Search Results for christie

First Title value, for Searching Christie, William Ledingham ( - 1920)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-05-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001100-E001199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373354373354
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at the University of Otago, where he also received his professional training, which was completed at the London Hospital. He was at one time Resident Medical and Surgical Officer at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children and Women at Bristol, and then entered the service of the Rajah of Sarawak and was Surgeon to the Gejijak Hospital. In 1915 he took a temporary commission as Lieutenant in the RAMC, and was promoted to Captain in 1916. He died on board the s.s. *Moqhilea* in the Red Sea on July 22nd, 1920, and was buried at sea in the Gulf of Suez. Publications: "Latent Dysentery, or Dysentery Carriers in Sarawak." - *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1914, ii, 118. "Further Investigations into Latent Dysentery and Intestinal Parasitism in Sarawak." - *Ibid.*, 1915, ii, 89.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001171
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Anderson, Peter Christie (1929 - 2009)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2012-01-26 2015-02-27
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001900-E001999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374107374107
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Specialist in rehabilitation medicine
Details Peter Christie Anderson was an orthopaedic surgeon and a specialist in rehabilitation medicine in Perth, Western Australia. He was born in Sheffield on 23 September 1929, the eldest son of James Christie Anderson, a urological surgeon and a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, and Mary Ann Anderson née Warner. He was educated at Shrewsbury, Queen's College, Cambridge, and Middlesex Hospital Medical School, qualifying in 1954. He was a resident medical officer at Middlesex Hospital and then a demonstrator in anatomy at Sheffield University from 1955 to 1956. After a house surgeon post in Cheltenham, and at a time when, as he writes, 'Australian graduates went to England', he decided to take the opposite route and go to Perth for his surgical training. But, having failed at his first attempt to take the fellowship examination in Melbourne in 1959, he returned to England. He was a registrar in Kettering and passed the FRCS in 1960. He then spent two years as a registrar training in orthopaedic surgery at Harlow Wood Orthopaedic Hospital in Mansfield. In 1963 he returned to Western Australia, as a senior registrar in the accident and emergency department at the Royal Perth Hospital, and then a registrar in orthopaedics. From 1964 to 1975 he was a specialist in orthopaedics at the Repatriation General Hospital, Perth, and, from 1965 to 1972, an assistant surgeon in the orthopaedic department at the Princess Margaret Hospital. From 1965 to 1976 he was also an assistant orthopaedic surgeon at the Royal Perth Hospital. During this period he also served as a surgeon with the Australian Army in Vietnam. In 1976 he became director of medical services at the department of social security's rehabilitation service in Perth, a post he held for 10 years. In 1980 he became a fellow of the Australian College of Rehabilitation Medicine. He continued in private practice as a specialist in orthopaedics and rehabilitation medicine until 1997. Outside medicine, he was interested in golf and sailing. In 1958 he married Mary Margaret Humphrey, a nurse. They had three daughters (Judith, Susan and Dianne) and three sons (John, Geoffrey and Martin). Peter Christie Anderson died on 21 November 2009, aged 80.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001924
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Brown, Robson Christie (1898 - 1971)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-01-03 2014-07-18
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/372616372616
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Christie Brown was born on 1 July 1898 and was educated at the Royal Kepier Grammar School and Durham University, where he gained numerous prizes and scholarships. While an undergraduate he served for a few years of the first world war in a destroyer based on Scapa Flow, but returned to the University after the war and graduated in 1920. He specialised early in gynaecology and became obstetric tutor at Leeds University and later at the London Hospital. After a time he was appointed to the staff of the Samaritan Hospital for Women, the Metropolitan Hospital, the City of London Maternity Hospital and many others in and around London. He became in due course an examiner to the Central Midwives Board and to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, of which he had been a founder member. Christie Brown's outstanding ability as an obstetrician was widely recognised, especially by his married colleagues, and he made a special study of the treatment of infertility in women; he was also the inventor of an unspillable hour-glass chloroform-inhaler for use by the patient when in labour. Christie Brown was an excellent lecturer and an able after-dinner speaker, much sought after at medical and other gatherings where eloquence and wit were in demand. He was a good organiser and took an active part in the work of the Samaritan Hospital. When there was talk of the Samaritan being completely merged in St Mary's Hospital, Christie Brown took up the defence of the Samaritan whose name was retained when the two hospitals were united. He contributed many papers on his specialty and his text book on midwifery was reprinted many times, running into its third edition by 1950. In addition to his other work Brown took an active interest in the problems of cancer and was one of the first to prescribe cytotoxic drugs to his patients. First in London and later at Loughton in Essex, he kept open house to his friends and colleagues; for outside interests he became a keen photographer and a first-class mechanic. For many years he was dogged by ill health (a nephrotic syndrome), which led to his early retirement in 1959. Robin Christie Brown's wife died in 1970; and their only son Jeremy Robin Warrington Christie Brown took up medicine; he himself died after a brief illness on 13 December 1971 at his home at Highcliffe-on-Sea.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000432
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Christie, Harry Kenrick (1894 - 1981)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

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/378542378542
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Christie was born in Invercargill, New Zealand, on 13 July 1894, the eldest son of Andrew Christie, who farmed in Southland, New Zealand, and Lillian Laura, née Kenrick, daughter of Harry Kenrick, Stipendiary Magistrate. His primary education was at Kaikorai School, Dunedin, then in 1908 at Otago Boys' High School, and from 1909 to 1912 at Waitaki Boys' High School, Oamaru. He obtained the Sargood Entrance Bursary (Literary) to Otago University where he read mental science for his BSc and gained the James Clarke Prize in that subject and the Stewart Prize and Beverley Scholarship in physics. After graduating MB ChB in 1920 he became house surgeon in Dunedin Hospital and then demonstrator in anatomy at Otago Medical School, under Professor Percy Growland. He moved to London in 1923 and worked first at the Hampstead General Hospital and the London Lock Hospital, St Pancras. During this time he took the MRCP, LRCP before moving to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in 1924. He then worked as a clinical assistant in orthopaedics at Guy's and in urology at St Peter's before taking his FRCS. He remembered particularly the influence of George E Waugh, H A T Fairbank, W H Trethowan, Clifford Morson and Sir Heneage Ogilvie from those days. On returning to New Zealand in 1926 he married Dr Mollie Fisher, who qualified in radiology and they established a joint practice in Wanganui. In 1929 he was appointed surgeon to Wanganui Hospital, and established an orthopaedic department there. In the same year he was awarded the MCh (UNZ) in general and orthopaedic surgery, a degree rarely taken at that time. He was an enterprising surgeon in several fields, sometimes ahead of his times. He was a foundation member of the New Zealand Orthopaedic Association. He was a keen territorial officer, and soon after the outbreak of the second world war went to the Middle East as orthopaedic surgeon to No 1 New Zealand General Hospital. In Greece and Crete he was detached to work in the mobile surgical unit and later rejoined No 1 NZGH in Helwan as OC Surgical Division and then commanding officer in Egypt and Italy. He was awarded the ED and CBE for his military services. After the war he returned to Wanganui, and resumed surgical practice. He was greatly respected both for his formidable academic knowledge and his infinite patience, absolute integrity and kindness. He continued to introduce innovations, including an attempt to establish a bone bank in the early 1950s. He retired from the hospital staff in 1961. His interests outside surgery included photography, music (he played the clarinet), flying (he flew his own aeroplane, and was frustrated to be grounded at the age of 76 for cardiac reasons when he had just started a course of aerobatics) and motor-cycles. He had a whimsical sense of humour and it may not have been unfitting that this gifted man, alert and active in his 86th year, should die on 23 April 1981 after a collision on his motor-bike when blinded by the setting sun. He left a wife, Dr Mollie Christie, OBE, and four children, one a son who is a surgeon (FRCS) and another a daughter (FFARCS) practising in Canada.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006359
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Eden, Kenneth Christie (1910 - 1943)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-05-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004000-E004099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376192376192
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Born 18 December 1910, son of Edwin Albert Eden, MA, BSc, Head Master of Devizes Secondary School, who died at Letchworth in 1938, and of Monti Alston Christie, his wife. He was educated at his father's school and at University College, London, before entering University College Hospital Medical School, where he was Bucknill scholar and Cluff memorial prizeman in 1932. He won the Lister gold medal in surgery in 1933 and the Leslie Pearce Gould scholarship. With a travelling scholarship he worked in the surgical clinics of Berlin, Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, and Paris. On his return to University College Hospital he was appointed Harker Smith cancer and radium registrar, assistant to Wilfred Trotter in the surgical unit, and John Marshall Fellow in surgi pathology. Eden edited the *UCH Magazine*, played association football for the hospital and took a full share in many undergraduate social activities. In 1939 he was appointed to the Emergency Medical Service neurological unit of University College Hospital at Hayward's Heath, Sussex and in 1941 he was appointed surgical registrar of the hospital. He collaborated with his master's son, W R Trotter, MRCP, in the hospital's thyroid clinic, and they made several important joint publications. In 1940 he was a Hunterian professor at the Royal College of Surgeons, lecturing on dumb-bell tumours of the spine. In spite of his great abilities, or perhaps because of an air of charming indolence, Eden, during this period, was looked upon as a capable rather than a brilliant surgeon. In April 1942 he was commissioned in the RAMC and served for four months at St Hugh's Military Hospital at Oxford. Eden found his métier when appointed leader of a neurosurgical unit in the Eighth Army, with the rank of major. He served all through the victorious North African campaign from Alamein to Tunis (winter 1942 to spring 1943). In the fast-moving tank battles of Tripolitania he found that head injuries were coming back to his station at the advance base too late for satisfactory intervention. He therefore split his unit into a base and a forward team, and himself went right forward to the battlefield. He converted a captured Italian motor-coach into a mobile operating theatre and worked in closest touch with the most forward casualty clearing station. He excised or closed the majority of head wounds within twenty-four hours of injury and achieved ninety per cent primary healing where the incidence of abscess had previously been very high. In the more favourable conditions of battle between Mareth and Tunis he made the most of his opportunities for forward area segregation of wounded. He had an exceptional capacity for operating continuously without sleep through long hours, and proved himself as fine a commander as a surgeon. His account of these war experiences with his surgical results was published posthumously in The Lancet. He went forward with the Eighth Army through the invasion of Sicily (summer 1943) into Italy, where he died of poliomyelitis at Naples on 21 October 1943. Eden married in 1936 Margaret Avis Jones, who survived him with a son and a daughter; his mother also outlived him. His widow married secondly James Carson, MD. He was a well-informed and cultivated man, with a good singing voice and a talent for drawing. Publications:- Case of lead encephalopathy. *Lancet*, 1935, 1, 490. Pseudotuberculoma silicoticum, with J Herbert-Burns. *Brit J Surg*. 1936-37, 24, 346. Dissemination of glioma of spinal cord in leptomeninges. *Brain*, 1938, 61, 398. Vascular complications of cervical ribs and first thoracic rib abnormalities. *Brit J Surg*. 1939-40, 27, 111. Benign fibro-osseous tumours of skull and facial bones. *Ibid* p 323. Dumb-bell tumours of the spine (Hunterian lectures). *Brit J Surg*. 1940-41, 28, 549. Xanthomatosis of skeleton in adult (bipoidosis of Schuller-Christian type), with E L G Hilton. *Lancet*, 1941, 1, 782. Plump type of Graves' disease, with W R Trotter. *Lancet*, 1941, 2, 335. Total thyroidectomy for heart failure, unusual case, with W R Trotter. *Brit Heart J*. 1941, 3, 200. Loss of consciousness in different types of head injury, with J W A Turner. *Proc Roy Soc Med*. 1940-41, 34, 685. Traumatic cerebrospinal rhinorrhoea: repair of fistula by transfrontal intradural operation. *Brit J Surg*. 1941-42, 29, 299. Case of lymphadenoid goitre associated with full clinical picture of Graves' disease, with W R Trotter. *Brit J Surg*. 1941-42, 29, 320. Lid retraction in toxic diffuse goitre, with W R Trotter. *Lancet*, 1942, 2, 385. Localized pretibial myxoedema in association with toxic goitre, with W R Trotter. *Quart J Med*. 1942, 11, 229. Mobile neurosurgery in warfare; experiences in the Eighth Army's campaign in Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Tunisia. *Lancet*, 1943, 2, 689 and *Brit J Surg*. 1944, 31, 324.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004009
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Anderson, James Christie (1899 - 1984)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-04-17
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007000-E007099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379266379266
Occupation Farmer General surgeon Urological surgeon Urologist
Details James Christie Anderson, third child and third son of James Alexander Anderson, a schoolmaster, and Jeanie (née Boswell), was born in Dundee on 4 December 1899. After early education at Butterburn School and Dundee High School he secured an entrance scholarship to St Andrew's University where he originally intended to study agriculture. But his studies were interrupted by the first world war when he joined the Navy as a probationer Surgeon Lieutenant in 1917. On returning to Queen's College, Dundee, he won the obstetrics and gynaecology medal before graduating in 1922. He was house surgeon at Dundee Royal Infirmary and at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London, before serving as resident surgical officer at St Mark's Hospital in London. During this period in London he played rugby football for the London Scottish. He then moved to Chesterfield before becoming surgical registrar at the Royal Hospital, Sheffield, in 1926. He passed the FRCS in 1928 and was appointed honorary consultant surgeon at Sheffield in 1934. He was also lecturer in surgery and applied anatomy to Sheffield University. Originally a general surgeon, Jock, as he was universally known, developed a growing interest in urology to which he later made a number of important contributions, notably in relation to carcinoma of the bladder and also hydronephrosis. The Anderson-Hynes pyeloplasty procedure was devised in concert with a plastic surgeon colleague in Sheffield. Having enrolled in the Territorial Army before the second world war, he was called up on the outbreak of hostilities and became officer in charge of the surgical division of No 29 British General Hospital with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He served in Persia and Iraq and later in Normandy after D-day. When hostilities ceased he was called on to tend the victims of Belsen. He was awarded the OBE and TD and was mentioned in despatches. On demobilisation in 1945 he returned to Sheffield where his surgical work became primarily urological. He was President of the Section of Urology of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1961 and hosted a meeting in Sheffield of the British Association of Urological Surgeons in 1962. He also served for two spells on the court of examiners of the Royal College of Surgeons up to 1968 and was on the advisory panel on the training of surgeons. Outside his surgical work with relatively little knowledge of agriculture, Jock purchased a farm in Lincolnshire in 1948. Busily engaged in surgery during the week, farming soon became his second love at weekends. This led quite naturally to a new life after retirement when he and his wife bought a farm in Western Australia some 200 miles south of Perth where he raised sheep and a splendid herd of cattle and, not forgetful of his first love, became an elected Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1971. One of his sons, James Christie Anderson, FRCS, is an orthopaedic surgeon in Perth; the second son is a veterinary surgeon also in Australia, and two of the three daughters emigrated to Australia, so that the family largely remained in proximity after his retirement from Sheffield. Jock Anderson was a most industrious, cheerful and kindly man who made innumerable friends all over the world. Above all he loved a good argument. His surgical firm at Sheffield was a happy one for he gave much encouragement to his juniors and had the knack of bringing the best out of everyone. He had an abiding interest in history; was blessed with a good memory, and was a generous and charming host, with as much enthusiasm for vintage wines as for vintage Rolls-Royces. When he died in Perth, WA, on 3 February 1984 he was survived by his wife, his five children and fourteen grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007083
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Christie, Robert Harry Kenrick (1930 - 2000)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008500-E008599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380708380708
Occupation General surgeon
Details Rob Christie was a consultant surgeon at Hutt Hospital, in New Zealand. Born in Wanganui on 10 May 1930, Rob was the son of Harry Kenrick Christie, an orthopaedic surgeon, and Mollie Christie, an obstetrician and general practitioner. After secondary education at Wanganui Collegiate School and Victoria University, Wellington, he entered Otago Medical School. After qualifying in 1954, he did house surgeon posts in Palmerston North and Dunedin, before going to England to specialise in surgery. There he worked at the Leicestershire Royal Infirmary and at Ashford Hospital. After passing the FRCS, he returned to New Zealand in 1963, to the post of senior surgical registrar at Hutt Hospital. He was appointed a full-time surgeon in 1966. There he remained until he retired in 1991, after 28 years of service to the hospital and its local community. He was an indefatigable worker, never ruffled, and an enthusiastic teacher. He married Cathryn McIver of Dunedin, an anaesthetist, in 1961 when they were both in London doing postgraduate studies. He was interested in astronomy - he built his own backyard observatory - and studied for an honours degree in geology. He was preparing a masters thesis on underwater volcanoes when illness overtook him. He died on 9 April 2000, after a long illness. He is survived by his wife, three sons and a daughter. There are five grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008525
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Bookallil, Anthony Joseph (1940 - 2013)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by John Christie
Publication Date 2013-06-12 2013-08-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004000-E004099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376262376262
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Anthony Joseph 'Tony' Bookallil was a neurosurgeon at Newcastle, New South Wales. He studied medicine at Sydney University, after completing a pharmacy degree, graduating with honours in 1967. He then completed two years residency at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, before heading to England, where he gained his FRCS and, in 1973, commenced on his neurosurgery training at Oxford. At about the same time, it was decided that there was a need for a neurosurgery service in Newcastle. Advice as to a suitable candidate was sought, and Richard Gye suggested Tony. Tony was duly recruited and arrived in Newcastle in 1975, fresh from his training, where he was faced with the task of setting up a new specialty with no trained ward or theatre staff, no infrastructure, and the prospect of being almost constantly on call for an indefinite period of time (this lasted for 13 years, until a second neurosurgeon arrived in 1988). Luckily for the population of Newcastle, they had been blessed with a man with an enormously strong constitution, who could be up all night dealing with a head injury, and then come home, wake his children and take them to their swimming lessons. At that time the concept of safe working hours was still many years off. Over 25 years he performed an estimated 6,000 operations, including back operations, disc removals, spina bifida corrections, brain tumour resections and head injury repairs. Not content with a clinical workload far greater than any of his colleagues, Tony also became very involved in hospital life, serving in many positions on the medical staff council and division of surgery, including stints as chair of both. He was also involved with the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia, being on the organising committee for an extremely successful World Congress of Neurosurgery in Sydney in 2001. Tony had an unswerving commitment to public medicine that continued well beyond his attempted retirement in 2002. After the best-attended retirement dinner that Newcastle had seen, he still came back whenever he was asked, to fill gaps in both the clinical roster and in administration. Outside medicine, Tony's great loves were his family and his music. He was involved with choral singing in Newcastle and was president of the Newcastle Musica Viva committee. In his retirement he studied music at the University of Newcastle. Tony died on 21 February 2013, aged 72, after a short illness. He was survived by his wife, Gay, children Marianne, Tom and Anthony, and his four grandchildren. His funeral was at Newcastle's Sacred Heart Cathedral, where he had been a member of the choir. As well as family, friends and colleagues, the service was notable for the large number of his patients who came to pay their respects. He left behind a very grateful city.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004079
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First Title value, for Searching Handscombe, Marion Christine (1929 - 2020)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2021-03-22
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009900-E009999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/384490384490
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details Marion Christine Handscome was born on 25 September 1929 in Laindon, Essex. The eldest child of George Seymour Payne, a builder and farmer, and his wife, Stella Rose née Vickers a dancer, she had two younger brothers. After attending Eastholme Harleston School in Norfolk she went to Mills Grammar School in Framlington and then the Sir John Leman School in Beccles, Suffolk. She studied medicine at University College, London and at the London Hospital Medical College, qualifying MB, BS in 1954. House jobs followed at the London, Whittington and St Alfege’s Hospitals. As she began to specialise in ophthalmology, she was appointed the first female house surgeon and later senior registrar at Moorfields Hospital. She passed the fellowship of the college in 1962 and became consultant ophthalmological surgeon to the Coventry and Warwickshire hospital group in 1963. During that time, she was also director of the Orthoptic School in Coventry. A member of the British Orthoptic Society, she was on their council and examination committee and was also an examiner to the Ophthalmic Nursing Board. At the college, she was an examiner for the DO from 1975 to1980 and the FRCS Opth from 1980 to1986. She was also council representative of the college ophthalmologists from 1988 to 1990. She loved riding and became an expert on equine ophthalmology, publishing a couple of articles on the subject. The ophthalmology of Africa and Asia was another interest. In 1952 she married Edward Frederick Ridley Handscome who was a tailor. Their daughter Eleanor became a nurse and their son Roger, an engineer. She later married a Mr Crosthwait and retired to Newport, Isle of Wight. She died in a care home on the Isle of Wight on 27 December 2020 aged 91, survived by her children, and grandchildren Natasha, Charlie and Rupert.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009940
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First Title value, for Searching Green, Matthew Christopher (1931 - 2012)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Christian Sutherland
Publication Date 2014-11-25 2015-03-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006400-E006499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378612378612
Occupation General surgeon
Details Colac lost a great champion of rural health care when Mathew Green died in July 2012. His surgical work along with an active obstetrics practice was invaluable to health services in Colac from 1963 until his retirement in 1999. Mathew was born in St. Kilda in 1931 and spent his early years in Bendigo. His father was a teacher and the family had an itinerant life in rural Victoria. Mathew excelled at secondary school, St Kevin's. He played in the First XVIII and was a fine tennis player. He enjoyed music and his academic record was excellent. He continued his rural life with summer farm jobs. Graduating in 1955 with Honours in Surgery and Obstetrics and Gynaecology he began surgical training at St Vincent's Hospital. In 1959 and 1960 he worked in London gaining the FRCS Eng. He returned to St Vincent's in 1963 and worked as an outpatient surgeon. He gained the FRACS and moved to Colac in 1964. He had married Denise Halstead, and they decided that a rural lifestyle had more opportunities for them. Colac offered a very busy medical life with a wide variety of surgery, an extremely busy obstetric practice and an onerous general practice on-call roster. Mathew and Denise revelled in these responsibilities. Mathew joined a practice with Jim McCarthy and Frances Galvin. Mathew had many other interests. As a fine sportsman he played squash and tennis. He had a fine palate and was an active member of the Colac Wine and Food Society. His knowledge and love of classical music was well known. During the busy years of practice, Mathew was supported by Denise and his family. The children, Elizabeth, Andrew, Rebecca, Emma, Richard, Christopher, Bridget and Paul were great sources of delight to him. Mathew was a highly respected member of the Colac medical fraternity. He was always encouraging and supportive of young surgeons. It was a privilege to have been a colleague of his.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006429
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Christian, Gnamani Peter (1927 - 2007)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2015-12-10 2022-10-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009000-E009099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381195381195
Occupation General surgeon Military surgeon
Details Gnamani Peter Christian was a professor of surgery at the Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India. He was born in Nazareth, Tamil Nadu on 29 November 1927, the second son of Rajarathnam Theophilus Christian, a farmer and insurance executive, and Chellathai Christian née Ponnammal. His grandfather, a temple priest and the first in the family to convert to Christianity, took the surname Christian and went to Ceylon as a missionary. Christian attended Margoschis Memorial High School in Nazareth and then St John’s College in Palayamkottai, gaining prizes and being placed first in his class. He went on to study medicine at Madras Medical College, qualifying in April 1952, and joined the Indian Armed Forces Medical Services in September of the same year. In January 1957, he passed his primary FRCS in Colombo and then carried out advanced training in general surgery at the Armed Forces Medical College. From 1960, he was a surgical specialist in the Armed Forces. From 1963 to 1966 he was a senior assistant to General P T Joseph, a senior consultant in surgery for the Armed Forces. In July 1965, Christian gained a masters’ in general surgery from the University of Delhi. From 1966 to 1967 he worked as a senior registrar to Ronald William Raven at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London. In November 1966, he passed his final FRCS. Back in India, he was awarded the Nao Sena medal during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan Conflict while serving as a fleet medical officer to the Eastern Fleet and surgeon to the fleet on board the Indian Navy’s vessel Vikrant. He organised the cancer centre for the Armed Forces and was officer in charge of the malignant diseases treatment centre for the Armed Forces from June 1967 to November 1979. He was unit chief, undergraduate and postgraduate teacher in general surgery at the University of Poona from 1973. He was also an examiner at the universities of Poona and Madras. In 1979, he took premature retirement from the Armed Forces as a surgeon captain and was appointed as professor of surgery at the Christian Medical College and Hospital, Vellore. He was a member of the Association of Surgeons of India and a member of the oncology section, and a founder member (overseas) of the British Association of Surgical Oncology. He published papers on surgical oncology. His son, Francis, who also became a consultant surgeon, said he benefitted enormously ‘…from his wise and practical counsel and his unique, humane way of looking at surgical problems. One of the reasons he was such a good teacher was his ability to “get into the patient’s shoes” and into the shoes of the patient’s loved ones.’ He went on: ‘With my dad, what you saw was what you got…He was loving, forthright, beautifully frank and was one of the very few human beings I have known who gave hugs and kisses spontaneously and unconditionally.’ Outside medicine, Christian played tennis regularly and spent his spare time in church and taking part in church-related activities. In his retirement, his son says: ‘He did not slow down at all… If anything, he was much more busy – guiding younger surgeons with complex questions, doing a lot of free operations, sending needy children to school and higher education…’ His faith was extremely important to him and in caring for others ‘…he did not distinguish between the Christian, Muslim, Hindu or atheist.’ In 1956, he married a Miss Regina. They had a son and a daughter. Gnamani Peter Christian died in 2007. He left a legacy, in the words of his son: ‘…through the numerous students – myself included – who are now teachers and are passing on his methods and philosophies to a new and eager generation of students.’
