1942 to 1944. He described this period as being amongst the happiest of his life, where he came to understand the meaning of fellowship and friendship that endures despite the uncertainties of time and distance. He was a good athlete and keen footballer, house prefect and captain. He was to enjoy a lifelong association with the school as a parent, later becoming an active member and past president of the Senior Knoxonians. He enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy in January 1945, serving in the South Pacific, advancing to the rank of sub-lieutenant. Whilst serving on HMAS *Lachlan*, he undertook surveys of the northern coastline of Australia, some areas of which had been chartered by Matthew Flinders, including the first complete survey and charting of King Sound, Western Australia. It was during this period that Richard was befriended by the ship's surgeon, who recognised his potential, encouraging him to seriously consider a career in medicine. He was discharged from the Navy in 1947 after being injured in a mine explosion whilst commanding a mine clearing patrol boat in north Queensland. In 1948, he enrolled in medicine at the University of Sydney. In 1953, he graduated with honours and obtained his MB BS, also with honours, in 1955. It was early on in his medical studies that his interest in neurology was apparent when he was asked by the university's professor of anatomy to review the vascular components of the optic radiation of the human brain. He was awarded the (shared) Norton Manning prize in psychiatry in 1955. It was also during this time that he met his future wife, Margaret Waddell. They were married in 1956. Margaret looked after their growing family. Their son Nicholas was born in 1958 and their daughter Louise was born in 1960. On graduating, Richard was appointed to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, where he trained as a neurosurgeon. After gaining his fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1960, he was awarded a Nuffield Dominion travelling fellowship in neurosurgery to further his studies and clinical experience in neurosurgery in Oxford. He was admitted as a member of Worcester College, Oxford, and in 1967 was awarded a doctorate in philosophy for his thesis, 'A clinical and experimental study of sub-dural effusions'. The department of neurological surgery at the Radcliffe Infirmary, headed by Joe Pennybacker, was a major neurosurgical facility, one of four in the country established in the 1930s. Demands were heavy, with the department providing neurosurgical services to over four million people; in consequence he rapidly gained vast clinical experience, training and guidance. On arrival, he was appointed as a house officer, later becoming a senior registrar. Returning to Sydney in 1964, he was appointed as a senior lecturer in neurosurgery at the University of Sydney. He developed the first academic unit of neurosurgery in Sydney, becoming an associate professor and academic head of neurosurgery at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. He also held clinical posts at other teaching hospitals in Sydney. Richard appreciated the need for other neurosurgical services in more remote places, including the Northern Territory. His principal research interest was nerve transplantation, and the preparation and use of nerve grafts in treating Aboriginal patients at the East Arm Leprosy Hospital in Darwin, who had suffered extensive damage to the nerves in their limbs due to leprosy. Several trips were made to Melville, Bathurst and Goote islands. He was also asked by the government of Fiji to provide a neurosurgical service. Between 1965 and 1970, Richard and his team successfully performed major operations on brain tumours and other conditions in Fiji, visiting the country two to three times a year during this period. In 1971, following the impending retirement of his mentor, Joe Pennybacker, Richard accepted an appointment as head of the department of neurological surgery at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. He had many friends from his earlier years and this proved to be an exciting and rewarding period in his professional life as a surgeon. In 1974, on his return to Australia, he was appointed as the first full-time professor and dean of the faculty of medicine at the University of Sydney, a post he held for 15 years. This was a time of major changes to the undergraduate curriculum, increasing numbers of academic staff and departments, and the opening of new teaching hospitals, including the planning, development and building of Westmead Hospital. He was involved in university administration, teaching hospital management, and state and federal health department policy development up to ministerial level. In addition, he continued with his clinical duties as a neurosurgeon at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and other teaching hospitals. From 1979 he was deputy chairman of the Menzies Foundation that led to his contributing, amongst other things, to the establishment in 1985 of a major medical research institute in the tropical Northern Territory, the Menzies School of Health Research, Darwin, which is linked academically to the University of Sydney. Richard was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia for services to medicine in 1988, before retiring from the deanship in 1989. He continued as professor of neurosurgery and was engaged as a visiting professor in neurosurgery at the Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, before his retirement from the University of Sydney. He became an emeritus professor at the University of Sydney in 1992 and was appointed as a consultant emeritus to the department of surgery, neurosciences, at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. He also worked as a medico-legal consultant in private practice. He believed that the excellence of an institution is not a function of bricks and mortar, but it is dependent upon the people who work within it, and the traditions which ensure that the highest principles and standards are passed on from one generation to another. In retirement Richard pursued his abiding interest in drawing and painting. He enjoyed reading historical biographies and attending orchestral concerts. He had been a member of the Australian Club since 1976. His was an inspiring life, well spent and with many great contributions made. He will be remembered for his generous and warm nature, his devotion and loyalty to his family and friends, his sensitivity and for his consideration and thoughtfulness for others. Richard died on 25 December 2012, aged 86. He was survived by his wife Margaret, their daughter Louise and four grandchildren. Their son, Nicholas, predeceased him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004617
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Armstrong, William Louter Hunter (1924 - 2020)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2022-02-22
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010000-E010099
Occupation General surgeon
Details William (Bill) Louther Hunter Armstrong was born in Melbourne, Australia on 27 October 1924. His father, William Louther, was a medical practitioner and his mother, Nita Elizabeth née Hunter, was the daughter of a brewer. Educated at Shepparton State School and Geelong Grammar School, he then joined the RAAF and served as a pilot from 1943 to 1946. After demobilisation he studied medicine at Trinity College, Melbourne. He travelled to the UK, having worked for a while at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. At the Hammersmith Hospital he worked with the professor of surgery, Ian Aird. He passed the fellowship of the college in 1958. On his return to Australia, he worked at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne before being appointed consultant surgeon to the Geelong Hospital in 1962. He married Susanna (Sue) née Heath also in 1962 and they had a son, Sam, and daughter, Kate. A keen farmer, he also enjoyed playing golf. He died on 20 November 1920 aged 96, survived by Sue, his children, their partners, Chris and Abesi, and grandchildren William and Jimena.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010082
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Watson, Arthur Boulton ( - 1991)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008300-E008399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380545380545
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Arthur Boulton Watson received his medical education at the University of Birmingham and qualified MB ChB in 1938. He gained his Fellowship in 1942 and the Birmingham ChM in 1946. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps in the second world war as a major and surgical specialist. After the war he was resident surgical officer at Leicester Royal Infirmary and later consultant surgeon to the Birmingham United Hospitals. He subsequently became consultant in orthopaedic and traumatic surgery at the East Birmingham and Solihull Hospitals. He died on 24 April 1991, survived by his wife, children and grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008362
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Butler, Henry ( - 1885)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-11-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373278373278
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at St George's and Westminster Hospitals, after which he practised in Tasmania, where he was Consulting Surgeon to the General Hospital at Hobart Town. He represented the Brighton constituency in the House of Assembly continuously for thirty-one years, and once held office as Minister for Lands. He was appointed Chairman of Committees in 1876, and in the following year was elected to the Speakership, which he held until the beginning of the session in 1885, when he resigned on account of ill health. He held the positions of Chairman of the Board of Education and President of the Commissioners of the New Norfolk and Cascades Hospital for the Insane, and served as a Member of the Tasmanian Court of Medical Examiners. Henry Butler was universally respected throughout the Colony, and both houses of Parliament adjourned out of respect for his memory on the day of his funeral. He died on Saturday, August 21st, 1885, at his residence, Stowell, Battery Point, Hobart.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001095
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Vernon, Bowater John (1837 - 1901)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-01-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003300-E003399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375539375539
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Born on October 23rd, 1837, the second son, in a family of nine, of the Rev Henry Mark Vernon, who was for forty-four years Vicar of Westfield, near Battle, Sussex. He was educated at Marlborough College from 1847-1856, where he had a good reputation as a scholar and fine athlete. In 1856 he became a pupil of Frederic William Jowers (qv) at the Brighton Hospital. Three years later he entered as a student at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where, after another three years, he was appointed House Surgeon for a year (1862) to Thomas Wormald (qv), and in 1863 was House Surgeon to James Paget (qv). He won the Hospital Scholarship in 1862. He was now so good an anatomist and clean and excellent a dissector that he was chosen Prosector at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1862, was elected Demonstrator of Anatomy at St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1864, and held the post for some years. His student career had been distinguished and he now directed his attention to eye work. He attended the practice of the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital and soon became Clinical Assistant to John Cawood Wordsworth (qv), and, after the retirement of Charles Bader, Curator of the Museum and Pathologist to the institution. These posts brought him into immediate relations with the best and most skilful ophthalmic surgeons of that day - Sir William Bowman, George Critchett (qv), J W Hulke (qv), and others of equal renown, from whom he learnt many niceties in the delicate art he practised, and became an excellent judge and critic of the operative abilities of others. Whilst admiring - as all did who witnessed them - the operations of Sir William Bowman, he highly appreciated the manipulative dexterity of Hulke, whose hand, he would say, "though large was as steady as a rock". Vernon became an adept in the use of the ophthalmoscope not long after it had been devised by Helmholtz and had begun to attract great attention. He also witnessed new operations (such as iridectomy, the linear operation for the extraction of cataract, and various operations for the relief of lachrymal obstruction) as they were performed by master hands. It was not surprising, then, when the need for someone specially skilled in the knowledge of diseases of, and operations on, the eye began to be felt in the medical school of St Bartholomew's Hospital, that Vernon should be elected as Demonstrator of Eye Diseases in association with George Callender (qv) in 1867. The importance of the department was immediately perceived, and the Governors determined to build two eye wards, one for males and one for females, over 'Casualty' Ward. These were completed in July, 1870, and opened by the then Prince and Princess of Wales in the summer of that year. Henry Power (qv) and Vernon were appointed respectively Senior and Junior Surgeon, with twenty-six beds and a child's cot to be divided between them. The arrangement proved a fortunate one. The two surgeons worked together in the most amicable way, sometimes one, sometimes the other monopolizing the wards, whilst in cases of emergency a bed could still always be found - through the address of Miss Davies, 'Sister Eyes', to