Resource Identifier RCS: E009012
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First Title value, for Searching Van Wyk, Christian Werner (1932 - )

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2023-08-11
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010400-E010499
Occupation Dental surgeon Stomatologist
Details Christian Werner Van Wyk was a professor in the centre for stomatological research, school of dentistry, University of Pretoria, South Africa. He was born on 19 February 1932. He gained his FDSRCS in 1961. Prior to his appointment at the University of Pretoria, he worked at the faculty of dentistry, University of Stellenbosch. He was married to Irma.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010420
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bayley, Anne Christine (1934 - 2024)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2025-03-11
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010700-E010799
Occupation General surgeon Priest
Details Anne Christine Bayley was a professor of surgery at the University of Zambia and a Church of England priest. 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: E010719
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Nohl-Oser, Herman Christian (1916 - 2008)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Raymond Hurt
Publication Date 2009-06-23
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/372806372806
Occupation General surgeon
Details Herman Christian Nohl-Oser was a consultant surgeon at Harefield Hospital, where he specialised in pulmonary and oesophageal surgery, with a special interest in paediatric surgery. He was born Herman Christian Nohl (in the 1960s he add the ‘Oser’) in Jena, Germany, in April 1916, the son of Herman Nohl. His father originally intended to study medicine, but, finding anatomy not to his liking, switched to philosophy and in 1920 was appointed to a chair in Göttingen. In 1937 he was dismissed by the Nazis and sent to work in a factory. After the war, he was reinstated as professor and dean of the philosophy faculty. Despite his first name, Chris was considered one quarter Jewish, and in 1934 he went to England with Kurt Hahn, the founder of Gordonstoun School, who had a very great influence on his life and subsequently became a lifelong mentor and personal friend. Chris was a ‘late developer’, but despite this became head boy at Gordonstoun, where he had a classical education. In 1936 he entered St Peter’s Hall (now College) in Oxford to matriculate and then study medicine. He was interned on the Isle of Man for one year, won a prize for the best medical and surgical dissertation, and qualified at Oxford as a doctor in 1944. Because of his German background, he found it difficult to obtain junior hospital posts but nevertheless gained considerable general surgical experience and obtained his FRCS in 1951. Despite this higher qualification, his application for a senior registrar post at the Middlesex Hospital was rejected in favour of a much junior English doctor and, with the encouragement of Sir Thomas Holmes Sellors, whom he had first met in Oxford during the war, he decided to train in thoracic surgery. Junior posts at the London Chest and Brompton hospitals allowed him to study the lymphatic drainage of the lung and the value of scalene node biopsy in the assessment of bronchial carcinoma. He continued this research following his consultant appointment to Harefield Hospital in 1960 and this led to an Oxford DM the same year and to a Hunterian professorship in 1971. When he was appointed to Harefield Hospital open-heart surgery was just beginning and this he undertook with enthusiasm until the appointment of a specialist cardiac surgeon to the hospital in 1967. Thereafter he confined his work to pulmonary and oesophageal surgery, with a special interest in paediatric surgery. He published his research extensively, both in English and European journals, and lectured widely in England and also in Germany. His magnum opus was a textbook on surgery of the lung, published in Germany, printed in English and later translated into German and Spanish, but unfortunately the book was little known in the UK. His obvious erudition and ability were not always recognised by his colleagues. He was a founder member of Pete’s Club, a travelling surgical club which pioneered the informal discussion of mistakes and errors of judgement – the only rule of the club was that no member was allowed to report a case which reflected credit on himself. He was devoted to his surgical career and to his wife Inge, whom he married in the same week that he qualified and who later suffered increasing disability from multiple sclerosis which presented soon after the birth of their child. His only son died tragically after an accident in 1987 and his wife died in 1991. In 1975 Chris had two coronary vein graft operations which were only partially successful in relieving his angina; thereafter a regime of graduated exercise completely relieved his symptoms. He died from a myocardial infarction on 13 June 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000623
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Steiner, Wolfgang (1942 - 2024)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by David Howard Christian Steiner
Publication Date 2025-01-07
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010700-E010799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/388556388556
Occupation ENT surgeon Head and neck surgeon
Details Wolfgang Steiner was the truly indomitable, passionate professor of otolaryngology at the medical faculty of Göttingen, Germany, from 1986 to 2007. He achieved a rare distinction in medicine: he changed the way of thinking of a whole generation of ENT/head and neck oncologists, not just the surgeons, but radiotherapists, pathologists, medical oncologists, anaesthetists and allied specialties such as speech therapy. He promoted a fundamental change in the basic concepts and surgery of upper aerodigestive tract malignant disease, moving us from en bloc open radical tumour surgery to minimally invasive endoscopic laser surgery. This was an entirely new way of thinking, a true paradigm shift. Wolfgang Steiner was born on 3 March 1942 in Crailsheim. His father, Philipp Steiner, an air force inspector, was on the war front in Russia at the time. The town of Crailsheim was bombed. Wolfgang and his brother Udo survived in air raid shelters and because their mother took them by bike to the area around Crailsheim when air raids were expected. The Steiner family also survived the battle for Crailsheim in the last days of the war, which lasted from 5 to 21 April 1945. After the father’s return from Russia, the family moved from Crailsheim to Erlangen. Wolfgang started school in 1948, first attending primary school and then grammar school. He completed his schooling with the abitur in 1961. He played sport in his spare time, especially football and table tennis. He enjoyed going to the cinema on Sundays and visited the municipal swimming pool as much as possible. These activities corresponded to the simple living conditions of the 1950s. After graduating from high school, he spent two years serving in the German Army, which he completed with the rank of lieutenant. He began his medical studies at the University of Erlangen and qualified in 1971. Wolfgang’s early life was characterised by simplicity and determination rather than privilege. His academic record at school was not adorned with straight As, but once admitted to medical school he excelled. Wolfgang’s passion for helping others and his extraordinary work ethic were evident from an early age. Growing up, he developed a profound sense of empathy for those who, like himself, had to work hard for their achievements. This formative experience would later manifest in his remarkable ability to connect with patients from all walks of life and his unwavering respect for everyone he encountered, regardless of their social position. During his ENT training from 1971 to 1975 he became interested in early detection and care of patients with cancer in the oral cavity, pharynx and larynx. He commenced endoscopic CO2 laser surgery for excision of early laryngeal cancer in the University Hospital of Erlangen and his results were written up in his 1978 thesis. He then relentlessly increased the indications for endoscopic laser excision of larger tumours as he gained experience. I clearly remember his dynamic lectures and presentations in the 1980s when his pioneering work met with marked resistance at international meetings and at home in Germany (definitely not an unusual response to innovators in the world of medicine). He was appointed as a professor of otolaryngology at the Göttingen University Medical Centre in 1986. Wolfgang’s numerous national and international lectures and publications, with substantial numbers of patients and long-term follow up, gradually led to acceptance and recognition. His concept of a personalised, minimally invasive tumour laser resection, tailored to the individual patient, and preserving organ function was ahead of his peers. It was coupled with risk-adapted radiotherapy in some patients. He was aided in this quest by the talented Petra Ambrosch, who went on to become the professor and head of ENT at the University Medical Centre of Schleswig-Holstein. It was their incredible results in the hypopharynx and oropharynx, in addition to the well-known laryngeal results, that really convinced me, and others worldwide, about the concept of minimally invasive CO2 laser surgery. Wolfgang published over 200 national and international publications whilst being a very busy clinician and teacher. He spoke five languages fluently, though he was always modest about this considerable talent, particularly his command of English. His strength of character and determination were truly put to the test in conferences worldwide. He would repeatedly invite his detractors and agnostics to see for themselves in Göttingen. By the time he retired in 2007 no less than 445 guest doctors (many of them senior and heads of departments) from 53 countries had visited Göttingen. I went to Göttingen in 1997 and it was a fascinating and exceptional educational experience, complete with multiple demonstrations in the operating theatre on a wide variety of cases. In this endeavour and in his family life he received phenomenal support from his wife, Grazia, a gracious host, supreme organiser, linguist and artist. Wolfgang’s empathy extended beyond medicine and as a Rotary Club president he conducted ambitious fundraising campaigns with the same determination, humour and kindness that he showed in his medical life. Not content with demonstrating the important principles and techniques in Göttingen with his whole team around him, he taught on many international courses and, with Petra, operated in many hospitals. They kindly came to the UK to start our annual transoral laser course in 1998 at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital in London. This course continues in Liverpool under the guidance of Terry Jones and his colleagues. Underneath his sometimes stern exterior, Wolfgang was a skilled raconteur and sympathetic man who genuinely cared passionately about making progress for patients with cancer. His book *Endoscopic laser surgery of the upper aerodigestive tract: with special emphasis on cancer surgery* written with Petra and published by Thieme in 2000, remains the most instructive text on this powerful advance in head and neck oncology. It is still applicable to the beginner and experienced surgeon. Eventually, colleagues in Germany and worldwide began to recognise Wolfgang’s substantial step forward in oncology and he began to receive many awards from national and international professional societies, including the Ludwig Haymann prize of the German Society for Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery (in 1997), the German cancer prize from the German Cancer Society for his outstanding scientific achievements in the field of clinical cancer research (in 2005), the Dr Fritz Erler science prize for surgical medicine from the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen (in 2012) and the 2022 Albrecht von Haller medal, the highest award given by the medical faculty at the University Medical Centre of Göttingen. In addition, in 2004 he was presented with an honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Wolfgang died on 5 February 2024 at the age of 81. He was survived by his wonderful wife, Grazia, whom he married in 1966, and who was an amazing support to him at all times, and his family, his sons Robert, Christian and Martin, and grandchildren Lola, Luka, Malena, Carlos and Leon.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010703
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gray, Robin Charles Frank (1942 - 2020)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Christos Giannou
Publication Date 2024-04-30
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010600-E010699
Occupation General surgeon
Details Robin Gray was a consultant surgeon for the Greenwich Health District, a medical coordinator for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and then a medical officer at the World Health Organization in Geneva. He was born on 18 March 1942 at Epsom, Surrey, the son of Charles Horace Gray, a professor of chemical pathology at King’s College Hospital, and Florence Jessie Gray née Widdup, the daughter of an industrialist. He was educated at Kingswood Preparatory School and then Epsom College, and went on to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School. He was a house surgeon at St Thomas’, a house physician at Worthing Hospital, and then a senior house officer in venerology and a casualty officer back at St Thomas’. He then went to Leicester as a senior house officer in surgery at the General and Groby Road hospitals. He was subsequently a registrar at Plymouth General Hospital. He gained his FRCS in 1972. In 1977 he was appointed as a consultant general surgeon for the Greenwich Health District, a post he held until 1987. In 1988 he joined the ICRC, initially as a medical coordinator in Pakistan, then, in 1989, as a medical coordinator of surgical activities at the headquarters in Geneva. From 1995 to 2005 he was a medical officer at the World Health Organization, also in Geneva. At the ICRC he ushered in a ‘golden age’ of war surgery. He helped create a culture of independent ICRC hospitals to manage the war wounded in a number of countries in an era where there were not yet sufficient national personnel to face the task. Numerous volunteer doctors and nurses, mostly from European Red Cross societies, were seconded to the ICRC for a ‘mission’ of three to six months. Robin briefed them to what they could expect to encounter in a war zone. His gentle manner and jovialness hid a strong conviction in applying basic surgical principles to the difficult task of managing dirty and contaminated war wounds. ‘The best antibiotic is good surgery’ became his leitmotif. These basic principles involved wound debridement followed several days later by delayed primary closure, a tried-and-true application of the experience of numerous surgeons going back to the First World War, but all too often forgotten by new generations of war surgeons. He also encouraged surgeons, anaesthetists and nurses to record their experiences, collect data and publish their results. A large volume of war surgery articles followed constituting the most important cohort by a civilian organisation at the time. Robin went on numerous field missions often exposing himself to dangerous conditions. He was not dogmatic, however, and knew how to adapt to local conditions in some of the poorest countries in the world engulfed in armed conflict. He organised a first war surgery seminar in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1989, for Somali surgeons confronted with the wounded from an internal insurgency. Training through such seminars became a passion for him and he went on to organise such a session in Geneva ICRC headquarters beginning in 1990, a seminar that continues to the present day. Potential Red Cross personnel were thus prepared to meet the challenges that they would face in the field. Robin worked tirelessly to establish war surgery as a fundamental programme of the ICRC, often alone at the headquarters, at times helped by one or two colleagues, until such time as it was accepted as such despite the cost and logistic challenges. Years later, his example remained a model, and from one surgeon in ICRC headquarters working in a cubby hole, the surgical programme had become the hospital office with a head surgeon, head nurse, hospital administrator, anaesthetist and hospital programme manager. For those surgeons of a certain generation, Robin was and remained the leading light. He married Ulla Poulsen in 1964. They had a son and a daughter. Robin Gray died on 4 December 2020. He was 78.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010608
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ashworth, Arnold ( - 1993)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007700-E007799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379982379982
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Ashworth received his medical education at Manchester, whence he qualified MB ChB in 1940. After war service in the RAMC he obtained the FRCS in 1950 and made his career in urology, holding consultant posts at the Crumpsall Hospital Manchester, at the Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute, the Royal Manchester Childrens' Hospital and at the University Hospital of South Manchester. He died on 16 September 1993.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007799
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Newton, John Turner ( - 1992)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Turner, Leslie ( - 1997)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-12-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008900-E008999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381159381159
Occupation General surgeon
Details Leslie Turner studied medicine at Manchester and after junior posts in Manchester and Ancoats Hospital became consultant surgeon at the Withington Hospital and the Christie Hospital and Hold Radium Institute. He was a member of the Court of Examiners and an Arris and Gale lecturer in the College. He died after a short illness on 30 December 1997. His son W H Turner is an urologist in Cambridge.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008976
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Sherrah-Davies, Evan ( - 2002)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-12-07
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008900-E008999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381113381113
Occupation Radiotherapist
Details Evan Sherrah-Davies went from Cambridge to the Westminster Hospital where he qualified in 1947. After house jobs he did his National Service in the RAF as a surgical specialist. After returning to civilian life he specialised in radiotherapy and became consultant radiotherapist to the Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute, Manchester. A man of great poise, he instilled enormous confidence in his patients. His death was reported to the College in February 2002.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008930
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Naffziger, Howard Christian (1884 - 1961)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-03-28 2020-08-05
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005100-E005199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377372377372
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Born on 6 May 1884 in Nevada City, he graduated in science and medicine from the University of California, Berkeley, San Francisco. He studied at Johns Hopkins during Harvey Cushing's last year there, 1913, and during the first world war went on active service in Europe. He returned to San Francisco as surgeon to the University Hospital. He was elected Clinical Professor at Berkeley in 1924, Professor of Surgery in 1929, and Professor of Neurological Surgery in 1947, retiring with the rank of Emeritus Professor in 1952. Naffziger was President of the American College of Surgeons in 1939-40, first chairman of the American Board of Neurological Surgery 1940-50, and President of the American Surgical Association 1953-54. During the war of 1939-45 he visited Europe to inspect American service hospitals, and he paid further visits on medical missions after the war. He died on 21 March 1961 aged 74, survived by his wife and three daughters. Naffziger carried on the great tradition of Cushing's school of neurosurgery. Among his notable achievements were an operation to unroof the orbit for decompression in cases of extreme exophthalmos, and a frontal osteoplastic flap which avoided leaving conspicuous scars on the forehead.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005189
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Beyers, Christian Frederick (1888 - 1933)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-04-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003800-E003899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376016376016
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Stellenbosch, South Africa, in 1888, the eldest son of P G Beyers. of Sunnyside, Pretoria. He was educated at Stellenbosch Boys' High School and Victoria College, where he read zoology under Robert Broom. He graduated in 1908, and deputized for Professor Broom for nine months during 1909. He retained his interest in zoology and anthropology, and was associated with Robert Broom and Raymond Dart in their discoveries of prehistoric races of man in South Africa. He took his clinical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, qualifying in 1915. He then went to France on active service, as a captain in the RAMC, and later served at Richmond military hospital. After the war, he took the Fellowship at the end of 1920. He had played rugby football for Stellenbosch and for Bart's, and kept his interest in the game after he gave up playing. Beyers now returned to South Africa and served as house surgeon at the Pretoria Hospital and as surgical registrar at the General Hospital, Johannesburg, where in due course he became assistant surgeon and then surgeon. He practised privately at Rosettenville, Johannesburg. At the University of the Witwatersrand he was demonstrator of anatomy, lecturer in surgical anatomy and in clinical surgery; he proved a popular teacher. He visited England in 1928, and took the London MS degree. Beyers died in the Johannesburg General Hospital on 3 December 1933, from carcinoma of the colon, aged 45. He was survived by his wife, but there were no children. He had transferred from the RAMC to the South African Medical Corps on settling in the Union, and was promoted lieutenant-colonel. He was a man of outstanding intellectual and athletic ability, modest, thorough, and much beloved. Publications:- A case of subpleural lipoma in a child. *Lancet*, 1923, 1, 283. Case of renal sarcoma in an infant. *Med J Sth Afr*. 1925, 1, 38.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003833
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Ball, Isaac William ( - 1987)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-04-17
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007100-E007199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379283379283
Occupation General surgeon
Details Little is known of the life of Isaac William Ball. Having qualified at Manchester in 1937 he served during the second world war as a Surgeon Lieutenant-Commander in the RNVR. He held posts at the Christie Cancer Hospital, Manchester, and the Manchester Royal Infirmary and was a demonstrator in anatomy at Manchester University. He became consultant surgeon to the Manchester Hospital Group and was a Fellow of the Manchester Medical Society and President of their Section of Surgery. He was an associate member of the British Association of Urological Surgeons. He retired sometime in 1981 and died on 9 June 1987.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007100
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Leipoldt, Christian Fred Louis (1880 - 1947)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-08-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004300-E004399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376529376529
Occupation General surgeon Poet
Details Leipoldt was a man of great ability and versatility, who worked actively as a doctor and a journalist throughout his career. A South African of Dutch republican sympathies, in later life he promoted good professional relations between the Medical Associations of South Africa and Great Britain. Fully bilingual in Afrikaans and English, he made his mark as a poet in both languages. Born in 1880 at Clanwilliam, Cape Province, the son and grandson of missionaries, he was educated by his father. He won a prize for an essay in the *Boy's Own Paper*, and contributed while still a boy to the *Cape Times*. Before he was twenty he had joined the staff of the *South African News* and was correspondent of various European papers which favoured the Boer cause. He came to Europe in 1902 and paid for his roving travels by free-lance journalism. Coming to London and feeling the need of a less precarious profession he entered Guy's Hospital Medical School. He qualified in 1907, winning gold medals in surgery and medicine, and then studied children's diseases at Berlin and Graz. Coming back to London he was appointed anaesthetist to the German Hospital in 1909, took the Fellowship that summer, and edited *The Hospital*. He went to America for further postgraduate study, and after an illness recuperated by a journey through the East Indies in 1911. Back in London by 1912 he gained valuable experience as Medical Inspector of Schools at Hampstead under James Kerr, MD. Early in 1914 he obtained a post as the first Medical Inspector of Schools in the Transvaal, and found that the proper scope of the work had not been considered by the appointers. As he has recorded in his book *Bushveld Doctor*, they had intended him merely to visit schools from time to time for superficial inspection of their general condition; no provision had been even thought of for positive care of the children's health. Leipoldt was successful in promoting the necessary improvements. During the war he served as a surgeon on General Botha's staff, and in 1919 was appointed Medical Inspector of Schools in Cape Province. He joined the editorial staff of the Pretoria newspaper *Die Volkstem* in 1923, but soon afterwards resumed practice as a consultant on children's diseases at Cape Town. He was appointed organising secretary of the Medical Association of South Africa, and with W Darley-Hartley produced the first number of its *Journal* in January 1927. This journal, which subsequently (1917) became the bilingual *South African Medical Journal*, was a combination of the *Medical Journal of South Africa* and the *South African Medical Record*; and the new Medical Association was a combi¬nation of the old independent Association with the Federal Council of the various local branches of the British Medical Association in the South African Union. Leipoldt successfully carried out this work of reconciliation and co-ordination under the influence of Dr Alfred Cox, Secretary of the BMA; in 1928 he represented South Africa at the Association's Cardiff meeting. When he retired in 1944 Leopoldt left the arrangements ready for the final separation of the direct links between London and the individual branches, and the affiliation of the South African Association to the BMA as a single body. Besides his medical work, both clinical and professional, and his writing as a journalist and a poet, Leipoldt made his mark as a botanist and an ornithologist. His early Afrikaans poetry was rebellious and passionately tragic and made a deep appeal in South Africa; his later English poems were more mellow and profound. He also wrote a life of *Jan van Riebeeck*, commander of the first white settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, published in 1936. He cultivated his naturally refined taste for food and wine, and was a notably good cook. He proclaimed that wine was far more beneficial than milk, which he looked on as a dangerous vehicle for disease. Leipoldt died at the Cape on 14 April 1947, aged 67.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004346
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Dunn, David Christy (1939 - 1998)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008500-E008599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380750380750
Occupation General surgeon
Details David Dunn was a former consultant surgeon at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge. He was born on 12 February 1939. His father was British and his mother came from Iceland. He was one of four children, and received his early education at the Forest School, London. He went on to St John's College, Cambridge, to study natural sciences and medicine, where he rowed for the Lady Margaret Boat Club and was a member of the Goldie boat. He did his clinical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital. After an appointment as house surgeon at Bart's, he returned to Cambridge as a demonstrator in the department of anatomy, combining this with supervising students from St John's and Trinity Colleges. Before starting surgical training, he served as a medical officer to the British East Greenland Expedition in 1966, followed by two years as registrar at St Albans under Sir Reginald Murley. He then returned to Cambridge as senior registrar and was appointed consultant and assistant director of research at Addenbrooke's Hospital in 1974. There, with Sir Roy Calne, he was involved with research into the mechanisms of rejection of organ grafts and immunosuppressive drugs. At first he worked mainly in vascular, gastrointestinal and neonatal surgery, but then saw the potential of endoscopic surgery, then in its infancy. This was to become his principal interest for the remainder of his professional life. His knowledge and skill with laparoscopic surgery was recognised by his colleagues who elected him President of the Association of Endoscopic Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. He also had considerable computer skills, and devised a system for the management of clinical information and data which for a time had commercial possibilities. He led the comparative audit unit at the College. David had a formidable reputation as a teacher. He was director of medical studies at St John's College for several years and produced, with Nigel Rawlinson, a new surgical textbook for students, *Surgical diagnosis and management: a guide to general surgical care* (Oxford, Blackwell Scientific, 1985). He travelled widely in his own right and as a member of the Moynihan Chirurgical Club, of which he was President from 1994 to 1995. A talented painter, he would produce at the end of each trip a portfolio of sketches of club members and their wives, which he would reproduce and sell for charity. He had several exhibitions of his water-colours. He had wide outdoor interests: he enjoyed fast cars, held a flying licence and flew Tiger Moths with the Cambridge Flying Club, and continued to coach the Cambridge blue boat. As treasurer of the University Boat Club, he used his computer skills to plan the weight distribution of members of the crew and the tactical plans for the race. He was a tall good-looking man with a most attractive manner and a ready smile. His wife Anne, whom he married in 1969, came from Denmark: they had three daughters and two sons, who were also successful oarsmen. One became a doctor. At the height of his surgical career, when he was 53, David developed myeloma. At first there was a full response to treatment, but the disease relapsed and he died on 19 August 1998.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008567
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Macready, Jonathan Forster Christian Horace (1850 - 1907)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

First Title value, for Searching Aiken, David ( - 1987)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