whose kindly offices, untiring assiduity, and admirable management of the wards both were always willing to admit they were deeply indebted. The Ophthalmological Society was founded in 1880, and Vernon was an original member, but attended very few meetings, as late hours were uncongenial to him. He was for twenty-seven years Ophthalmic Surgeon to the West London Hospital, in the affairs of which he was much interested, and was Ophthalmic Surgeon on the Staff of the Great Northern Hospital. As an ophthalmic surgeon, and as a clinical teacher, he was in all respects admirable. Constant in attendance, he rarely kept his class waiting for a moment. Considerations of light led, as a rule, to the operations which had been decided on previously being undertaken early in the afternoon. As soon as the patient had been wheeled into the operating theatre, and whilst chloroform was being administered, he would give a short history of the case, call the attention of the class to the salient points which it presented, state the different methods of treatment that had or might have been adopted, and gave the reasons for the particular operation he was about to perform; next, after a careful examination of his instruments and satisfying himself of their sharpness and cleanliness, he proceeded to operate. He was then seen at his best. Clearly recognizing what had to be done in each case, every cut was accurately limited, every closure of the scissors did what was required and no more. He was a beautiful operator, and this was the more meritorious because his wrists were often swollen with rheumatism and were tender and painful. For the most part his cases were highly successful. His talents as a teacher were not less conspicuous. As soon as the operations were over he entered the wards which adjoined the operating-room, and in each case would find something important to dwell upon, some useful bit of knowledge the thoughtful student might carry away with him. Finally, the out-patients had to be seen, which often occupied two hours more, yet at the close he was as calm and deliberate, as willing to answer questions, as if he had just entered the hospital. He was an ideal teacher. Gifted with humour and often caustic, he only visited with satire the best men in his class and let off the dull ones. He loved to be posed in discussions on the theory and practice of his art, and to his students he was magnetic. Bowater Vernon was a master of the technique of the microscope, though his talents here were scarcely appreciated. He loved flowers, birds, and beasts, and was a keen sportsman, a day's shooting in September being his chief delight. His canaries were famous. His death was unexpected. He had seen his patients at St Bartholomew's on Saturday, January 19th, 1901, was seized with some kind of cardiac spasm on the 20th, and died on the 28th. He was buried in the churchyard of Westfield, Sussex, close to the west door. A tablet to his memory was placed on the west wall of the Church of St Bartholomew-the-Less, which is within the gates of the Hospital. "His body was committed to the grave", says Henry Power, "on the 1st February, when the guns of the warships in the Solent were proclaiming the passage of the Queen, to whom he was so intensely loyal, to her resting place at Windsor. "He, too, has gone to his rest; and he may well have thought, in the solemn moments that precede dissolution, that he had worked honestly and truly to the best of his ability for the good of the great Hospital to which he belonged, and that he bequeathed to those who succeed him a shining example of that gentleness, courtesy, and rectitude of purpose in his relations alike with his friends upon the staff and with the patients of the Hospital, which has in the past, as we may well hope it may continue to do in the future, made St Bartholomew's so useful and so great an institution in the history of the country." He was not tall; the head was well set on the shoulders, the complexion dark, with deep lines on the face and below the lower lip, an expressive mouth, a fine forehead, almost black hair. He gave the impression of being a delicate man, but was really strongly built, and at Marlborough had been a good cricketer. He wrote very little, as his teaching took up so much of his energy, and this is to be regretted, for he had a wide experience of cases and was well read and wrote well. His London address was 14 Clarges Street, W. At the time of his death, among other offices, he was Senior Ophthalmic Surgeon and Lecturer on Ophthalmic Medicine and Surgery at St Bartholomew's. He married, but had no children. His younger brother, Mark, practised at Horsham. Publications:- "Congenital Myopia." - *St Bart's Hosp Rep*, 1866, ii, 93. "Herpes Ophthalmicus." - *Ibid*, 1868, iv, 121. "Tubercle of the Eye." - *Ibid*, 1871, vii, 181. "Reports on Ophthalmology." - *London Med Record*, 1873 onwards.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003356
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Boulton, Thomas Babington (1925 - 2016)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2023-07-06
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010300-E010399
Occupation Anaesthetist
Details Thomas Babington ‘Tom’ Boulton was a consultant anaesthetist at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading. 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: E010310
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Butler, Cornelius (1789 - 1871)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

First Title value, for Searching Davies, Alexander Souter ( - 2018)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2023-07-05
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010200-E010299
Occupation Oral and maxillofacial surgeon
Details Alexander Souter Davies was a consultant oral and maxillofacial surgeon at Derriford Hospital, Plymouth. 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: E010287
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hutchinson, William Robert Soutter (1908 - 1978)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-12-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006500-E006599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378780378780
Occupation General surgeon
Details William Robert Soutter Hutchinson, the son of a general practitioner, was born at Cannock in Staffordshire and educated at Sedbergh, where he developed his love of the country and the walking and fishing he enjoyed all his life. He then proceeded to Cambridge and completed his medical studies at St Thomas's Hospital, qualifying in 1933. Having seen a gleaming set of surgical instruments in his father's surgery, he early decided he would like to use them, and in 1935 he took the FRCS. He gained his early experience at Huddersfield and then became resident assistant surgeon at the Royal Hospital, Wolverhampton. During the second world war he also dealt with service cases at neighbouring hospitals. In 1946 he began two years in the RAMC, mainly in Germany. This was not entirely to his liking, as he was a shy, independent person. On returning to Wolverhampton he became consultant surgeon to the Royal Hospital and to the Dudley Group, serving both strenuously until 1962. At this time the general surgical work at Wolverhampton was brought within one service and he added work at New Cross Hospital to that of the Royal Hospital. Before he retired he was President of the West Midlands Surgical Society. He was a familiar, friendly figure with a long rapid stride, always with pipe at the corner of his mouth and ready to discourse on any subject. He was a rapid and neat operator, a pleasure to watch - especially his gastric surgery - depending entirely on plain catgut. He believed unwaveringly in the advantage of radical mastectomy in preventing local recurrence in breast cancer. In his later years he took under his wing a number of Polish surgeons seconded to this country for further experience. He was a man of simple tastes and warm heart who cared very little for the material rewards of his work. In his last illness he was devotedly nursed by his wife Audrey and his three daughters, one of whom trained in nursing at the Middlesex Hospital. He died on 21 June, 1978, aged 70 years.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006597
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Keast-Butler, John (1937 - 2005)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

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/372531372531
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details John Keast-Butler was a consultant ophthalmologist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. He was born in London on 26 September 1937. His father, Joseph Alfred Keast-Butler, was a salesman and his mother, Mary Loise Brierley, was a secretary. He was educated at University College School and went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, to read medicine, going on to University College Hospital for his clinical studies. After National Service in the RAMC he specialised in ophthalmology, at first as a registrar at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, then as a senior resident officer at Moorfields Eye Hospital, City Road, and finally as a senior registrar at St Thomas’s Hospital and the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases. In 1977 he was appointed as a consultant ophthalmic surgeon to Addenbrooke’s NHS Trust, Cambridge University Teaching Hospitals Trust and Saffron Walden Community Hospital. In addition he was associate lecturer (medicine) at the University of Cambridge, director of studies (clinical medicine) at Trinity College, Cambridge, and attachment director in ophthalmology, University of Cambridge School of Medicine. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, chairman of the BMA ophthalmic group committee for some years and honorary secretary of the Cambridge Medical Graduates’ Club. His colleagues rightly described him as a big man in stature and in personality. He was a skilled craftsman and enjoyed carpentry, photography and gardening. He married Brigid Hardy, a nurse, in 1967 and they had three children – one daughter (a civil servant) and two sons (a trainee ophthalmic surgeon and a business analyst). He died on 19 March 2005 while travelling with his wife in Goa. He had a major fall that proceeded a fatal pulmonary embolism.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000345
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Butler, Frederick John (1819 - 1882)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

First Title value, for Searching Butler, James Henry (1813 - 1865)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

First Title value, for Searching Butler, Thomas Harrison (1871 - 1945)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-04-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003900-E003999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376110376110
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Born 19 March 1871, at Stanhope, Durham, eldest child of the Rev G W Butler, of Broadmayne with West Knighton, Dorset, and his wife Elizabeth Oldfield, adopted daughter of the Rev George Harrison. He was educated at Dorchester Grammar School, at St Paul's School, where he was an exhibitioner, and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, of which he was a scholar in 1889. He rowed in his College eight and took first-class honours in the final school of natural science in 1893. He received his clinical training at St Bartholomew's, where he served as house surgeon, and was also house physician at the Royal Free Hospital. In 1896 he was awarded a Radcliffe travelling Fellowship, and undertook postgraduate study at Kiel, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Zurich, and Paris. He then went to South Africa and served as harbour medical officer at Port Elizabeth, and as plague officer at Durban and at the Cape of Good Hope. He was awarded the Oxford doctorate for his thesis on plague in 1902. From 1902 to 1906 he was assistant surgeon at the British Ophthalmic Hospital at Jerusalem, and turned decisively to the specialty, which he notably adorned for the rest of his life. Butler then settled in Warwickshire, living at Duclair, Marsh Lane, Hampton-in-Arden, with consulting rooms at 61 Newhall Street, Birmingham, at 27 Warwick Place, Leamington, and at 7 Park Road, Coventry. He became in due course ophthalmic surgeon to the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital 1909, the Warneford Hospital, Leamington 1910, and the Hospital of St Cross, Rugby 1918, and surgeon to the Birmingham and Midland Eye Hospital 1913, and was ultimately on the consulting staff of each of these hospitals, retiring in 1932. He was also ophthalmic surgeon to the West Bromwich Hospital. During the war years 1939-44 he replaced his son, R D W Butler, MRCS, who was on active service, as surgeon at the Birmingham Eye Hospital. Butler took an active part in the work of the Oxford ophthalmological conference, serving on its council from 1917, and of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom, of which he became president. He gave the Middlemore lectures in 1915, 1922, and 1939, and was Montgomery lecturer in Dublin in 1926. In 1924 he was Doyne memorial medallist and lecturer. Butler served as president of the ophthalmology section at the Royal Society of Medicine; in the British Medical Association he was vice-president of the section of ophthalmology at the Nottingham meeting 1926 and afterwards its president, and a member of the ophthalmic group committee 1923-45; he also served as president of the Birmingham branch. He was secretary of the Midland Ophthalmological Society for twenty-eight years and its president 1919-21. Butler was elected to the Fellowship of the College, as a member of twenty years' standing, in 1941. Butler's interests in ophthalmology were wide and he made many contributions