First Title value, for Searching McIntyre, Donald (1927 - 2018)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2018-12-13 2021-11-11
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009500-E009599
Occupation Urological surgeon
Details Donald McIntyre studied medicine at Edinburgh University and graduated MB, ChB in 1951. He did house jobs at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and then moved as a registrar to the department of urology at the United Leeds Hospitals. Following a period as senior registrar in urology to the Salford Royal and Christie Hospitals in Manchester, he passed the fellowship of the college in 1959 and became a consultant urological surgeon. Besides working at the Salford Royal and Christie, he also worked at the North Manchester General Hospital and the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. He was a member of the British Association of Urological Surgeons and a fellow of the Manchester Medical Society. He died on 7 September 2018, aged 90.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009554
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching MacDonald, William Dawson (1931 - 2011)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2011-11-03 2013-12-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001400-E001499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373672373672
Occupation General surgeon
Details William Dawson MacDonald was born in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, on 27 April 1931, the elder of two sons of William Grant MacDonald, a doctor of medicine, and Edith Christie MacDonald née Dawson. He was educated at Victoria Public School, and then the Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate Institute and the University of Western Ontario. He held posts at the Royal Victoria Hospital, London, Ontario, and the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. He then went to the UK, first to Warwick Hospital and then to the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. In Warwickshire he was influenced by G R Taylor, C R Savage and J D Marsh. He gained his FRCS in 1966. Outside medicine, he enjoyed hunting and skiing. In 1959 he married Jennifer Radford, who also qualified MB BS, and they had three daughters. He died on 10 March 2011, at the age of 79.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001489
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Kenyon, Alec Lomax (1906 - 1981)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-01-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006600-E006699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378833378833
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 11 October 1906 at Oswaldtwistle, the son of a textile chemist, Alec Lomax Kenyon studied medicine at the University of Manchester where he won prizes in surgery, pathology and paediatrics. He was house surgeon and casualty officer at the Royal Infirmary and subsequently resident surgical officer at the Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute in Manchester, working with Sir Harry Platt, Sir Geoffrey Jefferson, W H Hey and Professor Burgess. He was appointed a consultant surgeon to the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital and honorary surgeon to Manchester Northern Hospital. He was an honorary assistant surgeon to the Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute. Latterly he was consultant to the Stockport and Buxton Hospital Group. He gave long and devoted service to the Manchester Medical Society, becoming its treasurer. His interests were golf, bridge, photography and fishing. In 1938 he married Peggy Alison, a physiotherapist, and they had two sons. He died 29 March 1981.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006650
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Shepherd, Margaret Mary (1907 - 1982)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-03-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006900-E006999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379120379120
Occupation General surgeon Geriatrician Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Born Margaret Mary Ferguson in 1907 at Darwen, Lancashire, she was educated at Owen's College Manchester. After qualification she held house appointments and was also lecturer in anatomy and then resident surgical officer at the Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute. In 1937 she married James Forrest Shepherd of the Indian Medical Service. They worked at various stations in India and during the second world war she was surgical specialist RAMC. She was also honorary surgeon, King George Hospital, Vizagapatam, Madras. After the war in 1947, when her husband became a consultant surgeon in Sutton Coldfield, she continued her interest in orthopaedic surgery with a study on the results of hip surgery and the establishment of a procedure for hip assessment on behalf of the British Orthopaedic Association. This work continued at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and Institute of Orthopaedics, London. After her husband's death Margaret joined the department of geriatric medicine at the Norman Day Hospital, Farnham, working as a clinical assistant from 1972 until her death on 3 March 1982.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006937
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gleave, Eric Neville (1935 - 1998)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008600-E008699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380805380805
Occupation General surgeon
Details Neville Gleave was born in Timperley, Altrincham, Cheshire on 7 August 1935. His father was James Eric Gleave, a headmaster, his mother was Rhoda née Smedley. He was educated at Altrincham Grammar School for Boys and went on to study medicine at St Thomas's Hospital. His appointments included lecturer in surgery at the Welsh National School of Medicine and honorary senior registrar to the United Cardiff Hospitals. After his marriage, he moved to Manchester as lecturer in surgery at the University Hospital of South Manchester, and in 1973 was appointed senior lecturer and honorary consultant surgeon there. In 1974 he was awarded the Raven prize by the British Association of Surgical Oncology. He was chairman of the planning and development committee at the Christie Hospital before his retirement. His interest in tumours of the salivary glands took him to China, to the Sun Yat-sen University of Medical Sciences in Guanzhou. He married Patricia Milligan in 1970. They had one daughter, Laura. He had many interests including riding, cross-country skiing, walking his dogs, travelling, the theatre and opera. He died in his own hospital on 30 September 1998, after a long illness.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008622
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Mills, Eleanor Mary (1911 - 2003)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2011-11-03 2014-09-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001500-E001599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373683373683
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Eleanor Mary Mills was a consultant gynaecologist at North Manchester General Hospital and Stretford Memorial Hospital, Manchester. She was born in Royton, Lancashire, the only child of Joseph Mills, a cotton mill manager and director, and Ada Eleanor Mills née Wood, the daughter of an engineer. She was educated at Miss Rees' School in Royton, Oldham Grammar and Queen Ethelburga's School in Harrogate. She then went on to study medicine at Manchester University. She qualified MB ChB in 1936 and gained her conjoint diploma in 1937. She was a house surgeon at Manchester Royal Infirmary and to St Mary's Hospital, Manchester. She then became a resident surgical officer at Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute. She was an assistant resident obstetric officer at Withington Hospital, Manchester, and subsequently a surgical chief assistant at Manchester Royal Infirmary. She was then appointed as a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Crumpsall Hospital and Stretford Memorial Hospital, and later became a consultant at North Manchester General Hospital. She was a member and then fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and served as an examiner for the membership examinations. Outside medicine, she enjoyed gardening. In 1937 she married and became Mrs Heslop, although she used her maiden name in her profession. She had no children. She died in 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001500
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Liebert, Katharine Isabel (1912 - 1965)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-08-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005800-E005899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378076378076
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Katharine Isabel Liebert was born in 1912 and was educated at the Manchester High School for Girls and Manchester University, where she obtained the degree of BSc in anatomy and physiology in 1934, and graduated MB ChB in 1937. She then held house appointments at the Royal Infirmary Manchester, St Mary's Hospital for Women and Children, and the Duchess of York Hospital for Babies. She also worked at the Christie Hospital, and in her clinical studies was greatly influenced by Mr Holt and Professor Dougal. She took the FRCS in 1941. After two years of military service when she became a Major in the RAMC, serving in the Middle East, she returned to Manchester in 1947 and was appointed consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist to Ancoats Hospital, and to Withington Hospital; though these were her principal attachments, she also undertook maternity work in some of the smaller hospitals in the region. Miss Liebert took the MRCOG in 1943 and was elected FRCOG in 1959. She was a warm-hearted person with a keen interest in all that went on around her, but especially in music and painting. She was very popular with her colleagues, and, though handicapped latterly by illness, went on working till shortly before she died from multiple sclerosis on 9 May 1965.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005893
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Sherrah-Davies, Evan (1922 - 1991)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-01 2015-12-16
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/380481380481
Occupation Radiotherapist
Details Evan Sherrah-Davies, who was to make his career in radiotherapy, was born on 8 October 1922 in Rossendale, Lancashire. He was the son of the local general practitioner, also called Evan, who proudly kept a meticulous record of Evan's achievements, and his wife Amelia, née Oakley. After a series of prizes at Charterhouse School he went up to Christ's College Cambridge as an exhibitioner, and from there with a scholarship to Westminster Hospital Medical School. He qualified MB Cambridge in 1947. After his house jobs he joined the RAF, where he gained considerable surgical experience. He then returned to Westminster as registrar to Sir Stanford Cade and took the FRCS in 1952, but his interests were already turning to radiotherapy. Five years' training at the London Hospital led to a consultant post as radiotherapist at the Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute in Manchester in 1958. There he gave 27 years of distinguished service, contributing to the literature on the subject of lung cancer and other malignancies. He married first on 5 June 1952 Yvonne Idenburg, by whom he had one daughter, Lynne. This marriage ended in divorce in 1962 and in the following year he married Christina Hancock, a radiographer. By her he had another daughter, Helen, and a son, Vaughan, but none of the children entered the medical profession. He retired in 1985 and died on 6 January 1991.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008298
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Doran, Francis Sydney Alfred (1911 - 1995)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007900-E007999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380091380091
Occupation General surgeon
Details Francis Doran, commonly known as 'Mike', was a colourful character whose enthusiasm for blood sports in the hunting field competed with his devotion to the surgical care of his patients and with his intellectual exercises in the literary sphere. He was born in 1911, the only son of a Manchester dentist. He enjoyed university life at Cambridge and completed his medical education in Manchester, qualifying with both the conjoint and the MB. He took a series of junior posts in the Manchester Royal Infirmary and the Duchess of York's Hospital for Babies, gaining his FRCS in 1940. He joined the RAF and as squadron leader served in India and Burma, at one time being among the troops surrounded in the notorious 'Imphal box'. Returning to Manchester he became surgical chief assistant at the Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute, where he completed his MD thesis, before being appointed in 1951 as consultant general surgeon to All Saints' Hospital, Bromsgrove. His surgical publications related to such important if mundane topics as hernia, varicose veins and postoperative emboli, but his book *Mind* was altogether more adventurous. A true countryman, a battered Landrover was his ordinary transport but his horse had been seen tethered in the hospital car park in readiness for the chase. He retired to good hunting country near Ledbury in Herefordshire, where he died on 26 December 1995, survived by a daughter, his wife Anne having predeceased him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007908
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Axford, Morris (1902 - 1968)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-07-14
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/377807377807
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Morris Axford was born in England in 1902 and came to New Zealand with his parents, Dr and Mrs S B Axford, in 1907. He was educated at Te Aroha School and Auckland Grammar School. He entered the University of Otago Medical School in 1920 with a University National Scholarship. He graduated MB ChB in 1924, winning the Christie Medal for surgical anatomy and the Batchelor Prize in midwifery and gynaecology. For eighteen months under Professor Gowland he lectured and demonstrated in the anatomy department of the medical school. He went to London in 1928, and spent two years in postgraduate studies at the Middlesex and Guy's Hospitals and at Portsmouth and Plymouth Hospitals. He took the FRCS in 1929. He returned to Auckland in 1930 to become surgical registrar at Auckland Hospital, the first holder of what was then a new post in the hospital. For more than twenty-five years he was visiting orthopaedic surgeon at Auckland and Middlemore Hospitals, and for fifteen years senior medical officer to the Auckland Crippled Children Society, helping Selwyn Morris to plan and develop the medical services of the Wilson Home at Takapuna; he also helped to train St John Ambulance Officers. He was the leading orthopaedic surgeon of his generation, when cruel disease forced his resignation from hospital work in 1957 at the age of fifty-five. After long illness he died at Auckland on 12 February 1968; his wife had died a month before him. He was survived by a daughter, Mrs Angela Douglas of Rotorua, a brother Edward Axford of Auckland, and a sister Mrs Mavis Commins of Cambridge.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005624
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching McLaren, Lyall Robertson (1917 - 1980)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-02-03 2022-08-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006700-E006799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378925378925
Occupation Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Lyall Robertson McLaren was born on 15 June 1917 and educated at Epsom College, Downing College, Cambridge, and Guy's Hospital. After qualifying in 1941 he served for four years as a Surgeon-Lieutenant in the RNVR, including three years at sea in the East Indies. He returned to junior surgical appointments at Guy's and was then surgical registrar at Orpington and Chelmsford. After completing the FRCS in 1950 he was appointed as chief assistant in general surgery to Thomas Moore at the Withington Hospital, Manchester. Having decided to specialise in plastic surgery he became registrar and then senior registrar in the plastic unit at Wythenshawe Hospital. He was then appointed consultant at Wythenshawe Hospital, the Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute, the Duchess of York Hospital and the Bolton Royal Infirmary. He was the first recipient of the Kay Kilner Prize of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons in 1962 and was a founder member of the WHO study group on melanoma. He was a highly respected member of the plastic surgery regional unit at Wythenshawe and later at Withington Hospital, and he took a special interest in the treatment of melanoma and head and neck malignancies. He died, aged 63, on 27 November 1980, and was survived by his wife, Doris née Williams, and daughters Angela and Heather. **This is an amended version of the original obituary which was printed in volume 6 of Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows. Please contact the library if you would like more information lives@rcseng.ac.uk**
Resource Identifier RCS: E006742
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Davidson, William Gordon (1916 - 1996)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008500-E008599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380731380731
Occupation General surgeon
Details William Gordon Davidson was a senior consultant surgeon at Southland Hospital, New Zealand. He was born in Dunedin on 18 February 1916, and educated at Otago Boys High School, where he was dux and won the university entrance scholarship to Otago University. He qualified in 1940, with distinctions in anatomy and physiology, the Scott and Christie medals in anatomy and applied anatomy, and the senior scholarship in medicine. He also passed the primary as a student. After qualifying, he held junior posts and was a demonstrator in anatomy, before completing a year in general practice in 1948. In 1950 he came to London for surgical training, and was house surgeon at Hammersmith, and registrar at Billericay. After he had passed the final FRCS in 1953, he returned to New Zealand as surgical registrar at the Southland Hospital. In 1955 he became a junior consultant at Southland, and was subsequently appointed senior consultant surgeon, and director of surgery and supervisor of surgical studies. He also continued to lecture in anatomy and coach for the primary. He returned to England in 1967 to take a postgraduate refresher course in general and vascular surgery under Peter Martin, at the Hammersmith and Chelmsford. He was a keen member of the National Society on Alcoholism and Drug Addiction, the South Invercargill Rotary Club and the New Zealand Institute of Ambulance Officers. He married Irene Mabel Violet Brown, who predeceased him in 1958, and by whom he had a son and a daughter. He married again, to a Miss Nightingale. He is believed to have died in 1996.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008548
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Smith, Herbert Fletcher (1917 - 1987)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007600-E007699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379859379859
Occupation General surgeon
Details Herbert Fletcher Smith was born in Farnworth, Lancashire, on 26 December 1917, the son of James Fletcher Smith, a general practitioner. He was educated at Bolton School before entering Manchester University Medical School where he was awarded the Dickinson Scholarship in anatomy and in 1939 passed the BSc in anatomy and physiology with distinction. He qualified in 1942 and subsequently was appointed to hospital posts at Manchester Royal Infirmary, the Christie Hospital and Withington Hospital. He passed the FRCS in 1950 and during his training worked under Wilson Hey, W R Douglas and Alan Nicholson. In 1958 he was appointed first assistant on the professorial unit at the Manchester Royal Infirmary and two years later became consultant surgeon to the Fylde district, based at Victoria Hospital, Blackpool. His outside interests were walking in mountainous areas, particularly beyond the Arctic Circle in Scandinavia and also photography. His prowess in photography was rewarded by a fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society and he was later made an admission judge for that body, a considerable achievement for an amateur. His meticulous surgical technique was mirrored in another hobby of model engineering. Tragically he died before completing, by a few weeks, a model railway engine over which he had toiled for many years. In 1959 he married Lilian Lilja, a Swedish nurse from Malmo, whom he met while he was resident surgical officer at the Christie Hospital and there was one son of the marriage. He died on 15 October 1987 and is survived by his wife and son, Peter.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007676
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Simmons, Harry Teesdale (1903 - 1972)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006100-E006199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378304378304
Occupation General surgeon
Details Harry Teesdale Simmons was born on 17 February 1903, and educated at Manchester Grammar School and Manchester University where he graduated MB ChB in 1924. He then spent a year in junior hospital appointments, and afterwards worked in physiology obtaining the BSc in 1926, presumably as part of his basic scientific training for surgery, for he then proceeded to hold hospital posts as RSO and chief assistant, taking the Conjoint Diploma in 1928 and the FRCS in 1929. Simmons was research assistant to Professor E D Telford and his interest was thus stimulated in the surgery of the sympathetic nervous system which was the subject of a Hunterian lecture delivered by him in 1939. He had obtained the ChM degree in 1935, and the MD in 1939. During the second world war Simmons served in the RAMC in Gibraltar and in India where he was a consultant surgeon with the rank of Brigadier. In 1933 he had been appointed to the staff of the Christie Hospital and returned there after the war; and in 1947 he joined the surgical staff of the Manchester Royal Infirmary and was there till he retired in 1966. He was a skilful operator and an excellent clinical teacher of undergraduate and postgraduate students. His wise council was also appreciated by his colleagues and he rendered valuable service on the hospital board of management and later on the board of governors. After retiring he spent much of his time in his garden at Wilmslow, but poor health tended to limit his activities. He died on 27 January 1972 and was survived by his wife, herself a doctor, and four daughters, two of whom became nurses.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006121
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Harrison, Kenneth (1913 - 1991)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007900-E007999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380173380173
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Ken Harrison was born in Manchester on 3 August 1913 and subsequently studied medicine at Manchester University. He qualified in 1938 and became house surgeon to Sir Harry Platt, with whom he kept in close touch until Sir Harry's 100th birthday. He served in the RAF from 1941 to 1946, mainly in the Middle East, and after the war was appointed senior registrar to the ENT department at Manchester Royal Infirmary. In 1950 he was travelling fellow at the Lempert Institute of Otology in New York, and he was subsequently appointed consultant ENT surgeon at Manchester Royal Infirmary and the Christie Hospital. He was director of the department of otolaryngology at the University of Manchester from 1963 until his retirement in 1978. He was also consultant otologist to the Royal Schools for the Deaf in Manchester, and together with Sir Alexander and Lady Irene Ewing he helped to pioneer the education of deaf children. He was appointed Hunterian Professor of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1955, and later became a member of the Court of Examiners. He was awarded the BMA Jobson Horne Prize in 1974 and at various times served as President of the North of England Otolaryngological Society, the Section of Laryngology of the Royal Society of Medicine and the Visiting Association of Throat and Ear Surgeons of Great Britain. Ken Harrison was a keen sportsman with a particular interest in Manchester United Soccer Club, and was close friends with Sir Matt Busby. Sadly, his activities were curtailed in his latter years by hypertension and a stroke, and he died on 1 July 1991, aged 77. He was survived by his wife, Joan, and their three sons, one of whom, Richard, became a consultant anaesthetist at Manchester Royal Infirmary.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007990
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Todd, Thomas Francis (1908 - 1939)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-11-27
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004700-E004799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376898376898
Occupation Gynaecologist
Details Born on 22 September 1908 at 11 Barrington Road, Crouch End, N, the eldest of the five children of Frank Ernest Todd, civil servant and principal inspector of taxes, and Margaret Mary Shearman, his wife. He was educated at Prior Park School, Bath, and from there proceeded to Guy's Hospital, taking honours at the London MB examination with distinction in midwifery. At Guy's Hospital he served as house surgeon and obstetric resident, whilst in the medical school he was appointed assistant demonstrator of anatomy. By this time he had determined to devote himself to gynaecology, and took post-graduate courses in Dublin and Vienna. For a time he acted as resident surgical officer at the Royal Infirmary, Preston, was research Fellow at the Christie Hospital and assistant registrar at the Holt Radium Institute, Manchester. From these positions he became gynaecologist at the Salford Royal Hospital, the Hope Hospital, Salford, and the Crumpsall Hospital, Manchester. He was examiner in gynaecology to the General Nursing Council. On 4 February 1938, as Hunterian professor at the Royal College of Surgeons, he delivered a lecture on "Rectal ulceration following immediate treatment of carcinoma of the cervix (pseudo-carcinoma of the rectum)". He was gazetted captain, RAMC on 2 September 1939 and afterwards promoted major, and was killed as the result of a motor accident whilst on active service in France on 1 December 1939, and was buried at Mon Huon, Flocques, Seine-Inférieure: the first Fellow of the College to be killed in the second world war, a man who would have gone far. He never married. Publications: Prognosis in carcinoma of cervical stump after subtotal hysterectomy, with J R Nuttall. *J Obstet Gynaec Brit Emp* 1935, 42, 860. Present position of treatment in carcinoma of cervix uteri. *Brit J Radiol* 1936. 9, 196. The pathway and relief of pain in advanced carcinoma of cervix uteri. *Lancet*, 1937, 2, 555.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004715
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Griffiths, David Lloyd (1908 - 1997)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-11-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008600-E008699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380828380828
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details David Griffiths was director of orthopaedics at Manchester Royal Infirmary. Born in Y Trallwng, Wales, on 6 February 1908, his father, David, was a minister of religion and his mother, Mary Eleanor Jones, the daughter of a vet. He was educated at William Hulme's Grammar School, Manchester, and the University of Manchester, where he graduated with first class honours and won many prizes and distinctions. After junior appointments at the Manchester Royal Infirmary and the Christie Hospital, he gained the Hallett prize in the primary and passed the final FRCS the following year. A chance meeting with Robert Jones determined his choice of career, and he trained in orthopaedics in Manchester and Oswestry under Harry Platt and Henry Osmond-Clarke. He was an Hunterian Professor in 1940. He joined the RAMC in 1942, reaching the rank of Major, and was orthopaedic surgeon to the Cambridge Hospital, Aldershot, from 1943 to 1946, where he developed a special interest in vascular injuries, for which work he was awarded the MBE. After the war, he was appointed to the Manchester Royal Infirmary and the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital at Oswestery, at the same time as his close friend John Charnley. There he developed a special interest in spinal tuberculosis and was chairman of the Medical Research Council's working party on that disease. He was a trustee of the British Orthopaedic Association, and an honorary member of orthopaedic associations from the Philippines to Africa, and visited many overseas centres as a visiting professor. He married Nancy Mary Webb in 1939 and had two sons, Myles and Wynn, and one daughter, Branwen, who became a radiologist. He remained a devoted Welshman, interested in all things Welsh, as well as opera and chamber music, and was a member of the court of the Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales. He died on 10 February 1997, predeceased by his wife and their daughter.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008645
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Nicholson, William Alan Butler (1908 - 1993)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

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
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gilbert, Barton (1908 - 2006)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-10-26 2017-03-24
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/372457372457
Occupation Obstetric and gynaecological surgeon Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Barton Gilbert was a consultant in gynaecology and obstetrics. He was born in Wembley, London, on 28 October 1908. His father, Ernest Jesse Gilbert, was an accountant. His mother, Amy Louise (whose maiden name was also Gilbert), was the daughter of a leather-merchant. His family was descended from William Gilbert, president of the College of Physicians during the time of Queen Elizabeth I. During the First World War Barton went to school in Bordeaux, and later went to Middlesex County School, Isleworth, before going to study medicine at St Thomas's Hospital. At St Thomas's he was awarded the university entrance science scholarship in 1928. He also gained a BSc in physiology, the William Tite and Musgrove scholarships in anatomy and physiology, and the Haddon prize for pathology. After qualifying he completed junior posts at St Thomas's, working for Nitch and Mitchiner. He then went as RMO to the City of London Maternity Hospital and then the Chelsea Hospital for Women, where he was influenced by Victor Bonney and Sir Comyns Berkeley. In 1936 he returned to St Thomas's as registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology. He was subsequently appointed to the consultant staff of the Chelsea Hospital for Woman. During the Second World War he worked in the Emergency Medical Service, and later in the RAMC, serving mainly in Africa. At the end of the war he settled in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, in gynaecological practice, the first gynaecological surgeon in that country. He helped to set up its medical school and taught gynaecology and obstetrics there. He was consultant in gynaecology and obstetrics to the government and its armed forces. He retired in 1972. He published many papers and was co-author, with R Christie Brown, of the textbook *Midwifery: principles and practice for pupil midwives, teacher midwives and obstetric dressers* (London, Edward Arnold, 1940), which passed through many editions. Following his retirement he went to live in Orange County, California, where he died on 3 February 2006. He married Rosamund Marjorie Luff in 1941, by whom he had twin sons, Brian and Keith, who became scientific instrument makers. He married for a second time, to Anne.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000270