to its literature. His Illustrated guide to the slit-lamp, 1927, was the first English book on the subject and did much to popularize its use; with characteristic modesty he always called it "the child's guide to knowledge". Butler was a good artist and illustrated his own books. Butler married in March 1900 Ellen, daughter of Walter Hugo Reed, MD, of Westbury, Wilts, who survived him with two sons and three daughters; both sons were serving as medical men with the forces in the world war of 1939-45. He died suddenly at Hampton-in-Arden on 29 January 1945, aged 73, and was privately cremated. Butler was a man of wide attainments and experience, of happy disposition and rare humanity. He did much to unite the members of his specialty in the Midlands. Heavily built, his appearance of rough strength belied his intellectual and artistic distinction. His benignity and bonhomie made him a centre of affection and gaiety to a wide circle of friends. At professional meetings he showed remarkable insight in choosing subjects for discussion, which provoked the widest interest. Butler was always ready to acknowledge and even exaggerate his own failures and shortcomings in the hope of awakening constructive improvements in methods or technique. His chief recreation was yachting and he was well known as a designer of yachts and a writer in the yachting journals. He was a member of the Royal Cruising Club, the Corinthian Yacht Club and the Little Ship Club, and an Associate Member of the Institution of Naval Architects. Publications:- Refraction. *Brit med J*. 1923, 1, 843. Ophthalmology in Palestine. *Birm med Review*, 1916, 79, 29 and 59. Tuberculous disease of the uvea. *Ibid*. 1912, 71, 216. Treatment of trichiasis. *Arch Ophthal*. 1908, 37, 388. *Illustrated guide to the slit-lamp*. Oxford, 1927. Lenticonus posterior. *Arch Ophthal*. 1930, 3, 425. Iridencleisis and trapdoor iridectomy in treatment of glaucoma. *Brit J Ophthal*. 1932, 16, 741.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003927
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Butler, Richard Weedon (1902 - 1982)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-11-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006300-E006399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378566378566
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Richard Butler qualified MRCS LRCP from Cambridge and St Thomas's Hospital in 1927 and he spent his early postgraduate years gaining experience in general and orthopaedic surgery, working for Bristow, Perkins and Trethowan. He became FRCS in 1928 and took the MCh in 1933, winning the Robert Jones Gold Medal for his work with H J Seddon on Pott's disease of the spine. He then proceeded MD. He was appointed honorary surgeon to Addenbrooke's Hospital in 1932 with an interest in orthopaedic surgery but he very soon gave up general surgery to devote all his time to orthopaedics. He joined the RAMC in 1939, serving in France and in the Cambridge Hospital, Aldershot, but when the Leys School, Cambridge was taken over to house a 150 bed orthopaedic and peripheral nerve unit, he was demobilised to lead the work there. He built up a unit, after the war, using a small decontamination centre in the old Addenbrooke's car park until the opening of the new hospital in 1962 provided a modern department, but he continued to use, in his private practice, a set of osteotomes bought in a street market for 1/6d when he was a house surgeon. He was President of the Orthopaedic Section of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1955. He was fond of outdoor pursuits and was an authority on fen life and culture and the local bird life. He married Anna Sellors in 1930 but she died in 1965, shortly before he retired and he suffered a cerebrovascular accident soon afterwards. He died on 21 November 1982, survived by his daughter and two sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006383
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Butler, Michael John (1942 - 1982)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-11-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006300-E006399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378567378567
Occupation General surgeon
Details Michael John Butler was born in Bristol and educated at Bristol Cathedral School. He went on to Oriel College, Oxford and St Thomas's Hospital, London, to complete his medical training. He graduated BM BCh Oxon in 1966, proceeded MCh in 1977 and obtained the FRCS Diploma in 1971. He held posts at Hammersmith Hospital, the Royal United and St Martin's Hospitals in Bath, St Bartholomew's Hospital and the department of surgery in Southampton, where he was lecturer. He was a general surgeon with an interest in vascular surgery. He was appointed consultant surgeon to the Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport only four years before his death. His colleagues there quickly recognised in him a very good doctor and an able surgeon and teacher whose sense of humour and open personality won him many friends. He was elected secretary of the Gwent Medical Society and honorary secretary of the Welsh Surgical Society. He faced his mortal illness with courage and dignity and died on 10 August 1982, survived by his wife, Janet and their young children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006384
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Butler, Thomas Joseph (1916 - 1972)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-07-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005600-E005699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377867377867
Occupation General surgeon
Details Butler was born on 12 September 1916 and educated at Bristol University, graduating with honours in medicine and surgery in 1940. As the second world war was in progress he was immediately commissioned in the RAMC and was posted to India. After the war he held resident posts at Bristol Royal Infirmary, and took the Fellowship in 1947. He was appointed to the staff of Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, gave the greater part of his working life to the Hospital, and was promoted to be a consultant surgeon there. He gained the Bristol MD in 1960. He was known throughout the south-west of England as a skilled abdominal surgeon, while his great knowledge of post-gastrectomy problems was even more widely admired. His research on pancreatic function in gastric operations earned him a Hunterian Professorship at the College (1961); he was an active member of the British Society of Gastroenterology, and published important papers on his special subject. His career was tragically cut short by severe illness in 1967. He bore his disability and inactivity with notable courage, but died on 26 February 1972 aged fifty-five. He was survived by his wife with their son and three daughters. 'Paddy' Butler's cheerful personality endeared him to his staff and his patients. He was a devout Roman Catholic; a requiem mass was celebrated in Bristol Pro-Cathedral before his burial at Canford on 2 March 1972. Publications: Clinical study of the early post-gastrectomy syndrome. *Brit med J* 1951, 2, 265. Study of significance of reactive hypoglycaemia following gastrectomy. *Gastroenterology*, 1951, 19, 99. A study of the pancreatic response to food after gastrectomy in man. *Gut* 1960, 1, 55.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005684