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Carroll, Raymund Noel Patrick (1938 - 2011)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by David J Farrar
Publication Date 2011-11-10 2013-06-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001500-E001599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373741373741
Occupation Urologist
Details Ray Carroll was a urologist in Manchester. He was educated at Belvedere College in Ireland, where he excelled at sport, particularly rugby and cricket, and in his final year was appointed captain of the school. He followed his father into medicine, qualifying from University College Dublin, where he obtained the gold medal in surgery and subsequently chose urology as his specialty. He moved to England in 1964, working at Hammersmith Hospital and, on completion of his urological training in 1974, he was appointed as a consultant urologist at Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) and as a clinical lecturer in surgery at Manchester University Medical School. In 1972, whilst still a senior registrar at Manchester's Christie Hospital, Ray became the first president of the Urostomy Association, which had its origins at the Christie, fulfilling this role until 1983 with his customary enthusiasm. This enthusiasm and attention to detail pervaded his clinical, teaching and administrative work throughout his professional life. At the MRI he was active in setting up a range of new clinical services and was largely responsible for the commissioning of a new surgical wing there in 2001. Ray also had a wide ranging and successful medico-legal practice, which he continued to develop after his retirement from the NHS in 1999. In 2001 he obtained a master of laws degree in the legal aspects of medical practice from Cardiff Law School at the University of Wales Away from medicine, Ray's passion for rugby never dwindled. He was a keen follower, both at home and abroad, and was a fund of sporting knowledge, enhanced by his collection of some 1,400 rugby books and memorabilia, which he generously donated to Belvedere College. Lewy body disease sadly forced his retirement from both private and medico-legal practice in 2007. Throughout his professional life in England and after he was loyally supported by his wife Liz, an ex-nurse, with whom he had three children, Andrew, Peter and Katherine. He was also the proud grandfather of Camela, Sofia, Niamh and Rory. He died on 26 July 2011, at the age of 72.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001558
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Douglas, William Robert (1880 - 1965)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-07-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005700-E005799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377893377893
Occupation General surgeon
Details William Douglas was born at Bury in 1880, and received a classical education at Bury Grammar School which he valued all his life. He entered Manchester University with a classical scholarship, but was already determined to read medicine. In 1903 he graduated BSc in botany and zoology, and qualified two years later. He spent one year demonstrating anatomy before he became house surgeon to Sir William Thorburn at the old Manchester Infirmary. For the next four years he became Sir William's private assistant, while holding a series of junior posts at the Royal Infirmary. In 1910 he obtained the Fellowship and was appointed surgeon to Ancoats Hospital. During 1914-16 he saw service with the RAMC in Egypt as surgeon at the Citadel in Cairo. He was twice mentioned in dispatches and was awarded the Military Cross in 1915. In 1916 he was invalided home and was attached to the 2nd Western General Hospital in Manchester. He was appointed visiting surgeon to the Witherington Hospital in 1918 in addition to his work at Ancoats, and in 1922 he became assistant surgeon to the Royal Infirmary and full surgeon in 1936. During his active years Douglas had a busy practice, for in addition to his Manchester hospitals he visited and operated in his native Bury and Kendal. His retirement from the Royal Infirmary in 1945 gave him more time to devote to his work at the Christie Hospital, and in 1947 he gave a Moynihan lecture at the Royal College on the results of his many years' work on malignant disease of the head and neck, concentrating especially on his results from block dissection of glands of the neck, at which operation he was an acknowledged master. In 1948 he became regional adviser in surgery and greatly enjoyed the contacts he made with younger surgeons. Douglas was elected a Freeman of Bury in 1958. Apart from surgery his chief interest was music, and he was a constant supporter of the Halle Concert Society. William Douglas died at home on 23 February 1965 at the age of 84; he was survived by his widow and two sons, one of whom is a surgeon.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005710
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Macalpine, James Barlow (1882 - 1960)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-03-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005100-E005199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377294377294
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Born on 11 February 1882 one of the four sons of Sir George Watson Macalpine Kt (1850-1920) of Accrington, a colliery owner, brick manufacturer and President of the Baptist Union, and of his wife Arianne, daughter of James Barlow JP of Accrington, he was educated at Mill Hill School and Manchester University. After qualifying with the Conjoint diploma and the degree of Manchester, he held office as house surgeon at Manchester Royal Infirmary and then, for postgraduate study, he went to the London Hospital and to Vienna. After the first war he was appointed to the surgical staff of the Salford Royal Hospital and founded the genito-urinary department as its first head, which became famous attracting postgraduates from far and wide. He was also consulting urological surgeon to the Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute, being a pioneer in the use of radiotherapy for malignant disease of the urinary tract. He was one of the members of the original Urological Club and a founder member of the British Association of Urological Surgeons, being the first recipient of the St Peter's Medal in 1949. He had been President of the Section of Urology of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1934, and was best known for his contribution to the knowledge of the pathology and treatment of bladder tumours, a subject upon which he delivered a Hunterian lecture in 1947. His book *Cystoscopy and Urography* first published in 1927, which ran to three editions, being translated into Italian in 1951, is a classic, and he regularly contributed articles to the *British Medical Journal* and other periodicals on urological subjects. "Jim" was a gifted attractive personality with a great sense of humour and, being a man of means, was able to devote all his time and energy to the furtherance of urology as a specialty in Manchester and he was appointed honorary lecturer in urology to the University. In his youth he was a Rugby full back and sprinter, and later enjoyed golf, yachting, the piano and billiards. He retired to the Lake District and died at his home Michael's Nook, Grasmere, Westmorland on 17 March 1960 survived by his wife, a son and two daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005111
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Robinson, Andrew Fyffe (1920 - 1987)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-07-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007600-E007699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379834379834
Occupation General surgeon
Details Andrew Robinson was born at Astley Bridge, Bolton, Lancashire, on 17 December 1920. He was the second son of Dr Frank Robinson who was himself one of five brothers who became medical practitioners. They were the fourth dynasty of a long line of medical men with its roots in the eighteenth century. Both Andrew's brothers were also to become doctors. The family had a long standing connection with the Manchester Medical School where Andrew, his brothers and his father qualified. Andrew Robinson was educated at the Bolton School where he obtained the James Gaskell Entrance Scholarship to Manchester Medical School. As a student Andrew gained a long list of prizes, the Dauntesy Medical Scholarship, Jones Exhibition in anatomy, Henry Agnew Prize in children's diseases, Dumville Prize in surgery, Butterworth Prize in medicine, and the Bradley Memorial Scholarship in clinical surgery. He graduated with honours in 1943. He did his house appointments at the Manchester Royal Infirmary followed by a break of some two years for his military service when he served in India. Following his return to Manchester he worked with, and got great help from, Donald Sutherland, Ronald Holt and Professor John Morley. In 1955 he visited Professor Charles Huggins in Chicago where he learnt of their treatment of metastatic breast cancer by bilateral adrenalectomy. He did a series of such operations at the Christie Cancer Hospital, Manchester. His particular interest was, however, gastric surgery with particular reference to the treatment of duodenal ulcer. In 1985 he became President of the surgical section of the Manchester Medical Society, having been President of the Manchester Regional Association of Surgeons in 1974. Andrew was an excellent swimmer having represented his University in 1940. He was skilled in handicraft and took a particular delight in the mechanisms of antique clocks. He married Miss Margaret Whalley, a chartered physiotherapist, on 7 January 1953. They had seven children, three sons and four daughters. He retired from the Burnley and District Hospitals in 1983 and went to live in North Wales. He died on 15 May 1987 after a very short illness, and was survived by his wife and seven children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007651
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lord, Peter Herent (1925 - 2017)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2017-03-16 2020-09-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009300-E009399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381506381506
Occupation General surgeon
Details Peter Herent Lord was a consultant surgeon at Wycombe General Hospital, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. Born in Oldham, Lancashire on 23 November 1925, he was the son of Sir Frank Lord, a builder and developer who became the Mayor of Oldham in 1952 and was also the High Sheriff of the County. His mother, Rosalie Jeanette née Herent had been born in Brussels and was also from a family of architects and builders. John, his younger brother, became a County Court Judge on the Northern circuit. Having attended Werneth Council School in Oldham and Manchester Grammar School he went up to St John’s College, Cambridge to study medicine and graduated MB in 1948. At St George’s Hospital, where he trained under Sir Claude Frankau, he won the Allingham prize in surgery and a pathology scholarship. After house jobs at St George’s he worked at Salford Royal Hospital with the urologist Denis Smith Poole-Wilson and the Christie Hospital in Manchester with Wilson Harold Hey, the radiologist and famous mountaineer. Appointed a junior surgical specialist with the RAMC he worked at the military hospitals in Tideworth, Trieste and at Millbank – at one time with colonel John Watts. Among other surgeons who influenced him during what he described as a *prolonged period of bondage* were Sir Ralph Marnham and Lord Smith of Marlow. He passed the fellowship of the college in 1955 and took up his consultant post at Wycombe General Hospital remaining there until his retirement. At the Royal College of Surgeons of England he was Penrose May teacher and a tutor on the fellowship course from 1967 to 1977. Elected to council in 1978, he later became vice-president. Master of the Worshipful Company of Barbers, he was also secretary of the section of proctology and surgery at the Royal Society of Medicine. In 1952 he married Shirley née Hurst and they had four children; Rozanne, Frank, Janine and Peter. His elder daughter Rozanne also took up medicine and became a transplant surgeon practising in Wales. Outside medicine he enjoyed sailing, photography, gardening, travelling and, as he put it, *inventing*. When he died on 16 February 2017, aged 91, he was survived by his wife, children, eight grand-children and two great grand-children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009323
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Roberts, Charles (1874 - 1935)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-10-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004500-E004599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376703376703
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born 18 June 1874 at Hazelholme, Colnbrook near Slough, Bucks, the third of the eight children of Samuel Roberts, builder and contractor, and Maria Harris, his wife. He was educated at Padcroft Grammar School, West Drayton, and at Elmfield College, York. He entered Middlesex Hospital with a scholarship, and filled the posts of house surgeon, house physician, and obstetric house physician. At the University of London he gained first-class honours in materia medica and the marks qualifying for the gold medal in anatomy. When the South African war began he was acting as casualty officer at the Middlesex Hospital. He volunteered for service and was appointed a civilian surgeon to the Field Force and received two medals. On his return to England he was elected resident surgical officer to the Manchester Royal Infirmary in 1901, and was appointed surgeon to the Royal Pendlebury Children's Hospital in 1903. During 1905-10 he was surgical officer and medical superintendent at the Christie Cancer Hospital, and in 1911-34 he was lecturer on clinical and practical surgery at Manchester University. He was elected assistant surgeon to the Manchester Royal Infirmary in 1911, became surgeon, and retired with the title of consulting surgeon on reaching the age limit in 1934. During the war he received a commission as captain, RAMC on 14 April 1915, going to France with the 18th Field Ambulance. At the end of the war he continued his military work as surgeon to the Second Western Hospital. He married in 1911 Ethel Annie Nicholson, who had been lady superintendent of the Pendlebury Children's Hospital. She died before him leaving a son and a daughter. He died at Maidenhead on Sunday, 9 June 1935, and his remains were cremated at Manchester. Roberts left the reputation of being an excellent teacher of students and a good surgeon, more especially interested in the surgery of children. Publications: Editor of the surgical section in Ashby and Wright *Diseases of children*, 6th edition, London, 1922. Total extirpation of the prostate for the radical cure of enlargement. *Brit med J* 1902, 1, 769. The treatment of abdominal wounds in war. *Ibid* 1902, 2, 1027. Surgical convalescence. *Ibid* 1927, 2, 1013. A method of operating for ectopia vesicae. *Lancet*, 1921, 1, 1125.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004520
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Duthie, Ogilvie Maxwell (1899 - 1977)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-11-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006400-E006499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378624378624
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details Ogilvie Duthie, the eldest son of the director of education at Salford, was born on 19 September 1899, in Manchester. After education at Manchester Grammar School he enlisted in the Navy in 1916, at the age of 17, as a Sub-Lieutenant. Entering Manchester University after the war he qualified in 1921 and became house surgeon to Professor John Morley at the Manchester Royal Infirmary. He was then appointed as a resident at the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital which he served most loyally for almost forty years as house surgeon, resident surgical officer, assistant surgeon and consultant. He also held appointments at the Christie Hospital and Salford Royal. After the second world war he secured the FRCS and was instrumental in forming the Manchester University Department of Ophthalmology against stiff opposition. He was later appointed reader in ophthalmology at the University and developed a very busy department with 65 beds, ably assisted by Alan Stanworth as his chief assistant. He was one of the first surgeons in England to adopt the technique of intracapsular extraction of cataract and was visited by many who learnt much from his rapid and scrupulously careful surgery. Though a busy clinician his keen and alert mind made him an invaluable member of many committees and he was on the governing body of the Manchester Royal Infirmary. An original council member of the Faculty of Ophthalmology at Manchester, he was President for three years in the nineteen-fifties. He was also a former Vice-President of the North of England Ophthalmological Society. Outside his own clinical work his chief love was in the growth and progress of the Oxford Ophthalmological Congress, to the council of which he was elected in 1946. He gave invaluable help in the administration, became deputy master in 1957 and Master of the Congress in 1959 for the Jubilee meeting at Balliol College and the University School of Physiology. His interest in the Congress continued throughout his life and he presided over a past masters dinner only four months before his death. Duthie contributed some forty papers to the literature, notably on cataract and glaucoma. He was noted for his great capacity for hard work and his good sense of humour and he gave much to his specialty as well as to his patients. His main hobbies were golf and gardening. He married in 1930 and, when he died on 20 November 1977, he was survived by his wife and three daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006441
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Holt, Robert Lord (1903 - 1979)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-12-19
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/378765378765
Occupation General surgeon
Details Robert Lord Holt was born near Oldham on 18 May 1903 and educated at William Hulme's Grammar School, and Manchester University, where he qualified with many distinctions. He held numerous resident appointments in Manchester and obtained his Fellowship in 1928. In 1931 he was Dickson Travelling Scholar at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, where he carried out original research on the toxic effects of small bowel strangulation, work which eventually gained his MD with Gold Medal in 1938. In 1934, he became chief assistant to Professor A H Burgess. From 1933-39 he held staff appointments at the Christie, Manchester Northern, Withington Hospitals and the children's department at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester. He was appointed to the staff of the Royal Infirmary Teaching Hospital in 1939 but before he could take up the appointment, he was mobilised with the Territorial General Hospital, serving in the BEF and the MEF, attaining the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel with an OBE. At the Christie in 1945, he concentrated on the problems of breast cancer, thyroid disease and the upper intestinal tract. He was a popular teacher and published many original papers. He was a lucid debater and became a prominent contributer to the Association of Surgeons, the Moynihan Chirurgical Club and the Manchester Surgical Society. He was an examiner in the University of Cambridge and a member of the Court of Examiners at the Royal College of Surgeons. Holt was a large imposing man and could not escape the popular name of 'Tiny'. He inspired confidence and respect in his patients, his students and his many friends. In the theatre, he was calm and unhurried with a gentle touch. In his personal life, he was genial and good humoured and, socially, he and his wife Sara were a strikingly handsome couple. He was always interested in cricket, playing with distinction as a student, but his lifelong recreation was fly fishing, being a keen member of the Yorkshire Fly Fishers. Increasing arthritis caused Holt to retire in 1964 and he suffered progressively ill health made worse by the death of his wife Sara in 1974. In 1975 he married Constance who brought him much happiness in his last years. He died on 10 March 1979 at the age of 76. He left no children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006582
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Diggle, Frank Holt (1886 - 1942)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-05-01
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/376142376142
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Born at Heywood, Lancashire on 19 May 1886, third son of James Diggle, consulting water engineer, and Rachel Alice Holt, his wife. He was educated at Rossall School and Manchester University, and studied medicine at St Bartholomew's and the London Hospital. He won medals in anatomy and gynaecology, was awarded distinction in forensic medicine, and took second-class honours in the Manchester MB examination, won the Bradley surgical scholarship, the Henry Agnew scholarship in diseases of children, and the clinical medicine prize. He was a pupil of Sir William Milligan and served as house surgeon and house surgeon to special departments at the Manchester Royal Infirmary. Specializing in aural surgery, he served for a period as assistant surgeon at the Birmingham and Midlands Ear and Throat Hospital and then returned to Manchester as aurist and laryngologist to the Manchester Union Hospitals. During the war he was commissioned in the RAMC as temporary lieutenant on 7 June 1917, and later promoted captain. He served with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, was mentioned in despatches, and was created OBE for his services. Diggle made his mark as the first surgeon-in-charge of the ear and throat department at Ancoats Hospital, Manchester, an appointment he received in 1920. Here he started from nothing and built up a big, well-organized, and well-equipped clinic. He was also surgeon to the Manchester Ear Hospital and laryngologist to the Christie Hospital, the Holt Radium Institute, and the Royal Manchester College of Music, and consulting aural surgeon to the Duchess of York Hospital for Babies, Manchester, and the Ethel Hedley Hospital, Windermere. He was lecturer in practical physiology of the ear at Manchester University. Diggle was a constant visitor to his colleagues' clinics and an active member of professional societies, particularly the Manchester Medical. Society and the Royal Society of Medicine. He married in 1914 Mary Leah, daughter E Horrox of Edinburgh, who survived him with a daughter. Diggle lived at Riverslea, West Didsbury, with a consulting room at 26 St John Street, Manchester. He also had a country house at Park End, Dunham, Massey, Cheshire, where he died on 30 September 1942, of a heart attack while dressing. With the scientific and administrative abilities which brought him success Diggle combined the imaginative and self-critical sensitivity of an artist. He was a keen amateur musician. Publications:- Cancer of the larynx, diagnosis and treatment. *Practitioner*, 1921, 56, 347. Lachrymal obstruction, its nasal origin and intra-nasal treatment. *Brit med J*. 1927, 2, 933. Acute frontal sinusitis. *Proc Roy Soc Med*. 1936, 29, 299.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003959
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Berry, Lynton McHardie (1922 - 1979)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-11-14
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/378524378524
Occupation General surgeon
Details Lynton McHardie Berry was born on 19 August 1922 at Wellington, New Zealand; his father was Leonard James Berry, a business manager, and his mother was Gertrude Elaine Lawry, the daughter of a Minister of Religion. He was educated at Hataitai School, Rongatai College, and then entered Victoria University, Wellington, at the age of 16 1/2 years. His academic experience, so apparent to his classmates and teachers at the Otago Medical School, was reflected in the awards he won which included a senior scholarship in medicine in 1942, the Scott Medal for anatomy and the Christie Prize for applied anatomy. He qualified in 1945 and then held appointments as anatomy demonstrator in Dunedin, house surgeon and surgical registrar, Wellington Hospital Board. He married Ethel May Roberts of Dannevirke in 1948 and they had three sons. He travelled to England for further training and held posts as senior surgical registrar at St Mary's Hospital, Plaistow, 1950-1951 and orthopaedic registrar at Gravesend and Rochester Hospital in 1952. He obtained the FRCS in 1951 and later the FRACS. On returning to New Zealand Lynton Berry was appointed superintendent and surgeon to the Hawera Hospital Board, holding this post from 1952 to 1963. He gave distinguished service during this period which included a surgical service to the people of South Taranaki, long remembered. In 1963 he was appointed medical superintendent-in-chief to the North Canterbury Board where major developments occurred including the transfer of psychiatric hospitals to the control of hospital boards, setting up a clinical school of medicine in Christchurch and extending hospital board services into the community. To this position, largely administrative, Lynton Berry brought a first class brain, prodigious capacity for memory and an exemplary code of conduct. He showed an innate kindness and humane approach to everyone he encountered. He never allowed any disagreements over work to interfere with personal relationships. His interests were wide and included hockey and bowls and at various times he was a New Zealand hockey umpire, President of the New Zealand Hockey Association and President of the Elmwood Bowling Club in Christchurch. A major pastime was playing contract bridge and he had a long association with Rotary. Office-bearing was also a feature of his membership of the New Zealand Medical Superintendents' Association, serving on various committees and as President for a term. He had a lifelong interest and talent for music. He died on 15 April 1979 aged 57 years.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006341
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jones, Arthur Edward (1919 - 1999)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-11-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008600-E008699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380856380856
Occupation Radiotherapist
Details Arthur Jones was a pioneering radiotherapist. He was born in Wrexham, North Wales, on 1 February 1919. His father, Edward Hugh Jones, died when he was young and he was brought up by his mother, Margaret Lloyd Jones. He was educated at Grove Park School, where he became interested in physics, and his decision (at the age of 17) to become a radiotherapist was encouraged by his mother. He won the Jeaffreson entrance exhibition to Bart's in French and mathematics, and there proceeded to gain a dazzling number of awards. He gained scholarships in anatomy and physiology, the Harvey prize in physiology, the Wix prize, the Brackenbury scholarship, the Dame Dorothy Jeffreys exhibition, the Dodd memorial award and the Wall bursary. Girling Ball was the Dean, but his real hero was Frank Lloyd Hopwood, the Professor of Physics. He was dresser to Paterson Ross, who was the clinician who influenced him most. On qualifying, he was house physician to Christie and house surgeon to Douglas Northfield at the London, who kindled his interest in the nervous system. On joining the RAMC, he served at the Military Hospital for Head Injuries at St Hughes, Oxford, along with Walpole Lewin, under Sir Hugh Cairns and Sir Charles Symonds, ending as a Major in charge of a neurological centre in Hamburg, where he became an expert in the management of head injuries. On returning to Bart's after the war, he served as chief assistant to I G Williams, and, in 1950, he was appointed consultant (at the age of 30), as deputy director in the radiotherapeutic department. He became physician to the department in 1961 and director in 1972. In 1974, the title of Professor of Radiotherapy was conferred on him by the University of London, the first such title to be awarded to an NHS consultant. He was Vice-President of the Royal College of Radiologists from 1967 to 1968, and was co-opted to the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons to represent radiology in 1973. He was Hunterian Professor in 1960, and was made an FRCS by election in 1978. He was much sought after to lecture abroad and served on innumerable committees. He was Dean of the Medical College at Bart's from 1968 to 1969. He was particularly interested in music and the history of art. He married Caroline Bonsor in 1945. They had one daughter, Deirdre Anne, and one son, Daril Peregrine Lloyd, a dental surgeon. He died on 4 July 1999.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008673
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hey, Wilson Harold (1882 - 1956)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-02-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005000-E005099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377232377232
Occupation General surgeon Mountaineer Radiologist
Details Born on 1 September 1882, son of Thomas Hey JP of Colne and his wife Martha Jane Tatham, whose father was a solicitor there, Wilson Hey was educated at Burnley Grammar School and the University of Manchester, winning scholarships and prizes. He took his clinical training at the London Hospital, and qualified in 1905. At the Royal Infirmary, Manchester he served as house surgeon and resident surgical officer, and was awarded the Tom Jones memorial fellowship. He was elected to the honorary staff early in 1914, but on the outbreak of war joined the RAMC and served as a surgical specialist in France, reaching the rank of Major. After the war he resumed his practice in Manchester, joined the Royal Infirmary again, and was appointed to the Staff of Ancoats, the Christie, and the Children's Hospitals, and the Hartley Hospital, Colne. He was a pioneer in using radium for treatment of cancer, and later devised an operation for prostatectomy which was widely accepted. He was a good teacher, enlivening his lectures with anecdotes. He lectured on clinical surgery at Manchester University and examined at Cambridge. He was the first president of the Manchester Medical Society when it was reconstituted in 1950 by the amalgamation of five societies, having already been president of the old Medical Society and of the Surgical and Pathological Societies. Wilson Hey was a skilled mountaineer; he served on the Council of the Alpine Club, and was founder and president of the Manchester University Mountaineering Club. As chairman of the Mountain Rescue Committee he organised rescue equipment posts, wherever rock climbing is practised in Great Britain. He insisted that morphine be kept at each post, in case of painful injury, but the Home Office refused permission for the drug to be available without control. Hey deliberately flouted their orders, and was summoned in 1949 for failing to notify the inspector about his stock of morphine. He was fined £10 but gained the necessary publicity to extort an agreed arrangement from the authorities. Hey married in 1916 Elsie Brown (MB ChB Manchester 1909), who survived him with two sons and two daughters, one a doctor. He died at his country house, Fernilee Hall, Whaley Bridge, near Stockport, on Sunday 15 January 1956, aged 73. He had practised at 16 St John Street, Manchester. He was of strong and cheerful personality with a quiet manner. Publications: Early closure of gunshot wounds. *Brit med J* 1917, 2, 445. Benign enlargement of the prostate. *Trans Med Soc Lond* 1943/46, 64, 271. Asepsis in prostatectomy. *Brit J Surg* 1945, 33, 41. The catheter and the prostate. *Brit med J* 1946, 1, 757, and correspondence at p 997 and 2, 241 and 624. Prostatectomy, in H P Winsbury White's *Textbook of genito-urinary surgery*, Edinburgh 1948, pp 477-481, and Cancer of the prostate, in the same, pp 522-525.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005049
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Rowbotham, George Frederick (1899 - 1975)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-03-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006900-E006999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379087379087
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details George Frederick Rowbotham was born at Altrincham and educated at Manchester Grammar School, Manchester College of Technology, and Manchester University. After qualification in 1925 he held surgical appointments at Manchester, Salford, Stockport, and London, and returned to Manchester in 1930 as surgical registrar at the Royal Infirmary. Here he came under the influence of Geoffrey Jefferson, was converted to neurosurgery, and then was made first assistant in Jefferson's new unit. In 1936 came his appointment as neurosurgeon at Stockport, Withington, and to the Christie Hospital. He moved to Newcastle in January 1941. His work soon became internationally renowned in the whole field of neurosurgery, but especially for the management of head injuries. He was a prolific and painstaking writer whose best-known work was *Acute injuries of the head*, first published in 1944. In this unique book Rowbotham demonstrated his ability to see the whole problem of the head-injured patient from the time of injury until the completion of rehabilitation. He served his hospital and his adopted city and region with great devotion and was for some time chairman of the medical staff committee. He was not without his eccentricities, and indeed many stories about 'Row' and some of his fascinating flights of fancy still go the rounds in Newcastle, where he was a distinctive figure for many years on the medical scene. A skilful and meticulous surgeon whose technique was always most evident when he sectioned a trigeminal root, he was prominent in many different aspects of Newcastle medical life. Virtually unaided, he established an outstanding department of neurosurgery at Newcastle General Hospital, at first under relatively primitive conditions. The new regional neurological centre was his brainchild and his pride and joy, but he was only able to enjoy its facilities for about two years before he reached the statutory retiring age. Honours were numerous, including a Hunterian Professorship and the Presidencies of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons, the North of England Neurological Association, and the North of England Surgical Society. He played international hockey for England, and was for many years a selector for the English hockey team. By his many pupils and his devoted staff he was always known as 'Father', a sign of the affection and respect which all had for this kindly, sometimes eccentric, and always compassionate man. After retirement he pursued active research, wrote, attended medical appeal tribunals, and at the age of 75 sat and passed an examination for the Open University BA degree. A devout churchgoer, he was vicar's warden for twenty-five years. On 4 July 1935 he married Monica Boyle, a university psychologist. Her father had been a gold medallist in his final year at Leeds and was RSO to Lord Moynihan. They had one daughter and four sons, three of whom are medically qualified. He died from Hodgkins' disease on 23 November 1975, aged 76 years.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006904
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Poole-Wilson, Denis Smith (1904 - 1998)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-12-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008800-E008899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381033381033
Occupation Urologist
Details Denis Poole-Wilson, a consultant surgeon at Salford, was an outstanding urologist of the post-war years, whose pupils went on to staff many of the most successful departments. He began by transforming the situation in Manchester. By demonstrating that treatment, especially for cancer, could be more effectively administered in his own specialist unit, he persuaded the teaching hospital and the regional board of the benefits of specialisation. He went on to play an important part in the national programme to develop urological units. He was born in Dublin in 1904, the son of parents in the teaching profession. He read natural sciences at Trinity College, winning the gold medal, and then went to the Middlesex Hospital Medical School to complete his clinical training. He qualified in 1928 and in 1930 took his first post in Manchester, under Geoffrey Jefferson, the neurosurgeon at the Salford Royal Hospital. But it was his experience in his next post, under J B MacAlpine, a pioneer in endoscopic urology, that helped determine the progress of his career. As surgeon from 1934 to the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital and to the Salford Royal Hospital, he became known for his expertise in urology. In 1939, as a member of the Reserve, he was called up immediately after the outbreak of the war. A Lieutenant Colonel in the RAMC, he commanded the surgical division of the 72nd General Hospital with the 8th Army, serving in North Africa and Italy, including the Monte Cassino battle. His specialist skills were recognised when he formed a unit for genito-urinary injuries in Naples and then in Rome. The 100 bed unit was affectionately known as 'Poole's Piss Palace'. In 1945, he returned to Manchester to take over from MacAlpine as a specialist urologist. The nature and management of genito-urinary injuries was the subject of his Hunterian Professorial lecture in 1946. In the next year, he was appointed to the staff of the Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute, where he gained enormous experience of bladder cancer and other malignancies. His unit, then covering four hospitals, rapidly expanded and attracted a series of brilliant trainees. They remember Poole-Wilson as an inspiring teacher but a hard taskmaster who spared neither them nor himself. He was President of the British Association of Urological Surgeons from 1965 to 1966 and was appointed CBE in 1968. He retired to a Wiltshire village in 1969, where he lived on into old age, although he became increasingly blind. He died on 22 March 1998. He and his wife Monique, who predeceased him, had two sons, Nicholas and Philip, one of whom is a Professor of Cardiology. There are five grandchildren - Peter, Alexander, William, Michael and Oenone.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008850
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ratcliffe, Robert James (1957 - 2000)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-12-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008800-E008899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381047381047
Occupation Hand surgeon Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Bob Ratcliffe was a consultant in plastic, hand and reconstructive surgery at Canniesburn Hospital, Glasgow. He was born on 15 June 1957 at St Helens, Lancashire, the son of Robert Ernest Ratcliffe, an electrician, and Jean Elizabeth née Worrall. As a child he was interested in mechanical objects, was extremely patient and had enviable manual dexterity, skills he would use in his later life. He went to Cowley Boys Grammar School, St Helens, where he gained the school physics prize, and the University of Manchester, where he took an honours BSc in anatomy, and gained honours in anatomy, pharmacology, pathology and surgery in the MB. He was a keen sportsman, enjoying rugby, skiing and hill-walking. After graduating in 1981, he was a house physician at the University of South Manchester Hospital, and house surgeon at the Manchester Royal Infirmary. He then demonstrated anatomy under P F Harris while he studied for the primary. He did junior surgical posts at Manchester and at the Christie Hospital, where he became interested in reconstructive surgery after treatment for cancer. He was appointed registrar in general surgery in Manchester after passing his FRCS, and then specialised in plastic surgery at the Welsh Regional Centre for Plastic and Burns Surgery and Maxillofacial Surgery at Chepstow, where he became interested in hand surgery under Phil Sykes. He returned to Manchester as a senior house officer in plastic surgery in March 1988 at the Regional Centre for Plastic Surgery at Booth Hall Hospital, where he was influenced by Peter Craig. In November 1988 he was appointed registrar in plastic surgery at the West of Scotland Regional Plastic and Maxillofacial Surgery Unit, Canniesburn Hospital, Glasgow, and two years later was appointed to the plastic surgery and jaw injury service at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Aylesbury. He joined the consultant staff at Canniesburn in 1993 as a consultant plastic surgeon with a special interest in hand surgery. Despite an ever increasingly clinical workload, he was also actively involved in administration and management. He was a member of the specialty board in plastic surgery for the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and had been acting clinical director for the West of Scotland Regional Plastic Surgery Service. He was actively involved in setting up a plastic surgical service in Ghana, spending his leave working there to build up the unit and train the staff. In 1984 he married Karen Margaret Anne Todd, a nurse. They had two daughters, Katie and Hannah, and a son, Nicholas. He died while out hill-walking in Scotland, on 19 February 2000. A Robert J Ratcliffe fellowship has been established to assist trainees in plastic surgery.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008864
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Southam, Frederick Armitage (1850 - 1927)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-03-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003600-E003699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375861375861
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Manchester, the second son of George Southam (qv), Surgeon to the Manchester Infirmary; was educated at Rugby, and matriculated from Trinity College, Oxford, on October 18th, 1869. He was of slight and rather short build, but won his Blue as a sprinter, and kept up an interest in athletics throughout life. After graduation at Oxford (1st Class in Honours School of Natural Science) he continued his medical studies at the Royal Infirmary, Manchester, and held appointments: Physician Assistant, 1876; House Physician, 1877; Resident Surgical Officer, 1878, 1879; then Medical and Surgical Registrar, and for a time Resident at the Barnes Convalescent Hospital. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to the Infirmary in 1880, and became Surgeon on the Staff until he reached the age of 60 in 1910. Other posts held by him were Surgeon to the Manchester Cancer Pavilion, the Christie Hospital, the Northern Hospital for Women and Children, the Victoria Memorial Jewish Hospital. He lectured for a number of years on operative surgery and later was Professor of Clinical Surgery. On retiring he was made Consulting Surgeon and Emeritus Lecturer. He was also at one time Examiner in Surgery at Oxford and at the Victoria University. He was Secretary of the Section of Surgery at the Birmingham Meeting of the British Medical Association in 1890, Vice-President of the Section of Diseases of Women and Children at the London Meeting in 1895, Vice-President of the Section of Surgery at the Carlisle Meeting in 1896, and at the Manchester Meeting in 1902. He competed for the Jacksonian Prize in 1887 with an essay on "The Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment of Tumours of the Bladder". The prize was awarded to E Hurry Fenwick, and Southam received a Certificate of Honourable Mention. During the War (1914-1918) he had charge, as Lieutenant-Colonel RAMC, at the South-Western General Hospital, and as substitute for a surgical colleague away on active service was in charge of a Unit at the Infirmary. Southam as a University graduate well maintained the reputation of the Manchester Medical School both as an operator and teacher, employing great care and skill in the one case, and a concise dogmatism in the other. He published "Remarks on a Series of 120 Operations for Vesical Calculi" (*Brit Med Jour*, 1904, i, 1190), and he operated early for appendicitis (*Brit Med Jour*, 1897, i, 963). He was a keen golfer and a good walker to the last. He died on March 9th, 1927, and after cremation his ashes were deposited in the family vault at St John's, Pendlebury. He married in 1882 Amy Florence Hughes, daughter of the Head Master of Blundell's School. She died in 1923, and Southam then lived with his surgeon son, A H Southam, MCh Oxon, FRCS, at St. John's Street, Manchester, his other son, the Rev Eric Southam, being Vicar of St Mark's, Portsmouth. He left estate of the gross value of £44,900. Publications: *Regional Surgery*, 12mo, London, i, 1882; ii, 1884; iii, 1886.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003678
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching White, Charles Powell (1867 - 1930)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-12-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004700-E004799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376948376948
Occupation Pathologist
Details The fourth son of the Rev L Borrett Powell White, DD, Canon and Prebendary of St Paul's and Rector of St Mary Aldermary in the City of London, was born 21 April 1867. He entered St Paul's School in 1878 and left in July 1886, being then in Math VIII and having been elected a foundationer in 1879. He matriculated with first-class honours at the University of London in January 1884, but went to Cambridge where he had gained a scholarship at Sidney Sussex College in 1886 and a Lovett exhibition in 1887. He graduated BA after being placed a Senior Optime in part 1 of the Mathematical Tripos in 1889. He then entered St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he gained the Burrows and Skynner prizes in 1893 and, after acting as house surgeon, held the Treasurer's research scholarship in pathology for the year 1894-95 and, coming under the influence of A A Kanthack, determined to devote himself to pathology. In 1898 he was appointed pathologist to the Birmingham General Hospital, and in 1900, after making a voyage as surgeon in the SS *Patroclus*, was elected demonstrator of pathology in the Yorkshire College at Leeds. He filled this post for two years, delivered the Erasmus Wilson lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons "On the pathology of tumours", and in 1902 was appointed demonstrator of morbid anatomy and pathology at St Thomas's Hospital, when S G Shattock was lecturer; in 1904 he was advanced to the post of demonstrator of pathology, and in 1905 he became assistant pathologist in the Medical School. White moved to Manchester in 1906 on becoming the first holder of the research studentship of the Pilkington fund, a position he held for the rest of his life. In 1910 he was appointed pathologist to the Christie Hospital for Cancer, and in 1915 he was created special lecturer in pathology at Manchester University. He was also director of the Helen Swindell Cancer Research Laboratories in the University and histologist to the Manchester Committee on Cancer. He married in 1918 Lettice Mary, daughter of Horace Lamb, FRS, professor of mathematics in the University of Manchester. She survived him with a son and a daughter. He died on 26 September 1930, after being paralysed and confined to his bed for two years. White did much good work at a time when pathology was developing from morbid anatomy and was fortunate in working under the two great teachers of his generation, Kanthack and Shattock. He was throughout his life more a pathologist for pathologists than a teacher of undergraduate students. He was treasurer of the Pathological Society of Great Britain, and took an active part in forming a committee of pathologists to watch their interests and secure for them adequate emoluments. Of a shy and retiring disposition, he was widely read in general literature and had a very great knowledge of natural history. Publications: General pathology of tumours, Erasmus Wilson lectures. *Lancet*, 1902, 1, 423 and 491. *Lectures on the pathology of cancer*. Manchester, 1908. Experiments on cell proliferation and metaplasia. *J Path Bact* 1910, 14, 450. *The pathology of growth tumours*. London, 1913. *The principles of pathology*. Manchester, 1927.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004765
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Paterson, James Ralston Kennedy (1897 - 1981)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-02-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006800-E006899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379025379025
Occupation Radiotherapist
Details James Paterson was born in Edinburgh on 21 May 1897. After education at George Heriot's School, Edinburgh, he served from 1915 to 1918 as an officer with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and was awarded the Military Cross. Graduating with honours from Edinburgh University in 1923, he shortly went into radiology and held training appointments in Chicago, Toronto, South Africa, and a Fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. He returned to Edinburgh in 1930 in acting director of the department of radiology at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. He then decided to specialise in the newly emerging specialty of radiotherapy. In 1932 he was appointed director of the Manchester and District Radium Institute which became the amalgamated Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute in the following year. The most formative years of the Manchester department were in its first decade when Paterson built up a centralised well-equipped radiotherapy centre with a network of peripheral clinics extending to a population of four and a half millions. The Paterson Parker rules, a system for ensuring precise and reproducible dosimetry in radium therapy is still in regular use to-day all over the world, though now very largely applied to radium's successors. With a carefully picked staff his department developed the Manchester method of treatment for cancer of the cervix uteri, the technique of precise and balanced beam directed X-ray therapy, and the concept of optimum dose, all of which were fundamental to the development of modern radiotherapy. Paterson was a pioneer in public education about cancer and set up what is now the Manchester Regional Committee on Cancer Education. This centre was unique in devising methods of measuring the effectiveness of this public education. Aware of the need for fundamental research, he developed what is today the very large multi-disciplinary Paterson Research Laboratories, with a staff exceeding 200, and where his wife, Dr Edith Paterson, was the first radiotherapist elucidating clinical problems in the laboratory. His bold organisational skill led to many invitations from overseas to visit and advise governments and related organisations. He was President of the British Society of Radiotherapists, 1938-1939, a founder member of the Faculty of Radiologists (now the Royal College of Radiologists) and its President from 1943 to 1946. He was elected to the FRCS in 1948 and appointed CBE in 1950, during which year he was President of the first post war International Congress of Radiology in London. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Society of Apothecaries in 1961 and of the Faculty of Radiologists in 1966, having been appointed Professor of Radiotherapeutics in the University of Manchester just two years before his retirement. He and his wife then turned their energies to developing a first-class sheep and cattle farm near Moffat, in Scotland. They both retained their lifelong interest in the affairs of the Christie Hospital and made their old friends warmly welcome at their new home. Paterson died there on 29 August 1981 and was survived by his wife, two sons and one daughter.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006842
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Altman, Barry (1927 - 1998)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2016-11-21 2020-01-30
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/381454381454
Occupation General surgeon
Details Barry Altman was director of surgery at White Plains Hospital, New York. Born in London on 29 July 1927 he was the second son of Louis Altman, a millinery manufacturer and his wife Raie née Bacal. Educated in Salford, Lancashire at St John’s Elementary School and Salford Grammar School, he studied medicine at King’s College London and Westminster Medical School qualifying MB BS in 1951. It was at the Westminster that Edward Stanley Lee had a great influence on him and suggested that he became a surgeon. He did house jobs in the Isle of Wight and at the Miller General Hospital in Greenwich before doing his national service in the RAF medical branch as a flight lieutenant from 1952 to 1954. In 1953 he was awarded the Air Officer Commanding’s commendation. In 1955 he joined the staff of the Birmingham Accident Hospital and proceeded to house jobs at the Manchester Royal Infirmary (March 1956 to March 1957); Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute (1957) and Westminster Hospital (1958 to 1960). He passed the fellowship of the college in 1958 and was Hunterian professor from 1962 to 1963. Appointed a senior surgical registrar at the Westminster he spent a year on study leave at Harvard Medical School as a research fellow from 1960 to 1961 and helped to launch the kidney transplantation programme at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. Before he left the Westminster he assisted Sir Roy Calne with his work on renal transplantation. In 1964 he returned to the States taking up three concurrent posts at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Two years later he went to the White Plains Hospital and stayed until 1970, also working at the Grasslands and the St Agnes Hospitals in New York. He continued as an attending surgeon on the staff of White Plains and St Agnes and also the Westchester County Medical Center. At the New York Medical College he was clinical associate professor of surgery. President of the Westchester chapter of the American College of Surgeons, he was also president of the Westchester chapter of the American Cancer Society, chairman of the peer committee on medical and professional review of the Medical Society of Westchester, president of the medical staff of White Plains Hospital and a founder member of the Transplantation Society. He enjoyed cross country skiing and was an enthusiastic sailor. A talented artist he was invited to give three one-man shows, exhibited widely and had paintings in many private collections in the USA and Europe. A few years before he died he also took up sculpture. During his time at Harvard he met Helen Jacob, a psychiatric social worker from Ohio, at a New Year’s Day Party. They married in Boston in 1961 and moved to the UK to live in Dulwich for three years before returning to the USA. They had three children Deborah Jean, a teacher; Louis Gregory, a financial officer and Peter George, a grant and program writer for Texas Citizen’s Action. When he died on 1 January 1998 aged 70, he was survived by his wife, children and seven grandchildren. Helen died on 30 December 2013.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009271
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ainsworth-Davis, John Creyghton (1895 - 1976)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-31
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/378440378440
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details John Creyghton Ainsworth-Davis was born on 23 April 1895 at Aberystwyth. His father was Professor of Biology in the University of Wales and later Principal of the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. He was educated at Westminster School and from there went up to Christ's College, Cambridge, with the Triplet Exhibition and an open exhibition in 1914. At Christ's he started reading medicine but after one term, he joined the 6th Battalion, the Rifle Brigade in December 1914 as a Second Lieutenant and served in France and at Salonika. He was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps in April 1917 as an observer and received his pilot's wings in Egypt. He returned to England in 1918 and was posted to the Central Flying School at Upavon, gained a 1A Certificate at the Advanced Flying School and completed his war service as an instructor. Demobilized in January 1919 he returned to Christ's gaining the BA degree in 1920. He went to St Bartholomew's Hospital in April 1920 and qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in 1923. Next year he passed the Cambridge BCh and in 1925 obtained his MB. He received the MD degree in 1933, having gained the Edinburgh FRCS in 1926 and the English Fellowship in 1929. In 1924 he was house surgeon at All Saints' Hospital for Genito-Urinary Diseases, where he later became registrar and assistant surgeon and was much influenced by Canny Ryall. He held appointments at the Royal Waterloo Hospital, the Bolingbroke Hospital, and at the King Edward VII Hospital for Officers, in each case as consultant in urology. In the second world war he was in the medical branch of the Royal Air Force with the rank of Wing Commander and was officer in charge of the surgical division at the RAF Hospital, Cosford. In his professional life he was Vice-President and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of Public Health and Hygiene, Secretary and President of the Hunterian Society, a member of the Council of the Royal Society of Medicine and Vice-President of the Section of Urology, and a founder member of the British Association of Urological Surgeons. He was a skilful instrumentalist and endoscopist and wrote many papers in specialist journals as well as his book *Essentials of urology* which was published in 1950. Ainsworth-Davis was an athlete of considerable distinction gaining his colours at Christ's at rugby, tennis and athletics. He won a gold medal in the 4 x 400 metres relay in the 1920 Olympic Games and in the same year represented the British Empire against the United States. As a boy he played the violin, and when Sir Adrian Boult brought the BBC Symphony Orchestra to an RAF station during the second world war and was told he was going to meet a Wing Commander Ainsworth-Davis he asked correctly, if this would be the same man who, as a boy, had taken the solo part in Mendelssohn's violin concerto at a Westminster School concert. Sir Adrian remembered the performance as a most distinguished one. At Christ's College he was a member of the 'Original Christie Minstrels' and during his student days at Bart's led a dance band. He was a devotee of ballroom dancing and for this also won a gold medal. He was an enthusiastic Freemason and ran a Lodge of Instruction for many years. Ainsworth-Davis was twice married: first in 1920 to Marguerite Wharry, sister of H M Wharry FRCS (1891-1933), by whom he had one son and two daughters; and secondly in 1947 to Irene Hope. He died on 3 January 1976.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006257
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Burgess, Arthur Henry (1874 - 1948)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-04-24
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003900-E003999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376102376102
Occupation General surgeon Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Born at Stretford, near Manchester, on 2 February 1874, the second child and eldest son of John Henry Burgess, a merchant, and his wife, nee Sharrocks. He was educated at Rose Hill School, Bowden, Cheshire and, after a year in a shipping office, at Owens College, Manchester, where he won the Dalton natural history prize and graduated in zoology in 1892. In the medical school he was Dauntesey scholar 1892, junior Platt physiology exhibitioner 1893 and senior 1894, university scholar 1894, Turner scholar and Dumville surgical prizeman 1896. He had taken the MSc in physiology in 1895 and qualified in medicine and surgery in 1896, taking the Conjoint examination the same year, which was his only divagation from a wholly Manchester education. He was appointed resident surgical officer at Manchester Royal Infirmary, took the Fellowship in 1899, and became assistant surgeon to the infirmary in 1905. He was promoted surgeon in 1910, and consulting surgeon in 1934. He was surgeon to the Manchester Children's Hospital, Pendlebury, and the Manchester Union Hospital, Crumpsall, at both of which he had held resident posts, and to the Christie Cancer Hospital. As lecturer on surgery in the Victoria University, he was remarkable for his careful and detailed teaching, and he was elected professor of clinical surgery in 1921. Burgess joined the territorial RAMC on its formation in 1908. During the war of 1914-18 he was consulting surgeon to the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force, and in charge of No 33 General Hospital, having previously been surgeon to the officers' section of the 2nd Western General Hospital, Manchester. He was consultant in surgery to the Ministry of Health emergency medical service in the war of 1939-45. At the College he was a member of Council from 1925, a vice-president in 1934-36, Bradshaw lecturer 1933, and Hunterian orator 1941. Owing to the bomb damage to the College house, his oration was delivered in the rooms of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was president of the British Medical Association when it met at Manchester in 1929, and of the Association of Surgeons in 1933. He was elected an honorary Doctor of Manitoba University as immediate past president of the BMA at the Winnipeg meeting in 1930, and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons when he delivered the J B Murphy oration at Chicago in 1931. Burgess was technically a supreme general surgeon. As a young man he set out to achieve complete efficiency, and was never content without the greatest care in preparation and all other details. He achieved safety and. ease in all kinds of abdominal operations. Urology was always a main interest, but he also undertook thyroid surgery, and was an early practitioner of spinal analgesia and of electro-surgery. He always took advantage of whatever any of the ancillary sciences could provide to help, the surgeon. Burgess married in 1901 Elspeth, second daughter of Thomas Robinson of Leek, Staffordshire. Mrs Burgess died on 31 August 1941. Burgess died suddenly at Edinburgh, where he had gone to attend the annual meeting of the Association of Surgeons, on 6 May 1948, aged 74. He was survived by four sons and a daughter. He had lived at Ashlea, Cheadle, Cheshire, and practised at 17 St John Street, Manchester. Burgess was a tall, very upright, good-looking man, somewhat stiff in manner but essentially friendly and hospitable. He was a sound musician and took an active interest in the Manchester College of Music. He had travelled widely, and often took his holidays in Ireland, where he claimed to have visited every county. Publications:- 500 consecutive cases of acute appendicitis. *Brit med J*. 1912, 1, 415. The debt of surgery to the ancillary sciences (presidential address BMA). *Brit med J*. 1929, 2, 131. Electrosurgery (Bradshaw lecture RCS 1933). *Lancet*, 1933, 2, 1355 and 1411. Charles White (Hunterian oration RCS 1941). *Lancet*, 1941, 1, 235.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003919
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Butler, Edward Clive Barber (1904 - 1999)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

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
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jenkins, David Hughes (1917 - 1968)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-08-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005800-E005899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378032378032
Occupation General surgeon