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Boulle, Joseph Roger (1922 - 1991)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007800-E007899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380015380015
Occupation General surgeon
Details Joseph Roger Boulle was born on 23 March 1922 at Tinley Manor on the Natal north coast. His parents were of French-Mauritian origin and he was brought up on a sugar plantation where he acquired manual dexterity at an early stage. After completing his early education he entered the University of Cape Town, qualifying in 1944. He had acquired considerable experience in surgery before coming to Britain in 1949, where he undertook surgical registrar posts at Hartlepool and at the Taunton and Somerset Hospital. He passed both the English and Edinburgh Fellowships in 1957 and then returned to South Africa, where he was appointed surgical registrar at King Edward VIII Hospital in Durban. Shortly afterwards he was appointed consultant surgeon at McCord Zulu Hospital and St Aiden's Hospital in Durban, and St Mary's Hospital, Mariannhill. He was also engaged in private practice. Throughout his life he held strong Christian beliefs, which were reflected in his voluntary work at several Christian mission hospitals. He ardently supported ecumenism and was a Grand Knight of Da Gama. Outside medicine, his hobbies included woodworking - he made most of his own furniture - and cooking. He married Tutta, who was of Norwegian ancestry, while still a student. He died on 18 March 1991, aged 68, survived by his wife and their daughter Pat and sons Jerome, Adrian and Trevor.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007832
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Butler, Knolly Alan (1931 - 2019)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2022-02-04
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010000-E010099
Occupation General surgeon
Details Professor Knolly Butler was a surgeon and academic, who was the first director of the School of Clinical Medicine and Research in Nassau, Bahamas. 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: E010073
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Butler, Edward Clive Barber (1904 - 1999)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008400-E008499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380656380656
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details Clive Butler was born in Flaxton, near York, on 8 April 1904, the only son of William Barber Butler and Edith Eastmond, a nursing sister. They had both trained at the London Hospital and had helped to care for the Elephant Man after he had been rescued by Sir Frederick Treves. His father subsequently became a general practitioner surgeon in Hereford and sent Clive to Shrewsbury. He followed his father to the London Hospital in 1923, qualified in 1928, did several junior jobs, and became registrar to Russell John Howard from 1933 to 1935. He was then offered the position of surgeon on the *Queen Mary* on her maiden voyage and continued in this position for seven months, during which time he crossed the Atlantic more than 30 times and made many interesting friends, among them Sir Clifford Naunton Morgan, who was very helpful to Butler in later years when he developed an interest in colorectal surgery. In 1936 the brilliant young thoracic surgeon H P Nelson died from septicaemia after pricking a finger during an operation. Clive Butler was summoned back to the London to fill the gap, and was appointed assistant surgeon the following year. As the most junior surgeon he was put in change of the septic block, which was then crowded with cases of osteomyelitis. His predecessor in that post, Charles Donald, had introduced the Winnet Orr management of osteomyelitis, immobilising the affected limb in a Thomas splint reinforced with plaster and refraining from changing the dressings, maggots or no. But Butler arrived at a turning point in surgery; Domagk discovered the antibacterial effects of prontosil rubrum in 1935 and in 1937 Fuller had found that its effects were due to a metabolite, sulphanilamide. Within a short time Butler had gained huge experience in the use of sulphanilamide, but staphylococcal infections, especially osteomyelitis, continued to baffle him. He was able to show that drilling gave better results than guttering, and together with Frank Valentine, developed a method of monitoring bacteriaemia by counting the colonies in blood cultures. Nevertheless in his Hunterian lecture of 1940, which was based on 500 cases of acute osteomyelitis, the mortality was 25 per cent, rising to 80 per cent in children under a year old. Then in 1944 a limited supply of penicillin was made available to him. The next 21 patients all survived, and soon he could show that it was safe to perform a secondary suture within ten days, instead of months in a stinking plaster. At the end of the second world war, he accompanied Alexander Fleming and Christie to Copenhagen to describe the new techniques. Throughout the war Butler had been kept busy as an EMS surgeon, and in 1945 was formally appointed to the Harold Wood Hospital. By 1948, he had extended his interests to a much wider field of general surgery, notably colorectal surgery, where he had much help from Naunton Morgan, and parotid tumours, where he was one of the first to use a nerve stimulator and to use radium as an adjunct. He was a popular teacher, examined for the MB at home and in Nigeria, and in both the primary and final Fellowship, ultimately becoming Chairman of the Court. He was President of the section of proctology of the Royal Society of Medicine. He retired in 1969, but retained his active interest as curator of the museum at the London Hospital Medical College, where the relics of the Elephant Man were preserved. Shyness made Clive Butler seem a little gloomy and aloof to those who did not know him, but he was in fact a very sensitive and friendly person. He married Nancy Harrison of Minneapolis in 1939, by whom he had two sons, Bruce and Douglas, and a daughter, Anne, none of them entering medicine. The marriage ended in an amicable divorce in 1957. He died on 25 January 1999.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008473
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Nicholson, William Alan Butler (1908 - 1993)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008200-E008299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380413380413
Occupation General surgeon
Details Alan Nicholson was born in Belfast on 3 November 1908 and educated at Altrincham County High School and Victoria University, Manchester. He qualified MB ChB in 1932 and served in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1941 to 1946 in the Middle East and India, becoming a lieutenant colonel. After demobilisation he became consultant surgeon to the Withington Hospital from 1947 to 1973 and to the Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute from 1948 to 1973. He was also an honorary clinical lecturer to the University of Manchester from 1948 to 1973. Although he professed to be a general surgeon, his abdominal surgery, particularly of the biliary tract and colon, was widely recognised as excellent. His association with the Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute led to his major contribution to parotid gland surgery. At a time when the histological classification was still confused he questioned the use of routine adjuvant radiation in all cases and proceeded to show how, with meticulous techniques, the tumours could be removed by local extracapsular dissection with a minimal risk of complications or recurrence. In his active years he assembled the largest clinicopathological series of tumours of the salivary gland in Britain. Even after retiring he travelled widely to visit patients in their homes to update his unique records. Alan Nicholson was a modest man; like many perfectionists he wrote little. He was an excellent clinical teacher and willingly shared his experience, particularly of successful surgery for most benign parotid tumours, with those who worked with him or visited him. As a young man he was a keen golfer, but in later years he occupied his time with sedentary occupations; he was an avid reader. In 1941 he married Olive, who became a consultant anaesthetist. She died three months after him. He died on 28 June 1993. They were survived by two daughters, Judith and Isobel, and their son, Robert, a consultant surgeon in Blackburn.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008230
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Boult, Edmund (1815 - 1863)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

First Title value, for Searching Boulton, John Baker (1945 - 2019)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Compiled with considerable help from Jon Cadwallader, Lissie Boulton and other members of the Boulton family
Publication Date 2021-05-18
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009900-E009999
Occupation Urologist
Details John Boulton was born in Taihape, central North Island, the third son of Edward Clive Boulton and Mary Patricia Reade, the family farming in the King Country south of Te Kuiti. He had two older brothers, David and Philip. In 1947 the family shifted to Palmerston North where John commenced school, finishing at Palmerston North Boys’ High School. There he became involved in rugby, hockey and track events. During his school years he joined Cubs to be followed by Boy Scouts where he became a Queen’s Scout. Although greatly interested in the outdoors, flora and fauna, he also spent much time reading his Pear’s Encyclopaedia, adding to his active and enquiring mind. Schooling completed, John commenced at Otago University in Dunedin where he gained entry to Medical School. He resided at Selwyn College, contributing significantly to the inter-hostel competition in cross-country running and hockey. He was elected President of the College in 1968 before embarking on his student flatting experiences. During this time, he was a regular participant in athletics as a member of the Otago Athletic Club. Whilst at Medical School, John joined the Otago University Medical Company (OUMC), an Army Territorial Force, thereby fulfilling his obligations under the National Service scheme. Enjoying this activity, which on one occasion included parachuting into the Auckland Harbour, he progressed through the ranks to Captain. When the New Zealand Service Medical Team operating in Vietnam offered three-month rotations to OUMC personnel, John volunteered and was selected and in 1970 spent a month attached to the 1st Australian Field Hospital in Vung Tau before joining the NZ Services Team at Bong Son for the remaining 2 months. Back in New Zealand he served in the 2nd Field Hospital before being posted as the Regimental Medical Officer of 5th Battalion. Gaining his MB ChB in 1971, John spent two years as house surgeon at the Palmerston North Hospital and remained there as surgical registrar during 1974-75. A retired senior nursing administrator during that era recalled John as being a very approachable, truthful, forthright doctor who was always a good listener. Furthering his surgical career, he travelled to England in 1976, initially residing at London House while attending the Primary FRCS Course. Successfully completing the part one FRCS exam, he was appointed to a post at St Albans Hospital (North London) working with the then President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Obtaining the FRCSEng in 1977, John trained in Urology at Bristol. He was appointed as registrar and spent 3 years at Southmead Hospital and Bristol Royal Infirmary Urology Unit, followed by short spells at the Oxford Renal Transplant Unit and the Leeds General Infirmary. Soon after his arrival in England, he met Lissie, a professional musician, and they were married in 1978. John, with Lissie, returned to New Zealand in 1980 when he was invited to take up a post as Surgical Tutor Specialist at Auckland Hospital. He was soon appointed to a consultant position and in 1982 he completed his FRACS(Urology). A strong believer in the Public Hospital system, John was a compassionate surgeon committed to the patients under his care. He believed in finding the best outcome for the patient, rather than focussing excessively on the medical problem. He enjoyed sharing his skill and experience with others in the urological field. Using his Bristol experiences, he introduced the use of urodynamics to the Auckland urology service. In 1995, with colleagues Jon Cadwallader and Roger Chambers he participated in developing a limited private practice at Urology 161 in Auckland. Once settled in Auckland John and Lissie had a family of four children – Charles, Katy, Rachel and Samuel. John passed his love of the outdoors to his children and with them enjoyed hiking, skiing and water sports. He pursued his love of forestry by joining Amakiwi, a group of families actively involved in developing a 150 hectare forest in the Waikaretu Valley. John, caring and gentle, a committed Christian with a timeless smile, retired from his Auckland commitments in 2011 and he and Lissie moved to Katikati to live. There he continued his passion for the outdoors with the purchase of an avocado orchard. Lissie’s quote – “he was never happier or more content in life than when he was in the orchard with a chainsaw”. He continued in urological practice part-time as a visiting surgeon to Tairawhiti Hospital (Gisborne) until the time of his death. His professional commitment to this hospital and the area has been much appreciated and will be greatly missed. John is survived by and greatly missed by his wife Lissie, their four children Charles, Katy, Rachel and Sam, four grandchildren, and his brothers, Philip and David.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009970