Details David Jenkins was born on 29 September 1917, at Llanrhystwd, near Aberystwyth, in Cardiganshire. His father, a language graduate and later HM Inspector of Schools in Wales, was then in the Army and only that month had been promoted Captain and awarded the Military Cross. Following the war the family set up home in Cardiff where, at the age of 10, he became a pupil of Cardiff High School. Armed with a City of Cardiff Scholarship, he studied medicine at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire and the Welsh National School of Medicine, graduating BSc in 1937 and MB BCh in 1940. That same year he also took the MB of the University of London. Hugh Jenkins was a distinguished student, and at medical school gained the John McLeaon Prize in midwifery, the Willie Seager Prize in surgery and the Butterworth Prize for "the best all-round candidate of the year". Colleagues were impressed by his amazing clarity of mind. Yet academic achievements were not attained at the expense of other activities. He was a keen sportsman, representing the medical school at rugby, and playing golf and tennis, and was an active member of the Medical Students' Club, of which he became treasurer. He was also co-founder of the students' show 'Anencephalics'. On qualification, he was appointed house surgeon to Professor Lambert Rogers in Cardiff Royal Infirmary. Like his father before him, he was then off to the war as medical officer to the 5th Reconnaissance Regiment with the Persia and Iraq Force. Later he served with the 29th General Hospital in India, France and Germany and was graded surgical specialist. Following demobilisation in 1946, Hugh Jenkins passed the BS London. He remained in the Territorial Army while undertaking his formal surgical training in Cardiff. He also held appointments in the Christie Hospital, Manchester and in St Mark's Hospital. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1949, a Master of Surgery of the University of London in 1952 and was appointed consultant surgeon to the United Cardiff Hospitals in 1954. Although a general surgeon, Hugh Jenkins' main interest was in the large intestine, particularly ulcerative colitis, and this brought him wide recognition. His extensive knowledge, keen judgement, impeccable surgical skill and meticulous attention to detail, were the hallmarks of excellence in this difficult branch of surgery. His deep concern for his patients and their problems brought particular benefit to those with colitis, who became largely dependent on his unfailing help and skill, both in the hospital and through the South Wales branch of the Ileostomy Association, of which he was President. Shortly before his death, he received a grant for a research assistant to study protein disorders in colitis - work which has since continued. Although dedicated to surgery and the future of the medical services, Hugh Jenkins had wide interests and deep vision. An enthusiastic golfer and member of the Royal Porthcawl and Cardiff Golf Clubs, he won many a golf match by the same close attention to detail which marked his surgical practice. He was also a keen chess player, a skilled carpenter and photographer and a voracious reader of all literature, particularly history, world politics, biography and poetry. Deeply interested in the theatre and pictorial arts, he was, too, an inveterate traveller - both in a surgical capacity and as a lover of other lands and peoples. He spoke several languages fluently. He was a member of the Moynihan Chirurgical Club and a founder member of the Surgical Sixty Club. In 1951 he married Mollie Bladon, a gold medallist of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and had two daughters, Louise and Abigail. In his home 'shop' was not allowed, and one could appreciate there, more than in any other place, the breadth of Hugh's intellect and knowledge and the concern and kindness which underlaid his life. Jenkins died suddenly and tragically in Malta on 2 April 1968. His death left a great gap in the surgical life of Cardiff.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005849
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Pringle, James Hogarth (1863 - 1941)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-10-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004400-E004499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376669376669
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born 26 January 1863 at Parramatta, Sydney, NSW, the eldest child and only son of George Hogarth Pringle, MD, FRCS Ed, and Annie Oakes Byrnes, his wife. For an account of G H Pringle (1833-72) see A Logan Turner's *Joseph, Baron Lister, centenary volume*, Edinburgh, 1927, pages 176-177, and photograph of the residents at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary in 1854, including Lister and Pringle. J H Pringle was educated at Sedbergh School and at Edinburgh University, where he graduated in 1885. After studying at Hamburg, Berlin, and Vienna, where he formed lifelong friendships with Anton von Eiselsberg and Carl Lauenstein, he served as house surgeon and clinical assistant in the gynaecological ward at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and house surgeon at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Here in 1888, the year in which he took the Membership, he assisted Sir William Macewen in his pathological work, and subsequently became assistant surgeon under him. He took the Fellowship in 1892, and was elected surgeon to the Royal Infirmary, Glasgow in 1896. In 1899 he was elected a Fellow of the Glasgow Faculty, and its Visitor in 1923, in which year he became consulting surgeon to the Infirmary on his retirement. During the war of 1914-18 Pringle served at No 4 Scottish General Hospital at Stobhill, with a commission as major, RAMC(T), dated 3 July 1908. He was for many years lecturer in surgery and demonstrator of anatomy at Queen Margaret College for women students in Glasgow University. He married on 30 April 1917 Ethelmay Christie, who survived him, but they had no children. He died at Whiteflat, Killearn, Stirlingshire on 24 April 1941, aged 78. Pringle was a reserved man, with a somewhat hard and downright manner hiding his essential humanity. While a clinical surgeon of the first rank, he was at heart a scientist and experimenter. He was a thorough operator, with a delicate touch and mechanical skill, and had deep knowledge of anatomy and pathology. Though he had no ambition for the limelight, his worth was appreciated by his colleagues. He was an original member of the Association of Surgeons and of the Moynihan Chirurgical Club. His writings cover a wide range of topics and record much original observation. He devised new operations for umbilical and inguinal hernia. His work on vein-grafting for the maintenance of direct arterial circulation attracted attention, as did his demonstration with Professor J H Teacher before the Glasgow Royal Medico-chirurgical Society of post-mortem digestion of the oesophagus. In 1908 he was engaged on pioneer work in the treatment of melanotic sarcoma, and early in the twentieth century he successfully transplanted animal urethra to replace excised strictures. To the Association of Surgeons he demonstrated a new operation to save sight, in cases of haemorrhage into the optic nerve due to injury in the temporo-frontal region. At the time of his death he was working over his early studies of the mechanism of dislocation of the hip. Pringle was a regular reader in the library of the College, though latterly his visits to London were infrequent. Subject to his wife's life-rent, he left the residue of his property to found a Hogarth Pringle scholarship or scholarships at Edinburgh University, for post-graduate research in surgery at any school approved by the Edinburgh professor of clinical surgery, in memory of his father and mother. He left his portraits of his father and of Sir William Macewen to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh with possession to his wife for her life. (*Weekly Scotsman*, 11 October 1941, communicated by Prof Grey Turner.) Publications: Repair of the uretha by transplantation of the urethra of animals. *Ann Surg* 1904, 40,387-397. Remarks on the treatment of empyema. *Brit med J* 1905, 1, 809. Notes on the arrest of hepatic haemorrhage due to trauma. *Ann Surg* 1908, 48, 541-549. A method of operation in cases of melanotic tumours of the skin. *Edin med J* 1908, 23, 496. *Fractures and their treatment*. London, 1910. A method of treating umbilical hernia. *Edin med J* 1913, 10, 493. Two cases of vein-grafting for the maintenance of a direct arterial circulation. *Lancet*, 1913, 1, 1795. Digestion of the oesophagus as a cause of post-operative haematemesis, with J H Teacher. *Brit J Surg* 1918-19, 6, 523-536. Cutaneous melanoma: two cases alive 30 and 38 years after operation. *Lancet*, 1937, 1, 508.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004486
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Orr, Wilbert McNeill (1930 - 2008)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-02-26
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/372781372781
Occupation General surgeon Transplant surgeon
Details Wilbert McNeill Orr, known as ‘Willie’, was a renal transplant researcher and surgeon, and later a general surgeon in Manchester. He was born on 3 April 1930 in Trim, County Meath, Ireland, the son of David Orr, a bank manager, and Wilamena McNeill, a teacher. He attended Sligo Grammar School and entered Trinity College, Dublin, for his medical studies. In addition to his scholastic work, he became an enthusiastic oarsman and was captain of the senior eight rowing team that came third in the head of the river race at Putney and made the final of the Ladies’ Plate at Henley. In the last year of his studies he was a demonstrator in physiology at Trinity College Dublin Medical School and took a house physician’s post at Steeven’s Hospital, Dublin, under the watchful eye of P B B Gatenby. Wilbert Orr then went to the England for a house surgeon post, working at the Birmingham Accident Centre, before undertaking his first senior house officer post at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford in 1956. Deciding on a surgical career, he studied for the primary FRCS at the College on the basic sciences course. He passed this examination, before becoming senior house officer to Sir Stanford Cade at the Westminster Hospital, London. Going further north to gain more experience, he undertook a senior house officer post at the Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) and showed his teaching skills shortly afterwards as tutor in surgery at the MRI. During two years’ of National Service in the RAMC, he was a junior specialist in surgery with the rank of captain, serving with the Cameroon Force in West Africa. Returning as tutor in clinical surgery at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, Willie spent a year in this post in 1962, before becoming assistant lecturer. An early joint publication with Kenneth Bloor was a case report on ‘haemorrhage from ileal varices due to portal hypertension’: this was the forerunner of many joint papers and lectures over the years. In 1964 he was research fellow at the Paterson Laboratories of the Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute, the first of many academic posts with a research interest in surgery. Senior registrar training was undertaken at a combined post at the Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, London, with Ralph Shackman, before he returned to Manchester as a lecturer in surgery. Some research work on renal function with Geoffrey Chisholm, then in London, led to other publications, as did his later stay in Manchester with Athol G Riddell on such diverse subjects as ‘the management of arterial emboli’ and ‘chemotherapy in the treatment of cancer’. Riddell was later translated to the chair in Bristol. During this lectureship he worked in the research laboratories of the Harvard Medical School under Francis D Moore, Moseley professor of surgery and surgeon-in-chief at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. Willie became involved in the dog liver transplantation work, or the ‘Sputnik’ programme, as did so many other research fellows. Some of this work was later submitted for the degree of master of surgery at the University of Manchester. He also worked with Joseph E Murray, who in 1990 received a Nobel prize for his pioneering renal transplantation work. Some joint publications and lectures followed on the survival of both liver and kidney transplants from this one year stay in the USA. Returning to Manchester as lecturer in surgery with honorary consultant status in 1967, he was promoted to senior lecturer and became director of the renal transplantation unit. He was a founder member of the British Transplantation Society and, from 1969 to 1985, an elected non-professorial member of Senate, sub-dean of clinical studies at the University of Manchester and for 10 years Royal College of Surgeons of England tutor at the Manchester Royal Infirmary. His last 16 years, from 1974 until retirement in 1990, were spent as a consultant in general surgery, where he was happy to display the diverse range of ‘specialties’ in which he had been trained. He remained a member of the Vascular Society, the Surgical Research Society and the British Society for Immunology. As a fellow of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland he served on its council. Wilbert McNeill Orr married Ann Fullerton, a physiotherapist, in 1955. They had five children: Jane became a nurse, Michael an orthopaedic surgeon and a fellow of the College, Anthony a general practitioner, Robert an actor and Susan a speech therapist. Willie Orr maintained a balanced lifestyle with outside interests in fly fishing, clock making and gardening. He died on 30 June 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000598
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Macleod, Kenneth (1840 - 1922)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-07-11
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/374795374795
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Trumisgary Manse in the island of North Uist, Outer Hebrides, on July 23rd, 1840, the eldest son of the Rev Norman Macleod, who in the disruption of 1843 on the question of patronage seceded from the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and remained in North Uist as a 'Free Church Minister'. The name is of Scandinavian origin (*see* Scott's *Lord of the Isles*), but he is not to be confused with the Norman Macleods, father and son, whose biographies are in the *Dictionary of National Biography*. Kenneth Macleod entered Marischal College at 13 in 1853, and in 1857 began his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh, where he took first prizes in surgery, medicine, midwifery, and medical jurisprudence. After graduating he was for a year and a half Assistant Medical Officer in the Durham County Asylum, during which time he published *Practicable Mental Science* (8vo, 1863). Competition for the Indian Medical Service having been reopened, after a closure of some years, Macleod passed first of seventy candidates and was commissioned Assistant Surgeon on April 1st, 1865, taking the course at the Army Medical School at Netley, as was then the custom. Macleod first served as Civil Surgeon at Jessore, Bengal, and submitted a *Report on the Epizootic Diseases of Cattle in Lower Bengal*, in which he showed that the common cattle disease of India was rinderpest (fol, Calcutta, 1867). In October, 1868, he became Medical Officer of the 6th Bengal Infantry at Jalpaiguri. In December, 1869, he was put on the Cattle Plague Commission, He also published at this period: *Medico-legal Experiences in the Bengal Presidency, being a Report on the Medico-legal Returns received from the Civil Surgeons of Bengal during the Years 1868 and 1869* (12mo, Calcutta, 1875). This routine service in the IMS as Civil and Regimental Surgeon occupied less than four years. He was appointed Secretary to the Inspector-General of Hospitals in 1872, a title which was changed to Director-General in 1875. Macleod held the post until 1879. During the latter part of this period he began to act as Professor of Anatomy in the Calcutta Medical College and as Second Surgeon to the College Hospital. On December 31st, 1879, he became Professor of Surgery and First Surgeon, posts which he held until his retirement on April 15th, 1892. This appointment gave him opportunities for a large private practice as a Surgeon; he also published *Operative Surgery in the Calcutta Medical College Hospital: Statistics, Cases and Comments* (8vo, 5 plates, London, 1885). Macleod found time for much public work. He acted from 1879-1884 as Consulting Health Officer of Calcutta. In 1885 he was elected Municipal Commissioner for Park Street Ward, the chief European Ward in Calcutta. He founded the Calcutta Medical Society in January, 1880, was the first Secretary with Robert Harvey as his colleague. and was later its President. He was also at various times President of the Calcutta Public Health Society; Vice-President of the Bengal Social Science Association, and of the National Indian Association, Bengal Branch; President of a Committee which originated a Veterinary School in Calcutta; and before he left India in 1892 the foundation stone of the Bengal Veterinary College was laid by Sir Charles Elliott. He was also Secretary and Medical Officer of the Martiniere Schools in Calcutta. From 1871-1892 he acted as editor of the *Indian Medical Gazette*. He had been promoted to the rank of Brigade Surgeon on June 26th, 1888, and later Colonel IMS. He retired on April 15th, 1892, and in England served as a Member of the Medical Board of the India Office, first under Sir Joseph Fayrer (qv) and then under Sir William Hooper (qv), till he was appointed Professor of Clinical Military Medicine at the Army Medical School, Netley, in August, 1897, a post he held until July, 1905. The Netley School was transferred to Millbank, Westminster, in 1905. He also followed Sir Joseph Fayrer as President of the Sanitary Assurance Association. He was besides a Vice-President of the Medical College and Policlinic, and President of the Section of Tropical Medicine at the Ipswich Meeting of the British Medical Association in 1900. A man of fine physique and strong constitution, he was able to get through an immense amount of work, professional and public, for twenty years in Calcutta, whilst his skill as a surgeon brought him a large private practice. Somewhat brusque in manner, he was a good friend to junior officers. He died at Duncaple, West End, Southampton, on December 17th, 1922. He was twice married, first in 1865 to Jemima Isabella MacDonald, who died in 1874, leaving three daughters, two sons having died in infancy. By his second marriage in 1877 with Jane Christie Aitken he had three daughters and four sons, three of whom served with distinction in the War, 1914-1918. His portrait is in the Honorary Fellows' Album. Publications:- Besides those mentioned above, MacLeod made numerous publications and was editor of the *Indian Med Gaz* from 1871-1892. "Medical Education in India." - *Caledonian Med Jour*, 1908, xxiii, 8. *Indian Medical Memories*. *History of the Medical Schools of the Bengal Presidency*, 1872.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002612
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Schofield, Philip Furness (1930 - 2012)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Sir Miles Irving
Publication Date 2012-04-13 2013-10-04
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/374376374376
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details Philip Schofield was a colorectal surgeon in Manchester. There is a belief, that has some foundation, that northern surgeons of Schofield's era were a special breed, who were hard working, tough, decisive, technically competent and highly experienced. If so, he was a prime example of such surgeons who, in his case, also commanded affection, respect and admiration for his intellectual honesty, in equal measure. Born in Huddersfield, the only child of an industrial chemist, he attended the local grammar school and, on leaving school, somewhat surprisingly for someone with his undoubted intellectual abilities, became a professional rugby league player. Although his personal and physical qualities would have guaranteed a highly successful sporting career, this was interrupted by National Service in the RAF. At the end of conscription he crossed the Pennines to enter Manchester Medical School and began a career that was to be based entirely in Lancashire. There he met and married Wendy, a fellow doctor, who was to be the rock upon which his successful family life and surgical career was built and sustained. His surgical training in Manchester led him to gain his fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1962 and of the English College in 1963. He then commenced his lifetime interest in colorectal disease, writing his MD on Crohn's disease. It was in the course of this research that he demonstrated the essential role of the terminal ileum in the absorption of vitamin B12 and the requirement for lifetime B12 injections to prevent megaloblastic anaemia in patients who had undergone terminal ileal resection. On the basis of this work he gained a Hunterian professorship in 1964. A year in the United States as the John M Wilson memorial scholar at the Cleveland Clinic allowed him to work with Rupert B Turnbull Jr, one of the international doyens of colorectal surgery. His consultant career in Manchester followed a somewhat unusual path, commencing with an appointment to Ashton-under-Lyne Hospital in 1969. This was followed by a move to Trafford General Hospital, and from there he transferred to the University Hospital of South Manchester in 1976, an appointment which included clinical sessions at the famous Christie Hospital. It was through this latter connection that he was able to pursue his interest in complex pelvic surgery, working in partnership with his urological and gynaecological colleagues. In addition he took advantage of the Paterson laboratories to explore the basic science aspects of his specialty and, with colleagues and research fellows, he produced over 200 original papers and chapters on topics ranging from the flow cytometry characteristics of colorectal cancers, to the management of carcinomas involving the vagina. A notable and treatment-changing randomised trial of preoperative radiotherapy in the management of rectal cancer conducted with Roger James, a radiotherapist, received international acclaim ('Adjuvant preoperative radiotherapy for locally advanced rectal carcinoma. Results of a prospective, randomized trial' *Dis Colon Rectum*. 1994 Dec;37[12]:1205-14). His enthusiasm for innovative practical surgery led to him developing new approaches such as the creation of a myocutaneous flap, which could be used in the one stage management of difficult problems such as complex perineal fistulae. He demonstrated equal passion for teaching, particularly postgraduate trainees, specifically at the operating table. His reputation in both these aspects led to him being invited as a visiting professor and lecturer all over the world. In 1984 he was elected a member of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons. Notably, he was invited to deliver the prestigious William C Bernstein memorial lecture in Minneapolis in 1994. Similar accolades followed at home, when he was appointed first as honorary reader and then visiting professor of surgery at Manchester University. He was president of the section of surgery of Manchester Medical Society, president of both the section of surgery and the section of coloproctology of the Royal Society of Medicine, and president of the North of England Gastroenterology Society. However, the accolade he most savoured was his appointment in 1992 as president of the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland, a society he and a nucleus of others had campaigned to establish in order to put the sub-specialty on an independent footing. Philip Schofield also recognised the importance of surgeons being involved in administration and policy making, and not just sitting back and blaming management when administrative matters went wrong. He allowed himself to be put forward for leadership roles in this aspect of health services management, and as a result successively chaired medical executive committees, the regional sub-committee for surgery, and the north west regional committee for hospital medical services. He showed similar dedication to the administration of surgical education, being chairman of the board of the primary FRCS examiners, chairman of the north western regional specialist training committee, a member of the presidential board of surgical specialties of the Royal College of Surgeons, and a member of the specialist advisory committee in general surgery. Learning from his experiences in the United States, he set up with others the acclaimed M62 training course in coloproctology. When retirement eventually came in 1995 he turned his talents to the taxing task of providing medico-legal reports, at which he excelled. He built up a huge national practice as an expert witness. Just as he forged high standards of care in clinical coloproctology, so he campaigned for high standards of report writing in medico-legal practice. In 1997 he set up, with the Royal Society of Medicine, a report writing training day at the Law Society. This was the first step in the now accepted principle that doctors needed training if they were to become expert witnesses in medico-legal cases. It was whilst writing the opinion section of such a report on 12 February 2010 that he suffered a massive stroke. His formidable constitution and the devoted and tender care of Wendy and his three children meant that he lived for a further two years, before dying peacefully on 18 March 2012, aged 82.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002193
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Gillingham, Francis John (1916 - 2010)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Angus E Stuart
Publication Date 2011-12-20 2013-11-15
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373969373969
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Gillingham was professor of neurosurgery at the University of Edinburgh. He was born in Dorchester, Dorset, on 15 March 1916, the son of John Herbert Gillingham, a businessman, and Lily Gillingham née Eavis. He was educated at the Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester, and then studied medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School, where he won prizes in surgery and obstetrics. After graduation and house posts with Sir James Patterson Ross and Ronald Christie, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was deployed for 18 months in Sir Hugh Cairns' 'crash course' at Oxford on all aspects of neurological trauma. Gillingham later became commanding officer of the number 4 neurological surgical unit in the Middle East and Italy - the 'nomadic surgeons'. His unit chased after the 8th Army in the desert for some two months during the huge battle of El Alamein and then to Sicily. During this time Gillingham contracted poliomyelitis, which left him with a paralysed jaw. He ate slops for three months, but, in his own words, he eventually 'cheeked' his way back to command the unit. After the war he became a senior registrar in general surgery and then in neurosurgery at Bart's, and in 1950 he was appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon and a senior lecturer in surgical neurology at the University of Edinburgh. Gillingham spent 12 years working alongside Norman McOmish Dott, one of the great triumvirate of neurosurgeons that also included Cairns in Oxford and Sir Geoffrey Jefferson in Manchester. In 1962 Gillingham became a reader and, in 1963, professor of surgical neurology at Edinburgh. Gillingham's experiences during the Second World War gave him an understanding of, and a lasting interest in, head injuries. He kept meticulous notes on how bullets entered, traversed and often exited soldiers' brains, and correlated these injuries with any abnormal central nervous system signs or behavioural and emotional aberrations. He later described an area now known as the reticular activating system, noticing that injuries to this part of the brain always resulted in total loss or serious loss of consciousness. Gillingham regarded this area as the seat of the conscious mind, an analogy being the central processing unit of the computer. In recognition of this work he was awarded the medal of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons (in May 2009). When his colleague in Edinburgh, David Whitteridge, described the use of microelectrodes in distinguishing between grey and white matter, Gillingham immediately saw their usefulness in distinguishing deep brain structures. From these first microelectrode recording studies, fundamental insights were gained which improved the accuracy of locating lesions within the brain, including the observation that spontaneous rhythmical discharge from the thalamus was synchronous with tremor. However, the main emphasis of his work in Edinburgh was on stereotaxis (or the use of three-dimensional coordinate systems to locate and operate on targets in the body), which he used as an aid to localising brain lesions. He was introduced to stereotactic surgery by Gérard Guiot, who had visited Edinburgh to learn aneurysmal surgery from Dott and Gillingham. Gillingham's wealth of experience in aneurysmal surgery led him to adapt Guiot's stereotactic method. Over the years he refined his procedures, targeting the cerebellum, brain stem and cervical spine to help patients with chronic pain and dystonias. Results from 60 patients with Parkinson's symptoms showed that electrocoagulation of lesions in the globus pallidus, internal capsule and thalamus, either separately or in combination, reduced tremor and rigidity in 88% of cases. In this era predating MRI scans, stereotactic neurosurgery proved to be one of the most important developments in 20th century brain surgery. Gillingham's interest in the nature of memory and evolution never diminished. One day, discussing Marcel Proust's *In remembrance of times past*, he remarked that Proust may have had temporal lobe epilepsy. Gillingham pointed out that temporal lobectomy on the left side had to carefully done, lest damage to the superior temporal gyrus caused loss of cognitive memory. He added that the hippocampus, amygdala and the wider functions of the temporal lobe are concerned with memory, both long- and short-term. Gillingham was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1970. In 1980 he became president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, where he vigorously pursued and established fellowships in surgical sub-specialties. Education was a primary interest, and he supported the use of television and other visual aids. After he retired from Edinburgh, Gillingham was professor of neurosurgery at the King Khalid University Hospital in Riyadh - at that time a veritable nest of distinguished medicos. Gillingham's services were in demand during the planning of a new medical school and I remember him insisting on a helicopter pad being built. With great gusto, he improved training and skills in the neurosurgery section, which soon began to flourish. In 1945 Gillingham married Judy (Irene Jude), who was a constant support. Cairns, a brilliant administrator, arranged their wedding locally in Oxford, followed by a reception in his house. After the war they settled in a splendid house overlooking the Forth, where Judy was a sparkling hostess, entertaining guests with tales of their many tours abroad. They had four sons (Jeremy, who predeceased him following a skiing accident, Timothy, Simon and Adam) and many grandchildren. John Gillingham died on 3 January 2010, at the age of 93. His modesty and kindliness were apparent throughout his life; all who met him admired him. Once, walking through the main corridor of the King Khalid Hospital in the company of a Syrian surgeon, we encountered John, advancing towards us with his entourage. As they passed by, the Syrian doctor lent over and whispered in my ear: 'Do you see that man? I would never tell him so, but I would do anything for him!'