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Upton, Julian John Mainwaring (1937 - 2015)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Andrew Drysdale
Publication Date 2020-10-19 2021-10-25
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009800-E009899
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Julian Upton was a consultant ENT surgeon at Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton, Somerset from 1974 until his retirement in March 1999. His father Cecil Upton was an hotelier and owner of the Winter Gardens Hotel, Bournemouth, married to Dodo Upton née Brembridge, who sadly died giving birth to Julian’s younger brother, Jonathan. His middle brother, Adrian, became a professor of neurology at McMaster University, Ontario, Canada. His father subsequently married Sheila née Bollom and they had two sons, Andy and Philip, Julian’s half-brothers. Julian was born in Bristol, and educated at Clifton College, Bristol, and was awarded a major scholarship to Peterhouse, Cambridge, to read natural sciences, graduating in 1959. He went on to complete his clinical training at Guy’s Hospital Medical School, qualifying in 1962. He was a house surgeon at St Luke’s Hospital, Guildford to Paddy Boulter, who became president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. After initial training in general surgery and urology at the Bristol Royal Infirmary, Julian decided to specialise in ENT, becoming a registrar at Leeds General Infirmary and a senior registrar on the Yorkshire Regional Health Authority training scheme. He gained his FRCS in 1969. He married Angela Hicklin in 1964. They had three boys, Tim, Mark and Alex. Angela worked for many years as a practice nurse in Taunton, but sadly predeceased Julian in 2003. He was a keen gardener with a passion for cultivating lilies and enjoyed collecting objets d’art. When these started to fill the house his children took them to the local charity shop, whereupon Julian would buy them back again. Julian was a notable bon viveur, a core member of the West Somerset Medical Club (becoming president in 1997), the Anglo-French Otolaryngological Society and a travelling club of fellow West Country ENT surgeons. Julian died of multiorgan failure at Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton on 2 September 2015. He was 78.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009839
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Feneley, Roger Charles Leslie (1933 - 2018)

2025-06-18T17:42:41Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2018-11-20 2021-08-23
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009500-E009599
Occupation Urologist
Details Roger Feneley was born on 19 October 1933 in Bristol. He was the second child and elder son of George Leslie Feneley, a consultant anaesthetist and general practitioner, and his wife Ruth Grace née Powell, who was a nurse. Educated at Clifton College, he enrolled at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge as a Boyd scholar and gained first class honours in part one of the natural science tripos in 1955. He continued his clinical training at Guy’s Hospital where he was mentored by Samuel Hall Wass and John Stanley Batchelor. It was during his time there that he first became aware of the problems of patients suffering from incontinence and noticed that their needs were often neglected by the senior staff. He qualified MB, BChir in 1958 and was awarded the Cunning prize in his final examination. He passed the fellowship of the college in 1962. After house jobs at Guy’s and in Guildford where he worked with William Gordon Gill and Patrick Stewart Boulter, he returned to Bristol as a senior registrar. It was then that he began to develop his interest in the workings and disorders of the bladder by carrying out water cystometry on his patients. Appointed a consultant urologist to the South West Regional Health Authority in 1969 he initially found it difficult to attract funding for the equipment he needed as incontinence was then regarded as *the Cinderella of healthcare* and senior practitioners gave it scant attention. Eventually he took over some laboratory space at the old fever hospital known as the Ham Green Hospital and in 1971 founded the Bristol Urodynamic Unit. Here he continued to research urological disorders and, in particular those caused by the use of catheters. As the unit grew it became well known throughout the world and attracted much scientific attention to this new discipline. When large numbers of patients with intractable incontinence were referred to him he developed new procedures to help them. Realising that this was a far wider problem than had been acknowledged he initiated a research programme funded by the MRC providing care in the community through a nurse continence advisor. Such a service has now been widely adopted. Other aspects of his work included pioneering studies on immunotherapy in bladder cancer and he was responsible, in 1988, for introducing lithotripsy in the treatment of kidney stones in his area. When he retired in 1998, he founded the Biomed Centre at Southmead Hospital in Bristol. The aim of the centre was to try to alleviate the problems of often elderly and disabled patients with catheters and help them to lead more independent lives. In 2011 he published a leading article in the *Times* in which he wrote that it was *baffling* that anyone who used a catheter was using *a device largely unchanged in its design since the 1930’s*. Furthermore, he continued to say, that the device was not only barbaric but also responsible for numerous hospital acquired infections and even increased mortality. Many of his ideas were used in the design of new catheters. He continued with his research as an emeritus consultant urologist and visiting professor at the University of the West of England, publishing important scientific papers throughout his seventies. Among many distinguished positions, he was president of the Bristol Medico-Chirurgical Society, president of the section of urology of the Royal Society of Medicine and on the editorial board of the *British Journal of Urology*. In 1960 he married Patricia née Groves, she was a nurse whom he met while they were both working at Guy’s. He died on 6 June 2016 when he was on a London bound train going to attend a concert with his son Julian. Patricia and their children, Mark, Julian and Catherine survived him. Mark, their eldest son, is a urologist at University College Hospital.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009511
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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