Resource Identifier RCS: E001786
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Hall, Michael Henry (1925 - 2014)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Tim Philp
Publication Date 2014-11-25 2016-04-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006400-E006499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378613378613
Occupation Urologist
Details Michael Hall was a consultant urologist at the Forest Groups of Hospitals. He was born on 2 April 1925 in Peking, China. His father qualified in medicine from Durham. Soon after, in 1922, he took up a post at a mission hospital in China, moving with his newly-married wife to Peking. There he stayed until the outbreak of the Second World War, specialising in respiratory medicine and allegedly treating the last Emperor for TB. Michael was the second of four children. Together with his younger siblings, he grew up in the care of a Chinese amah (or nanny). All four became fluent in Mandarin, a skill he later used when he unexpectedly came to operate with nurses from China who were working in East London. Aged seven, he was sent to school in England and won a classics scholarship to Chafyn Grove School in Salisbury, Wiltshire, moving later to Bromsgrove School. From there he became an undergraduate at Worcester College, Oxford. For some time in Oxford he shared rooms with Harold Ellis. Working in the anatomy school under Le Gros Clarke, he studied the lumbosacral spines of volunteers to work out the optimal position for the lumbar roll on seats being designed for submariners. His conclusions corresponded exactly with the design of the Victorian armchairs at home! During his undergraduate years, he developed a duodenal ulcer which resulted in a pyloric stenosis. This he initially treated himself by aspiration, passing a nasogastric tube nightly for a considerable period until persuaded to undergo a Polya gastrectomy aged 24. After qualifying BM BCh in 1948, Michael continued to train in Oxford and the Hammersmith, moving up through the junior surgical grades, achieving his FRCS in 1952. He met his wife, Anita, then a Swedish au pair, in 1955 when she was admitted to the Radcliffe Infirmary with acute appendicitis on his take. Having removed her appendix, on discharge he gave her his phone number 'in case any of her visiting relatives needed a guide round Oxford'. They married in Sweden in 1957. In that year he was appointed as a senior registrar to Poole-Wilson in Manchester, where he remained for seven years. During that time, he trained in oncology at the Christie Hospital and became adept at endoscopic prostatectomy using the prostatic cold punch. He was ahead of his time in concluding that urology needed to become a specialty requiring full-time urologists. His refusal to apply for a general surgery with an interest in urology post held back his elevation to consultant, until Whipps Cross in north east London advertised for a full time urologist. He was appointed in 1963. As a consultant, he brought prostatic punch surgery to London, teaching himself transurethral resection as this superior technique evolved. He maintained a considerable interest in prostatic cancer, working closely in joint clinics with Harold Hope-Stone from the London Hospital. He published little, but did note in patients with enuresis a higher than expected incidence of spina bifida occulta (SBO), and observed a link between SBO, irritative bladder symptoms and what he termed the 'funnel neck sign'. This finding of a funnel shaped posterior urethra seen cystoscopically had been described by J B Macalpine (with whom Poole-Wilson had worked) in his presidential address to the urology section of the Royal Society of Medicine and published in their *Proceedings* of 1934. Macalpine judged this resulted from 'weakness or paralysis of the internal sphincter' secondary to nervous disorders of the bladder. This funnelling could be seen on IVU (intravenous urogram) as a v-shaped pooling of contrast in the posterior urethra. Enlisting his son to review all the X-rays, IVUs and cystoscopic findings in his patients with and without SBO, the work was presented at the annual meetings of the British Association of Urological Surgeons and the British Association of Clinical Anatomists in 1987. It raised little subsequent academic interest for what, we would now recognise, is the opening of the bladder neck during involuntary detrusor contractions - the unstable bladder - giving rise to symptoms of frequency, urgency, urge incontinence and enuresis. The association of bladder dysfunction and spina bifida occulta is now well accepted. He held very firm views on aspects of practice. Urethral catheterisation had to be performed with full sterile precautions: masks, sterile gowns and gloves, and full sterile fields. Juniors were not allowed to use catheter introducers. He could be very forceful. On one occasion, during an outbreak of Klebsiella wound infections, he became convinced this was caused by hand to hand transmission of bacteria and ordered the hospital carpenter to remove all toilet doors on the urology ward in an effort to prevent further spread of infection from patients handling contaminated door handles. For some years he worked with the Regional Health Authority on a variety of projects and was particularly involved with strategic planning, advising the centralisation of services and consequent closure of small satellite hospitals. The closure of his favourite Forest Hospital in Buckhurst Hill contributed to his decision to retire from NHS practice at the age of 63. After retirement, he and Anita moved to Southwold in Suffolk, to a house next to John Adnams of Adnams Brewery, whose beer he enthusiastically consumed most lunchtimes in the Lord Nelson. He acquired a lathe and the couple took up and became expert furniture restorers, Michael restoring the frames, Anita the upholstery. Having noticed its poor state of repair, they even reupholstered his barber's chair in antelope hide - still in everyday use. Always a keen gardener (after work they would conduct a 'ward round' of the garden), they acquired an allotment. He was delighted when his grandson became a medical student, the fourth generation of Hall males to become doctors. All in all it was a happy and fulfilling retirement. Michael died peacefully on 4 September 2014. He was 89. He was survived by his wife, Anita, his son Per, a plastic surgeon, and his daughter, Catherine, a senior lecturer and course leader at the London College of Fashion.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006430
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Hargreaves, Arthur Walsh (1934 - 2021)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Sir Miles Irving
Publication Date 2021-06-04
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009900-E009999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/384649384649
Occupation General surgeon
Details Arthur Hargreaves was the lead consultant general surgeon for Salford hospitals and a lecturer in surgery at the University of Manchester. He was born on 9 June 1934 in Darwen, Lancashire, the son of Percy Walsh Hargreaves, an engineer and general manager, and Lillie Kendall Hargreaves née Muir. He was educated at Darwen Grammar School and subsequently at Altrincham Grammar School for Boys, from where he gained admission to Manchester University medical school in 1954. In 1959 he was elected president of the medical students’ representative council prior to qualifying in medicine in 1960. He soon decided upon a career in surgery, no doubt influenced by the proud Manchester school of surgery tradition, which boasted specialist surgeons such as Sir Geoffrey Jefferson, Sir Harry Platt and Sir John Charnley, as well as noted general surgeons, including Harry Teesdale Simmons, Peter McEvedy, William Francis (‘Frank’) Nicholson, Robert Wyse and Anthony (‘Tony’) Anscombe, all of whom put a premium on delivering high quality surgery to the population of the north west. Arthur set about his training for a career in general surgery with house officer appointments at Manchester Royal Infirmary and Withington Hospital, and as a tutor of physiology at the medical school. Further training led to busy posts as a resident surgical officer at Salford and then as a senior registrar at Manchester Royal Infirmary. He passed his fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1963 and of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1965. His training in general surgery, at which he excelled, led to him becoming especially interested in endocrine and colorectal surgery, the latter leading to laboratory research with his surgical colleague Nigel Keddie into the healing of colonic anastomoses, the findings subsequently being published in the *British Journal of Surgery* (‘Colonic anastomosis. A clinical and experimental study’ *Br J Surg* 1968 Oct;55[10]:774-7; ‘Colonic anastomosis: a histopathological study in the rabbit’ *Br J Surg* 1969 Sep;56[9]:673-6). His interest in thyroid surgery led to him having notable publications on adolescent thyrotoxicosis, carcinoma of the thyroid, multiple endocrine neoplasia and post thyroidectomy hypocalcaemia, contributing to his reputation as a leading authority on endocrine surgery. His paper on emergency surgery for acute cholecystitis recorded his experience of the developing practise of urgent cholecystectomy for the acutely inflamed gall bladder, challenging the old ‘wait until the inflammation resolves’ philosophy (‘Emergency surgery for acute cholecystitis’ *Postgrad Med J*. 1967 Jun;43[500]:406-8). In his series of 55 cases, he commented that acute cholecystectomy was perfectly safe and effective, providing the procedure was carried out by an experienced surgeon using the correct techniques. Arthur was soon appointed as a consultant surgeon to Salford Royal Infirmary and Hope Hospital, Salford, combined with an honorary position as a lecturer in surgery at the University of Manchester. He was particularly pleased with his appointment to Salford Royal Infirmary, which had a national reputation as a voluntary hospital where some of the north’s most famous surgeons had worked. However, things were about to change radically. In the early 1970s, the University of Manchester set about expanding its medical school in order to increase recruitment of medical practitioners to work in the north west of England, which was, relatively speaking, deprived of doctors. In order to bring this about it was decided to increase the size and number of its teaching hospitals and in so doing enlarge the medical school to become the biggest in Europe. Two previous hospital expansions were based upon the existing Manchester Royal Infirmary and the Central Manchester hospitals, with Withington and Christie hospitals forming the University Hospitals of South Manchester. Discussions then took place on how best to develop secondary services in the northern sector of the city and its boroughs, which were served at that time only by the small but well-respected Salford Royal Infirmary and Hope Hospital, which had been inadequately restored after being badly damaged by bombing in the Second World War. Arthur, as a senior consultant in the two hospitals and chairman of the Salford Royal medical staff committee from 1974 to 1997, was a leader in the campaign to have the Salford hospitals designated as the third teaching group, even though he knew that such a redevelopment would have adverse consequences for the future of the Salford Royal. Following the retirement of Arthur Bullough, Arthur became the senior consultant general surgeon with sessions at both the Salford Royal Infirmary and Hope Hospital, and was tasked with leading his surgical colleagues Geoffrey Ingram and John Curt into the massive redevelopment of the Salford hospitals on the Hope Hospital site. This did indeed lead to the closure of the historic and much-loved Salford Royal Infirmary. From the start, Arthur realised that maintaining morale, particularly of the nursing and ancillary staff, was to be the prime task; their online tributes after his death showed that his support during this time was much appreciated. Whilst all this was taking place, he became involved in surgical training in the Manchester region becoming a tutor and a member of the Court of Examiners at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He also held office between 1980 and 1985 as chairman of the North West Region Specialty Training Group in Surgery. Arthur was recognised nationally as one of the leading surgeons in the north of England and as such was invited to become a member of the Moynihan Chirurgical Club and was elected its president in 1994. He was a fellow of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, being a member of its council between 1989 and 1982, and of the Manchester Medical Society, serving as president of its section of surgery from 1992 to 1993. He was also a member of the British Association of Endocrine Surgeons. Towards the end of his surgical career, his lifelong commitment to his Christian faith was taken a step further and he studied for a diploma in theology, which he obtained in 1990. He was ordained as an Anglican priest and, in 2000, took part in the large procession of ordained clergy fellows at the bicentenary celebration of the Royal College of Surgeons at St Paul’s Cathedral. In 1961 Arthur married Jill Taylor, a fellow medical student in the same year. Jill subsequently trained in anaesthetics and became a consultant anaesthetist. Arthur and Jill had three children – Paul, David and Susan. Sadly, Jill developed a malignancy and predeceased him in 2001. Arthur moved from Sale, where they had lived for nearly four decades, to Cheshire, where he was supported by his daughter Sue and friend Frances, who lived nearby. After a long period of ill health from inclusion body myositis (IBM), he died peacefully from pneumonia at the Countess of Chester Hospital on 6 April 2021. He was 86. He was survived by his children and four grandchildren. He left an enduring legacy: the importance of clinical excellence for aspiring surgeons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009984
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Wade, Robert (1798 - 1872)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

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/375550375550
Occupation Apothecary General surgeon Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Born on November 23rd, 1798, near Woodbridge in Suffolk, in which town his father carried on business as a brewer. He received his early education at a neighbouring school, and having been duly apprenticed came to London when 20 years of age. He had expected at once to attend lectures and hospital practice, but his father having become involved in difficulties, young Wade was thrown upon his own resources. Of a robust frame, strong will, and a hopeful disposition, he looked to the future with confidence. He became assistant to one of the 'top apothecaries' in the West End, and for some years was a veritable drudge. He made up all the medicines, attended most of the night cases and all the lower class of midwifery. He entered St George's Hospital about the year 1817, passed the College of Surgeons in 1819, and the Apothecaries' Society in 1820. The office of Apothecary to the Westminster General Dispensary falling vacant, Wade became a candidate for it and was elected by a small majority. He fulfilled the duties of his appointment with great credit to himself and benefit to the institution for some years. About 1828 he commenced practice on his own account, at 68 Dean Street. For some time he eked out a somewhat scanty income by taking pupils, who always spoke of him afterwards with affectionate respect. Wade, on his retirement from the office of Apothecary to the Dispensary, was unanimously elected Surgeon to the institution, and this office he held to the day of his death, performing the duties with such fidelity and punctuality that he was presented by the Governors with a handsome piece of plate in recognition of his services. The name 'specialist', when he took the office of Surgeon to the Dispensary, was all but unknown, but circumstances drove him, as it were, to choose a particular line of practice. Amongst the crowd of patients which attended on his 'days', numbers were affected with stricture of the urethra in all its forms. He soon found that some of them could not be successfully treated by simple dilatation, and he directed his mind to discover some means by which they could be treated with safety. Shortly before, the system of treatment carried out most extensively by Sir Everard Home had fallen into discredit, in consequence of the disastrous results ensuing from it. Home had recourse to the nitrate of silver, and no doubt was very successful in many cases, but he carried his practice to a degree of heroism which ended in its downfall. Thomas Whateley, after the failure of the lunar caustic, practised and advocated the use of the potassa fusa in the more intractable kinds of stricture. He had but a limited success, and at his death no one seemed desirous to become his successor. Then a new system of treatment was practised by some surgeons of more or less eminence, G J Guthrie (qv) and R A Stafford (qv) being foremost amongst them. This consisted in what was termed internal incision: a bougie armed with a knife was inserted into the urethra, and when the seat of the obstruction was fairly reached, the knife, being worked by a spring at the handle of the instrument, was protruded and the stricture freely divided. For a time all went well, but cases of severe haemorrhage were common, and fatal results occasional, so this variety of internal urethrotomy lost ground and died with Stafford, who, notwithstanding all its dangers and drawbacks, contended to the last that it was, on the whole, the most efficient and the safest that could be employed. Wade had opportunities of trying these plans of treatment, and after a long and anxious trial came to the conclusion that Whateley's was the best remedy; but he was soon convinced that the caustic potash had been used too freely by Whateley, just as the lunar caustic had been too freely employed by Home. He accordingly commenced his application of caustic potash in very minute quantities, and gradually increased them. He soon found that all the benefits of this agent could be obtained without resorting to the more powerful, and sometimes dangerous, amount employed by Whateley. Always cautious and painstaking, he hesitated long before he gave his views to the profession. At length, fortified by an experience of several hundred cases in public and private practice, he ventured to stand forth as the advocate of the use of that remedy in cases of irritable and intractable stricture. He denounced at first in unmeasured terms the 'perineal section' of Syme; but he was not a bigoted antagonist, and when he found he was wrong he acknowledged his error. One instance will suffice. Thomas Henry Wakley (qv) proposed and practised a most ingenious plan of treating stricture by gradual dilatation. In one edition of his work Wade strenuously opposed this plan, believing that it would cause laceration and danger; but he felt bound to satisfy himself on that point, and after some trial of the plan was convinced that in certain cases it might be employed with safety and advantage. In the very next edition of his work on stricture, he not only acknowledged his error, but actually gave a lithographic illustration of Wakley's instruments, and spoke of them with approbation. This is to his honour; for the *Lancet*, which represented the interests of Wakley, had attacked him with a rancour which was neither just nor justifiable. In 1834 he delivered a course of lectures on pathology at the Little Windmill Street School. He took few holidays - 'work to him was leisure'; but he annually rented a house at Hampstead for a 'little change', where he walked and talked with his family and friends amid the quiet lanes, the fertile fields, and the wooded heights of that suburban 'paradise'. A great appreciator of everything beautiful in nature, and a lover of the arts, he was anxious to obtain some works of William Henry Hunt (1790-1864). It was not, however, till 1851 that his means allowed him to indulge in what he then regarded as an expensive outlay. This was done with much caution and misgiving. The drawings by this distinguished artist at this period were but one-tenth of the value which they afterwards realized at public auctions. In an interview with William Vokins, who at this time had the majority of Hunt's works from the easel, and while contemplating a drawing of a 'Bird's Nest', the price of which was but twenty-two guineas, Wade expressed his great desire to purchase, but added: "I am but a poor surgeon, and though I should like it much, I hardly feel justified in doing so; but tell me honestly, should it so occur that I am unable to retain it, is it likely I may get my money again?" Being perfectly assured on this point, Wade bought the picture, and it was the nucleus of a collection of drawings of fruit, flowers, etc, entirely by this master - not large, but admitted to be unique in quality by everyone acquainted with the matter who had seen them, either on his walls or at the loan exhibitions, to which he was at all times a willing contributor. The possession of these drawings led to his acquaintance with the artist, and he became his medical adviser, attending him in his last illness. The collection - a remarkably fine one - was subsequently sold by Christie & Manson, and fetched enormous prices. Wade died at his house in Dean Street, Soho, two hours after a cerebral haemorrhage, on January 16th, 1872. Publications:- *Observations on Fever*, 8vo, London, 1824. *Practical Observations on the Pathology and Treatment of Stricture of the Urethra*, 8vo, London, 1841; 2nd ed, greatly enlarged, 1849; 4th ed, 1860. *Conservative Surgery of the Urethra...Treatment by Potassa Fusa*, 12mo, London; 2nd ed, 1868.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003367
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Wilson, William Weatherston (1915 - 2013)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2013-06-12 2014-09-19
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004000-E004099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376279376279
Occupation General surgeon
Details William Weatherston Wilson, known as 'Bill', was a highly-respected general surgeon who spent his entire consultant career in Lancashire. He was first appointed as an assistant surgeon at the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary, Wigan, in July 1949; he was then 'upgraded' in February 1950 to consultant surgeon to the Wigan and Leigh Group and Wrightington Hospital on a salary of £1,684-1s-10p per annum, the norm for consultants appointed in the early years of the NHS as maximum-part-time employees. Described as having a sharp eye and ready wit, he was popular with patients from all social backgrounds. The son of William Weatherston Wilson, an industrial chemist, and Mary Wilson née Hobson, a housewife, he was born on 13 March 1915 at Bonhill, a small town situated in the Vale of Leven, West Dunbartonshire. He had two sisters, Mary Conway Berry and Rebecca Weatherston Wilson. His step-mother was Mabel Gertrude Wilson. After boarding at Scarborough College from 1928 to 1932, he decided to embark on a career in medicine and entered Manchester University to pursue his studies. Here he was greatly influenced by John Sebastian Bach Stopford (later Lord Stopford of Fallowfield), his anatomy professor. Perhaps not as academic as some of his contemporaries, having won no prizes, he was captain of the University Athletics Club and was shot-putter for the English Universities Athletic Union. After qualifying in 1938 with a MB ChB and the conjoint diploma, he held house appointments at Manchester Royal Infirmary and Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham. In 1939, at the beginning of the Second World War, Bill volunteered to join the RAMC and served as a captain for six years. Working in the Middle East as a graded surgeon, in 1942 he was ordered to Amman, Transjordan, to take charge of the Italian Mission Hospital at very short notice. He discovered that the Italian missionary surgeon, who was in charge of the hospital, had been telephoning Rome daily about British troop movements. As he was the only doctor in the hospital, Bill performed all the surgical operations, as well as being the administrator. He could only blame himself for any poor anaesthetics, as he had to administer them all. His repertoire was all-inclusive: he dealt with numerous skull fractures, brain abscesses and hysterectomies, cholecystectomies and mastoidectomies, in addition to the common hernias in all anatomical sites. Returning from Egypt to Manchester, he passed the primary FRCS in 1946 and the final examination the following year, proceeding to the ChM in 1953. His first post in civilian life was as a supernumerary chief assistant in general surgery at Manchester Royal infirmary for two years from May 1946. After this, he worked for a further year as chief assistant at the Christie Hospital. He then gained his first consultant post in Wigan at the age of 34. In addition to his busy clinical life, he had an early baptism into administration, serving for six years on the hospital management committee. He was also active in the Wigan branch of the BMA. A great supporter of postgraduate activities, he was secretary of the Manchester Surgical Society for five years and became president in 1951. He was a founder member of the Wigan and Leigh Medical Society, a weekly meeting point for hospital doctors and general practitioners. He was also an active member of the flourishing Manchester Medical Society, founded in 1834. He became president of the section of surgery in 1971 and delivered his presidential address on 'Quis lapidem posuit: a speculation on gallstones'. He was elected an honorary member of the section of surgery in 2009, at the meeting celebrating 175 years of the foundation of the society. In spite of a busy professional life, he still found time to analyse the results of his surgery in a critical manner and published worthwhile articles. His early publications were case reports, such as 'Adenomatoid leiomyoma of the epididymis' in the *British Journal of Surgery* (*Br J Surg*. 1949 Oct;37[146]:240). His first article resulted from his observations during the war. 'Hepatic hydatid disease' was published in the *British Journal of Surgery* (*Br J Surg*. 1950 Apr;37[148]:453-63); the paper reviewed the natural history of the disease and described his observations in the public abattoir in Amman, where some 12 per cent of slaughtered sheep were infested with hydatid cysts. As an established consultant surgeon, he wrote 'Thyroid disease and some complications' in the *Annals* of the Royal College of Surgeons (*Ann R Coll Surg Engl*. 1973 Jul;53[1]:27-39. Another paper, 'Revision operations after primary gastric surgery', was also published in the *Annals* (*Ann R Coll Surg Engl*. 1982 Jul;64[4]:225-8). In this he discussed his experience over 31 years as a single surgeon working in a district general hospital of 179 reoperations after primary gastric surgery failed to relieve symptoms of duodenal ulcer. He served the College as a member of the Court of Examiners from 1970 to 1982, six years in general surgery and another six years in ophthalmology. He was external examiner in surgery abroad in Basra, Lagos, Tripoli, Juba, as well as at home in Edinburgh and Glasgow. All this extra service from a provincial centre was something to be admired, as was his election to the National Distinction Awards Committee, of which there were 20 members in total and only three surgeons. He served on the committee from 1978 to 1981. One honour he prized above all others was his election to the 1921 Travelling Surgical Club and serving as its president in 1972 - a mark of fellow members' esteem. All was not work in Wigan! Bill was a regular skier in alpine resorts, a keen fly fisherman and golfer. He was a member of his local Wigan golf club for 51 years, but was more active in the game after retirement. As a knowledgeable fisherman, he was a member of Wynesdale Fishing Club for half a century. Brown and rainbow trout in one of the lakes in the Peak District of Derbyshire rose to his expectations from time to time. He was a member of the Army and Navy Club, Pall Mall, London. Bill met his future wife, Ruth Audrey née Ainsworth (aka 'Jane') at Manchester University Medical School after he returned from the Second World War. Jane became a paediatrician and family planning expert. She and Bill had three sons, all having 'Weatherston' attached to the surname Wilson: Angus William, Gerald William and Adam Charles. In a note attached to his CV, Bill wrote of his wife: 'Charming wife Jane who is a paediatrician but also an outstanding cook who entertained many surgeons from at home and abroad at her dinner parties.' Unexpected tragedy struck the Wilson household when their eldest son, Angus, was maimed in a road traffic accident in 1984. He died in 2013, after 29 years as an invalid. This must have been a severe problem for Bill and Jane to face in their retirement years, and also for their two remaining sons, Gerald and Adam. During his last few years, Bill and Jane continued to live in the large family house at Charnock Green until late 2011, when he had a minor stroke and his wife also became unwell. Their sons converted the house to make it suitable for 'nursing home' purposes, with the provision of carers as their needs increased. William Weatherston Wilson died on 23 May 2013 at his home in Chorley, Lancashire, at the age of 98. He was survived by his wife Jane and his two remaining sons, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Sadly, Jane died just a year later, on 5 June 2014.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004096
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cockett, Frank Bernard (1916 - 2014)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2014-02-24 2014-09-24
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005000-E005099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377204377204
Occupation General surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details Frank Cockett was internationally known for his ground-breaking advances in the understanding of varicose veins and venous ulcers. He identified a new condition called the 'ankle blow out syndrome' and described the operation needed to cure it, which became universally known as 'the Cockett operation'. He was also a noted expert on early English marine paintings, being an adviser on this subject to Christie's auctioneers. Born in Rockhampton, Australia, on 22 April 1916, the son of the Reverend Charles Bernard Cockett, a Congregational minister, and Florence Cockett née Champion, Frank Cockett spent his early life in Tasmania before coming to England in the 1920s when his father took up a post in Bedford. He was educated at Bedford School and then the City of London School, before winning a scholarship to St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, where he gained a first class honours degree in physiology before qualifying in medicine just before the outbreak of war. He became a house surgeon at St Thomas' in 1940 and was resident during the time the hospital was bombed with severe damage and loss of life. Throughout the Blitz, he was one of a small band of less than 10 doctors who kept the largely evacuated hospital open for the emergency treatment of the injured public. Operating day and night in makeshift theatres in the basement, where he also slept, he wrote contemporary descriptions of his experiences in letters home. These make vivid reading and were later published in a book entitled *The war diary of St Thomas's Hospital 1939-45* (Newport, Gwent, Starling, 1991). After house jobs, he became a resident surgical officer in Guildford, before joining the Royal Air Force in 1942 and serving abroad as a squadron leader, mainly in Malta and Gozo. Here he saw the end of the siege of Malta and the beginning of the invasion of Sicily. This period of his life was later entertainingly described in his book *The Maltese penguin* (Smith-Gordon & Co Ltd, London, 1990) (a penguin being a flightless bird, it was also RAF slang for a non-flying officer, 'one of the lower forms of life during wartime'). *The Times* obituary recorded that, when his children refused to eat their meals, he would tell them how the people of Malta had to survive on only a dry biscuit in the morning and a large glass of water; half you drank and the rest was to wash your face and clean your teeth! He was then posted to Italy, before spending his final months in uniform in Algiers. In 1945 he married and returned as a civilian to a junior surgical post at St Thomas', before becoming a senior lecturer in surgery. He was put in charge of the very busy leg ulcer clinic; this was thought by his seniors to be a non-exciting clinic dealing with a non-exciting condition, the cause of which was poorly understood. It was branch of surgery that his more senior consultants shunned, but Cockett rose to the challenge and began the research which was to lead in time to his pre-eminent position as an international authority on venous disease. Over the months he carried out a meticulous series of cadaver limb dissections, investigated his patients by the new technique of venography and performed numerous open operations. By 1953 he had established that lower leg ulcers were not caused by conventional varicose veins, as previously had been thought, but by incompetent ankle perforating veins and that the appropriate treatment was their surgical ligation. This work was published in *The Lancet* ('The ankle blow-out syndrome; a new approach to the varicose ulcer problem.' *Lancet* 1953 Jan 3;1[6749]:17-23) and resulted in the award of a master of surgery degree. He was appointed a consultant and in 1956, with Harold Dodd, published a 400-page textbook *The pathology and surgery of the veins of the lower limb* (Edinburgh, London, E & S Livingstone), which immediately became the definitive text. A second edition was published in 1976. Cockett also wrote widely about venous compression syndromes and described anatomical compression of the left iliac vein. Although appointed a general surgeon, his vascular interest rapidly became dominant. In 1966 he was a founding member of the Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and in 1980 was elected president. A few years later he became chairman of the venous forum at the Royal Society of Medicine. Although having a flourishing private practice in which he employed generations of junior staff to assist, he never neglected his NHS responsibilities at St Thomas', nor did he neglect the teaching of medical students. He was a popular teacher and he and his wife regularly entertained students at their home - hospitality which has long remained in the memories of those who attended. Students, staff and colleagues all knew him as someone with a total lack of pomposity and a man of many unsung acts of kindness and thoughtfulness. He was much loved and devoid of enemies. Outside of surgery, Cockett was a keen sportsman; skiing, squash, tennis, swimming, but above all sailing, which he had learned while stationed in Malta. He became the owner of a series of boats, culminating in a steel-hulled ocean racing yacht appropriately named *Saphena*, its dinghy being called *Varix*. Generations of students and junior staff crewed for him until advancing age caused him to abandon the ocean and settle for gentle cruising with family. His interest in sailing led to an interest in marine art and as he approached retirement this hobby became an all absorbing occupation. He haunted the auction rooms between clinics, getting to know the dealers and adding to his personal collection of marine paintings, which came to decorate every inch of wall space in his home. Always carrying a magnifying glass, he became an authority on early English marine paintings and an adviser to Christie's. In 1993, while convalescing from a serious motoring accident, he occupied his time by writing and two years later publishing a book entitled *Early sea painters, 1660-1730: the group who worked in England under the shadow of the Van de Veldes* (Woodbridge, Antique Collectors' Club, c.1995), which chronicled the rise of marine art in England. Richly illustrated, many of the plates depicted paintings in his own collection. A few years later, he published a second scholarly monograph, a biography of Peter Monamy, the first English marine artist of stature (*Peter Monamy [1681-1749] and his circle* Woodbridge, Antique Collectors' Club, c.2000). He was also absorbed by all matters relating to the history of St Thomas' Hospital. He was a founder member of the history and works of art committee, serving as chairman for 12 years and he wrote numerous historical vignettes for the *St Thomas's Hospital Gazette*. He was instrumental in mounting a successful appeal among ex-St Thomas's students that enabled the erection in the hospital chapel of a handsome carved stone memorial to the 52 St Thomas's-trained doctors who had lost their lives on active service during the Second World War, some of whom he knew personally. Tragedy struck his private life in 1958 when his wife Felicity Anne (née Fisher) was killed in a road traffic accident, leaving him with three small children, Judy, who became an art historian; Sally, a general practitioner; and Robin, a professor of computer science. Two years later he married Dorothea Newman, a physiotherapist at St Thomas'. They had twin sons, Peter, a civil servant, and Richard, a journalist. Frank remained exceedingly active in his twilight years and only began to ease up slightly as he passed the age of 90, when he became increasingly deaf and slowly more frail. His intellect remained as sharp as always and he was ever eager to know the latest hospital gossip. Eventually the old man's friend caught up with him and he died of pneumonia on 17 January 2014 aged 97.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005021
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Thompson, Sir Henry, Bart (1820 - 1904)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-12-05
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003200-E003299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375423375423
Occupation General surgeon Genito-urinary surgeon Urologist Public health reformer
Details Born at Framlingham, Suffolk, on August 6th, 1820, the only son of Henry Thompson, a tradesman who kept the village shop, by his wife Susannah, daughter of Samuel Medley (1769-1857), the artist who painted the portrait group of the founders of the Medical Society of London, and was one of the founders of University College, London. He was educated under Mr Fison, a Nonconformist minister at Wrentham, and early engaged in mercantile pursuits, as his parents, who were uncompromising Baptists, dreaded a scientific education and disliked the idea of a profession. Coming to London he was, however, apprenticed to George Bottomley, a medical practitioner at Croydon, in January, 1844, and in October he entered University College, London, to study medicine. Here he won the gold medal in anatomy in 1849, the gold medal in surgery in 1851, and took the MB degree. From June, 1850, he acted as the first House Surgeon to John Eric Erichsen (qv), who had recently been appointed Surgeon to University College Hospital. Joseph Lister (qv) was one of his dressers, and it was partly on Thompson's advice that Lister went to Edinburgh to work under James Syme. Thompson entered into partnership with his former master, George Bottomley, at Croydon, in January, 1851, but after a few months returned to London and began to practise surgery at 35 Wimpole Street, where he lived the rest of his life. He acted for a short time as Surgeon to the St Marylebone Infirmary, but in 1863 was elected Assistant Surgeon to University College Hospital, becoming full Surgeon in 1853, Professor of Clinical Surgery in 1866, Consulting Surgeon and Emeritus Professor of Clinical Surgery on his retirement in 1874. Thompson determined to devote himself particularly to genito-urinary surgery and visited Paris in July, 1858, to study the subject under Jean Civiale (1792-1867), who was the first to remove a vesical calculus by lithotrity. Beginning life thus as a pupil of Civiale, Thompson adopted his methods and at first crushed stones at repeated intervals, leaving it to nature to void the fragments, until in 1866 J T Clover (qv) invented the rubber evacuator and evacuating tubes. When Henry Jacob Bigelow (1818-1890) recommended crushing at a single sitting and removal of the fragments by operative measures, Clover's apparatus came into general use. He also began to advocate the discredited operation of suprapubic cystotomy about 1886, and it has since come into general use. He was thus a pioneer in the removal of tumours from the urinary bladder. Thompson's successful crushing operations at University College soon attracted attention, and in 1863 he operated upon Leopold I, King of the Belgians, completing the work Civiale had begun eighteen months previously. In July and December, 1872, Thompson treated Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, at Camden Place, Chislehurst. He performed the operation of lithotrity upon him under chloroform on Jan 2nd, 1873, and again on January 7th. A third sitting was arranged for midday on January 9th, but the Emperor died of uraemia at 10.45 am, an hour and a quarter before the operation was to have begun. Thompson's attainments and interests were exceptionally versatile. He was not only pre-eminent in his own branch of surgery, but his zeal for hygiene made him a pioneer in the cause of cremation. He was also an authority on diet, a devoted student of astronomy, an excellent artist, a collector of china, and a man of letters. He first drew attention to cremation by an article in the *Contemporary Review* in 1874. Experiments had then been made recently in Italy, but it was not until 1874, and chiefly by Thompson's energy, that a Cremation Society was founded in England. From that time onwards he was its President and did all in his power to promote the practice both here and on the Continent. A crematorium was built at Woking in 1879: its employment was forbidden by the Home Secretary and it was not used until March, 1885. The Government had in the meantime brought a test case against a man who had cremated his child in Wales, and Sir James Stephen decided that the practice was not illegal if no nuisance was caused. In 1902 Thompson took a leading part in the formation of a company which erected the crematorium, under the guidance of Mr Eassie, CE, at Golder's Green near Hampstead Heath, then an outskirt of London. Astronomy occupied much of Thompson's leisure, and he built an observatory at Molesey, where he had a country house. He presented some fine instruments to the Greenwich Observatory, the last being a telescope twice the size of any previously in use. It was manufactured at Dublin by Sir Howard Grubb, and was erected in 1897. Thompson doubtless inherited his artistic faculties from Samuel Medley, his maternal grandfather, but his original talent was fostered by study under Edward Elmore, RA, and Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema, RA. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1865, 1870, annually from 1872-1878, and again in 1881, 1883, and 1885. Two of his pictures were afterwards shown in the Paris Salon, and to this exhibition he contributed a landscape in 1891. He was also an eminent collector of china and acquired many fine specimens of old white and blue Nankin. A catalogue illustrated by the owner and James McNeill Whistler was issued in 1878, and the collection was sold at Christie's on June 1st, 1880. Besides numerous articles in magazines Thompson wrote two novels under the name of 'Pen Oliver'. *Charlie Kingston's Aunt*, published in 1885, presents the life of some fifty years earlier. *All But, a Chronicle of Laxenford* (1886) is illustrated by twenty full-page drawings by the author, in one of which he portrayed himself as he was in 1885. Cultured society had great attractions for Thompson. As a host he was famous for his 'octaves', which were dinners of eight courses for eight people at eight o'clock. They were commenced in 1872, and the last, which was the 301st, was given shortly before his death. The guests were as carefully chosen as the food, and for a quarter of a century the most famous persons in the worlds of art, letters, science, politics, diplomacy, and fashion met at his table in Wimpole Street. King Edward VII, when Prince of Wales, dined there once, and his son, King George V, when Prince of Wales, attended Thompson's 300th octave. There is a portrait group of one of the octaves in the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, No 116, with the original studies by W J Solomon, RA. Thompson received the honour of knight bachelor in 1867 and was created a baronet on February 20th, 1899. He married on December 16th, 1861, Kate Fanny, daughter of George Loder, of Bath. Lady Thompson was well known as a pianist. She was paralysed for some years, but survived her husband, dying on August 30th, 1904, leaving a son, Henry Francis Herbert, and two daughters. Sir Henry Thompson died at 35 Wimpole Street, W, on April 18th, 1904, and was cremated at Golder's Green. A three-quarter-length portrait painted by Sir J E Millais, RA, in 1881 hangs in the Tate Gallery. There is a bust by F W Pomeroy, RA, in the Crematorium at Golder's Green. A cartoon portrait by Ape in *Vanity Fair* (1874) is subscribed 'Cremation'. There are numerous photographs in the College Collection, and an excellent one in University College, Gower Street. Publications: *The Pathology and Treatment of Stricture of the Urethra both in the Male and Female*, 8vo, London, 1854; 4th ed, London and Philadelphia, 1885. Translated into German, München, 1888. *The Enlarged Prostate, its Pathology and Treatment*, 8vo, London, 1858; 6th ed, London and Philadelphia, 1886. Translated into German, Erlangen, 1867. *Practical Lithotomy and Lithotrity*, 8vo, London, 1868; 3rd ed, 1880. Translated into German, Kassel and Berlin, 1882. *Clinical Lectures on Diseases of the Urinary Organs*, 8vo, London, 1868; 8th ed, 1888. Translated into French, 1874, and again in 1889. Translated into German, Berlin, 1877. *On Tumours of the Bladder*, 1884. *Lectures on some Important Points connected with the Surgery of the Urinary Organs*, 8vo, London, 1884. *On the Suprapubic Operation of Opening the Bladder for the Stone and for Tumours*, 8vo, London, 1886. *Traité pratique des Maladies des Voies urinaires*, a collected edition of Thompson's surgical works, was published in Paris in 1880. *Cremation*, 16mo, London, 1874; 4th ed, 1901. *Modern Cremation, its History and Practice*, 12mo, London, 1889; 4th ed, 1901. Thompson was also part-author of the article on cremation in the *Encyclopaedia Britannica* (9th ed). *Food and Feeding*, 8vo, London, 1880; 12th ed, enlarged, 1910. *Diet in Relation to Age and Activity*, 1886; 4th ed, 1903; revised edition, 1910.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003240
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Browne, Sir George Buckston (1850 - 1945)

2025-12-05T05:42:20Z

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/376095376095
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Born 13 April 1850 in Manchester, the elder son of Henry Browne, MD (1819-1901), physician to Manchester Royal Infirmary, and Ann, his wife daughter of George Hadfield, MP for Sheffield. Henry Browne's father and grandfather had practised at Manchester since the latter, George Buckston Browne (1756-1811), qualified as a Member of the Company of Surgeons of London on 11 March 1779. He was the younger son of Theophilus Browne (born 1715), apothecary of Derby, and Margaret daughter of George Buckston of Bradbourne Hall. Theophilus was the son and grandson of clergymen, both Cambridge graduates; he was friend of Erasmus Darwin; his elder son Henry succeeded to his practice as an apothecary and was twice mayor of Derby. Sir Buckston Browne was thus the fifth medical man in direct paternal descent from Theophilus. He was educated at Amersham Hall School Reading, and at Owens College, Manchester, and in 1866 matriculated at University College, London. He won medals in anatomy, chemistry and midwifery and a gold medal in practical chemistry, and served for a time as demonstrator of anatomy to Professor G V Ellis. At University College Hospital he won the Liston gold medal in surgery, and was elected after open practical competition house surgeon to Sir John Erichsen. He had qualified MRCS in 1874, but before opportunities for further hospital appointments appeared he was invited by Sir Henry Thompson to become his private assistant. This position Browne held for fourteen years, and in 1884 he also started his own consultant practice. In those days elderly men who would now undergo excision of the prostate had to suffer partial operation followed by a "catheter" life under the personal supervision of their surgeon. Thompson had the largest practice of this nature in London. He was also a man of great social distinction, a connoisseur, an artist, and a famous host. Buckston Browne profited both professionally and intellectually from their long association. Although holding no hospital appointment and the Membership as his sole qualification, he achieved through great dexterity, skill and assiduous work, supported by modest, straightforward self-reliance the leading practice in this line of surgery. He never took a holiday though he often walked twenty or thirty miles out of London and back. Among his distinguished patients were R L Stevenson and George Meredith, as Meredith recorded in an appreciative letter afterward published. Meredith dedicated his novel *Lord Ormont and his Aminta* 1894: "Gratefully inscribed to George Buckston Browne, surgeon. Browne has recorded (*Rationalist annual*, 1938) how he used to walk from Wimpole Street to breakfast with his patient at Box Hill, twenty-six miles south of London. Another patient was Sidney Cooper, RA, who lived to be 100 years old. In 1901 Browne delivered the Harveian Society's lectures, speaking on twenty-five years of urinary surgery in England. He had been a member of the society since the year in which he qualified, but he felt that the invitation to deliver the lectures was of great professional benefit 'to one who had so long practised without public recognition'. He was also a member of the Clinical and Pathological Societies, and of the Medical Society of London of which he was ultimately elected an honorary Fellow. In 1909, when Browne retired, he found himself a very rich man. He had spent much on pictures and objects of art, a taste fostered by Sir Henry Thompson's example, from whom also he acquired appreciation of the worth to professional men of dining together in amity. His first relaxation was a voyage round the world, during which he was shipwrecked off the New Zealand coast. Soon his life was clouded by bereavement. He had married in 1874, the year of his qualification, Helen Elizabeth, daughter of George Vaine of Sparsholt, Hampshire. During the first great war their only son, Lieutenant-Colonel George Buckston Browne, DSO, RFA, was killed, and in 1924 their only grandson, George Buckston Browne, the sixth, died of enteric fever. Mrs Browne died in 1926. Their only daughter married Sir Hugh Lett, Baronet, sometime PRCS. Lady Lett survived her father. Buckston Browne now devoted himself to public benefactions, especially to those destined to furthering mutual accord within his profession and to the promotion of surgical science. His benefactions were partly prompted by fear that his name might be forgotten, as he had outlived his son and grandson, but at the same time he was sincerely modest and took real pleasure in small private acts of generosity for which he always "begged no acknowledgment". In 1927 Browne endowed at the College an annual Buckston Browne Dinner at which fifty Fellows and fifty Members should sit down together in amity within the College house. The Buckston Browne Dinner was warmly welcomed and encouraged by successive Councils and was a most potent force in bringing the generality of Members back into contact with the College's affairs. Browne himself usually made one of his excellent speeches, simple, direct, and very clearly enunciated, at the dinner. He spoke at the wartime Buckston Browne Luncheon in 1944, when already in his ninety-fifth year. At several of the dinners he gave each guest a small parting present, and in 1938, when his son-in-law Sir Hugh Lett was President, it took the form of a silver snuff-box suitably inscribed and full of "Kendal brown" snuff. Browne had long been a total abstainer from alcohol and smoking, though a generous host providing excellent wine and cigars for his less abstemious friends. But he had long taken snuff which he recommended as a sure prophylactic against the common cold. In 1928 Browne endowed an annual dinner for the Harveian Society, which became one of the best-liked social foregatherings of the profession. But he did not neglect the more serious work of the Society or the College. At the Harveian Society he endowed a biennial Buckston Browne prize in memory of his son, to be awarded for an essay based on original work, and accompanied by a Harveian medal designed for him by the Royal Mint, at the suggestion of his friend Sir D'Arcy Power, FRCS, from Faithorne's engraved portrait of William Harvey. The Society elected him its life-president. His benefactions to the College were even more princely the building and endowment to a value of £100,000 of a surgical research-farm under the direct control of the College. Browne who had been brought up in the high day of Victorian agnosticism had one particular hero, Charles Darwin, next to whom he ranked John Hunter, Edward Jenner, and Joseph Lister. In 1928 Sir Arthur Keith, FRCS, when president of British Association, appealed publicly for the preservation of Darwin's house at Downe, Kent, which was for sale. Browne immediately bought it, presented it to the British Association to preserve as a national Darwin memorial, and proceeded with characteristic thoroughness to re-collect Darwin's furniture for it. He was successful in securing the co-operation to this end of the Darwin family, but also placed in the house some his own family portraits, as a memorial to his wife and son. In 1931, when Keith suggested to him the need for young surgeons to have some retreat comparable to John Hunter's farm at Earl's Court, where their researches would be uninterrupted by the pressure of metropolitan interests, Browne bought thirteen acres adjoining the Darwin estate, built the Buckston Browne research farm, and presented it to the College. He had been elected a Fellow in 1926 as a Member of twenty years standing, and in 1931 was awarded the honorary medal of the College. In 1932 he was created a Knight Bachelor. He was also awarded the honorary doctorate of laws by Aberdeen University. Browne was a generous benefactor to University College Hospital where he equipped the senior common room with fine furniture and pictures of his own collecting, and also endowed a bed in memory his wife. To Wesley College, Cambridge, he presented a previously unknown portrait of John Wesley, and to the Royal College of Surgeons a charming eighteenth-century portrait of John Hunter which he believed to be by Gainsborough. In 1931 he paid for and personally supervised the restoration of the Hunterian museum pictures. He was elected a freeman of the Society of Apothecaries in 1938, and in 1944 an honorary licentiate. At one of his last public appearances (1944) he gave the Society a gift of silver in honour of his son-in-law's Mastership. Browne's interests and benefactions were not confined to his profession. He served as president of the Old Owensian Association and as vice-president of the Dickens Fellowship. At Sparsholt, his wife's old home, he endowed two cottages in her memory. To the Victoria and Albert Museum he gave a bust of King Charles II and a Chippendale barometer, and also made gifts to the National Portrait Gallery. He had given away during his lifetime very considerably more than £100,000. His pictures and art collections were sold at Christie's in April and his books at Sotheby's in May 1945. Browne continued active till the close of his life. In his eighties, he would frequently walk the fifteen miles between his house, 80 Wimpole Street, and his "farm" at Downe, and always went about London on foot. He still wrote an excellent, bold hand, and was a fairly frequent contributor to the medical journals and to *The Times*. He lived in London almost throughout the war of 1939-45, being with difficulty persuaded to take refuge at Sparsholt for some months, though in fact he had by then lived through the worst of the air-raids in London. He broke his femur early in the new year of 1945 and died in University College Hospital on 19 January 1945, three months before his ninety-fifth birthday. Portraits:- Painting in oils by E Bundy, ARA, at the Farm; painted in 1915. Bronze bust by C Hartwell, commissioned in 1931 by the Council of the College, at Lincoln's Inn Fields. Painting in oils by Robin Darwin, great-grandson of Charles Darwin, at Downe House; painted about 1933. Miniature by P Buckman, exhibited at the Royal Academy 1934. Bronze bust by J N Gosse at the Farm, presented by Dr A H Gosse 1935. There are several photographs in the College collection, which show better than the formal portraits his air of genial independence. Publications:- Twenty-five years' experience of urinary surgery in England. Harveian Society's lectures 1901. Urinary surgery, in Heath's *Dictionary of surgery*. Edward Jenner. *Med Press* 1934, 137, 206; reprinted in *British masters of medicine*, edited by Sir D'Arcy Power, 1936. The rise of the medical profession (speech at Buckston Browne luncheon, Royal College of Surgeons, 12 February 1942). Privately printed. Reminiscences. *Rationalist annual*, 1938. *University College Hospital medical school. Senior common room. An illustrated description of the pictures and furniture presented by Sir Buckston Browne*. 44 pages, portrait, and 14 plates. Also an unillustrated edition, 12 pages.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003912
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset