Search Results for holding

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

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372925372925
Occupation General surgeon
Details The younger son of Robert Ball, LLD, Director of the Dublin Museum of Science and Art, and brother of Sir Robert Stawell Ball, the Astronomer Royal, was born in Dublin on Feb 21st, 1851. After a brilliant career at Trinity College, Dublin, he practised for a short period in South Wales; but returned to Dublin, where he obtained a Poor Law appointment which he held till 1879, when he took the Fellowship of the Irish College of Surgeons, and devoted himself entirely to surgery. He was Surgeon to Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital, Consulting Surgeon to a large number of institutions, and a member of many important committees. In 1895 he was appointed University Anatomist in succession to Henry St John Brooks, and succeeded Sir George M Porter as Regius Professor of Surgery in the University of Dublin, holding both posts till the end of his life. In 1903 he received the honour of knighthood, and in 1911 he was created a Baronet of the United Kingdom. Ball was for many years the most prominent figure in Irish surgery, recognized as lavish in public work, a good all-round surgeon, but best known as a specialist in rectal diseases. His most important book – *The Rectum and Anus, their Diseases and Treatment* – was for many years considered the standard work in the English language. His other works are mentioned in the biographies. ‘Ball's operation’ for pruritus ani consisted in dividing the sensory nerves supplying the region. He married on July 22nd, 1874, Annie Julia, daughter of Daniel Kinahan, JP, of Roebuck Park, Dublin, by whom he had four daughters and three sons, of whom the eldest – C Arthur Kinahan Ball, FRCSI, Surgeon to Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital – succeeded to the title. Ball practised at 24 Merrion Square, and died after an illness of several months on March 17th, 1916. His portrait is in the Honorary Fellows’ Album. Publication: *The Rectum and Anus; their Diseases and Treatment*, 12mo, London, 1887 and 1894.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000742
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-08-23 2008-12-05
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372568372568
Occupation Anaesthetist
Details Douglas Donald Currie Howat was a consultant anaesthetist at St George’s Hospital, London. He was born on 10 January 1920, in Denholm in Roxburghshire on the Scottish borders. His grandfather ran a muslin factory in Glasgow, but his father, Reginald Douglas Howat, preferred the life of a country gentleman and had become a general practitioner. His mother, Christine Evelyn née Ireland, came from a long line of Church of Scotland ministers. His father soon left Scotland for Bradford, where he was an assistant medical officer of health. When Douglas was six years old the family moved to London, and, at the age of eight, he gained a scholarship to Dulwich College. An only child, Douglas’ childhood was, by his own admission, lonely, but rather than dwelling on his solitude, he developed considerable self-sufficiency, exploring London on long cycle rides and reading voraciously. He greatly enjoyed being sent to Scotland for his holidays. At the age of 16 he was expected to choose a profession. He thought of becoming a barrister, but his father claimed he could not afford this and suggested he do medicine, as he knew the dean of St George’s Medical School who would accept him. Douglas switched to science and took his first MB from school, won a scholarship, and was accepted by King’s College to study medicine. At King’s, he met Joan Overstall, then secretary to the University Conservative Society. She was from Lancashire, reading French, Italian and law. They kept in touch during his clinical years at St George's Hospital and in 1943, after Douglas qualified, they married. After he qualified, he had a short flirtation with medicine and gained the MRCP, but changed to surgery. He completed a resident surgical officer post in Slough, before accepting an anaesthetist post at St George’s, having enjoyed his student experience in this field under the inspiration of Joseph Blomfield, who was noted for supervising his students administering ether whilst holding a cup of tea and a cigarette in his hands. Douglas passed the diploma in anaesthetics, was called up into the RAF and served at Cosford, being demobilized in 1948. By this time his three children had been born, Catherine (1944), David (1946) and Michael (1947). Joan always fully shared in Douglas’ professional life. Douglas continued his anaesthetic training at St George’s, working half his time at the Brompton Hospital with anaesthetists Ruth Mansfield and Bernard Lucas and surgeons Brock, Cleland, Price Thomas, Barrett and Tubbs. He was appointed as a consultant anaesthetist in Nottingham in a tuberculosis unit, but did not settle there and soon returned to London, to a post where he worked at Woolwich, Lewisham and Maidstone, until appointed to St George’s, where he started cardiac anaesthesia, working with Charles Drew. Later he worked extensively with Rodney (later Lord) Smith in pancreatico-biliary surgery. Meanwhile, Douglas was extending his horizons, attending the Royal Society of Medicine regularly, and he started travelling overseas, reading papers at the Second World Congress of Societies of Anaesthesiologists in Toronto and visiting hospitals and lecturing in Europe and USA. At home he served as vice-dean at St George’s and chaired the regional postgraduate advisory committee and became examiner for the fellowship at the Faculty of Anaesthetists. In 1965 he took on the highly responsible task of organising secretary for the Fourth World Congress of Societies of Anaesthesiologists, held in 1968 in London. Douglas subsequently held office in all the important anaesthetic organisations in the UK. He was president of the section of anaesthetics of the Royal Society of Medicine (from 1976 to 1977) and its international affairs secretary. In the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland he was honorary treasurer (from 1969 to 1974), vice-president (1974 to 1976) and an honorary member (1986). He became regional adviser to the Faculty of Anaesthetists, served on the board of the Faculty of Anaesthetists of the Royal College of Surgeons, becoming vice-dean, quietly revolutionising this rather vaguely defined post. His contribution to the College was noted by his being elected FRCS in 1984. In 1979 he delivered the biennial Frederic Hewitt memorial lecture. Douglas became extensively involved in international affairs. Not only his linguistic skill but even more his wise counsel was immensely valuable. He had an ability to establish rapport with all sorts of people and where diplomacy was needed, he was asked to go. From 1976 to 1980 he was consecutively chairman of the executive committee of the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiology and its vice-president, but it is as a European figure that he is best known. As early as 1966 he was, with members of the Royal College of Physicians, one of the UK representatives considering the implications of Britain joining the European Economic Community. When Britain eventually joined in 1973 he continued to represent British anaesthesia on the council of the European Union of Medical Specialists and chaired its anaesthetic monospecialist committee. He was involved with the foundation of the European Academy of Anaesthesia that notably strengthened the links with our overseas colleagues and established anaesthesia as a major specialty in countries where this had not before been the case. Douglas’ childhood interests continued throughout his life. He was always a great reader, though long solitary walks in the Chilterns succeeded long cycle rides in London and these he meticulously recorded in a diary. The Times crossword, chess, history of anaesthesia and the music of Beethoven were added. In 1984 Douglas retired from St George’s and this gave him more time to pursue his interest in the history of medicine. A steady stream of small research projects were reported at professional meetings, always in an entertaining way. He was president of the History of Anaesthesia Society during 1993. Douglas died on 15 November 2006, following gall-bladder surgery, a year and nine months after Joan. He had achieved much. He worked in an unobtrusive yet effective way, never losing his sense of humour, however provoked. He was just as happy carrying out the mundane chores as the most prestigious ones, indeed he said he enjoyed being given a job to do, but not becoming a figurehead. Although a national and international figure, he never forgot that the prime responsibility of a clinician is to serve his patients with skill and knowledge, and to support his surgeons and his trainees in all their endeavours.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000384
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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

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

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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

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

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-03-15 2014-04-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372526372526
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details David Harding-Jones was an orthopaedic surgeon in Carmarthen, Wales. He was born in Stratford, East London, on 3 August 1936, one of a pair of identical twins. His father, William, was a Presbyterian minister. His mother was Gertrude Alice née Roberts. He was educated at Bancroft's School, Woodford Green, and Charing Cross Hospital. After junior posts, he specialised in orthopaedics, becoming a registrar at the Westminster Hospital, rotating registrar at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital, Oswestry, and Hereford General Hospital, and senior registrar at the United Cardiff Hospitals. He was appointed consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at the West Wales General Hospital, Carmarthen. At the College he was regional adviser in orthopaedics for south Wales. He died on 27 March 2005 after a short and sudden illness and is survived by his wife June née Hitchens, whom he married in 1960, and by his three sons (Andrew, Ian and Neil), two daughters (Alison and Fiona) and five grandchildren (Bethan, Thomas, Iestyn, Ella and Angus).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000340
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-03-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373089373089
Occupation General surgeon
Details Apprenticed in 1837 to Mr Protheroe Smith, 105 Hatton Garden; completed his professional training at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. He was for six months dresser to John Vincent Painter (qv), and for the same period Clinical Clerk to Dr George Leith Roupell. He obtained the prize for clinical surgery, was second in medicine, surgery, chemistry, and materia medica, and was awarded an honours certificate in midwifery. After passing at the Apothecaries’ Hall he began to practise at Peckham Rye, but being under the required age did not pass the Membership of the College for more than a year afterwards. He removed to Camden Place, Peckham, in 1847, and was soon appointed one of the District Medical Officers for Christchurch and part of St George’s, Camberwell, holding this post during ‘the reign of the cholera’. The parish gained some notoriety from the prevalence of this disease. Blomfield had more than one hundred cases of Asiatic cholera under his care, besides numerous others of severe diarrhoea. About seventy-two of the cholera patients died. He received from the Board of Guardians a very handsome letter and the sum of £70, in acknowledgement of his services to the poor during the pestilence. On Nov 9th, 1849, he was elected from about seventeen candidates to the office of Surgeon to the Licensed Victuallers’ Asylum, Old Kent Road, the largest institution of the kind in existence. He was for many years Parochial Medical Officer for North Peckham, and was also Medical Examiner for Government Insurance. He practised for a time at 19 Grove Terrace, Peckham, and then for many years in Rye Lane. He retained his posts as Medical Examiner and at the Licensed Victuallers’ Asylum to the end of his long life, and died at his residence, 20 Peckham Road, on January 6th, 1905.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000906
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Carpmael, Norman (1875 - 1912)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-02-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373035373035
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on October 3rd, 1875, the youngest son of Alfred Carpmael, solicitor, of Norwood, and his wife Jane Josephine (*née* Rainbow). He was educated at Dulwich College, where he was captain of the shooting VIII for four years. From Dulwich he went to University College, London, and obtained the Gold Medal for Botany, and the Silver Medal for Zoology and Comparative Anatomy. In 1896 he entered St Thomas’s Hospital, and there held the appointments of Anatomical Registrar, House Surgeon, and Clinical Assistant in the Skin Department. He captained the Hospital Rifle Team, when he won many trophies, including the United Hospitals Challenge Cup for the highest aggregate at Bisley. This cup he won outright after holding it for three years in succession and five years in all. In 1907 he entered into partnership with Dr William Lengworth Wainwright at Henley-on-Thames, where he showed himself to be an able and hard-working practitioner. He interested himself in the Henley Miniature Rifle Club, and became its captain. In addition to rifle-shooting he was a keen fisherman and was one who could and did make his own fishing rods. He died at Henley-on-Thames in March, 1912, after a brief illness from a cerebral tumour, and was buried at the Norwood Cemetery. He was unmarried. Two brothers and five sisters survived him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000852
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Agnis, John Crown (1828 - 1866)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-08-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372834372834
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Langford, Malden, Essex, on Nov 11th, 1828, and dying unmarried was the last representative of an ancient Cambridgeshire family. He was a very promising lad, and at the age of 16 entered University College, London, and soon carried off the Senior Greek Prize, “being a mere boy in comparison with his competitors” (*Lancet*). He received his medical education at University College Hospital, became House Surgeon, and was gazetted to the 3rd Light Dragoons on Aug 11th, 1854. He afterwards became Assistant Surgeon to the Horse Guards Blue in 1860 (Sept 18th), holding this post to the end of his life. As an operator he was “bold and skilful”, “notably endowed”, as his *Lancet* biographer remarks, “with that special surgical acumen which is logic in action”. His talents were such that his friends urged him to bring himself into greater evidence. Accordingly he began to study deformities and “energetically followed out a series of special researches into their general surgical pathology.” In 1864 the Examiners for the Jacksonian Essay Prize awarded an Honorarium to Agnis for his essay on “Club-foot, its Causes, Pathology and Treatment”. The many illustrations to the Essay were drawn by the author, but the paper has not been published. Agnis was a skilful artist, “an enthusiastic entomologist, and versed in almost every branch of natural science”. He died in London on June 28th, 1866, after a brief illness. He had previously suffered from the effects of a severe hunting accident.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000651
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-28 2012-07-19
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372203372203
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details Was the fourth child of the Rev. Peter Bellinger Brodie, M.A., of Worcester College, Oxford, Rector of Winterslow, Wilts, by Sarah, daughter of Benjamin Collins, Banker and printer, of Milford, near Salisbury. The Brodies were originally a Morayshire clan, and the family was fortunate in relations. Dr. Denman, then the accoucheur, had married Brodie's aunt; Sir Richard Goff ['Goff' is crossed out, and the following added: Croft (Lady Croft & Mrs Baillie were Dr Denman's daughters)] had married a cousin; and Dr. Baillie, nephew of William and John Hunter, had married another cousin. Dr. Denman's son afterwards became Lord Chief Justice, and was well known as one of the advocates at the trial of Queen Caroline, whilst Peter Brodie, Benjamin's eldest brother, held a high position as a conveyancer. In 1797 Brodie and his brothers raised a company of volunteers at a time when a French invasion was much dreaded. He was privately educated by his father, and at the age of eighteen went up to London, devoting himself from the first to the study of anatomy. Brodie joined the medical profession without any special liking or bent for it, and in after-days he said he thought those best succeeded in professions who joined them, not from any irresistible prepossession, but rather from some accidental circumstance inducing them to persevere in their selected course either as a matter of duty or because they had nothing better to do. He rose to be the first surgeon in England, holding for many years a position similar to that once occupied by Sir Astley Cooper. Brodie had always a philosophical turn of mind. He learnt much at first from Abernethy, who arrested his pupils' attention so that it never flagged, and what he told them in his emphatic way never could be forgotten. Brodie used to say "that he had always kept in mind the saying of William Scott [afterwards Lord Stowell] to his brother John [subsequently Lord Eldon], 'John, always keep the Lord Chancellorship in view, and you will be sure to get it in the end.'" And a similar aim and distinction were Brodie's. In 1801 and 1802 he attended the lectures of James Wilson at the Hunterian School in Great Windmill Street, where he worked hard at dissection. It was about this time that he formed what proved a lifelong friendship with William Lawrence (q.v.). In 1803 Brodie became a pupil of Sir Everard Home at St. George's Hospital, and was successively appointed House Surgeon and Demonstrator to the Anatomical School, after which he was Home's assistant in his private operations and researches in comparative anatomy, and he did much work for him at the College Museum. "The latter employment," says Mr. Timothy Holmes (q.v.) in his *Life of Brodie*, "was of critical importance for Brodie in several ways - chiefly because it obliged him to work on scientific subjects, and thus prevented a too exclusive devotion to the pursuit of practical surgery. We cannot be wrong in attributing to this cause mainly his connection with the Royal Society, and the many-sidedness of his intellectual activities." At the College he came into contact with Clift, and, through Home, became an intimate in the learned coterie of Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, and the chief link between distinguished men of science of two centuries. Brodie still diligently pursued his anatomical studies at the Windmill Street School, where he first demonstrated for, and then lectured conjointly with, James Wilson until 1812. In 1808, before he was twenty-five, he was elected Assistant Surgeon at St. George's, thus relieving Home of some part of his duties. Brodie remained in this position fourteen years, and his "regular attendance at the hospital was an immense improvement, in the interests both of the patients and the students, on the practice obtaining in the metropolitan hospitals of that day". All through life Brodie was consumed with the rage for work which his father had originally instilled into him. So devoted was he to every phase of his duties that he found no time to travel, only once visiting France for a month and often going without a summer holiday. His very recreations were arduously intellectual. Thus he took a leading part in the life of various learned societies - the Academical Society, banished to London from Oxford in the French revolutionary epoch, the Society for the Promotion of Medical and Chirurgical Knowledge, the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society, of which he was President in 1839 and 1840. He contributed several valuable papers to the last-named society, and at its meetings he stimulated discussion, and had always something of interest to say. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1810, he soon communicated a paper "On the Influence of the Brain on the Action of the Heart and the Generation of Animal Heat", and another "On the Effects produced by certain Vegetable Poisons (Alcohol, Tobacco, Woorara)". The first paper, the subject of which he doubtless derived from John Hunter, formed the Croonian Lecture: the two papers taken together won him the Copley Medal in 1811, an honour never before bestowed on so young a man. In 1809 Brodie entered upon private practice, and in 1822 became full Surgeon at St. George's Hospital, from which time forward his career was one of ever-increasing success. He became a Member in 1805, a Fellow in 1843, and from 1819 to 1823 he was Professor of Anatomy, Physiology, and Surgery at the College. He lectured upon the Organs of Digestion, Respiration, and Circulation, and on the Nervous System, the most interesting of his discourses being upon "Death from Drowning", a subject which Hunter had investigated without hitting upon the scientific explanation of that form of asphyxia eventually brought out by Brodie. While Professor at the College, Brodie was summoned to attend George IV, and with Sir Astley Cooper, who was the operator, and a formidable array of medical men of that time, assisted at an operation for the removal of a small sebaceous cyst from the king's scalp. He became Surgeon to George IV, and attended him during his last illness, when he went every night to Windsor, slept there, and returned to London in the morning. "His habit", says Mr. Timothy Holmes, "was to go into the king's room at about six o'clock, and sit talking with him for an hour or two before leaving for town." The king became warmly attached to him. He was Surgeon to William IV, and in 1834, when he was made a Baronet, he was appointed Serjeant-Surgeon. In this capacity he became examiner by prescriptive right in the College, a privilege abolished by the Charter of 1843, which Brodie was largely instrumental in obtaining. He was a Member of Council from 1829-1862, Hunterian Orator in 1837, Vice-President in 1842 and 1843, and President in 1844. He retired from St. George's Hospital in 1840, but for some time continued his activity at the College, which owes to him the institution of the Order of Fellows. The object of this institution, he maintained, was to ensure the introduction into the profession of a certain number of young men who might be qualified to maintain its scientific character, and would be fully equal to its higher duties as hospital surgeons, teachers, and improvers of physiological, pathological, and surgical science afterwards. The Fellowship may be said to have been largely instrumental in raising the college to what it now is - "the exemplar of surgical education to the whole kingdom". Brodie was the first President of the General Medical Council, having been elected in 1858. Within a week after receiving this honour he became President of the Royal Society, an office which he filled with great dignity and wisdom till 1861. He died, nearly blind following double cataract for the relief of which he had been operated upon by Sir William Bowman (q.v.), at Broome Park, Betchworth, Surrey, on Oct. 21st, 1862. Of the immediate cause of his death, Holmes says: "It seems that nearly thirty years [see BLOXHAM, THOMAS] previously he had suffered from a dislocation of the right shoulder. I am not aware that he ever made any complaint of the part after the dislocation had been reduced, but it was in this same joint that in July he began to complain of pain accompanied by much prostration; and this was succeeded in September by the appearance of a tumour, doubtless of a malignant nature, in the neighbourhood of the shoulder." It thus happened that he who had spent his life treating diseased joints died of a joint disease. He married in 1816 Anne, the third daughter of Serjeant Sellon by his wife Charlotte Dickinson, his brother-in-law being Monsieur Regnault, the French physicist. Three children survived to maturity: Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie F.R.S. (1817-1880), who became Professor of Chemistry at Oxford; a daughter who married the Rev. E. Hoare; and another son, the Rev. W. Brodie. [His granddaughter Mary Isabel married Sir Herbert Warren K.C.V.O. President of Magdalen College Oxford - 1885-1928] Brodie was distinguished as a surgeon with the bent of a physician. He was not a great operating surgeon, nor did he regard operations as the highest aim of surgery. His power of diagnosis was great, and he was a distinguished teacher with an elegant and clear deliverance. He attained high success by the legitimate influence of a lofty order of intellect, by his great stores of surgical knowledge, and the sound decided opinions he based upon them. He was single-minded and upright in character and free from all affectations. He knew his duty and did it well. He lived for a great end, the lessening of human suffering, and for that he felt no labour was too great, no patience too long. As a scientific man his object was truth pursued for its own sake, and without regard to future reward. He recognized the great traditions of wisdom, benevolence, and self-denial as the everlasting bases on which true medicine and surgery rest, and he was in truth a master of medicine. Of Brodie's manner as a lecturer, Sir Henry Acland says: "None who heard him can forget the graphic yet artless manner in which, sitting at his ease, he used to describe minutely what he had himself seen and done under circumstances of difficulty, and what under like circumstances he would again do or would avoid. His instruction was illustrated by the valuable pathological dissections which during many years he had amassed, and which he gave during his lifetime to his hospital." Mr. Timothy Holmes says: "It was Brodie who popularized the method of lithotrity in England, and by so doing chiefly contributed to the ready reception of an operation which has robbed what was one of the deadliest diseases that afflict humanity of nearly all its terror. This will remain to all time one of Brodie's greatest claims to public gratitude." Brodie used to tell that he once prescribed for a fat butler, suffering from too much good living and lack of exercise. Sir Benjamin told him "he must be very moderate in what he ate and drank, careful not to eat much at a time or late at night. Above all, no spirituous liquors could be allowed, malt liquor especially being poison to his complaint." Whilst these directions were being given the butler's face grew longer and longer, and at the end he exclaimed, "And pray, Sir Benjamin, who is going to compensate me for the loss of all these things?" Brodie's personal appearance is admirably portrayed in the picture by Watts. He was not, perhaps, strictly handsome, but no one can deny that the features are striking. A fine forehead, keen grey eyes, a mobile and sensitive mouth, and facial muscles which followed all the movements of one of the most active minds, lent to the countenance a charm and an expressiveness to which no stranger could be insensible. His frame was slight and small; but there was nothing of weakness about it. Those who knew him only as a public man would little suspect the playful humour which sparkled by his fireside - the fund of anecdotes, the harmless wit, the simple pleasures of his country walk. The following is a list of portraits of Brodie: (1) A bust by H. Weekes, R.A., in the Royal College of Surgeons. (2) A portrait in middle life, which appeared in the Medical Circular (1852, I, 817). The copy in the College is accompanied by a strikingly picturesque and vivid appreciation of Brodie as a teacher making his round of the wards. (3) A half-length by G. F. Watts, R.A., painted in 1860, which is reproduced in Timothy Holmes's *Life of Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie*, 1897. (4) A medal presented to Sir Benjamin Brodie in 1840 when he retired from office as Surgeon to St. George's Hospital. There is a bronze replica in the Board Room at St. George's Hospital, and an illustration of it in the *British Journal of Surgery* (1918-19, vi, facing p.158). PUBLICATIONS: - As an author Brodie achieved fame by his treatise on *Diseases of the Joints*, 1818, which went through five editions and was translated into foreign languages. He wrote also on local nervous affections, diseases of the urinary organs, the surgery of the breast, lighting-stroke, besides an important work, published anonymously in 1854, under the title of *Psychological Enquiries* [Times 21 Jan 1938. BRODIE - On Jan. 20, 1938. at Brockham Warren, Betchworth, Surrey, of pneumonia, SIR BENJAMIN VINCENT SELLON BRODIE, Bt., M.A. (Oxon), D.L., J.P., aged 75. Funeral at Betchworth Church, 3 p.m. Monday, Jan. 24. SIR BENJAMIN BRODIE. Sir Benjamin Vincent Sellon Brodie, Bt.,. died at his home, Brockham Warren, Dorking, yesterday at the age of 75. He succeeded as third baronet on the death of his father in 1880. Educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, and a barrister at Lincoln's Inn, he was a county councillor and then a county alderman for Surrey, High Sheriff in 1912, and a member of the Surrey Education Committee. He owned about 1,000 acres in Surrey. Sir Benjamin married in 1887 Caroline, daughter of the late Captain J. R. Woodriff, R.N., his Majesty's Serjeant-at-Arms, and they had one son and two daughters. Lady Brodie died in 1895. The heir is Captain Benjamin Colin (amended to Collins) Brodie, who was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. He served throughout the War with the Surrey Yeomanry and the 4th Battalion, The Gordon Highlanders, winning the M.C. and bar. Later he became a captain in the Army Educational Corps. He is married and has two sons and one daughter.] [SIR BENJAMIN BRODIE Captain Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, MC, the fourth baronet, died on Monday. He served with the Surrey Yeomanry at Gallipoli, with the Gordon Highlanders and the 1st Highland Brigade, British Army of the Rhine, in the First World War. He was joint headmaster of Holyrood School, Bognor Regis, from 1927 to 1940. He was twice chairman of the governors of Tonbridge School; and from 1945 to 1960 of Judd School, Tonbridge. He was twice Master of the Skinners' Company. Brodie succeeded his father in 1938 and the heir to the baronetcy is Brodie's son, Benjamin David Ross Brodie.]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000016
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First Title value, for Searching Taylor, John Gibson (1918 - 2005)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-30
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
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Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details John Gibson Taylor, known as ‘Ian’, was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. He was born on 8 June 1918, three months before the end of the First World War, the only child of Scottish parents Kate and William Taylor. Ian’s father was an engineer employed at the Royal Aeronautical Establishment, Hampshire. Brought up in Fleet, Ian went to the local grammar school. Deciding on a medical career, he entered St Mary’s Hospital Medical School. Much of his time was spent at Amersham, where the medical school was evacuated during the Second World War. After a year on the house, during which time he was house physician to Sir George Pickering, he joined the RNVR. His first posting was to the destroyer HMS Zetland, which hunted U-boats. After a year he served on HMS Vindex, an escort carrier. Through many hard winters over the next four years on the treacherous North Sea, the ship escorted convoys to Russia. He was discharged as a surgeon lieutenant commander in June 1946. On demobilisation he returned to St Mary’s as a registrar to V H Ellis, the orthopaedic surgeon, who was soon joined by John Crawford Adams, with whom Ian retained a lifelong friendship. After passing the FRCS Ian became first assistant to the accident service at the John Radcliffe Hospital, being greatly influenced by Edgar Somerville, Robert Taylor and Joe Pennybacker, who taught Ian spinal surgery. In 1954 he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Norwich, joining Ken McKee and Richard Howard. The unit served not only Norwich but was also responsible for most of the orthopaedic and trauma services in Yarmouth and Lowestoft. Ian embraced the introduction of new methods of joint replacement, holding clinics with Neil Cardoe and Gilson Wenley for rheumatoid and other arthritic problems, at first in an old workhouse, St Michael’s Hospital in Aylsham. Later a stable block was converted into an operating theatre – much of the money raised by voluntary donations from the Norfolk community. In this unlikely setting Ian performed knee and metacarpo-phalangeal joint replacements. Much sought-after as a teacher, he was involved with the rotation between Bart’s, Norwich and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, and encouraged many of his trainees to publish their first papers. In 1965 Sir Herbert Seddon asked him to help out in Nigera, where he spent several months. In 1956 he met Fodhla Burnell, an anaesthetist. They were married a year later in Norwich Cathedral. They had many shared interests – sailing in the North Sea was one, a cottage in the Perthshire hills another. He was an accomplished skier, using this method of transport to get him to hospital during the hard winter of 1979. He was a keen member of the Percivall Pott Club and regularly attended meetings of the British Orthopaedic Association (BOA). One of his last major trips abroad was to Murmansk in 2001. This commemorated the arrival of the first Russian convoy sent from the UK during the Second World War. Ian and others who had survived were welcomed by the Russians and given a medal of honour for the enormous risks taken 60 years previously. Over his last few years he developed progressive muscle disease, and died on 24 August 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000305
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Moynihan, Sir Berkeley George Andrew, Lord Moynihan of Leeds (1865 - 1936)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-18
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
Details Born at Malta on 2 October 1865 the only son of Captain Andrew Moynihan, *V.C*., and Ellen Anne, his wife, daughter of Thomas Parkin, a cabinet maker at Hurst, near Ashton-under-Lyne. His father was the son of Malachi Moynihan, originally from southern Ireland, who died at Sefton Park, Liverpool in 1837. As a sergeant in the 90th Light Infantry Andrew Moynihan was awarded the Victoria Cross on 24 February 1857 for his bravery during the Crimean War. On 8 September 1855, during an attack on the Redan, he personally encountered and killed five Russians and afterwards under heavy fire rescued Lieutenant Swift and Ensign Maude, who had fallen near the fortress. After serving in India, he died at the age of thirty-seven in Malta on 19 May 1866 of Malta fever, with the rank of captain in the 8th foot (the King’s Regiment). There is a portrait of him in *The History of the Victoria Cross* by Philip A. Wilkins. Mrs Moynihan came to Leeds in December 1867 with a pension of one pound a week on which to support two daughters and a son. She joined forces with her childless sister who was married to Alfred Ball, a police inspector, living at Millgarth Street. Moynihan’s education thus began in Leeds, and was continued at the Blue Coat School, then in its original quarters in Newgate Street, London. He entered the school in September 1875 with a presentation from H.R.H. Field-Marshal the Duke of Cambridge, and was placed in Ward 16. He left in April 1881 being then in no higher form than “Little Erasmus”. During his school career he was undistinguished, except that he did well in swimming and football. From the summer term of 1881 to 25 July 1883 he was at the Royal Naval School, Eltham, and from there proceeded to the Medical School at Leeds, where he lived with his maternal uncle, his mother and two sisters. He remained closely attached to Leeds for the rest of his life. The medical school was a part of the Yorkshire College which afterwards became one of the three constituents of the Victoria University. He graduated M.B. at the University of London in 1887 and became a Member of the College the same year. He passed the examination for the Fellowship in 1890 and for Master of Surgery in 1893, being awarded the gold medal. After serving as house surgeon to A. F. McGill at the Leeds General Infirmary in 1887, he acted as demonstrator of anatomy in the Medical School from 1893 to 1896. He was elected assistant surgeon to the infirmary in 1896, was surgeon from 1906, and consulting surgeon from 1927 until his death. He was lecturer in surgery from 1896 to 1909, and from 1909 to 1927 he was professor of clinical surgery in the University of Leeds. At the Royal College of Surgeons Moynihan was appointed an examiner in anatomy on the board of examiners in anatomy and physiology for the Fellowship in 1899. He gave three lectures as Arris and Gale lecturer in 1899 on *The anatomy and surgery of the peritoneal fossae*, and three lectures in 1900 on *The pathology of some of the rarer forms of hernia*. In 1920 he gave a single lecture as Hunterian professor of surgery and pathology on *The late surgery of gunshot wounds of the chest*, and in the same year delivered the Bradshaw lecture on *The surgery of diseases of the spleen*. He was Hunterian Orator in 1927, speaking on *Hunter’s ideals and Lister’s practice*. He served on the council of the college from 1912 to 1933 and was elected president for six years in succession, 1926-31. In this position he was the second provincial surgeon to fill the office, the first being Joseph Hodgson of Birmingham, who was president in 1864. The war found him with the rank of major *à la suite* attached to the 2nd Northern General Hospital of the Territorial R.A.M.C., with a commission dated 14 October 1908; on 28 November 1914 he was gazetted temporary colonel, A.M.S., and was serving in France. On demobilization in 1919 he was holding the rank of major-general, and had been chairman of the Army Advisory Board form 1916 and chairman of the council of consultants 1916-19. He made a marked impression on a tour in America, when speaking on behalf of the British cause. He was in his energy and frank ambition and his gift of oratory more like an American than the traditional reserved and self-depreciatory Englishman. He married on 17 April 1895 Isabella Wellesley, daughter of Thomas R. Jessop, F.R.C.S., of Leeds. Lady Moynihan died suddenly on 31 August 1936, leaving a son and two daughters. He felt the loss acutely, had a cerebral haemorrhage on 6 September 1936 and died on 7 September, without recovering consciousness, at his home Carr Manor, Meanwood, Leeds, formerly Sir Clifford Allbutt’s house. He was buried at Lawnswood cemetery, and memorial services were held in Leeds parish church and at St Martin’s-in-the-fields, London. An offer was made that he should be buried in Westminster Abbey, but it was declined for family reasons. Moynihan was fortunate in the accidents of his place, his period, and his personality. Leeds had long been a centre of good surgery. It had a teeming population, and was too far removed from London and Edinburgh to be greatly influenced by either. Surgery, which had been previously performed by general practitioners, was becoming specialized and Moynihan was private assistant in 1887-88 to Mayo-Robson, a pioneer in abdominal surgery in Leeds. Foreseeing the trend of surgery Moynihan trained himself deliberately to anticipate its arrival. He went to Berlin as a postgraduate student, and for many years spent his holidays in visiting the schools of surgery first in Europe and later in the United States. He was a brilliant and bold operator and early accepted the teachings of Lister. Gentle in his handling of tissues or, as he expressed it, “caressing” them, and a master of technique, his results were unusually satisfactory. He regarded every operation as a religious rite or sacrament, He felt the magnitude of the patient’s surrender of the whole future and even his life to the judgement and manual skill of a perhaps hitherto unknown surgeon. Himself a master of his craft, he taught that there must be the same high standard of achievement in every detail, and that at no stage of an operation should anything be left to chance. Operations on the liver and gall-bladder, upon the stomach, and “short-circuiting” for duodenal ulcer, more especially interested him, and he made his results widely known by means of articles, addresses, and communications to the medical press. He learnt from observation that the appearances in the living tissues differ widely from those in museum specimens. He was thus led to consider the whole subject of surgical pathology, popularized Allbutt’s phrase “the pathology of the living”, and was insistent that an institution should be founded where experimental surgery could be studied, to supplement the morbid surgical anatomy usually taught in the schools. In this he was successful during the latter years of his life when he was president of the College. Largely at his instigation and with the munificent assistance of Sir George Buckston Browne, an experimental surgical farm was founded at Downe in Kent. It was affiliated to the College and was placed under the mastership of Sir Arthur Keith, F.R.S., who had been conservator of the Hunterian Museum. Moynihan realized early in life that English surgeons knew little about the work of their colleagues and less about the progress of surgery abroad. He therefore established in 1909 a small visiting club, the members of which travelled from surgical centre to surgical centre, watched and commented upon the methods of their colleagues and confrères, and cemented many friendships. This visiting surgical club changed its name in 1929 and became the Moynihan Chirurgical Club. He was an excellent expositor and even dramatic in his showmanship for visitors to his own clinic. He knew how to advertise his work, but it was of the very best. He was instrumental in calling into existence the Association of Surgeons to bring together the surgeons of Great Britain and the Dominions; in this he was much helped by H. S. Pendlebury. He took a leading part in founding the *British Journal of Surgery* in 1913, and held the important office of chairman of the editorial committee from its beginning until his death; Ernest Hey Groves and George Cask were his chief supporters in this work. Under this guidance the venture proved successful, and in July 1936 the subscribers presented him with a statuette, wrought by Omar Ramsden, in silver, and a cheque for one thousand guineas. The cheque he handed to the College for the benefit of its library, and presented a replica of the statuette to stand on the table at meetings of the editorial committee. As a man Moynihan was fairly tall, strong and well made, and in youth his hair was of a fiery red colour. He was always on the alert, with a pleasant smile, and a ready repartee for any friendly attack. He spoke well in a soft voice and liked speaking, for he had a fund of humour, an attractive delivery, and a real feeling for language. His pupils were devoted to him, and his lectures were always well attended. He was interested and well informed in painting, literature, and music. He had visited most of the European galleries, where his anatomical and surgical knowledge enabled him to detect many pathological facts unwittingly recorded by the great artists of the renaissance and later periods. He retained his love of swimming and practised it until his life’s end. Many honours came to Moynihan. He was a member or fellow of the chief medical societies throughout the world. The University of Leeds made him an honorary LL.D. on the occasion of its twenty-fifth jubilee in 1924. He was elected a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons in 1917, and he delivered the first Murphy memorial lecture at Chicago in 1920 and presented a great mace “from the consulting surgeons of the British Armies to the American College of Surgeons in memory of mutual work and good fellowship in the European War 1914-18”. He delivered the Romanes lecture at Oxford in 1932, and the Linacre lecture at Cambridge in 1936. He was created a baronet in 1922, and seven years later was called to the House of Lords with a patent as Baron Moynihan of Leeds. Amongst his other activities was his work in connexion with the Cancer Research Campaign fund at Leeds, when a sum of £150,000 was raised. As president of the Voluntary Euthanasia Legislation Society he had undertaken to introduce a Euthanasia Bill in the autumn session of 1936 in the House of Lords. Shortly before his death he had joined the Board of Directors of Droitwich Spa, and had intended to devote himself to its development as a centre for the cure of rheumatism. Moynihan’s name is inscribed in the Town Hall, Leeds among the Freeman of the City, and a ward has been named after him at the General Infirmary. His instruments are in the museum of the Leeds Medical School. His portrait, three-quarter length seated, was painted by Richard Jack, R.A., in 1927. The likeness is good but the hands do credit neither to sitter nor painter. The painting hands in the Board Room of the General Infirmary at Leeds; his own replica he presented to the Royal College of Surgeons shortly before his death. It hangs in the first hall, and beneath it is an inscribed silver tablet worked by Omar Ramsden. The same craftsman made the chain and badge of office, which Moynihan gave for the presidents of the Association of Surgeons. A bust by Sir William Reid Dick, R.A., in a setting designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, P.R.A., stands half-way up the main staircase facing the main entrance to the General Infirmary at Leeds; it was unveiled in the autumn of 1939. A bronze cast of his hands is in the library of the Leeds Medical School, with a replica in the City Art Gallery. The Medical School also possesses a bronze bust by F. J. Wilcoxson; the Royal College of Surgeons has a marble bust by Wilcoxson, presented by Lord Moynihan’s son. Starting as the son of a poor widow, Moynihan left a very large fortune due entirely to his own exertions; but he was no grasper after money, as was shown by the numbers of patients upon whom he operated in private either gratuitously or for a greatly reduced fee. He left bequests for eponymous lectures at Leeds University and the Royal College of Surgeons. The first Leeds biennial Moynihan lecture was delivered by Gordon Gordon-Taylor in October 1940; the first Moynihan lecture at the College by E. W. Hey Groves on 14 March 1940. Moynihan made time by early rising for much excellent writing during his busiest years of practice. His articles on clinical subjects were masterly, progressive, and clear. His later addresses on medico-political or historical subjects were full of knowledge and wisdom, and inspiring to his hearers. He had a natural gift for the short, memorable phrase, and cultivated his skill in selecting and arranging words. His surgical writings deal mainly with abdominal conditions and the appropriate treatment. Sir Arthur F. Hurst in his Harveian Oration for 1937, dealing with the physiology of the stomach, draws attention to the clinical picture of duodenal ulcer drawn by Moynihan; he says “It is as much a piece of original research as the discovery of a new element or a new star, and equally deserving of recognition”. *Principal publications*: Mesenteric cysts. *Ann. Surg*. 1897, 26, 1-30. On the anatomy and pathology of the rarer forms of hernia. Arris and Gale lectures. *Lancet*, 1900, 1, 513-521; *Brit. med. J*. 1900, 1, 435-441 and 503-508. The surgery of chronic ulcer of the stomach. *Brit. med. J.* 1900, 2,1631. Pancreatic cysts. *Med. Chron.* 1902, 2, 241-284. Tumours of the mesentery. *Ibid.* 1902, 3, 345-371. The operative treatment of gastric and duodenal ulcers. *Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1903, 86, 513-557. *Gallstones and their surgical treatment*. Philadelphia, 1904; 2nd edition, 1905. *Abdominal operations*. London, 1905; 4th edition, 2 vols. 1926. Surgery of the pancreas, in Keen’s *Surgery,* 1908, 3, 1035-1067. Surgery of the spleen. *Ibid.* pp.1068-1093. *Duodenal ulcer.* London, 1910; 2nd edition, 1912. *The pathology of the living and other essays.* London, 1910. On the treatment of gun-shot wounds. *Brit. med. J. *1916, 1, 333-337. *The spleen and some of its diseases,* Bradshaw lecture, R.C.S. 1920. London, 1921. Cancer of the stomach. *Practitioner*, 1928, 121, 137-148. *Addresses on surgical subjects*. London, 1928. A full bibliography by S. Wood is in the College library; it was published in *Univ. Leeds med. Soc. Mag*. 1937, 7, 111-116.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000226
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Carpue, Joseph Constantine (1764 - 1846)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18 2016-04-15
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/372599372599
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on May 4th, 1764, at Brook Green, the son of a gentleman of small fortune descended from a Spanish family. As a Roman Catholic he was educated at the Jesuits' College, Douai, being at first intended for the Church. At the age of 18, before the Revolution, he travelled about France on foot, saw Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette at the dinner table with Philip Egalité, Duke of Orleans, waiting on them. Later, in Paris, he listened to the declamations of Danton, Marat, and Robespierre. This was the beginning of what he continued through life, journeying on foot through Wales and the Highlands of Scotland with Sharon Turner the historian, also through Holland, Italy, Germany, and even, in 1843, the Tyrol. After the Church Carpue next thought about becoming a bookseller in succession to an uncle Lewis in Great Russell Street; then his admiration for Shakespeare turned his thoughts towards the stage, and up to the time of his death he continued to advocate the erection of a colossal iron statue of Shakespeare at the mouth of the Thames. Finally, fixing on surgery, he studied at St George's Hospital under Keate and George Pearson. On qualifying as a surgeon he was appointed Staff Surgeon to the Duke of York's Hospital, Chelsea, in 1799, and, through Pearson, became an ardent vaccinator. The former post he resigned Oct 1st, 1807, because he declined to go on foreign service, but he continued Surgeon to the National Vaccine Institution until his death. At the Duke of York's Hospital he held classes in anatomy with a fee of 20 guineas for the course, and had for years an overflowing attendance. He delivered three courses of daily lectures during the year without intermission except for a few days in summer. He also gave lectures on surgery twice a week in the evening. A strange occurrence happened in 1800. West, President of the Royal Academy, Sir Joseph Banks, and Cosway, agreeing that the classical representation of the Crucifixion was unsatisfactory, called upon Carpue. A murderer was about to be executed. Keate, Master of the College of Surgeons, gave permission. A structure was erected, including a cross, near the place of execution. The executed murderer, whilst still warm, was nailed on the cross, the cross suspended, and after the body had fallen into position, a cast was taken under the direction of Banks. The cast was removed to Carpue's anatomy theatre, and in 1843 was still in existence in the studio of Behnes. In connection with his anatomy teaching Carpue published a *Description of the Muscles of the Human Body*. He took up medical electricity, had a fine plate machine in his dining-room and made many experimental researches, including that on himself for the relief of lumbago, by passing the current through his loins. He published a book on the subject in 1803. On the occasion of the illness of Princess Amelia, at Worthing, Carpue was introduced to the Prince Regent, who talked with him on medical subjects, as he did later when king. Hence, when Carpue published his *Account of Two Successful Operations for Restoring a Lost Nose*, in December, 1815, he dedicated it to the Prince Regent. Carpue began with an historical account of the Tagliacotian operation by tracing the first description of the operation to the Sicilian surgeon Branca in 1442. Tagliacozzi (1546-1599) first noted his operation in his *Epistola ad Hieronymum Mercurialem de Naribus multo ante abscissis reficiendis*, 1587. He described it more fully in *De Curtorum Chirurgia per Insitionem*, libri duo, 1597, which included the well-known engraving of an arm attached to the nose by a flap of skin. Outside Italy the only reported case subsequently had been that by Griffon, of Lausanne, in 1590, mentioned by Fabricius Hildanus. The operation had been popularly confused with transplantation of skin, particularly from the buttock of a donor. Butler, in the 1st canto of his *Hudibras*, had mixed up this transplantation of skin with the superstition about sympathy. The nose restored from the donor's buttock, Butler's 'parent breech', was said to disappear on the death of Nock, the donor, the portion of the donor's spirit, or numen, having to rejoin that of its parent breech, alias Nock- "When the date of Nock was out, Off dropped the sympathetic snout." What had occurred in several instances was healing by first intention when a cut-off nose had been sutured into place at once. Carpue entered upon a long disquisition concerning healing by first intention, and mentioned more or less veracious instances. Yet owing to cold or other causes, a restored nose might shrivel up or slough off. Carpue's attention had been attracted to the description of the Indian method in the *Gentleman's Magazine*, 1794, given by two English surgeons, Thomas Cruso and James Findlay. It was also described in Pennant's *View of Hindoostan*, 1798, ii, 237, as a procedure practised from time immemorial by the caste of the Koomas - potters and brickmakers. His first case was that of an officer the tip of whose nose had sloughed in 1809, not so much the result of syphilis as from the excessive administrations of mercury for hepatitis. There are four plates in illustration of the operation and result. The second case was that of an officer the tip of whose nose had been cut off at the Battle of Albuera, in 1810; Plate V illustrates the deformity and the result of the operation. In both instances an exceedingly good result was obtained considering the surgery of the time. In 1819 Carpue published a *History of Suprapubic Lithotomy*, giving a history of other methods, without adding anything from his own experience, but the book is a useful compendium. Carpue saw the operation performed in Paris by Soubervielle. Franco had pushed up the calculus in a boy's bladder; John Douglas and Cheselden injected water to distend the bladder. In either procedure the fold of peritoneum was likely to be raised. But Frère Côme introduced his sonde-à-dard, by an incision in the perineum, to push forward the wall of the bladder after he had emptied it of urine. Consequently a perforation of the fold of peritoneum was likely. Either this accident, or the over-distension of the bladder causing rupture, was the reason why the operation failed. Suprapubic lithotomy was resuscitated by Carson, who showed that the fold of peritoneum was raised when the rectum was inflated; by Petersen, of Kiel, who carefully distended the bladder; and by the method of Sir Henry Thompson in pushing up the exposed fold bluntly with the fingers. Carpue was also Surgeon to the St Pancras Infirmary, and after seeing at Greenwich Hospital multiple punctures made into inflamed areas, he adopted the practice. It was especially through Sir Joseph Banks that Carpue was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. At the College of Surgeons he was one of the original Fellows but was not elected to the Council. Although successful at first in attracting a large anatomical class, private medical schools died out as the staff of the great hospitals set themselves to give medical instruction systematically and ceased to take private pupils. J F South, although he allowed that Carpue was a very good anatomist, depreciated him for holding private classes. Soon after the opening of the railways to Brighton, Carpue in travelling there put his two daughters in a first-class carriage, whilst he himself with two servants travelled in an open car. A collision occurred which threw him and his servants out upon the line. One of the servants was killed, and Carpue sustained severe contusions. After a tedious process at law he obtained a verdict for damages in the sum of £250, most of which had already been spent in costs. He did not recover, suffered from increasing bronchitis, and died on Jan 30th, 1846. His portrait, as well as a marble bust, was presented to St George's Hospital by his daughter, Miss Emma Carpue, who left St George's Hospital £6,500 and £1000 to the Society for the Relief of the Widows and Orphans of Medical Men. Carpue is described as a tall, ungainly, good-tempered, grey-haired man who wore an ill-fitting suit of black relieved by an enormous white kerchief which encircled his neck like a roller towel. He was a facile draughtsman on the blackboard and thus earned the name of 'the chalk lecturer'. Each pupil was made to repeat after him and in identical words the description of the bone or organ which he had just given. Tom Hood alludes to Carpue in his "Pathetic Ballad of Mary's Ghost":- "I can't tell where my head is gone, But Dr Carpue can. As for my trunk, it's all packed up To go by Pickford's van." Publications:- "Cast of Crucifixion," from an unpublished MS in Carpue's handwriting. - *Lancet*, 1846, I, 167. *Description of the Muscles of the Human Body*, London, 1801. *An Introduction to Electricity and Galvanism, with Cases showing their Effects in the Cure of Disease*, London, 1803. *An Account of Two Successful Operations for Restoring a Lost Nose from the Integuments of the Forehead in the Cases of Two Officers of His Majesty's Army*, to which are prefixed historical and physiological remarks on the nasal operation, including descriptions of the Indian and Italian methods, with engravings by Charles Turner, London, 1818, translated into German, Berlin, 1817. *A History of the High Operation for the Stone by Incision above the Pubes* (with observations on the advantage attending it, and an account of the various methods of Lithotomy from the earliest periods to the present time), London, 1819.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000415
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Helal, Basil (1927 - 2007)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-01-24
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372619372619
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Basil Helal was an orthopaedic surgeon at Enfield, as well as at the London and Royal National Orthopaedic hospitals. He was born in Cairo on 28 October 1927, the son of Ibrahim Helal, director general of the state railways, and Helena née Sommerville. He was educated at the English School in Cairo, where he won prizes for literature, science and mathematics, and then entered the London Hospital, where he swam for the hospital and the university. After house appointments at the London, he became orthopaedic registrar to the United Liverpool Hospitals and then at the London, where he came under the influence of Sir Reginald Watson-Jones and Sir Henry Osmond-Clarke. He completed his orthopaedic training as a senior registrar at St George’s Hospital and the Woking and Chertsey Group of Hospitals, before his appointment as consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Enfield Group of Hospitals in 1965. He remained at Enfield until 1988, in the meantime becoming an honorary consultant to the London Hospital and, towards the end of his career, consultant hand surgeon to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. Basil Helal’s orthopaedic interests were wide, but he was particularly interested in the surgery of the hand and foot, and the surgical treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. He also had a long standing interest in sports injuries and was orthopaedic adviser to the British Olympic Association over five Olympics. He was a member of innumerable medical societies at home and abroad, and a regular attendee at their meetings, holding high office in many of them, including the presidency of the orthopaedic section of the Royal Society of Medicine, the British Society for the Surgery of the Hand, and the Hunterian Society. He published extensively and contributed to several orthopaedic text books, and in retirement wrote a biography of the German surgeon Richard von Volkmann. Basil was a good all-round sportsman with a charming personality which made him a popular life member of the Savage Club. He married Stella Feldman, a fellow junior doctor in 1952, with whom he had two daughters (Dina and Amanda) and a son (Adam). They divorced shortly before her death in 1977 and he married Susan Livett, a theatre sister, whom he had known for many years, with whom he had two sons (Matthew and Simon). He died at his retirement home in Dornoch, Scotland, on 17 July 2007, after several years of declining health.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000435
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Urquhart, David Ronald Petersgarth (1920 - 2008)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Michael Edgar
Publication Date 2009-02-10 2009-08-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372774372774
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Known affectionately as ‘Dru’, David Ronald Petersgarth Urquhart was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, from 1957 until 1981. Although in many ways a private person, he was undoubtedly one of the established St Thomas’ personalities in the post-war era. His skills were in student teaching and administration, having been heavily involved in the hospital re-building programme. He is remembered at St Thomas’ for his modesty, bubbly sense of humour and approachability. Dru was born in London on 15 January 1920 to Anne Urquhart (née Addis). His father, Alexander Lewis Urquhart, was a pathologist at St Thomas’. He attended Grenham House School, Birchington, Kent, and then Epsom College, from which he entered St Thomas’ Hospital medical school in 1937, qualifying in 1942. As a clinical student in the hospital at the time of the Blitz, he narrowly escaped the direct hit on the northern three blocks of the hospital. After house jobs, he was commissioned into the RAMC in 1943 and posted to HQ 5th Parachute Brigade, 6th Airborne Division. On 8 June 1944 the brigade was parachuted into Normandy to reinforce those who were holding the famous Pegasus (Bénonville) bridge against the Germans. The brigade experienced fierce fighting, during which Dru strayed into no-man’s land against orders to attend the wounded and sustained serious wounds from small arms fire, becoming one of the 4,500 casualties from the 6th Airborne Division in that period. Following repatriation and recovery, he returned to action in December 1944 to take part in the crossing of the Rhine in early 1945 with 225 (parachute) Field Ambulance, having attained the rank of major at the age of only 25. He was subsequently posted to 7th Battalion, the unit preparing to displace the Japanese from occupied Singapore with the expectancy that no one would be likely to survive this daunting task. He was in fact saved by the Japanese surrender following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Years later in the St Thomas’ theatre coffee room he was challenged by some registrars discussing the ethics of nuclear warfare. In his modest way he commented that he had a biased opinion over the question of whether the Hiroshima bombing should have occurred. His firm view was that it should have happened. We now know why he felt that way. In 1947 Dru returned to surgical postgraduate training and at this time met his future wife Verity Hehir at the Special Forces Club in Knightsbridge. Verity was the adopted daughter of Sir Patrick Hehir, a physician in the Indian Medical Service and an authority on tropical medicine who had distinguished himself in the First World War. In 1948 Dru achieved his FRCS and also married Verity. In that same year he renewed his association with the Parachute Regiment by joining 4 Parachute Brigade, Field Ambulance TA, later to become their commanding officer in 1955. His surgical training led to specialisation in orthopaedics. In 1955 he was made senior registrar to St Thomas’ orthopaedics department. In 1957 he was appointed consultant in that department, aged 37. Of the many influences that had encouraged him in his training he cited George Perkins, the then professor of general surgery at St Thomas’, whose practice was almost entirely in trauma and orthopaedics, and also B H Burns and R H ‘Bob’ Young, who had published pivotal papers on lumbar disc herniation in The Lancet. They were both on the orthopaedic staff of St George’s and St Peter’s Hospital, Chertsey. As a young consultant Dru made, as his priority from the start, a commitment to serve his patients, for which he set a good example, leaving others to grapple with the politics of the new NHS. He enjoyed his links with medical students, using his unhurried Friday afternoon ward rounds for bedside teaching in his personal, jovial manner. He preferred this quieter form of teaching to the large outpatient teaching clinics – often quite a jamboree – led by his senior colleagues Ronnie Furlong and Alan Apley (from the Rowley Bristow Orthopaedic Hospital, Pyrford). Dru did not pursue academic orthopaedics for its own sake and his contributions to the medical literature were sparse. However, he acquired expertise in the management of the orthopaedic sequelae of haemophilia and he became an acknowledged leader in this field. Dru was head of the orthopaedic department at St Thomas’ from 1979 until his retirement in 1981. Dru Urquhart had considerable administrative ability and he was appointed governor to the hospital in the early 1960s. He found his métier when he took up the leadership of the St Thomas’ rebuilding project at a time when Government funding for London hospitals was under threat due to policies favouring peripheral hospital development. Despite this, the new east wing was completed in 1965 and the north wing in 1973, a considerable achievement. Dru subsequently became chairman of the medical and surgical officers committee. Dru was very much a family man, living in the Surrey hills near Godalming. He and Verity had two daughters – Ann and Catriona. In 1972, with the growing pressure of his hospital commitments, he and Verity took an apartment in Lollards Tower of Lambeth Palace, only a short distance from St Thomas’ and also useful for Verity, who had developed a skilful interest in jewellery design and making. However, they escaped to the country at weekends. After retirement, the Lollards flat became their main residence, where they indulged in their love of art and music. The sale of two painting enabled them to make an extensive grand opera tour. However, for part of the year, Dru and Verity regularly stayed with their daughter Ann, by then an established architect, who owns a property in the Cevennes area of southern France. Here they enjoyed walking, gardening, reading, baking bread and brewing beer. In the late 1990s Dru sadly developed cerebral decline, leading to dementia. He died on 6 April 2008, having donated his body to the Alzheimer’s Society for research. He was survived by Verity, who continued to live independently in London, and by his two daughters. Ann, the architect, continues to live in France, and Catriona, now married, was in her younger days a distinguished horsewoman at a national standard in eventing. There are no grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000591
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Fenton, Peter John (1935 - 2011)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by David L Boase
Publication Date 2012-02-03 2013-02-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001900-E001999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374136374136
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details Peter Fenton, known to his colleagues as 'PF', was a consultant ophthalmologist in Portsmouth. He was born in Cranleigh, Surrey, the son of Edward Norman Fenton, a wing commander in the RAF, and Joan Wilfrida Fenton née Brown. He was educated at Radley, and then went on to read medicine at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, entering as a pre-clinical student. On qualifying, in 1959, he was appointed as a house surgeon to the eye department at St Thomas', under the supervision of Harold Ridley and John Winstanley. This early exposure convinced him that ophthalmology was to be his career. With Harold Ridley's support, PF was appointed to Moorfields Eye Hospital, which at that time was considered the gold standard for training in ophthalmology. While there he was greatly influenced by Lorimer Fison, the consultant in charge of the retinal detachment unit. On completion of his residency training, PF was appointed as a senior registrar. This was a joint post between Moorfields and St Thomas'. He became Lorimer Fison's chief assistant on the retinal detachment unit. By this time he was an accomplished retinal detachment surgeon whose expertise was widely acknowledged by his peers. At St Thomas' he was once again with Harold Ridley and John Winstanley, and the emphasis was on general ophthalmology with teaching responsibilities. Both Harold Ridley and Lorimer Fison urged PF to stay in London. A teaching hospital post with a Harley Street practice beckoned, but he felt the call of the country. In 1971 he was appointed to the eye department at Queen Alexandra Hospital, Portsmouth. This was an ideal post for PF; a four-consultant unit with training responsibilities, it provided the professional challenges of a major district general hospital, while at the same time being close to London. A big plus was that he and his family were able to live in the country yet close to the hospital. He had the perfect daily commute to work. A dextrous surgeon and shrewd clinician, PF practiced medicine to a very high ethical standard. His knowledge and experience were greatly valued by his colleagues and of course by innumerable patients who benefited from his skill and dedication to their care. His career spanned a period of enormous technological advancement in ophthalmic practice. He rose to the challenge and kept abreast with these developments. More importantly, he encouraged and facilitated change, allowing his junior colleagues free reign to modernise the eye services in Portsmouth. PF was an excellent trainer. His style of hands-off supervision allowed the trainees to grow in confidence and experience, with the knowledge that he would be there when required. Inexperienced senior house officers soon became competent surgeons under his tutelage. He used his out-patient clinics to teach the trainees, as well as visiting optometrists and medical students. Surprisingly for someone with a surgeon's temperament, PF developed an interest in psychosomatic eye diseases. He established a special clinic with a visiting consultant psychiatrist, Alexis Brook, who had a background in psychoanalysis and was funded by the Inman Trust. W S Inman had been a consultant ophthalmologist in Portsmouth many years before and had made his name in the field of psychosomatic eye diseases. PF enjoyed the cut and thrust of medical politics, serving as president of the Portsmouth division of the BMA from 1982 to 1983. He was also very active in hospital politics. His time as chairman of the medical executive committee coincided with the introduction of the Thatcher health reforms, which brought the purchaser-provider divide, fund holding and the drive for trust status by hospitals. This was time of huge change and tension. PF skilfully steered Portsmouth hospitals through these choppy waters. He retired in 1995. Country pursuits provided an antidote to the stresses of consultant practice. PF was a keen gardener, specialising in vegetables and sweet peas. He also kept bees. A stalwart supporter of the local hunt, he was rewarded for his pains by a blowout fracture of his orbit when coshed by a hunt saboteur. The Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers played a very important part in his life. He became a freeman in 1958 and served as master from 1997 to 1998. He relished the traditions, pomp and ceremony provided by the livery companies. Above all PF will be remembered for his kindness, generosity and good humour. He was survived by his wife Amanda (née Simonds), whom he married in 1963, his son, Nicholas, and daughter, Vanessa. PF died after a short illness on 9 December 2011, aged 76.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001953
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bakran, Ali (1949 - 2010)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2012-02-03 2013-08-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001900-E001999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374148374148
Occupation Transplant surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details Ali Bakran was a consultant and vascular surgeon at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital when he drowned while on holiday in the Maldives. He was born in Hyderabad on 15 January 1949 but his family moved to the UK and settled in Salford when he was a small boy. He attended primary school in Salford and then went to Manchester Grammar School. He studied for his BSc in anatomy at Bristol University and qualified MB ChB at Leeds University in 1973. He held surgical posts at Hull and Leeds and joined the higher surgical rotation in Manchester in 1980, moving to Liverpool nine years later as a consultant. He developed a close relationship with the biomedical engineering department at the university and was involved with research projects on vascular access. Another major interest was the study of opportunistic viral infections in transplant patients. In all, he contributed 86 research papers to the literature on a range of clinical and laboratory based topics. In the mid 1990s he helped set up the European Vascular Access Society (EVAS) and was treasurer of the British Transplant Society. He was the founder president of the VASBI (Vascular Access Society of Great Britain and Ireland) which he established in 2009 because of the need to have a multidisciplinary organisation committed to the promotion of vascular access for haemodialysis. The membership was to include vascular surgeons, transplant surgeons, nephrologists, radiologists, dialysis nurses, sonographers and vascular scientists; the inaugural meeting was, tragically, the month after he died. VASBI are now holding annual meetings and training sessions; their current president, Steve Powell, is an interventional radiologist who had been Bakran's partner in developing the excellent outcomes achieved by Liverpool's vascular access service. A member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh he became an ambassador for the College in Africa, visiting various countries to promote co-ordination in surgical training. He was a passionate supporter of Manchester United and enjoyed playing tennis, listening to classical music and eating Indian cuisine. He was remembered for his enthusiastic participation in the annual Snowden hike to promote organ donation. Having fought to overcome his own impoverished background he was keen to improve access to medical education for those from similar backgrounds and set up the charity Aequitas which he was hoping to make his second career after retirement. He was on a two week holiday in the Maldives with his wife and daughter when he drowned while snorkelling. He died on 27 August 2010 aged 61, survived by his wife, Diane, son Adam and daughter Miriam, mourned by his colleagues and by his patients to whose care he had been devoted. His registrar remarked "In transplant surgery we follow the patients throughout life…..he would bulldoze his way for [them]".
Resource Identifier RCS: E001965
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Baird, James Aitken (1922 - 2003)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2012-02-29 2014-03-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002000-E002099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374246374246
Occupation Cardiothoracic surgeon
Details James Baird was a cardiothoracic surgeon in Wellington. He was born on 24 January 1922 in Hastings, New Zealand, the son of Hugh William Charles Baird, a director of a drapery company, and Jeanie Aiton Baird née Aitken. He was educated at Mohora School in Hastings and then Wellington College. He went on to study medicine at Otago University in Dunedin, qualifying in 1945. He was a house surgeon and a surgical registrar at Palmerston North Hospital, where he was introduced to thoracic surgery by David Mitchell. In 1949 Baird went to England, where he worked as a registrar at Essex County Hospital, Colchester. He then gained a registrar appointment at Brompton and Guy's hospitals, under Sir Russell (later Lord) Brock and O S Tubbs. He gained his FRCS in 1949. In November 1952 he returned to New Zealand, as the first full-time cardiothoracic surgeon at Wellington Hospital. He also contributed to the regional thoracic surgery service, holding regular clinics in Palmerston North, Wanganui, Napier and Gisborne. In 1960 he travelled to England and the USA to study new developments in thoracic and cardiac surgery, visiting the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Baird was an examiner in cardiothoracic surgery for the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, chairman of the division of surgery of Wellington hospitals from 1974, and an executive member and then chairman of the Wellington Hospital medical staff committee. With colleagues, he was instrumental in the establishment of the Wellington Clinical School. He was the first president of the Thoracic Society of New Zealand. He retired in 1982 and moved to Hawke's Bay. He learnt Maori, and was interested in genealogy, history, photography and gardening. In 1968 he married Peggy Grant. They had three sons and a daughter. James Baird died in Hastings on 10 July 2003, aged 81. He was survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter. One son predeceased him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002063
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching James, James Thomas (1857 - 1911)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-05-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002300-E002399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374530374530
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Studied at the Middlesex Hospital, where he was Broderip Scholar, Governor's Prizeman, and gained distinction in nearly all subjects. He was then successively House Surgeon, House Physician, and Resident Obstetric Officer. After that he acted as Clinical Assistant at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, and later was appointed Surgeon to the Central London Ophthalmic Hospital, a post he held until a few years before his death. He practised in Harley Street, was consulted by a large number of patients, and worked with but brief holidays. Ill health followed, marked by insomnia and depression, and ended by a death, which necessitated the holding of an inquest, by the Coroner, on January 10th, 1911.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002347
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Adami, John George (1862 - 1926)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-07-31 2016-01-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372822372822
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Manchester, the fifth son of John George Adami by his wife Sarah Ann Ellis, daughter of Thomas Leech, of Urmston, Lancashire. His uncle, David John Leech (1840-1900), was Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the Victoria University, and Physician to the Manchester Royal Infirmary. The family of Adami was of Italian origin, and many members of it had followed the profession of medicine. They had settled latterly in Manchester and Ashton-upon-Mersey. George Adami was educated at the Manchester Grammar School and Owens College, whence he went to Cambridge in 1880, matriculating from Christ's College at the same time as his life-long friend Arthur Everett Shipley. He obtained a scholarship at the College, was Darwinian Prizeman in 1885, and was elected an honorary fellow in 1920. He was an active member of the Cambridge University Natural Science Club, where he read papers on "Rudiments in Man", "The Thymus", and "Medical Degrees" before he graduated. He obtained a first class in Parts I and II of the Natural Science Tripos (1882 and 1884) in a list which included A E Shipley and Henry Head. He then went to Breslau, and in Heidenhain's Laboratory worked at the blood-supply in the frog's kidney. Returning to Manchester, he followed the ordinary course of medical training, was admitted MRCS, and served as house physician for six months at the Royal Infirmary under Drs Morgan, Dreschfeld, and Ross. By this time he had made his reputation as a physiologist, and was elected a member of the Physiological Society on Nov 12th, 1887. He returned to Cambridge in April, 1888, as Demonstrator of Pathology to Professor Charles Smart Roy in succession to (Sir) Almroth Wright. In this position he carried out an extensive research on the cardiovascular system, and continued his work on the glomeruli of the kidney and on albuminuria. In 1889, when investigating rabies among the deer in Tekworth Pak, he was wounded whilst making a post-mortem examination of one of them. He underwent the Pasteur treatment in Paris, after which he suffered from symptoms of abortive hydrophobia, which he himself said were due to auto-suggestion. In 1889 he proceeded MB in the University of Cambridge, having taken his MA degree in the previous year, and in 1892 graduated MD. He was appointed John Lucas Walker Student in Pathology in 1890, continuing his experimental work, and illustrating it in a number of papers which appeared in the *Medical Chronicle*. He returned to Paris for a short time to work at the Pasteur Institute, and in 1891 was elected Fellow of Jesus College and again resided in the University. In the autumn of 1892 he went to Montreal as the first Strathcona Professor of Pathology in McGill University, and there carried on the work which Sir William Osler had "begun by holding morbid anatomy classes in a cloakroom". As Professor of Pathology he was very successful in training his pupils and in encouraging such people as Professor O Klotz, C W Duval, W W Ford, G A Charleton and Maude E Wood to undertake original research. This work in Canada was appreciated by his colleagues, and he acted as President of the Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis from 1909-1912, President of the Royal Society of Canada in 1912, and President of the American Association of Physicians in the same year. He was elected MA, MD (ad eundem) McGill, in 1899 and LLD Toronto in 1912. In the meantime he was not forgotten at home, for he was made FRS in 1905, FRCP London in 1913, and was awarded the Fothergillian Gold Medal by the Medical Society of London in 1914. In 1917 he delivered the Croonian Lecture at the Royal College of Physicians, taking as his subject "Adaptation and Disease". On the outbreak of war (1914-1918) Adami at once volunteered for service overseas, and received a temporary commission as colonel in the Canadian Army Medical Corps, acting as Assistant Director of Medical Services in charge of Records with headquarters in London. In 1917 he was Chairman of a Special Committee to report on the standardization of routine pathological methods, and for those services he was decorated CBE in 1919. His report to the University of London on medical education was highly controversial. On April 10th, 1919, he was elected FRCS as a member of twenty years' standing. In June, 1919, he was chosen unanimously Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool, and the rest of his life was spent in administrative work and in the collection of funds for the maintenance and endowment of the University. In 1920 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. He died on Aug 29th, 1926, and is buried in Allerton Cemetery, Liverpool. He married: (1) Mary, daughter of J A Cantlie of Montreal, and (2) Marie, daughter of the Rev Thomas Wilkinson, Vicar of Litherland. He left two children by his first wife. [1] Adami was a leading pathologist, a genial companion, a man of great culture outside his profession, and of tireless energy. *The Principles of Pathology*, the first volume of which was published in 1909, shows him to have been a master of his subject, and its appearance marked an epoch in the science. Four years later he wrote with his friend Dr John McCrae, of McGill University, a successful text-book on pathology. [Amendment from the annotated edition of * Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] *The Times* 23 Oct 1945 "BAIN - On Oct 18, 1945, in London, Isabel, wife of SIR FREDERICK BAIN, of 29, Palace Court, W.2., and the daughter of the late Dr J. G Adami, FRS, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool, and of the late Mrs. Adami, of Montreal. Funeral private. Memorial service at St. Matthew's Church, St. Petersburgh Place, Bayswater, to-day (Tuesday), at 2.30 p.m. No letters, please."]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000639
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Houghton, Paul Winchester (1911 - 2009)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Mark Houghton
Publication Date 2011-12-13 2014-05-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373906373906
Occupation General surgeon
Details Paul Winchester Houghton was a general surgeon in Worcester, and served with distinction in the Second World War. He was born in west London into a naval family on 30 September 1911 and was educated at Whitgift School. Until his last days he could remember the hunger caused by rationing during the First World War, and his uncle Herbert returning from the Western front. He recalled: 'My mother stood him on a big white sheet in the living room, for he was covered in mud from head to foot.' He entered St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School and qualified MB BS in 1935. His first surgical training post was at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, where he sustained a burn to his finger while aiming a firework at the matron's window. In 1938 he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, after his father warned him: 'here we go again'. He worked in a naval hospital at Lowestoft before, in 1940, joining the destroyer HMS *Zulu*, in which he took part in Atlantic convoys. 'I was rowed out to the ship and climbed the vertical steel ladder to salute the quarterdeck. You never forget the thrill of joining a warship getting up steam to head out into the Atlantic.' During his wartime service he treated everything from tuberculosis to missing limbs, head injuries, flash burns, splinter wounds and survivors of the aircraft carrier HMS *Eagle*, who had skinned themselves while sliding down her barnacled hull as she rolled over. It was difficult for Houghton to treat the wounded in the small *Zulu*, and often he could only provide palliative care. Even in the battleship HMS *Nelson*, which he joined as a surgical specialist in 1941, Houghton was appalled to find long knives, saws and tarred string for tying off blood vessels, all in a brassbound box, apparently as issued in the days of Nelson himself. He promptly wrote directly to the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, asking for modern instruments. This earned him a reprimand for not using official channels, but soon so much equipment arrived he was able to share it with other ships. On 27 September 1941, HMS *Nelson*, the flagship of the Malta convoys, was torpedoed and Houghton found himself trapped below decks. 'In the darkness I walked forward to feel if the watertight bulkhead was holding. After an hour I made the same journey; but this time I was walking back up a steep hill. Sometime later we heard a dreadful roaring over our heads. Then we heard the watertight door being opened for the wonderful release of daylight. We discovered the noise was my friend Commander Blundell at work. He saved the ship by organising the crew to winch and drag the enormous anchor chain from the front to the rear of the ship. This change of weights raised the bows until the torpedo hole was out of the water.' In autumn 1942, while HMS *Nelson* was in the Mediterranean, Rear Admiral Philip Vian, one of the war's most distinguished fighting admirals, consulted Houghton in secret. Vian was clearly ill and had been relieved of command of Force A, based at Port Said. Examination revealed a large infected scalp sebaceous cyst concealed by matted hair, which in Houghton's opinion was life threatening. Houghton operated successfully, the episode was kept confidential, and Vian made a complete recovery, going on to command part of the invasion fleet on D Day. In January 1943, when the *Nelson* was the flagship of Force H, the South African-born Vice Admiral Neville Syfret consulted the ship's surgical specialist after four days of abdominal pain. Houghton found him acutely ill with appendicitis and operated at once. Afterwards, while waiting for him to recover, he and a colleague were playfully trying on the admiral's hat. A sudden roar from the patient('take that bloody thing off') put an end to their games. 'No hopes of a medal for me,' Houghton predicted. After the war Houghton took a surgical job in Shrewsbury, where he met and treated his future wife of 62 years when she cut her finger on the anchor chain of a captured German yacht. He was then appointed as a consultant general surgeon in Worcester, working at Ronkswood Hospital. On retiring at the compulsory age of 65 (in 1976), he continued as a locum in Worcester and then elsewhere in South Africa, St Lucia and the UK. His last post, at the age of 75, was at the Nazareth Hospital, Israel. As usual for his generation, he had a very wide surgical practice, including initially orthopaedics. A man of enormous personal integrity, he always kept his patients fully informed of their prognosis, but his watchword was 'never destroy hope'. Houghton was the antithesis of the clubbable man, despising 'shallow affability'. Yet he enjoyed good dinners and had a wide range of personal friends who appreciated his many stories and his vast store of memorised verse. His whimsical sense of humour was famous, but did not conceal his compassion. He was sustained throughout his life by a steadfast Christian faith, and began every operation with a quiet prayer, said without ostentation and not usually noticed by others. As ill health took its toll towards the end of this long life, he longed in his own words for 'the land of heaven'. He died at home from heart failure on 5 August 2009, at the age of 97, and was survived by his wife Jean, daughter Pippa, a theatre nurse, son Mark, a GP, and his three grandchildren - Celia, Daniel and Fiona. In 1995 a meeting was held in Worcester to mark the passing of 50 years since the end of the Second World War. Paul Houghton spoke of his wartime experiences. He showed a black and white photograph that he had taken from HMS *Nelson* at sunset of burials at sea from the aircraft carrier HMS *Indomitable*. At this point he broke down in tears and was unable to continue, a moment of unforgettable poignancy for those present.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001723
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Heath, George Yeoman (1820 - 1892)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002100-E002199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374363374363
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Westoe, near South Shields, his father being a well-known shipowner, his mother related to Dr Winterbottom, Physician to the College of Sierra Leone and author of *Diseases of the Natives of Africa*; was first apprenticed to his brother Henry, who had a large and varied practice and was Surgeon to numerous collieries. After serving his time Heath studied at Newcastle-upon-Tyne during the session 1839-1840, and then entered University College Hospital, London, where he was Dresser under Liston and gained the Gold Medal for surgery; later he went to Paris. He then settled in practice at Newcastle and became Surgeon to the Eastern Dispensary. He joined the staff of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne School of Medicine and Surgery in 1845, lectured on surgery and surgical anatomy, and was one of the Committee appointed to wind up the affairs of the school when it was dissolved in the summer of 1851. On the day following the dissolution Heath was present at a meeting for its reorganization. The scheme was successful, and Heath, jointly with his brother Henry Heath, was chosen to lecture on the principles and practice of surgery in the newly established College of Medicine. In 1857 this college was amalgamated with the College of Science and in due course formed the medical faculty of the University of Durham in 1870, when Heath became the University Professor of Surgery. In 1854 he was elected Surgeon to the Newcastle Infirmary, holding that post till 1880, when he became Consulting Surgeon. In June, 1859, he was given the honorary degree of MD Durham. The range of practice at the infirmary was a varied one. Heath distinguished himself as a lithotomist, having performed 104 lateral lithotomies before taking up lithotrity. He was also for a long period Surgeon to the Eye Infirmary. In his Address on Surgery at the Newcastle Meeting of the British Medical Association in 1870 he set out with much wealth of illustration the three characteristics of what he called "Modern Operative Surgery: its Audacity, its Conservatism, and its Success". This was from one of the best of Liston's pupils with a wide reputation as a surgeon, just as Lister's revolution was starting. Heath was elected President of the Medical College on the death of Dr E Charlton, and held that post until his death. He was also elected Representative of the Durham University Medical School, to which the Newcastle School had become affiliated in 1847, upon the General Medical Council. He served from December, 1887, until his death, when he was succeeded by Sir George Hare Philipson, MD. He suffered from arthritis which impeded his walking, and at last from an abscess of the gall-bladder, as was proved at the post-mortem examination by Dr C J Gibb. He died at Cocken Hall, near Durham, on March 4th, 1892, and his funeral was largely attended by colleagues and students from the College and Infirmary. The Northumberland and Durham Medical Society passed a vote of condolence. The Heath Professorship of Comparative Pathology and Bacteriology was established in his memory.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002180
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Dooley, Denis (1913 - 2010)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by R M Kirk
Publication Date 2011-12-13 2013-02-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373913373913
Occupation Anatomist Public health officer
Details Denis Dooley was Her Majesty's Inspector of Anatomy from 1965 to 1980. He was born on 10 December 1913. He was educated at St Ignatius' College, Stamford Hill, London, and then went on to study mathematics and Latin, gaining a BA degree from London University in 1936. He then returned to his old school as a teacher. In 1938, he developed peritonitis from a burst appendix and was an inpatient at St George's Hospital for three months, after which he decided on a medical career - financed as a wartime fire-watcher. He trained in medicine at St Mary's Hospital, London. He was determined to gain a house post working for the prominent surgeon Arthur Dickson Wright, who he knew appointed only the most outstanding graduates. Denis had no illusions about his place on the list, but noted that Dickson Wright's house surgeons were worked so hard that they almost invariably failed to last the full six-month appointment. Denis decided to wait. Sure enough, the next successful candidate lasted only a few weeks, and Denis stepped into the breach. Sadly, he lasted for an even shorter period, before taking to his bed in the residency. The next morning, the door of his room opened sufficiently to reveal Dickson Wright's nose. He asked: 'Dooley, how soon before you are back at work?' Denis groaned: 'Sir, the way I feel now, I shall never work again.' The nose was withdrawn, the door closed, and the appointment terminated. In 1946 Denis became a house surgeon to Sir Zachary Cope and, a year later, became a research registrar to Sir Alexander Fleming, administering the recently available penicillin to treat a patient suffering from bacterial endocarditis. From 1948 to 1952, he was a resident medical officer at Charing Cross Hospital. He was generous in helping out during busy periods. One day, when the casualty department was busy, he undertook to see the male revisits. Soon the queue had disappeared, but the treatment area was bulging with patients. An anxious nurse emerged, holding a stack of casualty cards. On each was written 'RUS.DD'. When Denis was asked the meaning, he admonished the junior doctors for their lack of Latin, replying: 'Quite simple; *Rep. ut supra* (repeat as above) Denis Dooley'. His role at Charing Cross included the health care of medical students, resident doctors and nurses. At that time most of the newly qualified doctors were ex-servicemen, and they were expected to adhere to pre-war rules, including being banned from living a married life. Denis tried to protect them from the oppressive restrictions, but only with partial success. His support for the juniors brought him into conflict with the governing body and he was warned not to apply to have his appointment renewed. From 1952 to 1954 he was a general practitioner in Barnes and Wimbledon. He then served as a medical officer for the Ministry of Health, becoming a senior medical officer in 1973. By chance, one of his duties was to inspect the London teaching hospitals. He arrived to inspect the governance of Charing Cross Hospital, and he could not help but feel contempt for the unctuous greetings he received from the same people who had in effect sacked him for attempting to protect the resident doctors from authoritarian restrictions. From 1965 to 1980 Denis served as Her Majesty's Inspector of Anatomy. One of his duties was to regulate the use of bodies for dissection in the study of anatomy. Out of this appointment came a series of reports and lectures, including the Arris and Gale lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1972 (published as 'A dissection of anatomy' *Ann R Coll Surg Engl* 1973 July; 53[1]:13-26), a Royal Institution lecture in 1974 ('The rediscovery of anatomy'), and the Medical Society of London annual oration in 1977 ('On the anomaly of anatomy' *Transactions of the Medical Society of London* 92-93;192-208). In 1972, in recognition of his work, he was made a life member of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and in 1979 he was awarded an OBE. He was a devote Roman Catholic. In 1946 he carried a cross 500 miles to Vézelay Abbey in Burgundy, France, as part of a group marching for peace. Friends remember him for his generosity and for his rejection of personal possessions. He was a master of the portentous-seeming entrance, soon to be punctured by a humorous and sly, witty follow-up - the ultimate 'character'. Outside medicine, he enjoyed golf, bridge and scrabble. He met his wife Eileen at St Mary's Hospital. They had a son, Michael, and a daughter, Johanna. Denis Dooley died on 19 May 2010 at the age of 96. His last words were the Lord's Prayer, recited in Latin.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001730
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Balding, Daniel Barley (1831 - 1923)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Holden, Luther (1815 - 1905)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-08 2012-03-22
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372392372392
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in his grandfather's house at Birmingham on Dec. 11th, 1815. He was the second son of the Rev. Henry Augustus Holden, who married his cousin Hyla Holden of Wednesbury in Staffordshire. His elder brother, Henry Holden, D.D. (b. 1814) , was Canon of Durham, a fine scholar and the editor with Richard Dacre Archer Hind of the *Sabrinœ Corolla*; the fourth brother, Philip Melancthon (1823-1904) was Rector of Upminster, Essex. Luther was educated with his father's pupils, at a private school in Birmingham, and at Havre, where in 1827 he learned to speak French fluently. He entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1831 as an apprentice of Edward Stanley (q.v.), and in 1838 went for a year to study in Berlin and for a second year in Paris. An Italian student in Paris taught him to read and speak Italian. He was appointed Surgeon to the Metropolitan Dispensary, Fore Street, E.C., in 1843, and was then living in the Old Jewry, teaching anatomy to private pupils, one of whom was William Palmer, the poisoner. Holden presented himself at the first examination for the newly established diploma for the Fellowship, and was one of the twenty-four candidates who passed successfully on Christmas Eve, 1843. Appointed in 1846, with A. M. McWhinnie (q.v.), Superintendent (or Demonstrator) of Dissections at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, he was elected in 1859, jointly with Frederick Skey (q.v.), to lecture upon descriptive and surgical anatomy. He resigned the office in June, 1871. Elected Assistant Surgeon to the hospital in July, 1860, with Frederick Skey as his Surgeon, he became full Surgeon in August, 1865, with Alfred Willett as his Assistant Surgeon. He resigned his hospital appointments in 1880 on attaining the age of 65, and was made Consulting Surgeon. He then retired from his house, 54 Gower Street, which had a garden, moved to Pinetoft, Ispwich, and spent much of his life in travel. He visited at different times Egypt, Australia, India, Japan, and was entertained by the medical profession at Johannesburg in 1898. He was Surgeon to the Foundling Hospital from 1864 until his death. At the Royal College of Surgeons Holden was a Member of the Council from 1868-1884; an Examiner in Anatomy and Physiology, 1875-1876; a Member of the Court of Examiners, 1873-1883; and a Member of the Dental Board of Examiners, 1879-1882. He served as Vice-President for the years 1877 and 1878, was President in 1879 and Hunterian Orator in 1881. He married: (1) Frances, daughter of Benjamin Wasey Sterry, of Upminster, Essex, in July, 1851, and (2) Frances, daughter of Wasey Sterry, in 1868, who survived him. Both wives bore the same name and were of the same family. Both had independent fortunes. There were no children of either marriage. Holden died at Putney on Feb. 5th, 1905, and was buried in the cemetery of the Parish Church, Upminster. By his will he bequeathed £3000 to endow a scholarship in surgery in the Medical School at St. Bartholomew's Hospital; he also made handsome bequests to St. Bartholomew's and to the Foundling Hospitals. A three-quarter-length portrait in oils - an admirable likeness - by Sir J. E. Millais, R.A., hangs in the Great Hall at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. It was painted on the occasion of Holden's retirement from the active staff of the hospital and has been engraved. A crayon sketch by Gordon Stowers hangs on the walls of the College of Surgeons. It is dated 1881, and was exhibited at the Royal Academy. There is also a fine portrait by Maguire, dated 1851, in the College Collection. Holden was one of the last members of the school of surgeons who based their practice on anatomy, and for that reason he is remembered by his *Osteology* and *Surgical Landmarks* rather than by his surgical attainments. The imperfect treatment of syphilis in the mid-Victorian period allowed of the production of many aneurysms. Holden was a great advocate for the treatment of popliteal aneurysm by continuous digital pressure in preference to the Hunterian operation, which was often followed by secondary haemorrhage. He invented 'Holden's sausage', a cylinder of Gooch's splint containing a bag of shot. The cylinder was slung from a pulley above the bed, and was so adjusted as to press upon the fingers of the assistant who was compressing the femoral artery with one hand whilst the other was placed upon the aneurysm to make sure that the pulsation had ceased. The pressure was kept up for many hours by relays of students. The method was irksome to the students and painful to the patient, who had often to be kept under morphia. It was occasionally successful, but there was frequently so much chafing and bruising of the skin, that it fell into disuse. For many years he 'coached' students privately for their examinations, and no one possessed a stronger hold on the affections of his pupils, nor did anyone take greater pleasure in teaching, than did Luther Holdern. One thing he abhorred with all his might, and that was the modern specialist. He believed in the good general surgeon who knew his anatomy and physiology and their applications to surgery. He was an excellent operator, and devoted the greatest care to the work in the wards and to his clinical teaching. Years advanced, but they made little impression on Holden's marvellous physical vigour and lightness of heart. He was a very accomplished and courteous gentleman, with a charm of manner that gained the confidence of the most shy student. He cared little for private practice, but had a passion for teaching, and a patience that was inexhaustible, even when dealing with those whose mental capacities were least developed. He was the personal friend and confidant, as well as teacher, of all who experienced difficulty in acquiring what they had to learn, and he succeeded in teaching those whom no one else could teach. He was beloved alike by the students amongst whom it was his delight to work, and the colleagues with whom he was ever in harmony and affectionate relations. A fluent linguist and a good classic as well as a keen sportsman, he was a conspicuously handsome member of a handsome family, and it was interesting to notice that the older he grew the more handsome he became. He was seen at his best when he was riding to hounds. It is noteworthy, perhaps, that he was one of the few Presidents of the College who received no outside recognition in the form of honorary degrees or other decorative titles. A pencil sketch of his head is in the Royal College of Surgeons. PUBLICATIONS: - *A Manual of the Dissection of the Human Body*, in four parts without illustrations, London, 1850; 2nd ed., 1 vol., copiously illustrated, 8vo, 1851; 2nd ed., 1859; 5th ed., Philadelphia, 1885; 7th ed., 1901, 2 vols. *Human Osteology*, 2 vols., London, 1855; the later editions were in one volume; 8th ed., 1929. This work marked a distinct advance in the study of the human skeleton. It is written in an easy style by a master anatomist. The author drew the illustrations himself and they were etched on stone by Thomas Godart, Librarian of the Medical School at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, who afterwards died in Australia. These illustrations formed at the time a new feature in the teaching of anatomy, for the origin and insertions of the muscles are shown upon the figures of the bones by red and blue lines. *Landmarks Medical and Surgical*, first published as a series of papers in the *St. Bart.'s Hosp. Rep.*, 1866, ii, and 1870, vi. They were issued separately in a large and revised form in 1876; 4th ed., 1888; and were translated into Spanish by Dr. Servendo Talón y Calva, Madrid, 1894. The book is an application of anatomy to surgery and shows how much anatomy can be learnt by studying the surface of the body whilst yet the skin is unbroken. There were at first no illustrations to distract from personal observations, but woodcuts were added in the later editions.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000205
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Addison, Norman Victor (1925 - 2003)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372450372450
Occupation General surgeon
Details Norman Addison was a consultant surgeon at Bradford Royal Infirmary. He was born in Leeds on 26 April 1925, the son of Herbert Victor Addison and Alice née Chappell. He was educated at Leeds Grammar School, where he won an exhibition and sixth form prizes in biology and chemistry. He went on to study medicine at Leeds University, where he also played rugby. After completing house posts, one of which was with P J Moir at Leeds General Infirmary, he did his National Service in the RAF as a Flight Leiutenant. He returned to demonstrate anatomy with A Durward while preparing for the Primary FRCS. Between 1955 and 1957 he trained at Leeds General Infirmary and was one of the first to be enrolled into a senior surgical registrar rotation. He was appointed consultant surgeon at Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke’s Hospital in 1963, becoming the first postgraduate tutor, converting a former mill-owner’s mansion into a Postgraduate Medical Centre. After serving on the council of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland he became treasurer and then president in 1987, holding the annual general meeting at Harrogate. Norman was granted a Hunterian Professorship in 1982 and was a member of the Court of Examiners. In 1949 he married Joan King, the daughter of the professor of chemistry textiles at the University of Leeds. They had two sons, neither of whom followed a medical career. Norman Addison was a forceful personality who tended to push forward to take the lead, and many found him overwhelming, but he was an excellent and energetic organiser and his close friends found him an amiable companion with a sense of humour. He died on 8 July 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000263
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bryce, Alexander Graham (1890 - 1968)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-03-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372641372641
Occupation General surgeon
Details Graham Bryce was born in Southport, Lancashire, the son of Elizabeth Dodds and Alexander Graham Bryce who was the managing director of a calico printing firm. He went to school at the Southport Modern School for Boys until the age of 11 when he proceeded to complete his secondary education at the Bickerton House School until he was 16. When he was 16 he matriculated and went very early to the Manchester University Medical School so that he graduated at what was a very tender age, at 21. He proceeded to the Degree of MD in 1913, and to the Diploma of Public Health in 1915. He gained his Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1923. At the University of Manchester, he was a diligent and successful student, obtaining distinctions and exhibitions in anatomy, physiology, pharmacology and medicine, and a host of prizes and medals. As house physician to Dr E M Brookbank, a cardiologist of high national repute, he was early acquainted with diseases of the heart. This served him well later in life when he entered the practice of thoracic surgery. His subsequent years of postgraduate study indicated that he practised what he subsequently preached, namely that hard experience in general medicine and surgery is an essential basis for later devotion to a specialty; as a house officer in medicine, he studied the problem of cancer of the stomach, to form the basis of his thesis for a doctorate which he obtained in 1913. Further postgraduate experience was gained as a resident medical officer at the Manchester Children's Hospital, and in 1914 as senior resident in the Manchester Tuberculosis Hospital. Like so many surgeons of his generation he served in the RAMC in artillery, infantry, and cavalry medical units, from 1915 to 1919. During this period he decided to enter the practice of surgery and held surgical house appointments from 1919 to 1921 at the Blackburn Royal Infirmary. He journeyed south to work as senior house surgeon at the Royal Dock Hospital for Seamen and subsequently at St George's Hospital. In 1923, having obtained his English Fellowship, he returned to Manchester as senior surgical registrar at the Royal Infirmary, where subsequently he was appointed resident surgical officer, holding the post for two years. At that time a galaxy of surgical stars, known throughout the world, held appointments on the staff of the Manchester Royal Infirmary, and fierce competition for places existed. His potential was recognized by his election as surgical tutor until 1927 when he moved to the Manchester Victoria Memorial Jewish Hospital as a consultant surgeon. An additional appointment as honorary assistant surgeon at Salford Royal Hospital placed him in the company of men as distinguished as Geoffrey Jefferson and J B Macalpine. Although in private practice, he found time and energy to commence a study of thoracic surgery and obtained appointments in sanatoria in the Manchester area. He published several papers on general surgery in 1913-1932 and in 1934, together with James E H Roberts, Sir Clement Price Thomas and a spontaneous pneumothorax and pulmonary lobectomy. In those early days of thoracic surgery, like many men of that era entering this specialty, he visited surgical centres in Great Britain and overseas; he studied in Berlin, Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, and during these tours he made abiding friendships amongst thoracic surgeons. In 1934 he achieved a cherished ambition when appointed to the honorary staff of the Manchester Royal Infirmary. His quiet, gentle and self-deprecatory manner did not decieve his many friends, as underneath a gentle exterior was a dogged determination to pursue the craft and science of surgery successfully. He established thoracic surgery in his district; at a meeting of the Association of Surgeons in Manchester in 1934, together with the late J E H Roberts, Sir Clement Price Thomas and a few others, he formed a small club over a drink in the Midland Hotel. He was the first secretary of this club which rapidly became known as the Society of Thoracic Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. For many years he held this post and the large and flourishing present day Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons owes much to him. Young men of the generation just behind his, know how much they are in debt to him. To them in particular he showed a real sympathy and encouragement which is not easily forgotten. Graham Bryce was happy in his family life. His wife Isabel Bryce was the daughter of the distinguished Professor James Lorrain Smith, FRS and she herself achieved success and fame, particularly in the field of sociology, with particular reference to medicine. At the time of his death, she was chairman of the Oxford Regional Hospital Board. For her work in the field of hospital administration she was awarded the DBE in 1968. To many thoracic surgeons her friendliness and human sympathy are widely recognised. It was always pleasant to think of her working in her garden while her husband attended to his main hobby, namely bee-keeping. Surgery owes much to both of them. Bryce died suddenly at his home in Upper Basildon near Reading, on 24 October 1968, leaving a widow and two sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000457
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Golding-Bird, Cuthbert Hilton (1848 - 1939)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-03-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372642372642
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Myddleton Square, Pentonville, London on 7 July 1848, the fourth child and second son of Golding Bird, MD, FRS, and his wife, Mary Brett. His father (1814-1854) was appointed assistant physician to Guy's Hospital in 1843 on the retirement of Richard Bright; his uncle, Frederic Bird, was obstetric physician to Westminster Hospital. His mother founded the Golding Bird gold medal and scholarship for bacteriology at Guy's Hospital. Golding-Bird was educated at Tonbridge School 1856-62, and afterwards at King's College School in the Strand and at King's College. He graduated BA at the University of London in 1867, and won the gold medal in forensic medicine at the MB examination in 1873. Entering the medical school of Guy's Hospital in October 1868 he received the first prize for first year students in 1869, the first prize for third year students and the Treasurer's medals for surgery and for medicine in 1873. For a short time he acted as demonstrator of anatomy at Guy's, but on his return from a visit to Paris he was elected assistant surgeon in 1875 and demonstrator of physiology, Dr P H Pye-Smith being lecturer. He held the office of surgeon until 1908, when he resigned on attaining the age of 60, was made consulting surgeon, and spent the rest of his life at Meopham, near Rochester, in Kent as a country gentleman interested in the life of the village, in gardening, and in collecting clocks. At the Royal College of Surgeons Golding-Bird was an examiner in elementary physiology 1884-86, in physiology 1886-91, in anatomy and physiology for the Fellowship 1884-90 and 1892-95. He was on the Dental Board as Examiner in surgery in 1902, a member of the Court of Examiners 1897-1907, and a member of the Council 1905-13. He married in 1870 Florence Marion, daughter of Dr John Baber, MRCS, of Thurlow Square, Kensington, and of Meopham. She died on 23 March 1919, and there were no children. He died at Pitfield, Meopham, Kent, of angina with asthma after much painful dyspnoea, on 6 March 1939, being then the oldest living FRCS. Golding-Bird was an exceedingly neat operator and a delicate manipulator. His training in histology, at a time when all section-cutting of tissues was done by hand with an ordinary razor, enabled him to make sections of the retina, drawings of which afterwards appeared in many editions of Quain's *Anatomy*. He did much useful work during his long period of retirement, for he was surgeon to the Gravesend Hospital and the Royal Deaf and Dumb School at Margate, chairman of the Kent County Nursing Association, a member of the Central Midwives Board, and churchwarden of St John's Church, Meopham. He was interested in local archaeology and wrote a history of Meopham which reached a second edition. He also published a history of the United Hospital Club and contributed many papers to the medical journals. He long retained his youthful appearance and it is recorded that when he had been assistant surgeon for some years, a question of amputation having arisen, the patient said she would not have her “leg took off by that boy”, but if it had to be done, pointing to the house surgeon, he should do it. He left his residence, Pitfield, to Guy's Hospital, £1,000 towards the maintenance of Meopham Church and churchyard, £1,000 upon trust for the Village Hall, Meopham, £300 to Kent County Nursing Association, £300 to Meopham and Nursted Local Nursing Association, £100 to the National Refuges for Homeless and Destitute Children, £50 each to the Mothers' Union Central Fund, the SPG, the YMCA, the YWCA and the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society, and the residue, subject to life interest, between Gravesend Hospital, Epsom Medical College, and the Village Hall, Meopham.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000458
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Brownless, Anthony Colling (1815 - 1897)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-26 2013-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373188373188
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born about the year 1815 and was the son of Anthony Brownless, Esq, a connection of the Maitland and Lauderdale families. He was educated at home by private tutor and then in the house of the Rev C E Smith, of Badlesmere, Kent. He was apprenticed to Mr Charles Wilks, surgeon, of Charing, Kent, and, while diligently continuing his classical studies, showed great aptitude for medicine and made himself thoroughly conversant with pharmacy and the structure of the human skeleton. While at Charing an accident happened which greatly handicapped his education: a horse fell on him and he received such an injury to the right knee that chronic disease of the joint was set up. In the summer of 1834 his health had so suffered that he was sent for a long voyage to St Petersburgh, Norway, and Denmark, and in 1835 he visited New York, other parts of the United States, and Canada. He was then able to return to Charing, where until October, 1836, he saw much of an extensive Poor Law practice. He became a student at St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1836. At the end of the session he was considered one of the best anatomists in the school, and, notwithstanding a severe attack of fever with delirium which kept him in bed for weeks before the examinations, he came out second in anatomy and physiology. Study and ill health had pulled the indomitable student down considerably, and issues around his knee-joint compelled him to limp on crutches during the greater part of the session. He now made another voyage in search of health to Portugal and Spain, and spent the summer at Malaga, Cadiz, and Seville. In the autumn of 1837, his knee being still very painful, he gave up his hospital work, hired a farm from his father at Goudhurst, and amused himself with agriculture and the study of diseases of animals. Returning, though still on crutches, to St Bartholomew's in 1839, he continued his studies there and at the Royal General Dispensary. He acted as Clinical Assistant in the out-patients' department of the hospital and made the post-mortem examinations. In 1840 he obtained a certificate of honour for midwifery and the first prize for forensic medicine at St. Bartholomew's. After qualifying in 1841 he began to practise in Islington in 1842, but soon became assistant to John Painter Vincent (qv) at his old hospital, and gave his whole time to the wards for the next two years. He prepared himself to become a consulting and operating surgeon, and after practising as such at 4 Albion Place, Lonsdale Square, from 1843-1845, repaired to Liège and entered the University, where he devoted himself to anatomy and pathology - subjects for which that university was famous. He made his mark at Liège and became the friend of the well-known Professor of Anatomy, Dr Spring. He returned to London early in 1846 and look a house in Charterhouse Square, continuing to study for the College Fellowship. Fearing, however, that it would be long before he obtained an appointment on a hospital staff, he took the MD degree of St Andrews, and in February, 1847, was elected Physician to the Metropolitan Dispensary in Fore Street. His rise was now rapid, for he was kind and attentive to patients, accurate in diagnosis, and successful in treatment. In September, 1847, he was elected Physician to the Royal General Dispensary, Aldersgate Street, with which he had been previously connected, and continued to hold his other post. He not only acquired a large practice, but was an admirable teacher of anatomy, pathology, and practical medicine. Dr Protheroe Smith retired from the office of Assistant Teacher of Practical Midwifery at St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1848, and the post was offered to Brownless, who, however, declined it. In August, 1849, in consequence of the refusal of the Committee of the Metropolitan Dispensary to reform the Apothecary's Depart¬ment, in which there had long been gross neglect of the patients, Brownless tendered his resignation of the office of Physician, and upon his leaving it almost all his patients followed him to the Royal General Dispensary. He resigned his post at the Royal General Dispensary in September, 1849, on account of ill health, and retired temporarily from private practice. His popularity at the Dispensary had been so great that the patients presented him with a testimonial at a public meeting of the subscribers, held at the Literary and Scientific Institution, Aldersgate Street, on October 9th, 1849. A large body of the Governors of both Institutions followed this good example, and voted 'a splendid testimonial' in acknowledgement of Brownless's public services. This was presented to him on May 7th, 1850, by the High Bailiff of Southwark, presiding over a public meeting at the Clarence Hotel, Aldersgate Street. The testimonial consisted of a finely illuminated memorial on vellum and a piece of plate, weighing upwards of 200 oz. Brownless afterwards went out to Australia, where he was elected Physician to the Melbourne Benevolent Asylum. In 1854 he was elected Physician to the Melbourne Hospital, and held that post until 1866, when he was appointed Consulting Physician and a Life Governor. He was a founder of the Medical School of the University of Melbourne and its first MD. For twenty-nine years in succession he was elected Vice-Chancellor of the University, and succeeded Dr Moorhouse, afterwards Bishop of Manchester, as Chancellor in 1887. He was a member of several important Government Commissions, and in 1870 was made a Knight of St Gregory the Great, and in 1883 a Knight Commander of the Order of Pius by successive Popes, who thus conferred on him papal nobility. At the time of his death, or not many years before, he was Medical Referee to the Victoria and Intercolonial Assurance Companies, and, besides his other offices, at one time held those of Physician to the Industrial and Reformatory Schools, to the Magdalen Asylum at Abbotsford, and to the Orphanage of St Vincent de Paul. His death occurred at Melbourne, where he had practised at 2 Victoria Parade, on December 3rd, 1897. He had married twice: (1) in 1842 to Ellen, daughter of W Hawker, MD, of Charing, and (2) in 1852 to Anne, daughter of William Hamilton, Captain, Rifle Brigade, of Eden, Co Donegal. Publications: "On the Treatment of Diseases of the Joints." - *Lancet*, 1846, ii, 241; 1847, i, 434. *The Merits of Mr. J. Painter Vincent: an Address*, 8vo, London, 1847. This pamphlet, which is in the College Library, is a eulogy of John Painter Vincent (qv), Surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital. *An Address delivered at a Public Meeting of the Subscribers to the Vincent Testimonial*, 8vo, London, 1847. *Addresses delivered in the University of Melbourne*.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001005
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Dunn, Louis Albert (1858 - 1918)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-11-02
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/373660373660
Occupation General surgeon
Details The youngest son of J Roberts Dunn, JP, DL, Stone House, Warbleton, Sussex. At Guy's Hospital he gained the Ormerod Scholarship and qualified in 1882, passed with honours the MB BS in 1884, also the FRCS, and in 1888 the MS, gaining the Gold Medal, acting meanwhile in hospital resident appointments. It was the time of the Zulu War, of Rorke's Drift and Isandula; the British Agent, John Dunn, was in everyone's mouth as the trusted British Representative. His fellow-students recognized thus early Dunn's character and transferred to him the name of 'John', and as John Dunn he came to be styled throughout the hospital. He held in succession the posts of Demonstrator of Anatomy, Surgical Registrar, Warden of the College, Assistant Surgeon, Joint Lecturer on Surgery, and Surgeon to the hospital. It is as Warden of the College and all that relates to it that Dunn is especially remembered. A Rugger leader and yet the hardest worker, he saw the good points of everybody; in a quiet and friendly manner he influenced the wayward, criticized eccentricities, put a stop to tiffs and quarrels. Among numerous stories is this one: Dunn was looking out of the College window when he saw three students emerging from the College in quick succession in the direction of a public house where was a billiard saloon. He caught a fourth student as he was going out and invited him in to tea, pressing on him many cups with whimsical persistence as an insurance against alcohol thirst. On the first day of holding a class he learnt names without fail, and within a week or two knew all about the individual's achievements at school and in sport. The football team and all its matches and successes were subjects of constant talks. On the Court of Examiners he showed an intimate knowledge of every Guy's candidate; success of each was a matter of rejoicing, and if the candidate's marks scarcely reached the border line, Dunn had always on the tip of his tongue some pertinent suggestion. On the other hand, Guy's student or not, the idle and careless received no sympathy. As a surgeon Dunn was a very accurate clinical observer with a great memory for cases, frequently recalled when a difficulty in diagnosis was under discussion. He was a careful and assured operator, who kept continually in mind the duty of a teaching surgeon to exhibit to his students what was safe and trustworthy, and to impress upon them that brilliant feats of surgery by individuals were not to be taken as normal procedures. Dunn was for a long while Surgeon to the East London Hospital for Children, and, associated with this interest in the surgery of children, he was Consulting Surgeon to St Mary's Children's Hospital, Plaistow; to the Royal Asylum of St Anne's Society, Red Hill; to the Children's Nursing Home, Barnet; St Alban's Hospital; Emsworth Cottage Hospital; and Tower Hamlets Dispensary. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member of Council (1913-1918) and of the Court of Examiners (1907-1917), having been previously an Examiner in Anatomy. He was also Examiner in Surgery to the Universities of Cambridge and Leeds, and to the Royal Naval Medical Service. He and his two elder brothers remained unmarried, and his special joy was to rejoin them at their home and birthplace, and to enjoy shooting in the surrounding woods. In later years he practised in Park Crescent, Portland Place, and a sister resided with him. To his great distress, as she was going on well after an operation for appendicitis, fatal pulmonary embolism supervened. This loss told severely on his health. Kidney trouble obliged him to submit to operation; the diseased kidney proved to be irremovable, and only continuous drainage could be instituted. Dunn continued active as a surgeon and examiner in spite of inconvenience which would have stopped anyone less brave. He had hoped for a prolongation of life, and had moved to a house on the Buckinghamshire Hills, but the disease made progress, and he died in Bright's Ward, Guy's Hospital, on June 8th, 1918. A portrait accompanies the notice in the *Guy's Hospital Gazette* Obituary.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001477
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cayley, Henry (1834 - 1904)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-11-24
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/373291373291
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on December 20th, 1834, the fourth son of Edward Cayley, JP, banker, of Stamford, Lincolnshire, and Frances, daughter of the Rev Richard Twopeny, MA, Rector of Little Casterton, Rutlandshire. Among his brothers were the late Sir Richard and Dr William Cayley of the Middlesex Hospital. He was collaterally descended from Sir William Cayley, of Brompton, Yorkshire, a loyal Cavalier, knighted by Charles I in 1640 and created a baronet on April 26th, 1661. At an early age Henry Cayley joined the Medical Department at King's College, where he was a painstaking and methodical student. He entered the Indian Medical Service in 1857, passing in at the head of the list. He chose the Bengal side, was gazetted Assistant Surgeon on January 29th, 1857, and landed at Calcutta at the end of April. During the Mutiny he did not see active service, but was on duty with the 53rd Foot, and had medical charge of a detachment of the 37th and 38th Regiments at Benares and Allahabad, and of Major Anderson's troop of Royal Artillery and other details in the Fort of Rajghat. He was awarded the Mutiny Medal and was appointed Civil Surgeon of Gorakpur, on the Nepal frontier, and was placed in charge of the 2nd Sikh Police Corps in March, 1858. He held his post at Gorakpur from 1858-1864, with an interval of thirteen or fourteen months when he was absent on sick furlough in England. He held the Joint Civil Surgeoncy of Simla, a coveted post, from March, 1864, to March, 1866; then he became Civil Surgeon at Burdwan and next at Howrah, an important town and district on the Hugli, facing Calcutta. In May, 1867, he was put on special duty as Joint Commissioner of Ladak, in Tibet. He was the first officer deputed to this post, which involved medical work carried on among the people of the country and among the Nadirs and others coming from Central Asia, combined with political duties. His skill succeeded in making the European system of medicine popular among, and appreciated by, the tribes beyond the Indian frontier. The people of the country sought his services, and he discharged his politico-medical duties so satisfactorily that he was several times thanked by the Governments of the Punjab and of India. His headquarters were at Leh, a town on the Indus river situated at an elevation of 11,000 feet. His duties here were commercial and political. The appointment was the first in this place, and his status was that of Resident and Joint Commissioner. The Punjab Government, recognizing the delicacy and tact which were necessary in dealing with an alien native Government, corrupt and hostile officials, suspicious and turbulent merchants and tradesmen, obtained sanction for the appointment of a British official on condition that he was a medical officer. This tribute to the powers of conciliation and management possessed by members of the Indian Medical Service was justified by repeated experience of the humanizing influence of medicine and the popularity of medical men on the Punjab frontier. The objects of the appointment were to develop the trade to Central Asia and Eastern Turkestan-of which Leh was an emporium and channel -to protect merchants from oppressive imposts, and to report on the commerce and political condition of those regions. The country was only accessible by bad roads and high passes, open during the months of June, July, and August. Cayley resided during the remainder of the year at Simla. He spent four seasons at Leh, and submitted elaborate reports of his observations and proceedings. Immediately on his arrival at Leh he opened a dispensary, which was at first viewed with suspicion, but was soon resorted to by patients of all grades and classes. In an interesting paper on the medical topography and prevalent diseases of Ladak, published in the *Indian Medical Gazette* of November, 1867, and January, 1868, he thus describes the opening of his dispensary:- "I had with me a hospital compounder as an assistant and a small supply of the most necessary medicines and instruments. Two of my small tents were soon converted into a hospital. A grove of poplar trees served as an operating theatre, and for surgical assistants numerous Ladaki amateurs were always at hand, who took great interest in the proceedings." Cayley did his work at Leh with rare tact, energy, and humanity, and relinquished his post in 1871. From March, 1871, to March, 1872, he was on furlough in Europe, attending lectures, hospitals, etc., and he studied especially at Moorfields. On his return to Bengal, after serving as Civil Surgeon of the 24th Pergunnahs, he acted for a short time as Deputy Superintendent of Vaccination, and held posts at Cuttack. In March, 1874, he was appointed to succeed Surgeon Major N C Macnamara (qv), as Superintendent of the Eye Infirmary at Calcutta and Professor of Ophthalmic Surgery in the Calcutta Medical College. He also then became Surgeon Superintendent of the Mayo Hospital for Natives and its affiliated dispensaries. These charges involved service as Presidency Surgeon, and he retained them for over twelve years with the exception of one year's furlough in 1877-8. His practice, both consulting and general, was extensive and lucrative, and he was a hard worker, much appreciated by both natives and Europeans for his skill and kindliness. He was especially successful as an ophthalmologist. He took a prominent part in establishing the Calcutta Medical Society, of which he was President for two years, and wrote frequently for its *Transactions* and for the *Indian Medical Gazette*. He finally left India on April 12th, 1884, and in January, 1885, was appointed a member of the Medical Board at the India and War Offices. While holding these appointments he retired from the Bengal Army in April, 1887, and was unexpectedly called upon, in June, 1889, to complete the course of lectures on Military Medicine at the Army Medical School, Netley, where Professor D B Smith had broken down in health. His lectures were at first not much appreciated, for his two predecessors, Smith and Surgeon General Maclean, had each in his way been admirable, Maclean being famous for his vivid descriptions of tropical diseases. Cayley was small, quiet, and had a poor delivery. However, his work as lecturer was soon recognized to be sound and conscientious, and he began to be followed with appreciative attention by the 'surgeons on probation'. Retiring from the Professorship of Military Medicine in 1897, he went to live at Weybridge, and seemed to have settled down when the South African War broke out. He thereupon volunteered for service, and went out with the rank of Colonel in charge of the Scottish National Red Cross Hospital, stationed at Kroonstadt in the Orange Free State. He performed his duties here with all his old zeal and ability, his services being mentioned in despatches. He was created a CMG and awarded the South African Medal with Clasps. In 1891 he had been appointed Hon Surgeon to the Queen, and he also received the Coronation Medal and was appointed Hon Associate of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in England. Thus was recognized the value of his services during some forty-three years. Though of slight physique, Cayley was a man of great energy-hunting, riding, shooting, a golfer and a yachtsman. His mental equalled his bodily vivacity. His power of work was prodigious. In Calcutta he was on the move from early morning till late evening, and by way of refreshment he would then take a smart gallop on the racecourse. Everything he did was done with heart and energy, and he never showed signs of flagging or fatigue. In disposition he was even-tempered and kindly, staunch and honourable. In all relations of life he was eminently sound, and in professional life diligent, skilful, and humane. He was accordingly esteemed highly both as friend and physician. Though orthodox, he was tolerant and charitable. His intellectual abilities were of a high order. He was keen in inquiring and sound in judgement. On most questions he was well informed, and his opinions were clear and strong. He had a facile pen, and, thought not eloquent, was fluent in speech, plain, practical, and intelligible. He had studied his profession well, and up to the last continued to familiarize himself with scientific and medical progress. Though he made ophthalmic surgery his speciality, he was an excellent general surgeon and a well-informed physician. His position in Calcutta brought him into close contact with native medical practitioners and students, with whom his relations were always friendly and agreeable. With colleagues and fellow-officers he was most popular. Deputy Surgeon General Cayley was thrown from his horse in South Africa and sustained severe injuries. He married on July 10th, 1862, Letitia Mary, daughter of the Rev Nicholas Walters, and was survived by her, two daughters, and six sons. Of the sons one was then Assistant Health Officer of Bombay. Two others rose to high rank in the Army; one as Major-General Sir Walter de Saumarez Cayley, KCMG, and the second as Major-General Douglas Edward Cayley, CMG. Cayley died at Leavesden Weybridge, the house he had bought on his return from the Boer War, the date of his death being March 19th, 1904. He was buried in Weybridge Cemetery. His estate exceeded £60,000. He was Honorary Surgeon to the King at the time of his death. The Cayley family, of which the present representative is Sir Kenelm Henry Ernest Cayley, tenth baronet, is ancient, known to have been settled at Owmby as early as the thirteenth century. Only four generations had elapsed between the subject of this biography and Sir William of Brompton, the Cavalier. Thus five generations in one family had extended over a period of three hundred years, and this is accounted for by the late marriages of its members. Portraits of Henry Cayley accompany his biographies in the *Calcutta Medical Reporter* and *British Medical Journal*. Publications: Cayley contributed valuable papers to the *Indian Annals of Medical Science* as well as to the journals mentioned in the course of this article.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001108
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ewart, Robert John (1877 - 1923)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-11-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001600-E001699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373850373850
Occupation Public health officer
Details Born in Liverpool in 1877, the son of Edmund Brown Ewart, BA, and was educated at Liverpool Institute and University, where he won high distinctions as a student, being Holt Tutorial Scholar, Junior Lyon Jones Scholar, 1894-1896, and Hon Fellow in Pathology at University College, Liverpool. After holding an appointment as Senior House Surgeon at the Royal Infirmary, Liverpool, he gained his public health experience at Ashton-under-Lyne, going on to Middlesbrough as Assistant Medical Officer of Health. He was appointed Medical Officer of Health to the Urban District of Barking, where he was also School Medical Officer and Superintendent of the Isolation Hospital. He showed himself a very active and diligent public health officer, interested both in the preventive and epidemiological side of his work, with a philosophical bias which produced such essays as "Time and the Second Generation" and "Parental Age and Offspring". Ewart lost no opportunity of dwelling upon the importance of the food of the people to the public health, and saw in disease a pathological reaction due to faulty metabolism. No subject was too difficult for him to tackle, and even with imperfect data his originality of mind was able to elaborate the problems before him. Ewart, who resided at The Cottage, Upney, Barking, died in June, 1923, following an operation at the West Ham Hospital. Publications: "Venesection: its Indications from a Physiological Standpoint." - *Manchester Med. Chron.*, 1905, ser. Iv, 67. "Action of Aortic Valves in Health and Disease." - *Lancet*, 1904, ii, 1492. "Some Features of Sewage Pollution of an Estuary." - *Public Health*, 1909, xxiii, 51. "Variations in the Chemical and Bacteriological Compositions of Water considered from a Statistical Point of View." - *Ibid.*, 1910-11, xxiv, 10. "Parental Age and Offspring." - *Eugenics Rev.*, 1910. *A Cause of the Fall of the Death-rate from Phthisis*, 1912. In the *Journal of Hygiene* Ewart also published a series of valuable papers dealing with the statistics of scarlet fever and diphtheria.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001667
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching McNeill, Donald Cragg (1935 - 2005)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Brian Morgan
Publication Date 2011-11-03 2013-10-04
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/373685373685
Occupation Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Donald Cragg McNeill was a consultant plastic surgeon in Salisbury. He was born in 1935 and was educated at the Southern Grammar School, Portsmouth. He won a scholarship to study medicine and trained at St Mary's, qualifying in 1958. Most of his surgical training took place in the Wessex region, where he gained wide experience in all aspects of general surgery, orthopaedics, gynaecology and plastic surgery. In 1960 he extended his National Service with a five-year commission in the RAF. His initial posting was to Halton as a trainee in general surgery, orthopaedics and gynaecology. He was then posted to the island of Gan in the Indian Ocean, where he was the only surgeon for 2,000 miles. He returned to the RAF hospital at Ely, and then had a further posting abroad to the Christmas Islands. In 1965 he left the RAF holding the rank of squadron leader. He continued his general surgical training in Winchester, then began his plastic surgery training at Odstock 1967 with John Barron. He passed his Edinburgh fellowship in 1968. He rose from senior house officer to senior registrar, and then moved to the Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith, working with James Calnan in the department of experimental surgery. In 1973 he was appointed as a consultant in plastic surgery to Odstock Hospital in Salisbury and as a senior lecturer to Southampton Medical School. He enjoyed integrating with other services, and was one of the first oncoplastic breast surgeons. He also developed an interest in the use of lasers in surgery, on which he became an international authority. In addition to this commitments in Wessex, he built up a practice in Jersey over 25 years. He enjoyed and was passionate about teaching, in the UK and also in India, where he helped train young surgeons in plastic surgery. In the late seventies and eighties he led a group of consultants who wished to establish a private hospital in Salisbury. They formed the Salisbury Independent Hospital Trust, with Donald as the chairman. Fundraising and sponsorship enabled a property to be purchased and, after renovations, this became New Hall Hospital, which has continued to thrive. Problems with silicone breast implants in the early nineties led the Department of Health to set up the National Breast Implant Registry at Odstock, with Donald as director. After his death the registry was discontinued: had it continued the failure of PIP implants, which eventually came to light in 2012, may have been recognised earlier. In 1995 Donald was elected president of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. His commitment to teaching and his leadership in plastic surgery was recognised by his election as a fellow *ad eundem* of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1998. He was married and had three children, Andrew, Jane and John (who predeceased him). Donald died on 16 October 2005 at the age of 70 after a long fight with head and neck cancer, a disease which, ironically, he had spent many years treating. The Donald McNeill oncoplastic travelling scholarship was set up by the Association of Breast Surgery in his memory.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001502
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ellis, Sir Herbert Mackay (1851 - 1912)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-11-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001600-E001699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373792373792
Occupation Naval surgeon
Details The second son of John Ellis, of The Elms, Chudleigh, Devon. He was educated at St George's Hospital, and entered the Royal Navy as a surgeon in 1875. He served with the Battalion of Royal Marines (Artillery) throughout the Egyptian Campaign in 1882, being present at the engagements of Kassassin on August 28th and September 9th, and at the Battle of Tel-el-Kebir. He was mentioned in despatches and received the Egyptian Medal with Clasp for Tel-el-Kebir, and the Khedive's Bronze Star, and for his active services was specially promoted to the rank of Staff Surgeon. He was promoted Fleet Surgeon in June, 1891, and was Principal Medical Officer of HMS *Victoria*, the flagship of Sir George Tryon, when that vessel was sunk off Tripoli after collision with HMS *Camperdown* on June 22nd, 1893, the Admiral, 21 other officers, and 350 men being drowned. Becoming Deputy Inspector-General in 1899, he served for three years in charge of Bermuda Hospital. He was promoted Inspector-General in February, 1904, was in charge of Haslar Hospital for a few months, and in September was made Director-General of the Medical Department of the Navy, holding this position till May, 1908, when he voluntarily retired. His services, although notable, did not differ in a great degree from the ordinary run of service until he was made Medical Director-General in 1904. He succeeded to this post under circumstances of considerable difficulty. Reform was in the air and was urgently required in the medical department as well as elsewhere. Unfortunately the initiative in medical matters had to a considerable extent drifted from the medical department, and it was to regain this initiative that Sir Herbert directed his efforts. By his force of character and absolute straightforwardness he attained his object, and in this way, although no notable reforms were carried out in his time, he paved the way to their possibility in the future. From 1905-1910 he was Honorary Physician to King Edward VII, and to King George from his accession. Sir Herbert Mackay Ellis commanded attention by his fine physique and presence. In 1893 he married Mary Lily, eldest daughter of G B Ellicombe, of Rocklands, Chudleigh, Devon. He left no family. He died on September 30th, 1912, at his residence, Leavesden, Weybridge.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001609
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lee, John Patrick (1946 - 2010)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2011-12-16 2014-11-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373954373954
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details John Lee was one of the world's most eminent ophthalmologists. A consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital for 25 years, he was also the eighth president of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists. He was particularly known for his use of 'botox' or botulinum toxin in the management of strabismus and blepharospasm (uncontrollable blinking), and started the first clinic in the UK specifically for the use of this toxin in eye disorders. He was born on 25 October 1946 in Kingston upon Thames of immigrant Irish parents, both of whom were teachers. He was the oldest of 11 siblings, and had seven sisters and three brothers. He was educated at St George's College, Weybridge, an independent co-educational Roman Catholic school, where he excelled and gained five A-levels - one of which he studied on his own, as the school did not allow pupils reading science subjects time to study English. Needless to say, he gained excellent grades in this 'extra' subject. In order to buy his school uniform and help the family finances, John Lee worked at a garage in his spare time. At the age of 17, he was accepted by University College, Oxford, for his preclinical studies. Admitting that he never took these studies seriously, he took full advantage of the many other attractions of university life. Enjoying collegiate existence, he rarely missed an undergraduate party, and it was at one of these that he met his future wife, Arabella Rose. They married in 1971 and had two sons. Strangely for someone who admitted he neglected his undergraduate studies, his depth of general knowledge was so good that he represented his college on the TV quiz *University Challenge*. He could also complete *The Times* crossword at an enviable speed, and possessed an encyclopaedic knowledge of film and music. He proceeded to the Westminster Hospital for his clinical training. After qualifying, John considered entering general medicine as a career, but after a brief spell working in infectious diseases, he changed his mind and his choice of specialties - happily for ophthalmology. So began his formal training in ophthalmology, first at the Oxford Eye Hospital, and then back in London at Moorfields, where he trained with Peter Fells. He then obtained a fellowship to study in the USA at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of the University of Florida with John Flynn. Founded by Edward W D Norton, a neuro-ophthalmologist, retinal specialist, administrator and teacher, and named after Bascom H Palmer, an ophthalmologist who settled in Miami in the 1920s, the Institute has been consistently ranked as the best eye hospital in the USA. In 1981 he visited Alan Scott at the Smith-Kettlewell Research Institute in San Francisco to study a new treatment for strabismus using botulinum toxin. He returned from California with some bottles of the toxin tucked in his hand baggage, which he then stored in his fridge at home. A friend who was invited round for a drink helped himself to a beer, but was advised not to touch nor drink from the opaque bottles! In 1983 John Lee took up a post as a university lecturer at Moorfields and the Institute of Ophthalmology, and was appointed as a consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital two years later, holding appointments at both the High Holborn and City Road branches. At Moorfields, John developed a first-class service for patients with complex strabismus problems, and he inevitably attracted patients from across the UK. In Harley Street he saw also patients from many other countries. He rapidly gained recognition in the ophthalmological world for his technical brilliance and outstanding knowledge. Easily identifiable with his unruly crop of white hair and short beard, John Lee was often referred to as 'the old fellow' by candidates at examinations, although he was much younger than his fellow examiners. This facial feature, together with his rapid speech, made him a natural and popular choice for caricature, particularly in residents' reviews and shows. He wrote over 200 papers and many chapters in books. Having championed the use of botulinum toxin in strabismus, he published 45 papers on this important topic alone. John was a brilliant and inspirational teacher, and combined technical excellence with his unique ability to communicate. In constant demand as an authoritative and entertaining speaker, his 'pearls of wisdom', mixed with many humorous asides, were always delivered at high speed with a hint of an Irish accent. He taught at the American Academy of Ophthalmology for 20 years and organised the Moorfields squint grand rounds for nearly as long. Always approachable, he was keen to encourage young doctors, and there was no trace of snobbery or 'the great man syndrome' about him. He committed himself to improving the training of ophthalmologists in underdeveloped countries, and worked with Project Orbis, the international charity which works to prevent blindness. He taught strabismus surgery in Uttah Pradesh, India, and in Bangladesh, as well as imparting his knowledge to many of the leading surgeons in Europe and North America. In 2009 he was elected president of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, the first to be elected by fellow members rather than members of council. He was already proving himself to be effective, pragmatic and well-liked. He also served as president of the ophthalmology section of the Royal Society of Medicine and of the International Strabismus Association. Held in high regard by his colleagues in the USA, he was the first European to be elected to the Association for Research in Strabismus. John Lee managed to combine a very busy and successful professional life with a wide range of interests outside medicine, including music, theatre and the arts. He attended concerts with Arabella several times a week and, although classical music was a passion, he was equally at home with rock. He became a fan of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, which plays baroque, classical and romantic music, mainly at the Southbank Centre in London. He was interested in a wide variety of literature, from James Joyce's *Ulysses* to science fiction. Proud of his Irish roots, he loved to relax and spend time in the west of Ireland, where he enjoyed fly fishing. John Lee died suddenly on 8 October 2010, aged 63, while attending a conference in the USA at Traverse City, Michigan, leaving his many friends, colleagues and patients in a state of shock. He was survived by his wife, Arabella, and their two sons. A research fellowship, organised by the Medical Research Council and the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, has been established in his honour. The fundraising events included 'John Lee quiz nights'; extremely appropriate in view of John Lee's wide general knowledge and his 'quizzical' approach to many aspects of life.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001771
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Flower, Sir William Henry (1831 - 1899)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-12-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373972373972
Occupation Museum director
Details The second son of Edward Fordham Flower and Celina, the eldest daughter of John Greaves, of Leamington. He was born at Stratford-on-Avon on November 30th, 1831. His father was founder of the brewing business known as Flower & Sons, which continued to be carried on at Stratford-on-Avon. The elder brother was the founder of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, and his younger brother was Chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trustees. William Henry Flower was educated at University College, and graduated MB at the University of London in 1851 after studying at the Middlesex Hospital. At University College he won the Sharpey Gold Medal in Physiology and the Grant Silver Medal in Zoology. He volunteered during the Crimean War in 1854, saw active service in the field, and held a hospital appointment at Scutari. On his return home he was elected Assistant Surgeon, Lecturer on Anatomy, and Curator of the Museum at the Middlesex Hospital. In 1861 he became Conservator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in succession to John Thomas Quekett, holding the post until he was succeeded by Charles Stewart in 1884. He served the office of Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology at the College from 1870-1873, the previous occupant of the chair being T H Huxley (qv); and a second time from 1876-1884, replacing William Kitchen Parker. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1864, served as a Member of the Council, was a Vice-President and was awarded a Royal Medal in 1882. When Sir Richard Owen (qv) retired from the Directorship of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, Flower was appointed in his place in 1884, and held the post until 1898, when he resigned on account of ill health, and was succeeded by E Ray Lankester, FRS. He was elected to the Council of the Zoological Society in 1862 and served continuously until 1869; he became Vice-President in 1870 and acted as President for twenty years from Feb. 5th, 1879. He was also President of the Anthropological Institute from 1883-1885 and was more than once President of the Anthropological Section of the British Association. He was President of the British Association at the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Meeting in 1889. Flower was decorated CB in 1887 and was promoted KCB in 1892; he was a corresponding member of the Institute of France, and received the Prussian order 'Pour la Mérite'. He was also an Hon LLD of Dublin and Edinburgh and a DCL of Durham. He married in 1858 Georgiana Rosetta, daughter of Admiral William Henry Smyth (1788-1865), one of the founders of the Royal Geographical Society, and by her he had three sons and three daughters. He died after some months of ill health at Stanhope Gardens on July 1st, 1899, was cremated at Woking, and was buried at Stone, Buckinghamshire. A portrait by the Chevalier Schmidt, of Berlin, was given to Lady Flower, and there is a bust in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington. A small engraving representing Flower in middle life hangs in the Conservator's room at the College of Surgeons. An enlarged photograph by Messrs. Elliott and Fry was presented to the College in 1918. Urbane, easy of access, a good administrator, and an inheritor of his father's capacity for business, Flower was excellent as the Director of a large museum, whilst his scientific ability was of the greatest service to the two great institutions he was called upon to serve - the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons, and the Natural History Collection which was housed in the noble building at South Kensington. As guardian of a national collection he was successful in the difficult task of making it interesting to the general public without destroying its utility for scientific students, and he was thus justly pronounced to be "an originator and inventor in museum work". He was a morphologist and a comparative anatomist, as is shown by his *Osteology of Mammalia* published in 1870, by his work on the Monotremata and Marsupialia, and by his important contributions to the anatomy of the Cetacea, the outcome of which is to be seen in the 'whale room' in the College of Surgeons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001789
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lloyd, John Augustus ( - 1874)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Lockhart, William (1812 - 1896)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-07-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002500-E002599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374744374744
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at the Meath Hospital, Dublin, and at Guy's Hospital. He began practice as assistant to Dr Wainwright of Liverpool, and after three years was fired with the desire of becoming a medical missionary by the experiences and aspirations of Dr Moffat and John Williams, who had then just returned from their missionary journeys. He was sent out by the London Missionary Society to China in the company of Mr (afterwards Dr) Medhurst, and began his ministration in Macao in 1839. There was at that time only one other medical missionary in China. This was Dr Williams, an American, who had already obtained a footing at Canton. From Macao, Lockhart moved on to Chusan on its first occupation by the British, and in 1843 to Shanghai on its being opened up. Here he founded a hospital, which was so successful from the first that in ten months' time the Chinese patients had numbered 10,000. He remained at this hospital till 1858, and found himself in an isolated position outside the city walls during the Tai-Ping Rebellion, when the hospital lay between the investing army of the Imperialists and the rebels holding Shanghai. The fire of the contending armies poured upon the hospital. Under these trying conditions Lockhart steadily pursued his work among the sick and wounded, the shells on several occasions bursting within the building. The last shell which entered the hospital burst upon the floor of the hall crowded with patients, on the very spot from which only a few moments before a wounded patient had been removed. When the French troops joined the investing forces, Lockhart very courageously volunteered to enter the city in order to try to induce the rebels to surrender and thus avoid more bloodshed. In company with his friend, Mr Wyllie, he safely passed the rebel outposts, and for several hours argued with the leaders, who listened to him but declined his proposals. In the end they burnt the city, which they had evacuated. This great conflagration was always described by Lockhart as the most impressive sight that he had ever witnessed. Leaving the hospital under efficient superintendence he returned to England in 1858. Long before Lockhart's death the institution became the most important hospital for Chinese in China. Lockhart's stay in England was short, but during that time much took place in China. His brother-in-law, Mr (afterwards Sir Harry) Parkes, HM Minister to Japan and China, whilst on a diplomatic mission to the Chinese forces under a flag of truce, had been treacherously taken prisoner with his companions, many of whom died after cruel suffering. As a punishment for this act of treachery Lord Elgin advanced on Peking and destroyed the celebrated Summer Palace, the British Embassy taking up its quarters in the city in October, 1860. Lockhart returned to China with a view to founding a hospital in Peking, which as Medical Officer to the Embassy he was able to do in October, 1861, and during the two and half years of his stay in the capital, over 30,000 patients were treated. Sir Harry Parkes, in a letter to Lockhart, thus expressed the high value he set on his admirable work: "The political good which your proceedings must have will be very great, and your mission will achieve more than the diplomatic in impressing the masses of Peking in our favour. Your hospital I look upon as the most marked incident in our relations with China that has occurred since the signing of the last treaty, and most sincerely do I pray that you may go on and prosper." The Chinese attitude towards Western medicine had for long been not as hostile as is generally imagined. (A work, for instance, on medicine in the Chinese language, at present in the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons, on being taken to the late Sir Richard Douglas at the British Museum was found by him to be a translation of Jenner's early work on vaccination.) Notwithstanding this, however, Lockhart doubtless had to make head against floods of ignorance and superstition in his dealings with the sick Chinese. He returned to England finally in 1864, owing to family circumstances, and settled in practice at 67 Granville Park, Blackheath, Kent, in 1865. Here he remained in uninterrupted devotion to his professional duties till March, 1895. Despite a very busy life he was able to attend regularly the board and committee meetings of the London Missionary Society, where his advice was of the greatest service. He had collected a unique library of works dealing with China, and these he presented to the Society shortly before his death. Subject to certain conditions by him imposed, this is now known as the 'Lockhart Library'. Up to within a few days of his death he was in full vigour and possession of his faculties, but fell very ill on Monday, April 27th, 1896. At a consultation held late at night it was decided that he was too old and feeble to be operated on, although his illness called for immediate surgical intervention. He died, without any suffering, at his residence in Granville Park, on the morning of April 29th, 1896. Mrs Lockhart, whom he married in 1841 and with whom he celebrated his golden wedding, was Miss Catharine Parkes, elder sister of Sir Harry Parkes, and she, together with married sons and daughters, survived him. Publications: *The Medical Missionary in China; a Narrative of Twenty Years' Experience*, 8vo, plate, 2nd ed, London, 1861. *Reports* of Chinese Hospital, Shanghai, and of Chinese Hospital, Peking. Translations from Chinese works on Midwifery, Inoculation, etc, in the *Dublin Med Jour*.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002561
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ley, Gordon (1885 - 1922)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-06-27
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002500-E002599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374703374703
Occupation Gynaecologist Obstetrician
Details Born in Exeter on June 19th, 1885, the son of Richard Ley, of Exmouth. He was educated at Malvern and at the London Hospital, where he won the Obstetric Scholarship and Prize in 1907 and was Pathological Assistant. In 1910 he became House Surgeon at the Gloucester Royal Infirmary, proceeding thence to Queen Charlotte's Hospital, where he was successively Junior and Senior Resident Medical Officer during a period of eight months. This appointment determined his choice of a career. He became an enthusiastic obstetrician, and soon displayed much ability. In 1913 he was appointed Pathologist to the Chelsea Hospital for Women, holding this post till 1921, and in March, 1914, he became Obstetric Registrar and Tutor to Charing Cross Hospital. This appointment he held to within a short period of his death. Gordon Ley suffered from congenital valvular disease of the heart, and his physique was so low that he was totally rejected for military service during the Great War. Few men, however, worked harder than he did at home. Throughout the War he acted as voluntary Resident Medical Officer to the City of London Maternity Hospital, doing almost the entire work of this hospital from the beginning of 1917 onwards in the absence on military duty of his colleague. He also volunteered at the London Hospital, where two of the gynaecologists had been called away by war duty. Here he had charge of beds, did the work of the Obstetric Registrar and Tutor during the greater part of the War, and acted also as Pathological Assistant. At the same time he took charge of the Jewish Maternity Home in Underwood Street as Consulting Obstetrician, was on the rota of the Lady Howard de Walden Maternity Home for Officers' Wives, and lectured from 1914-1918 twice a week at the Midwives' Institute, continuing these lectures to the time of his death. He was appointed Gynaecologist to the Hampstead General Hospital in 1918, and in 1919 Assistant Obstetric Surgeon to the City of London Maternity Hospital. These two appointments he held at the time of his death. In addition to this record of hospital work, Gordon Ley found time for original research, and he left a short series of admirable papers on clinical and pathological problems connected with obstetrics. His first considerable effort was the collation of 100 cases of full-term extra-uterine pregnancy from the literature, with two original cases upon which he had operated himself. Two years later he published an able communication on accidental haemorrhage, advancing cogent reasons for regarding this condition as toxaemic, and from the results of microscopic examination of the uteri removed for this condition he was able to offer an explanation of the mechanism of production of the bleeding. He also devoted much attention to the subject of carcinoma of the ovary. In 1919 he had communicated his preliminary results to the Section of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the Royal Society of Medicine, and in continuance of his work had undertaken to open a discussion on "Primary Carcinoma of the Ovary" at the Glasgow Meeting of the British Medical Association, when his tragic death occurred. On the morning of June 3rd, 1922, he was travelling on professional business to Paris in a French aeroplane. After passing the coast-line, and when two or three miles off Folkestone, the machine suddenly dived into the sea from a height of 1500 feet. The pilot and both passengers lost their lives. Dr G H Varley, of Cadogan Place, W, who was on board the Boulogne packet, was at once rowed to the wrecked aeroplane, and then recognized the body of his dead colleague. After an inquest held at Folkestone on June 6th, where the brother of Gordon Ley, Dr R L Ley, of Great Yarmouth, identified the deceased, the funeral took place in Folkestone churchyard on the same afternoon. Publications: "Decidual Reaction in a Subperitoneal Fibromyoma of Uterus." - *Proc Roy Soc Med* (Sect Obst and Gynaecol), 1916-17, x, 137. "Fibromyo-lipoma of Corpus Uteri." - *Ibid*, 1913-14, vii, 150. "Two Cases of Full-time Extra-uterine Pregnancy with a Tabulated Abstract of 100 Cases from the Literature." - *Ibid*, 1918-19, xii, 140. "Primary and Secondary Carcinoma of Ovary." - *Ibid*, 1919-20, xiii, 95. "Utero-placental (Accidental) Haemorrhage." - *Jour Obst and Gynaecol*, 1921, xxviii, 69.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002520
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Harding, John Fosse (1808 - 1883)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-03-29
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/374296374296
Occupation General surgeon
Details Studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital, and practised as one of the firm of Harding & Hewer, later Harding, Hewer & Calthorp, at several addresses in London: 6 Mylne Street, Myddelton Square; 13 Spencer Street, Northampton Square; and Sandford House, Highbury New Park, where he acted as Surgeon to the Finsbury Assurance Association and the Watchmakers' Benevolent Society, and Examining Surgeon to the Infant Orphans' Asylum and to the Camberwell Schools. He also had country addresses: Mount Sandford, Southborough, Tunbridge Wells, and Ulverstone House, Uckfield, Sussex. He died at Eagle House, Hornsey, on December 24th, 1883. His photograph is in the Fellows' Album. Publications: Harding contributed a number of papers to the *Lond. Med. Gaz*.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002113
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Harding, Thomas Massey (1825 - 1910)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-03-29
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/374297374297
Occupation General surgeon
Details Studied at University College, London, and the Middlesex Hospital, at the latter becoming House Surgeon. He practised first at 66 High Street, Stourbridge, Worcestershire, where he was medical officer to the Dispensary and to the Stour-bridge District Union. He next moved to London and practised at 65 Euston Road, where he was Surgeon to the Hospital for Diseases of Women and Children, Vincent Square, Westminster, and Medical Officer to the 6th District of the St Pancras Union. Between 1870 and 1880 he migrated to New South Wales and practised at Goulburn and Murwillumbah. After retiring to Darling Street, Balmain, a suburb of Sydney, he died on March 18th, 1910. Publications: Harding made several contributions to the *Lond. Med. Times and Gaz*.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002114
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Harding, William (1809 - 1890)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Harding, William Joshua (1874 - 1904)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-03-29
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/374299374299
Occupation General surgeon
Details Studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he was scholar in chemistry and histology and later Clinical Assistant to Medical Out-patients, and then House Surgeon at Westminster Hospital. He served with the South African Field Force during the Boer War, started practice at 42 Kempshott Road, Streatham Common, London, SW, took medical service in North Borneo, and died at Jesselton, North Borneo, on October 4th, 1904.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002116
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lush, William George Vawdrey (1834 - 1904)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-07-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002500-E002599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374767374767
Occupation Physician
Details Born on May 24th, 1834, and educated at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He enjoyed the distinction of possessing the highest medical and surgical qualifications obtainable in the United Kingdom. He practised at 12 Frederick Place, Weymouth, and was Hon Physician to the County Hospital, Dorchester, a post he retained for thirty-two years. He was also Consulting Physician to the Weymouth Royal Hospital, the Portland Dispensary, and the Dorset Friendly Society. Lush was devoted to his profession, and was a man of simple and unaffected piety, addicted to such good works as church restoration, to which he subscribed large sums. He early formed the Dorset and West Hants Branch of the British Medical Association, was its Hon Secretary, and for many years represented it on the Central Council. After holding the Secretaryship for thirty years, he was presented by the members of the branch with a handsome testimonial consisting of a service of silver plate and a clock with chimes. As a skilled surgeon Lush was much called in consultation, his colleagues valuing also his fine character and fidelity to professional etiquette. On December 7th, 1904, while attending a committee meeting at the Dorset County Hospital, Lush, who had just spoken, fell from his chair and died almost at once. He was survived by his widow. His funeral was the largest known in Weymouth for a period of some forty years. There were about fifty mourning coaches. The clergy especially honoured a layman who had been an active member of the Salisbury Diocesan Synod and an Hon. Secretary of the Dorset Branch of the Queen Victoria Clergy Fund. Vawdrey Lush was a remarkable example of what could be done by sheer industry and conscientiousness without much outstanding mental ability. For several years he was 'coached' by Henry Power (qv), and 'come rain, come shine', as the clock struck seven he rang the door bell. Tea was provided at nine, and it was often midnight, or later, before he left, the 'coach' by that time exhausted and the 'coach's' wife fractious. Publications:- Lush was a contributor to the *Lancet*, the *Brit Med Jour*, and the *Med Times and Gaz*, from 1871 to 1898.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002584
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cohen, Samuel Joseph (1923 - 2012)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Sir Miles Irving
Publication Date 2012-06-28 2018-05-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002500-E002599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374725374725
Occupation Paediatric surgeon Paediatric urological surgeon
Details Samuel Joseph Cohen, known as 'Joe', was a paediatric surgeon in Manchester. He was born on 22 July 1923 in Germiston, a gold mining town near Johannesburg, South Africa. He was the youngest of three children of Berel Nathan Cohen and Feiga Cohen, a nurse, who emigrated to South Africa from Lithuania. He attended Germiston High School, where he excelled in sport, particularly athletics and golf, and also sang in operatic performances. His talent in these areas developed further during his time at university, where his fine tenor voice was constantly in demand by the university operatic society and his prowess at golf meant that he was regarded as one of the finest South African university golfers of his time. He received his undergraduate medical training at Witwaterstrand University Medical School, from which he qualified MB BCh in 1947. Following qualification, he undertook house officer posts in the Johannesburg teaching hospitals. His time as house physician on the fever unit coincided with an outbreak of poliomyelitis, resulting in the admission of 150 cases in one month. It was following this experience that he decided to direct his future career towards the treatment of children. Another life changing decision occurred at this time when he met Isobel (née Williams), a nurse, who was to become his wife of 55 years. Overall he spent five years training as a house officer, registrar and senior casualty officer in the Johannesburg hospitals. In 1952 he moved to Britain for postgraduate training, initially gaining the MRCP (Edinburgh) later that year, however, his real aim was to train in surgery and he moved to London, commencing surgical training with Norman Tanner and, in 1954, as house surgeon to Sir Denis Browne at Great Ormond Street Hospital. His London training was linked with Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool, where he gained general and urological paediatric surgical training with Isabella Forshall, Peter Paul Rickham and Herbert Johnson. On returning to Great Ormond Street, he was appointed as a resident assistant surgeon to, amongst others, Andrew Wilkinson and Sir David Innes Williams, the latter being instrumental in founding the sub-specialty of paediatric urology. In 1963 he moved from London to take a post as the second consultant paediatric surgeon in the Manchester region, working alongside Ambrose Jolleys, with appointments to all three of that city's children's hospitals, at Booth Hall, Royal Manchester Children's Hospital Pendlebury and the Duchess of York Children's Hospital and, later on, at the neonatal unit at St Mary's Hospital, Manchester. By the time he retired there were four paediatric surgeons in the Manchester region. It was in the 1960s, in the course of creating a world-renowned paediatric urology service, that he developed the operation to prevent vesico-ureteric reflux that subsequently became associated with his name. The operation, which involved a cross trigonal tunnel technique, was hailed as being successful in around 98% of cases and became generally accepted by urologists worldwide as the best technique. Publications in the international literature confirmed his status as the leading authority on the surgical management of vesico-ureteric reflux in children. He was passionate about teaching and pioneered video televised courses for the training of surgeons in operative paediatric urology in Manchester and Varese in Italy. So successful were these video presentations that he was awarded the Golden Eagle award by the Council on International Nontheatrical Events for the most outstanding teaching film made by a non-commercial film company. He was well known and highly respected not only in Manchester and the United Kingdom, but also at an international level. He was the first South African-born president of the British Association of Paediatric Surgeons. In 2009 the British Association of Paediatric Urologists nominated both him and Sir David Innes Williams as honorary members. He was also a lifelong member of the Society of Paediatric Urological Surgeons, a small group of paediatric urologists founded by Sir David Innes Williams, who met annually to present and discuss each other's research and papers. He was an honorary member of many international urological societies and in 1996 was awarded a medal by the European Society for Paediatric Urology. His reputation led to appointments as visiting professor at Beilinson Hospital, Tel Aviv, the University of Michigan, USA, and Bogota University Medical School, Colombia. He also worked in Kuwait for some time. He was a member of the council of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1987 to 1988. His paediatric surgical colleagues in Manchester recall that children were very fond of him. At one time a child drew a picture of him holding a briefcase on which the letters 'J C' were imprinted. The child had written underneath 'Jesus Christ'. The respect in which he was held was also demonstrated by a thriving private practice. Although of amicable personality, Joe was not afraid to challenge authority when necessary. He once upset a senior Manchester rabbi by pointing out that children with clotting disorders could die after circumcision. Throughout his career in Manchester and following retirement, he was a strong supporter of the section of surgery of the Manchester Medical Society. When he retired, initially his only interest was salmon and trout fishing, a pastime he had pursued enthusiastically throughout his professional life, however, a new opportunity to exercise his talents arose as a result of his knowledge and interest in antiques and silver. He became honorary curator of silver and clocks at the Royal College of Surgeons and in 1998 was invited to give the Vicary lecture on this subject entitled 'Silver and the surgeon'. Joe will be remembered not only for his major contributions to the development of paediatric urology, but also for his gregarious, cheerful and vivacious spirit. He died on 17 April 2012, aged 88 and was survived by three sons, Anthony, Peter and Nicholas (a consultant urological surgeon), and five grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002542
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ollier, Louis Xavier Édouard Léopold (1830 - 1900)

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First Title value, for Searching Kanthack, Alfredo Antunes (1863 - 1898)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-05-31
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002400-E002499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374592374592
Occupation Pathologist
Details Born at Bahia, in Brazil, on March 4th, 1863; he was the second son of Emilie Kanthack, at one time British Consul at Pará, Brazil. As a child he was somewhat weakly, and his sole recreation was swimming, but, coming with his family to England in 1881, he became an athlete and in time an excellent football player. His family had arrived in Europe as long ago as 1869, and he was at school in Germany from 1871-1881, first at Hamburg and then at gymnasiums at Wandsbeck, Lüneburg, and Güterslok. In 1881 he went for a few months to the Liverpool College. Up to his fifteenth year he seems not to have been a brilliant schoolboy, but he then began to develop mentally and, on finishing his school studies, to show the intellectual mastery of subjects which so signally characterized him during his short life. He became a student of University College, Liverpool, in 1882, and, matriculating at the University of London, passed the successive examinations with honours. He came to London and entered St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1887, and in 1889 worked under Virchow, Koch, and Krause in Berlin, adding to his reputation as an able and indefatigable student a character for accurate observation and original thought in the field of research. Virchow would not allow him to neglect his clinical work, although he devoted himself more particularly to bacteriology and pathology. He made many friends among the professors, chief of whom was Virchow, as well as among fellow-workers. Returning from Berlin in 1890, he served as Obstetric Resident under Matthews Duncan at St Bartholomew's Hospital. While holding this position he, together with Beaven Rake and Buckmaster, was appointed by the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons and the Executive Committee of the National Leprosy Fund to inquire into and report on the extent to which leprosy prevailed in India - its pathology and treatment - and to suggest measures for dealing with leprous subjects. The report was on many points of a negative character. The most important conclusions were that: (1) There were some grounds for believing that a gradual decrease in the number of lepers was taking place; (2) Direct contagion was at the most a very small factor in causing the spread of leprosy; and (3) Compulsory segregation of lepers was not advisable. A special committee appointed to consider the report refused, with some exceptions, to accept these conclusions, which were directly opposed to many of the alarmist reports current in England when the National Leprosy Fund was started. The Commissioners' conclusions, however, were endorsed by the medical members of the Executive Conunittee, and were in accordance with the views held by the Indian Government. Kanthack, on his return from India in 1891, matriculated at Cambridge as a Fellow Commoner of St John's College, and was at the same time appointed John Lucas Walker Student in Pathology. He resumed his researches and wrote on immunity, his most important paper on this subject, written in conjunction with W B Hardy, being published in the *Proceedings of the Royal Society* (1893, lii, 267): "On the Characters and Behaviour of the Wandering (Migratory) Cells of the Frog, especially in Relation to Micro-organisms." Coming at a time when the wholly phagocytic theory of Metchnikoff was beginning to be questioned, and the supporters of the humoral theory were in their turn beginning to claim more than their share, it demonstrated the impossibility of making either theory explain all the facts, and pointed out that neither theory, even if proved, would bring us any nearer the true understanding of immunity. Another paper published by him at Cambridge dealt with mycetoma, and following Vandyke Carter, proved the disease to be parasitic in nature, the parasite being closely allied to, if not identical with, actinomyces. He left Cambridge in 1892, and began to practise as a physician in Liverpool. He was appointed Medical Tutor and Registrar at the Royal Infirmary as well as Senior Demonstrator of Bacteriology, a post specially created for him, and Medical Tutor at University College, Liverpool. He suffered from a severe attack of typhoid fever in 1894, but in spite of this he won the Jacksonian Prize in 1895, his essay being entitled, "The Aetiology of Tetanus and the Value of the Serum Treatment". The MS, illustrated with photographs, etc, is in the Library and bears the motto:- "What are these So withered and so wild in their attire: That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth And yet are on't?" - Macbeth, Act I, Sc 3. A microphotograph of the bacilli is pasted immediately underneath the motto. He soon returned to St Bartholomew's as Director of the Pathological Department in the school and hospital, and here he remained till he was appointed Professor of Pathology at the University of Cambridge in 1897. At the same time he was Lecturer at St Bartholomew's on Pathology and Bacteriology, and Curator of the Museum. Clinical material, hitherto examined in the wards, now came to his department, and in the course of a year amounted to many hundreds of specimens. He read short and often very valuable papers at the meetings of the Pathological Society, which he attended regularly. He acted as Deputy to Professor Roy, of Cambridge, during the illness of the latter in 1896, travelling to and from St Bartholomew's and the University. In the spring of 1897 he went to reside in Cambridge and was given an honorary MA and elected a Fellow of King's. He succeeded Roy in the autumn as Professor of Pathology. During the autumn of 1898 the report of his research on the tsetse fly, conducted by him in conjunction with Messrs Durham and Blandford, was published while he was suffering in his last illness. This report cleared the ground for further investigation of what was then known as tsetse-fly disease, although no method of prevention or cure was yet propounded. His last work, published in conjunction with Dr Sladen, reported on tuberculous milk. Kanthack was very popular, and for solid reasons. Although his teaching attracted every class of men, it was doubtless his love of field sports that brought him in the first instance into touch with many of his most devoted pupils. His influence on younger men was remarkable, and he seemed able to get work that was creditable to both master and pupil out of the most unpromising material. He kept up a very large scientific correspondence, chiefly on pathology, and his correspondents were in all parts of the globe. He died at Cambridge of malignant disease on December 21st, 1898. A sum of money was collected after his death which was devoted to establish 'The Kanthack Memorial Library' in the Pathological Institute of St Bartholomew's Hospital. He married in 1895 Lucie, daughter of F Henstock, of Liverpool, who survived him. Kanthack was fortunate in the opportunity of his life. He began his career as a pioneer in bacteriology and was permitted to take a wide outlook over a new science. His social qualities attracted many pupils, and enabled him to found a school in London and to carry on in Cambridge the work begun by Roy. He was both interesting and informative as a lecturer; with a soft and lisping speech, he had the artistic power to illustrate his words with excellent sketches on the blackboard. In his teaching he was somewhat dogmatic, but never so much as to prevent his pupils from thinking for themselves; indeed, his dogmatism appears to have had for its object the awakening of a desire for discussion in those to whom he was addressing himself. He soon marked any flaw in experiment or argument, and was always ready to set his pupils to work on subjects which required further elucidation, or the gathering of facts and information on the problems which he was himself investigating. Modest and unassuming in manner, his knowledge often routed the more aggressive type of student with repartee which though delivered quietly and good-humouredly was none the less deadly. He was thoroughly versed in contemporary pathological literature and was well read in general literature outside his profession. With a fine memory, he was rarely at a loss for an apt quotation or illustration. There is a good portrait from a photograph in the *St Bartholomew's Hospital Journal* (1899, vi, 51). Publications:- A bibliography compiled by Charles R Hewitt is to be found in the *St Bart's Hosp Jour*, 1899, vi, 51.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002409
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Travers, William (1838 - 1906)

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First Title value, for Searching Crouch, Muriel (1914 - 2010)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2010-09-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373205373205
Occupation General surgeon
Details Muriel Crouch was a consultant surgeon at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital, the South London Hospital for Women and Children and Mount Vernon Hospital. She was one of the early female surgeons whose faith as a committed Christian pervaded all that she did. Born in 1914 into a Christian household in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, her father, Ivor Crouch, was a company director and a leading figure in setting up Christian Fellowships in universities. Others involved in this evangelical movement were the anatomist Jack Aitken of University College London, J W Laing, the building ‘giant’, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the medically qualified minister of Westminster Chapel and the former chief assistant to Lord Horder. Her father was also secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Ivor Crouch also used his influence in business circles to bring Jews from Germany before the Holocaust. Her great uncle, George Crouch, went to Australia in 1853 as part of the Victoria gold rush. Muriel was an undergraduate at the Royal Free Hospital, qualifying in the early part the Second World War. During her surgical training she worked at the Royal Free and Oster House emergency hospitals, and then as a senior registrar at the Royal Free and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospitals. She worked with Cecil Joll at the Royal Free Hospital, an international expert on thyroid surgery. Joll was of a slightly unpredictable temperament and was partial to female assistants; Muriel Crouch had a beneficial influence on him and he had great respect for her. She and others encouraged him to accept a more prominent role in the teaching of undergraduates. She enjoyed her work as a part-time demonstrator in the anatomy department at the Royal Free Hospital working under Ruth Bowden. It gave her added contact with students in the dissecting room and during tutorials. Her knowledge of the relevant clinical anatomy was appreciated by them. Always supportive of those in training, she was noted for giving generously of her time. She also gave a tenth of her income to support good causes and helped individuals whose circumstances she knew were difficult. She was very supportive of those doctors who wished to work abroad as missionaries. She was a founder member of Tyndale House, Cambridge, a residential Christian community dedicated to Bible study, research and the holding of conferences. It is ideally located within the university complex to aid undergraduate and postgraduate study, in addition to holding regular services of worship. She was also appointed to the London auxiliary committee of the Christian Medical College, Ludhiana, India, now known as the Friends of Ludhiana. Muriel was a fluent lecturer on matters that impinged on medicine and the Christian faith. In a lecture given in 1961, she argued “Specialisation is here to stay, not only in medicine but throughout the whole of our national life”. She emphasised the need to treat patients as individuals as she explored the expansion in knowledge, the increased difficulties in teaching, the influence of finance, increased litigation, and specialisation, with patients drifting from department to department. She ended on a positive note, advocating that patients be treated ‘as a whole’. She wrote on many other topics, including *Imparting ethics to medical students* (London, Christian Medical Fellowship). She expanded her influence as an invited speaker at many of the Bank of England’s Christian retreats. Muriel was a vice president of the Inter-Varsity Fellowship (now the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship or UCCF) and also served on the Nurses Christian Fellowship International executive council. For the latter body she went to Stavanger, Norway, in 1967 to give a series of five addresses under the heading ‘The spirit of service’. She was writing very thoughtful articles well into her eighties. In one, she explored the ethics of telling the truth to patients and whether lying was ever a valid option. In her final two years in a residential home in Hunstanton, Norfolk, she became a firm favourite with other residents and carers, and used her medical knowledge to tell her GP what was happening as the end approached. She looked forward to her future ‘afterlife’, free of the restrictions of her failing body. She died in her home on 12 January 2010 at the age of 95. A service of thanksgiving for her very full life which had touched so many was held at the Union Church, Hunstanton, on 19 March 2010, at which Marjorie Foyle and Peter May gave tributes. One of the many from varied backgrounds attending was Felix Kotoney-Ahulu from West Africa, a world expert on sickle cell anaemia, and a great friend and admirer of Muriel.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001022
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Evans, Charles (1816 - 1886)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-06-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372706372706
Occupation General surgeon
Details Blagden appears to have been of the family of Sir Charles Blagden (1748-1820), MD, Secretary of the Royal Society, of whom Dr Johnson, speaking of his copiousness and precision of communication, said, “Blagden, Sir, is a delightful fellow”. He was a friend of Horace Walpole and had a large and fashionable practice. Richard Blagden practised at 26 Albermarle Street, Piccadilly, and on his retirement at some time before 1855 removed to Percy Street, Bath, where he died on March 31st, 1861. The *Medical Circular* speaks of him in the following qualified terms: “Mr Blagden is a gentleman who, without acquiring any literary or scientific distinction or holding any high professional appointment, has succeeded, by the exertion of an influence that may be rather surmised than known, in obtaining the honourable offices of Surgeon to the Duchess of Kent, and Surgeon-Extraordinary to the Queen. We have no doubt that Mr Blagden is as well qualified to grace these distinctions as many other gentlemen who appear to possess superior professional claims, for nothing is more delusive than the attempt to adjudge professional merit merely by the evidence of popu¬larity. The special appointment held by Mr Blagden is that of Surgeon-Accoucheur to Her Majesty, and since there are only two Fellows of the College of Surgeons who practise midwifery as a speciality, and physicians dare not perform operations, the appointment of Mr. Blagden became a necessity. We should scarcely, however, think that he would have been recommended to fill such an important post, if the advisers of the Court had not considered him to possess adequate qualifications, as the office involves a responsibility towards the Crown, the profession, and the public, which would make an injudicious selection perilous and unpardonable. On this supposition we regard Mr Blagden’s appointment as a ground of encouragement to others similarly situated, and an evidence that it is possible for merit to break down the artificial distinctions with which conventionalism has barred up the road to offices of professional eminence and emolument.” PUBLICATION:- Blagden’s sole contribution appears to have been: “A Case of a Fatal Hæmorrhage from the Extraction of a Tooth.” - *Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1817, viii, 224.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000522
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Holding, Charles ( - 1901)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Holthouse, Carsten (1810 - 1901)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002200-E002299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374439374439
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon Ophthalmologist
Details Born at Edmonton on October 14th, 1810. He was the eldest son of Carsten Holthouse, and at the age of 14 was apprenticed to Le Gay Brewerton, at Bawtry, Yorkshire. He was released from his articles before the customary period had elapsed, and studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He was Dresser to (Sir) William Lawrence, and Clinical Clerk to Dr Latham. After qualifying he studied in Paris, and then started practice in 1836 at his father's house in Keppel Street. He assisted in the Out-patient Department of St Bartholomew's and was attracted to eye and ear affections. But in 1843, being appointed Lecturer on Anatomy and Physiology at the Aldersgate School of Medicine in succession to Frederick Skey (qv), who had been appointed Lecturer on Anatomy at St Bartholomew's, he subordinated surgery to anatomy for some years. In 1849 began his connection with Westminster Hospital: the Medical School had come to a crisis, and in June, 1849, a new staff of lecturers was collected - Drs Radcliffe and Basham, Messrs Charles Brooke and Holthouse, the last as Lecturer on Anatomy. Owing to the inadequacy of the museum, particularly in anatomical preparations, the Royal College of Surgeons suspended its recognition of the school until Holthouse had, with great energy, reorganized the museum. The difficulty of the school centred on the claims of the senior staff of the hospital to the pupilage fees, irrespective of the increased need for expenditure. The medical student was held as primarily a pupil of one or other member of the senior physicians and surgeons. After five years Holthouse refused to continue to lecture without payment, the scanty fraction of the pupils' fees having been exhausted by the expenses. The result was that Holthouse was appointed Assistant Surgeon to Westminster Hospital on March 12th, 1853, and Surgeon on January 17th, 1857. At the same time he was allowed to put the school on a surer footing, the physicians resigning much of their primary claim to the pupilage fees, the surgeons holding on for another thirty years to what they called their rights. For some months during the Crimean War Holthouse served on the staff of the Civil Hospital at Smyrna, among his colleagues being Sir Spencer Wells and J Whitaker Hulke (qv). On his return he settled at 2 Storey's Gate, Westminster, and remained there for many years. He developed a practice in ophthalmology, and in 1857 took part in founding the Surrey Ophthalmic and Eye Dispensary, which afterwards became the Royal Eye Hospital, Southwark. He paid special attention to squint, was conservative as regards the tenotomy so much in vogue, aiming to improve by use the vision in the deviating eye; the systematic use of spectacles for the common convergent squint had not become general. Thus as a surgeon Holthouse ranged too widely; at the same time he had great confidence in his own powers of diagnosis and treatment, which gave less than sufficient heed to the knowledge of others. These characteristics were naturally a serious bar to success. In 1875, at the age of 65, he became Consulting Surgeon to Westminster Hospital, and then took up a fresh practice - that of the treatment of habitual drunkards in a home - which resulted in anxiety and financial loss, but perhaps served experimentally to forward development on that question. Holthouse enjoyed vigorous health until about two years before his death. He underwent an operation for cataract, upon which followed an apoplectic seizure with temporary recovery, then further attacks rendered him helpless for months before his death on July 18th, 1901, within three months of completing his ninety-first year. He had been the Senior Fellow of the College after the death of Sir Rutherford Alcock, Chairman of Westminster Hospital, in 1897, and was the last but one of the 300 original Fellows, Spencer Smith (qv) dying a few months later on November 29th, 1901.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002256
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hosking, Shorland William (1954 - 2010)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2011-12-13 2014-11-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373910373910
Occupation General surgeon
Details Shorland William Hosking was a consultant general surgeon in Poole, Dorset. He was born in Australia in 1954, and was brought up in India and then Guildford, Surrey. He was educated at King Edward's School in Witley, and then studied medicine at Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, qualifying MB BS in 1978. He was a registrar in surgery at Hammersmith Hospital, London, then a lecturer in surgery at Sheffield University, and subsequently a senior registrar in Southampton. He gained his MD from Sheffield University with a commendation in 1988. He then developed his interest in upper gastrointestinal surgery and spent a year as a visiting lecturer working with A K C Li and Sydney Chung at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He was appointed as a consultant surgeon in Poole in 1994. Outside medicine, he was an active member of St Mary's Church, Poole, and had a strong Christian faith. He loved the outdoors, and had a small boat. He had also learnt to fly. Tragically, he was killed in a light aircraft when it crashed on 17 April 2010. An inquest heard that he may have deliberately chosen not to make an emergency landing, fearing other people attending a sports event nearby might have been put at risk. He was survived by his wife, Helen, and two children, Samantha and Jeremy. A Shorland Hosking Fellowship has been established in his honour by the Association of Surgeons in Training and Operation Hernia, providing funds for higher surgical trainees to join an Operation Hernia team and work with them in a developing country.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001727
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Longmore, Sir Thomas (1816 - 1895)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-07-04
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002500-E002599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374749374749
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Southwark on October 10th, 1816, the eldest son of Thomas Longmore, Surgeon RN, and of Maria, a daughter of John Elcum. He entered Merchant Taylors' School in June, 1828, and was afterwards educated at Guy's Hospital, where he proved an industrious student and was dresser to Bransby Cooper, subsequently assisting in his private practice and in writing Sir Astley Cooper's life. He became Assistant Surgeon in the 19th Regiment of Foot, being gazetted on February 3rd, 1843, and served with the headquarters of the regiment in the Ionian Islands, in the West Indies, and in North America. He was gazetted Regimental Surgeon on March 3rd, 1854, and then served with his regiment in the Light Division of the Eastern Army from the time of its first taking the field throughout the Crimean Campaign (1854-1855) until the termination of the siege of Sebastopol. During this period he was at his post every day, but suffered severely from the effects of frostbite. He was present at the affair of Buljanac on September 19th, at the Battle of the Alma, Inkerman, and Balaclava, at the sortie of October 26th, 1854, and at the assaults of the Redan on June 18th and September 8th, 1855. For his services he was awarded the Medal with three Clasps, the Turkish Medal, and was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour (4th Class). He returned to England on the declaration of peace, and passed the Fellowship. On the outbreak of the Mutiny he was sent with a detachment of his regiment to India, and served with the Army in Bengal, at first as a regimental officer, and after December 31st, 1858, as Deputy Inspector of Hospitals. He was appointed Sanitary Officer to the British Forces in Bengal in January, 1859, but on the reduction of the establishment in July was ordered home and received the appointment of Principal Medical Officer of the Camp, Colchester. His operative skill had attracted such attention in the Crimea that he was given the Professorship of Military Surgery in the Medical School, Netley, founded in 1860 by Sidney Herbert for the better instruction of the medical officers of the Army. He held this post for nearly thirty-one years. On October 19th, 1872, he was promoted to the rank of Inspector (Surgeon) General, and was appointed a member of the Committee on Field Hospital Equipment. On October 10th, 1876, he was placed on the retired list, but was allowed to continue holding his Professorship. He was knighted at Osborne in 1886. He represented the British Government on a number of epoch-making missions. As early as 1864 he was deputed to attend the Congress of Geneva, afterwards known as the Geneva Convention. In 1867 he was sent to Paris and took part in the International Conferences of the Societies for Aid to Wounded Soldiers in Time of War. In 1869 he was British Government Delegate in the Berlin International Conference on Aid to Sick and Wounded in War. The Secretary for War dispatched him to Vienna in 1873 to report on the field hospital equipment collected at the Sanitäts Pavillon of the World Exhibition. In 1874 he read a paper which was the starting-point of the St John Ambulance classes. At the Conference of Societies for Aid to Sick and Wounded in War, held at Geneva in September, 1884, he again represented the Government, and was present at the International Red Cross Meeting held at Carlsruhe in the autumn of 1887. In June, 1887, when the Southern Branch of the British Medical Association met at Netley, he was President and delivered the Annual Address. In 1888 he acted at Antwerp as British Representative and Member of the International Jury for assessing the prizes offered by the German Empress Augusta for the best forms for a movable hut-hospital. In October, 1889, he was sent by the Secretary of State for War to take part in the fourth session of the French Surgical Congress then held in Paris, and was elected a Vice-President. In 1862 he married Mary Rosalie Helen, second daughter of Captain W S Moorsom, 52nd Regiment, by whom he had four sons and three daughters. He died on September 30th, 1895, at his house at Woolston, Hampshire, and was buried at Hamble. The College Collections possess several portraits of Sir Thomas Longmore. Good portraits accompany the biographies in the *Lancet*, *British Medical Journal*, and Guy's Hospital Gazette. His presentation portrait by George Reid is at Netley in the ante-room of the Officers' Mess. Publications: *On the Geneva Convention of 1864, with some Account of the National Committees formed for Aiding in Ameliorating the Condition of the Sick and Wounded of Armies in Time of War*, 8vo, 1866. *Report on the Military Medical and Surgical Field Hospital Equipment at the Universal Exhibition at Paris, and on Certain other Matters connected therewith*, fol, London, 1868. *On the Geneva Convention of 1864, in Relation to the Aid afforded by Volunteer Societies to Sick and Wounded Soldiers during the late Franco-German War*. A Lecture, 8vo, 1872. *Ambulances and Ambulance Service*, 1875. *Gunshot Injuries; their History, Characteristic Features, Complications and General Treatment, with Statistics*, 8vo, illustrated, London, 1877; 2nd ed., 1895. A classic. *Report on a Mission to Paris in October, 1889, to attend the 4th Session of the French Surgical Congress, together with Observations on the Military Medical Schools of France*, 8vo, London, 1890. *Richard Wiseman: A Biographical Study*, 8vo, London, 1891. This is the standard account of Wiseman.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002566
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lawrie, Reginald Seymour (1917 - 2011)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2012-02-13 2012-08-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002000-E002099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374196374196
Occupation General surgeon
Details Reginald Seymour Lawrie, always known as 'Rex', was a consultant general surgeon to Guy's Hospital from 1948 until 1977. He did much pioneering work in paediatric surgery before it became recognised as a specialty. He also worked at the Evelina Hospital, holding appointments at Sydenham Children's, Edenbridge and at Bolingbroke hospitals. He was an outstanding general surgeon whose innate modesty meant that his achievements were not as widely recognised as they deserved to be. However, as a superb teacher and mentor, his many trainees appreciated his technical skills and wide-ranging knowledge in both medicine and surgery. Rex Lawrie was born in Helensburgh, Scotland, on 22 June 1917 and came from a long line of scholars, engineers and doctors. He was particularly proud of being a direct descendant of Sir Hans Sloane, president of the Royal College of Physicians from 1718 to 1735. His father, Walter Gray Lawrie, was a Royal Engineer. His mother, Eleanor Fitzgerald Lawrie née Aitken, was a housewife. Two uncles, both Glasgow graduates, were doctors - James MacPherson Lawrie, a surgeon, and William John Lawrie, a general practitioner. Two cousins, James MacPherson Lawrie and Holland 'Robin' Hood Lawrie both graduated from Middlesex Hospital. Rex received his primary education at Temple Grove preparatory school in Eastbourne from 1927 to 1930, and then proceeded to Wellington College for a further three years, where he was a brilliant scholar. He entered Middlesex Hospital Medical School at the age of 16 to study for the first MB examination, in which he gained a distinction in physics. In the basic sciences he was greatly influenced by Tim Yeates in anatomy, Samson Wright in physiology and, later, Lionel Whitby in bacteriology. He won prizes in anatomy and physiology, obtaining the Meyerstein scholarship and Begley studentship of the Royal College of Surgeons. Rex's clinical course followed a similar academic pattern as he gained the Douglas Cree prize in medicine, the Lyell gold medal in surgery and won the Broderip scholarship. During his clinical course he was influenced by Sir Gordon Gordon-Taylor and David Patey. In the final MB BS examination he obtained honours in medicine and pathology, and was awarded the London University gold medal. Qualifying shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, only a substitute medal was available because of the stringencies of wartime. The real gold one was eventually awarded in 2009, 70 years after the examination, at a ceremony specially convened by the vice-chancellor of London University. House appointments followed qualification, first at the Middlesex Hospital with E A Cockayne, then at the Brompton Hospital with G E Beaumont and Guy Scadding, and finally at the Royal Northern Hospital. During this period he passed the MRCP. He then went as a house surgeon to the Wingfield Morris Orthopaedic Hospital in Oxford tutored by G R Girdlestone and Sir Herbert Seddon, Nuffield Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, and found time to add the MD to his already impressive list of qualifications. Under the supervision of Florey and Girdlestone, he administered penicillin intravenously to a young boy with an infected hip joint, only the third patient to be treated, and the first to have a successful result. His next step was to gain a surgical registrar post at his alma mater with David Patey and A S Blundell Bankhart, and he was successful in a third postgraduate examination, the FRCS in 1942. He then joined the RAMC, rising to the rank of major. For the next four years, initially in North Africa and then in Italy, he had duties in general surgery and orthopaedics. Later, as a specialist plastic surgeon, he was attached to the 4th maxillofacial unit under Patrick Clarkson, a New Zealander by birth who had trained at Guy's Hospital, and in plastic surgery with Sir Harold Gillies. This small pioneering unit treated serious and complex injuries, including burns, with novel surgical techniques and achieved extraordinary results. This maxillofacial unit was extremely busy during the bloody battles of Monte Cassino and managed 5,000 casualties, including 3,000 maxillofacial injuries and 1,000 burns. To cope with such large numbers, they developed novel and aggressive strategies including early primary closure of missile wounds to the face, and early excision and skin grafting of large burns. Another remarkable feature of the unit's work was the quality of their data collection, which set a standard perhaps not realised for some 60 years. Rex Lawrie was mentioned in despatches in November 1945. He wrote papers on all these aspects of military surgery in the *Lancet* ('Primary closure of battle wounds of the face' Vol.245 No.6351 pp.625-6), the *British Dental Journal* ('Treatments of 1,000 jaw fractures' 1946 Feb;80:69) and the *British Journal of Surgery* ('The management and surgical resurfacing of serious burns' 1946 Apr;34:311-23). At the end of the war he served in Austria and, on returning to the UK, at the Cambridge Military Hospital, Aldershot was consultant orthopaedic surgeon and under the supervision of Ronald Furlong. Following his demobilisation, he worked for a short time at the Middlesex Hospital, and then, in June 1948, was appointed as a consultant surgeon to Guy's Hospital and then as a paediatric surgeon to the Evelina Children's Hospital. He was an early protagonist of day-stay surgery in children, particularly those with hernias, and in 1964 wrote paper in the *Lancet* ('Operating on children as day-cases' Vol.284 No.7372 pp.1289-91) on this topic. He always maintained that one should never 'talk-down' to children, and regarded them as inexperienced adults. Were a young patient's birthday to occur while the child was in hospital, one of the cards would invariably have been signed by Rex. For his first 15 years he was first assistant to Sir Hedley Atkins, with whom he ran successful undergraduate and postgraduate teaching programmes, including a very popular final FRCS course. He wrote the popular Textbook of surgery (Oxford, Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1958) with his colleague Guy Blackburn, who had trained at Bart's but was on the staff at Guy's. He enjoyed examining in surgery as member of the Court of Examiners of the Royal College of Surgeons and also in ENT. His courteous and careful assessment of candidates was sought by the Universities of London, Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and institutions abroad in Baghdad, Benghazi and Alexandria. He was a visiting fellow at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. At times, when the answer the candidate gave was wrong, he would say: 'I never considered it that way!' Perhaps his lasting legacy is the large group of trainees, many now trainers themselves, who had their surgical experience under his close supervision. Not only did Rex Lawrie have excellent technical skills, he was also able to pass these on as he assisted his juniors with a minimum of fuss and difficulty. He was unflappable and his charming manner put them at ease with the words: 'take time to secure haemostasis while opening the abdomen, as you will be tired when closing'. He remained in touch with many of them and they continued to benefit from his wise advice. Recognising that climbing the career ladder was at times unfair and nepotistic, his dictum to trainees was 'the job they were destined to get was better than all those they did not'. At surgical meetings or 'grand rounds', Rex Lawrie was not the first to stand up with his opinion. But when others had promoted at length differing methods for solving a particular problem, he would eventually be invited to express a view. This took the form of a new insight into the problem or stating one of his *bon mots* - 'I don't think the body really notices any difference.' He was great supporter of the Friday morning 'mortality meetings'. He never seemed to age with the years, remaining youthful, slim and energetic. He eschewed hospital lifts to walk up flights of stairs, his staff often being 'more out of puff' than he was. But he retired early at the age of 60 years in 1977. An idle life was not for him: he went to Brunei for five years at the request of HM the Sultan as his personal physician and was also charged with building a new hospital. His wife took care of the Sultan's wife and the children of the royal palace. In 1941 Rex Lawrie married Jean Eileen Grant, a Royal Free graduate who was born in Southern Rhodesia in 1914, but moved with her family to England some four years later. She qualified in 1938 and had their first child when Rex was serving abroad in the 1st Army in North Africa and Italy. Not only did she bring up their eldest child as a single-handed mother, she also combined this with general practice in Woburn Sands. She suffered acute paralytic poliomyelitis in 1948 and had residual disability that forced her to give up general practice. She became well-known in medical politics, but continued a clinical interest in gynaecology at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital and in the community as a school doctor. She was honorary secretary of the Medical Women's Federation for 13 years, and later its president. She played a crucial role in influencing government policy to adopt flexible and part-time training, and in developing the 'retainer scheme', which enabled women to keep their hand in when family commitments were too demanding to pursue an active career. She served on the BMA council for many years and was appointed CBE in 1977. Rex and Jean's marriage was a very happy one, and their family home in Kent was a focus for many generations of medical students, graduates, contemporaries, friends and overseas visitors. Rex cared for her until she died on 14 May 2009 at the age of almost 94. Outside medicine, Rex was first and foremost a family man with a love of gardening and playing croquet. He was a member of the Junior Carlton Club from 1936 and served as chairman of Eynsford Village Society from 1964 to 1969. Of their four children, the oldest, Christina Janet Seymour Williams, followed her parents into medicine and, after training at Guy's Hospital, pursued a specialist career in rehabilitation. Alexander Grant Seymour Lawrie, the elder son, became an accountant. The second daughter, Katharine Jane Eleanor Seymour Tyler, was a personnel manager at the World Bank, and the youngest, James Cameron Fitzgerald Seymour Lawrie is treasurer at Christ Church, Oxford. The medical genes have been passed on: one granddaughter is in general practice and a second is studying medicine at Guy's, Kings and St Thomas'. Reginald Seymour (Rex) Lawrie died at home after a short illness on 15 January 2011. His four children survived him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002013
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lingen, Charles (1811 - 1878)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching McCraith, James (1810 - 1901)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Richards, Frederick William (1841 - 1871)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-10-31
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003000-E003099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375252375252
Occupation Physician
Details Born on June 12th, 1841, the son of John Richards, solicitor, of Charterhouse Square, and his wife, Fanny. He entered Merchant Taylors' School in March, 1849, was afterwards apprenticed to Fred John Butler at Winchester, and received his professional education at St Bartholomew's Hospital. At the matriculation examination of the London University in 1860 be took honours in mathematics, chemistry, and botany, at the first MB honours in physiology and materia medica, and in the Medical School of his hospital he obtained the First Year's Prize for general proficiency and practical anatomy; in the second year that for anatomy, physiology, and chemistry. After holding the post of Midwifery Assistant in 1866 he joined Dr Butler in partnership at Winchester, and was appointed Assistant Physician to the Hospital there. His promising career was cut short at the age of 29 by his death on February 23rd, 1871. He left a widow and two children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003069
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002200-E002299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374399374399
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at University College Hospital, where he was Liston Surgical Medallist in 1860 (with an essay on "Some Varieties and Effects of Cancerous Disease of Bone"), House Surgeon, House Physician, and Ophthalmic Surgical Assistant. After a long visit to the East he returned to London and set up in practice in Dorset Square; became Surgeon to the Western General Dispensary, Surgeon to Out-patients Samaritan Free Hospital, and in 1883 President of the Harveian Society. In his Presidential Address he set out a list of proposals which have an interest as exhibiting what was being advocated in some circles at that time: a fifth year to the medical curriculum; direct representation of general practitioners on the General Medical Council; a post-graduate course for general practitioners; younger members of the hospital staffs to teach the students, senior members to lecture and demonstrate to medical practitioners; an amalgamation of the two Royal Colleges into a Royal College of Medicine which should grant the degree of MD, to be retrospective and admit all those holding the qualifications of the two colleges, but without superseding the University of London. In the spring of 1892 Hickman succeeded Sir Oscar Clayton as Surgeon in Ordinary to the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. In May, 1896, he underwent a serious operation from which he improved temporarily, but fell ill again before Christmas, and died at 122 Harley Street on March 27th, 1897. He had a country house, Camberlot Hall, Sussex, and he married in 1865 Emmeline, youngest daughter of Thomas Lea. His son, Dr H E Belcher Hickman, practised subsequently at Chesham. His portrait is in the Fellows' Album. Publications: "Address on the Aids and Hindrances to the General Physician or General Practitioner of Medicine-to the Harveian Society of London." - *Lancet*, 1888, i, 280. *Pleas for the Establishment of a Royal College of Medicine by an Amalgamation of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons*, 1885. An early use of the rhinoscope is mentioned in his paper on "A Steel Ring Impacted for Thirteen and a Half Years in the Nasopharyngeal Fossa of a Child - Detection by the Rhinoscope and Removal." - *Brit Med Jour*, 1867, ii, 266.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002216
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wylie, John (1790 - 1852)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-03-06
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/375850375850
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on May 20th, 1790, the son of George Wylie, of Glasgow. He entered the Madras Army as Assistant Surgeon on June 11th, 1812, being promoted to Surgeon on July 1st, 1825, to Superintending Surgeon on February 1st, 1838, to Inspector-General of Hospitals on December 18th, 1846, to Surgeon General on August 1st, 1850, and to Physician General on January 1st, 1851. He saw active service in the Third Maratha, Pindari, or Dekkan War (1817-1818), and took part very gallantly in the Battle of Corygaum, being mentioned in dispatches (GOCC, Jan 21st, 1818). He received the CB on August 17th, 1850, when the Order of the Bath was first conferred on medical officers. He retired on February 12th, 1851, and on leaving Madras received the well-deserved compliment of a General Order of the Governor in Council, expressive of the sense entertained of his "highly meritorious services during a lengthened period of thirty-seven years". Physician General Wylie died suddenly at his residence at Arndean, Dollar, NB, on June 16th, 1852. He is cited by Lieut-Colonel Crawford (History of the Indian Medical Service, 1914) as one of the twenty-nine officers of the Indian Medical Service to be elected FRCS on August 26th, 1844. The following appeared in the *Monthly Journal of Medical Science* (Edinburgh), 1852, xv, 228:- "Dr Wylie was one of the medical officers of the Queen's and EIC's services, who were, in 1850, selected for admission into the Military Order of the Bath. The honour thus conferred on Medical Officers of the public services has been universally recognized as a merited, though somewhat tardy, compliment to the profession generally, and to the individuals who were thus distinguished. To none of them was the admission into a military order more appropriate than to Dr Wylie who, at an early period of his career, was called upon to render to his country a service more purely military than it commonly fails to the lot of a medical officer to perform. The exploit is notorious to every servant of the EIC; but many of our readers may not have heard of the affair of 'Corygaum' where one professional brother fell, and another bore a conspicuous part in achhieving a victory under desperate circumstances. "The following account of this remarkable combat is taken from a divisional order of Brigadier-General Smith, of 7th January, 1818. "'The commanding officer having received the official accounts of an attack made by the Peishwah's army on a small detachment, commanded by Captain Staunton, of the 2nd battalion 1st regiment Bombay NI at the village of Corygaum, has great satisfaction in publishing the particulars NI, general information, and in holding it up to the force, as one of the most brilliant examples of gallantry and perseverance recorded in our Indian annals. "'This detachment, consisting of a detail of Madras artillery and two six-pounders, 2nd battalion 1st regiment NI, about 600 strong, and about 300 auxiliary horse, the whole under Captain Staunton, marched from Seroor to Poonah, at 8 pm, on the 31st December, and reached the heights overlooking Corygaum about ten o'clock in the forenoon, 1st January, from whence the whole of the Peishwah's army, estimated at 20,000 horse, and several thousand infantry, were discovered in the plain south of the Beemah River. "'Captain Staunton immediately moved upon the village of Corygaum, with the intention of occupying it, and had scarcely succeeded in reaching it with his detachment, when he was attacked in the most determined manner by three divisions of the Peishwah's choicest infantry, supported by immense bodies of horse, and the fire of two pieces of artillery. "'The enemy's troops were stimulated to their utmost exertions by the presence of the Peishwah on a distant height, attended by the principal Mahratta chiefs, who flattered his Highness with the prospect of witnessing the destruction of this gallant handful of British troops. "'The enemy obtained immediate possession of the strongest parts of the village, from which it was found impossible to dislodge them, and the possession of the remaining part was most obstinately contested from noon till nine pm, during which time almost every pagoda and house had been repeatedly taken and re-taken, and one of the guns at one time was in possession of the enemy. "'Towards the close of the evening, the detachment was placed in the most trying situation. At this period nearly the whole of the artillerymen were killed or wounded, and about one-third of the infantry and auxiliary horse. The exertions which the European officers had been called upon to make in leading their men to frequent charges with the bayonet had diminished their numbers. Lieutenant Chisholm of the Artillery and Mr. Assistant-Surgeon Wingate, 2nd battalion 1st Bombay NI, were killed; and Lieutenants Swanston, Pattinson, and Connellan were wounded, leaving only Captain Staunton, Lieutenant Jones, and Mr Assistant-Surgeon Wylie nearly exhausted, to direct the efforts of the remaining part of the detachment, who were nearly frantic from the want of water, and the almost unparalleled exertions they had made throughout the day, without any sort of refreshment, after a fatiguing march of twenty-eight miles. "'Under cover of the night, they were enabled to procure a supply of water; and at nine pm the enemy were forced to abandon the village, after sustaining an immense loss in killed and wounded. "'The British character was nobly supported throughout the whole of the arduous contest by the European officers, and a small detail of Madras artillery. "'The medical officers also led on the sepoys to charges with the bayonet, the nature of the contest not admitting of their attendance to their professional duties; and in such a struggle, the presence of a single European was of the utmost consequence, and seemed to inspire the native soldiers with their usual confidence of success. "'At daylight on the 2nd, the enemy were still in sight, but did not renew the attack, although it prevented the troops, whose ammunition was nearly expended, from procuring any supply of provisions. "'Captain Staunton, however, made provisions for moving according to circumstances; and the manner in which that officer availed himself of the few resources which remained to him after such a contest, to prosecute his march and bring away the numerous wounded of his detachment, is highly praiseworthy. "'The detachment moved, during the night of the 2nd, upon Seroor, which they reached at nine o'clock on the forenoon of the third, having had no refreshment from the 31st December. "'Captain Staunton brought in nearly the whole of the wounded, and both guns and colours of the regiment, which the enemy had vainly hoped to present as trophies to the Peishwar. "'Dr Wylie's own account of his share in this transaction is highly characteristic of the modesty which distinguished him. Writing to a friend a few days afterwards, he says: "Swanston, who was twice wounded - severely, very early in the day - I took him to a pagoda, dressed him, and also Lieutenant Connellan, and some others; but I did not remain long, finding it absolutely necessary to render the two remaining officers all the assistance in my power, in another way."' "Some of the circumstances connected with the action at Corygaum are illustrative of the neglect with which it was formerly too much the custom to treat the services of medical officers. In a general order by the Governor in Council, promulgated in the succeeding month, embodying the very divisional order from which we have quoted above, and also in a general order by the Commander-in-Chief, we have the thanks of Government conveyed to the captain and lieutenants, to the native commissioned and non-commissioned officers and privates, but the name of Dr Wylie is omitted from both. It is, however, only just to the memory of the Governor-General, the Marquis of Hastings, to state that, in his general order of March 18th, Dr Wylie is mentioned by name along with the other officers."
Resource Identifier RCS: E003667
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Blight, William Lyne (1861 - 1940)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Irving, Hamilton (1877 - 1932)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-07-17
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004200-E004299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376430376430
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born 15 February 1877 the second child and only son of John Irving, MB, CM Glasgow, who practised at Huddersfield, and of Fanny Watkinson, his wife, also of Huddersfield. He was born at 22 New North Road, and was educated at Huddersfield College and at Sedbergh School. He then entered Owen's College, and acted as house surgeon to the Manchester Royal Infirmary, and in London as house surgeon and house physician at the Evelina Hospital for Children and senior house surgeon at St Peter's Hospital. From 1909 to 1930 he practised in London, being medical advisor (accident claims) to the Sun Life Insurance Company and medical officer to the London County Council education committee. During the war he was resident surgical officer at the Brook War Hospital, holding the rank of temporary major, RAMC, his commission being dated 1 September 1915. He was afterwards surgical specialist to the London Pension Appeal Board. He married Ruth Monica Browngold on 9 September 1911, who survived him with a son and two daughters. He retired in 1930 to 45 Bell Street, Henley-on-Thames, where he died on 27 February 1932 and was buried at Edgerton Cemetery, Huddersfield. The operation for removal of the prostate by the suprapubic route was being performed with increasing frequency whilst Irving was resident at St Peter's Hospital. Dissatisfied with the results of the after-treatment Irving invented a simple apparatus which came into immediate and general use. He described it in the *Lancet*, 1907, 2, 1765, showing that it was easy to apply, comfortable to use, and effective for its purpose of keeping the patient dry without hindering his movement in bed. In addition to his ingenuity as a mechanician, Irving was a keen musician, a good black-and-white artist, and a linguist.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004247
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Lucas, Richard Clement (1846 - 1915)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/376533376533
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on April 16th, 1846, the son of William Lucas, of Midhurst, Sussex. He was educated at Queenwood College, Stockbridge, Hampshire, and in 1868 entered as a student at Guy's Hospital, which he served with high distinction for well-nigh half a century. In 1872 he became Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy and in 1874 Senior Demonstrator, was elected Assistant Surgeon to the hospital in 1875, and was appointed Demonstrator of Practical Surgery in 1877. In 1888 he became full Surgeon, and retired as Consulting Surgeon in 1906. He was Lecturer on Anatomy from 1888-1900, and later became Lecturer on Surgery, holding the latter post from 1900-1906. From 1880 renal surgery was stirring in surgeons' minds; and apart from the therapeutic difficulties that surrounded it, the then ungauged anatomical ones that presented themselves had a charm for Lucas. For some time he paid special attention to the surgery of the kidney, and early achieved the success, of which he was proud to his latest days, of removing a kidney for the first time, with good result, in Guy's. Lucas had been educated in the older traditions of Guy's and had been dresser to Edward Cock (qv). No doubt owing to his having dressed for Cock, he was - with F Durham (qv) - the great exponent at Guy's of Cock's perineal puncture for impermeable urethral stricture with retention; and it would be difficult to say which of these operators was the more adept in its performance. Mr Golding-Bird says he never knew Lucas to fail in the first attempt to reach the membranous urethra; and though the operation is now supplanted by the suprapubic, it was the means of saving much suffering and many a life when performed by such a master. Lucas must certainly be classed as one of the highly skilled surgeons of Guy's in his day. He was a staunch supporter of the Hunterian Society, and served as its President in 1888-1890. Fond of the open air, as became one born to the country life, Lucas shot and rode to hounds, always setting apart in the hunting season one day weekly for a run with Lord Leconsfield's pack. He was the active President of the students' sports club at Guy's, and up to the time of his last illness was the embodiment of energy. Lucas married late in life, but his wife, a daughter of Surgeon General Saville Marriott Pelly, CB (qv), predeceased him. There were two sons of the marriage, who survived him. He died at his country house, Oaklands, Midhurst, on June 30th, 1915. There is a portrait of him in the *Guy's Hospital Gazette* (1897, xi, 447). Lucas took an active part in the affairs of the Royal College of Surgeons. He was an Examiner in Anatomy for the Conjoint Board (Second Examination) from 1892, as well as for the University of London; was a Member of Council from 1901-1914, and served as Vice-President from 1909-1911. In 1911 he was Bradshaw Lecturer. Publications: *Surgical Diseases of the Kidneys and the Operations for their Relief*, 1888. *The Bradshaw Lecture on Some Points in Heredity* (1911), 8vo, illustrated, London, 1912. An account of this interesting lecture is published in the *Lancet*, 1911, ii, 1755. He also contributed many papers to *Guy's Hosp Rep*.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004350
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cameron, Irving Howard (1855 - 1933)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-04-18
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/376059376059
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Toronto on 17 July 1855, the eldest surviving son of Sir Matthew Crooks Cameron (of the Lochiel Camerons), Chief Justice of Common Pleas, Ontario, and his wife Charlotte Ross Wedd of Maidstone, Kent. He was educated at Upper Canada College and at the University of Toronto, where he studied law for a short time before devoting his attention to medicine. He practised both as surgeon and as general practitioner, but preferred not to be called doctor, as was then usual in the Dominion, since he wished to follow the English custom which entitles a surgeon "Mr". Endowed with great administrative ability he took a leading part in founding the medical faculty of Toronto University out of the old Toronto Medical School in 1887. He was then nominated the first professor of the principles of surgery and surgical pathology. In August 1892 he succeeded Dr W T Aikin as professor of surgery and clinical surgery in the university, holding office until 1920, when he retired and was appointed emeritus professor. During this period he acted as surgeon to the Toronto General Hospital and to the Hospital for Sick Children. During the European war he received a commission, dated 25 July 1915, as lieutenant-colonel in the Canadian Army Medical Corps. He came to England and acted as surgeon to the Red Cross Hospital at Cliveden and to the Ontario Hospital at Orpington, Kent. On his return home he was appointed consultant for Canada, a post involving much travelling to visit disabled soldiers. He was the founder and editor of the Canadian Journal of Medical Science and was chairman of the editorial committee of the University of Toronto Monthly Journal. He was also a founder of the Alumni association of the University of Toronto and acted as its president. He married twice: (1) in 1876 Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Dr W W Wright; (2) Jessie Elizabeth Holland, widow of John Ross Robertson, journalist and philanthropist, who survived him. He was the father of one son and one daughter, children of the first marriage. He died at Toronto on 15 December 1933. Cameron was a brilliant clinical lecturer, a surgeon who introduced Listerian principles at the Toronto General Hospital, but conservative and somewhat averse to operating, and a cultivated gentleman skilled in the classics. Professor Grey Turner records that Cameron lectured in a very weak voice, that he was one of the last to wear an "imperial" beard, and that he was devoted to his ancestry, and as long he was able he came to Scotland every year to pay his respects to his chieftain, Cameron of Lochiel.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003876
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Billington, William (1876 - 1932)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/376020376020
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Elton Hall, Sandbach, Cheshire on 16 June 1876, the eldest son of Charles Billington. He was educated at Sandbach Grammar School and at Wellington College, Salop (Wrekin school), where he became head of the school and acted for a time as secretary to Sir John Bayley, its master and founder. He began his medical studies with a scholarship at Mason College, Birmingham, where amongst other distinctions he won the Ingleby scholarship in gynaecology. He afterwards entered King's College, London, and in 1899 graduated at London University with first-class honours and the gold medal in obstetric medicine. Returning to Birmingham he served at the Queen's Hospital as house physician to Dr Arthur Foxwell and as house surgeon to Prof C Jordan Lloyd and became acting resident pathologist at the General Hospital. In 1902 he was elected surgeon to out-patients at the Queen's Hospital, where he was surgeon from 1913. He was appointed professor of surgery at the University of Birmingham in 1924, holding the chair jointly with Seymour Barling, FRCS. He joined the first southern general hospital at the beginning of the war in 1914, and was placed in charge of the centre for jaw and facial injuries. In 1913 he was largely instrumental in founding St Chad's Hospital, the first institution in this country to provide expert medical and surgical treatment with skilled nursing for patients who could not afford high fees and were yet unwilling to enter a hospital supported by voluntary contributions. He devoted much time and thought to hospital administration, was chairman of the medical committee of the Queen's Hospital, and worked hard in the cause of the hospital centre for Birmingham University. He was a past president of the Midland Medical Society. He married in 1906 Winifred Cooke of Edgbaston, who survived him with a daughter and three sons. He died on 7 February 1932 at 58 Harborne Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham. Billington was cool and dexterous as a surgeon, neat as regards his technique and scrupulous in detail; as a colleague he was helpful in advising and guiding his juniors; as a lecturer he was clear and convincing; as a teacher able and painstaking. Publications:- *Moveable kidney; its etiology, pathology, diagnosis, symptoms and treatment*, London, 1910; 2nd ed 1929. Indications for nephropexy. *Brit med J*. 1909, 1, 1055. Surgical treatment of chronic ulcer of the body of the stomach. *Ibid*. 1922, 2, 34. Bone-grafting of the mandible with a report of seven cases, with H Round. *Brit J Surg*. 1926, 13, 497.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003837
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hutchinson, Sir Jonathan (1828 - 1913)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-04 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372399372399
Occupation Dermatologist Ophthalmologist Pathologist Venereologist
Details Born on July 23rd, 1828, the second son of Jonathan Hutchinson and Elizabeth Massey, both members of the Society of Friends, at Selby, Yorkshire. Hutchinson continued throughout life to exhibit some of the external characteristics of a Quaker. After an education at Selby, he was early apprenticed to Caleb Williams (q.v.), Lecturer on Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the York School of Medicine, and he attended the York Hospital. At this very small York School of Medicine he received individual instruction from Dr. Thomas Laycock - later Professor of Medicine in Edinburgh - which made a life-long impression, on the importance of heredity, and of physiognomy in diagnosis. He passed on to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where Sir James Page's influence was dominant; he studied under him, including the subject of syphilis, and qualified M.R.C.S. in 1850. He then pursued the post-graduate study of which he became afterwards such a strong advocate. He acted as Assistant Physician at the City of London Hospital for Diseases of the Chest; Surgeon to the Metropolitan Free Hospital; Surgeon to the Royal Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields (1862-1878), where he had Edward Nettleship (q.v.) as Assistant; Surgeon to the Blackfriars Hospital for Diseases of the Skin; and Assistant Surgeon to the Lock Hospital for a while from 1862. He continued Surgeon to the Moorfields and Blackfriars Hospitals for many years. He was appointed Assistant Surgeon to the London Hospital in 1860; and after passing the F.R.C.S. examination in 1862 became Surgeon until 1883, then Consulting Surgeon. From 1862 he lectured on the principles and practice of surgery, from 1863 on medical ophthalmology, and in that year gained the Guy's Hospital Astley Cooper Prize for his essay "On Injuries of the Head". After 1883 he gave an annual course of lectures as Emeritus Professor of Surgery. A Triennial Prize for an essay was instituted to commemorate his services and teaching. He was an active member of various London medical societies and served as the President of five of the most important. At the meeting called to wind up the old Sydenham Society he proposed a continuation as the New Sydenham Society, of which he was Secretary from 1859-1907. The translations from the chief writings of Continental authorities constitute an extraordinarily well-selected collection. The publications especially due to him in the New Sydenham Society were the *Atlas of Skin Diseases* and *The Atlas of Drug Eruptions.* At the Royal College of Surgeons he was Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology, 1879-1883; Member of Council, 1879-1895; Member of the Court of Examiners, 1880-1887; Bradshaw Lecturer, 1888; President, 1889 (returning to the previous custom of holding office for one year, broken by the four years' tenure of his predecessor, W. S. Savory); Hunterian Orator, 1891; Trustee of the Hunterian Collection, 1897. He sat on the Royal Commission on Small-pox and Fever Hospitals, 1881, and that on Vaccination, 1890-1896; his demonstration of vaccino-syphilis as a possible consequent of arm-to-arm vaccination put a stop to that method of vaccinating. As Hunterian Professor he gave six lectures on "Neuropathogenesis, chiefly with reference to Diseases of the Eye, Skin, Joints, etc.", four lectures "On Some of the Surgical Aspects of Gout and Rheumatism", and two lectures "On the Etiology of True Leprosy". His Bradshaw Lecture dealt with "Museums in reference to Medical Education and the Advance of Knowledge". Jonathan Hutchinson, as a clinical diagnostician by naked-eye observations, was one of the great medical geniuses of his time, and there is no one superior in the history of medicine, whether in the diagnosis of cases in surgery, ophthalmology, dermatology, or syphilology. This was conjoined with a peculiar strain of philosophy. He was a colleague of another extraordinary genius in neurology and philosophy - Hughlings Jackson - and the interest of the two met over the ophthalmic side of neurology, and the general use of the ophthalmoscope as an instrument of diagnosis. His remarkable talent was exhibited in the discovery of syndromes; his audience supposed he was exhibiting a rare case, but after listening to him they discovered that they were able to recognize such cases, and his syndromes have now become commonplaces in the text-books. Examples are his 'triad' in inherited syphilis - deformity and notching of the teeth, labyrinthine deafness, and interstitial keratitis; defects in children's teeth, associated with infantile convulsion and lamellar cataract; the peculiar physiognomy in ophthalmoplegia and tabes dorsalis; the inequality of the pupils in cerebral compression; gout and haemorrhages; tobacco amblyopia; and idiosyncrasies of many kinds. He had, too, a remarkable fund of illustration and simple comparison - the 'apple-jelly' appearance of some forms of lupus; the imitative characteristics of the superficial appearances of syphilis. He had a slow and precise delivery, with eyes turned to the ground. An endless series of cases were stored in his memory, recalled by the initial of the patient's name and the outstanding feature presented. His broad-minded philosophy made him hold, as to his rare cases, that they afforded clues to the pathology of the class, links between some one already recognized group and another. His crowded audiences listened intently as he passed, by some ingenious connection, from one subject to another - a custom defended by him on the plea that, for the attention of his audience, a 'mixed diet' was needed. At the hospital one lecture had as title, "On Fairy Rings and Allied Phenomena". From fairy rings in fields, he passed on to ringworms and herpes, phenomena he held to be allied. One lecture at Haslemere commenced with the earth's crust, passed to elephants, and ended on John Wesley; another, on whales, tailed off to Wordsworth's poetry, and then to social questions relating to tuberculosis and leprosy. No one of his colleagues equalled him in a 'spotting diagnosis', for he was nearly always right, very exceptionally wrong. A young surgeon who had married and was beginning surgery broke out into a rash all over, which rapidly became nodular. Several who saw him murmured, "Syphilis, however acquired", until 'Jonathan' at once said, "General sarcomatosis", and this was confirmed in a few weeks. In another case, however, he diagnosed syphilis, in spite of the patient's protests that he had not undergone exposure, and in a couple of days small-pox was evident. His genius in diagnosis and his philosophy were remarkably combined in all he wrote and said on syphilis. At the discussions on the pathology of syphilis at the London Pathological Society in 1876 (*Pathol. Soc. Trans.*, 1876, xxvii, 341) he held that the condition was due to a specific and living microbe, contagious and transmissible only so long as the microbe retained its vitality. "Someone will see it one day, for it is beyond doubt that it must be there" (p. 446). With this should be compared Moxon's sarcasms whilst avoiding question of causation (pp. 403-410), the gibe by Gull - "Well, I think syphilis is a flesh and blood disease" (p. 415). He taught the treatment of early syphilis by long persistence in the administration of metallic mercury by the mouth, very finely divided as 'grey powder', the course being interrupted at increasing intervals, for two to three years, but always short of salivation. He made but little use of arsenic, for he was impressed by it as a cause of cancer. In 1855 he began to observe cases of leprosy from the East End in the London Hospital, and thus called attention to a number of instances wandering about and mixing with the general populace in many cities of the world. He took up the view that in Norway and elsewhere lepers persisted owing to the custom of eating stale fish. Until he stirred up inquiry the subject leprosy was in a state of stagnation. After the discovery of the bacillus he made further observations in South Africa and India, in which he grafted to his first theory the transference of the bacillus by contact and contamination of food - but it continued until the end of his life a non-proven thesis. In 1868 he suggested that a museum illustrating the progress of medicine and surgery during the past year should be instituted at the Annual Meetings of the British Medical Association; this came into force. His houses at Nos. 14 and 4 in Finsbury Circus and in Cavendish Square, one after the other, became filled by a vast collection of specimens, coloured drawings, and charts used by him for his clinical lectures and demonstrations, until he collected them in the clinical museum attached to his son's house, 1 Park Crescent, Regent's Park. For years he was making provision for post-graduate instruction, and in 1899 he instituted a Medical Graduates' College and Policlinic at 22 Chenies Street, of which he was at once the life, the soul and the financier. He made exhibitions for short periods of illustrations he had collected on various subjects, and, through his persuasion, lectures and demonstrations were given by a great number of members of staff of hospitals, and by special practitioners. The history of Hutchinson's Policlinic will form an important chapter when systematic post-graduate instruction becomes definitely established in London; it came to an end after his death and the outbreak of the War. All that is of special and permanent value has been collected and preserved in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, including MSS., such as his research on the arthritic diathesis. The abundance of his collections was so great that duplicates of illustrative material were dispersed and in part taken over to the United States. There was yet another remarkable endeavour. At his country house at Haslemere, Surrey, he set up an educational museum and library, a miniature of the Natural History Museum in London, and a library providing an outline of history, for the benefit of the population of the locality. The museum displayed rocks, fossils, plants, flowers, preserved as well as freshly gathered, birds' eggs, an aviary and vivarium exhibiting natural objects of the neighbourhood, including the common viper. The library contained charts of figures tabulating events from antiquity to the present day. King Edward VII knew of him as the surgeon who had a hospital for animals on his farm. Lectures and addresses were given - including Sunday afternoon addresses - on the potato, tuberculosis, poetry, the inner life, and new birth. This 'home university' published a monthly journal, which includes features of a school book, encyclopaedia, and a journal of science and literature. After his death the executors handed it over, pruned of its diffuseness, to Haslemere. Hutchinson also started a somewhat similar museum at his birthplace, Selby, but that did not excite so much local interest. The object of the museum was to establish evolution as a motive for right living in place of personal immortality as usually taught. Throughout his life he jealously retained his membership of the Society of Friends, although he accepted 'evolution' as a renaissance of religion. Hutchinson was a good walker, fond of shooting and riding; he swam in a cold-water pool in his grounds until nearly the end of his life. He died at his house, The Library, Inval, Haslemere, on June 23rd, 1913, and was buried at Haslemere. By his orders there was inscribed on his gravestone, "A Man of Hope and Forward Looking Mind". Portraits accompany his obituary notices, and there are several in the College Collection. He figures in the Jamyn Brookes portrait group of the Council, 1884. His wife died in 1886; their family included six sons and four daughters. One son, Jonathan, F.R.C.S., followed his father as Surgeon to the London Hospital; another, Proctor, a laryngologist, died early ; Roger Jackson was in practice at Haselemere; and H. Hutchinson became an architect. PUBLICATIONS: - Hutchinson's publications were very numerous; the chief works are: - *The Archives of Surgery*, 10 vols., 1889-1900. His archives include what Hutchinson deemed of importance from among his previous publications, together with notes and additions. "Syphilis, the Discussion at the London Pathological Society, 1876." - *Trans. Path. Soc.*, 1876, xxvii, 341. *Notes about Syphilis*, 1887; new. ed., 1909. The introduction to the *System of Syphilis*, by D'Arcy Power and J. Keogh Murphy, in 6 vols., 1908, pp. xvii-xxxv. Hutchinson Collection in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. Illustrations, notes and MSS.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000212
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Pitts, Bernard (1848 - 1914)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-10-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002900-E002999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375144375144
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Sowerby, Yorkshire, on June 29th, 1848, the son of the Rev T Pitts, Vicar of St George's, Sowerby, and younger brother of the Rev Thomas Pitts, Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Rector of Loughborough and Honorary Canon of Peterborough. Pitts went to school at Hipperholme Grammar School, near Halifax, and then entered Jesus College, Cambridge, in October, 1868. After reading mathematics for a year, he took a pass degree preparatory to medicine. During the year 1872 he worked at medicine in Edinburgh under Lister, and then again at Cambridge. He entered St Thomas's Hospital in 1873, was Clinical Clerk to Dr John Syer Bristowe, and Dresser to Sydney Jones (qv). After qualifying in 1875 he was Resident Clinical Assistant at Bethlehem Hospital. Of sturdy build and great physical strength, he was by nature whilst young an athlete, playing cricket and football for his College at Cambridge, continuing cricket and adding racquets and golf until incapacitated by illness. Early in 1876 he became House Surgeon at St Thomas's Hospital. The turning-point in his career came when at forty-eight hours' notice in the following August he went under the Red Cross Society to the Turko-Serbian War, serving for two and a half months under bad conditions, with rice and black bread for food, the surgical work being overwhelming. Chloroform and morphia had not been made use of until the Red Cross unit arrived. The St Thomas's men were Armaud Leslie, killed later by the Dervishes near Suakin; Haydon White, of Nottingham; and R Parker, afterwards Lieutenant-Colonel RAMC, as dresser. Pitts returned to St Thomas's Hospital in November, 1876, as Resident Accoucheur, and in October, 1877, he was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy. In 1878 he went out to the Cape on a Union Castle liner, and on his return was made Resident Assistant Surgeon. After holding the post for four years, in 1882 he was elected an Extra Assistant Surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital and also Assistant Surgeon to the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street. In 1892 he became Surgeon to both hospitals. At St Thomas's Hospital he was Lecturer on Practical Surgery, and then on Surgery. He was Examiner in Surgery at Cambridge, Durham, the Society of Apothecaries, and a Member of the Court of Examiners at the Royal College of Surgeons from 1899-1909. At the College he was Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology in 1893, his subject being "The Surgical Affections of the Air Passages in Childhood". A paper on "Cases of Abdominal Surgery" in *St Thomas's Hospital Reports* (1882, xi, 75) indicates that he was early in the field when that subject was developing. At the debate at the Clinical Society in 1885, when Sir Henry Thomson still advocated the perineal route for removal of villous tumours of the bladder, Pitts advocated the suprapubic operation. A year later Thomson published a small book on the suprapubic operations without mentioning Pitts. In 1901 he opened the Discussion on the Operation of Laparotomy for Intussusception at the Cheltenham Meeting of the British Medical Association. In 1904 a severe illness incapacitated him for six months. Not long before his death he wrote to a friend: "How hard it is to get credit unless you are constantly writing and almost advertising. I have always had a dread of this, but ought to have written more." He delivered his last lectures at St Thomas's Hospital on June 25th, 1908, on "Some Recollections of Surgery and its Teaching" (*St Thomas's Hosp Gaz*, 1908, xviii, 142). He resigned on reaching the age limit of 60, and he also resigned from the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, in 1912, becoming Consulting Surgeon at both hospitals. Pitts took great interest in the welfare of nurses, and almost from the first was a Member of the Council of the Nurses' Co-operation, which in 1915 numbered 500 members. He had practised at 109 Harley Street. He died after a long and painful illness in the Nursing Home, 4 Upper Wimpole Street, on December 13th, 1914.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002961
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Price, David (1787 - 1870)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Humphreys, John (1925 - 2010)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2011-05-05
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/373345373345
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Humphreys was a greatly respected consultant general surgeon in Southport from 1961 to 1990. His main interest was in gastro-intestinal surgery, but he was also a competent urologist. Fully committed to patients under his care, he visited them at weekends to check on their progress. In view of his popularity, it was inevitable that he was recognised by many families on the streets of Southport. He served the College as a surgical tutor, and was also a valued examiner for the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. During his time in the North Sefton Merseyside region, he was a lecturer in surgery at Liverpool University and a regional adviser to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He was born in Liverpool on 25 November 1925, the son of William Ernest Humphreys, a pharmacist and lecturer, and Gladys née Monaghan, a housewife. His early education was at Dovedale Road Primary School, Liverpool, and, apart from six months when he was evacuated to Wales during the Second World War, he studied at Quarry Bank High School before entering Liverpool University for his medical training. Here he was awarded prizes in surgery. He recorded his admiration and gratitude to some memorable teachers, including Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, Sir Thomas Jeffcoate and Sir Cyril Clarke. As a student the lighter side of his life became apparent when he gained an enviable reputation for his skill in walking on upturned beer glasses. The final year as a medical student was in many ways a defining time in John's life and occurred towards the end of the Second World War. He was sent to Liverpool railway station to meet a train full of soldiers who had been injured in the Normandy landings and in the fighting in France. On the platform he saw a beautiful young nurse who was helping the wounded from the carriages. This was his first brief encounter with Marjorie, or 'Maggs', his future wife. On qualifying, John held house appointments in the Liverpool region, before entering National Service in the Army, having had previous cadet corps experience. He became a regimental medical officer in the West African Frontier Force in Ibadan, Nigeria, before the country gained independence. There was no major fighting other than inter-tribal 'scuffles'. With time on his hands, he was able to write several papers on topics relating to tropical medicine after careful field studies. Highly appropriate to his work was 'gaining' personal experience of a nasty bout of malaria. One of his medical consultations took place at the palace of the Alaafin of Oyo, chief of the Yoruba. The grateful ruler suggested that the young doctor might like to see a private collection of carved statues, recently put together for the British Museum. His visit to inspect the figurines was somewhat truncated when the hut holding these treasures was shaken by angry tribesmen. They needed strong reassurance from the Alaafin himself that John was a doctor and not a missionary, and therefore would not be burning these valuable objects! On the flight back to the UK, the engines failed and the pilot was forced to make an emergency crash landing in the North African desert. Fortunately there were no casualties. The main concern was that there was no water on board, but happily the nearby French Foreign Legion came to their aid. These escapades did not lessen John's enthusiasm for military service, as he continued in the Territorial Army, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel. When settled in consultant life he enjoyed spells overseas in Germany and Hong Kong, and was awarded the Territorial Decoration for his services. John married Marjorie ('Maggs') Bromwell in 1953. When he came back from Africa after two years of National Service he had lost weight and had an extremely sallow complexion, and did not look at all like the handsome final year medical student she knew. She soon had his features and figure back to normal, and continued to work as a nurse during the early years of their marriage. His surgical mentors were giants in the profession. One was Charles Wells, who started the academic unit in Liverpool and was well known at home and abroad, having strong links with the Mayo Clinic, USA. Another was J B Oldham, who was a perfectionist in surgery, at times outspoken, but respected as an excellent clinical teacher of postgraduate students: he helped many studying for higher diplomas by his careful tuition. As a continuation of his surgical training, John Humphreys spent two years as a research assistant at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA (from 1957 to 1959), in gastro-intestinal work. He produced many publications on peptic ulcer and was stimulated by the vast array of clinical teaching sessions. Marjorie, and their two very young children, Lee and Jane, went with him, and she was able to help the finances by nursing at nights in the clinic. Returning to the UK, he continued his surgical training at the Walton Hospital until the time he was appointed to his definitive post in Southport. He continued his pursuit of excellence, regularly attending meetings of the Association of Surgeons, the British Association of Urological Surgeons, the Liverpool and North West Surgical Society and North West Urological Society. From his very early days John was fond of travel. Before embarking on definitive surgical training he crossed the Atlantic to New York as a ship's surgeon in a merchant vessel of the Cunard Line. Family holidays were spent travelling abroad in the family car. Embarking at Dover, they visited France, Germany, Austria and Italy, following an itinerary with selected hotels, all chosen in advance. The children did not necessarily share their parents' enthusiasm for visiting yet another cathedral, or seeing more architectural delights. Outside medicine, John enjoyed a wide range of interests. At home he was a good carpenter and, although not a sailor himself, he made a wooden dinghy for Lee and Jane to pursue and enjoy this out of doors activity. He was a keen photographer and in early years developed and printed his own films. He brewed his own beer and made enjoyable wines long before supermarkets sold cheap and reasonable quality wines. His enjoyment of various forms of art was very apparent and included abstract painting. He was a competent artist himself, particularly in line drawing. He created and tended a garden with the same care he lavished on his patients. He took occasional physical exercise in a game of golf, but enjoyed walking much more and was a keen fly-fisherman. More cultural interests were expressed in the Liverpool Medico-Literary Society and in the pursuit of local, medical and military history, and he was particularly interested in the connections between Liverpool and the slave trade. He was a knowledgeable medical philatelist and in retirement continued as a magistrate in Southport and Liverpool for a further five years. Although a quiet man by nature, he was an excellent raconteur with a marvellous sense of humour. Their son, Lee, gained a place at Oxford University and obtained a BA in philosophy and physiology: he works in Paris. Jane followed her father into medicine and studied at St George's Hospital. After working as a consultant paediatrician she moved to the Medical Protection Society for 13 years. When their children left home, John and Marjorie were able to travel further afield to the Caribbean, Sri Lanka, India, Egypt and to revisit the USA. A few of these trips were for scientific meetings with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. John always relied on his wife for everything outside his professional life. She planned home and social activities, family gatherings and entertaining friends and colleagues. As John aged he became increasingly dependent on Marjorie and their mutual affection and loyalty to each other was very apparent. They elected to move from Southport and settled in Handforth. Although this meant leaving many longstanding friends, it had the attraction of being near their married daughter, Jane, and her husband, Dick Cowan, and their family. John and Marjorie enjoyed seeing their grandchildren grow up. He died on 1 September 2010, predeceasing his wife of 57 years by a few weeks. They both requested small and quiet funeral services. They left a son, Lee, their married daughter, Jane Cowan, and three grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001162
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Prichard, Augustin (1818 - 1898)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-10-10 2014-07-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002900-E002999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375181375181
Occupation General surgeon Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Born at 39 College Green, Bristol, on July 16th, 1818, the second son of James Cowles Prichard, FRS, a physician, famous as the author of *The Natural History of Man*. His mother was the daughter of Dr Estlin, Unitarian Minister and Co-Pastor at Lewin's Mead Chapel, a scholar and friend of Coleridge, Southey, and Robert Hall. Prichard's eldest brother and his two younger brothers were distinguished Fellows of their College at Oxford. The Prichards were a family of Welsh origin, having a marked facial type, of strong individuality and intellectual distinction. Augustin Prichard went to a private school, then to Bristol College, where Francis Newman, brother of Cardinal Newman, was an Assistant Master. In 1834 he was apprenticed at the age of 16 to his uncle, John Bishop Estlin, founder of the Dispensary for the Cure of Complaints of the Eyes. He served his apprenticeship at the Bristol Infirmary and Medical School under John Harrison, entering St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1839, where he was Dresser to Sir William Lawrence, studied medicine under Latham and Burrows, and midwifery under Rigby. He caught scarlet fever when attending the Fever Hospital under Dr Tweedie, and might have succumbed had he not been nursed by his fellow-student, Dr Goodeve. He went to Berlin and studied under Johannes Müller, Schönlein, and Dieffenbach, who was operating for strabismus by a new method. He took the MD Berlin with a Thesis on "Iritis". Next in Vienna he attended the pathological teaching of Rokitansky and of Jaeger, the best operator for cataract. Prichard learnt the value of, and always used, Baer's triangular knife, and never employed a speculum or caught hold of the conjunctiva with forceps; nor did he adopt the assistance of an anaesthetic. In the spring of 1842 he attended in Paris the lectures of Cruveilhier, Civiale, and Claude Bernard, and in the autumn he began to practise in the old Elizabethan house, Red Lodge, which his father had vacated on being appointed a Commissioner in Lunacy. Prichard joined his uncle, Estlin, as Surgeon to the Eye Dispensary, and gained a wide reputation for his operative skill on the eye. In 1843 he was appointed Lecturer on Anatomy at the Bristol Medical School and continued until 1854; in 1850, after a severe contest, he was elected Surgeon to the Royal Infirmary. He lectured on Surgery from 1849-1864. In 1857 he read to the Bristol Branch of the British Medical Association a paper on the membrana pupillaris and the persistence of a small central portion as the cause of anterior central capsular cataract. In 1853 he delivered the address in surgery at the Annual Meeting of the Association on the extirpation of a blind and diseased eye in the interest of the remaining eye, and he did much in this country to establish the procedure. In his Address at the Bristol Meeting in 1863 he recommended the insertion of potassa fusa into a carbuncle, followed by pressure. An expert lithotomist, he popularized the use of the wrist and ankle buckle and straps for holding the patient in the lithotomy position. He developed the custom of publishing a collection of cases: *Ten Years' Operative Surgery in the Provinces - being the Record of 875 Operations performed between* 1850 *and* 1860 - Parts I and II (12mo, London, 1862, 1863). For lithotomy he recommended Allarton's median operation. His cataract operations were done with great dexterity in the fashion mentioned, but in a haphazard way, regardless of surroundings, as described by anecdotes in his *Some Incidents in General Practice*. Prichard acquired a large private practice in Bristol and Clifton, and in 1853 removed to 4 Chesterfield Place, Clifton, where he continued in active practice after retiring from the Infirmary under the rule, after twenty years' service. He was a man of great natural gifts, improved by untiring industry, tall and handsome, with a firm expression. He was well read in the classics, a fine draughtsman, devoted to sketching, and a pioneer in photography. He was President of the Surgical Section at the Worcester Jubilee Meeting in 1882, and for the last time was present at the Annual Meeting in 1894 and able to entertain friends although affected by increasing deafness. He was taken ill before Christmas, 1897, underwent three operations with some temporary relief, but died on January 5th, 1898. He married in 1845 Mary Sibellah, daughter of the Rev Thomas Ley, Vicar of Rame, Cornwall, by whom he had four sons and three daughters. Mrs Prichard died in 1892, aged 73. Two of their sons were in the medical profession, one being Surgeon to the Bristol Infirmary. A portrait accompanied his biography in the *British Medical Journal* (1898, I, 250), and the "In Memoriam", *Bristol Medico-Chirurgical Journal* (1898, xvi, 1), in addition to reminiscences by contemporaries, included a bibliography of 71 entries. He wrote two books of permanent interest, the first being *Some Incidents in General Practice*, with portrait and autograph (Bristol, 1898), the second being a series of reminiscences with the title, *A Few Medical and Surgical Reminiscences* (12mo, Bristol, 1896). **This is an amended version of the original obituary which was printed in volume 1 of Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows. Please contact the library if you would like more information lives@rcseng.ac.uk**
Resource Identifier RCS: E002998
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Boyd, James Stanley Newton (1856 - 1916)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373126373126
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Shrewsbury on May 18th, 1856, the son of Major James Boyd, 86th Regiment, and Emma, daughter of Henry Newton, a burgess of Shrewsbury. He spent his boyhood with his parents at St Heliers, Jersey, where he was educated in a private school. “I can go back to the charm of his Jersey home at St Heliers”, says one of his oldest friends, Dr Harrington Sainsbury, in the *Lancet* (1916, i, 378), “and recall happy memories of a visit there when the circle was still complete, Major and Mrs Boyd, a younger sister and brother forming that circle; and I can see there, in the simplicities and integrities and unaffected enjoyment of life which prevailed, the natural source of the qualities which characterized and adorned him. It was a military home where duty figured largely and cheerfully, and it has always seemed to me that in consequence Boyd retained much of the soldier’s outlook all through life.” Stanley Boyd, having entered University College Hospital as a student in 1872, and thus living in London, came under the influence of his uncle, Henry Newton, a distinguished retired Anglo-Indian judge. Newton regarded his nephew almost as a son, and through him Boyd came much into contact with the Society of Friends. Through William S Tuke at University College he came to know Dr Hack Tuke and his family, of long-established Quaker origin and traditions. Others of his University College fellow-students were Victor Horsley (qv), Charles Stonham (qv), C T Bond, of Leicester, Dawson-Williams, Alfred Pearce Gould (qv), A J Pepper, Arthur Quarry Silcock (qv), Amand Routh, F W Mott, and Montague Murray, the last three eventually becoming his colleagues at Charing Cross Hospital, and all in time occupying high positions in the profession. He himself was a distinguished student. He was House Physician to Wilson Fox and House Surgeon to John Marshall (qv). Boyd, like others of his generation, owed much of his subsequent success to that disciple of Lister and Billroth, Marcus Beck (qv), whose teaching of the science and the art of surgery was an outstanding feature of University College Hospital. After graduating with high honours, Boyd became Demonstrator of Anatomy and then of Practical Surgery in the Medical School of his hospital. Later he was Surgical Registrar to the hospital. By conscientious devotion to the duties of this office he laid the foundation of his thorough knowledge of pathology and of its important bearings on surgical practice. It enabled him to describe precisely the details of an operation, and also of any subsequent microscopic investigation. In later life he would often refer to the great value of such an appointment to a young surgeon. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to Charing Cross Hospital in 1882, and was soon regarded as an acquisition to the hospital’s anatomical and surgical teaching. In 1891 he became full Surgeon and was Senior Surgeon from 1905 to the time of his death. He held most of the important posts at Charing Cross Hospital, being Lecturer in Anatomy (1888-1897), Pathologist (1886-1888), Dean (1890-1895), Lecturer on Operative Surgery (1899-1901), and on Surgery (1890-1905). His lectures were remarkable for their thoroughness, and as an operator he was brilliant. He was bold but always careful. He was keenly interested in the operative treatment of malignant disease, especially where the breast or mouth or fauces were involved, and his success in radical operations for these conditions was in some measure due to his sound anatomical knowledge. Boyd was Treasurer to the School of Charing Cross Hospital from 1906-1911, holding this post during a transition period. He was also a zealous Chairman of the Medical Committee of the Hospital and of the School Committee and laboured in the interest of both. He was a great believer in athletics as a means of improving the *moral* of a school. It was a critical period through which his hospital was passing. The slums to the east of it, north of the Strand, were being cleared away; one of the two adjacent hospitals was no longer needed; and King’s College Hospital moved to the south side of the river. Charing Cross Hospital got more work, for by its situation it constitutes the casualty station for that region of Central London, where its service is as much in demand by night as by day. Boyd, the foremost among the medical staff in advocating improvements, only lived through the commencement; in particular the new operating theatre was due to him. From being almost overwhelmed by debt, the hospital has come to have funds in hand; it has been largely rebuilt and has taken over the site of the older Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital. Despite his responsible position at Charing Cross Hospital, Boyd found time for much work outside its walls. Thus, at the time of his death he was Surgeon to the Hospital for Consumption at Brompton, Consulting Surgeon to the Paddington Green Hospital for Children, and to the New Hospital for Women. He was also on the honorary staff of certain hospitals in the home counties and suburbs, such as the Norwood Institute for Jews, etc. At the beginning of the Great War (1914-1918), in addition to his arduous hospital and private work, he operated daily at the 4th London General Hospital, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel RAMC (TF). In July, 1914, he was elected upon the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, having been previously a Member of the Court of Examiners. He was also Examiner in Surgery at the University of Cambridge. He warmly advocated the medical education of women. In the early days of the Women’s School of Medicine he was a lecturer on anatomy, and much of the success of that school was due to him. He had the courage of his convictions, and never failed to advocate the claims of women to be admitted to the examinations of the colleges and universities. Like all pioneers in this movement, he became for a time unpopular. On the difficult subject of the proper development of the University of London he had very definite views. He was among those who held that the best way to reorganize the University of London as a teaching centre, as far as medicine is concerned, would be to concentrate in a few centres the instruction in the preliminary sciences, and much of the success which has now come to Charing Cross Hospital Medical School by its amalgamation for that purpose with King’s College could have been effected years ago had the counsels of Stanley Boyd been adopted. He married in 1889 Florence Nightingale Toms, MD, from a family well known and much respected in Chard, Somerset, who had been one of his pupils at the London School of Medicine for Women and had distinguished herself in gynaecology. He died, after a short illness from previously latent gall-bladder disease, on February 1st, 1916. A funeral service, with a military escort, was held at St Pancras Church. His London address was 134 Harley Street. Publications: “Reports of Surgical Cases in University College Hospital, 1880, 1881.” Article on “Hospital Mortality and Hospitalism,” etc., in Heath’s *Dictionary of Surgery*. Article on “Diseases of the Mouth, Tongue and Veins” in Quain’s *Dictionary of Medicine*. “Reports on Surgery.” – *Year Book of Treatment*, 1891-4. “Injuries of Bones.” – Treves’ *System of Surgery*, 1895. “Aneurysm.” – *Encyclopoedia Medica*, i. Editor of Green’s *Pathology and Morbid Anatomy*, 7th ed., 1889. Editor of Druitt’s *Vade-Mecum*, 12th ed., 1887. Translation of Koch’s *Etiology of Tuberculosis* in Watson Cheyne’s “Recent Essays on Bacteria,” New Sydenham Society, 1886. “The Bhaau Daji Treatment of Leprosy,” 8vo, 1893, reprinted from *Brit. Jour. Dermatol*., 1893, v. 203. “On Enterorrhaphy by Invagination (Maunsell’s Method).” – *Trans. Med.-Chir. Soc.*, 1893, lxxvi, 345. “Oöphorectomy in Cancer of the Breast” (with W. H. Unwin). – *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1897-1900. “On a Series of Cases of Cancer of the Tongue” (with W. H. Unwin). – *Practitioner*, 1903, lxx, 626. “On a Series of Cases of Cancer of the Mouth and Fauces.” – *Ibid*., 1904, lxxii, 397.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000943
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Pronger, Charles Ernest ( - 1926)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-10-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003000-E003099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375188375188
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Studied at St Thomas's Hospital, where he became Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy. He was in general practice at Barnstaple and was Surgeon to the Barnstaple and North Devon Infirmary. He moved to Harrogate in 1892 and practised as an ophthalmic surgeon; he was Ophthalmic Surgeon to the Harrogate Infirmary, to the Yorkshire Home for Chronic and Incurable Diseases, and to the Northern Police Orphanage. He originated the Eye Department at the Infirmary and raised funds for that purpose. In particular he studied small errors of refraction, holding that individuals with minor degrees of refraction suffered more eye-strain than those with grosser errors. He was one of the first in the country to emphasize the importance of their recognition and correction. He died at Litchdow, East Parade, Harrogate, on April 2nd, 1926, and was survived by his widow. Publications: "Slight Errors of Refraction." - *Lancet*, 1905, i, 1573.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003005
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Clark, Frederick Le Gros (1811 - 1892)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-05-31
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/373373373373
Occupation General surgeon
Details Son of a City merchant, Le Gros Clark was born in Mincing Lane and was apprenticed to Benjamin Travers at St Thomas's Hospital two years after the separation of the Borough Hospitals. He won the Cheselden Medal in 1830, and was for a time Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy at the University of Dublin. In 1839 he became Lecturer on Anatomy and Physiology, and in 1843, on the sudden death of Frederick Tyrrell, he was appointed Assistant Surgeon at St Thomas's. As such, and as Lecturer on Descriptive and Surgical Anatomy, he continued until 1853, when he became full Surgeon on the retirement of John Flint South (qv), and was appointed to the Chair of Surgery. He continued as Surgeon and as Lecturer till 1873, when Sir William MacCormac succeeded him. His relation to the College of Surgeons was distinguished. He became a Member in 1833, a Fellow in 1843, was Member of Council from 1864-1879, Member of the Court of Examiners from 1870-1880, Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1873, Vice-President in 1872 and 1873, and President in 1874. He was Hunterian Orator in 1875, held the Arris and Gale Lectureship in 1867-8, and the Hunterian Professorship of Surgery and Pathology in 1868-9. He was well known for his course of lectures delivered at the College on the subject of "The Principles of Surgical Diagnosis, especially in relation to Shock and Visceral Lesions". Other notable works from his pen were *The Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System*, 1836, his translation of Dupuytren's *Diseases and Injuries of the Bones*, and his *Outlines of Surgery*, 1863. His most important paper read before the Royal Society, to which he was elected a Fellow in 1872, was "On the Actions of Muscles in Respiration". For some years he was Surgeon to the Magdalen Hospital and to the London Female Penitentiary. He was also Consulting Surgeon to the Surrey County Hospital and to the Great Northern Hospital. But an appointment which threw him more into contact with the leading surgical and medical workers of the day was that of Surgical Secretary to the Medico-Chirurgical Society, where Dr George Cursham and Dr W Baly were successively his medical colleagues. In his early days Clark resided in Spring Gardens, Charing Cross, then a centre for surgical celebrities, near Bransby Cooper and Partridge. Bransby Cooper was specially kind to him, and told him many tales of his uncle Sir Astley Cooper; but he was a rough and uncultivated though genial man, and did not impress Le Gros Clark as a scientific surgeon. It was the wish of the authorities at the hospital that Clark should have rooms nearer St Thomas's, and he moved to St Thomas's Street and had a country house at Lee. In 1871, however, he purchased a property near Sevenoaks, where he was surrounded by beautiful scenery and the comforts of a charming home. Here he lived for many years, and here he died, holding still his office of Consulting Surgeon to the South-Eastern line, which ran close by his house, and being frequently called in to the Cottage Hospital for his opinion as Consulting Surgeon. He was able from Sevenoaks to pay frequent visits to his old hospital and to Salters' Hall, where he was twice Master at twenty years' interval, and an active member of the governing body. Clark spent part of his holidays in visiting the continental schools as well as those of Dublin and Edinburgh. In Germany he was familiar with the work of Dieffenbach, von Graefe, and the elder Langenbeck in Paris with Dupuytren, and he had a great admiration for Roux. As a Governor of St Thomas's and Consulting Surgeon he always took an active interest in the progress of the School. As a hospital surgeon it would be difficult to find anyone who ranked higher in those days. His opinion was always greatly esteemed. He prided himself upon his 'tactus eruditus' and could distinguish deep fluctuation when others failed. His judgement was calm and scientific, leaning rather to what was within proof and certainty, not swayed by the opinions of others, but always attentive to their criticisms. He was not only a distinguished surgeon, but a wise and safe one. Scientific surgery was his aim, and his thoughts and work were constantly in this direction. As an operator he was careful, deliberate, and not wanting in boldness. As a clinical teacher he was followed by an attentive class, who learnt something more than mere surgery: they learnt how to treat patients with kindness, thoroughness, and courtesy. Human nature was ever a study for him and patients were not looked on as mere cases. He died at The Thorns, Sevenoaks, on July 19th, 1892. Besides his many surgical appointments he was well known in civic and public life, from his connection with the Salters' Company. "Mr Clark", says his biographer in the *British Medical Journal*, "was a splendid representative of the educated surgeons of the older school - a man of high general culture, versed in all the professional lore that the home and continental schools of his time could teach, and conspicuous for operative skill in the days when the operator required facilities that modern science has rendered less essential." His personality was peculiarly attractive. All who knew him can easily recall the tall, strong, upright figure that retained its symmetry to the end, the clearly cut aristocratic features that only grew more handsome with advance of years, and the dignified courtesy of manner that so perfectly harmonized with his stately physique. He had a high intellectual forehead, heavy eyebrows overhanging keen deepset eyes, making an impressive and dignified countenance, and although severe, yet kindly withal; but it was not given to all to know the simplicity and gentle kindliness of nature, masked as it was by the rather stern lines that early sorrow had graven on his face. In his youth, according to Strohmeyer, he was known as 'le beau' as well as Le Gros Clark. He was, in short, a polished, courtier-like gentleman, slightly austere in manner, but honest, unaffected, and true. His nephew, Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark, FRCS, distinguished himself by research in anatomy; he was appointed Professor of Anatomy at St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1927, and returned to the Chair of Anatomy at St Thomas's Hospital in 1929. There is a portrait of Frederick Le Gros Clark in the re-issue of MacCormac's "Lives of the Presidents" in his *Address of Welcome*, 1900, p172. There is also a photograph in the Fellows' Album.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001190
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Oliver, Matthew William Baillie (1882 - 1926)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-08-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002600-E002699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374853374853
Occupation General surgeon Physician
Details Born at Liverpool on May 6th, 1847, the son and grandson of surgeons. He studied at the University of Edinburgh and at the University of Liverpool, where he was Medallist in Medicine, Surgery, and Pathology, also at Brussels. Becoming FRCS, he settled in practice at Blackburn as assistant to Dr William Irving, Physician to the Blackburn Infirmary, later in partnership with him, and on his death carried on the practice, one of the largest in the district. He continued his medical studies, and passed examinations to within two years of his death. For twenty-one years he was Surgeon to the Blackburn and East Lancashire Infirmary. For many years he was local Secretary to the British Medical Association and was the first President of the Lancashire and Cheshire Branch. A keen volunteer, he rose to be Major in command of the North-East Lancashire Bearer Company RAMC, and Surgeon Major, Army Medical Reserve, in connection with which he gave and published ambulance lectures. He encouraged sports, was President of the Blackburn Cycling Club, and gave annually a silver cup to be raced for. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace for the County Borough of Blackburn in 1887. As a Roman Catholic he was Physician to the Franciscan Convent of St Anne, and to the Convent of Notre Dame, and he held strong views in favour of denominational teaching in schools. Besides, he was connected with numerous societies. He died suddenly of apoplexy at Arnheim, Blackburn, on March 20th, 1906, and was survived by a widow, four daughters, and four sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002670
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching McWhinnie, Andrew Melville (1807 - 1866)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/374819374819
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details Born in London and was educated chiefly at Verdun, where he gained a mastery of French and an affection for French people and their institutions. He was apprenticed to Edward Stanley (qv), Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, in 1825. Having become MRCS in 1830, he attended wounded at the Hôtel-Dieu during the three days' Revolution in 1830, and came under the favourable notice of Larrey, Dupuytren, and others. In the following year, 1831, he accompanied Stanley to Paris, and interpreted Stanley's observations. Under Biett at the Hôpital Saint-Louis, McWhinnie first acquired his knowledge of skin diseases which afterwards served him when with James Startin he developed the Skin Hospital at Blackfriars. After returning to London he became Junior Demonstrator of Anatomy at St Bartholomew's Hospital in succession to Frederick Skey; in 1834 he was appointed Assistant Prosector to Thomas Wormald; in 1839 he succeeded Dr Arthur Farre as Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy and Medical Jurisprudence, holding office until September 11th, 1860; in 1841 he became Assistant Surgeon at the Blackfriars Skin Hospital. But it was only after previous failures (*see* PAGET, SIR JAMES) that he was elected Assistant Surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital on May 14th, 1854, when he received 154 votes, and his opponent, Holmes Coote (qv), 65. He lived at Blackfriars, near the hospital, so that many operations at night fell to him. His health began to fail and he resigned on June 27th, 1860, to die after an exhausting illness at 5 The Crescent, Blackfriars, on February 27th, 1866. He added a number of anatomical preparations to the Museum of the Hospital. A peculiarity of manner is said to have interfered with his success as a lecturer. He was a staunch friend, much beloved, with a high sense of honour. Publications: Translation of Cloquet's *Anatomical Description of the Parts Concerned in Inguinal and Femoral Hernia*, 8vo, London, 1835. *Illustrations of the Effects of Poisons* (with Dr GEORGE LEITH ROUPELL), fol, London, 1833, illustrated by McWhinnie. *A Series of Anatomical Sketches and Diagrams* (with THOMAS WORMALD), 4to, with 5 plates, 1838, and 1843, with 28 plates, which for simplicity and accuracy can hardly be surpassed. "On the Varieties in thc Muscular System of the Human Body," 8vo; reprinted from *London Med Gaz*, 1846, xxxvii, 184. "Account of the History of Dissection of a Case of Malformation of the Urinary Bladder." - *Lond Med Gaz*, 1850, xlv, 360. It was republished by Dr Charles A Pope, Boston, USA with his case of congenital inversion of the bladder. *Introductory Address at the opening of the Medical Session at St. Bartholomew's on 1st October*, 1856.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002636
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Owen, Edmund Blackett (1847 - 1915)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-09-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002800-E002899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375057375057
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on April 7th, 1847, the third son of William Buy Owen, then practising at Finchingfield, Essex, but originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia, where his father, Daniel Owen, had settled towards the end of the eighteenth century. Edmund Blackett Owen's mother had been a Miss Mary Blackett, and he was the third of eight children, of whom five were sons. William Buy Owen, his father, moved to London in 1860, and bought a practice in Cleveland Square, Hyde Park. After leaving school at Bishop's Stortford in 1862, Edmund Owen became a student at St Mary's Hospital in 1863, the intention being that he should in time join his father in practice. He was, however, attracted first by anatomy and then by surgery. In 1868 he was Resident Medical Officer at St Mary's, and he afterwards studied in Paris. From 1868-1875 he was Demonstrator of Anatomy at St Mary's, and in 1876 was appointed Lecturer on Anatomy. In 1888 he changed that position for the Lectureship in Surgery. In June, 1871, he was elected Surgeon to Out-patients, became full Surgeon in 1882, and Consulting Surgeon on his retirement after twenty years in 1902. In 1896 he resigned the Lectureship in Surgery. His career at the Royal College of Surgeons was distinguished and most useful. He was a Member of Council from 1897-1913, holding his seat after re-election, and was Vice-President in 1905-1906 and 1906-1907. In 1906 he delivered the Bradshaw Lecture on "Cancer: its Treatment by Modern Methods"; in 1911 he delivered the Hunterian Oration. Owen's reputation as a teacher stood so high that he was often appointed to examinerships. In 1883 he was placed on the Board of Examiners in Anatomy and Physiology at the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1884 he joined the Board of Examiners in Anatomy and Physiology for the Fellowship, and from 1889-1899 was a Member of the Court of Examiners. In 1884, also, he was elected Examiner in Anatomy for the Second Examination of the Conjoint Board. He was likewise at different periods Examiner in Surgery to the Universities of Cambridge, London, and Durham. He held a great number of offices. He was at one time or another Member of the Medical Board of the University of Wales, Orator of the Medical Society in 1897, President in 1899, President of the Harveian Society in 1887, Member of Council of Queen Victoria's Jubilee Nurses Institute, Member of the Committee of the Cancer Research Fund, President of the North-West London Boy Scouts Association. He was also, at the time of his death, Consulting Surgeon to the Paddington Green Children's Hospital, the Royal Masonic Institute for Girls, and Hon Surgeon to the Royal Society of Musicians. Owen was most successful in his treatment of children, and was for many years on the staff of the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, having become Assistant Surgeon there in 1877, full Surgeon in 1883, and Consulting Surgeon on his retirement in 1898. His work for the British Medical Association was of constantly increasing value. He joined the Association at an early stage of his career, and in 1883 was Secretary of the Section of Surgery at the Liverpool Meeting. In 1885 he was Vice-President of the Section of Surgery at the Cardiff Meeting, and President of the Section at the Swansea Meeting in 1903. He was President of the Section of Diseases of Children at the Portsmouth Meeting in 1899, and gave an address on the "Ununited Fractures in Childhood". At the Sheffield Meeting in 1908 he delivered the Popular Lecture on "Dust and Disease", in which he referred to the work of Pasteur and Lister, to trade diseases, and to the close relation of smoke and dust. It was a brilliant address, very well received. But undoubtedly his greatest service to the Association was rendered during the controversies which attended its reorganization in 1900 and the following years. As was inevitable, the proposals excited a good deal of feeling, and it was with great satisfaction that all friends of the Association heard that Edmund Owen had accepted the office of Chairman of the Constitution Committee. It was felt that he was a man whose impartial judgement and genial temperament made him well suited to compose differences, and in accepting the office he was doubtless influenced by the strong patriotic principles with which he was imbued, and his deep belief in the unity of the British Empire. He completed this part of his work for the Association by presenting the report of the Constitution Committee in a witty speech at the Cheltenham Meeting in 1901, and his presentation of its report went far to convince many members of the Association that the new constitution should have a trial. The interest he was known to take in the Overseas Branches led to Owen's election to be Chairman of the Colonial Committee appointed by the Association in 1902, and in 1907 his popularity and the high opinion held of his business capacity and devotion to the interests of the Association led to his election to be Chairman of Council, an office which he held until 1910. After the outbreak of the European War, Owen performed thoroughly congenial duties as Surgeon-in-Chief to the St John Ambulance Brigade. He smoothed over difficulties which had for some years existed between the St John Ambulance Association and the Red Cross Society, and in the autumn of 1914, when a Joint Committee was formed with offices in Pall Mall, worked amicably with Sir Frederick Treves in the selection of the medical personnel and the organization and training of the orderlies. "Nothing is too good for our sick and wounded soldiers and sailors", he wrote to the *British Medical Journal* (1914, ii, 949 - "Amateur War Nurses"), and in the same letter stated that it had been made as impossible for an untrained nurse to obtain work under the British Red Cross Society as it would be for an unqualified practitioner to get his name upon the Medical Register. Doubtless Sir Frederick Treves had brought this excellent state of things about, for it was he who, in describing his experiences during the South African War, had so pointedly complained of the 'plague of women', the fashionable amateur nurses, with which the Medical Department was then afflicted. Owen added that a certain number of women from the Voluntary Aid Detachments (the 'VADs') of the two societies were being employed to help in the work of the ward, the kitchen, and store-room, and that they had been given the title not of 'nurse', or even of 'probationer', but of 'woman orderly'. Owen had rendered eminent services at one time to the French Hospital, where as Surgeon he succeeded Sir William MacCormac in December, 1901. On the occasion of the visit of President Loubet to the hospital in 1903 he was decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honour, and he remained warmly attached to the hospital to the end of his life. At first he took up an attitude of opposition to Listerian antiseptic methods and poured contempt on the ritual of the spray. He even went further than this, and at one of the societies, when Lister brought forward his open operation for fractured patella, Owen, with characteristic temerity, remarked in parody of a famous saying that it might be magnificent, but was not surgery. Owen was an incisive speaker and his store of apt illustration was remarkable. His repartees were memorable, and there was nothing anywhere quite like Owen's class in the theatre at the close of operations. By informal questions, by encouragement and sympathy, by veiled irony and gentle ridicule, by humorous invective, by instructive anecdotes of professional experiences, he seemed to draw all the students unto him, and not even the most stupid of 'chronics' was afraid to go to the class again. Then there was the transparent honesty of the man, shown not least in an impulsiveness which led him to hasty conclusions, soon to be put aside, so that he would vote to-morrow against that which he had advocated to-day. You forgave, you laughed, and loved him the more. It was on leaving his work at the joint office of the British Red Cross and St John Ambulance Brigade that Owen, while walking down St James's Street, was seized with a stroke of paralysis, which in a few days proved fatal. He was taken to Charing Cross Hospital, where he died on Friday afternoon, July 23rd, 1915, and was cremated at Golder's Green. He had spent many delightful holidays with his daughters at his house, Malham Tarn, near Settle in Craven, Yorkshire, where he rejoiced in his garden and in fly-fishing. He lived at 64 Great Cumberland Place, Hyde Park, for many years, but latterly at 24 Berkeley Street, Portman Square. By his marriage in 1882 with Miss Annie Laura Clayton, of Brynmally, near Wrexham, Owen had four daughters, who survived him. Mrs Owen died in 1906. There is a fine portrait of him in the Council Album. It should be added that Owen took the greatest interest in all the activities of student life at St Mary's. He warmly supported the Athletic Club, and had in his student days been a keen cricketer and football player, being Captain of the Hospital football team. He was a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club. He was also one of the founders of Sancta Maria Lodge, No 2682, of Free and Accepted Masons, constituted within the School of St Mary's, and was appointed a Past Junior Grand Deacon of England in 1899. He wrote an interesting account of a night of terrific work at the Epsom and Ewell War Hospital, when the first patients were admitted on October 15th, 1914. Publications: *Introductory Address delivered to the Students of St Mary's Hospital*, 1874, 8vo, London, 1874. "On the Anatomy of Genu Valgum," 8vo, Cambridge, 1879; reprinted from the *Jour Anat and Physiol*, 1879, xiii, 83. "A Case of Furneaux Jordan's Amputation at the Hip-joint, in which Bone was Re-formed in the Stump," 8vo, London, 1886; reprinted from *Trans Med Soc*, 1886, ix, 205. "Rickety Deformities of the Lower Extremity: their Treatment by Operation," 8vo, London, 1888; reprinted from *Practitioner*, 1888, xl, 261. *The Rearing of Hand-fed Infants*. With an introduction by CHARLES WEST, 8vo, London, 1884. International Health Exhibition Lecture, No 37. *The Surgical Diseases of Children*, 12mo, 4 plates, London, 1885; American edition, 1885; 3rd ed, 6 plates, 1897; French translation of 2nd ed, considerably added to by O LAURANT, Paris, 1891. *A Manual of Anatomy for Senior Students*, 8vo, illustrated, London, 1890. This is a record of Owen's work at St Mary's, and contains matter not then found in works on surgery. *Selected Subjects in Connection with the Surgery of Infancy and Childhood*, being the Lettsomian Lectures delivered at the Medical Society of London, 1890, 8vo, London, 1890. "Post-nasal Growths, or Adenoids," 8vo, London, 1893; reprinted from *Practitioner*, 1893, l, 191. "Treatment of Severe Club Foot." - *Trans Med-Chic Soc*, 1893, lxxvi, 89. "A Case of Axial Rotation of the Testis," 8vo, London, 1894; reprinted from *Trans Med Soc Lond*, 1894, xvii, 61. "Acute Septic Osteitis in Children and Young People," Lectures 1 and 2, 8vo, 1895; reprinted from *International Clinics*, 1895. "A Distinct Variety of Hip-joint Disease in Children and Young Persons," 8vo, London, 1899; reprinted from *Trans Med-Chir Soc*, 1899, lxxxii, 65. "Cleft Palate and Hare-lip: the Earlier Operation on the Palate," 12mo, illustrated, London, 1904. *Cancer: its Treatment by Modern Methods*, being the Bradshaw Lecture for 1906, 8vo, London, 1907. *John Hunter and his Museum*. The Hunterian Oration delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons, 1911, Feb 14, 4to. This is the typewritten copy of the Oration presented to the Library by the Orator. It is bound by Zaehnsdorf. "Appendicitis: a Plea for Immediate Operation," 8vo, 4 illustrations, Bristol, 1914; reprinted from *Brit Med Jour*, 1913, i, 321, etc. Article on "Surgery" in the *Encyclopaedia Britannica*, 11th ed.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002874
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Owen, Sir Richard (1804 - 1892)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-09-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002800-E002899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375060375060
Occupation Anatomist Curator
Details Born on July 20th, 1804, the younger son of Richard Owen, a West India merchant, by his wife, Catherine, a daughter of Robert Parrin, organist of the Parish Church of Lancaster. He was educated at the Lancaster Grammar School, where he made a lasting friendship with William Whewell, who became Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was apprenticed in 1820 to Mr Dickson, surgeon and apothecary, at Lancaster; his master died in 1822 and he was turned over to Joseph Seed, and in 1823 to James Stockdale Harrison, as Seed had become a Naval Surgeon. Harrison was Surgeon to the County Gaol, and Owen became interested in anatomy through the post-mortem examinations on the prisoners. He matriculated at Edinburgh in 1824, and attended the extramural lectures of Dr John Barclay which dealt with comparative as well as human anatomy. He did not graduate in the University, but travelled to London in the spring of 1825 with a letter of introduction to John Abernethy, who at once appointed him prosector for his surgical lectures at St Bartholomew's Hospital. As soon as he had obtained the diploma of the College of Surgeons, Owen set up in private practice at 11 Cook's Court, Carey Street, Chancery Lane; but the results do not seem to have fulfilled his expectations, for in 1829 he became Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy at a nominal salary in the Medical School attached to St Bartholomew's Hospital, and in 1830 he made some efforts to obtain the office of House Surgeon at the Birmingham General Hospital, but did not persist in his candidature as he was already becoming engrossed in comparative anatomy. By the influence of Abernethy, in March, 1827, he had been appointed an Assistant in the Hunterian Museum at the College of Surgeons at a salary of £30 a quarter. The Conservator was William Clift, and from him Owen learnt the unbounded respect which he always showed for the works and memory of John Hunter. Clift's son, the Assistant Conservator, was killed in a cab accident and Owen was appointed to fill his place in 1832. In 1836 Owen appears as Conservator jointly with Clift, and in 1842 he came into residence at the College when Clift was allowed to live outside. Clift died in 1849, and Owen then continued as Conservator until 1856, J T Quekett being associated with him in the post from 1852. In 1830 he made the acquaintance of Cuvier, at whose invitation he paid a visit to Paris, attended the lectures of Cuvier and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, and worked in the dissecting-rooms and public galleries of the Jardin des Plantes. In 1832 he published his *Memoir on the Pearly Nautilus*, which placed him at once in the front rank of comparative anatomists and led to his election as FRS in 1834. He started the *Zoological Magazine* in January, 1833, but sold it and resigned the editorship in the following July. For seven years he had been engaged to Caroline Amelia Clift, the only daughter of William Clift, and he married her on July 20th, 1835. In April, 1836, he was appointed Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy at the College of Surgeons, and annually until 1855 he delivered the twenty-four lectures illustrating the Hunterian Collection. These lectures were given under Clause 2 of the Terms and Conditions on which the Hunterian Collection was delivered to the Company of Surgeons, which provided "that one Course of Lectures, not less than twenty-four in number, on Comparative Anatomy and other subjects illustrated by the preparations, shall be given every year by some Member of the Company." The lectures were of a high character and formed the nucleus of the volumes on the *Anatomy and Physiology of the Vertebrates* which he published afterwards. By them and by his writings he became widely known, even to the public, as one of the leading scientific men of the day. In 1842 Sir Robert Peel obtained a Civil List Pension for him of £200 a year, but Owen shortly afterwards declined the offer of knighthood. In 1852 Queen Victoria gave him the cottage called Sheen Lodge in Richmond Park, and here he lived until his death, the grant being continued to his daughter-in-law. He had lived from 1842 in the uncomfortable rooms allotted to the Conservator which had direct access to the College premises. He revisited Paris in 1853 and 1855, and on the second occasion was decorated a Knight of the Legion of Honour by Napoleon III. Advancing years and perhaps a somewhat overpowering sense of his own importance made him difficult. Having failed to persuade the Council of the College of Surgeons to convert their Collection into a National Museum, he resigned the office of Conservator in 1856 and undertook to act as Keeper of the Natural History Collection at the British Museum. Here he was under the control of the principal Librarian, and the second period of his life began. Hitherto he had been in charge of a localized, well arranged, and, largely owing to his own exertions, well catalogued museum; he now became the head of a vast national collection under the care of Chiefs who considered themselves responsible to the Trustees alone, whilst the treasures were poorly housed, badly described, and insufficiently displayed. His first business was to overhaul the specimens, with the result that he published a series of masterly papers dealing more especially with osteology and paleontology. The outcome of his work appeared in the three great volumes on *The Anatomy and Physiology of the Vertebrates*, which were published between 1866 and 1868. As early as 1859 he urged on the Government the necessity for forming a National Museum of Natural History independent of the British Museum, but it was not until 1873 that the building of such a museum was actually begun at South Kensington, nor until 1881 that it was opened to the public. The provision of such a building was greatly helped by Mr W E Gladstone, who no doubt was influenced by his friend Sir Henry Acland, the protagonist in the fight for the New Museums at Oxford. Owen resigned his post two years later - in 1883 - having overcome some of the difficulties and having supervised the transfer of the specimens from Bloomsbury to South Kensington. He was gazetted KCB on January 5th, 1884, and his Civil List Pension was increased to £300 a year. He died peacefully of old age at Sheen Lodge, Richmond, on December 18th, 1892, and was buried in the churchyard at Ham Common, Surrey. His wife died on May 7th, 1873, and his only son in 1886, leaving a widow and seven children who lived with Owen at Sheen Lodge during his latter years. One of these children, the Rev Richard Owen, published a life of his grandfather. Richard Owen was *facile princeps* the chief British comparative anatomist of his age and is comparable with his great contemporary Baron Cuvier. By his careful dissections and unwearied labours in early life he did much to elucidate the work of John Hunter. In middle life he built up a system of transcendental anatomy based on the philosophy of Lorenz Oken (1779-1851) which was founded upon an unproved hypothesis of a vertebrate archetype. In later life he was unable to accept Darwin's generalizations, proved himself somewhat of an obstructionist, and drew upon himself the wrath of Huxley and the younger biologists. He was an indefatigable worker and his literary output was enormous. In spite of this, he found time for several hobbies. He was a great reader of poetry and romance, and in extreme old age could recite whole pages of his favourite authors. He was enthusiastic in his love of music, and it is said that he was present thirty nights in succession when Weber's "Oberon" was first produced in London. He was himself a vocalist and no mean performer on the flute and the violoncello; he was also an expert player of chess. In person he was tall and in figure ungainly, with a massive head, lofty forehead, curiously round, prominent, and expressive eyes, high cheek-bones, large mouth, and projecting chin, long, lank dark hair, a very florld complexion, and throughout the greater part of his life he was clean-shaven. The acrimony with which Owen pursued quarrels and a certain inaptitude for ordinary business matters prevented him from filling the many high official positions to which his scientific pre-eminence might otherwise have entitled him. Nevertheless he obtained innumerable rewards. He received the Royal and the Copley Medals of the Royal Society; the Prix Cuvier of the French Academy; the Prussian order 'Pour le Mérite'; the cross of the French Legion of Honour the Order of St Maurice and St Lazarus of Italy; the Order of Leopold of Belgium; and the Order of the Rose of Brazil. He was one of the eight foreign associates of the Institut de France, and was enrolled as an honorary member of nearly all the scientific societies in Europe. The Royal College of Physicians of London conferred upon him the Baly Medal for physiology, and the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1883 made him one of the few recipients of its honorary Gold Medal. HRH the Prince Consort became interested in his work; in April, 1860, he was called upon to lecture to the Royal children at Buckingham Palace, and in March and April, 1864, he lectured to them at Windsor in the presence of Queen Victoria and Leopold, King of the Belgians. The number of portraits, photographs, and engravings of Sir Richard Owen is very large. Chief amongst them is the bronze bust on a large scale by Alfred Gilbert, MVO, RA, which is of extraordinary excellence. It is unsigned and is in the Osteological Room (iv) in the Museum, and was executed to the order of the council in 1895 in recognition of his outstanding merit as well as of his services to the College. There is also a plaster cast of an unsigned bust, which appears to have been made from the marble bust by E H Bailey, RA. The marble bust is dated 1845 and is in the Hall of the College. It was left by Mrs Owen, the daughter-in-law, in 1920. The College possesses a large collection of other portraits of Owen, among which may be mentioned: (i) A proof engraving by W Walker after the portrait by Henry William Pickersgill. This engraving is dated London, Jan 1st, 1852 ; it is signed 'Richard Owen'. (ii) A miniature portrait in water-colour by W Etty, RA, which hangs in the Conservators' room, shows Owen at the age of 48. (iii) A fine portrait which appeared in *Nature*, engraved by Jeens from a photograph (the date is 1880). (iv) A portrait by J H Maguire, 1850, printed by Hanhart and engraved by D J Pund after a portrait by Watkins. There are also engravings (1) showing Owen bearded and apparently lecturing in extreme old age; (2) a small engraving in which Owen is holding an enormous femur. He wears the old gown of the Hunterian Professors. The gown, when falling into holes, was sent by the Rev Richard Owen to the College, with the wish that it might be preserved in a glass case. The Linnean Society, of which Owen was elected a Fellow in 1836, possesses a lithograph by J H Maguire (Ipswich Series); a photo-engraving from a photograph by Elliott and Fry, and an engraving from the painting by H I Thaddeus. Among caricatures of Owen may be cited 'Old Bones', possibly by 'Ape' or 'Spy', which appeared in *Vanity Fair*, March 1st, 1873, and one by H I Thaddeus showing Owen in extreme old age (bearded), signing proof engravings of his portrait. (Both of these are in the College Collections.) There are two remarkable photographs of Owen in the Council Album, and another by Miss Acland, daughter of Sir Henry Acland, after a drawing by Richmond. A caricature of Owen presiding over a dinner-party of wild animals and palaeontological monsters at the 1847 meeting of the Palaeontographical Society was presented by Sir John Bland-Sutton. It is an admirable drawing and portrait; the artist is unknown. A portrait painted by Holman Hunt was exhibited in the Grosvenor Gallery in 1881, and in the same year Hamo Thornycroft, RA, showed a bust at the Royal Academy. A posthumous full-length bronze statue by Charles Brock, RA, was executed for the hall of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002877
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jones, Sir Philip Sydney (1836 - 1918)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-05-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002300-E002399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374566374566
Occupation General surgeon Physician
Details Born in Sydney and was educated at three local schools. He came to Europe to finish his general education, and was enrolled as a student of medicine at University College, London, where he obtained medals for proficiency in anatomy and in medicine, and won the Fellowes Gold Medal as the most proficient student in clinical knowledge of his year. He was also House Surgeon, House Physician, and Resident Medical Officer at University College Hospital, and spent some months studying medicine and surgery in Paris. He returned to Sydney in 1861 and began to practise at 10 College Street. Within a few months he was elected Surgeon to the Sydney Infirmary (later the Sydney Hospital). His colleagues were Charles Nathan, Sir Alfred Roberts, and Charles McKay. The duties of the staff in those days were onerous, since there was only one resident house surgeon, and each member of the honorary staff was expected to do his own dressings. Dry dressings were unknown, and much time was spent in applying wet cloths. Sir Philip was elected Consulting Surgeon after holding office at the infirmary for fourteen years. Like the other medical practitioners of his day, Sir Philip Sydney Jones carried on a general practice. There was no specialism in the sixties, and all kinds of special and general surgery were carried out by the medical practitioners. Sir Philip was the first medical man in Sydney to remove an ovarian tumour successfully. Giving up general practice, he established himself as a physician in 1876, and was the first in Sydney to engage in consulting work. He was appointed Consulting Physician to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in 1887. At the time of his death he was the senior member of the Royal Society of New South Wales, his membership having lasted fifty-one years. He had always taken a leading part in the Society's medical section. In 1882 he was a member of the Royal Commission which investigated and reported on the arrangements of the Quarantine Station. The result of this commission was the establishment of the Quarantine Station at North Head, Port Jackson, for the reception of all cases of infectious disease that came to New South Wales by sea. The value of the work of this Commission is shown by the fact that it was not necessary to remodel the system suggested by the Royal Commission, even after thirty-five years' experience. He was much interested in the progress of education in the Colony, and especially in that of medical students. He was for a time Examiner in Medicine to the University of Sydney; a Member of the Senate from 1887-1918; and Vice-Chancellor, 1904-1906. He was also a member of the Committee appointed in 1868 to raise funds to erect a "permanent and substantial memorial as a token of the heart-felt gratitude of the inhabitants of New South Wales for the recovery of His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh". The memorial took shape as the Royal Alfred Hospital, which was incorporated in 1878. Sir Philip served on the Board of the hospital, for nineteen years as a Director, and for many years as Chairman of the Medical Board. He was unanimously elected President of the third International Medical Congress of Australia, held in Sydney in 1892. His address dealt with the large saving of life which sanitation had effected in the Colony, and he spoke of electric lighting, gas-heating, and smoke-consumption as desirable reforms in the future. As President of the New South Wales Branch of the British Medical Association in 1896-1897 he delivered a thoughtful address, in which he spoke of the X rays and the use of serums, then in their infancy, as subjects of great promise. The address reveals the acumen and foresight possessed by Sir Philip as a medical practitioner. He owed his knighthood to his distinguished services to science in the war against tuberculosis. He was knighted as a Birthday Honour in 1905. Sir Philip Sydney Jones was for thirty years a member of the Medical Board of New South Wales, of which he was elected President in 1909. He was a member of the Royal Commission which inquired in 1895 into the locally notorious Dean case. In 1903 he was a member of the Royal Commission on the Decline of the Birth-rate and on the Causes of Infantile Mortality. In 1913 he was a member of the Tuberculosis Board, appointed by Government to advise concerning measures for the suppression of tuberculosis. He will perhaps be specially remembered for his unceasing efforts to control tuberculosis, and as the pioneer in New South Wales of open-air treatment. He was instrumental in establishing the Queen Victoria Homes at Thirlmere and at Wentworth Falls, where the object is to treat the early phases of the disease. He was for long President of the Executive Committee of these sanatoria. In 1914 he took a leading part in founding the National Association for the Prevention and Cure of Consumption, and was its first President. He also gave valuable advice concerning the institution of anti-tuberculous dispensaries founded in New South Wales between 1913 and 1918. He took an active part in many charitable institutions, notably in the New South Wales Institute for the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind, of which he was Vice-President in 1916. Sir Philip was given to scientific pursuits, and was an original member of the Linnean Society of New South Wales (1875), and, up to the last, a trustee of the Australian Museum. He was a Congregationalist, and for thirty years was senior deacon of his church. He married in 1863 Anna Howard, daughter of the Rev G Charter. She died in 1892, leaving a family of three sons and four daughters, who survived their father. The eldest son, Dr Philip Sydney Jones, practised at The Glebe, New South Wales. Sir Philip died at Strathfield, where he owned land, on Sept 18th, 1918. A presentation portrait by Percy Spence, painted at the request of the Council of the New South Wales Branch of the British Medical Association in 1905 on the occasion of his receiving the honour of Knight Bachelor, hangs in the Great Hall of the University of Sydney. There is another portrait in sepia, also made in 1905, and presented by his fellow-members on the executive committee of the tuberculosis sanatoria. Sir Philip Jones was to the medical profession of New South Wales a pattern of the wise physician of exemplary probity, of unfailing courtesy, and of the widest charity. He utilized his professional attainments as far as possible for the benefit of his fellow-citizens. He employed his great experience in the care and treatment of the sick, more especially in advocating better methods for the control of tuberculosis. For a quarter of a century he was recognized as the leader of the medical profession in New South Wales. Publications: Jones contributed a few papers on the treatment of consumption and on medical ethics to the *Australasian Med Gaz*, and published a paper on "The Tuberculosis Problem in Australia" in the *Brit Jour Tubercul*, 1910, iv, 1.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002383
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Maynard, Frederic Pinsent (1864 - 1921)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-08-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002600-E002699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374881374881
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Born at Preston, Lancashire, the son of Thomas Maynard; studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital and the Universities of Durham, Paris, Würzburg, and Bonn. He was House Surgeon at the Newcastle Infirmary and Clinical Assistant at the Royal Ophthalmic Hospital. Proceeding to Netley, he passed out third on the list, at the age of 23 in 1887, into the Indian Army, and won the Montefiore Prize in 1888. He was first attached to the Allahabad Station, then in succession was Medical Officer of the Baleuch-Afghan Boundary Commission, transferred to cholera duty at Kohat, placed in medical charge of the 27th Punjab Infantry at Bareilly, of the Gurkhas at Kaludanda, and of the 13th Brigade of Infantry at Dinapore. In 1905 he became Professor of Ophthalmic Surgery at the Medical College, Calcutta, and Ophthalmic Surgeon to its Hospital, and was Surgical Superintendent of the Mayo Hospital. He practised in Calcutta at 13 Harington Street, and retired from the Indian Medical Service in 1920. On returning to England he lived at Audlem, Cheshire, and practised as an ophthalmic surgeon in Crewe, holding the appointment of Oculist to the Cheshire County Council. As a proof of continued energy, shortly before his death he went to Barcelona to witness Professor Barraquer's revival of cataract suction under the name of phacoerisis by means of a cupping glass and vibratory suction. He died at Audlem of double septic pneumonia on September 30th, 1921, and was buried there. He was survived by his widow, a son, and a daughter. Publications:- Maynard was the author of two text-books of ophthalmology for Indian students: *A Manual of Ophthalmic Operations*, 1908. *Manual of Ophthalmic Practice*, the 2nd edition of the former, 1920. He also published a number of ophthalmological papers, including an "Analysis of 1000 Cataract Extractions." - *Indian Med Gaz*, 1903, xxxviii, 41. In India he edited the *Indian Medical Gazette* for 1898, vol xxxiii, and when in England was assistant editor of the *Ophthalmic Review* and of the *American Journal of Ophthalmology*.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002698
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Galloway, Sir James (1862 - 1922)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-02-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001900-E001999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374117374117
Occupation Dermatologist
Details Born at Calcutta on October 10th, 1862. His father was James Galloway, of Scots descent, his mother was Jane Hermina de Villeneuve. He was educated at the Chanonry School, Aberdeen, and afterwards at the University, graduating MA in 1883 with honours in Natural Science, taking the MB CM and the MD both with the highest honours. He passed the examinations for the Membership and Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons consecutively, not a very common feat. On coming to England he attached himself to the London Hospital Medical School as Demonstrator of Pharmacy, and by the advice of Sir Stephen Mackenzie devoted himself to the study of diseases of the skin. He was appointed Assistant Physician and Pathologist to the Great Northern Hospital in 1890, and Physician to the Skin Department at Charing Cross Hospital in 1894, a post he held until 1914. He was elected Assistant Physician to the Hospital in 1901, becoming full Physician in 1906, retiring with the rank of Consulting Physician in 1922. He held the appointment of Consulting Physician for Skin Diseases to the Metropolitan Asylums Board; was President of the Section of Dermatology at the Birmingham Meeting of the British Medical Association in 1911, and edited the *British Journal of Dermatology* from 1896-1904. He was a member of the Council of the Royal College of Physicians of London from 1916-1918, was elected a Censor in 1920, and was serving as Second Censor at the time of his death in 1922. He married in 1898 Jessie Hermina Sawers, and by her had two sons and two daughters. He died after a short illness on Oct 18th, 1922. Galloway had much wider interests than the ordinary routine of general medicine and dermatology. He had essentially a judicial mind, which, combined with an urbane manner, much tact, and an unlimited capacity for work, made him the great administrator which he became during the War of 1914-1918. One of the first indications of this side of his character appeared when he became a member of the Advisory Board of the Army Medical Service. The Board was formed in 1902 to reorganize, in the light of experience gained in the Boer War, the scheme of education of the officers holding commissions in the Royal Army Medical Corps. The changes introduced on the recommendation of the Board fundamentally altered the character of the RAMC, and were the bases of the successful organization which proved of such great value during the Great War a few years afterwards. When the War broke out Galloway was chiefly responsible for the foundation and successful organization of the Central Medical War Committee. From him came the proposal, at a Council Meeting of the British Medical Association in January, 1915, that a tribunal should be set up to determine what medical men should be retained for the service of the civilian population and who should be allowed to serve in the army. A war emergency committee for England and Wales was formed in July, 1915, Galloway was appointed a member, and acted with great success as a liaison officer between the Medical Department at the War Office and the British Medical Association. He was appointed Consulting Physician with the Armies in France early in 1916, serving first with the First and Second Armies, then with the Second Army alone, his rank being that of Colonel, AMS. He was recalled at the end of 1917 to fill the important post of Chief Commissioner of Medical Services in the Ministry of National Service. In this position it fell to him to deal with the new and manifold problems connected with recruiting and conscription. For his services he was decorated CB. The Ministry of National Service began its duties on Nov 18th 1917, and Galloway drafted with much care "Instructions to Medical Boards" which determined the method of grading recruits. He introduced, too, the sectional system by which each recruit was examined by two or three medical men with a chairman who could be called in to give an opinion in cases of special difficulty. The system worked well and the recruits felt for the most part that there was no favouritism. He received from the King the newly-established Order of the British Empire, being invested KBE in the military division in 1918, whilst the University of Aberdeen honoured him with the degree of LLD. The War being ended, Galloway at once became immersed with Sir Robert Morant in medical politics, more especially in regard to insurance and the relation of the State to general hospitals. He was Chairman of the Conferences of Representatives of the Medical Staffs of Voluntary Hospitals, and in this position rendered important services to the profession in the years 1920, 1921, and 1922. Galloway was dignified in presence, courteous, and at the same time genial and kindly in his judgement of others. He took an immense personal interest in colleagues, students, and patients. He had a great power of expressing his opinion logically, and the moderation of his counsels at a meeting tended to produce an atmosphere of peace when feelings ran high. He was keenly interested in many subjects outside his profession, He loved the field sciences, botany, zoology, and geology. He was a good archaeologist, no mean historian of medicine, and a pianist of considerable ability. He practised at 54 Harley Street. Publications: Galloway wrote, in addition to various papers on diseases of the skin: *The Parasitism of Protozoa in Carcinoma*, being the Morton Lecture on Cancer at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1893. Privately printed, 8vo, illustrated, 1893. *The Story of Saint Mary Roncevall*, 8vo, plates, London, 1907. *Eleanor of Castile, Queen of England, and the Monuments erected to her Memory*, 4to, 9 plates and bibliography, London, 1909.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001934
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Garner, Robert (1808 - 1890)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Aitken, David McCrae (1876 - 1954)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-12-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004800-E004899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377013377013
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Born at Singapore in 1876 the son of the Rev William Aitken, he was educated at George Watson's College and the University of Edinburgh. After holding resident posts there and in Liverpool he was appointed to the Bolingbroke Hospital, Wandsworth Common. He took the Fellowship in 1908 and specialised in orthopaedics, his chief work being at St Vincent's, Pinner, which he developed from a cripples' home to a large open-air orthopaedic centre. Aitken was closely associated with Sir Robert Jones for nearly thirty years and worked with him at the Military Orthopaedic Hospital, Shepherd's Bush during the first world war. He described this war-time experience in *The Lancet* (1917, 1, 10-16) and in the *Transactions* (1917, 40, 27-37) of the Medical Society of London. Under Jones's influence he developed great skill as a manipulator and became keenly interested in after-care, in the tradition of Jones's uncle and teacher Hugh Owen Thomas, whose life Aitken admirably recorded in his book *Hugh Owen Thomas, his principles and practice* (1935). He was for many years a director of the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Hospital at Oswestry and consulting orthopaedic surgeon to Faversham Hospital. He was a founder and afterwards President of the Orthopaedic section of the Royal Society of Medicine. Aitken collaborated with Robert Jones in writing the chapter on "Deformities" in Latham and English's *System of treatment* (1912), he wrote on "Scoliosis" for the *Robert Jones Birthday Volume* (1928), and delivered the H O Thomas memorial lecture at Liverpool in 1931 on "Rest and movement in the treatment of lesions of joints" (*Liverpool med-chir J* 39, part 2, pp 103-126). He was a frail man with a barking voice, and liable to fits of coughing. His recreation was yachting. He practised at 89 Harley Street, and died on 9 July 1954 at his country home The Old Vicarage, Mansergh, Kirkby Lonsdale, Westmorland, aged 77.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004830
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Sichel, Gerald Theodore Silvester (1867 - 1928)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Silcock, Arthur Quarry (1855 - 1904)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-01-31
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003400-E003499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375678375678
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Born at Chippenham, Wilts. His father, an engineer, died while his son was very young, and his mother, after residing for a short time in Bath, went to London with her only child, who was devoted to her throughout his life. After being privately educated, Silcock entered the Medical Department of University College in 1873. Here he was greatly influenced by Jenner and his career was one of success. He held all the junior posts, having been House Physician, House Surgeon, and Surgical Registrar. Later he was appointed Senior Demonstrator of Anatomy and Demonstrator of Practical Surgery. In 1883 or 1884, foreseeing that promotion on the staff would be long in coming, he accepted the appointment of Pathologist at St Mary's Hospital and became Lecturer on Pathology in 1884, holding that post till 1897, when he undertook the instruction in operative surgery. In 1886 he had been elected Surgeon in Charge of Out-patients, and in May, 1902, succeeded Edmund Owen (qv) as one of the full Surgeons on the staff. In 1900 he was appointed joint Lecturer on the Principles and Practice of Surgery, and held this post till his death. He had early begun to devote himself to ophthalmology, and worked regularly as Clinical Assistant at Moorfields, where he was appointed Assistant Surgeon in the same week in 1886 in which he was promoted to the staff of St Mary's. He became full Surgeon at the Royal Ophthalmic Hospital on the resignation of J F Streatfield. He was the only Surgeon on the staff at Moorfields who was also Surgeon at a General Hospital and Medical School, and his wide knowledge of general medicine and surgery contributed to his success in ophthalmic work. He was a skilful operator and spared no pains in the investigation of any obscure case of eye disease. His opinion and advice were widely sought and appreciated. He was one of the original members of the Ophthalmological Society, was for a time its Hon Secretary, and made valuable contributions to its *Transactions*. At St Mary's Hospital his marked personality, industry, and sound surgical knowledge made him one of the strongest members of the staff. He was full of energy, and so alert that, superficially, his manner might suggest restlessness or even brusqueness. Whether in general surgery or in ophthalmic surgery, or as a teacher, his accurate knowledge of pathology, to which in his early years he had devoted much time, enabled him to justify a diagnosis or to explain a physical sign when his accuracy had appeared to depend upon empiricism. This knowledge of pathology gave an impressive solidity to his judgement, so that his opinion carried with it a conviction that no mere surface view of the problem would satisfy him, but that he must penetrate to the real meaning of things. The conviction was a sound one, and this thoroughness made Silcock very valuable in consultation both to the patient and the practitioner, and accounted for the high position that he always held in the opinion of his house surgeons. In private life Silcock was a man of much charm; a 'hungry reader', and an excellent pianist. He lived quietly and studiously with his family, spending his holidays with them in remote seaside villages. At the time of his death he held, in addition to his other appointments, those of Hon Ophthalmic Surgeon to the Royal Normal College for the Blind, to the Cripples' Home, and to the Indigent Blind Visiting Society. He was also Consulting Surgeon to the Bromley Cottage Hospital. He had at one time been Clinical Assistant at the Children's Hospital, Great Ormond Street. In 1904 he was elected a Member of the Court of Examiners in Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He died after an operation for appendicitis at his residence, 52 Harley Street, on December 19th, 1904, and his body was cremated. He was survived by his widow and two young sons. Mrs Silcock, whom he had married in 1889, was Emmeline, daughter of Mr Henry Vernon Chichester. Publications:- "Injuries of the Eye." in Druitt's *Vade Mecum*, 12th ed, 1887. "Parasiticism by Psorospermiae."- *Trans Pathol Soc Lond*, 1890, xli, 320. "Case of Acromegaly."- *Trans Clin Soc*, 1890, xxiii, 256. "Successful Reduction of Volvulus of the Sigmoid Flexure" (with F L BENHAM).- *Ibid*, 1895, xxviii, 180. "Perforating Gastric Ulcer."- *Ibid*, 213. "Case of Ileoaecal Intussusception - Excision - Recovery" (with D B LEES). - *Ibid*, 1898, xxxi, 222. "Hyperostosis of Frontal Bones and Walls of Orbit." - *Ibid*, 1890, xxiii, 266. "Radical Cure of Hernia."- *Clinical Jour*, 1893, ii, 42. "Herpes Ophthalmicus," *Ibid*, 1894, iv, 245. "Empyema of Frontal Sinuses." - *Ibid*, 358. "Distension by Mucus and Empyema of Frontal Sinus."- *Practitioner*, 1897, 244.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003495
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Baker, Joel Wilson (1905 - 1999)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Sir Miles Irving
Publication Date 2013-06-06 2020-08-10
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004000-E004099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376245376245
Occupation General surgeon
Details Joel Wilson Baker was chair of the department of surgery at Virginia Mason Hospital and Medical Center, Seattle, USA. He was born in Shenandoah, Virginia, in 1905 and studied medicine at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, qualifying MD in 1928. He moved to Seattle in 1930 to join a group of fellow Virginians at the Mason Clinic, which had been founded James Tate Mason (the clinic was subsequently named the Virginia Mason Hospital and Medical Center). There he served an internship, and subsequently a preceptorship, with Mason, during which time he travelled to observe great surgeons such as William Mayo and Frank Lahey. He was subsequently appointed to the staff at Virginia Mason. In 1945 the University of Washington began developing a medical school, despite not having a designated teaching hospital. Baker strongly supported this development and invited physicians from the university to treat their patients at the Virginia Mason Hospital. He stayed at the hospital for 42 years, holding the position as chief of surgery for 34 years and serving as chair of the clinic between 1945 and 1964, finally retiring at the age of 65. He was generally acknowledged to be a fine clinician, an excellent surgical technician and a wise and effective administrator. During his time at Virginia Mason he made a number of surgical innovations, including a novel technique for non-surgical drainage of obstructed intestine. He published 136 papers, several chapters in textbooks, and made a number of instructional films under the sponsorship of the American College of Surgeons. He was particularly interested in the postgraduate training of surgeons and developed a general surgical residency programme at the Virginia Mason in the early 1940s. The programme is now the oldest such training programme in the northwest. In 1951 he founded, and was president of, the Washington chapter of the American College of Surgeons. He went on to serve the American College of Surgeons at a national level: from 1955 to 1965 he was on the board of regents and served as president from 1969 to 1970. From 1955 to 1960 he was elected as a director of the American Board of Surgery, and from 1971 to 1972 he was president of the Pacific Coast Surgical Association. He was awarded an honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1971 and of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1974. Joel Wilson Baker died on 4 July 1999, aged 94.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004062
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Aickin, Casement Gordon (1881 - 1936)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-03-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003700-E003799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375899375899
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Auckland, New Zealand, 24 August 1881, son of Casement Aickin, merchant, and Elizabeth Mitchell Garde his wife. Aickin came of a medical family on both sides, for his mother was the daughter of Thomas Garde, MD and his grandfather Thomas Leland Aickin was MD of Trinity College, Dublin and FRCSI. Casement Aickin was educated at the Auckland Boys' Grammar School, where he won a university junior scholarship which enabled him to enter Auckland University College. Here he gained the College premium for physics at the end of his first year, and matriculated at the University of Otago with a senior university scholarship. He became resident medical officer at the Auckland Hospital, holding office for four years, and then took a postgraduate course in England. On his return to New Zealand he was appointed in 1913 honorary surgeon to the Auckland Hospital, a post he resigned in 1927 when he was elected a consulting surgeon. During the European war of 1914-18 he received a commission as captain in the New Zealand Medical Corps, and commenced duty on 7 November 1916, serving overseas for two years and sixty-five days. He then returned to his surgical practice, and in 1933 was elected president of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association. He was a foundation Fellow of the Australasian, and Fellow of the American, College of Surgeons. He married Catherine Broun on 12 April 1909. She was daughter of Thomas Broun, lieutenant, 35th Royal Sussex Regiment and afterwards major, of Waikatos, NZ. She survived him with two sons and a daughter. He died at Auckland on 12 November 1936 and was buried in Avondale cemetery, Auckland. Aickin had a large surgical practice in Auckland and was held in high esteem by all with whom he was brought into contact. He is described as being kindly, ready to understand the difficulties of his colleagues, loyal and possessed of infinite tact.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003716
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Aitken, Robert Young (1872 - 1950)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-03-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003700-E003799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375902375902
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Dalry, Ayrshire on 25 March 1872, the fifth son and ninth youngest child of Andrew Blair Aitken and his wife Jane Young. He was educated at the Ayrshire Academy, Ayr, and at Glasgow University where he graduated in 1893. After holding resident appointments at Oldham Infirmary and the Wirral Children's Hospital, Birkenhead, he was appointed in 1894 senior house surgeon at the Royal Infirmary, Blackburn, Lancashire, and to this hospital he devoted the rest of his working life. He took the conjoint qualification and the Fellowship in 1901 after working at University College Hospital, London, and was appointed surgeon to the infirmary; he became senior surgeon in 1914, and consulting surgeon in 1932. He was elected president of the infirmary in 1943, and patron in 1948, when the Aitken ward was opened. His portrait was presented to him on his retirement from the active staff in 1932 and was unveiled by Lord Moynihan. During the war of 1914-18 Aitken served at the Calderstones Military Hospital. He was a pioneer, full of energy and enthusiasm, to increase the efficiency of his hospital. He had a large private practice and was an active magistrate at Blackburn for 26 years. From 1948 he was chairman of the Blackburn Insurance Committee Industrial and National Insurance Acts. He practised at Oakfeld, New Road, Blackburn till his retirement in 1941 to Bezza, Preston. Aitken married in 1905 Theodora Beatrice Armistead. He died 6 October 1950, aged 78, survived by his only son, J B Aitken of Blackburn. Publications:- Aneurysm of the abdominal aorta in a child. *Lancet*, 1898, 1, 1115. A case of pemphigus serpiginosus. *Lancet*, 1898, 2, 139. Gastric ulcer perforating twice in five months. *Brit med J*. 1904, 1, 665. Case of gastrostomy (Senn's method). *Brit med J*. 1908, 1, 1173.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003719
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Warner, Francis (1847 - 1926)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-01-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003400-E003499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375611375611
Occupation Physician
Details Born on July 10th, 1847, the son of James Neatby Warner; was educated at home until at the age of 20 in 1867 he won a junior scholarship at King's College, London. At the first MB University of London Examination he gained 1st class honours in chemistry and materia medica, in the second MB 1st class honours in midwifery. In 1870, after qualifying, he was House Physician at King's College Hospital. Upon this followed his appointment as Medical Registrar at the London Hospital; in due course he was elected Assistant Physician, then Physician, and after nearly forty years at the London Hospital he became Consulting Physician to the Hospital in 1913. It was, however, his election as Assistant Physician to the East London Children's Hospital, Shadwell, which determined Warner's researches into the development and mental physiology of the child, and into the physical and mental condition of school-children in London. A guiding principle in his research was that the state and functions of the child's brain could be interpreted by the muscular movements to which they gave rise. He observed the child whilst at rest, and while performing certain simple movements, looking at an object, holding the hands straight in front of the body with the palms down. Muscular overaction or underaction of various kinds was indicative of nervous instability; slack or convulsive positions of the hand, knitting of the eyebrows, indicated nervous strain, or such a physical defect as hypermetropia. He published from *Brain* (1880-1881) his *Visible Muscular Conditions as Expressive of the State of the Brain and Nerve Centres* (8vo, illustrated, London, 1881). In 1888 he read to the Royal Society a paper on the significance of the spontaneous movements of newborn infants, and of older babies, mental action showing itself through muscular movements - such observations led up to diagnosis and treatment of mental deficiency and disorders. Muscular movements in response to mental action were recorded by means of Marey's tambours. He had in the previous year, February, 1887, delivered three Hunterian Lectures on "The Anatomy of Movement: A Treatise on the Action of Nerve Centres and Modes of Growth" at the Royal College of Surgeons. Assisted by the British Medical Association, he made long and laborious inquiries into the mental condition of 100,000 school-children, the effect of environment on mental processes, hereditary capabilities and limitations. In classifying children he enumerated sixty-three signs of defects in bodily development. In 1889 he was a witness before the Royal Commission on the Condition of Blind, Deaf, Dumb, and Defective Children which led to the provision of special schools by the London School Board. In 1896 he was the active member of the Departmental Committee of the Local Government Board on the Feeble-Minded and on the Committee of the Home Office on Reformatory Schools; in 1898 on the Departmental Committee of the Education Department on Defective and Epileptic Children, in 1903 on the Royal Commission of Physical Training in Scotland. At the London Hospital his principal teaching was as Lecturer on the Neuroses and Psychoses of Children, and he continued to lecture up to 1914. During the War (1914-1918) he lived in the London Hospital and worked every day as a Physician for three and a half years. In 1921 he was granted a Civil List Pension in recognition of his national services. He had during his active career a busy consulting practice with children, and after becoming FRCP was Examiner in Medicine for the Royal College of Physicians and for several of the Universities. He had a country house at Whitbourne, Warlingham, Kent, and died on October 26th, 1926. He married in 1880 Louisa Loder, daughter of William Howard, of Hampstead, who survived him with a daughter, and a son in the medical profession.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003428
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Gould, Eric Lush Pearce (1886 - 1940)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-07-04
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004100-E004199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376382376382
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 23 January 1886 at 10 Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square W1, the second son of Sir Alfred Pearce Gould, KCVO, surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital, and his second wife, a daughter of Mr Justice Lush and grand-daughter of Lord Justice Sir Robert Lush (1807-81), of whom there is an account in the Dictionary of National Biography. He was educated at Charterhouse School and won a science scholarship at Christ Church, Oxford, graduated in arts with a first class in school of natural science, gained the Radcliffe Travelling Fellowship in 1913 and visited Berlin, Canada, and the United States. In 1914-17 he served as a temporary surgeon in the Royal Navy, was appointed a consulting surgeon, and in 1939 received a commission as temporary Surgeon Rear-Admiral, RN, when he served at the Roy Naval Hospital, Plymouth. At the Middlesex Hospital he filled the posts of house surgeon, house physician, surgical registrar, and casualty surgical officer. In 1920 he was elected assistant surgeon, became surgeon and lecturer on surgery, and during 1925-29 was dean of the Medical School. During his term of office as dean the Hospital was rebuilt, the Institute of Biochemistry was equipped, and the restaurant for students established. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was on the Court of Examiners from 1936 and a member of the Council from 1932, holding both positions at the time of his death. His legal inheritance, derived from his mother's side, enabled him to make an admirable chairman of the Medical Defence Union from 1933, a position requiring tact and ability to deal with the numerous difficult cases which came under review. He married in 1916 Audrey Mitchell, daughter of Mr Justice Lawrence Jackson, KC, of the Federated Malay States; she outlived him, but there were no children. He died on 1 August 1940 at the Royal Naval Hospital, Plymouth from the sequelae of a perforated duodenal ulcer. Eric Pearce Gould had many of the traits characteristic of his father, modified by a better education and wide travel, and softened perhaps by his lifelong martyrdom to asthma. A total abstainer from alcohol and deeply religious, he did much good social service and was more especially interested in prisoners and their after-care. Like his father he was a fluent and gifted speaker; the prepared discourse was delivered in flawless style, but he was also quick in debate and clever at repartee. The after dinner speech was always erudite, often brilliant, and always free from any story verging on the indelicate. These gifts made him a first-rate lecturer and attracted students to his classes and lectures at Hospital. His characteristic pose is well represented by W R Barrington in the sketch reproduced in the *Middlesex Hospital Journal*, 3, 38, 114. His literary output was marked by merit rather than abundance. As a surgeon he was especially interested in the cure of hernia by transplantation of the fascial aponeurosis, and in the operative treatment of congenital hypertrophic stenosis of the pylorus. Publications:- *Surgical pathology*, Students' synopsis series. London, 1922. Three mesenteric tumours. *Brit J Surg* 1915, 3, 42. Bone changes in von Recklinghausen's disease. *Quart J Med* 1918, 11, 221. A case of B. Welchii cholecystitis, with L E H Whitby. *Brit J Surg* 1927, 14, 646. Recurrence of carcinoma of the stomach eighteen years after partial gastrectomy. *Ibid* 1927, 15, 325. Primary thrombosis of the axillary vein; a study of eight cases, with D H Patey. *Ibid* 1928, 16, 208. Primary subtotal thyroidectomy for Graves' disease in a child four years of age, with J D Robertson. *Ibid* 1938, 25, 700. Editor of Sir A. Pearce Gould's *Elements of surgical diagnosis*, 4th to 7th editions, 1914-28. Honorary editor of the *Transactions of the Medical Society of London*, 53-62, 1930-39.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004199
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Swaney, William Eric (1919 - 2013)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by John E Harris
Publication Date 2013-06-12 2013-11-06
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004000-E004099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376276376276
Occupation Anatomist Orthopaedic surgeon
Details William Eric Swaney, known as 'Bill' to his colleagues, was head of orthopaedics at Royal Melbourne Hospital. As head of a very busy orthopaedic unit, he mentored many young orthopaedic surgeons and trainees in the early days of the Australian orthopaedic training programme. Bill was born in Footscray, a western suburb of Melbourne, on 12 March 1919 and was an only child. His father, William Henry Swaney, was a public servant in high office. His mother, Margaret Elizabeth Swaney née Brown, came from a family that owned a steel foundry. He was educated at Scotch College in Melbourne and was a good student and sportsman. He played rugby and rowed in the 1937 first crew. Thereafter he was a lifelong supporter of the school and a member of its council. He studied medicine at Melbourne University and there met Marie Cockbill, who was a medical student in his year and who later became a successful anaesthetist and university academic. They were married in 1943 and were an inseparable, dynamic and devoted couple throughout their lives and into the seventieth year of their marriage. Bill and Marie had five children and managed to find the optimal balance between being a close and loving family and leading busy professional lives. Following medical graduation, Bill carried out his residency at the Alfred Hospital, then joined the Army and bravely served in the South West Pacific, where he was mentioned in despatches. He rarely talked about this experience, but apparently as a young medical officer he frequently worked alone in the most difficult of circumstances treating and operating on sick and wounded soldiers. When stationed in the Solomon Islands, Bill met Charles Littlejohn, the first orthopaedic surgeon at Royal Melbourne Hospital, who may have encouraged him to specialise in orthopaedics. After the war, Bill returned to work and study at Melbourne University and Royal Melbourne and Heidelberg Repatriation hospitals. It was there he met the eminent orthopaedic surgeons Brian Keon-Cohen and John Jens. He obtained his FRACS and in 1951 went with his young family to England, where he passed his FRCS on his first attempt and worked for two years at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. He worked there with Jip James, who later became professor of orthopaedics at Princess Margaret Rose Hospital in Edinburgh, and from him Bill acquired many useful skills especially related to spinal conditions. He returned to Melbourne in 1953 to commence private practice and to work in the orthopaedic unit at Royal Melbourne Hospital under the leadership of Brian Keon-Cohen, who had been appointed after the retirement of Charles Littlejohn. Also working in the unit at that time were Eric Price and Peter Williams, both of whom later became head of orthopaedics at the Royal Children's Hospital. The four must have made a formidable orthopaedic team. Bill was greatly influenced by Brian's intellect and teaching, and they became very firm friends and shared the same consulting rooms. Bill was subsequently appointed head of the Royal Melbourne orthopaedic unit in 1963, following Brian's retirement. At that time Bill was still a consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Australian Army, holding the rank of colonel, and, in 1969, that role sent him once again into a war zone, this time to Vietnam. Under Bill's leadership at Royal Melbourne he introduced a new system where each surgeon had his own outpatient clinic and waiting list. It was an interesting time when joint replacement was becoming established and, despite some initial bureaucratic resistance, he was able to instigate a dedicated orthopaedic theatre for this purpose. There was a steady flow of talented newly-trained surgeons through the unit, including Kingsley Mills, Peter Kudelka, Owen Deacon, Doug Ritchie, Max Wearne, Brian Davey and Neil Bromberger. Notable trainees of the time included Bob Dickens, Clive Jones, Jonathan Rush, Bill Heape, Bill Cole and later John Bartlett, Ian Jones and John Harris. Bill was one of the original members of the Victorian branch of the orthopaedic training committee and he greatly enjoyed lecturing and teaching trainees and students. He was a gentleman, of the no nonsense autocratic era, and ran the unit and his practice in that way, earning the wide respect of his colleagues and hospital staff. He was a distinguished looking man who kept his military erect posture and dressed immaculately, usually in a suit. He also had a penchant for suede shoes. Bill was always punctual, and operating lists and clinics seldom went over time. He operated with great alacrity with the traditional 'non touch technique', that was so instilled in his time. He was multi-skilled, but had a special interest in the spine, shoulders and feet. He did original research on blood supply to the rotator cuff and the influence of the impinging coracoacromial ligament supposedly compromising the blood supply. He also introduced the primitive but effective form of stabilisation of spinal fusions by placing acrylic bone cement over the graft and encasing the lumbar spinous processes. The cement was later removed. He would do spinal osteotomies to correct gross deformity in ankylosing spondylitis and was a skilled manipulator of the spine and stiff joints, including shoulders knees and even feet, which is seldom done now in orthopaedic practice. Bill also maintained a longstanding association with the Melbourne University anatomy school and was a feared examiner in anatomy, which was one of his special areas of expertise. He was also an examiner for the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons' primary examination and was at one time president of the Australian Physiotherapy Association. His large private practice and public hospital commitment provided a spectrum of patients from near and far, from the very poor and humble to the most wealthy and privileged in high office. When he retired from the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1979 his wide experience and no nonsense reports made him sought after for medico-legal opinions, especially if there was conjecture about the degree of infirmity. Although he enjoyed operating until he was 70, he became somewhat disillusioned with medico-legal practice, which he didn't miss when he was fully retired. He loved to spend time with Marie and his family, and he also greatly enjoyed his other life as a gentleman farmer at a superb property at Melton, then just outside Melbourne, but now one of its outer suburbs. In fact he so greatly enjoyed his farm that Marie confided that even in Bill's early orthopaedic days Brian Keon-Cohen thought that Bill seemed more interested in his farm at times than his orthopaedics! He and Marie enjoyed travel and made many friends over the years, particularly in the Orkney Islands, where Bill's family had originated. In his retirement Bill wrote a wonderfully candid treatise about his life and experiences, which revealed his modest openness, humaneness and strong character. Unfortunately the tragic death of his son John greatly saddened his later years and his longevity also meant he outlived many of his old friends. He remained 'on the ball' however, and was always interested in his colleagues' careers and progress, and enjoyed meeting to discuss old times. Bill died on 22 April 2013, aged 94, and Marie sadly died four weeks later. Predeceased by John, they were survived by their other sons William, Rowan and Simon, and by their daughter, Susan. Bill Swaney was a man of fine presence who served his country and his profession with the highest distinction.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004093
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Fowler, Charles Edward Percy (1866 - 1941)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-06-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004100-E004199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376287376287
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 27 January 1866 at Milverton Court, near Taunton, Somerset, only son of Charles Edward Fowler, a landowner, and Margaret Goldsmith, his wife. He was educated at Clifton College and at the Bristol Medical School and St Mary's Hospital, London. Fowler was commissioned as surgeon-lieutenant on 29 July 1893, promoted surgeon-captain and captain, RAMC on 29 July 1896, and major on 30 January 1905. He was assistant professor of military hygiene at the Royal Army Medical College from 1903 to 1907, then medical officer of health at Gibraltar from 1907 to 1912. While holding this appointment he accompanied Sir Reginald Lister, the British Minister in Morocco, on a mission to the Sultan at Fez in 1909. After leaving Gibraltar he worked for a time with Sir Ronald Ross on the Malaria Commission in Mauritius, and at one time during the four years' war was engaged on malaria control in India. He was appointed instructor at the Army School of Sanitation on 17 February 1913, and retired on half-pay on 4 February 1914. He rejoined for active service on the outbreak of war in August 1914, was gazetted brevet lieutenant-colonel on 3 June 1917 and lieutenant-colonel on 26 December in the same year, and colonel, AMS on 21 March 1918. He was appointed a staff sanitary officer on 27 July 1915, and Assistant Director of Medical Services on 20 January 1919. He served as DADMS in the Aldershot Command from 1914 to September 1916, and as ADMS Sanitation with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force as well as in India. He was mentioned in despatches several times and was decorated OBE in 1917. Fowler married on 2 October 1894 Mary Dorothy Hopper Boulton who survived him with one son, Major A G H Fowler, MC, Coldstream Guards, and one daughter, who married Lt-Col R B Colvin, Grenadier Guards. He died after a long illness at Garth End, Wickham Bishops, Essex on 21 January 1941. Mrs Fowler died on 8 May 1942. Fowler had been a keen sportsman, and enjoyed tiger shooting when in India. Publications:- Outbreak of food poisoning after a Christmas dinner. *J Roy Army med Corps*, 1909, 13, 271. Mediterranean fever in Gibraltar in 1909. *Ibid*. 1910, 15, 54. Malarial fever in Gibraltar. *Ibid*. 1911, 16, 625. A short note on blood culture. *Ibid*. 1912, 18, 574.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004104
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Martin, Henry Meredith (1899 - 1942)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-10-30
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/376744376744
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Colooney, Co Sligo, Ireland on 15 October 1899, the elder son and second child of Frank Martin, a gentleman-farmer, and his wife, *née* Meredith. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, graduating in 1921 and qualifying in medicine in 1923. He took a prominent part in College athletics and was a good sprinter. After serving as resident medical officer at Gloucester Mental Hospital, he entered the Royal Naval Medical Service in December 1924, saw service afloat and abroad, and retired as surgeon lieutenant-commander in 1931. While at sea he successfully trained his ship's athletic team and helped them to win a Fleet regatta, though not himself an oar. Martin determined on leaving the Navy to equip himself as a surgical consultant, and after a period of postgraduate study took the Edinburgh Fellowship in 1932. He then served as senior casualty officer and house surgeon at Leicester Royal Infirmary, and for a year and a half as senior house surgeon and resident surgical officer at the Royal United Hospital at Bath. Six months' attendance at continental surgical clinics was followed by further postgraduate study at the Middlesex and St Bartholomew's Hospitals, and by holding other resident posts, including a period at All Saints Hospital for Genito-urinary Diseases in London. In 1937 he set up as a consultant at Bath, and in 1938 was elected surgical registrar at the Royal United Hospital and general surgeon to the Bath Eye Infirmary. In 1938 he added to his academic qualifications the Dublin Mastership and in 1939 the English Fellowship. He was a member of the Bath Clinical Society. Martin married on 5 July 1939 Phyllis, daughter of John William Fordham, MRCS, of Leicester, who survived him but without children. Martin died at Circus Lodge, Bath, after a short illness, on 1 November 1942, aged 43. He was an accomplished operator, artistic and careful in his technique, and a wise consultant. He bore his last illness with great courage, taking a professional interest in its course.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004561
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Langmore, John Charles (1814 - 1895)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Langton, John (1839 - 1910)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-06-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002400-E002499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374663374663
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on September 27th, 1839, the youngest of three sons of Henry John Langton, a wholesale chemist, and of Anne Earnshaw Ellis, the daughter of John Ellis. He was born at Denmark Hill, on the site now occupied by King's College Hospital, and was sent to the Church Hill School at Brighton, then kept by the Rev Dr Butler, where he remained from 1849-1852. From Brighton he went to Cassel, where he lived in the house of the Court Chaplain from 1853-1856, attending school and learning German. In 1857 he was articled to John Henry Hewer, his brother-in-law, who practised in Highbury New Park. In the same year he matriculated at the London University and entered as a student at St Bartholomew's Hospital. Here he dressed for Edward Stanley (qv), for whom he had a warm affection. In 1862 he passed the 1st MB examination for the University of London, but never completed the course. In 1861 he became a MRCS Eng, and then was appointed House Surgeon to Sir William Lawrence (qv). Shortly afterwards Langton began to coach in anatomy; he soon made his mark as a successful teacher, and in 1865 was appointed Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy in the Medical School. In 1868 he was elected Assistant Surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital on the resignation of Thomas Wormald (qv). In addition to his work as Demonstrator of Anatomy, he was Demonstrator of Operative Surgery and Demonstrator of Diseases of the Eye in conjunction with George Callender (qv). In 1873 he became Joint Lecturer in Anatomy with Sir Thomas Smith, and Demonstrator of Diseases of the Ear and Surgeon in Charge of the Aural Department. In 1881, on the retirement of Luther Holden, he became full Surgeon, holding that office till 1904, when he retired on reaching the age limit of 65, and was made Consulting Surgeon and a Governor of the hospital. In 1864 Langton was appointed Surgeon to the City of London Truss Society and held that post for forty-three years, retiring from it only three years before his death. At first he was the junior colleague of John Abernethy Kingdon (qv), a godson of John Abernethy, for whom he had an immense admiration. Later he worked with Jonathan Macready, W McAdam Eccles, and G E Gask as his juniors. This work he never tired of: he attended the Truss Society at Finsbury Square six mornings a week, leaving his home at 8 am, travelling by the Metropolitan Railway from Portland Road to Moorgate Street Station. In this way he acquired an unrivalled experience of hernia, of which he said in 1908, at the Medical Society of London, that he had seen about 250,000 cases. In addition to these activities, Langton was also Consulting Surgeon to the West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases, to the City of London Lying-in Hospital, to the Prince of Wales's Hospital, to the Mildmay Mission Hospital, to the Friedenheim Home for the Dying, to the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, and to the London Female Guardian Society. At the Royal College of Surgeons he filled many positions. He was a Member of the Board of Examiners in Anatomy and Physiology from 1880-1884, and a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1884-1894. He was Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology in 1889-1890 ; a Member of the Council from 1890-1906, a Junior Vice-President in 1896, and Senior Vice-President in the centenary year of 1900. He was Bradshaw Lecturer in 1900, when he took as his subject, "The Association of Inguinal Hernia with Descent of the Testis". Langton was an active member of the Medical Societies, filling many offices at the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society, at the Medical Society, of which he was President in 1904 and later Treasurer, and at the Clinical Society. In 1871 he married Sophia, the second daughter of John Scott, JP, of Dulwich and afterwards of Bickley, by whom he had six children, of whom three sons and two daughters survived him. John Langton was a fine upstanding man, six feet in height, rather portly late in life, clean-shaven, with fine-cut features and a mobile mouth. His parents being evangelical puritans, he was brought up, in the manner of those times, to observe the Sabbath strictly and to regard the theatre with abhorrence. This early training coloured his life and led him to be regarded by those who knew little of him as hypocritical. This he was far from being, he enjoyed life to the full, and with his ready smile and generous help endeared himself to his friends and patients. As a teacher he was first-rate. He was at his best in the wards and out-patient department, where with question and answer, and many a jest and story, he would keep a large class of students interested for two to three hours at a time. When he entered the lecture theatre his manner changed, and he became pedantic and dull. He was an excellent surgeon, devoted to his work, and imbued with the principle that the patients of the hospital are individuals, each with his own body and soul and wants and cares, to be treated kindly as men and women and not as cases. Every day of the week he came to hospital, including Sundays, and if he could catch his house surgeon in bed on Sunday morning he was delighted. As a researcher, as a pioneer in advancing the knowledge of science and of surgery, and as an author Langton was not so successful. His knowledge of hernia was unrivalled - he probably saw more cases of hernia than any living man - and he had at his command a mass of notes and of information. He intended to write a book on the subject and to give the world something out of the store of his experience, but death came and the work had not been done. He died on September 4th, 1910, after some two years of failing health, and was buried at the East Finchley cemetery. Publications: Langton edited the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th editions of Holden's *Manual of the Dissection of the Human Body*. *The Association of Inguinal Hernia with Descent of the Testis*.- Bradshaw Lecture, Dec 12th, 1900. Editor of *St Bart's Hosp Rep*, 1881-6, xvii-xxii. Articles on "Hernia" in Heath's *Dictionary of Surgery*.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002480
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lawford, Edward (1820 - 1899)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Davies, Gareth (1945 - 2007)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Sir Miles Irving
Publication Date 2012-02-10 2017-10-27
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002000-E002099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374190374190
Occupation General surgeon
Details Gareth Davies was a consultant surgeon at the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital, Margate. As his name suggests, his background was Welsh, an ancestry of which he was inordinately proud, and he grew up within the close London Welsh community. He received his secondary education at Dulwich College, where he read classics, regarded by many at that time, and since, as an ideal education prior to reading medicine. He commenced his medical studies at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College, and during his time there undertook an intercalated BSc, which sparked his interest in surgery and research. His subsequent undergraduate career was marked by winning the Jackson Burrows prize in orthopaedics, and becoming the runner-up in both the Willett medal in operative surgery and the Brackenbury scholarship in surgery. He qualified MB BS and MRCS LRCP in 1972, and undertook his surgical house officer post on the professorial unit at Bart's. He then held a lecturer post in the department of anatomy between 1974 and 1976, confirming that surgery had become his chosen career, a decision that was proved correct when he gained the Hallett prize for his performance in the primary FRCS. He then returned to clinical training, holding registrar appointments at the Hammersmith, Harold Wood, North Middlesex and St Bartholomew's hospitals. He gained the FRCS in 1978, and soon afterwards was awarded, jointly with others, the Moynihan prize of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. Between 1979 and 1982, he held a British Digestive Foundation Smith, Kline and French research fellowship in gastroenterology at St George's Hospital under the supervision of John Hermon-Taylor. He undertook research into the growth of human colonic and pancreatic tumours as xenografts in nude rats, which subsequently led to him being awarded the MS in 1983 ('Growth of human digestive-tumour xenografts in athymic nude rats', *Br J Cancer*. 1981 January; 43[1]: 53-8). He returned to clinical surgery as a senior registrar on the St Bartholomew's rotation in April 1982, completing his training programme in March 1988. During his training he particularly enjoyed working with John Griffiths, a Welsh speaking consultant surgeon. It is said they both enjoyed irritating their clinical colleagues on ward rounds by discussing the progress of Welsh patients in their native language. In 1989 Gareth was appointed as a consultant general surgeon at Thanet District General Hospital, now the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital. In the same year, he was appointed to the Court of Examiners of the College. During his time at the hospital he developed specialist colo-rectal and endocrine services, and opened the first dedicated day surgery unit in East Kent, of which he was appointed director. He was particularly interested in minimal access surgery and, following a visit to America to refine his knowledge of laser technology, he pioneered the use of the Holmium YAG laser in his hospital. Tragically, in June 1998, Gareth suffered a stroke, which forced his retirement on the grounds of ill health the following year. Despite this, he and his wife were able to enjoy overseas travel and the beaches of Kent, as well as spending time with family and friends. Gareth was married firstly to Gay, also a doctor, with whom he had two sons, Michael and Nicholas, and, secondly, to Susie, with whom he shared two step-children, Lisa and James. Gareth was regarded as having, in abundance, all the attributes of a good surgeon, namely technical competence, kindness, compassion and a congenial nature. All of this was combined with an infectious sense of humour. These attributes led to him being regarded with great affection by all who knew him. He died on 14 November 2007 at the age of 64.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002007
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Murphy, Sir Shirley Forster (1848 - 1923)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-08-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002700-E002799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374964374964
Occupation Physician Public health officer
Details Born on May 21st, 1848, in London. He was educated at University College and studied at Guy's Hospital. After holding a hospital appointment in Manchester and being threatened with tuberculosis, he acted for two years as Surgeon on board the Peninsular and Oriental Company's ships. On his return he was appointed Assistant Medical Officer at the Metropolitan Asylums Board Hospital at Homerton, London. The hospital was then full of small-pox and typhoid, and these infectious cases and his experience there gained him in 1875 the post of Resident Medical Officer at the London Fever Hospital, when Broadbent and Cayley were Visiting Physicians, following Murchison and Sir William Jenner. He next succeeded Sir Thomas Stevenson as Medical Officer of Health for St Pancras at a time when typhoid fever raged in insanitary surroundings. Murphy found the Parish Vestries opponents of sanitary reform on the score of expense. Hence in 1884 Murphy resigned his appointment at St Pancras and, with one or two minor appointments, set up as a Public Health Consultant. He acted as Secretary of the Epidemiological Society, and as Secretary of the Society of Medical Officers of Health, and in this position originated discussions on milk infection, small-pox transmission, evidence for vaccination, periodicity of disease, epidemic diarrhoea of children, and the preparation of vaccine at the animal vaccine establishment in Lamb's Conduit Street. On the formation of the London County Council, Murphy was elected the first Medical Officer in 1887. The post required of its occupant the general surveillance of the public health work of other bodies, of the new Borough Councils, the work of co-ordination, consultation, standardization, or action, as complainant, referee, or as Court of Appeal. He instituted an efficient inspection of common lodgings, seamen's quarters, offensive businesses and trades, cowsheds, and insanitary areas. His reports covered a very wide ground. As evidence of the success of his administration during his twenty-two years' tenure of office, the death-rate in London from all causes declined from 20.1 to 14.6, the infant mortality from 152 to 113 per 1,000 births, and the deaths from the principal epidemic diseases from 5.57 to 2.98. Murphy's work was recognized by the Society of the Medical Officers of Health, which twice elected him President, the second time in 1905. In 1908 the Royal College of Physicians conferred on him the Bissett Hawkins Medal, and in 1921 the Epidemiological Society, of which he had been President in 1894-1895, awarded him the Jenner Medal. He retired from office in 1911, but on the outbreak of the War in 1914, as Lieutenant-Colonel RAMC (T), he was attached as specialist Sanitary Officer to the London Command, serving under successive Directors of Medical Services. He organized billeting, transport and arrival of troops, hygiene of quarters, and made provision for night shelters, and also dealt with problems relating to cerebrospinal fever and other epidemics. Soon after the War he began to suffer from attacks of neuralgia, but continued at work until a few days before his death, at 9 Bentinck Terrace, Regent's Park, London, NW, on April 27th, 1923. He married in 1880 Miss Ellen Theodore King, daughter of Henry S King, JP, and sister of Sir Henry Seymour King, KCIE. Lady Murphy, who had been his constant collaborator, survived him, with two daughters. His portrait accompanies the bibliography in the *Lancet* (1923, i, 927). In the *British Medical Journal* (1923, i, 790) Sir W W Hamer gave a full biography with valuable information as to his Reports. The *Index Catalogue of the Surgeon General's Library*, Series II, includes a long bibliography.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002781
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Roughton, Edmund Wilkinson (1863 - 1913)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-11-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003100-E003199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375339375339
Occupation Dental surgeon General surgeon
Details Son of a naval officer; studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he had a brilliant career, and gained many honours at the London University. He was successively House Surgeon, Ophthalmic House Surgeon, Resident Midwifery Assistant, and Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy from 1886-1890, at St Bartholomew's Hospital. In 1890 he was appointed, at St Mary's Hospital, Demonstrator of Anatomy and later Warden of the College, holding the posts for seven years. In the meantime he was elected Assistant Surgeon to the Royal Free Hospital, Lecturer on Surgery at the London School of Medicine for Women, and Surgeon in Charge of the Throat and Ear Department. A tall, handsome man, he was apt to assume a rather brusque, superior manner, and his temperament did not allow him to subordinate his views to those of his seniors. Hence he lost their support, and when a vacancy occurred for an Assistant Surgeon to St Mary's Hospital he was not elected. As regards diagnosis and skill as an operator he well maintained his early promise without devoting himself to original research. Whilst a House Surgeon he had added to Cline's side splint a foot-piece to prevent extension of the foot when a Pott's fracture was treated on the side, and this splint was named after him. He was Visiting Surgeon to the National Dental Hospital, and published some good communications on oral sepsis and cancer of the mouth, as well as a *Text-book of Oral Surgery* (8vo, London, 1898) for the use of dental students. In the Special Throat and Ear Department he operated skilfully on the mastoid antrum and nasal septum. He was Examiner in Elementary Anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1895. Nearly a year before his death he found that he was suffering from inoperable intestinal cancer. He retired from 38 Queen Anne Street to Lauderdale Mansions, Marylebone, but continued his hospital work as long as possible, courageously and uncomplainingly facing the end, which occurred on June 10th, 1913. He married but left no children. His portrait accompanies the obituary notice in the *Lancet* (1913, i, 1685, 1775) by his colleague, Dr Walter Carr, and a biographical notice by A S W appeared in the *St Bartholomew's Hospital Journal* (1912-13, xx, 182).
Resource Identifier RCS: E003156
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jackson, John (1804 - 1887)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-05-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002300-E002399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374516374516
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Hackney, the son of John Jackson, on Nov 17th, 1804; he was educated at St Catharine's Hall, Cambridge, and University College Hospital; entered the Bengal Army as Assistant Surgeon on June 27th, 1830; was promoted Surgeon March 1st, 1847; became Presidency Surgeon, Calcutta, Physician to the Medical College Hospital, and the first appointed Professor of Medicine and Clinical Medicine in the Calcutta Medical College, 1841, besides holding other important positions. He retired from the IMS on December 31st, 1855; practised at 28 George Street, Hanover Square, then at Hendon, Middlesex, later at Frant, near Tunbridge Wells, and died at Brighton on March 31st, 1887. As Surgeon in charge of the Native Hospital at Calcutta, he was a member of the Committee appointed to inquire into the anaesthetic effects of mesmerism for the purposes of operation. Publication: *A Short Sketch of some of the Forms of Tetanus as they appear in India*, 8vo, London, 1856.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002333
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wright, Garnett (1878 - 1945)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-12-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004800-E004899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377001377001
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Whitehaven, Cumberland, on 23 August 1878, the third child and second son of Robert Wright, banker, of the Whitehaven Bank, and his wife, *née* Todd. He was educated at St Bee's Grammar School and Edinburgh University, where he graduated with honours. After holding resident posts at Weston-super-Mare, Wolverhampton, Stafford, Man-chester (Ancoats Hospital), and Leicester Royal Infirmary, he settled in practice at Manchester and was elected to the surgical staff of Ancoats. In 1910 however he was elected surgeon to the Royal Infirmary, Salford, to which he transferred, and became senior surgeon there in 1918. In 1938 he retired from half his beds under the sixty-years-of-age rule; but on the outbreak of war a year later he again undertook a full share of work. He was also surgeon to the Royal Deaf Schools, Old Trafford, and consulting surgeon to Eccles and Patricroft Hospital. He served for a time as lecturer in surgical pathology and operative surgery at Man-chester University. Wright took an active part in professional societies, serving as president of the Manchester Pathological, Surgical, and Medical Societies; the last-named in 1936, when he gave his presidential address on thyroid operation. In 1929 he was vice-president of the section of surgery at the Manchester meeting of the British Medical Association. He acted as editor for a collective inquiry into gastro-jejunal ulceration made by the Association of Surgeons in 1935. Wright practised at 14 St John Street, Manchester, and lived at Thornfield, Broad Road, Sale. He had bought a house, to retire to, in his native Cumberland a month before his death. Wright married in 1912 Lucy J Thornton, who survived him with a son and two daughters. He died in Salford Royal Infirmary, after two days' illness, on 29 August 1945, aged 66. While surgeon to Ancoats Hospital, Wright had as a colleague Craven Moore, MD, who encouraged his interest in gastric pathology. Wright remained a general surgeon, but was chiefly interested in gastric and thyroid operations. He was a quiet, unobtrusive, but companionable man. His sound sense, judgment, and acuity made him a valued committee-man. He was a musician and a singer. Publications: Primary sarcoma of the vermiform appendix. *Brit med J* 1911, 2, 150. Secondary jejunal and gastro-jejunal ulceration. *Brit J Surg* 1919, 6, 390. Collective inquiry into gastro-jejunal ulceration, edited for the Association of Surgeons. *Brit J Surg* 1935, 22, 433. Thyroid operations, presidential address, Manchester Medical Society, 1936.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004818
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Targett, James Henry (1862 - 1913)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-11-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003100-E003199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375378375378
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Born in Wiltshire, the son of a farmer. He received his education partly at the Grammar School at Warminster, and then, being in weak health, from a tutor at Salisbury. He entered Guy's Hospital as a student in October, 1878, having already matriculated at London University. In 1883 he gained two prizes in the Medical School at Guy's Hospital, was then House Physician and House Surgeon, and was appointed Surgical Registrar for two years, 1885-1887. In 1887 he was appointed Assistant Curator of the Museum at Guy's Hospital, and in 1888 Pathological Assistant at the Royal College of Surgeons, succeeding Frederick Samuel Eve (qv) as Pathological Curator in 1890. He held this post till 1897, when S G Shattock (qv) succeeded him. He was elected Demonstrator of Anatomy and Biology at Guy's Hospital before 1897, and served in that department for six years. He was also Assistant Surgeon to the Evelina Hospital for Children. He taught Practical Surgery and Morbid Histology at Guy's Hospital from 1895-1897, when he was appointed Obstetric Registrar and Tutor and, in 1898, Assistant Obstetric Physician, holding this post for five years, and combining it with that of Surgeon to Out-patients at the Samaritan Free Hospital for Women. On the retirement of Dr A L Galabin he became full Gynaecological Surgeon at Guy's Hospital in 1903, sharing his duties with Dr Horrocks. At the time of his death he was Obstetric Surgeon, the name of his office having been changed, as well as Joint Lecturer on Obstetrics. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was Assistant in the Museum, 1888-1890, and Pathological Curator from 1890-1913, Erasmus Wilson Lecturer in 1893, 1894, and 1895, his subjects being "Pathology of Tumours connected with the Bladder", "On Some Interesting Additions to the Pathological Department of the Museum", and "Recent Additions to the Museum". He edited seven Appendices to the Catalogue of the Museum, Pathological Specimens, Appendix V to Appendix XI, 1891-1897. He was elected a Fellow of the Obstetrical Society in 1891 and contributed some twenty-five papers to its *Transactions*, and here his wide pathological knowledge served him well. From its foundation to within three or four years of his death Targett examined morbid growths for the Clinical Research Association. He was an Examiner in Midwifery at the Conjoint Board from 1901-1906, and from 1908 to the time of his last illness. From 1900-1902 he served on the Board of Examiners for Midwives. He died at his residence, 19 Upper Wimpole Street, from ulcerative endocarditis, on May 26th, 1913, being survived by Mrs Targett. A fine portrait of him is in the *Guy's Hospital Gazette* (1918, xxvii, 490). He had only one child, a son, who died of appendicitis in 1911. Publications: A very full bibliography of Targett's publications, some ninety-five in number, by Mr William Wale, Librarian of Guy's Hospital, accompanies his biography in the *Guy's Hospital Gazette* (1913, xxvii, 243). It has been printed separately with portrait, and was the first complete bibliography of a Fellow to be published up to 1920. A copy is in the College Library.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003195
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bell, Thomas (1792 - 1880)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Turton, James (1856 - 1924)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-01-09
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/375517375517
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at Charing Cross Hospital, where he obtained the Golding Scholarship in 1877 and the Llewellyn Scholarship in 1878, as well as the Treasurer's Gold Medal, and where he held the posts of House Surgeon, Resident Obstetric Assistant, and Junior Demonstrator of Anatomy. He was also Prosector at the Royal College of Surgeons. He came to Brighton in the early seventies as apothecary to Dr Richard Rugg, whose daughter he married. He succeeded his father-in-law in practice in 1884, and took an active part in the medical work of the town, being at one time President of the Brighton and Sussex Medico-Chirurgical Society and holding several offices in the local branch of the British Medical Association. He was elected a member of the Corporation in 1886 and held office with success for ten years. He was also a member of the Steyning Board of Guardians, and was well known in politics and Freemasonry. In 1866 he joined the Volunteer movement as Acting Surgeon, and rose to the rank of Surgeon Major, retiring in 1912 with the honorary rank of Colonel and the Volunteer Decoration. In May, 1888, he joined the Army Medical Reserve as Surgeon Captain, and in 1894 did important pioneer work in raising the Sussex and Kent Volunteer Infantry Brigade Bearer Company. This was the first Bearer Company raised among the Volunteers, and he kept it in a high state of efficiency during the ten years of his command. In 1904 he became Brigade Surgeon Lieutenant-Colonel of the Sussex and Kent Volunteer Infantry Brigade. At the outbreak of the Boer War his duties included the examination of the Sussex Militia and those who volunteered for service. In 1908 he received the important appointment of Administrative Medical Officer for the Home Counties Division, and was promoted to the substantive rank of Colonel. During the Great War (1914-1918) he held various local posts, and especially that of Officer Commanding the Pavilion Military Hospital for Limbless Soldiers, and that of Senior Medical Officer of the Brighton Area. After some years of failing health, Turton died at Brighton on January 11th, 1924. By his marriage with Miss Rugg, he had issue one daughter and two sons, the elder of whom, James Richard Henry Turton, FRCS, practised at Hove. The younger met his death accidentally while serving with the Sussex Regiment in the War Turton practised at Hatherley, Preston Park, Brighton. Publications: "On Some Points in Relation to Septic and Infectious Diseases." - *Trans Sanitary Inst*, 1889-90, xi, 79. "Modified Listerism." - *Lancet*, 1882, i, 545. "Case of Scurvy complicating Heart Disease and Syphilis." - *Ibid*, 1883, i, 1069. "Stuvivance after Gunshot and other Wounds of the Heart." - *Ibid*, 1837, i, 851.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003334
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wigg, Henry Carter junior (1845 - 1890)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-02-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003500-E003599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375706375706
Occupation General surgeon Physician
Details Born in Norfolk, the son of Henry Carter Wigg, senr; was taken out to Geelong, Australia, in January, 1853. He returned in 1859 to King's Lynn, was a pupil at Mr Lupton's school, and was so interested in chemistry as to perform the illustrative experiments after his master's lecture, becoming so absorbed as to be undisturbed by the plaudits of the audience. He went on to University College, London, studied chemistry under Williamson, botany under Oliver, and won a prize given by Berkeley Hill for a clinical "Essay on Four Out-patients". He passed to Edinburgh University and graduated with the Inaugural Dissertation, "Physiological Action of Nitrobenzole", on Aug 1st, 1866, Sir David Brewster conferring the degree. Returning to University College, he obtained the first Certificate of Honour and Gold Medal in Medical Jurisprudence in 1865, and the Filter Exhibition of £30 for proficiency in Pathological Anatomy in 1866, also the first Certificate of Honour and the Gold Medal in the same subject in December, 1866. In 1869 Wigg took the MRCS and FRCS, apropos of which his father quoted Erichsen's Eulogy on the College of Surgeons: "The medical profession can boast of no greater institution of a purely educational and scientific character than the Royal College of Surgeons of England, whether as regards the scientific value of its magnificent museum, the extent of its library, the importance of its endowed lectureships, the vastness of its acquired wealth or the yearly increasing number for its diploma. It is beyond rivalry in Great Britain and it is without an equal in the world." He learnt at Edinburgh the method of acupressure advocated by Sir James Simpson, and from holding a locum tenens at Hecklington, Warwick, Stratford-on-Avon, and other places, he gained experience of English country practice. He was fond of music, and began to write poetry. In January, 1879, he sailed on board the *Planet* emigrant ship as Surgeon, with the care of 195 emigrants, and reached Brisbane after ninety-five days, where he presented a Report to the Secretary of the Queensland Government containing a list of drugs desirable for emigrant ships. Wigg then started practice in Carlton, Melbourne, attended the Lying-in Hospital and Benevolent Asylum, and in April, 1871, was elected Physician to the Alfred Hospital. He resigned this post in the following November for that of Physician to the Hospital for Sick Children. He was active in getting this hospital transferred in 1893 to a more suitable building belonging to Sir Redmond Barry in Pelham Street, and in 1876 succeeded in persuading the Hospital Committee to allow the University students to attend his clinic there. His practice rapidly increased, and in addition to his ordinary work he added to it by giving lectures on first-aid to the railwaymen. His health having failed in 1882, he resigned his appointments and travelled to Europe via Ceylon, became interested in architecture, and returned to Australia at the end of 1883. In 1878 he gave evidence in favour of the Contagious (Venereal) Diseases Legislation from experience derived from attendance at the Sick Children's Hospital and the grave effects of inherited syphilis. In 1888 the plague of rabbits gave rise to the offer by the New South Wales Government of a prize of £25,000, and Pasteur dispatched two assistants for the purpose of experimenting on the dissemination of fowl cholera. Wigg opposed the experiment, and was instrumental in getting the Royal Society of Victoria to advise the Government to refuse permission as involving danger to human life; moreover, the experiments carried out on Rodd Island, Sydney, were negative in results. Among about 1400 other schemes a rabbit-proof fencing was devised, but the rabbits burrowed underneath it. In 1889 Wigg went on a visit to a friend in Queensland, and was interested in a Benevolent Asylum at Dunwich Stradbroke Island, where 520 inmates built and lived in bark cottages, and grew bananas and oranges in gardens. He returned apparently in good health, but after rowing and taking a ten-mile walk he ruptured a blood-vessel, and died on Feb 7th, 1890. *In Memoriam* was published by his father, Henry Carter Wigg, senr, in 1890. It contains a photograph.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003523
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bridge, Keith Buchanan (1903 - 1997)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Wyn Beasley
Publication Date 2013-07-24 2013-10-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004200-E004299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376451376451
Occupation General surgeon
Details Keith Buchanan Bridge was a consultant surgeon in Wellington, New Zealand. He was born on 4 July 1903 at Gisborne, on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand, the second son of a farmer, Charles Harry Bridge, and his wife Christina née Macdonald. He was a boarder at Waitaki Boys' High School from 1916 to 1920, before moving further south, to what was then the only medical school in the country, Otago in Dunedin. During his time as a medical student he was a member of Knox College. He graduated MB ChB in 1925. From 1926 to 1928 he was a house surgeon at Wellington Hospital; then, as was the essential pattern for young men planning to specialise, he made the sea voyage to the UK. His first post was at the West London Hospital in 1930, where he worked for Tyrrell Gray. In 1931 he gained his FRCS and then became a resident surgical officer at Ancoats Hospital in Manchester, where his mentor was Peter McEvedy. In 1934 he worked at St Mark's Hospital, where W B Gabriel secured his commitment to colo-rectal surgery, and in 1935 he was at St Peter's. On his return to New Zealand, he resumed his association with Wellington Hospital. He became visiting assistant surgeon to the Children's Hospital in 1937, holding this position until he enlisted in 1940. The outbreak of the Second World War brought profound changes to the New Zealand medical scene. The country contributed a division, and this went overseas in three echelons, two to Egypt, the other to help the defence of Britain against the threat of invasion in mid-1940. By early 1941 the division was assembled in the Middle East in time to take part in the campaign in Greece. Meanwhile, by the end of 1940, it had been accepted that New Zealand needed a hospital ship of its own, and an elderly Union Company liner, the *Maunganui*, was taken over for conversion. The casualties from the Greek campaign emphasised the need, and the task of conversion was hurried along so that *Maunganui* was handed over on 21 April 1941. With her went Keith Bridge, to begin a year of service afloat before he joined the division itself. In North Africa he was attached to a mobile surgical unit in the pursuit after Alamein, bringing a surgical team well forward in accordance with the doctrine that evolved out of the lessons learnt during the previous war; and when 2 NZ Division formed to attack Mareth, Bridge's surgical team out of 1 General Hospital served to augment 4 Field Ambulance. Then, in the Italian campaign, now commanding the surgical division of 1 General Hospital, he was involved in the establishment of the hospital at Senegallia on the Adriatic coast, where on 3 September 1944 one of their first patients was General Bernard Freyberg, who had suffered a wound in an aircraft accident. Bridge finished the war as a lieutenant colonel, commanding 6 General Hospital at the end of 1945, and his services were recognised with the award of an OBE. In 1946 he rejoined the visiting surgical staff of Wellington Hospital, at first in a 'relief' position; but by 1951 he was a senior surgeon and head of one of four general surgical firms. He was recognised as a surgeon's surgeon, and to him would be referred colleagues, relatives, problem cases and potential disasters. He possessed the valuable surgical triad: diagnostic skill, good surgical judgment and meticulous surgical technique. Being a modest, even a shy man, he carried responsibility well, and, even though his role involved him in long procedures, he was well esteemed by his anaesthetic colleagues. Just before he sailed in *Maunganui* in April 1941 Keith Bridge had acquired the fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, which had been founded in 1927, blending elements from two existing colleges: the English Royal College, established more than a century earlier, and the American College, then 14 years young. He devoted himself to the new institution, serving on the Court of Examiners and as secretary, as an elected member and ultimately as chairman (from 1959 to 1961) of its New Zealand committee. In 1947 he married Kathleen Cook; they had a daughter and one son. On his CV he recorded no outside interests, and indeed work and his family were his life. But two of his abiding interests deserve mention: he was an avid follower of rugby football, his season ticket shrewdly placed at the centre of the main stand, and his normal reticence was easily overcome by a comment on last weekend's game. Then there was his devotion to fly-fishing at Taupo, where he and his colleague Ted Gibbs would often fish together. He did find room for involvement in the governance of the insurance co-operative known as the Medical Assurance Society, of which he had lately become chairman of directors when, in 1972, a group of members who had become justifiably dissatisfied with the administration of the society staged a revolt and succeeded in installing a new board. When Keith Bridge came up for re-election the following year, he withdrew from his involvement with the society; he had been deeply wounded by events, but had preserved his dignity throughout. He had retired from his appointment as senior visiting surgeon in 1966, having by then contributed 40 years to the institution (apart from his overseas training and war service), but at a time when there was much discussion of the problem that hospitals tended to allot their most junior staff to the 'front door', and the discipline of emergency medicine was yet to emerge, there was a frisson of excitement when Keith Bridge reappeared as senior casualty and admitting officer in 1967. His level of expertise in the handling of emergency cases presenting at Wellington Hospital became legendary. In 1973 'K B' retired again, but almost immediately he was back, this time in charge of the blood transfusion service - on a part-time basis, for a couple of years only, but long enough to make it a model of quiet efficiency. He then withdrew gently from his involvement in the Wellington medical scene. He lived for another two decades, and died - again, gently - on 23 October 1997, aged 94. His colleague Ted Watson remembers him as 'all in all a man much admired by those who had the privilege to work with him'.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004268
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Oldham, Charles James (1845 - 1907)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-09-05
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002800-E002899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375023375023
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Came of the family to which belonged Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter, who founded Manchester Grammar School in 1515, and Netley Abbey, besides being co-founder of Brasenose College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The son of James Oldham (qv), he received his professional training at Guy's Hospital, where he was House Physician, House Surgeon, and Resident Accoucheur, and at the Sussex County Hospital. He was at one time Resident Medical Officer at the Evelina Hospital for Sick Children, London, Clinical Assistant at the Royal Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields, and Assistant Surgeon at the Central London Ophthalmic Hospital. He went to 53 Norfolk Square, Hove, in 1870, and lived later at 1 Brunswick Place in partnership with his father, James Oldham (qv). Here his skill as an oculist brought him a large practice. He was Senior Surgeon to the Sussex and Brighton Hospital for Diseases of the Eye, Surgeon to the Brighton and Hove Dispensary, and at one time President of the Brighton and Sussex Medico-Chirurgical Society. At the time of his death he was Treasurer to the last-named Society and Consulting Surgeon to the Brighton Blind Asylum, besides holding his Surgeoncy at the Eye Hospital and his post at the Dispensary. From 1897-1899 he served on the Council of the Ophthalmological Society, and at the time of his death was Vice-President. In 1886 he was President of the Ophthalmological Section of the British Medical Association. He was well known in the profession, and in private life devoted himself to music and to the collection of rare instruments. Among the latter were three valuable 'Stradivarius' violins, a viola and a violoncello by the same famous maker. For the last-named he paid a price which ran into four figures, and one violin and the viola formed part of the set of instruments which Stradivarius is said to have made for the King of Spain of the time. Another of the violins once belonged to Rode, a great violinist of his day. Oldham was a Director of the Royal Academy of Music, and was the very active President of the Brighton Sacred Harmonic Society. His death occurred at his residence, 38 Brunswick Square, Brighton, on January 24th, 1907. As being of Founder's kin he left £3000 to Manchester Grammar School, "to be applied for the advancement of learning as the authorities may think fit", besides the residue of his estate, which it was thought might range between £7000 and £10,000. Another clause in the will ran that he "peremptorily requested and desired that no person be appointed as an additional trustee or executor of his will who shall be either a solicitor, a Jew, or a German although he may be a British subject, but that he desired rather that a competent business man in a responsible position, such as a bank manager, shall be appointed." Publication: At the International Ophthalmological Congress, held in London in 1872, Oldham read a paper on "An Improved Refracting Ophthalmoscope." - *Rep Int Ophthalmol Congress*, 1873, iv, 119.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002840
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Stusser, Israel (1876 - 1943)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-11-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004600-E004699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376836376836
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in London in 1876, the eldest son of Abraham Stusser, merchant, and his wife, *née* Sladowsky. He was educated at the South African College, Capetown, but returned to England for his medical training at the London Hospital. After holding resident posts there he studied under August Bier in Berlin and Anton von Eiselsberg in Vienna. Stusser returned to South Africa in 1905 for the sake of his health, and practised at Oudtshoorn, Cape Province, where he held the official post of district surgeon. He served for a time as chairman of the 1st division of the Cape Western branch of the South African Medical Association, affiliated to the British Medical Association. Stusser married in 1907 Pauline Lewin, and there were three daughters of the marriage. He died at Sea Point, Cape, on 11 August 1943. He was a linguist and classical scholar.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004653
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Sylvester, George Holden (1856 - 1934)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-11-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004600-E004699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376840376840
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born 25 October 1856 at South Petherton, Somerset, the eldest of ten children (seven sons) of Samuel Augustus Sylvester, who had retired from his sheep station in Australia in 1855, and Mary Catherine, his wife, daughter of the Rev Joseph Holden Johnson, Vicar of Tilshead, Devizes. He was educated at Weston-super-Mare and received the early part of his medical education from Samuel Grose, FRCS, at Melksham, Wilts, before he proceeded to St Bartholomew's Hospital. He became surgeon, AMS, 31 July 1880, surgeon-major and major, RAMC, 31 July 1892, lieutenant-colonel 1900, and was granted local rank of colonel whilst acting as PMO of a General Hospital in South Africa, 12 February 1901. He retired on 19 October 1907, and was re-employed during the war from 1 February 1915. He was on the Livery of the Grocers' Company, and was then a freeman of the City of London. He died unmarried at Bournemouth on 23 March 1934, and his ashes were buried at Tonbridge.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004657
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Pinch, Albert Edwin Hayward (1868 - 1948)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-10-02
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/376651376651
Occupation General surgeon Radiologist
Details Born 28 February 1868, the eldest son of Felix Pinch, civil servant on the Irish establishment, and his wife, *née* Hayward. He was educated at King Edward's School, Bath and at Bristol University College Medical School. After clinical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital he was admitted MRCS in 1894, and was elected to the Fellowship two years later. From 1894 to 1896 he was medical tutor and assistant lecturer in physiology at University College, Bristol. He was commissioned as surgeon-lieutenant in the Indian Medical Service on 29 July 1896, becoming captain in 1899. Pinch did brilliantly both at Bristol and the Army Medical School, Netley. He gained the first entrance scholarship, the Suple scholarship, and the Clarke scholarship in medicine, surgery, and obstetrics at the Bristol Medical School: the Fayrer prize in pathology the De Chaumont prize in hygiene, the Montefiore prize in surgery, and the Herbert scholarship at Netley. He served in the Bengal Presidency as one of the last officers commissioned on the special Bengal list, but contracted plague, and was invalided home with no hope of recovery. In fact he lived for nearly fifty years. He recovered sufficiently to become resident medical superintendent of the Medical Graduates' College and Policlinic at 22 Chenies Street, London, holding the post from 1899 to 1909 during which time he was also pathologist to the Alexandra Hospital for Children with Disease of the Hip, Queen Square, Bloomsbury. In 1908, after the King had been successfully treated by radium in Paris, Lord Iveagh and Sir Ernest Cassel presented a stock of radium for medical use in London. Sir Frederick Treves was appointed president of the Radium Institute in Riding House Street, Portland Place, established to administer this gift, and Pinch was chosen by him as resident medical superintendent and general director in March 1909. Pinch was sent on a tour of French, German, and Austrian radium institutes and clinics before taking up the post which he held till 1930. The Radium Institute was established for the treatment of patients by radium and to carry researches into the therapeutic and physical properties of radium and compounds. For this position Captain Pinch was admirably suited; urbane, tactful, and absolutely honest, he put the institute on a sound basis, which was satisfactory alike to the medical profession and to science. No patient was received until after arrangements had been made with the institute by the patient's medical attendant, while the results obtained were published annually. In these *Reports* Pinch included the cases where no benefit had been received as well as those which had been treated successfully, and pointed out the forms of disease which were most likely to be helped. The work of the Radium Institute was taken over by National Radium Commission in 1930, and Pinch was retired with the honorary status of consultant. Pinch gave up his work on radium, in which he had been deeply interested and retired to Westward Ho, North Devon, where he was able to enjoy his favourite recreation of golf. He usually spent a month every year salmon-fishing in Scotland. Through the long years of retirement he was frequently in ill-health as a result of his earlier illness and the effects his work with radium. He had a severe cerebral stroke in 1946, and died of cerebral haemorrhage in Bideford Hospital on 14 October 1948, aged 80. Hayward Pinch married in August 1896 Helen Nora Poole, who survived him, but without children. He left the remainder of his fortune, after his wife's life interest, to help necessitous students at St Bartholomew's Hospital and Bristol University Medical Faculty. Mrs Hayward Pinch died on 6 January 1953. Publications: *The Radium Institute, London; a clinical index of radium therapy*. London, 1925. *Manual of technique in radium therapy*. London, 1926. 40 plates. *Superficial radium therapy*. London, 1927. 50 plates. Radium therapy, in R Hutchison and H S Collier's *Index of treatment*, 1911, etc. Die Radiumtherapie der bösartigen Hautkrankheiten, in *Handbuch der gesamte Strahlenheilkunde*, 2nd edition, Munich, vol 2, part 2.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004468
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Barrington, Frederick James Fitzmaurice (1885 - 1956)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-01-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004800-E004899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377051377051
Occupation Genito-urinary surgeon Urologist
Details Educated at University College Hospital Medical School, where he won a university scholarship in physiology when he qualified in 1907 and the Atkinson Morley surgical scholarship in 1908. After holding resident posts at University College Hospital and St Peter's Hospital for Stone he was elected to the staff of both hospitals and was ultimately surgeon to St Peter's and consulting surgeon for genito-urinary diseases at University College Hospital. He pursued his surgical work with distinction and gave particular care to his students and hospital patients, but cared little for private practice. He was at heart a scientist and field-naturalist. While still a student he frequented the pathology department of the Zoological Gardens; later at St Peter's he carried through a valuable research on the nervous mechanism of micturition. He was uncommonly well-read in the literature of anatomy and physiology, and was a regular visitor to the College library in search of out of the way German books and articles by the older writers in these fields. He also had a wide and deep knowledge of botany, zoology, and comparative anatomy. Barrington was a member of the Physiological Society and of the Société internationale d'Urologie. At society meetings he could demolish an ill-founded hypothesis, but he was generous of his own knowledge and ready to admit ignorance and to explore the background of any subject which he thought he ought to study. All who got past his shy, harsh manner held him in affection and admiration. He often spent an evening in animated conversation at the Athenaeum, and equally enjoyed a day's shooting or sailing for the opportunity of observing wild-life. His informed enthusiasm on these occasions was an inspiration to his companions. His tall figure and brisk movements were long familiar in the parts of London where he lived and worked, for he set no store by appearances, never wore a hat or great-coat, and always walked; he was a well-known figure at the Athenaeum. During the second world war he organised a large genito-urinary service at the Emergency Medical Service hospital at Colindale. He had previously lived at 10 Chandos Street, Cavendish Square, and after the war settled at 14A Upper Wimpole Street. He died suddenly on 23 March 1956. A memorial service was held at St Pancras Church on 19 April 1956. He left £1000 each to the Severn Wildfowl Trust, the Ray Society, the British Ornithologists Union, and the libraries of the Athenaeum Club, the Linnean Society and the Zoological Society. Publications: The nervous mechanism of micturition. *Quart J exper Physiol* 1914, 8, 33. The relation of the hind-brain to micturition. *Brain* 1921, 44, 23.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004868
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Atkins, Sir John (1875 - 1963)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-01-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004800-E004899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377053377053
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 19 December 1875, the youngest son of William Atkins of Norwich, he received his medical education at Guy's Hospital. After holding appointments as house physician and assistant house surgeon, he went to the South African war on the staff of the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital and, on his return to civilian life, proceeded to the FRCS. Between the wars he practised in London. As a young doctor he realised the need to educate women in the domestic sciences in order to combat the suffering caused by malnutrition and bad hygiene. Happening to hear of the Home Science Department of King's College for Women, which had opened in Kensington Square in 1908, he obtained the co-operation of the ladies' committee in launching an appeal in 1911, for which he acted as secretary. In a very short time £100,000 was raised and in 1912 a site acquired on Campden Hill, on which the building of the Household and Social Science Department of King's College was begun in 1913. Atkins brought the scheme to the notice of Queen Mary and obtained her permission for the residential wing, which was opened in 1915, to be named after her. During the 1914-18 war Atkins served in France as the personal medical officer of Sir John French, later Earl of Ypres, Commander in Chief, with the rank of Colonel in the Army Medical Service. Later he was appointed Assistant Director General of Army Medical Services and Deputy Director of Medical Services in Great Britain. He was mentioned in dispatches four times, and was created CMG in 1916 and KCMG in 1919. In 1916 he wrote on chemical warfare and defence against gas attacks and on gas-proof dug-outs. He was a member of the experiments committee with the British Army in the Field, the anti-gas committee and the Central Medical war committee. On his return after the war he raised further funds for the building of the College on Campden Hill, which was completed in 1932, having become an independent school of the University of London in 1928. He served the College devotedly in many capacities: as honorary secretary of the Trust Fund from its inception in 1911 until the end of its statutory existence in 1953, as a member of Council from 1917 up to his death, and chairman from 1932 to 1958, and as chairman of the finance committee. In 1920 the degree of BSc (Household and Social Science) was instituted, and in 1953 a new charter was given with the name of Queen Elizabeth College by gracious permission of the Queen Mother. Sir John Atkins married in 1904 Elizabeth May, daughter of James Davies Smith, who died on 22 May 1962. Their only son is Professor Sir Hedley John Barnard Atkins KBE, PRCS. Sir John died at 95 Oakwood Court, London on 20 April 1963. Publication: *Origin and development of Queen Elizabeth College, University of London*. 1956.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004870
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Coaker, Francis William John (1871 - 1955)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-02-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004900-E004999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377143377143
Occupation General surgeon
Details Son of a yeoman farmer of Kingsbridge, South Devon, Francis Coaker studied medicine at the London Hospital. After holding resident appointments there he settled in practice at Bromsgrove in 1897. There he combined a large general practice with the post of surgeon to the Bromsgrove Cottage Hospital, which he expanded and modernised. Coaker was Medical Officer of Health for Bromsgrove Rural District Council from 1902 to 1946, he was Medical Officer to the guardians for many years, surgeon to the Worcestershire Mental Hospital, and a governor and later chairman of King Edward VII Sanatorium, Knightwick, near Worcester. In 1917 he was elected a member of the Worcestershire County Council and took an active part in the work of its committees, becoming chairman of the health committee. Coaker played a large part in securing the adoption of the BMA salary scale for public health medical officers in Worcestershire in the mid-twenties before any national scales were in operation. He often acted as arbitrator in disputes. He was chairman of the Bromsgrove Division of the BMA 1921-22, and of the Worcester and Bromsgrove Division in 1935-36, and president of the Worcestershire and Herefordshire Branch in 1937-38. During the second world war he was acting assistant secretary of the Worcester and Bromsgrove Division. Coaker became the "father" of the medical profession in Bromsgrove; he lived at Sunnymead, New Road until his retirement to Hele House, Dulverton, Somerset, where he died on 14 January 1955 aged 83. His wife, Diana Augusta Coaker, died on 28 March 1960 at Cliffden, Teignmouth, Devon, aged 79.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004960
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Colt, George Herbert (1878 - 1957)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-02-05
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004900-E004999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377151377151
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Hampstead in 1878, the third son of Frederick Hoare Colt, a barrister and bencher of the Inner Temple, George Herbert Colt was educated at Tonbridge School and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he became a scholar. He obtained a first-class in the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1900, and completed his medical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1904. He had an original and fertile brain and was frequently inventing work-saving methods and appliances both in his professional life and for his many hobbies. In the *Lancet* of 19 September 1903 Sir D'Arcy Power reported "A case of aneurysm of the abdominal aorta treated by the introduction of silver wire, with a description of instruments invented and constructed by Mr G H Colt to facilitate the introduction of wire into aneurysms". This was a year before Colt qualified. He held appointments as house surgeon and junior and senior resident anaesthetist at St Bartholomew's, obtained the FRCS in 1908 and became senior house surgeon at the Derby Royal Infirmary. Two years later Colt was appointed assistant surgeon at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, where he remained until 1934. In 1914 he was honorary secretary of the Section of Surgery at the BMA Annual Meeting in Aberdeen. On the outbreak of the first world war in 1914, Colt was mobilised with his chief, Sir John Marnoch at the 1st Scottish General Hospital, and in 1916 went to Salonika in charge of the surgical division of the 43rd General Hospital. From November 1918 to September 1919 he was officer in command of the surgical division of the 82nd General Hospital at Constantinople. After the war Colt returned to Aberdeen and in 1923 was appointed full surgeon at the Royal Infirmary. He was also assistant to the professor of surgery, Sir John Marnoch, in the University and lecturer in clinical surgery. In 1934 he returned to London and set up in practice at 10 Harley Street. Later he became consultant in surgery to the Gravesend and North Kent Hospital. Colt was a good mechanic and always kept a workshop. Besides his apparatus for the treatment of aneurysm of the aorta, he invented a needle for the tension stitch, a distraction apparatus for fixing and holding the fractured ends of bones ready for plating, and an interchangeable "pistol grip" for a bone-drill. Colt had a quiet manner which concealed his courage and tenacity of purpose. For twenty years he studied necropsies on aneurysm and collected some 707 cases. Colt was twice married: his first wife Henrietta, daughter of Thomas Dick and a former Sister at Bart's, died on 1 October 1950; they had one daughter. His second wife, Constance Elizabeth White, died on 26 July 1957 and he died at his home West Meade, Lockner Holt, Chilworth, near Guildford, three months later on 26 October 1957, aged 79. He was warmly attached to the College, regularly attended the public lectures here, and presented a number of engraved portraits of medical men to the Library. Publications: Tuberculous disease of the abdominal lymphatic glands, with G N Clark. *Lancet* 1937, 1, 125. Some surgical aspects of tuberculous disease of the abdominal lymphatic glands, with G N Clark. *Surg Gynec Obstet* 1937, 65, 771.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004968
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Beck, Diana Jean Kinloch (1902 - 1956)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-01-22
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004800-E004899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377080377080
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Born at Chester on 29 June 1902, the only daughter of James and Margaret Beck, she was educated at the Queen's School there and at the London School of Medicine for Women, where she won prizes and scholarships. After a few successful years as a general surgeon, she decided to specialise in neurosurgery and trained in Sir Hugh Cairns's exacting school at Oxford, holding the William Gibson research scholarship awarded by the Royal Society of Medicine in 1939. During the war of 1939-45 she practised and taught at Oxford, Enfield, and Bristol, and was appointed neurosurgeon at the Royal Free Hospital in 1943. She received a remarkable tribute to her abilities in being appointed in 1947 neurosurgeon at the Middlesex Hospital, the first appointment of a woman to the senior staff of a major teaching hospital in London. She quickly made her mark here as surgeon, teacher, and popular member of the community. She published valuable papers in *Brain*, *The British Journal of Surgery*, and elsewhere, her latest work being on the surgical treatment of intracerebral haemorrhage. She served for two years as president of the London Association of the Medical Women's Federation. She was the only woman neurosurgeon of consultant rank in western Europe or North America, and carried her exhausting work and responsibilities with consummate ability in spite of frail physique. She was a woman of naturally fastidious taste and open-hearted generosity. She died suddenly on 3 March 1956, when apparently well on the way to recovery after undergoing thymectomy. A memorial service was held in Middlesex Hospital Chapel on 22 March. She was survived by her two brothers. Publications: Oligodendrogliomatosis of the cerebrospinal pathway, with D S Russell. *Brain* 1942, 65, 352-372. Implantation of acrylic resin discs in rabbits' skulls, with D S Russell and others. *Brit J Surg* 1945, 33, 83-6. Experiments on thrombosis of the superior longitudinal sinus, with D S Russell. *J Neurosurg* 1946, 3, 337-347. Intracranial haemorrhage in closed head injuries. *Arch Middx Hosp* 1954, 4, 231-255. Sequelae of head injuries. *Trans Ass Indust Med Off* 1955, 5, 77-83.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004897
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Haldin-Davis, Haldinstein David (1881 - 1949)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-06-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004100-E004199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376326376326
Occupation Dermatologist
Details Born 9 May 1881, the eldest child of Richard Abraham Davis, merchant, and his wife, a daughter of Philip Haldinstein of Norwich. He was educated at Charterhouse and at Balliol College, Oxford, of which he was a scholar, and took first class honours in physiology. He was president of the University Junior Science Club. He had his clinical training at St Bartholomew's, intending to be a surgeon. He held various house appointments, and was for a time an assistant at the City of London Hospital for Diseases of the Chest. Under the influence of H S Adamson he became interested in skin diseases, and was appointed chief assistant in the skin department at St Bartholomew's. He was then appointed to the staff of the dermatological department at the Royal Free Hospital, and devoted himself particularly to the Blackfriars Hospital for Diseases of the Skin. He was also visiting dermatologist to the Children's Hospital, Paddington Green. Haldin-Davis was a pioneer of the x-ray treatment of ringworm, and for many years conducted a successful clinic under the Willesden Borough Council. During the first world war he served in the RAMC in Palestine, and on demobilization was appointed dermatologist to the Ministry of Pensions. Subsequently he was a medical referee under the Home Office, and from 1948 under the newly created Ministry of National Insurance. Haldin-Davis was secretary of the dermatological section at the British Medical Association's annual meeting in 1922 and a vice-president in 1927 and 1929. He was president of the dermatological section of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1937-39. He had no aptitude for research, but was a skilled clinician and lecturer, and an acute critic in demand as a reviewer. He practised at 52 Harley Street, and as he took an interest in civic affairs, particularly in housing and town planning, and was a good man of business he was elected a Borough Councillor of St Marylebone. After his retirement he lived at Greens End, Forest Row, Sussex, and served on the local hospital committees at East Grinstead and Tunbridge Wells. Haldin-Davis married in 1924 Lily, widow of Frank Samuel. He died on 2 February 1949, aged 67, at his home in the country, survived by his wife and step-daughter. He was a popular man of ready wit and generous hospitality, familiarly known as "Hal", and was a member of the Johnsonian Club. Publications:- *Skin diseases in general practice*. Oxford University Press, 1913; 3rd edition, 1937. *Modern skin therapy*. London: Cape, 1930. He gives here detailed descriptions of technique, and records his method of x-ray treatment for tinea tonsurans.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004143
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Coupland, James Alane (1880 - 1957)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Spencer, Walter George (1858 - 1940)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-11-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004600-E004699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376815376815
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 27 September 1858 at Little Chalfield, Wilts, the eldest son and first child of Walter Spencer, farmer, and his wife Mary Hulbert, of Lenton, Wilts. Educated at Weymouth College, he entered the medical school of St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1881 and soon made his name. He won the junior scholarship in 1882, the senior scholarship in 1884, served as house surgeon to Alfred Willett in 1885, and was awarded the Lawrence scholarship and gold medal, which enabled him to undertake research work under Sir Victor Horsley at the Brown Institute. The results were published in the *Philosophical Transactions* in 1891: "On the changes produced in the circulation and respiration by increase of the intracranial pressure or tension", and in 1894: "On the results of Faradaic excitation of the cerebrum in the monkey, dog, cat, and rabbit". He also spent short periods of postgraduate study in Berlin and Halle. At the Westminster Hospital, then in Broad Sanctuary opposite to Westminster Abbey, he was elected assistant surgeon on 19 July 1887, surgeon on 20 July 1897, and consulting surgeon on 27 November 1923. In the Medical School attached to the hospital he was appointed lecturer on physiology in 1893 and lecturer on clinical surgery in 1897. He was a member of the house committee from 1895 until his death nearly half a century later. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was awarded the Jacksonian prize in 1889 for his essay on "The pathology, diagnosis, and surgical treatment of intracranial abscess and tumour." He was a member of the Court of Examiners 1908-18 and of the Council 1915-26, serving as vice-president for two successive years, 1924-26. He was Arris and Gale lecturer in 1895, when he chose as his subject "The pathology of the lymphadenoid structure", Erasmus Wilson lecturer in 1896-97, Vicary lecturer in 1922, and Bradshaw lecturer in 1923. The Vicary lecture he devoted to "Vesalius, his delineation of the framework of the human body in the Fabrica and the Epitome". In 1920 he gave three lectures as Hunterian professor on animal experiments and surgery. It was noticed that he usually shut his eyes when he stood up to speak. During the war he held a commission as major, RAMC(T), was surgeon to the 4th London General Hospital, and was decorated OBE. He was elected a member of the Senate of the University of London, and worked there hand and glove with his friend Sir Ernest Graham Little, MP, with whom it was his custom to take a long country walk every Sunday. He married Elizabeth Chorlton on 21 February 1891. She survived him with one son. A daughter died in March 1923, whilst holding a resident appointment at the Victoria Hospital for Children in Tite Street, Chelsea. He died at 41 Harley House, NW1, on 29 October 1940. Mrs Spencer died on 29 December 1944, aged 91. Spencer had many interests outside surgery. He was especially interested in the organization of libraries. He worked at the London Library under Sir Charles Hagberg Wright; at the British Medical Association's library, when the Association moved from the Strand to new premises in Tavistock Square; served as honorary librarian of the Royal Society of Medicine; and was very useful during his term of office as chairman of the library committee of the Royal College of Surgeons. To the end of his life he kept himself *au courant* with the work going on in the world of surgery at home and abroad. Having undertaken to translate Celsus for the Loeb Library series, he produced three volumes in which he was able to use his knowledge of surgery to explain many debatable points which had puzzled previous editors. He also did excellent service as a joint editor (1930) of Plarr's *Lives of the Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons*. He left unfinished a fuller *History of the Westminster Hospital* than the "outline" which he published, and at the time of his death he had collected notes for a translation of Galen's surgical writings. Using a rich Wiltshire dialect he enjoyed discussion, and his feelings were never hurt if he were left in a minority of one. Publications: Pathology of the lymphadenoid structures, Erasmus Wilson lectures. *Lancet*, 1897, 1, 648, etc. *Outlines of practical surgery*. London, 1898. *Animal experiments and surgery*, Hunterian lectures. London, 1920. *Westminster Hospital, an outline of its history*. London, 1934. Celsus *De medicina*, edited and translated. Loeb Classical Library, 3 vols, 1935-38. Butlin's *Diseases of the tongue*, 2nd edition by Butlin and Spencer, 1900; 3rd edition by Stanford Cade and Spencer, 1931. Walsham's *Surgery*, 8th edition, 1903, and 9th edition, 1906. *The practice of surgery*, with G E Gask. London, 1910.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004632
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Spicer, William Thomas Holmes (1860 - 1935)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-11-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004600-E004699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376816376816
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Born 15 August 1860 at Saffron Walden, Essex, the second child and only son of William Spicer and Anne Holmes, his wife. His father owned a considerable amount of land as well as the Rose and Crown Hotel in Saffron Walden; his mother came of a family of brewers in Yorkshire. Holmes Spicer was educated at Saffron Walden School and at Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet. He went to Cambridge, matriculated and, after living for some time as a non-collegiate student, entered Gonville and Caius College in March 1879. He graduated with third-class honours in the Natural Sciences Tripos 1880, and then went to St Bartholomew's Hospital. Here he won the Bentley prize and the Brackenbury surgical scholarship, and became president of the Abernethian Society. He served a year of office as house surgeon to Alfred Willett, and was for six months ophthalmic house surgeon to Henry Power and to Bowater J Vernon. For a short time he was in general practice, first in Pimlico and later in Bedford Square, but soon determined to devote himself to the study of diseases of the eye and became a clinical assistant at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields. In 1890 he was elected ophthalmic surgeon to the Victoria Hospital for Children in Tite Street, Chelsea, a post he held until 1899. During this period he did much good work in connexion with the disease then known as "scurvy rickets" or "Barlow's disease", which was common amongst the improperly fed children attending his clinic. In 1896 he was elected dean of the newly organized School at the Moorfields Ophthalmic Hospital. He carried out the duties admirably, and was made surgeon to the hospital in 1898 on the resignation of Edward Nettleship, holding office until 1920. At St Bartholomew's Hospital he became ophthalmic surgeon in 1901 upon the death of Bowater J Vernon, and held the post until 1925, when he retired on reaching the age of sixty-five. He was complimented by being made consulting ophthalmic surgeon and a governor of the Hospital, and was for several years a member of the house and visiting committees. He was an active member of the Ophthalmic Society of the United Kingdom and of the ophthalmological section of the Royal Society of Medicine, and of this latter he was president for the years 1918-20. In 1923 he was awarded the Gifford prize for his work on parenchymatous keratitis. He married twice: (1) Florence, daughter of the Rev Enoch Mellor; she died during a pleasure trip in Spain; (2) Helen, daughter of James H Dunham of New York, who survived him and died on 27 March 1937. There were no children by either marriage. He died on 8 August 1935 at Elmley House, Wimbledon Common, and his ashes were buried in the old Parish Church at Wimbledon. Spicer was a good organizer, an excellent teacher, and an admirable operator, for he had great delicacy of touch. Tall and heavy in build, he spoke quietly and with some apparent reluctance, so that he shone more in the teaching of small classes than in the lecture room. He had a pretty wit, which was never sarcastic but was given with a quiet smile peculiarly his own. He did not court popularity, not was he eager to cultivate practice. His real interest in life seemed to lie in water-colour sketching, in which he was really proficient and was especially happy in depicting the colouring and moods of the sea and rocks. Publications: Parenchymatous keratitis; interstitial keratitis; uveitis anterior. The Gifford Edmonds prize in ophthalmology. *Brit J Ophthal* 1924, Monograph supplement No 1. The essay is illustrated with Spicer's own drawings. Nettleship's *Diseases of the eye*, 6th edition, revised by W T H Spicer. London, 1897.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004633
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bowes, Robert Kenneth (1904 - 1958)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-01-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004900-E004999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377095377095
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Born 30 October 1904, the son of Joseph Edward Bowes MB, of Keswick, Cumberland, who survived him, Kenneth Bowes was educated at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Blackburn, where his father was in practice. At the University of Liverpool he studied medicine and was awarded the Holt fellowship in physiology in 1928. He was gold medallist in obstetrics and gynaecology. In 1929 he obtained the MB ChB with first-class honours and the MB BS London, also with honours. After qualifying Bowes held resident appointments at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary, and in 1931 was appointed surgical registrar at St Thomas's Hospital, London. He was admitted FRCS in 1931, and proceeded to MS London in 1932 and MD in 1935. He decided to specialise in obstetrics and gynaecology, and after holding resident posts in that department at St Thomas's Hospital he finally became consultant surgeon there. He was also a demonstrator of anatomy and Louis Jenner research scholar. He was surgeon to the Grosvenor Hospital for Women and a consultant gynaecologist to the South-Western Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board. Bowes was an external examiner for the University of Glasgow and also examined in obstetrics and gynaecology for the Conjoint Board and the University of London. In 1949 he was Arris and Gale lecturer at the Royal College of Surgeons; his subject was the superficial veins in the female, and he illustrated his lecture with infrared photographs. In 1955 he was elected FRCOG. He married Phyllis, daughter of Ernest W Miller of Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan, Canada in 1933, who survived him with one son. He lived at Guildford, with consulting rooms in Vincent Square, Westminster and he died on 1 February 1958 in St Thomas's Hospital, aged 53. Kenneth Bowes was a quiet, unassuming man, of encyclopaedic knowledge and prodigious memory, which served him well as editor of *Modern Trends in Obstetrics and Gynaecology*. Bowes had little interest in games or sport, and gardening was his chief relaxation. He was held in great affection by all who knew him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004912
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bradfield, Sir Ernest William Charles (1880 - 1963)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-01-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004900-E004999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377097377097
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 28 May 1880, son of W G Bradfield of Moseley. He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham and St Mary's Hospital, London, where he obtained an open scholarship in science in 1898. He joined the IMS on 31 August 1903 and first saw service on the North-West Frontier in 1908, being awarded a medal with clasp. In the 1914-18 war he was again on the Frontier and later in Mesopotamia and was mentioned in dispatches and promoted Major on 28 February 1915. On 28 February 1923 he was promoted Lieutenant-Colonel, and in 1924 was appointed Professor of Surgery at the Madras Medical College; during his term there he brought the hospital, the oldest in the country, up to the level of the most modern. In 1933 he served in the Upper Mohmand campaign and was again mentioned in dispatches. He was Honorary Surgeon to the King-Emperor 1935-39 and was Medical Director General of the IMS 1937-39. He was more interested in maintaining the efficiency of the service than in deferring to the movement towards Indianisation, and left India without the customary knighthood. He returned to England in 1939 to become President of the Medical Branch of the India Office and medical adviser to the Secretary of State, holding this position till 1946. Early in the second world war he was sent to India, as a member of the Souttar Commission, to investigate the lack of medical officers for service with the armies of the East owing to the non-co-operation of the Indian Congress Party. He was largely instrumental in the formation of the Indian Army Medical Corps, and was created KCIE in 1941 for his services. Throughout his life he was keenly interested in sport. At St Mary's he represented the Hospital at Rugby football and cricket. During his military service in India while attached to the 31st Lancers he played polo for the regiment, an unusual achievement for a doctor. In 1920 he married Margaret Anne, daughter of H A Barnard of Olton, by whom he had two daughters. He died on 26 October 1963 at Putney Hospital.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004914
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Dickson, William Muir (1891 - 1956)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-02-10
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/377188377188
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Glasgow on 17 September 1891, he was educated at Lanark Grammar School and Edinburgh University where he graduated in 1914. After holding a resident appointment at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary he joined the RAMC and served in Mesopotamia, Persia and India; he was mentioned in dispatches for his services on the North-West Frontier. After the war he did postgraduate work at the London and University College Hospitals and in 1920 obtained the FRCS. After a period at the Royal Northern, he became registrar at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. In 1924 Muir Dickson was elected surgeon to the Willesden General Hospital, at that time a cottage hospital. He realised the limitations of the services offered, and established consultative out-patient sessions in 1927. Shortly after this the other specialists established out-patient sessions too, taking an important step towards creating a general hospital. In 1934 Dickson was elected surgeon to the Victoria Hospital for Children, Tite Street, a post he held until his death. During the second world war Dickson rejoined the RAMC in 1941. After serving for a while in England he was posted to the Near East. He spent two years in Palestine and Cyprus, and was then transferred to Gibraltar in charge of a surgical division, where he accomplished magnificent work. He was demobilised in 1945 with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and immediately resumed his civilian work. In 1955 he underwent the first of a series of abdominal operations. Though knowing that his illness was incurable, after each operation he returned to work as quickly as possible, but finally was obliged to enter Willesden General Hospital just after Christmas 1955; by the following September, when he was due to retire, he would have served 32 years on the consultant staff. He died on 13 February 1956, aged 64.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005005
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Springford, William Edmund (1913 - 1954)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-06-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005500-E005599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377741377741
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Faversham, Kent, the son of William Lionel Springford, he was educated at Charing Cross Hospital, qualifying in 1936. After holding resident posts at the Kent and Sussex Hospital, Tunbridge Wells, and the Chesterfield and North Derby Royal Hospital, he was surgical registrar at Charing Cross Hospital, where he won the J H Morgan surgical prize in 1942. He was appointed to the staff of the Mount Vernon Hospital, Northwood, and was consulting surgeon to the Royal Masonic Institute for Girls. He lived at Copthorne, Ducks Hill, Northwood, Middlesex, and died there on 18 May 1954 aged 41, survived by his wife. Publication: Congenital elephantiasis. *Proc Roy Soc Med* 1944, 37, 232-233.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005558
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Thomson, Sir St Clair (1859 - 1943)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/376894376894
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Born 28 July 1859 at Fahan, Londonderry, Ireland, the seventh child of the five sons and three daughters of John Gibson Thomson of Ardrishaig, Argyllshire, civil engineer, a pupil of Thomas Telford, and his wife Catherine, a daughter of John Sinclair of Lochaline House, Morven, Sound of Mull. Mrs J G Thomson was born on 5 January 1818 and died in 1909 (*Oban Times*, 27 March 1909). He was educated at the village school at Ardrishaig till he was ten, when he went to King's School, Peterborough, and was afterwards apprenticed to his eldest brother, William, who was in practice at Peterborough. He passed the first London MB from private study during this time. William Sinclair-Thomson, MD Glasgow 1869, FRCS Edinburgh 1879, had been a pupil of Lister in Scotland but, as Lister moved to London, St Clair was sent to King's College Hospital, entering as a student on the same day, 1 October 1877, that Lister entered as professor of surgery. Here he won prizes and scholarships and served as house surgeon to Lister in 1883. William Sinclair-Thomson later moved from Peterborough to the West End of London, where he long carried on a successful general practice. St Clair Thomson next became resident medical officer at Queen Charlotte's, and made some voyages to the Cape of Good Hope as surgeon in a Union Castle liner. While at Queen Charlotte's he adopted the strictest Listerian methods, and no mother or infant was lost during his term of office. He next had the chance of travelling in Europe as personal physician to a rich invalid, who was an enthusiastic amateur of works of art. Thomson acquired a mastery of several languages, and developed his taste and artistic knowledge by frequenting the great galleries of the continent. He practised for seven years among the British colony at Florence in the winters and at St Moritz in the Engadine in the summers, for which purpose he took the MD of Lausanne by examination in 1891. Feeling that he had no scope for his ambition he then attended the clinics and lectures of the laryngologists of Vienna: Leopold Schroetter, Ritter von Kristelli, Carl Stoerk, and in particular Markus Hajek, and also Adan Politzer, the professor of otology. After further study at Freiburg, Frankfort, and Paris he came back to London in 1893, took the Fellowship at the end of the year, and set up as a consultant laryngologist. He often recalled the happy summer days at the Redehof in Vienna. To fill the lean years he sub-edited *The Practitioner* and later edited *The Laryngoscope*, lectured at the London Policlinic, and made important researches on nasal bacteriology at the Lister Institute. These he published in collaboration with Richard Tanner Hewlett (1865-1940). He also worked with W D Halliburton, FRS (1860-1931) on the cerebrospinal fluid. His election as surgeon to the Royal Ear Hospital and physician to the Throat Hospital in Golden Square provided him with clinical experience. In 1901 he was appointed assistant physician to the throat department at King's College Hospital, but he developed tuberculosis of the lung and larynx and had to go to a sanatorium under the care of Patrick Watson-Williams (1863-1938). Here he rigorously endured the regime of silence, perhaps the first patient in England to do so; for six months he was dumb. He had hardly recovered from this check when his wife died (1905); they had been married in 1899. Thomson turned with energy to his clinic at King's College Hospital and also worked at the Seamen's Hospital. His appointment as throat physician to King Edward VII helped greatly to increase his private practice. In 1903 he was elected FRCP, ten years after his admission as FRCS, and in 1911 he permanently established his fame by his book *Diseases of the Nose and Throat*, which became the bible of his specialty, and ran to four editions in his lifetime. Thomson was particularly interested in tuberculosis of the larynx, from which he had himself suffered, and his appointment as laryngologist to the King Edward VII Sanatorium at Midhurst gave him opportunities for valuable clinical work and observation. In 1924 the Medical Research Council published his account of ten years' experience there. At King's College Hospital he became ultimately consulting physician and emeritus professor of laryngology, and he was elected a Fellow of King's College. He was unanimously invited to take the chair at the students' celebration of the centenary of King's in 1930. He was also consulting laryngologist to the Italian Hospital, Queen Square, and to the Throat and Eye Hospital, Maidstone, and professor of laryngology and otology at the Royal Army Medical College. Thomson was consulting throat physician to the Actors' Association and to the Association of Music Hall Artistes, and physician to the Royal Italian Opera. He had counted among his friends Beerbohm Tree, George Alexander, and Charles Wyndham, and was a frequenter of the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells and the Malvern and Stratford dramatic festivals. Deafness in later years made him transfer his interest from plays to ballet. He kept up his continental connexions throughout his life, and received many professional and public honours abroad. He was promoted in 1916 from being a foreign correspondent to foreign associateship in the Académie de Médecine at Paris, and he was a member of the American Laryngological Society. He was officier of the Légion d'Honneur and also received the Médaille de Réconnaissance française. In Belgium he attended King (then Prince) Leopold III in 1915 and was created commendateur of the Ordre de Léopold, and he was a commendatore della Corona d'Italia. He frequented Fontainebleau and Vittel and loved to ride there, and in London he rode regularly in the Row, maintaining that riding and dancing were the best exercise. Thomson usually travelled in a large yellow Rolls-Royce car, which with its distinguished-looking occupant attracted much attention. Till an advanced age he often spent the week-ends sculling on the river at Long Wittenham. He took an active part in professional societies, becoming president of the Medical Society of London in 1915-16, when he gave a learned presidential address on Lettsom and the founders of the Society. From 1925 to 1927 he was president of the Royal Society of Medicine; and while holding this office enabled the Society to obtain the grant of an achievement of arms, and presented a chain and badge for his successors. To mark his presidency one hundred and seventy-five laryngologists presented him with a loving-cup in 1926. He had already been president of the sections of otology and of the history of medicine within the Society. He was president of the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, which he had helped to found. He was three times president of the section of otolaryngology at annual meetings of the British Medical Association: in 1909 at Belfast, in 1930 at Winnipeg, when he received the honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Manitoba, and at the centenary meeting in London in 1932. In 1913 he was president of the section of laryngology at the last International Medical Congress. He was knighted in 1912. At the Royal College of Physicians he served as an examiner 1924-26, and on the Council 1925-27; he was awarded the Weber-Parkes medal and prize for his researches in tuberculosis in 1936, and in 1924 had delivered the Mitchell lecture on "Tuberculosis of the larynx, and its significance to the physician". He gave the Semon lecture before the University of London; he was founding president of the University of London Medical Graduates Association from 1927, the inaugural meeting having been held in his house. Thomson practised at 64 Wimpole Street, where he also collected the fine furniture and works of art among which he delighted to dispense princely hospitality. His elder sister, Matilda (Maud) Louisa Thomson, kept house for him; she outlived him, dying on 30 January 1944, aged 90. He was a skilled and charming speaker and a fluent writer. Though somewhat pompous and affectedly formal with strangers, he was beloved by his friends and a loyal, humane, and amusing companion with a cultivated knowledge of the world and its good things. Though the air of worldly self-assurance did not fail to provoke jealousy, he was an accomplished peace-maker, possessing great tact and suavity. Thomson had a cat-like love of comfort and told against himself how, after a train accident near Lyons, he had refused assistance at Professor Léon Eugène Bérard's clinic, only to find himself, when the clinic was already full, more injured than he had thought and compelled to endure the rigours of the Salle des Blessés at the Hotel-Dieu. In his last years he consciously paraded his valetudinarianism, and his death from the results of a street-accident was cruelly ironic. Thomson died at Edinburgh on 29 January 1943, at the age of 83. A memorial service was held at Golder's Green crematorium on 3 February. Thomson had been living in Scotland since 1940, when his London house was damaged in an air-raid. He left £1,000 each to the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund and to the Royal Society of Medicine, and £500 each to the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons and to Epsom College, and on the death of his sisters £4,000 to the Royal Society of Medicine and £500 each to the Royal College of Physicians and Epsom College, as well as other charitable bequests. Thomson delighted to honour his famous teachers, particularly Hajek and Lister. He gave to the Royal College of Surgeons his own notes of Hajek's lectures of 1893, and welcomed Hajek himself when he came to England as a refugee from German tyranny in 1938. Of Lister he wrote an account: "Joseph Lister, personal memories" in the *King's College Hospital Gazette* for October 1927, and deposited one thousand reprints at the Hospital, so that each new student for many years might receive a copy. He gave the Royal College of Surgeons three autographs of Lister in 1941. In 1883 he had exhibited with his master at the Medical Society of London the first six cases of wiring the patella, and recalled the occasion at a meeting in the same room fifty-six years later. Thomson stated that he had never seen the vocal cords or the ear-drum in the living when he qualified, and that the only operation for adenoids then known was for the surgeon to scratch them out blindly with his nail while the hospital porter held down the child-patient. His first book was a translation from the German of A Onodi's *Anatomy of the nasal cavity*, published in 1895. In 1910 he reported the first British case of the successful removal of a foreign body, a shawl-pin, impacted in the secondary bronchus. His most original contribution to surgery was the operation of laryngo-fissure for intrinsic cancer of the larynx, a subject second only to tuberculosis in his interests, and one on which he wrote a book in collaboration with Lionel Colledge, FRCS. He was attracted to the study of cancer of the larynx through the work of Sir Henry Butlin and Sir Felix Semon, FRCP; and he improved the technique of their operation of thyrotomy for limited cancers of the vocal cord. Publications: A Onodi. *The anatomy of the nasal cavity*, translated 1895. Microorganisms of the healthy nose, with R T Hewlett. *Med-chir Trans*, 1895, 78,239-266. The fate of microorganisms in inspired air, with R T Hewlett. *Lancet*, 1896, 1, 86. *The cerbro-spinal fluid, its spontaneous escape from the nose; with observations on its composition and function in the human subject*. London 1899; New York 1901. *Diseases of the nose and throat, comprising affections of the trachea and oesophagus*. London, 1911; 2nd edition, 1916; 3rd, 1926; 4th, with V E Negus, 1937. Shakespeare and medicine, annual oration. *Trans Med Soc Lond* 1915-16, 39, 257-325. John Coakley Lettsom and the foundation of the Medical Society of London, presidential address, October 1917. *Trans Med Soc Lond* 1917-18, 41, 1-61, with map and 2 plates. Tuberculosis of the larynx; ten years' experience in a sanatorium. *Medical Research Council, Special Report Series*, 83, 1924. Antimonyall cups, pocula emetica or calices vomitorii. *Proc Roy Soc Med* 1925-26, 19, history p 123-128, with coloured plate. Joseph Lister, personal memories. *King's Coll Hosp Gaz*, Oct. 1927; also as a special illustrated reprint, with cover-title Lister 1827-1912, *a house-surgeon's memories*, 1938. *Cancer of the larynx*, with Lionel Colledge. London, 1930.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004711
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bremner, John Cameron (1930 - 1973)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/377847377847
Occupation Maxillofacial surgeon Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Bremner was born in Queensland, Australia on 8 November 1930 and educated at Melbourne University, Victoria; later he moved to Perth, Western Australia, where he was making a distinguished career in plastic surgery when he fell ill and died at the age of forty-two. At the University he won the Syme Prize in Anatomy with an Exhibition in 1950, the Ryan Prize in Surgery in 1953, and qualified that year; in 1956 he passed Part 1 of the MS examination. After holding resident posts at the Royal Melbourne Hospital he was appointed in 1956 associate-assistant surgeon to E E Dunlop and became associate-assistant to B K Rank, plastic and facio-maxillary surgeon to the Hospital; he was also part-time surgeon to the Casualty Clinic and assistant to A R Wakefield, reparative surgeon to the Peter MacCallum Clinic, Melbourne Cancer Institute. In the same period he was a demonstrator, first of pathology and then of surgery, in the University and from 1957 clinical supervisor of students at the Hospital. He won a Fulbright Fellowship for advanced study at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1959. On his way to America he visited London, took the Fellowship, and attended the Second International Congress of Plastic Surgery. At Pittsburgh he held the post of teaching fellow and preceptor in plastic surgery, and undertook research on tendon healing. He also attended the meetings of the Canadian and American Societies of Plastic Surgeons, and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the latter; he became a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons in 1961. He returned to Australia in 1960 on appointment to the staff of the plastic and maxillo-facial unit at the Royal Perth Hospital, and was promoted to be surgeon to the unit in 1964. He was also plastic surgeon to the Fremantle Hospital, and consultant plastic surgeon to the Royal Australian Navy, in which he had held the rank of Surgeon-Lieutenant, RAN Reserve, since 1955. He was lecturer in surgery at the University of Western Australia, and a member of the West Australia State Medical Planning Committee; he built up a prosperous private practice, and was active in the West Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons. Bremner was a cultivated and generous man; he gave a munificent donation in 1973 to buy works of art for the adornment of the Medical School at the University of Western Australia in the hope that future students would enjoy looking at the pictures and broaden their interests. His recreations were tennis, golf and sailing; he was interested in farming and a partner in two grazing and beef-cattle properties outside Perth. He was also a keen Freemason, and was Master-elect of the St George Lodge, Perth at the time of his death. Bremner was seriously ill in 1972, received leave from his duties, and died at Portsea, Victoria on 8 June 1973 aged forty-two; he was unmarried. Publications: Correlation of tongue changes and nutrition. *Roy Melb Hosp Clin Rep* 1952, 22, 46. Splenic vein thrombosis in patient with myeloproliferative syndrome. *Roy Melb Hosp Clin Rep* 1954, 24, 117.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005664
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ashworth, James (1927 - 2007)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by John Blandy
Publication Date 2012-01-27 2012-08-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001900-E001999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374111374111
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details James Ashworth was an orthopaedic surgeon in Darlington and Northallerton. He was born on 2 November 1927 in Rossendale, the eldest son of George Ashworth, a yarn agent, and Doris Ashworth née Honey. He attended Haslingden Grammar School and Manchester University, where he was in the cross-country running team and played rugby. He qualified in 1951 with distinctions in medicine and forensic medicine. After junior posts at Manchester Royal Infirmary, he completed his National Service in the RAMC as regimental medical officer to the 1/7 Gurkha Regiment. On leaving the Army he specialised in orthopaedics, holding registrar and then senior registrar posts at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford and the United Leeds Hospitals. He was then appointed as a consultant to Darlington and Northallerton. He married Mary Sinnott in 1966, with whom he had two daughters. Ashworth died in 2007.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001928
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Toynbee, Joseph (1815 - 1866)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-12-21
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/375479375479
Occupation ENT surgeon General surgeon Philanthropist
Details The second son of George Toynbee, a large tenant farmer and landowner in Lincolnshire, was born at Heckington in that county on December 30th, 1815. He was educated at King's Lynn Grammar School, and was apprenticed at the age of 17 to William Wade, of the Westminster General Dispensary in Gerrard Street, Soho. He studied anatomy at the Little Windmill Street School under George Derby Dermott and became an expert dissector. He attended the practice of St George's and University College Hospitals, and showed his interest in diseases of the ear as early as 1836, when he wrote letters to the *Lancet* under the initials 'J T'. In 1838 he assisted Richard Owen (qv), who was then Conservator of the Hunterian Museum, and was soon afterwards elected one of the Surgeons to the St James's and St George's Dispensary, where he established a useful Samaritan Fund. He also promoted the building of a model lodging-house near Broad Street, Golden Square. He was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1842 for his researches demonstrating that articular cartilage, the cornea, the crystalline lens, the vitreous humour, and the epidermal appendages contained no blood-vessels. Toynbee lived in Argyll Place, Regent Street, so long as he was Surgeon to the Dispensary, and there began to specialize in aural surgery, but soon becoming successful moved to 18 Savile Row. When St Mary's Hospital was established in 1852 he was nominated the first Aural Surgeon and Lecturer on Diseases of the Ear, holding the appointments until 1864. He married in August, 1846, Harriet, daughter of Nathaniel Holmes, and by her had nine children, of whom the second son, Arnold (1852-1883), was the well-known social philosopher and economist, a founder of the first University Settlement - Toynbee Hall. Joseph Toynbee died from an overdose of chloroform on July 7th, 1866, and was buried in the churchyard of St Mary's, Wimbledon. At the time of his death he was Aural Surgeon to the Earlswood Asylum for Idiots, Consulting Aural Surgeon to the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, President of the Quekett Microscopical Society, and Treasurer of the Medical Benevolent Fund, an office he had filled since 1867. Toynbee raised aural surgery from a neglected condition and made it a legitimate branch of medicine. The Toynbee Collection illustrating various diseases of the ear is exhibited in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in Lincoln's Inn Fields. It is the result of minute dissections extending over twenty years, during which time he is said to have made preparations from more than two thousand human ears. Many of the specimens came from the patients in the Deaf and Dumb Asylum whose ears he had examined during life. One of his most valuable contributions to the treatment of deafness was his invention of an artificial tympanic membrane. He first demonstrated the existence of many bony and other tumours of the ear, of the ossicles, and of the tympanum, and demonstrated that the Eustachian tube is always closed except during the act of swallowing. As a philanthropist the English public owes much to Toynbee. He advocated the improvement of workmen's dwellings and surroundings at a time when the duties of a Government in regard to public health were hardly beginning to be appreciated. His benevolent efforts centred in Wimbledon, where he occupied a country house from 1854. Here he was indefatigable in forming and maintaining a village club and a local museum. He published in 1863 *Hints on the Formation of Local Museums*, and his enthusiastic advocacy was of great value in furthering the establishment of similar clubs and museums in other parts of the kingdom. He also took a deep interest in the condition of the deaf and dumb, and devised plans by which they were taught to speak. The Otological Society subscribed a sum of money to name the Committee Room at the Royal Society of Medicine which is called the 'Joseph Toynbee Room'. Publications: *The Diseases of the Ear; their Nature, Diagnosis and Treatment*, 8vo, London, 1860. A new edition with a supplement by JAMES HINTON, 1868. Translated into German, Würzburg, 1863. This was Toynbee's chief work, and placed aural surgery on a firm basis. It is still interesting on account of the details of cases and methods of treatment. *On the Use of Artificial Membrane Tympani in Cases of Deafness*, 8vo, London, 1853; 6th ed, 1857. *A Descriptive Catalogue of Preparations illustrative of the Diseases of the Ear in the Museum of Joseph Toynbee*, 8vo, London, 1857.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003296
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Woolfenden, Herbert Francis (1880 - 1940)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-12-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004800-E004899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376994376994
Occupation General surgeon Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Born on 5 April 1880 at Memphis, Tennessee, USA, the second of the three sons of Robert Woolfenden, cotton merchant, and Sarah Smith, his wife. He was educated at Bickerton House School, Birkdale, and then entered the Liverpool Medical School, where he had a brilliant career as an undergraduate, became senior demonstrator of anatomy in 1908, when A M Paterson was the professor, and was Thelwall Thomas pathology Fellow of the University after taking postgraduate courses in London, Paris, and Berlin. He was house surgeon to F T Paul in 1904, was appointed assistant surgeon to the Liverpool Royal Infirmary in 1911, and surgeon in 1925, holding office until his resignation four days before his death. In this position he was instrumental in establishing an orthopaedic department. He held office in Liverpool University as lecturer on clinical surgery. Woolfenden was one of the first assistant surgeons at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary to volunteer for active service in the war. He received a commission as temporary major, RAMC, on 9 May 1917 and was promoted acting lieutenant-colonel on 29 May 1918, when he was surgeon specialist to the 11th General Hospital, where he did excellent work during the Somme offensive. Professor Harvey Cushing wrote of his work: "10 pm, June 4th, 1917. No 1 l (General Hospital) Undermanned; often only eight medical officers and these frequently shifted; Campbell and Woolfenden have faced the music for the past few months, having 8,000 patients pass through their hands since the Somme offensive: most of them serious cases, night work, secondary haemorrhages, major infections, and yet they have found time to do some careful work with Carrel-Dakin treatment. No wonder they have broken down and are to leave for Blighty this morning at 3 am." Woolfenden returned to Liverpool after demobilization and worked on trigeminal and glosso-pharyngeal neuralgias, exophthalmic goitre, and gastro-enterology. He married on 17 September 1919 Beryl Hughes, daughter of Percy Hughes, solicitor, of Birkenhead. She died 25 June 1927, leaving him with two sons and a daughter. He died in Liverpool on 10 April 1940. Woolfenden was a first-class surgeon, a keen diagnostician, and a bold operator. Modest to a degree and of a most retiring disposition, he was extremely diffident about publication and wrote little. He was a great reader and a very good golfer. Publications: Two cases in which the lateral ventricle was opened in the course of operations for the removal of a bullet and indriven bone. *Lancet*, 1916, 1, 1037. Gunshot wounds of the knee joint, with J Campbell. *Ibid* 1917, 2, 185-194. Right-sided visceroptosis. *Liverpool med-chir J* 1930, 38, 221.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004811
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Barnie-Adshead, William Ewart (1901 - 1951)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/375991375991
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born 10 April 1901, fifth child and fourth son of Alderman Thomas Willets Adshead, manufacturer, who was twice mayor of Dudley, and his wife Adeline Hand. He assumed the extra surname Barnie by deed poll. He was educated at Dudley Grammar School and Birmingham University, where he graduated in science in 1920, and took the Conjoint qualification in 1923; At the university he excelled at all ball games, and took the lead in reviving social and athletic activities which had lapsed during the first world war. He was president of the University Medical Students' Society, and captain of cricket, association football, and lawn tennis. Subsequently he played cricket for Worcestershire and football for Aston Villa, the Corinthians, and England. With increasing age and business he took up golf and became an excellent player. After holding resident posts at the Queen's, the General, and the Women's Hospitals at Birmingham, he made postgraduate studies at the London Hospital, and took both the Edinburgh and English surgical Fellowships in 1926. Barnie-Adshead intended to specialize as a gynaecological surgeon, and in 1926 was appointed assistant at the Queen's Hospital and in 1929 at the Birmingham and Midland Hospital for Women, becoming surgeon to the latter in 1934 in succession to S Lewis Graham, FRCS. He was a foundation member of the British (now Royal) College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1929, a Fellow in 1938 and served on the council from 1950 till his death early in 1951. At the Queen's Hospital he was obstetric surgeon, and became gynaecological surgeon when the Queen's and General Hospitals were united in 1938 as the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. At Birmingham University he was assistant to the professor of obstetrics and gynaecology, Dr Hilda Lloyd, PRCOG, and he examined for the Central Midwives Board. He was president of the Midland Obstetrical Society in 1938-39, and revived it after the war of 1939-45. He was joint honorary secretary of the British Medical Association's Birmingham branch in 1930-31, and served for some years on the medical students and newly qualified practitioners sub-committee of the Association's organization committee. Barnie-Adshead married in 1926 Eileen Cathrine Trimble, MB ChB Birmingham, who survived him with two sons. He practised at 89 Cornwall Street, Birmingham, and lived at 20 Church Road, Edgbaston. He died in the General Hospital, Birmingham, on 26 January 1951, aged 49. Barnie-Adshead was a very popular and charming man, of debonair manners with a slight lisp. His comparatively early death cut short a career of much achievement and promise of even more.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003808
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Edmunds, Arthur (1874 - 1945)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/376196376196
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in London on 17 April 1874, the fourth child and third son of Joseph Edmunds, manufacturing dry-salter, and his wife Ann Stroud Swift. His parents were poor and on leaving school he worked for his father's business. His schoolmaster encouraged him to continue his education at night classes and he succeeded in entering King's College, London, where he won the University exhibition in zoology and scholarship in physiology, and graduated BSc. He then entered King's College Hospital medical school in 1896, and maintained himself by coaching and by winning the Sambrooke exhibition and other scholarships and prizes. At the intermediate MB examination he was placed first in materia medica and awarded a gold medal in physiology, and at the final MB, BS took honours in obstetrics and was awarded the University scholarship and gold medal in surgery. At King's College he served as demonstrator of physiology, and was elected a Fellow in 1931. At the Hospital he became Sambrooke surgical registrar 1906-10, senior surgical registrar and tutor 1910-12, assistant surgeon 1912, surgeon 1919, and consulting surgeon 1934. He was also surgeon to out-patients at the Paddington Green Children's Hospital, and surgeon to the Royal Northern Hospital. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Hunterian professor in 1926 and 1933. After qualifying he lived in chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields with Archibald Reid (1871-1924), MRCS, and then became private assistant to William Watson Cheyne, after having been his house surgeon. Edmunds acquired consummate skill and speed in cutting and staining pathological specimens for Cheyne. From him he adopted the strictest Listerian antiseptic practice, for Cheyne had been Lister's assistant. Edmunds always used a strong cleansing mixture before operation, distrusting the attempts of later surgeons to obtain absolute asepsis. He liked simple instruments, did without needle-holders, and used sharp hooks instead of forceps for holding the tissues. He made his own instruments in a workshop at the top of his house, 57 Queen Anne Street. Edmunds devised a successful operation for hypospadias and several delicate plastic operations. During the war of 1914-18 he was a consulting surgeon to the Royal Navy with the rank of surgeon rear-admiral, and was created CB 1918. In the war of 1939-45 he came voluntarily out of retirement at the age of 66 to return to surgery at Cuckfield Hospital, Sussex, under the Emergency Medical Service. Edmunds married in 1911 Maud Dampier, daughter of M Stratford of Gloucester, who survived him but without children. After retiring he lived at Bramley Cottage, Charing, Kent, where he grew orchids and roses, and painted. He died in King's College Hospital on 29 November 1945, aged 71, and was cremated at Charing after a funeral service at King's College. Edmunds was a bearded man, of outspoken sincerity and honesty.. He did not care for sports and abhorred blood-sports. Publications:- *Glandular enlargement and other diseases of the lymphatic system*. London, 1908. W W Cheyne and F F Burghard, *Manual of surgical treatment*, 2nd edition, 1912-13, revised by Arthur Edmunds and T P Legg, 5 vols. An operation for hypospadias. *Lancet*, 1913, 1, 447. Pseudohermaphroditism and hypospadias. (Hunterian lecture, RCS.) *Lancet*, 1926, 1, 323. Unsuccessful appendicectomy (Hunterian lecture, RCS). *Lancet*, 1933, 2, 393.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004013
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Fairlie-Clarke, Allan Johnston (1877 - 1948)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-06-05
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/376219376219
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born 8 May 1877, the fourth son of William Fairlie Clarke, FRCS 1863, and Caroline Selina Walker his wife. He was educated at Bedford School and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, of which he was a natural science scholar. He took first-class honours in the Natural Sciences Tripos, part 1, 1898, and received his clinical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he served as house surgeon. After periods as casualty officer at the East London Children's Hospital and resident surgical officer at the General Hospital, Birmingham, he settled in practice at Horsham, where he was surgeon to the cottage hospital, and later moved to Dover. During the war of 1914-18 he was the only civilian surgeon at Dover, and for his services was made a permanent member of the consulting staff of the Royal Victoria Hospital. He moved in 1922 to Malvern, where he was appointed surgeon and later consulting medical officer to the hospital. He retired in 1936, but during the second world war acted as resident house surgeon at the Powick Emergency Hospital, near Worcester, 1940-41. Fairlie-Clarke married twice: (1) in 1907 Violet Lyell, and (2) in 1919 Gwendolen Balmer. He was survived by two sons, a third son having died before him, and two daughters of his first marriage, and one daughter of his second marriage. One son, George Allen Fairlie-Clarke, FRCS, is in practice at Newbury; a rare case of three members of one family in direct descent holding the Fellowship one after the other. Fairlie-Clarke died at The Oaks, Graham Road, Malvern, Worcestershire, 16 February 1948, after a very short illness, aged 70, and was buried Malvern Wells cemetery after a funeral service at Malvern Priory. Publications:- Treatment of crushed hands. *Practitioner*, 1905, 75, 816. Goitre operations under local anaesthesia. *Brit med J*. 1907, 1, 1534. Operative technique of a general practitioner. *Practitioner*, 1909, 82, 554. Blood films in everyday practice. *Practitioner*, 1929, 122, 315.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004036
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hulke, Sydney Backhouse (1871 - 1939)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-07-17
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004200-E004299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376423376423
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born 8 February 1871 at Cemarques, High Street, Deal, Kent, the eighth child and fourth son of Frederick Thomas Hulke, FRCS, and Charlotte Backhouse, his wife. He was educated at Dover College and at the Middlesex Hospital, where his uncle John Whitaker Hulke, FRCS, was surgeon. He acted as apothecary and house surgeon at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in 1895, and afterwards filled the offices of house surgeon and surgical registrar at the Middlesex Hospital. Called to take part in the family practice, he spent the whole of his professional life in Deal. He was medical officer and public vaccinator for the Walmer district of the Eastry Union and medical officer to the Post Office. He married (1) in 1901 Irene Beatrice Hawkins, daughter of Major-General E Lindsay Hawkins; she died on 7 July 1935, leaving him with two daughters, Beatrice Sydney and Muriel Sydney, who was admitted FRCS and became Mrs Brander; (2) in 1938 Marjorie Kemp-Hall, who survived him with a daughter. He retired from practice in July 1936, lived at 21 Platt's Lane, Hampstead, NW3, and died at 127 High Street, Hungerford on 10 June 1939. He was buried at Old St Mary's Church, Upper Walmer. Hulke belonged to a medical family with an unusually long history. They were driven from the Low Countries by the persecution of the Duke of Alva and settled in Kent. Sydney Backhouse Hulke was a member of the tenth generation to practise medicine, while his great-nephew, Frederick Hulke, MRCS 1943, represents the twelfth generation. In the last five generations there have been several members of the family holding the diploma of FRCS.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004240
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Powell, Rhys Vaughan (1891 - 1951)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/376660376660
Occupation General surgeon
Details He was educated at King's College Hospital, where he served as house surgeon, house physician, and clinical assistant. After holding other resident posts and a period as second assistant at the Central London Ear, Nose, and Throat Hospital, he was surgical registrar at Willesden General Hospital. Powell qualified through the Society of Apothecaries in 1914. During the war of 1914-18 he served in the RAMC with the rank of captain, gazetted 16 December 1915. He took the Conjoint qualification in 1921, but did not proceed to the Fellowship till 1935, when he was practising at 106 Harley Street. Later he lived at 62 North Street, Sudbury, Suffolk, where he died on 27 April 1951, aged 60. Publications: Chronic appendicitis. *Med Press*, 1935, 191, 48. Diverticulosis of appendix. *Ibid* p 387.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004477
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hogarth, Robert George (1868 - 1953)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/377237377237
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 15 May 1868 only son of George Hogarth of Eccles Toft, Berwickshire, he was educated at Felsted School and St Bartholomew's Hospital. In his boyhood in the Border country he excelled at field sports, and at school he won most of the athletic events, while at Bart's he became captain of cricket and football, and was also captain of the United Hospitals XI. He played football for the Casuals, the Corinthians, and the Caledonians, and for Wolverhampton while a house surgeon there, and was President of Nottingham Forest and surgeon to the Notts County football club, and President of the County cricket club. He won the amateur long jump championship of Great Britain in 1890. After holding resident posts at Bart's and Wolverhampton, Hogarth went to Nottingham General Hospital as resident medical officer in 1984, and ultimately became senior surgeon and President of the Hospital, and from 1943 a life governor. He was largely responsible for the creation of the Radio-Therapeutic Institute established at Nottingham by the British Empire Cancer Campaign; it was named after him the Hogarth Institute in 1948, and he left it £1000 and the option to purchase at probate value his house and its appurtenances. He was also surgeon to the Women's and Children's Hospitals at Nottingham, and to Harlow Wood Orthopaedic Hospital, which he had helped to develop from its origins as a Cripples Home. He was President of the Nottinghamshire Medico-Chirurgical Society, and President of the British Medical Association in 1926. He was a Member of the Council of the College 1928-36. He married in 1897 Winifred Mabel Lynam; they had one son. Mrs Hogarth died on 12 March 1952, and he died at his house, 48 The Ropewalk, on 29 June 1953 aged 85. Their son died on active service in Italy as a Major in the Grenadier Guards on 19 July 1944. Publications: The medical practitioner and the public. Presidential address to BMA *Brit med J* 1926, 2, 145. *The Trent and I go wandering by*. Nottingham 1949.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005054
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Leicester, John Cyril Holdich (1872 - 1949)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/376528376528
Occupation Gynaecologist
Details Born 29 March 1872 at Scarborough, third child and eldest son of the Rev John Augustus Leicester, a priest of the Church of England who held no regular living, and his wife Charlotte Eliza Holdich. He was educated at Dulwich College and University College, London, where he took honours in physiology at the BSc examination in 1893. He qualified in 1896 from University College Hospital, and held house appointments there and at the Samaritan Hospital for Women. He took the Fellowship in 1898. Leicester was commissioned a lieutenant in the Indian Medical Service on 28 January 1899, and saw active service in China during the Boxer rising of 1900, for which he received the medal. He was promoted captain in 1902 and major in 1910. During the war of 1914-18 he was on active service in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Palestine, and was twice mentioned in despatches. In 1919 he served on the Afghan frontier. He had been promoted lieutenant-colonel in 1918. For the greater part of his career Leicester practised as a gynaecologist at Calcutta. He was for two and a half years resident surgeon under C R M Green and afterwards surgeon at the Eden Hospital for Women, Calcutta, and professor of midwifery and gynaecology in the Medical College. He took the MRCP in 1905 and was elected FRCP in 1923. In January 1924 he was placed on the select list for promotion in the IMS, served for a period as acting Surgeon-General of Bengal and was appointed an Honorary Surgeon to the Viceroy; he was created CIE in June and retired on 27 September 1927. He continued to practise privately at 6 Harington Street, Calcutta, but soon returned to London where he settled at 128 Chatsworth Road, NW2. He married on 3 December 1907 in St Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta, Queenie, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Edwin Dobson, MB, IMS, who survived him but without children. He died at his country home, Clare Cottage, Cold Ash, Newbury on 19 May 1949 aged 77. He left his entire fortune to be divided among numerous charities after his wife's life interest. Leicester was an excellent administrator, with a taste for detailed statistical investigations. He made numerous contributions to the Obstetrical Society and to the *Journal of Obstetrics*. He was an active churchman, gave valued service to the Oxford mission at Calcutta, and was a vestryman of Calcutta Cathedral. He was also a keen promoter of the Boy Scout movement in India and at home. Publications: Mechanical dilation of the cervix uteri in pregnancy. *J Obstet Gynaec Brit Emp* 1907, 11, 224. A short note on the duration of pregnancy and the relation between the weight of the child and the length of gestation of Europeans (in India), East Indians and natives. *Ibid* p 465. On the relation of the frequency of the foetal heart beat to the sex and weight of the child. *Ibid*, 1907, 12, 39. Menstruation in Europeans, Eurasians, and East Indians in India. *Ibid* 1910, 17, 414. A short note on the delivery of the foetal head after decapitation. *Surg Gynec Obstet* 1908, 7, 478.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004345
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Luce, Sir Richard Harman (1867 - 1952)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-04-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005200-E005299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377455377455
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Malmesbury, Wiltshire on 13 July 1867 the second son of Colonel J R Luce DL, JP and Mary Visger his wife. He was educated at Clifton College and Christ's College, Cambridge, where he took first-class honours in the Natural Sciences Tripos, part I, 1889, and graduated in medicine in 1893. He received his clinical training at Guy's Hospital, qualifying through the Conjoint examination in 1893 and taking the Fellowship in 1894. After holding resident posts at Guy's and at York County Hospital, he started to practise as a consultant at Derby. He was appointed surgeon to the Royal Infirmary and to the Hospital for Sick Children, and became consulting surgeon to the Cottage hospitals at Ripley and Wirksworth. He was interested from the first in the Volunteer movement, and after the foundation of the Territorial force he served as Assistant Director of Medical Services for its North-Midland division from 1909 to 1913. In the war of 1914-18 he saw active service in the Middle East, and was created CB in the military division 1916 and CMG 1918. He was Director of Medical Services with the Egyptian expeditionary force 1918-19, with the rank of Major-General AMS, and was knighted KCMG for his war service in 1919. He was also awarded the Volunteer and Territorial decorations. After his return to Derby he took a prominent part in its public affairs, and represented the borough in Parliament as a conservative from 1924 to 1929. In the British Medical Association he was a member of the council, and chairman of the Hospital committee. He retired in 1930 to Romsey, Hampshire, where he became Mayor from 1935 to 1937, and was President of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society 1939 and 1943-54. He wrote accounts of the abbeys at Malmesbury and Romsey, and was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Luce married in 1897 Mary Irene, daughter of Dr John Scott of Bournemouth. They lived latterly at Chirk Lodge, Romsey, where he died on 21 February 1952 aged 84. Lady Luce survived him with one son, Air-Commodore Charles J Luce, and three daughters. Their younger son died before his father, in India. The funeral took place in Romsey Abbey. Publications: A case of sub-cortical tumour of the brain removed by operation; recovery. *Lancet* 1904, 2, 1715. *Pages from the history of the Benedictine monestary at Malmesbury*. Devizes 1930. *Pages from the history of Romsey and its abbey*. 1948.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005272
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Layton, Thomas Bramley (1882 - 1964)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-04-02 2016-02-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005200-E005299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377389377389
Occupation Otorhinolaryngolologist
Details Born on 8 June 1882, the son of a solicitor, he was educated at Bradfield College and Guy's Hospital Medical School, which he entered in 1900, and graduated in 1906 with honours. After holding the usual house appointments he was surgical registrar at Guy's in 1908, and then decided to specialise in otolaryngology. When war broke out in 1914 Layton, who was an enthusiastic member of the Officers Training Corps of London University, found himself mobilised, and in command of a field ambulance. He was twice mentioned in dispatches and awarded the DSO in 1918. On returning to Guy's soon after the war as throat and ear surgeon, Layton was also appointed consultant otologist to the London County Council. He held this appointment until 1944, and in addition he served on the London Insurance Committee, of which he was the first medical chairman. He was a Hunterian professor at the College in 1919; when a group of rhinologists bought from Vienna for the College Museum the Onodi collection of anatomical specimens illustrating the nasal sinuses, Layton was asked to arrange and describe them; his illustrated *Catalogue* was published in 1934, and he was awarded the John Hunter Medal and Trien¬nial Prize. He gave the Erasmus Wilson lecture in 1935. As a young man he had been inspired by Markus Hajek at Vienna, and learned from him the importance of conservative treatment in disease of the nasal sinuses; Layton wrote several papers on the conservation of lymphoid tissue. He was President of the section of Laryngology in the Royal Society of Medicine 1939-41, and Master of the Society of Apothecaries 1940-41, of which his grandfather Bramley Taylor had been Master in 1912. Towards the end of the second world war Layton became a district director for UNNRA in Sicily, and in 1945 was medical superintendent of their hospital at Belsen, Germany on the relief of the notorious murder camp there. Layton was a blunt, honest, friendly man, unambitious but self-confident with no fear of holding unfashionable opinions; for instance he advocated the use of Wilde's incision for mastoid operations, and opposed operative treatment of the tonsils and adenoids, recommending breathing exercises instead. He had been a prominent member of Guy's Rugby XV and kept up his interest in the game; he loved the sea, and after retiring in 1947 served for some time as a ship's surgeon in RMS *Jamaica Producer*; in old age he still enjoyed long country walks. He was an omnivorous reader and a fluent writer; he wrote an essay on Dickens's medical men and a life of his revered master, Sir William Arbuthnot Lane. He gave most of his books to Bradfield College. "Tubby" Layton, as he was universally known, was devoted to the College and its interests, particularly the Museum and Library, and a helpful friend to its officials; he was a popular member of the Athenaeum. He practised at 55 Wimpole Street, and lived in later life at Lingfield. He married in 1909 Edney Eleanor Sampson, who survived him with a son and daughter. He died on 17 January 1964, aged 81. Publications: *Catalogue of the Onodi Collection*. RCS England 1934. *An industry of health*. London, Heinemann 1944. Sore throats and tonsillitis. *Practitioner* 1946, 157, 349. *Sir William Arbuthnot Lane*, Edinburgh, Livingstone 1956.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005206
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Letcher, Herbert George (1903 - 1952)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Read, Sir Charles David (1902 - 1957)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-04-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005200-E005299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377480377480
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist Pathologist
Details Born on 22 December 1902 at Dunedin, New Zealand the son of J J Read, he entered the medical school of Otago University in 1920, qualifying in 1924 with the medal in clinical medicine. After holding resident appointments at Dunedin Hospital, he came to England for postgraduate study in obstetrics and gynaecology, working for several years as registrar and tutor at the Chelsea Hospital for Women, Charing Cross Hospital and Westminster Hospital. For five years he was pathologist to the Chelsea Hospital for Women, being duly appointed surgeon to that hospital. He was also surgeon to Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital and the Postgraduate Hospital, Hammersmith, becoming Director of the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Postgraduate Medical School in 1950. He served as secretary and vice-president of the obstetrical division of the Royal Society of Medicine, and became President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1955. He travelled extensively and was an honorary member of the American Association of Obstetricians, Gynaecologists and Abdominal Surgeons, the American Gynaecological Society, the South African Association of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and the Athens Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society. A formidable figure, he stood six foot four inches in height. Early in his career in England he impressed Victor Bonney with his potentialities both as a surgeon and a personality. As a result he was encouraged to remain in London and become a consultant. A fine teacher and a skilful and delicate operator in spite of his large size he attracted postgraduates from all over the world. He never spared himself either in work or in relaxation, being a keen and experienced yachtsman. He, together with Terence Millin, operated and administered a very successful private clinic at 31 Queen's Gate, SW. In association with Douglas MacLeod he edited the 5th edition of Edward Lockyer's *Gynaecology* and was engaged with MacLeod on a revision of Bonney's *Textbook of Gynaecological Surgery*. He married twice, having two sons by each marriage, his second wife being Dr S Edna Wilson. While he was on holiday aboard his yacht he died aged 54 at the zenith of his career on 21 August 1957.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005297
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Morison, James Rutherford (1853 - 1939)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-11-21 2015-01-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004600-E004699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376873376873
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 10 October 1853 at Hutton-Henry near Castle Eden, Co Durham, the eldest child of a family of six. His father, John Morison, LRCP Edinburgh 1840, MD Aberdeen 1860, was surgeon to the Wingate Grange, Trindon Grange, and Rodridge Collieries; his mother was Dorothy Dunn, daughter of Margaret Rutherford. James was educated privately at home until went to study medicine at Mason's College, Birmingham, and afterwards at Edinburgh University. At the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary he acted as dresser to Joseph, Lord Lister, was house surgeon to Patrick Heron Watson, and resident physician to the obstetric ward, becoming resident medical officer to the Cowgate Dispensary. He settled in general practice at Hartlepool in 1879, where he was appointed medical officer of health and after some opposition he was elected physician to the Hartlepool Hospital in 1881. He remained for fifteen years in Hartlepool, making the time and money to take out a postgraduate course under Billroth at Vienna in 1878-79. Finding no scope for his surgical talent in Hartlepool he moved to Newcastle in 1888, abandoned general practice and was amongst the first to devote himself entirely to surgery. Holding no official position in the Medical School, he devoted himself at first to assisting students in the dissecting room, to teaching them surgical anatomy on the living subject, and to instruction in the names and uses of surgical instruments. Proving himself an excellent teacher and a capable surgeon with ideas of his own, he was elected assistant surgeon to the Royal Infirmary in 1888, William Christopher Arnison being then professor of surgery. He was promoted surgeon in 1897 and consulting surgeon in 1913. In the University of' Durham he was professor of surgery from 1910, when he succeeded Frederick Page, until 1921. From 1905 he held a commission in the RNVR as staff surgeon, and during the war he acted as surgeon to the Northumberland War Hospital at Gosforth. During this period he introduced 'Bipp' (Bismuth one part, Iodoform two parts, and Paraffin quant suff to make a paste). It was claimed that 'Bipp' was a prophylaxis against, and a cure for sepsis, that it enabled a septic wound to be sewn up without drainage, and that it enabled healing to take place under a single dressing. The preparation was largely used and with considerable success. He married twice: (1) Louisa Mushet, and (2) Charlotte Maria Simonsen. Both died before him and he was survived by two sons and two daughters. His health began to fail shortly after the war and he underwent an operation for gall stones in 1923. He then retired from practice, settled at Hilton's Hill, St Boswell's-on-Tweed in 1924, and from 1929 occupied himself with a little farm of one hundred and twenty-six acres. There he was visited on his eightieth birthday, 10 October 1933, by a party of twelve of his old house surgeons. He died in a nursing home at Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 9 January 1939, aged 85, and was buried at St Boswell's. Morison has many claims to remembrance. He was first and foremost a pioneer of modern surgery in the North of England. As early as 1889 he was operating upon the colon and the stomach, suturing fractured patellae with catgut, and operating upon torn semilunar cartilages. He was a great teacher, who founded a school of surgery in Northumberland and Durham, and was a maker of surgeons. Having been himself a general practitioner in a colliery district he was able to understand miners from personal knowledge and to further the interests both of them and of their medical attendants. He is described as a handsome man, standing erect, with piercing eye and an outspoken intimation that he would stand no nonsense. He was generosity itself and was incapable of a mean action. His views on surgery were twenty years ahead of his time. His short visit to Vienna had brought him under the influence of Billroth, whose views on the value of a knowledge of pathology to surgery he was never tired of stressing. He was always intensely interested in all research relating to surgery and advocated it at a time when very few surgeons had left the beaten track. A medallion portrait was presented by his former house surgeons on his retirement in 1915; it is in No 1 theatre of the Royal Victoria Infirmary (*Brit med J* 1915, 2, 455, with photograph of the portrait). A portrait in oils, painted by subscription in 1923, was presented to him in 1927. It represents him as an invalid. He gave it to the Durham School of Medicine and it now hangs in King's College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The cheque which accompanied the presentation of the portrait was at Morison's wish applied to found a "Morison travelling scholarship" of the triennial value of £180. In 1933 the house committee of the Royal Victoria Infirmary named a ward "The Rutherford Morison Ward". Publications: *An introduction to surgery*. Bristol, 1910; 3rd edition, with C F M Saint, 1937. *Abdominal injuries*, with W G Richardson. Oxford war primers series, 1915. *Surgical contributions* 1881-1916. 2 vols, London, 1918. *Bipp treatment of war wounds*. London, 1918. *Abdominal and pelvic surgery*. Oxford, 1925. Editor of the *Journal* of the Northumberland and Durham Medical Society from 1897; secretary of the Society 1891-95, president 1900.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004690
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Flint, Ethelbert Rest (1880 - 1956)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-06-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005300-E005399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377554377554
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 1 November 1880 at Scarborough, son of Frederic Flint and May Lance his wife, he was educated at Scarborough and at the Leeds School of Medicine, qualifying in 1905. After holding a house appointment at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, he became house surgeon at the General Infirmary at Leeds. From 1907 to 1911 he was in general practice, and then became resident casualty officer at the General Infirmary and in 1912 resident surgical officer. During the 1914-18 war he was commissioned in the RAMC, but all his work was done in the Infirmary as most of the senior surgeons were away on war service. Flint carried a tremendous burden of work and performed over six thousand operations in two years on civilians and wounded soldiers. He never left the hospital for weeks; his capacity for work coupled with a gentle, kindly nature endeared him to all, and he was thereafter referred to as "Father" Flint. In 1920 Flint was made surgical registrar and tutor, and in 1922 he was promoted to assistant surgeon to the Infirmary and became private assistant to Sir Berkeley Moynihan. In 1932 he became surgeon-in-charge of out-patients, and the following year, on the retirement of Professor J F Dobson, he was promoted full surgeon. In addition to his clinical work at the Infirmary, Flint was consultant surgeon to several other hospitals in the region. From 1934 to 1936 Flint held the chair of clinical surgery in the University of Leeds, and in 1936 was appointed professor of surgery. In spite of his heavy commitments in the clinical and academic fields, he investigated the aetiology of biliary-tract infections and liver function in cholecystitis and cholelithiasis. He also studied the abnormalities of the right hepatic, cystic and gastro-duodenal arteries and of the bile ducts. In his Arris and Gale lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1923 and again in 1930 he spoke about these investigations. In 1933 he was a Hunterian professor, and lectured on pre-operative procedure. When he reached retiring age in 1940 he was appointed emeritus professor of surgery and honorary consulting surgeon to the Infirmary, but he continued active work there until the end of the second world war. He was a member of the Moynihan Club and president of the Leeds and West Riding Medico-chirurgical Society. In 1918 Flint married Alicia Bay Farrer and they had three sons. Flint was a distinguished athlete, who represented his county and the North of England at hockey for many years. Later he turned to golf, won the Moynihan golf cup in 1914 and in 1919, and continued to play until he was over 70. His later years were clouded by ill health and he died on 5 January 1956 at the age of 75. Publications: Abnormalities of the right hepatic cystic and gastro-duodenal arteries and of the bile ducts. *Brit J Surg* 1923. Association of hepatitis and cholecystitis in the human subject. *Brit med J* 1930. Some observations of pre-operative procedure. (Hunterian Lecture). *Lancet* 1933.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005371
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Forrester-Wood, William Rodney (1902 - 1960)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-06-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005300-E005399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377557377557
Occupation General surgeon Paediatric surgeon
Details Born on 25 June 1902, son of John Forrester Wood FRCS of Southport, he wished to make the army his career but the loss of sight in one eye at the age of 12 prevented this. Educated at Cheltenham College he was apprenticed at 16 to a firm of engineers, but owing to the world depression his father advised him to change his career. Consequently he studied medicine at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, taking his clinical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital and qualifying in 1929. After holding resident posts at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, the East Ham Memorial Hospital, and the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, Forrester-Wood was appointed senior assistant resident medical officer at the Brighton Infirmary and remained there all his life. In 1936 he was elected to the senior staff of the Royal Sussex County Hospital and he was also consulting surgeon to the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital, the Hayward's Heath Hospital, the Heritage Craft Schools, the St Francis Hospital and Hurstwood Park Hospital. When the National Health Service took over Cuckfield Hospital, built for the Canadian Forces in the Second World War, he was appointed surgeon there in 1948. Forrester-Wood's special interest was paediatric surgery, but he took up thoracic surgery and regularly performed major operations in that field, with the exception of valvulotomy which he refused to do. He was secretary of the Brighton and Sussex Medico-chirurgical Society, and served for a long time on the executive committee of the local BMA Division; at the Annual Meeting in 1956 he was vice-president of the Section of Surgery. After the National Health Service came into operation in 1948 Forrester-Wood was appointed a member of the hospital management committee of the Brighton and Lewes group and was chairman of its medical and medical staff committees for some years. Forrester-Wood was an ideal chairman, but these extensive duties proved too much and in 1958 he suffered a myocardial infarction. Recovering from this he returned to his committees, though not as chairman. A fall whilst riding resulted in a detached retina of his remaining eye and total blindness was threatened. He recovered, however, and continued working and enjoying as far as possible his pleasures of fishing, shooting and gardening. A distinguished Freemason, he held provincial rank in the Craft and Royal Arch. Forrester-Wood died in his sleep at his home, Withdean House, Brighton on 6 April 1960, aged 57, survived by his wife and their son. Publications: Epiphrenic diverticulum of oesophagus. *Brit J Surg* 1948. Giant hypertrophic gastritis. *Brit J Surg* 1950.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005374
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gallie, William Edward (1882 - 1959)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-06-04 2020-08-11
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005300-E005399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377566377566
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born 1882 at Barrie, Ontario, of pioneer Scottish parents, he was educated at Barrie Grammar School where he did well at work and games. In 1899 he entered the medical faculty of the University of Toronto, from which he graduated with honours in 1903, the youngest member of his class. He played hockey for the University and later coached the team for five years. After house appointments in the Toronto General Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children, he went to New York to work under Royal Whitman at the Hospital for Ruptured and Crippled, to which he was appointed honorary surgeon-in-chief thirty years later. He then came to England. On his return to Canada in 1906 he was appointed surgeon to the Toronto General Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children. When the two hospitals separated in 1919 he remained at the Hospital for Sick Children; when his chief Clarence Starr was appointed Professor of Surgery in the Faculty of Medicine, he became surgeon-in-chief at the age of 39. In 1929 he succeeded Starr as Professor of Surgery and surgeon-in-chief at the Toronto General Hospital, was Dean of the Faculty 1936-46, and retired as Emeritus Professor. He was elected President of the American College of Surgeons in 1941, holding office for six years. He was president of the American Orthopaedic Association, a Fellow of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was a founding Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada, and was admitted an Honorary Fellow of the Edinburgh College in company with HRH the Duke of Edinburgh. At the College he was a Hunterian Professor in 1924, the first Canadian appointed, and Moynihan lecturer and honorary medallist in 1947. He published a paper with D E Robinson on the repair of bone in 1919 and in 1921 one on fascial grafting, with LeMesurier, which led to general adoption of the Gallie operation for hernia. "Ed" Gallie was a big man both physically and intellectually, who deeply influenced the development of surgery in Canada. He considered that the Royal College of Surgeons and the American College neglected postgraduate training; when he became Professor of Surgery he inaugurated a co-ordinated training programme for young surgeons in Canada, establishing higher surgical training in Canada on a firm basis. His work is commemorated in the Gallie Club, founded by his old students and "devoted galley slaves". He was a visionary with the ability and drive to implement his vision and to become and remain a benevolent dictator with a great sense of humour and an innate kindliness. He collected round himself men of ability such as Gordon Murray working on heparin, Norman Shenstone a pioneer thoracic surgeon, Roscoe Graham, Eddie Robertson and Harold Wookey, thus making Toronto one of the finest surgical centres. When too old for hockey, he became an ardent golfer and later an equally ardent fisherman. The Gallie Club entertained him at the College on his seventy-fifth birthday, 11 June 1957. He married Janet Louise Hardy by whom he had a daughter and two sons, both in the medical profession. He died on 25 September 1959 in the Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto and among the great gathering at his funeral were fifty-two members of the Gallie Club.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005383
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ellis, Valentine Herbert (1901 - 1953)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-05-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005300-E005399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377521377521
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Born in India on 24 February 1901, son of Major-General Philip Mackay Ellis OBE, AMS, he was educated at Wellington College and Clare College, Cambridge, where he took second class honours in Parts I and II of the Natural Sciences Tripos 1922 and 1923. He studied medicine at St George's Hospital, qualifying in 1925. After holding house appointments at St George's and elsewhere, Ellis decided to specialise in orthopaedics and went as surgical registrar to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. In 1932 Ellis was appointed to the new post of orthopaedic surgeon at St Mary's Hospital at the age of 30. There he built up a first-class orthopaedic and fracture department. Later he was appointed to the staff of Paddington Green Children's Hospital, the Lord Mayor Treloar Orthopaedic Hospital at Alton, and the Heatherwood Orthopaedic Hospital at Ascot. During the second world war he headed a surgical team at Harefield, until at the invasion of France in 1944 he was given charge of the orthopaedic unit at the EMS Hospital at Park Prewett, where thousands of casualties flown direct from the battlefields passed through his hands. Ellis was a man of abundant energy, mental and physical. His most outstanding qualities were wisdom, honesty, common sense and a capacity for disinterested service. He served on the governing bodies of both of his teaching hospitals, was treasurer of the British Orthopaedic Association, and had been President of the Section of Orthopaedics of the Royal Society of Medicine. At St Mary's he was Chairman of the Medical Committee and a member of the Academic Board. At the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital he was Chairman of the Staff Committee and of the Academic Board of the Institute of Orthopaedics. He was Recorder of the William Little Club. Ellis married in 1937 Angela Peart Robinson, and they had a son and daughter. Ellis lived in Paddington near St Mary's. His recreations were his garden, in which he cultivated fifteen varieties oflily, and the making of tapestries. Valentine Ellis was a big man, tall, broad and erect with deep blue, penetrating eyes. In his youth he had been a keen sportsman but later he relinquished all sport except skiing which he and his wife enjoyed every year. He had a strong sense of humour and talked easily on most subjects. For some months before his death he had known that he was unfit, but it was characteristic of the man that he kept on working as hard as ever. On the morning of 15 September 1953 he finished his fracture clinic at St Mary's and then collapsed and died at the age of 52. Publications : *Recent advances in orthopaedic surgery*, with B H Burns. London 1937. Battle casualties treated by penicillin, with A Innes. *Lancet* 1945, 1, 524.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005338
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Pendered, John Hawkes (1888 - 1972)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-09-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006000-E006099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378200378200
Occupation General practitioner General surgeon Military surgeon
Details John Hawkes Pendered was born on 7 September 1888 at Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. He was educated at Wellingborough School and Caius College, Cambridge where he gained first class honours in the Natural Science Tripos in 1909. He then proceeded to the London Hospital where he did well in all his examinations and won the Sutton Prize in pathology. He qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in 1912, got the Cambridge MB in 1913 and the FRCS in 1914. After holding a number of junior hospital posts at the London Hospital he joined the RAMC at the outbreak of the first world war and was soon sent to France where he served for the rest of the war, at first in a Field Ambulance and then as DADMS. In 1916 he was awarded the French Silver Medal of Honour, and in 1917 was mentioned in despatches and won the Military Cross. He remained in the Army till 1923, serving as a Major in Malta where he wrote a thesis on infective hepatitis for which he was awarded the MD degree. When he left the Army he went into general practice in Southampton. In 1939 he was called up for army service and was in France until Dunkirk. He was then sent to the Middle East as Lieutenant-Colonel in charge of the surgical division of various hospitals, in one of which, in 1943, King Farouk was admitted with a fractured pelvis. After caring for him Pendered was awarded the Order of the Nile, Third Class. In 1944 he was released from the RAMC and returned to Southampton where he continued to practise till 1967 when he retired at the age of 79. He was a dedicated doctor, respected for his diagnostic skill and warm sympathy. He was also a cultured person with a particular interest in European history and Shakespearean theatre. He had been a first class tennis player, and kept up his fishing and bridge playing to the end. In 1921 he married Margaret Singer, a nurse at King's College Hospital, and they had two sons and three daughters; one son became medically qualified at the London Hospital, and a daughter became a nurse at King's College Hospital. John Pendered died on 30 July 1972, a week after a fall in which he fractured his skull. His wife and family survived him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006017
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Perry, Alan Cecil (1892 - 1971)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-09-24
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006000-E006099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378201378201
Occupation General surgeon
Details Alan Cecil Perry was born on 26 November 1892 at Ware in Hertfordshire, the son of Major H Perry, and received his medical education at the London Hospital. He entered the Medical College in March 1909 having obtained the Price Entrance Scholarship in science. He had a brilliant career as a student gaining many distinctions. He was awarded the Letheby Prize in organic chemistry in his first year as a student. In 1912 he won the Begley Studentship in anatomy of the Royal College of Surgeons. At the second MB examination he was awarded honours in anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, and in organic chemistry, and directly after this examination he passed the Primary Examination for the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons. During his clinical studies he gained the Medical Prize and the Andrew Clark Prize in clinical medicine and pathology. Alan Perry was in camp with the Officers Training Corps at the outbreak of the first world war, and was released for a short period to enable him to take the final qualifications of the Conjoint Examining Board in October of that year. After qualifying he was immediately sent out to France as a regimental medical officer attached to the Sherwood Foresters. He saw active service at Ypres and was gassed soon after this new method of warfare was introduced by the Germany Army. After this unfortunate incident he returned to France as a regimental medical officer until 1916. During one of the enemy attacks he was in a dug-out which received a direct hit, and was the only person to be brought out alive. He received severe injuries to his knee. While recovering from his wounds he acted as emergency officer at the London Hospital. He remained in the RAMC until the end of the war. During his years as a student Alan Perry was dresser to some of the most distinguished surgeons of the day, being attached to the firms of Sir Frederick Eve and Richard Warren and Jonathan Hutchinson, junior, and Hugh Lett. After the war he became house physician to Lord Dawson and Dr Leyton and house surgeon to Sir Hugh Rigby and Robert Milne. In 1922 he took the final MB BS examination with honours receiving distinctions in medicine and surgery and being awarded the University Gold Medal. In May 1920 he passed the Final FRCS, and took the degree of Master of Surgery in December 1923. In June 1920 he was appointed a surgical registrar and in December 1921 he became assistant to the surgical unit under Professor Souttar. In September 1923 he was appointed surgical first assistant and registrar to the firm of Russell Howard and George Neligan. In March 1926 on the retirement of James Sherren from the staff he was appointed assistant surgeon to the London Hospital. During his years as a first assistant he came to be very closely associated with that brilliant surgical teacher Russell Howard who had a profound influence on his outlook as a surgeon. In 1933 he was joint author with Russell Howard of the textbook entitled *The practice of surgery* which embodied the teaching of surgery at the London Hospital. In addition he was joint author with Russell Howard of the *House Surgeon's Vade Mecum*, and was associated with Miss Dorothy Hervey in writing a text book on general nursing for student nurses. In 1954 he was appointed Schorstein Memorial Lecturer, and took as his subject *Some surgical aspects of anaemia*. Perry examined in surgery for the University of London and the Society of Apothecaries of which body he was a Liveryman. He also served as a Member of the Court of Examiners of the Royal College of Surgeons. Alan Perry will always be remembered as a surgeon who possessed great skill and dexterity. His surgical knowledge was profound and his judgement was excellent. He took a keen interest in the Students Union and was president of a number of individual students clubs. His own particular hobby was golf. It gave him great joy when his youngest brother, Dr Kenneth Perry, was appointed to the consultant staff of the London Hospital while he was still an active member of the staff himself. He was a very distinguished Freemason holding the high rank of Grand Officer. In 1922 he married May Alice, the daughter of Captain C H Palmer RN. There were no children of the marriage. Mrs Perry had previously been a ward sister at the London Hospital. Perry died on 1 April 1971.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006018
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cade, Sir Stanford (1895 - 1973)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-09-25
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006000-E006099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378216378216
Occupation General surgeon Radiation oncologist
Details Stanford Cade was born on 22 March 1895 in St Petersburg. His father was Polish, named Samuel Kadinsky, and Stanford changed his name to Cade by deed poll in 1924. He was sent to school in Antwerp where he matriculated in 1913 and then went to Brussels to commence the study of medicine. In 1914 he joined the Belgian Army and served in the defence of Antwerp. He was later evacuated to Britain, but his knowledge of English was insufficient to enable him to serve in the British Army and so he continued his medical studies at King's College, London, and entered Westminster Hospital Medical School for his clinical work. Such a chequered education might have proved a handicap to many a student, but for Cade it was but the prelude to a phenomenal career. He qualified with the Conjoint Board Diploma in 1917, and after holding a series of resident appointments at Westminster he obtained the FRCS in 1923. At that time he was greatly influenced by Walter Spencer, Arthur Evans, and Ernest Rock Carling, and even at that early stage in his surgical career he began to take an interest in the treatment of malignant disease with radium, and later with other forms of radiation, an interest which was ultimately to make his name famous the world over. His experience in this specialty provided the material for books and many lectures. At the Royal College of Surgeons he gave Hunterian Lectures in 1925, 1933 and 1954; an Arris and Gale Lecture in 1926; the Bradshaw Lecture in 1960; and the Hunterian Oration in 1963. He gave the Skinner Lecture to the Faculty of Radiologists in 1948, and was awarded several prizes and other honours, including Fellowships of the Colleges of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Ireland and America, for his outstanding contributions to cancer treatment. During his most active years his energies were almost equally divided between the Westminster Hospital, which he served as a consultant surgeon from 1924 till his retirement in 1960; the various bodies concerned with radiotherapy including the Radium Institute and Mount Vernon Hospital; and the Royal College of Surgeons. Besides the lectureship already mentioned, he served the College as an examiner, and as a member of the Council from 1949 till 1965, and then as a most effective director of surgical studies, for he was one of the first to appreciate the contribution made by the District General Hospitals to the postgraduate training of young surgeons. His devotion to the College was rightly acknowledged by the award of the honorary gold medal. At the outbreak of war in 1939 Cade was called up for active service as a Squadron Leader in the RAF and his outstanding surgical ability gained him promotion to the rank of Air Commodore in 1942, and Air Vice Marshal in 1945. His contribution to the efficiency of the Air Force Medical Service was recognized by the award of the CB in 1944 and the KBE in 1946. But his deep interest in the Service did not cease with the end of the war, for he continued his attachment as a civil consultant in surgery till 1965, and then retired with the rank of Honorary Air Commodore. In 1953 he instituted the Lady Cade Medal, in memory of his wife, as an annual award to the medical officer in the RAF who has made a notable advance in medical science in the service; and the joint professorship between the service and the Royal College of Surgeons is named after him. Stanford Cade was an indefatigable worker, a lucid teacher, skilful not only as an operator but also as a diagnostician, a wise counsellor, and above all a man who generated real affection among his colleagues and friends. His excitable nature sometimes gave rise to outbursts which were misinterpreted as irascible, for he could not tolerate stupidity in opinion and especially in action. As an examiner he was just, and quite helpful to candidates, though he never hesitated to tell them if they were being foolish. His human qualities were a great asset to the Council of the College. In 1920 he married Margaret Hester, the daughter of William Agate of Paisley, and her tragic death in 1951 was a terrible blow to him. They had three daughters, of whom Irene became attracted to her father's specialty, and was appointed consultant radiotherapist to St Mary's Hospital, Portsmouth. Like her father she gained the Fellowship of the College in 1952. It was therefore natural for Stanford to settle in Southsea after his retirement, and he died there of bronchopneumonia on 19 September 1973.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006033
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Colman, Robin Reuben Simon ( - 1979)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-11-20
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/378535378535
Occupation General surgeon
Details After qualifying and holding training posts in Prince Henry's Hospital, and in Concord and Broken Hill, Robin Colman came to England in 1963, working mostly at Cheltenham, and passed the Fellowship in 1964. He returned to Australia to practise in Vaucluse, New South Wales, and died on 20 August 1979.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006352
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Evans, Griffith Ifor (1889 - 1966)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/377904377904
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 14 February 1889, Griffith Evans was educated at Ruthin School and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he gained second-class honours in the final school of Natural Sciences (physiology), and had his medical training at St George's Hospital, London. He joined the RAMC as a student on the outbreak of war in 1914, and qualifying in 1916 continued to serve till 1919. After holding the posts of house surgeon and surgical registrar at St George's, he was resident medical officer at King Edward VI Hospital for Officers, London, during 1920. Evans then returned to his native Carnarvon, where he practised at 37 Castle Square till his retirement. He was surgeon to the Carnarvonshire and Anglesey Infirmary till 1938, and President of the North Wales branch of the BMA in 1942-43. Evans's book *Essays on familial syphilis* (1929) was awarded the Charles Hastings certificate of merit by the BMA and the gold medal of the Hunterian Society in 1931; He served as High Sheriff of Caernarvonshire in 1942-43. Evans came back to London in his retirement, living at Melbury Road, Kensington. He died in St Mary Abbot's Hospital on 20 September 1966, aged seventy-seven. His wife, Dilys, died on 26 May 1967.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005721
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Goyder, Francis Willoughby (1877 - 1954)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-06-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005500-E005599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377705377705
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Born in Bradford in 1877, the eldest son of David, medical officer to the Bradford Royal Infirmary, he was educated at Bradford Grammar School and at St John's College, Cambridge, where he took second-class honours in the Natural Sciences Tripos part I in 1899. He went onto St Mary's Hospital as a university scholar, qualifying in 1903. After holding several resident appointments he returned to Bradford in 1906 as assistant surgeon to the Royal Infirmary. He was awarded the Jacksonian Prize in 1912 for his essay *The embryology and treatment of cleft palate*, and he edited the surgical section of the *Medical Annual* in 1918. During the first world war, Goyder served in the RAMC, and on his return was appointed honorary surgeon to Bradford Royal Infirmary in 1918. He was a pioneer in orthopaedic surgery in the West Riding of Yorkshire. After retiring in 1938 he became, when war began in 1938, a group advisor and orthopaedic specialist in the Emergency Medical Service. This entailed much hard work and travelling over the whole of West Riding until his final retirement in 1950. He acted as one of the honorary secretaries of the Section of Diseases of Children at the BMA Annual Meeting in London in 1910 and in 1924 he served as vice-president of the Section of Orthopaedics at Bradford. He was interested in preventative medicine and the school health service. Goyder was a shy, unselfish, unassuming man. His remarkable memory retained a detailed knowledge of human anatomy to the end of his life. He died on 18 October 1954 at the age of 77, survived by his widow and one son, who was also educated at Cambridge and at St Mary's Hospital and who qualified in 1951.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005522
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Graham, Cecil Irving (1877 - 1957)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-06-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005500-E005599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377708377708
Occupation Otolaryngologist ENT surgeon
Details Born in Western Australia on 11 April 1877, he was a student at St Mary's Hospital, London, where he was afterwards assistant lecturer in anatomy. After holding resident posts at St Mary's and Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, he was appointed surgical registrar at St Mary's and subsequently first assistant surgeon when the ear and throat departments were combined in 1908; he had previously been senior clinical assistant at the Throat Hospital, Golden Square. He became surgeon to his department at St Mary's in 1919, and consulting aural surgeon on retirement in 1937. He was also aurist and laryngologist at the King Edward VII memorial hospital, Ealing, and the North Hertfordshire and South Bedfordshire Hospital, Hitchin. He served as honorary secretary of the otology section at the annual meeting of the British Medical Association at London in 1910, and was for some years honorary secretary of the Section of Laryngology in the Royal Society of Medicine. He practised at 17 Upper Wimpole Street. Graham lived after retirement at 5 St Sampson Terrace, Golant, Par, Cornwall, where he enjoyed sailing and outdoor activities. He suffered for some years from arthritis, slipped when getting out of his boat in July 1957 and, eventually succumbing to his injuries, died on 8 August 1957 aged 80. Graham had been an athlete of fine physique. He was captain of St Mary's Rugby football XV which won the Inter-Hospitals Cup in 1900; St Mary's also won the United Hospitals sports, Graham himself making a record hammer-throw. He was President of St Mary's Rugby football and athletic clubs for many years. Publications: A case of cyst of the pituitary fossa. *Lancet* 1913, 1, 242 and 892. A case of pituitary tumour, with W Harris. *Lancet* 1913, 2 1251; possibly the first decompression of the sella turcica attempted in England. Two cases to illustrate operation for complete lachrymal obstruction. *Trans Ophthal Soc UK* 1914, 34, 102. A series of cases showing the results of per-nasal dacryocystostomy. *Trans Ophthal Soc UK* 1922, 42, 175.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005525
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Graham, Evarts Ambrose (1883 - 1957)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-06-24
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005500-E005599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377709377709
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Chicago on 19 March 1883 son of Dr David W Graham (1843-1925), surgeon to the Presbyterian Hospital, and Ida Barnet Graham his wife, he was educated at Princeton and took his clinical training at Chicago, qualifying from Rush College in 1907. After holding resident posts at the Presbyterian Hospital he was assistant (1909-11) and lecturer in surgery (1911-16) at Rush College but at the same time was pursuing his own graduate education. He spent two years in the study of advanced chemistry, and from 1911 to 1914 was associated with Rollin T Woodyatt at the Sprague Institute of Clinical Research. His interests at this period were mainly pathological and he took an active share in the meetings of the Chicago Pathological Society, publishing articles also in the *Journal of experimental Medicine* and the *Journal of infectious Diseases*. When America entered the war in 1917 he was employed on an "empyema commission", working at Baltimore, and his report was influential. He was then sent to France as a surgical specialist. He had already married Helen Tredway Graham, but when the war ended was somewhat at a loss, intending to practise surgery but having spent all the previous years in research. He was invited in 1919 to fill the new Bixby Professorship of Surgery in the Washington University School of Medicine at St Louis. Here he made his life's work. He was able from small beginnings to build up a great teaching school of surgery, and was given a free hand to develop the Barnes Hospital and his teaching duties in the way he thought best. He was also surgeon at the St Louis Children's Hospital. He held the chair until 1951 when he retired with the title Professor Emeritus. In these thirty-two years Graham established his reputation as probably the greatest teaching surgeon in the world, and had the pleasure of seeing his pupils established in leading professorships in America and abroad. He served as President of the leading national surgical societies such as the American College of Surgeons, American Surgical Association, American Association of Thoracic Surgeons, American Board of Surgery (1937-51) and the International College of Surgeons (1953). His earliest work was on blastomycosis; after the war he continued his studies in empyema and was working also on biliary surgery. Later he made his mark as a thoracic surgeon in connection with treatment of cancer of the lung. He was the first surgeon to perform a successful total pneumonectomy, when in 1933 he removed an entire lung for a squamous carcinoma involving the bronchus of the upper left lobe. The patient was able to return to a busy practise as a gynaecologist and outlived Graham. In 1939 an annual lecture was founded and named in his honour at St Louis. Graham was awarded the Lister medal in 1942, but delivered the oration only in 1947. He was elected an honorary Fellow of the College, at the centenary of the institution of the Fellowship in 1943. He edited the *Yearbook of Surgery* 1926-39 and was on the editorial boards of *Archives of Surgery* 1920-43 and the *Journal of thoracic Surgery* from its inception in 1931. He served as temporary Professor of Surgery at St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1939 and was elected a perpetual student. After his retirement, the issue for July 1952 of *Annals of Surgery* (vol 136, no 1) was dedicated to him. It contains a valuable survey of his early career by E D Churchill and a contribution from Graham himself. He died in St Louis on 4 March 1957 just before his seventy-fourth birthday, survived by his wife and children. Graham was a large, heavily built man of determination and pertinacity. He was a most inspiring teacher, gaining a retaining admiration and affection, and setting an example of unwearied patience and resource. He was a pattern of the virtues of his Scottish Presbyterian ancestry.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005526
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Green, Douglas (1887 - 1954)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-06-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005500-E005599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377712377712
Occupation General practitioner
Details Douglas Green belonged to a well-known Ecclesfield family. Educated at Barnsley grammar school, he obtained an open scholarship and a major open county scholarship from the West Riding of Yorkshire to Sheffield University medical school. Green excelled both at work and games: he was a keen Association footballer and he won the physiology scholarship in the intermediate examination of the University of London. After graduating in 1910, Green spent three years in resident posts at Sheffield Royal Infirmary, where he developed an inclination for surgery. Hence whilst holding a resident post at St Luke's Hospital, London, he attended a postgraduate course at University College Hospital and took the FRCS in 1914. He served with the RAMC in France and the Middle East as a regimental medical officer during the first world ward, and afterwards settled at 2 Camping Lane, Woodseats, Sheffield as a general practitioner. During the second world war Green was chairman of Sheffield pensions board and the medical recruitment board. For many years he was honorary secretary of the local branch of the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund, and was an active member of the West Riding Medical Charitable Society in 1950, at the end of his presidency. Green was twice married. He had one son and two daughters, one of whom was a doctor, Dora Green MRCS, LRCP, and the other was senior occupational therapist at the City General Hospital, Sheffield. He died on 25 July 1954 at the age of 76.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005529
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Allan, Francis Glen (1900 - 1975)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Stowell, Thomas Edmund Alexander (1887 - 1970)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006000-E006099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378280378280
Occupation General surgeon Medical Officer Radiologist
Details Thomas Edmund Alexander Stowell was born in 1887; he was educated at St Paul's School and St Thomas's Hospital where he was awarded the William Tite Scholarship for 1905-1906. As a postgraduate he studied at Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Zurich, Vienna and Harvard, holding clinical appointments at St Thomas's and the Royal Southern Hospital, Liverpool. At different times he was honorary surgeon at the Victoria Infirmary Northwich, senior honorary surgeon and radiologist at the Mid-Cheshire Orthopaedic Clinic, Northwich, and a surgeon in the EMS. Possibly his longest and most important appointment was that of chief medical officer to Imperial Chemical Industries, and therefore he was one of the pioneers on the subject of industrial health. A member of the court of examiners for the diploma in industrial health, he was Chairman of the Council of Industrial Medicine and of the Medical Advisory Committee of the Industrial Welfare Society. Senior Vice-President of the Congrès International de Sauvetage et de Premier Secours en Cas d'Accidents, he was for many years interested in accident prevention and first aid instruction and was a lecturer and examiner for the St John Ambulance Association and the British Red Cross Society. A devoted churchman he was a member of the House of Laity of the Church Assembly and was chairman of the Childrens Committee of the London Diocesan Council for Moral Welfare. His surgical activities were seriously curtailed by his developing Dupuytren's contracture, necessitating the amputation of three fingers. At one period he was a lecturer at the London School of Economics, a member of the British Social Hygiene Council, a Member of the Ministry of Pensions Committee on Compensation for Injuries Sustained by Members of HM Forces and many other bodies connected with industrial health, with first aid and safety, and with public morality. A great interest was the solving of historical medical mysteries and he became involved in controversial arguments as to the identity of Jack the Ripper following an article he wrote in *The Criminologist*. He was a keen and distinguished Freemason. In 1913 he married Lilian, elder daughter of W Wagner of Hayle, Cornwall by whom he had a son, who became a doctor, and a daughter who was killed accidentally in 1958. He died on 8 November 1970 in Southampton.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006097
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Stewart, James Cuming (1905 - 1970)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006000-E006099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378282378282
Occupation Businessman General surgeon
Details James Cuming Stewart was born on 26 October 1905, the son of Sir Alexander Stewart who was born in Scotland and ultimately became an eminent Australian industrialist and company director. James was educated at Melbourne Grammar School and Ormond College, graduating MB BS in 1930. After holding junior surgical appointments at the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne he came over to England to study for the FRCS, and in 1935 became RSO at St Mark's Hospital, and in 1936 was admitted to the Fellowship. On returning to Australia he was appointed associate surgeon to the Alfred Hospital and obtained the FRACS in 1939. During the second world war he served with the Australian Army Medical Corps from 1940-46, being ADMS (Equipment) in the New Guinea Force in 1943-44. On demobilization he returned to the Alfred Hospital, as surgeon to outpatients from 1946-56, and as surgeon to inpatients from 1956 till he retired prematurely in 1962 because of the onset of angina which forced him to abandon surgical practice. He spent the rest of his life as director of several industrial companies, but he maintained his association with the Alfred Hospital as a member of the Board of Management. Jim Stewart was a big gentle man, methodical and fond of hard work. He had a happy disposition and he and his wife took a delight in entertaining surgical colleagues visiting Melbourne. His own colleagues and his patients loved and trusted him. He enjoyed golf and travel, and was particularly happy in his family life. In 1937 he had married Anne Killough and they had two sons the elder of whom was killed tragically in a road accident at the age of 21, and the younger one, Malcolm, is an artist. He died of heart failure during an attack of pneumonia on 3 November 1970, and was survived by his wife and younger son.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006099
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Vythilingham, Kandiah (1910 - 1967)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-24
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/378395378395
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details Kandiah Vythilingham was born in Ceylon on 7 November 1910 and qualified with the LMS of Ceylon in 1937. He joined the Department of Health Services in 1939 and was appointed an acting medical officer at the Victoria Memorial Eye Hospital, Colombo. Thenceforward he specialized in ophthalmology, holding house appointments at Galle and Trincomalee but returning ultimately to the Victoria Memorial Eye Hospital, first as a medical officer, Grade I, and finally 1952 as Visiting Surgeon. Vythilingham was granted study leave in 1948 and came to England to obtain the DOMS and he passed the FRCS in Ophthalmology in 1951. He died in 1967.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006212
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Harding, Herbert Edward (1907 - 1982)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-12-11
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/378740378740
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Herbert Edward Harding was born in 1907. There is no record of his early education before he entered the London Hospital Medical College where he won a number of undergraduate prizes and qualified in 1931. After resident appointments at the London Hospital he completed the FRCS in 1933 to become surgical registrar and first assistant at the London where he worked for a number of surgeons, including Russell Howard. However, it was Robert Milne who inspired his interest in orthopaedic surgery, and he then worked as a registrar at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. In 1939, at the age of 32, he was appointed orthopaedic surgeon to the Westminster Hospital where for twenty years he teamed up in great harmony and friendship with Edward Brockman. On the outbreak of the second world war he worked in the Emergency Medical Service and then in the Royal Army Medical Corps, first as a surgical specialist and later as an officer commanding a surgical division with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. On demobilization, he returned to the Westminster and also succeeded Dudley Buxton as Ministry of Pensions consultant in orthopaedic surgery at Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton. He was further appointed to St Stephen's Hospital, Fulham, the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, King Edward VII Sanatorium, and the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth. At the coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth he was appointed Gold Stick in charge of medical arrangements at Westminster Abbey. He was Dean of Westminster Medical School for ten years and a member of the London University Senate. Generations of students had cause to be grateful to him for his sound advice and support, and the school was equally indebted for his outstanding administrative ability. He served on the executive committee of the British Orthopaedic Association and was President of the Orthopaedic Section of the Royal Society of Medicine. Later on he was a long-standing member of the Medical Appeals Tribunal. 'Ding' Harding had wide medical experience, an enquiring mind and sound surgical judgement. He was an excellent teacher who regularly reduced problems to the bare essentials and he had wide interests outside medicine. In his early years he was a keen rider to hounds and point-to-pointer. He was also a good shot, an enthusiastic fisherman, a knowledgeable gardener and a golfer of fluctuating ability. It was his pleasure to share those interests with others, and he was as happy to sit on a bank watching a guest using his rod as to fish the best pool himself. He was a handsome, elegant and highly entertaining bachelor who cherished the company of his many friends. During a long terminal illness in hospital he remained witty, cheerful and entertaining, always making his visitors feel better for their visit to him. He died on 4 February 1982.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006557
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Goodwin, Aubrey (1889 - 1964)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Davies, John Arthur Lloyd (1919 - 1979)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-11-25
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006300-E006399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378580378580
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 2 December 1919 at Rhos, a village near Wrexham, North Wales, John Lloyd Davies was the son of a general practitioner surgeon at Wrexham Hospital, and grandson of a general practitioner. Educated at Epsom College, he obtained a scholarship to St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1937, where he qualified in 1942. Following house-surgical posts at Bart's he went into the Army and was posted to field hospitals in India and Burma, ending his Army service with the rank of Major and as Officer Commanding 24 India Convalescent Depot, Lebong, near Darjeeling. After his return to England at the end of the war he spent nine months working in his grandfather's single-handed practice in Wales before further surgical training at Bart's, becoming FRCS in 1948. Following posts as surgical registrar at Chase Farm Hospital and as senior registrar at Watford, he spent four years as senior registrar and tutor in clinical surgery to the West London Hospital, during which time he was also a clinical assistant at St Mark's Hospital, holding the Dan Mason Research Scholarship in 1954. The following year he became senior registrar at Guy's Hospital and clinical assistant at St Peter's Hospital. In December 1958 John Lloyd Davies was appointed consultant surgeon to the Salisbury General Hospital, where his broad training and wide experience were the envy of his younger colleagues. With a highly analytical mind and great clinical integrity, he had very high standards in everything he did, and expected the same high standards from others. After going to Salisbury he developed his interest in urology, and also undertook major vascular surgery. Later he did a lot of thyroid and parathyroid surgery and devised an instrument for detecting the recurrent laryngeal nerve. He was a great doctor, beloved by his patients and colleagues, and an excellent teacher. He also played an important part in the administration of the hospital, serving on many committees in Salisbury District and also in the Wessex Region. Because of his qualities and wide experience his advice was asked on many matters, and he always gave wise and disinterested help. For several years he was consultant to the director of the Chemical Defence Establishment at Porton Down. Elected to the Fellowship of the Association of Surgeons in 1972, he was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and a member of the British Medical Association. His leisure interests were gardening and fishing. His tragic death in a road accident on 9 January 1979 at the age of 59 was a severe blow not only to his family, but also to his colleagues and friends. He was survived by his second wife, Frances Huxley (Jinny), whom he married in 1959, and by three daughters and a son, Steven, now a medical student at Guy's Hospital.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006397
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Basden, Margaret Mary (1886 - 1974)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-11-06
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/378478378478
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Margaret Mary Basden was born in Nottingham on 3 April 1886, she was the daughter of Hope, née Figgis, and Duncan Frederick Basden who was a chartered accountant. The family moved to Hampstead while she was still a young child and she attended King Alfred's School. There was a medical tradition in the family that an ancestor had attended George III and Margaret decided, early in life, to study medicine. While she was a medical student at the London School of Medicine for Women the College opened the Fellowship to women and she seized the opportunity and passed the primary examination. She then held a postgraduate post at the London Hospital where she was greatly influenced by the teaching of Sir Hugh Rigby and Dr Russell Andrews and gained her FRCS in 1919. After holding a resident accoucheur appointment at the London Hospital, she decided to take up obstetrics and gynaecology, and she eventually became consultant gynaecological surgeon to the Bethnal Green, and Mildmay Hospitals and obstetric surgeon to the Mother's Hospital, Clapton, and surgeon to the South London Hospital for Women and Children. After retirement she led an active professional life as long as she was able and in 1951 went to Uganda for a time to serve on the staff of the Mengo Hospital in Kampala. Margaret remained an imposing figure in her later years and, making no concessions to changing fashions she brought memories of times past with her dignified appearance and carriage. She was courteous, kindly and generous and one of her chief interests was reading aloud to the blind. She had a great sense of humour and a lively interest in her fellows which made her an excellent raconteur, telling her stories in a deep contralto with an inimitable chuckle. Though her health failed progressively over the last few years she did not allow physical difficulties to interfere with her social life and religious observances, she retained her style to the end. She died on 8 September 1974, aged 88 years and was survived by her two younger sisters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006295
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Armitage, George (1896 - 1979)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-11-06
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/378495378495
Occupation General surgeon
Details George Armitage was born at Rothwell, near Leeds, on 20 April 1896 the son of George Armitage, a company director and chairman of the family brickworks. His mother was Annie Elizabeth Flocton, the daughter of a prison governor. He was educated at the village school at Ackworth and entered Leeds Medical School in 1912, but his medical education was interrupted by his distinguished service in the first world war with the Royal Artillery, attaining the rank of Colonel when he commanded 269 Field Regiment RA. He was engaged in the battle of the Somme in 1916 and was awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous bravery in the field. The following year he took part in the battle of Passchendaele and was awarded a bar to his MC. In 1918 he returned to medical school and qualified from Leeds in 1921 with first class honours and was awarded the William Hey Gold Medal as the most outstanding student of the year. From 1921 to 1923 he was demonstrator in anatomy and then became house surgeon to Sir Berkeley Moynihan. In 1925 he was appointed resident surgical officer at the General Infirmary at Leeds and achieved the FRCS. He became university surgical tutor in 1927 and two years later he was awarded a Rockefeller travelling fellowship to Harvard University and worked for a year under Professor Harvey Cushing at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. Following this excellent experience and training George Armitage was appointed honorary consultant surgeon at the General Infirmary at Leeds in 1933, having already carried out the first brain surgery at Leeds and was instrumental in the appointment of a full-time neurosurgeon, William Henderson, a fellow student with Harvey Cushing. In 1934 additional appointments included consultant surgeon at Clayton Hospital, Wakefield and consultant to the Ministry of Pensions at Chapel Allerton. In 1939 he was Hunterian Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons and in 1940 he became full surgeon to the General Infirmary. George, as he was affectionately known to generations of medical students, soon established a fine reputation as a great surgical teacher and technician and was among the first to recognise the importance of transurethral surgery and the first Leeds surgeon to apply this technique. He excelled in thyroid surgery, but he was also a general surgeon of outstanding technical ability. No wonder, therefore, that he established an enormous hospital and private practice. He always felt real concern for all his patients and deep sympathy for the relatives of those who were dangerously ill or dying. He could recall with ease the details of the family life of a patient who returned to him with recurrent illness and he knew where his patients lived and worked. As a member of the Moynihan Travelling Club he toured widely through Europe and the United States and there were few leading surgeons whom he did not know personally. In 1956 Sir Harry Platt invited him to represent the Royal College of Surgeons as an official delegate to the USSR which he regarded as one of the highlights of his surgical career. George Armitage had many interests and was a countryman at heart. In 1938 he acquired a herd of British Friesian cattle. He was President of the Yorkshire British Friesian Breeders Club in 1962-63 and was Vice-President of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society. A great golfer, despite his limp, he won the Medical Golfing Society of Great Britain and Ireland Trophy in 1952 and the Armitage Cup is played for annually on his favourite golf course at Alwoodley, Leeds. For many years after the first world war he remained in the Territorial Army and was awarded the Territorial Decoration for his long service. On retiring from the National Health Service he put his tremendous energies into the family business and became chairman of Armitage Bricks, holding this post until 1976. George Armitage is remembered with real affection for the warmth he brought to his personal relationships with his friends, colleagues, patients and staff. He married Mildred Jane Hare in 1929 and they had two daughters and a son. He died on 30 May 1979 while on holiday in the USA.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006312
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Roberts, James Llewellin Digby (1912 - 1977)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Bose, Tapan Kumar (1936 - 2013)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2014-10-17 2016-11-28
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006100-E006199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378313378313
Occupation General surgeon
Details Tapan Kumar Bose was a consultant general surgeon who held posts in the UK and in India. He was born in Rangoon, Burma, on 18 October 1936, the son of Nani Gopal Bose, a lawyer, and Maya Rani Bose née Roy, a housewife and graduate of Rangoon University. He was educated at Calcutta Boys' School, St Xavier's College, Calcutta, where he passed an intermediate examination in science, and then attended medical school at Calcutta, qualifying in 1961. He was a house surgeon at Irwin Hospital, New Delhi. He then attended a postgraduate course in general surgery at Maulana Azad Medical College and Irwin Hospital for two years, holding a government of India scholarship. After completing his MS in 1964, he worked as a registrar in the fracture and orthopaedic department at Irwin Hospital. From 1966 to 1985 he worked in the UK as a registrar, locum senior registrar and locum consultant in, among other places, London, Kingston-upon-Thames, Salisbury, Bedford, Swindon, Cirencester and north Wales. He gained his FRCS in 1972. He returned to India in 1985 as a private consultant surgeon. He was a member of the Association of Surgeons of India and the Indian Medical Association. Outside medicine, he was interested in tennis, cricket and football (he supported Liverpool Football Club). He also enjoyed music, both Indian and Western, and carrying out repairs around the house. He travelled widely, in Europe, Canada, the United States and India. After his retirement in 2008, he devoted time to literary and cultural activities, including helping to celebrate the birthday of the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore. In May 1979 he married Neera Haldar, a graduate in English literature from Agra University. They had a son, Biswajit, who became an electrical engineer. Tapan Kumar Bose died on 3 May 2013. He was 76. He is remembered by his family and colleagues as a man of principle, a conscientious and hardworking surgeon who tried to give his best.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006130
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cowell, Sir Ernest Marshall (1886 - 1971)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Barclay, Dorothy Margaret Somerville (1914 - 1964)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Moore, Walter William (1880 - 1954)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-03-28
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/377359377359
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Tasmania in 1880, he was taken to New Zealand as an infant of a week old by his father, a schoolteacher, who settled at Waikowaiti in North Otago, and in due course he entered Otago University where he graduated in medicine and science and then came to England, becoming one of the first New Zealanders to be admitted a Fellow. Returning to Hawkes Bay in 1907, he was appointed superintendent of the Napier Public Hospital. After holding this appointment for three years he set up in private practice in Tennyson Street at Napier. In the war of 1914-18 he served abroad but was invalided back to Napier, where in 1923 he established his own private hospital in Marine Parade. In the earthquake of 1932 the building was totally destroyed and he came to England to settle in private practice in Hastings up to the time of his death. Both he and his wife were keen about flying and in 1935 he obtained his pilot's licence flying with the Hawkes Bay and East Coast Aero Club, flying the club aeroplanes to all parts of New Zealand. He married Ivy May Moore and died without issue on 6 April 1954 survived by his wife.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005176
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Martin, Michael Richard Robertson (1942 - 1977)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-02-03
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/378921378921
Occupation General surgeon Paediatric surgeon
Details Michael Richard Robertson Martin was born in Ilford and educated at Brentwood School and the London Hospital. He graduated MB BS in 1965 and after house appointments embarked upon his surgical career, holding posts at his old teaching hospital and at the Westminster Children's Hospital and Cardiff. He took the FRCS in 1970. In 1977 he was appointed consultant surgeon to Maelor General Hospital, Wrexham. His qualities of thoroughness, kindness, and an easy identification with his little patients found their natural outlet when his earlier career took him along the path of paediatric surgery. These qualities, coupled with his unfailing good humour and dedication, inspired the utter confidence of all sorts and conditions of men when he returned to general surgery. He was a man with many interests outside surgery, notably sailing, music, and walking. He and his wife Gillian had three sons. He died on 29 March 1977 after a road accident. He was 35 years old.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006738
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Browne, Sir George Buckston (1850 - 1945)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Letchworth, Thomas Wilfrid (1874 - 1954)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-04-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005200-E005299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377398377398
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Born at Brighton on 5 July 1874, he was educated privately, then at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and St Bartholomew's Hospital. Qualifying in 1898 he became house surgeon at Wolverhampton General Hospital and the Royal County Hospital, Winchester, and ophthalmic house surgeon to B J Vernon and W H H Jessop at St Bartholomew's Hospital. From 1902 to 1908 he was in general practice at Bournemouth, but after obtaining his Fellowship in 1909 he turned entirely to ophthalmic surgery, serving as house surgeon to E W Brewerton at the Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital at the age of thirty-six and later holding appointments at the West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases, the Central London Ophthalmic Hospital, and the Royal Eye Hospital where he was appointed surgeon in 1915. Other posts to which he was appointed included that of ophthalmic surgeon to the Tottenham Education Committee and the Western General Dispensary in 1912, the Hampstead General Hospital in 1913, and the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth in 1914. At the Royal Eye Hospital he was an inspiring surgeon and teacher, kind and considerate to everyone, retaining his boyish approach in old age. He took his MD at the age of 73 in order to keep his son company when the latter took his MA. After retiring in 1934, he continued as an honorary clinical assistant until 1937. He lived at Surbiton from 1911 onwards, and in 1923-24 he was chairman of the Kingston-upon-Thames Division of the BMA. He had a patriarchal white beard and twinkling eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles, was fluent in French, German and Latin, was a skilled mathematician, inventing the rotary prism, and in his leisure hours a skilful chess player representing the county of Surrey. In 1903 he married Ethel Kate, eldest daughter of Ederic Worth of Bournemouth, and she died on 14 December 1951. They had two sons, the elder of whom was in the winning Cambridge crews of 1927 and 1928. He himself died after an operation on 22 July 1954 aged 80.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005215
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Levick, Harry Driffield (1866 - 1958)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-04-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005200-E005299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377399377399
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 13 November 1866, he was educated at St Thomas's Hospital. After holding resident posts at the Whitechapel Infirmary, the General Lying-in Hospital, Lambeth, the Seamen's Hospital, Ramsgate, and the Royal Free Hospital, and going for a time as a ship's surgeon, he settled when he was about thirty in general practice at Middlesbrough in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and was appointed surgeon to the North Ormesby Hospital. He soon began to specialise as a surgical consultant, developing his own nursing home, and became consulting surgeon to Guisborough General Hospital and the Adela Shaw Orthopaedic Hospital, Kirby Moorside. Levick was ambidexterous and a fast and brilliant operator. He was also a man of abounding vitality and became the leading surgeon in that countryside and a prominent citizen of Middlesbrough. Continuing his active life to an advanced age he acquired and was able to use a vast experience of surgery. He was the first Fellow of the College to settle in Middlesbrough and a pioneer of scientific surgery there. During the war of 1914-18 he served in France as a surgical specialist at an advanced casualty clearing station, and said that he there gained valuable experience from the satisfactory results of immediate surgical treatment of injuries. He had been chairman of the Cleveland division of the British Medical Association in 1915, and on his return to civil practice in 1918 he was appointed a Justice of the Peace. He was a town councillor for twenty-three years, and was Mayor in 1931 the centenary year of the Corporation. He was a commissioner for taxes, medical referee for workmen's compensation, and assessor to the County Court Judge. He was also President of the local branch of the British Legion and Past Master of the lodge of Freemasons. He promoted the Boy Scout movement, and was active in schemes for improving public health. He advocated smoke abatement by restricting open fires in private houses, and planned the housing of the tuberculous in open estates. At the end of his life he gave his house and grounds to the Corporation with an endowment for erecting and maintaining bungalows for the old. As a young man he played tennis and later golf, and enjoyed shooting and fishing. He died at his house, Willerby, 90 Cambridge Road, Middlesbrough on 23 July 1958 aged 91, survived by his wife; it was the eve of their diamond wedding-day (24 July 1898).
Resource Identifier RCS: E005216
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Oldfield, Michael Whitaker Carlton (1907 - 1963)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-04-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005200-E005299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377405377405
Occupation General surgeon Maxillofacial surgeon
Details Born in Leeds on 18 September 1907 son of Charlton Oldfield, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Leeds 1919-32, he was educated at Harrow, Oxford and, for his clinical studies, Leeds. Qualifying in 1931, he held house appointments at the General Infirmary, Leeds and, ascending the surgical ladder, the posts of resident casualty officer, resident surgical officer, and finally surgical tutor. In 1938 he was appointed to the consultant staff as assistant surgeon. For ten years, as an experienced horseman, he had been an officer in the Yorkshire Hussars, and on the outbreak of war in 1939 was mobilised as such, but almost immediately had to transfer to the RAMC. He was posted to the Middle East in 1941, holding the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and being officer in charge of a Field Surgical Unit serving for six months in Palestine during the Syrian campaign. After this, having been specially trained by Gillies, he had charge of No 2 Faciomaxillary Unit in the Western Desert, where he carried out very valuable work, but in 1944 as a general surgeon he returned to a surgical division for the remainder of the war. On returning to Leeds, in addition to his appointment as surgeon to the General Infirmary, he had a maxillo-facial unit at St James's Hospital and was also consulting surgeon to Dewsbury and District General Infirmary, to the Royal Infirmary, Halifax, and to Batley Hospital; in addition he attended Mirfield Memorial Hospital. At the College he was Arris and Gale Lecturer in 1940, considering the problems of hare-lip and cleft palate, and in 1949 Hunterian Professor dealing with the same subjects. He was for a time external examiner for the University of Cairo, and he was a founder member of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons, a Fellow of the British Association of Surgeons, Vice- President of the Surgical Section of the Royal Society of Medicine, a very active member of the Surgical Travellers Club and of the Leeds and West Riding Medico-Chirurgical Society. A regular member of the Bramham Moor Hunt, he rode in point-to-point meetings, and had a small farm. He was a good cricketer and enjoyed shooting and fishing. In 1938 he married Rosamund Adela, daughter of Lt-Colonel and Mrs Harris St John, who survived him with their four children. He died suddenly at his home on the evening of 11 July 1963. Publications: Cleft palate and the mechanism of speech. (Arris and Gale lecture, RCS 1940). *Brit J Surg* 1941, 29, 197. Reparative surgery in the Middle East, with a review of 1200 cases. *Brit J Surg* 1944, 32, 237.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005222
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Fitzwilliams, Duncan Campbell Lloyd (1878 - 1954)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-06-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005300-E005399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377551377551
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 31 December 1878 one of the eight sons of Charles H L Fitzwilliams JP, of Newcastle Emlyn, Cardiganshire. His boyhood was spent in the country, hunting, shooting and fishing, observing nature and his own relative insignificance, though in physique he was a giant; these years laid the foundation for the philosophy he held throughout his life. In his late teens he and a younger brother were sent to Edinburgh to study medicine, and there he excelled both in study and in sport. He became amateur heavyweight champion boxer of Scotland and defended his title later; he also rowed for the University. While still an Edinburgh student Fitzwilliams went to the Boer War as a dresser in Professor John Chiene's hospital unit with the South African field force and was awarded the Queen's medal with four clasps. On his return he graduated in 1902, gained the Leckie-Mactier Fellowship and the Goodsir Memorial Fellowship, and was elected president of the Royal Medical Society. Whilst holding house appointments in Edinburgh in 1904, the MD with gold medal in 1905, the FRCS in 1906 and the ChM with high commendation in 1907. Fitzwilliams came to London and after holding the posts of house surgeon and casualty officer at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond street, was appointed demonstrator of anatomy at King's college and clinical assistant to the surgical out-departments of the West London Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children. In 1909 he was appointed assistant-surgeon to St Mary's Hospital; he was to work there for forty-five years. During the 1914-18 war Fitzwilliams was attached to the 1st City of London Field Ambulance and attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He served in Malta and Rumania, and in 1918 was consulting surgeon to the North Russian Expeditionary Force and was twice mentioned in dispatches. He was awarded several Russian and Rumanian honours, and was created a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur and CMG in 1919. After the war he was appointed to the surgical staff of Paddington Green Children's Hospital and later became surgeon to the Mount Vernon Hospital and Radium Institute for Cancer. He was also attached, at one time or another, to the Margaret Street Hospital for Diseases of the Chest, and the Dorking, Hanwell, Hayes, and Barnet Cottage Hospitals. A keen Freemason, he attained high rank in Grand Lodge and for many years served on the surgical staff of the Royal Masonic Hospital. His surgical interest was chiefly the operative and radium treatment of cancer, and he wrote several textbooks on the subject. Fitzwilliams was Master of the Society of Apothecaries 1949-50, and he also served as President of the Harveian Society and of the West London Medico-Chirurgical Society. He was much interested in the history of medicine, on which he wrote several articles. Fitzwilliams was six foot four inches in height and broad in proportion, with a commanding presence. He was known to be a very generous man, not only to his friends, but to the poor and the distressed. He was popular with his students, and his summer parties at his house on Monkey Island, in the Thames near Bray, were much appreciated. Fitzwilliams married Mary Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Oliver Dwight Filley of St Louise, USA, and they had two sons and three daughters. His first wife died in 1919, and in 1920 he married Francesca Christine Wagner MBE, daughter of Ferdinand Wagner of Riga. On retirement Fitzwilliams went to live at La Mesange, Mont Cochon, Jersey, returning to London from time to time. He died at St Mary's Hospital on 18 November 1954 aged 75. Publications: *The breast*. Heinemann 1925. 440 pages. *The Tongue and its diseases*. Oxford Press 1927, 505 pages. *Radium and cancer, curietherapy*. Lewis 1930. 172 pages. *Cancer of the breast*. Heinemann 1947. 199 pages.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005368
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lockhart-Mummery, John Percy (1875 - 1957)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-06-25 2014-07-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005500-E005599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377732377732
Occupation Proctologist Coloproctologist
Details He was born at Hampstead on 14 February 1875, son of John Howard Mummery FRCS (1847-1926) and Mary Lily, his first wife, daughter of W Lockhart of Shanghai. John Howard Mummery (for a memoir of whom see *Plarr's Lives* 2, 81 and *British dental Journal* 1926, 47, 1023-7) was a prominent dental surgeon in London and had been President of the Odontological Society; he was elected a Fellow of the College in 1923 as a Member of 20 years' standing. His father, John R Mummery, had also been a dentist, but made his mark as an anthropologist. J P L Mummery's younger brother Stanley Parkes Mummery (1878-1945) MRCS also distinguished himself as a dental surgeon. John Percy Lockhart Mummery (in later life he hyphenated the double surname) was educated at the Leys School and Caius College, Cambridge, where he took second-class honours in the first part of the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1897. He was appointed an assistant demonstrator of anatomy at Cambridge. Mummery took his clinical training at St George's Hospital, qualifying in 1899 and proceeding to the Fellowship in 1900 after holding resident posts at St George's, and winning the Thompson gold medal there. He also worked at the North Eastern (now Queen Elizabeth) Hospital for Children at Hackney and at King Edward VII Hospital for Officers, but he really found his métier when he was appointed to the staff of St Mark's Hospital for Diseases of the Rectum in 1903. He became senior surgeon on the retirement of Swinford Edwards in 1913 and was made emeritus surgeon when he himself retired in 1935; in 1940 he was appointed consulting surgeon and a vice-president. Lockhart-Mummery not only made a great career for himself, becoming probably the best-known proctologist in London, but he raised St Mark's from being a small institution into the front rank of special hospitals. His work is recorded in the *Collected Papers* published to celebrate the centenary of St Mark's in 1935. Lockhart-Mummery was a Hunterian professor at the College in 1904, lecturing on the physiology and treatment of surgical shock and collapse. The small book which he based on this lecture, *The after-treatment of operations* (1903), was extremely successful, running to four editions and being translated into several languages including Arabic. He won the Jacksonian Prize for 1908 with his essay on diseases of the colon, which he published and subsequently enlarged as *Diseases of the Rectum and Colon* 1923, second edition 1934. He was the first secretary and moving spirit of the British Proctological Society in 1913, and saw it become a section of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1939, and became its President. He was also President of the section of proctology at the British Medical Association's annual meeting at Newcastle in 1921, and of the section of children's diseases in the Royal Society of Medicine. Lockhart-Mummery was one of the founders of the British Empire Cancer Campaign, first chairman of its executive committee, and active in its work till the end of his life. He was prominent in promoting the London International Cancer Conference of 1928, was much interested in heredity in cancer and a pioneer of the study of familial polyposis (1925). He published a semi-popular book on the *Origin of Cancer* in 1932, and two collections of fictional essays, *After us* 1936 and *Nothing new under the sun* 1947, the first of which contained an imaginary account of England in AD 2456. He devised an electric sigmoidoscope as early as 1904, while his operation for perineal excision of the rectum (1925) became classical. Lockhart-Mummery was a man of many interests, fond of fishing and a regular player of golf in spite of the handicap of losing a leg while a young man, and, in his old age, of bowls. He was also a keen dog racer, winning the Dog Derby with one of his greyhounds. He married twice: (1) in 1915 Cynthia daughter of R A Gibbons; of the two sons of this marriage, one Hugh Evelyn Lockhart-Mummery FRCS succeeded him at St Mark's Hospital; (2) in 1932 Georgette, daughter of H Polak of Paris. He had practised at 149 Harley Street, but after retirement lived at Hove, where he died on 24 April 1957, aged 82. A Bibliography of his writings is included in the *Collected Papers of St Mark's Hospital* 1935, pages 417-423.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005549
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Trotter, Wilfred Batten Lewis (1872 - 1939)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/376905376905
Occupation General surgeon
Details The Trotter family has long been settled in Gloucestershire, where it had an honoured connexion with the Baptist Church. Wilfred Trotter was born in London on 3 November 1872, the son of Howard Birt Trotter of Coleford, Gloucestershire, and Frances Lewes, his wife. His early years were spent at Coleford, where he suffered from disease of the spine, for the cure of which he was ordered prolonged rest. He was afterwards a pupil at Bell's Grammar School, Coleford, and at Gloucester. His father, who retired first to Park Avenue, Willesden Green, London and later to Aberystwyth, sent his son to University College School, where he remained from 1888 to 1890. Having gained the first entrance exhibition Wilfred Trotter entered the Medical Faculty of University College in October 1891. He was awarded the gold medal and the University scholarship at the BS examination in 1896, and was placed in the honours list in medicine at the University of London in the following year. At University College Hospital he was house surgeon to Arthur E J Barker from April to September 1897, and house physician to Charlton Bastian, FRS from October 1897 to March 1898. He was surgical registrar 1901-04; assistant demonstrator of anatomy in the medical school 1904-06, when G D Thane was the professor; assistant surgeon 1914, on the resignation of Victor Horsley; surgeon 1915, on the retirement of Bilton Pollard; Holme lecturer in clinical surgery 1908-38; director of the surgical unit, with the title of professor of surgery, 1935-38, in succession to C C Choyce; and consulting surgeon 1938. He was also a Fellow of University College, London. During his years of waiting for a vacancy on the surgical staff at University College Hospital, he was an assistant surgeon at the East London Hospital for Children at Shadwell. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Hunterian professor in 1913, a member of the Council 1924-39, a vice-president 1933-34, and Hunterian orator 1932. He was a member of the Medical Research Council 1929-33, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1931, where he was a member of Council 1932-33 and a vice-president 1935-37. He was surgeon in ordinary to King George V. 1928-32, and in that position shared with Sir Hugh Rigby, Serjeant-Surgeon, the responsibility for the surgical treatment of the King through a prolonged illness. He received his patent as Serjeant-Surgeon in 1932, in succession to Rigby, and resigned the office in August 1939, having served King George V, King Edward VIII, and King George VI. In 1932 he was president of the Association of Surgeons, and in 1938 he received the gold medal of the Royal Society of Medicine. He married in 1910 Elizabeth Mary Jones, sister to Ernest Jones, MD, director of the London Clinic of Psycho-Analysts, who had been a fellow student with him at University College. She survived him with a son, W R Trotter, MRCP 1937, DM Oxford. 1942, also of University College Hospital. His health began to give anxiety to his friends in 1935, when he relinquished private practice and devoted himself entirely to work at University College Hospital. He died at Pond End House, Blackmoor, Hants on 25 November 1939. A half-length portrait in oils painted by Herbert Olivier is in the possession of Mrs Trotter. A replica by the artist was presented to the Royal College of Surgeons. It was reproduced in the *British Journal of Surgery*, 1939-40, 27, 625. Trotter had physical and mental qualities unusual in a surgeon who attains a very high position in his profession. He carried through life evidence of illness in childhood. Frail-looking, stooping somewhat, and prematurely old; quiet in manner, reticent, and speaking very softly, it was difficult to believe that he could bear the fatigues and anxieties of a hospital surgeon and teacher coupled with a large private practice. But under his frail aspect and quiet manner was a keen intellect directed towards the philosophical and psychological aspects of medicine, critical judgment, wit, and a rare operative skill. *As the preceding memoir by Sir D'Arcy Power lacked an appreciation of Trotter's scientific work, it has been thought well to add the following paragraphs:* At University College Hospital as a young man Trotter had come under the influence of a group of remarkable scientifically minded surgeons and physicians who opened new horizons for his thought; chief among these he recalled Horsley, Barker, and Bastian (mentioned above) with Sir Thomas Barlow, FRS, and Sir John Rose Bradford, FRS. Promotion in the hospital came slowly to him at first, his academic career having been sound rather than brilliant, and after holding the surgical registrarship 1901-04 he had to fill in two years, in his early thirties, demonstrating anatomy at University College. In the meantime, however, he was developing his own thought, educating himself, as he said half seriously, on the English novelists, particularly Jane Austen and Henry James; while through Ernest Jones, who was shortly to become his brother-in-law, he had learnt of the new schools of psychology stemming from Vienna and Zurich under the impetus of Sigmund Freud's revolutionary teaching, which was slowly making its way to recognition. Trotter worked out, during the lean year 1905, an analysis of the herd instinct in man. He showed that the conditions of life of gregarious animals gave rise to an instinct of such power that its workings could be followed through the emotions and even the intellectual processes behind man's social behaviour. Karl Pearson, also of University College, had shown that man's instinct to sacrifice his individual interests for the sake of his fellows arose directly from this instinct of the herd; but Trotter went more deeply into the human rationalization of this urge, at a time when it had been hardly explored. The essay was published in two parts in the *Sociological Review* in 1908 and 1909, and attracted the attention of psychologists (see Bibliography below, No 7). It was re-issued in 1916 as the beginning of a much larger book (No 30), in which he applied his analysis to the nations then at war. This later part was too strongly coloured by Trotter's own patriotism, but made a popular appeal in its comparison of English social life to that of the bee, a forced analogy, and German life to the herd movements of the predatory wolf. The book was revived at the beginning of the second German war in 1940, and at that time Trotter wrote a remarkable letter (No 71) to *The Times*, 26 September 1939, briefly summarizing his analysis of these psychological traits in democracy and autocracy. It has been re-issued with a biographical introduction in 1953. After this speculative excursion, Trotter next applied himself to the physio-psychological problem of pain. Head and Rivers in 1905 had made self-experiments on the regeneration of the peripheral sensory nerves of the skin, concluding that these nerves had evolved from two components, the protopathic and the epicritic nerves: the former registering gross sensations and pain, the latter touch, localization and temperature. (The afferent nervous system from a new aspect, by H Head, W H R Rivers, and J Sherren. *Brain*, 1905, 28, 99.) Trotter was sceptical of these deductions, and with H Morriston Davies, FRCS he repeated and elaborated the research. Using each other as controls, which he considered were lacking from the Head-Rivers experiments, Trotter and Davies cut different skin nerves in seven experiments. Their detailed observations were published in 1907 and subsequent years (Nos 3, 6, 22), including in 1913 a critique of the Head-Rivers hypothesis, for Trotter could not accept the theory of dual origin. He came to believe that the regenerated nerve must be looked on as abnormal and pathologic, not a pure regrowth of the original, and he attributed its hypersensitivity to lack of insulation from other tissues. He developed this idea in later studies (Nos 45, 50, 53), though he never again found opportunity to pursue it in the laboratory. In these early years before the first world war, Trotter was carrying on experimental work at University College Hospital at the same time as his surgical practice, when science and surgery were more usually separate. He also inspired his colleagues and pupils to similar work; and it was thus no surprise to those who knew him best when in his last years he abandoned his large private practice and restricted himself to scientific work based on his hospital clinic. But the middle years of his life were more and more occupied with pure surgery, as his brilliant technique and deep knowledge led him to explore some of the more difficult fields and brought him the time-consuming reward of being very generally accepted as the surgeon's surgeon. From the surgery of the central nervous system (Nos 1, 4, 23, 27) and the thyroid gland (Nos 5 and 13), which his master Horsley had practised before him, he turned to the intricate problems of larynx and pharynx surgery, elaborating a new anatomical approach for dealing with malignant disease of these organs (Nos 10 and 15). This work was first fully described in his Hunterian lectures (No 21), and definitively in several later papers (Nos 49, 55, 59, 60 and 70). Trotter's craftsmanship as a surgeon was of a very high order, based on a sound knowledge of anatomy. One observer said that "a pharyngeal growth would present itself to him in the middle of his incision apparently of its own volition"; another that "it was a perfect joy to watch him remove a simple appendix, the knife handled as Vermeer must have wielded his brush, the needle with the skill of an embroidress, and, above all, the surpassing gentleness of his manipulation". In his later years he played a full part in the corporate life of surgeons and scientists, as a valued member of the Councils of the Royal College of Surgeons and the Royal Society. He also became more widely known through a series of philosophic addresses on the background of medical and social life. In 1923 he read the opening paper to the section of surgery at the British Medical Association's annual meeting at Portsmouth (No 40), and in 1924 gave the annual oration to the Medical Society of London (No 44). In his Hunterian oration (No 64) he took as his theme "The commemoration of great men", and tried to show that it would be better to help great men during their lives than commemorate them when they were dead. (See also Nos 56, 58, 65, 68, 69.) He had long recuperated himself from the strains of surgical practice by escape to the quiet of the country, at first to a cottage in Sussex and, after his marriage, to a house in Hampshire, where he cultivated his garden with the meticulous search for perfection that he gave to his surgery and his Socratic philosophizing. His criticism was keen, and though it was often destructive it gave food for thought which led to valuable results. His wit was swift and biting, as when he once said to an assistant in the operating theatre "Mr Anaesthetist, if the patient can keep awake, surely you can". His extreme simplicity and modesty seemed affected to some observers, but was more probably due to that sardonic tone of mind which saw no value in any human activity except the lifelong perfecting of skill, dexterity, and judgement. Publications: Trotter published 71 papers; a bibliography was drawn up in the RCS library and published with modifications in the Royal Society's obituary notice (see below). The papers mentioned above are listed here with their numbers from the full bibliography. A paper on "Panic and its consequences" appeared posthumously in *Brit med J* 1940, 1, 270. His son, Dr W R Trotter; edited a selection of his articles as *Collected Papers* for the Oxford University Press, 1941. 1. Cheyne-Stokes phenomenon in acute cerebral compression. *Lancet*, 1906, 1, 1380. 3. The exact determination of areas of altered sensibility, with H M Davies. *Rev Neur Psych* 1907, 5, 761. 4. Commoner symptoms of cerebellar abscess. *Brit med J* 1908, 1, 612. 6. Experimental studies in the innervation of the skin, with Davies. *J Physiol* 1909, 38, 134. 7. The herd instinct. *Sociol Rev* 1908, 1, 227; 1909, 2, 36. 10. Continuous fibroma of neck and larynx, or malignant disease of the larynx with enlargements of glands in the neck. *Proc Roy Soc Med* 1908-09, 2, laryng pp 82-87 (5 February 1909). This paper follows up Sir Felix Semon's article on the same case in the same volume, pp 8-10 (6 November 1908). 15. Clinically obscure malignant tumours of the naso-pharyngeal wall. *Brit med J* 1911, 2, 1057. 21. The principles and technique of the operative treatment of malignant disease of the mouth and pharynx, Hunterian lectures, RCS, 3 and 5 March 1913. *Lancet*, 1913, 1, 1075. 22. The peculiarities of sensibility founds (sic) in cutaneous areas supplied by regenerating nerves, with Davies. *J Psychol Neurol*, Leipzig, 1913, 20, Ergänzungsheft, 2, 102-150, with German summary of paper read at Congress of International Society for medical Psychology and Psychotherapy. 23. Chronic subdural haemorrhage of traumatic origin and its relation to pachymeningitis haemorrhagica interna. *Brit J Surg* 1914-15, 2, 271 (October 1914). 27. The principles of operative treatment of traumatic cerebral lesions. *Brit J Surg* 1914-15, 2, 520-543 (April 1915). 30. *Instincts of the herd in peace and war*. London, Unwin; New York, Macmillan. February 1916, 213 pp. Second edition with postscript, 1919; 11th impression, 1930; 12th impression, London, Benn, February 1940, 264 pp; new edition, Oxford University Press, 1953. 40. Anaesthetics from the surgeon's point of view. *Brit med J* 1923, 2, 791. 44. Certain minor injuries of the brain. *Trans Med Soc Lond* 1924, 47, 270. 45. Sensibility of the skin in relation to neurological theory. *Lancet*, 1924, 1, 1252. 49. The surgery of malignant disease of the pharynx. *Brit med J* 1926, 1, 269. 50. The insulation of the nervous system. *Brit med J* 1926, 2, 103. 53. The interpretation of pain. *Camb Univ Med Soc Mag* 1927-28, 5, 114. 55. Operations for malignant disease of the pharynx. *Brit J Surg* 1928-29, 16, 485. 56. The functions of the human skull. *Nature*, 1929, 123, 522. 58. Observation and experiment and their use in medical sciences. *Brit med J* 1930, 2, 129. 59. Some principles in the surgery of the pharynx. *Lancet*, 1931, 2, 833. 60. Malignant disease of the hypopharynx and its treatment by excision. *Proc Roy Soc Med* 1931-32, 25, 431. 64. The commemoration of great men, Hunterian oration, RCS, 15 February 1932. *Brit med J* 1932, 1, 317; *Lancet*, 1932, 1, 381. 65. De minimis. *Lancet*, 1933, 1, 287. 68. General ideas in medicine, Lloyd Roberts lecture, 30 September 1935. *Brit med J* 1935, 2, 609. 69. Has the intellect a function? *Lancet*, 1939, 1, 1419. 70. Malignant disease of the pharynx: a problem in practical medicine, in T R Hill *Treatment of some common disease*, Edinburgh, Livingstone, 1939, pp. 164-184. 71. The mind in war, democracy's chief advantage. *The Times*, 26 September 1939, p 4c, reprinted in *Royal Society, Notes and Records*, 1939, 2, 173.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004722
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Sharif, Mohamed (1912 - 2014)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2014-02-24 2016-04-15
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/377215377215
Occupation Military surgeon
Details Mohammed Sharif was a military doctor in the Pakistan, a World Health Organization (WHO) representative in Africa and ultimately director of UNRWA (the United National Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East) operations on the West Bank. He was born on 7 January 1912 in Nabha, India, the son of Hakim Fateh Mohammed Khan, a physician, and Fatima Begum, a housewife. He studied medicine at Bombay University and qualified MB BS in 1936. He held junior posts in surgery and urology at the Grant Medical College and the Sir J J Hospital, Bombay. He was then medical officer in charge of a Bombay Municipality Dispensary (from October 1936 to March 1939). In 1938 he was commissioned into the Indian Medical Service, initially with the rank of lieutenant. A year later, he was awarded a Sir Currimbhoy Ebrahim scholarship by Bombay University for postgraduate study abroad. He arrived in the UK in April 1939, joined St Bartholomew's Hospital and began to study for the primary examination of the FRCS, due to be held in November, however, in September 1939, at the start of the Second World War, he was recalled by the Indian government for active duty. After an eventful journey back to the subcontinent, when the convoy he was travelling in was fired at by a German U-boat, he joined the Fourth Indian Division. He served in Egypt, Eritrea, Sudan, Palestine, Iraq and Cyprus, and ended the war as a major and a specialist in advanced military surgery. He returned to India in January 1945, where he was officer in charge of the surgical division at the Combined Military Hospital in Sialkot, Punjab, a post he held for two years. From February 1947 to the end of December 1948, he was commanding officer at the Combined Military Hospital, Bannu, in the North-West Frontier Province, on the boarder near Afghanistan. On 14 August 1947, Pakistan came into being and Sharif acquired Pakistani nationality. The new government granted him permission to return to the UK to resume his interrupted postgraduate studies. After time spent at the Royal College of Surgeons, Guy's, St Thomas', St Peter's and St Paul's hospitals and the Institute of Urology he gained the FRCS in 1951 and also a diploma in urology. In September 1951 he returned to Pakistan and resumed his Army medical career. He was first stationed in Baluchistan, where he was the commanding officer and a surgical specialist until March 1954. He subsequently became assistant director of medical services at the Pakistan Army division at Lahore, deputy director of medical services for the Army Medical Corps and finally director of medical services for the Pakistan Air Force. While holding this latter post, he was sent to the School of Aviation Medicine in San Antonio, Texas, USA, where he gained a diploma in aviation medicine. In May 1959 he was transferred from the military into the Pakistan Civil Service, becoming director general of health and joint secretary of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Social Welfare, with the task of developing the country's health services. In 1963 he joined WHO, initially as a representative in Tanganyika and Zanzibar, where he helped establish a new medical school at Dar es Salaam. From 1964 to 1975 he was director of health and WHO representative at UNRWA headquarters, Beirut, Lebanon, concerned with the health needs of the 1.5 Palestinian Arab refugees across the Middle East. From 1975 to 1977, he was director of UNRWA operations on the West Bank, carrying the responsibility for UNRWA's relief, health and education services for some 200,000 Palestinians living in the territory of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza. He officially retired in January 1977, but was subsequently appointed as a consultant to the WHO European regional office in Copenhagen, Denmark. During the same period, he taught public health administration and management at the American University of Beirut's school of public health. He received many awards, including the 1939-49 Star, the Africa Star, the Defence medal and the War medal for his service in the Second World War, the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation medal (in 1949), the Pakistan Independence Medal (in 1947), the Republic of Pakistan Medal (in 1956) and the Sitara-i-Qaid-e-Azam, Pakistan's civil honour (in 1961). He was married to Rukshar and they had two sons (Altan and Sharouh) and three daughters (Ediz, Temriz and Gulseren). He died on 18 January 2014, shortly after his 102nd birthday.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005032
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Buckley, William (1903 - 1956)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-02-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004900-E004999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377115377115
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details Born at Oldham 7 October 1903, son of Llewellyn Buckley, yarn broker, and Sarah Henthorne his wife, he was educated at King Edward VII School, Lytham St Anne's, at St John's College, Cambridge and at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He was house surgeon to Sir Geoffrey Keynes and Harold Wilson at Bart's and then went into general practice at Worksop, Nottinghamshire, where he lived at Westbourne House, Newcastle Street, and served on the staff of the Victoria Hospital. He gave up general practice in 1944 when he was appointed to the surgical staff of Stoke Mandeville Hospital under Professor T Pomfret Kilner, and in 1945 joined George Mason's thoracic surgical unit at Shotley Bridge. He was appointed in 1946 assistant thoracic surgeon to the City Hospital, Nottingham and became consultant in charge of the unit in 1948. This thoracic unit had been started in 1939 by Laurence O'Shaugnessy FRCS, who was killed early in the war of 1939-45. Buckley developed it into a regional centre of thoracic and cardiac surgery. He was also associate surgeon to the Nottingham General Hospital and held other appointments at Grimsby, Worksop, and Lincoln, and at Newstead and Ransom sanatoria. He travelled in Europe and America to study the development of surgery of the heart. Buckley married on 6 June 1931 Nancy Stott of Lytham-St Anne's. He suffered a heart attack in 1955, and died suddenly from a second attack, while holding an out-patient clinic, on 14 November 1956 aged 53. He was survived by his mother, his wife, and their son. He was a skilled operator and a man of wise judgment, kindly and unassuming.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004932
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Page, Iven Alastair (1914 - 1971)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-09-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006000-E006099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378184378184
Occupation Accident and emergency surgeon General practitioner General surgeon
Details Iven Alastair Page was born at South Grafton, New South Wales, in 1914, being the third son of Sir Earle Page. He was educated at the Fort Street Boys' High School and the Sydney Church of England Grammar School, and then proceeded to the University of Sydney where he graduated in medicine in 1937. After holding junior posts in the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital he enlisted in the RAMC in 1940, and served in Iceland, Europe, India, Burma and Thailand, gaining extensive experience in surgery and obtaining the FRCS England in 1943. After the war he returned for a short period to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, but in 1946 started in general practice in Grafton. He became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1958, and in 1964 he decided to give up general practice and to specialize as a consultant surgeon. His previous experience in general practice, and what he had learned during war service combined to make him an outstanding general surgeon, who gained the confidence of his patients by quietly listening to what they had to say, and by the wise avoidance of unnecessary surgery. He was also well qualified as an accident surgeon in the days before the specialty was well recognized. Page was a keen sportsman and a valued member of the local community, not only in his professional capacity as chairman of his hospital board and as an active member, and ultimately president of the local medical association, but also through his practical interest in the Grafton news media, and in broadcasting. His many and varied activities were brought to a premature end by an illness borne with quiet dignity, and he died at the age of 57 on 5 August 1971. His wife Elizabeth and their four sons survived him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006001
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Alder, Alexander Bruck (1926 - )

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Lock, Norman Francis (1885 - 1972)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Lowdon, Andrew Gilchrist Ross (1911 - 1965)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-09-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005900-E005999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378086378086
Occupation General surgeon
Details Andrew Lowdon was born on 12 April 1911 at Greenock, the son of Rev. C. Ross Lowdon and Alison Gilchrist his wife. He commenced his education at the Greenock Academy, but completed his school days at the Royal High School in Edinburgh where he remained to do his medical course at the University. He had a distinguished undergraduate career, winning the Ettles Scholarship and the Leslie Gold Medal, and after qualifying in 1936 and holding house appointments at the Royal Infirmary and the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, he obtained the FRCS Ed in 1939. It was during this period that he came under the influence of David Wilkie and James Graham, to whom he often referred later with gratitude. When war broke out he was already in the Territorial RAMC and was therefore called up at once and spent the next two years as a surgical specialist in Palestine. He subsequently served with the Eighth Army from Alamein to Tunisia, and then in the Sicilian campaign. In 1944 he returned to Britain, and as Lieutenant-Colonel in charge of a surgical division in No 6 General Hospital he was involved in the final phase of the war in NE Europe. He was twice mentioned in dispatches and was appointed OBE in 1944. After demobilization in 1945 he returned to Edinburgh and was invited by Professor Learmonth to join his unit and spent the following nine years as lecturer and then senior lecturer in the University department of surgery. This was a very important period for him, because it not only gave him the experience of academic work which influenced the rest of his life, but it also seems certain that Learmonth's method of organizing regular meetings at which representatives of all the specialist units in his department of surgery were able to discuss matters of common interest laid the foundation for Lowdon's interdepartmental teaching programme when he went to Newcastle. This he did in 1954 when he was appointed Professor of Surgery in the University of Durham, the Chair subsequently being transferred to the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. As surgeon to the Royal Victoria Infirmary he was distinguished especially for his contributions to the surgery of the alimentary tract; but the reforms in the medical school which he pioneered in collaboration with his medical colleague Professor George Smart were so outstanding that they aroused interest throughout the British medical schools, and exerted an influence which spread far beyond Newcastle. It was therefore not surprising that when the deanship of the School became vacant in 1960 Lowdon was appointed to it, and in this appointment he was so successful that in 1965 he was made Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University, and also a member of the Royal Commission on Medical Education. Andrew Lowdon's wisdom, enthusiasm and concern for the welfare of his fellows made him a natural leader, and students loved him. In 1936 he was Senior President of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh, and in 1956 President of the University of Durham Medical Society. He was honorary President of the British Medical Students' Association in 1960, and that same year he was honoured by the University of Sydney by election as Norman Paul Visiting Professor. The Royal College of Surgeons of England elected him to the Fellowship ad eundem in 1959. The mere recital of all these activities is sufficient to indicate how he must have taxed his reserves of energy, and it was presumably overstrain which accounted for his sudden death at the age of 54, which occurred on 2 September 1965 while he was out walking on the moors. In 1948 he married Glenys Mairi Macdonald Donaldson, who was also medically qualified. She and their four children survived him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005903
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Barnett, Cyril Harry (1919 - 1970)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-07-14 2016-11-18
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/377815377815
Occupation Anatomist
Details Cyril Barnett was born on 30 October 1919, in North Hackney, London, to Barnett Barnett, a traveller in chemistry, and Rosa (née Freedman) his wife. He was educated at Selhurst Grammar School, Croydon and entered St Catharine's College, Cambridge in October 1938, where in his second year he was awarded a College Prize. In 1940 he entered Westminster Medical School, and during his clinical training won the Chadwick Prize in Medicine and Surgery, the Abrahams Prize in Clinical Pathology, and the Prize in Forensic Medicine. After holding resident appointments as house surgeon to Norman Matheson FRCS at Ashford Hospital, Middlesex, and senior house physician to A G Maitland-Jones FRCP at the Northern Hospital, he was commissioned in the Royal Army Medical Corps in May 1944. He served as Lieutenant and Captain until April 1947, for much of the time as regimental medical officer to an infantry battalion in Burma. On demobilization he obtained the post of orthopaedic registrar under B Whitchurch Howell FRCS at Southend General Hospital, Essex, and while there he passed the Primary FRCS examination and became interested in the anatomy of orthopaedic conditions. This led to his decision to seek an appointment in an anatomy department. In October 1947 he became part-time demonstrator at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, under Professor A B Appleton. He was appointed full-time demonstrator by Professor D V Davies in April 1949, passing the final FRCS examination soon afterwards. Promotion to assistant lecturer, lecturer and senior lecturer followed, and he was appointed University Reader in October 1955. In April 1956 Cyril Barnett received a grant from the Nuffield Foundation to enable him to take up a temporary appointment in the Anatomy Department of the University of Melbourne under Professor Sydney Sunderland; he returned to St Thomas's Hospital Medical School in October 1957. In October 1963 he was invited by the University of Tasmania to become Foundation Professor of Anatomy and Dean of the proposed new medical school. The University of London gave permission for him to be seconded to Hobart in April 1964 to plan and initiate the new school; he returned to St Thomas's in December 1967. The University of London conferred on him the title of Professor of Functional Morphology in 1965 in recognition of his interest in the relationship of structure to function in organs, tissues and cells. Amongst those who influenced Cyril Barnett were Rodney Maingot and Frederic Wood Jones who was a friend of his. Cyril Barnett was a member of the Anatomical and Heberden Societies, a Scientific Fellow of the Zoological Society, and a Founder Member of the Biological Engineering Society. He was a member of the Editorial Board of Medical and biological illustration, and a Consultant to the Army Personnel Research Establishment of the Ministry of Defence. Between 1950 and 1970 he published nearly seventy papers. Cyril Barnett died from carcinoma of the tongue, on 23 October 1970, a week before his fifty-first birthday. He was survived by his wife, Sheila Catherine, nee Arnold, and their son and daughter. Publications: The axis of rotation at the ankle joint in man. (jointly) *J Anat* 1952, 86, 1-9. The metatarsal formula in relation to march fracture. (jointly) *Lancet*, 1953, 1, 172-5. Locking at the knee joint. *J Anat*, 1953, 87, 91-95. The oldest anatomical school in London. *St Thomas's Hosp Gaz* 1953, 51, 179-182. Spiral structures within the hepatic portal vein of mammals. *Proc Zool Soc* 1954, 123, 747-751. A comparison knee and avian ankle. *J Anat* 1954, 88, 59-70. The structure and functions of fibrocartilages within vertebrate joints. *J Anat* 1954, 88 363-368. Squatting facets on the European talus. *J Anat* 1954, 88, 509-513. Some factors influencing angulation of the neck of the mammalian talus. *J Anat* 1955, 89, 225-230. Flow of viscous liquids in branched tubes, with reference to the hepatic portal vein. (jointly) *Nature*, 1956,177, 740-742. Wear and tear in joints. *J Bone Jt Surg*, 1956, 38B, 567-575. A note on the dimensions of the bronchial tree. *Thorax*, 1957, 12, 175-6. The testicular rete mirabile of marsupials. (jointly) *Aust J Zool* 1958, 6, 27-32. The evolution of some traction epiphyses in birds and mammals. (jointly) *J Anat* 1958, 92, 593-601. Variations in the venous systems of mammals. (jointly) *Biol Rev* 1958, 33, 442-487. Struktur and Funktion der Synovialgewebe. (jointly) *Med Grundlagenforsch* 1960, 3, 623-650. *Synovial joints: their structure and mechanics*. (jointly) London, 1961. The normal orientation of the human hallux and the effect of footwear. *J Anat* 1962, 96, 489-494. Lubrication within living joints. (jointly) *J Bone Jt Surg* 1962, 448, 662-674. A suggested reconstruction of the land masses as a complete crust. *Nature*, 1962, 195, 447-8. A comparison of adult and foetal talocalcaneal articulations. (jointly) *J Anat* 1965, 99, 71-76. Absorption into rabbit articular cartilage. (jointly) *J Anat* 1965, 99, 365-375. *The human body*. (jointly) London, 1966. The effects of age upon the mobility of human finger joints. (jointly) *Ann rheum Dis* 1968, 27, 175-7. *Practical embryology*. London 1969. Oceanic rises in relation to the expanding earth hypothesis, *Nature* 1969, 221, 1043. Talocalcaneal movements in mammals. *J Zool* 1970,160, 1-7.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005632
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Donaldson, Malcolm (1884 - 1973)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/377892377892
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Malcolm Donaldson was born on 27 April 1884 and was educated at Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he gained a 3rd Class in the Natural Science Tripos in 1905. The most notable feature, however, of his university career was his keen interest in rowing, and in 1906 he won the University Sculls, and was in the eight competing with Oxford and Harvard. He came up to St Bartholomew's for his clinical course and passed the Conjoint examination in 1909 and took the Cambridge MB BCh degree in 1912. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1914, and of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1929. During the first world war he served in the RAMC as a surgical specialist, and shortly afterwards, in 1921, he was appointed assistant physician accoucheur to St Bartholomew's Hospital, having shown a special interest in obstetrics and gynaecology since holding the post of intern midwifery assistant in 1911. He was able to combine his work at Bart's with gynaecological posts at Mount Vernon and the Royal Northern Hospitals, and at the cottage hospitals at Brentford and Potters Bar. Quite early in his career he proceeded to devote his attention to radiotherapy, both with radium and X-rays, for uterine cancer, and was a pioneer in the treatment of cancer of the cervix by the insertion of radium needles by an intra-abdominal route. He was fortunate in having the collaboration of forward-looking radiotherapists at Mount Vernon Hospital as well as at Bart's, and was thus able to publish a book on radiotherapy in the diseases of women in 1933. He was Vice-Chairman of the National Radium Commission, and a member of the Radiology Committee of the Medical Research Council, and for several years he was the Director of the Cancer Research Department at St Bartholomew's. Donaldson's support of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists was manifested by his membership of the Council for many years, and he showed his interest in the academic aspects of his specialty by acting as an Examiner for the College and for the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and London, and for the Central Midwives Board. But his chief and abiding objective in teaching was to educate the laity in the problems of cancer, with special reference to the importance of early diagnosis. He argued that the more the public knew about cancer the less would be the fear of it, and patients would therefore be more willing to consult their doctors in good time, so that the results of treatment could be improved. He was indefatigable in travelling round the country addressing Women's Institutes and similar bodies, and when he retired to Oxford he became Honorary Director of the Cancer Information Association. Donaldson was twice married. By his first wife he had two sons, the elder being Sir John Donaldson, President of the National Industrial Relations Court. His second wife died in 1970, and when he died himself aged 88 on 16 March 1973 his end came as a welcome relief after a terminal period of illness and loneliness.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005709
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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 Dunlop, John Arthur (1915 - 1972)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Swinburne, Truman George (1907 - 1967)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-20
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/378367378367
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details George Swinburne was born on 3 February 1907, second of the three children of G A Swinburne, at Wangaratta, Victoria, Australia, and was educated at Melbourne High School and University, where he graduated in medicine in 1930 from Ormond College, winning several scholarships. Swinburne was a keen athlete, rifle-shot and games player, representing his college at lacrosse and the University at football. After holding house appointments at the Royal Melbourne Hospital he came to London during 1934-35, took the diploma in laryngology and otology, proceeded to the Fellowship, and was a house surgeon at the Central London Throat Hospital. G C Scantlebury's influence at Melbourne had led him to take up this specialty. During 1935-36 he worked at Birmingham, but after his marriage with Enid Stobie in London on 15 February 1936 he returned to Melbourne, where he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1937, and was building a successful practice when war broke in September 1939. He served in the Australian Imperial Force through the second world war in the Middle East, New Guinea and Borneo, at first with the 2/12 Field Ambulance. He was mentioned in despatches, and awarded the Efficiency Decoration in 1946. He was appointed Colonel, Consultant in Otolaryngology to the Australian Army in 1958. Swinburne soon regained his large specialist practice in Melbourne, was appointed ear, nose, and throat surgeon at the Royal Women's Hospital in 1948 and surgeon in charge of the ENT Department at the Royal Melbourne in 1954. He examined in his specialty for the University and the Royal Australasian College. He was very active in professional affairs, serving the British Medical Association on the Council of its Victoria branch, of which he was President in 1956, and on the Australian Federal Council before and after 1962 when the Australian Medical Association became independent of the parent body; in 1965 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the new association; he was also a member of the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. From city, state, and Commonwealth public service Swinburne advanced in 1965 to undertake international duties, when he was elected Australia's representative in the Council of the World Health Association, where he promoted the provision by Australia of medical education and rural services in the countries in the north: Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. He had long been an enthusiastic encourager of younger men, and extended this generosity to many Asian medical students and young graduates. Swinburne had absolute integrity of character while his sound commonsense was supported by uncommon energy. He lived at 158 Mount Albert Road, Canterbury, Victoria, but died in New York, USA, on 7 May 1967, aged sixty, soon after attending meetings of the World Medical Association there. His wife, who was with him in New York, survived him with their two sons and two daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006184
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Robertson, Maurice Alexander (1906 - 1970)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006000-E006099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378276378276
Occupation Epidemiologist General surgeon
Details Maurice Alexander Robertson was born in Aberdeen in 1906, and was educated at Sedburgh School and St John's College, Cambridge. He came to the London Hospital for the clinical course and qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in 1930, and also graduated MB BCh. After holding the usual junior hospital posts he obtained the FRCS in 1935, and went to South Africa in 1939 as surgeon to the Admiralty in Port Elizabeth. He established himself there in private practice and was appointed honorary surgeon to the Provincial Hospital, Port Elizabeth where he served with distinction for many years. Robertson impressed his colleagues, and especially his trainees with his kindness to and interest in his patients, and his conscientious attention to his periods of duty. He was a member of the Hospital Board, President of the Cape Midland Branch, and a Federal Councillor. Unfortunately ill-health forced him to abandon clinical work in 1964, and he spent the last 6 years of his life at the Cancer Research Unit of the National Cancer Association in Johannesburg. Robertson's chief interest was in cancer epidemiology, and he completed three major surveys of the patterns of cancer in Southern Africa. He died in Rhodesia in December 1970, and was survived by his wife and his daughter, Dr Bartlett, who was a paediatrician in Salisbury.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006093
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Webster, Frederick Edward (1902 - 1968)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-24
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/378381378381
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in 1902 at New Plymouth, New Zealand, he was educated at Auckland Grammar School and Otago University, Dunedin, graduating in 1924. After holding resident posts at Auckland Hospital in 1925-26, he spent 1927 as a Government medical officer in Levuka, one of the Fiji Islands. He came to England in 1928 for postgraduate work at Guy's Hospital, and took the Fellowship in December 1929. He returned to New Zealand in 1932, to practise at Herne Bay, Auckland. He went on active service with the New Zealand Army Medical Corps in 1940, and while serving as a Captain with the 6th Field Ambulance in North Africa was taken prisoner in 1942. He escaped in 1944, and resumed his practice at Auckland. He became senior surgeon to the Greenlane Hospital, and was a member of the New Zealand Committee of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He represented that College on the Auckland Hospital Board and became chairman of the Board's Appointments Council. He was killed in a car accident on the State Highway No 1, fifteen miles north of Taupo, in the early afternoon of 24 April 1968, aged sixty-five, shortly after his retirement from practice. He had lived latterly at Remuera, Auckland and practised in Symonds Street.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006198
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching McLaggan, Sir John Douglas (1893 - 1967)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching MacNalty, Sir Arthur Salisbury (1880 - 1969)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-09-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005900-E005999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378109378109
Occupation Medical Officer Physician
Details Born at Glenridding Westmoreland on 20 October 1880 he was the eldest son of Francis Charles MacNalty MD, MCh, sometime senior assistant physician to the Metropolitan Hospital, London, and Hester Emma Frances, nee Gardner, who was the grand-daughter of Sir John Piozzi Salisbury. MacNalty's boyhood was spent in the Lake District and Winchester where his father worked after leaving London. He was educated at Hartley College, Southampton, and later became a member of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He completed his medical education at University College Hospital, London. After holding resident posts at his hospital he became resident medical officer to the Brompton Hospital, then medical registrar to the London Hospital (1911-1913). While at University College Hospital he worked with Sir Victor Horsley on the cerebellum and a paper on this research appeared in Brain in 1909. He also investigated heart block with Thomas Lewis; their joint paper in the *Journal of physiology* (1908) recorded for the first time the use of the electrocardiograph for the diagnosis of heart disease. In 1913 MacNalty's career was diverted to preventive medicine when Sir John Burns, MP offered him the medical inspectorship at the Local Government Board. In this appointment he was employed in measures to combat tuberculosis. During the first world war he was seconded to the War Office and worked with R S Reece and Sir Shirley Murphy on the outbreaks of cerebro-spinal fever amongst troops and civilians, and they also confirmed Wickman's findings on contact infection in poliomyelitis. From 1919-32 MacNalty was deputy senior medical officer of the Ministry of Health and secretary of the Tuberculosis Committee of the Medical Research Council during which time he published several papers on tuberculosis/poliomyelitis and encephalitis lethargica. From 1932-34 he was senior medical officer for tuberculosis and deputy chief medical officer to the Ministry of Health under Sir George Newman, becoming chief medical officer in 1935. From 1935 until the outbreak of the second world war he was one of a medical advisory committee to the Ministry of Health which among its members included Lord Dawson of Penn, Lord Moynihan, Lord Horder and representatives from the British Medical Association. At MacNalty's recommendation the Ministry set up a departmental committee to review amongst other things the conditions of service of the nursing profession and the medical aspects of the Midwives Act of 1936. He also persuaded the Ministry to make the purchase of anti-diphtheria vaccine free to the local authorities and thus practically eliminated diphtheria as a killing disease of children. In 1939 MacNalty was sent by the Minister of Health on a mission to Canada and the USA to inform the authorities there of our medical preparations in case of war and on his return he served as chairman of special committees to deal with various aspects of the Emergency Medical Service. In 1941 at the age of 60 he retired and was immediately appointed editor in chief of the official medical history of the second world war under the chairmanship of Mr R A, later Lord, Butler. He served on the Council of the Royal College of Physicians (1937-39) and also continued as Crown nominee on the General Medical Council until 1943. He was appointed honorary physician to the King from 1937-46. He became Milroy Lecturer to the College of Physicians (1925); Vicary Lecturer to the Royal College of Surgeons (1945) and Holme Lecturer at University College Hospital (1955). He also examined in public health for the Universities of Oxford, Birmingham and London. Amongst his other honours he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1949), a Freeman of the City of London and an Honorary Freeman of the Society of Apothecaries and of the Barbers Company. In 1963 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He also served as President of the Epidemiology Section of the Royal Society of Medicine being elected an Honorary Fellow in 1959. MacNalty was a small man with a modest demeanour with brilliant eyes and a charming voice. He possessed a profound and varied knowledge of science, history and literature and his vision and administrative ability achieved real advances for the nation's health. He married in 1913 Miss Dorothea de Wesslow and they had two daughters. His wife died in March 1968, and Sir Arthur died on 17 April 1969 at Bocketts, Downs Road, Epsom; one of his daughters survived him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005926
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Krishnan, Turuvekere Dharmayya Venkata (1905 - 1968)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-14 2017-05-31
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/378291378291
Occupation General surgeon
Details Turuvekere Dharmayya Venkata Krishnan was born on 4 June 1905, and after graduating in medicine in the University of Madras and holding junior posts in India he came to the United Kingdom and obtained the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, and also in 1938 the Conjoint Diploma and the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He then returned to India and joined the Indian Medical Service as a surgical specialist in May 1938, and received the rank of Captain by an emergency commission in November 1943. Krishnan became Superintendent of the Central Hospital, Dhanbad, India. He died on 6 July 1968.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006108
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Smith, John Graham (1930 - 1967)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/378297378297
Occupation General surgeon Military surgeon
Details After qualifying from Sydney University, he worked in New Zealand 1953-1955 holding house appointments at Dannevirke Hospital, Hawke's Bay and Dunedin Hospital and as surgical registrar at Christchurch Hospital. He came to England in 1956, and after periods at St James's Hospital, the London Chest Hospital and the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital he obtained the Edinburgh Fellowship in 1958 and the English Fellowship in 1959. He was senior registrar at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, and was commissioned as a Surgeon-Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve. During 1964-65 he was resident assistant at St James's Hospital, Balham, and continued to practise in London, living at Haverstock Hill NW3. He died about November 1967, in his late thirties.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006114
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Herbert, Gerald (1904 - 1982)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-12-18
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/378756378756
Occupation General practitioner General surgeon
Details Gerald Herbert was born in Liverpool on October 7, 1904, the first son of Lt-Col H Herbert, FRCS, IMS, an ophthalmic surgeon, and his wife Agnes, née Killey. After leaving the IMS his father became a consultant ophthalmologist in Nottingham. Gerald Herbert was educated at Lees Preparatory School, Hoylake, Charterhouse, Selwyn College, Cambridge and St Thomas's Hospital where he won the Cheselden Medal in surgery. He qualified MRCS LRCP in 1929. After holding house surgeon, casualty officer and senior casualty officer posts at St Thomas's he became RSO at Preston Royal Infirmary. He took his FRCS in 1931. He was always interested in surgery and was much influenced by Sir Max Page. After his junior hospital appointments he joined a general practice in Rugby with a special commitment to surgery. He was honorary surgeon to the Hospital of St Cross, 1934-39. From 1939 to 1943 he served with the RAMC, attaining the rank of temporary Lieutenant-Colonel and working in India as a surgical specialist and officer-in-charge, surgical division. After the war he was appointed consultant surgeon to the Chesterfield Royal Hospital, where he worked until his retirement in 1969. He was a careful and dexterous surgeon with sound judgement allied to remarkable intuition. This made him a welcome colleague to those who relied on his loyalty, unselfishness and willingness to help, especially to help the underdog. In 1952 he married Martha Wilson by whom he had a son and a daughter. His retirement was devoted to happy family life and to gardening. He died at his home in Chesterfield on May 23, 1982, aged 77.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006573
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Herschell, Woolf (1903 - 1977)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-12-18
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/378757378757
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Woolf Herschell was born in South Africa in 1903 and did his medical training at the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, qualifying BA MB Cape Town in 1931. After holding a number of medical appointments in Cape Town he came to England in 1940, and worked at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital at Stanmore as resident surgical officer. Due to diabetes he was unfit for medical service and stayed on at Stanmore until the end of the war. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1949. At this stage he decided to make England his home and orthopaedics his career. He was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon in the Windsor Group of Hospitals in 1950. He was a great help in building up the accident and orthopaedic service in the Windsor area. Despite his medical disability he was a loyal and hard working colleague, seeing large numbers of outpatients, doing long operating lists, and taking his turn in all the emergency work. He had always been interested in orthopaedic appliances since his days at Stanmore, and did much to ensure that such appliances were made to a high standard. He returned to South Africa on holiday on several occasions to visit relatives and friends. In his private life Willie, as he was known to his friends, was a collector of objets d'art, particularly Goss china of which he had an excellent collection. He was a lover of good food and had a considerable knowledge of wine which he had acquired on his frequent European holidays. He died on 27 January 1977, aged 70 years.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006574
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Burrows, Harold Jackson (1902 - 1981)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/378568378568
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Harold Jackson Burrows was born at Harrow, Middlesex, on 9 May 1902. His father was Harold Burrows FRCS and his grandfather was a graduate of St Bartholomew's Hospital, who became a Surgeon-Major in the Bombay Army. He was educated at Edinburgh House, Lee-on-Solent and Cheltenham College, where he was a scholar. He then went to King's College, Cambridge, where he was a half-blue for rifle shooting, captained the shooting eight and regularly shot at Bisley. He went to St Bartholomew's Hospital for his clinical training, won the Bentley Prize and qualified in 1927. He was house surgeon to the surgical professorial unit (1927-28) followed by his appointment as third assistant on this unit, working with Professor George Gask, Sir Thomas Dunhill, Mr (later Sir) James Paterson Ross, Mr (later Sir) Geoffrey Keynes. He was awarded a Beaverbrook Research Scholarship by the Royal College of Surgeons (1930-31) and he returned to Cambridge to work on tissue culture, thus increasing his knowledge of pathology as a basis of clinical work. He also spent six months at the Rockefeller Institute, New York, working under Alexis Carrel. Later he continued his research in the physiology department at the Royal College of Surgeons. Jackson Burrows was appointed surgical registrar at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in 1931 and decided to devote his professional life to orthopaedic surgery. He was inspired by R C Elmslie, the first specialist orthopaedic surgeon at Bart's and one of the great pioneers in this speciality. They had much in common and Jackson Burrows remained a devoted disciple. He was also encouraged and helped by S L Higgs. He was appointed chief assistant in the orthopaedic department at St Bartholomew's Hospital (1931-36) and assistant orthopaedic surgeon (1937-48). When the second world war broke out he moved to Friern Barnet Hospital under the wartime arrangements of the Emergency Medical Service. As a Surgeon-Commander in the RNVR Jackson Burrows spent about two years of his service in Australia, renewing and forming many lasting friendships with antipodean surgeons who held him in high esteem. In 1949 he was greatly pleased to become an active civilian consultant surgeon to the Royal Navy and continued until 1977 in an honorary capacity. After the war he was appointed orthopaedic surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital (1948-67) and lecturer in orthopaedics at St Bartholomew's Medical College. He had a long association with the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital as assistant surgeon (1946-48); orthopaedic surgeon (1948-67) and he was Dean, Institute of Orthopaedics, British Postgraduate Medical Federation, University of London, 1946-64 and 1967-70. The latter appointment was a tremendous task which he took up with his usual enthusiasm, creating a department of pathology, a library which he largely furnished as well as providing the nucleus of books of historical orthopaedic interest, and a department of medical photography. In addition to all these responsible posts, he was honorary orthopaedic surgeon to the National Hospital for Diseases of the Nervous System and to Chailey Heritage Craft School and Hospital which was near to his heart. He was consultant advisor in orthopaedics to the Ministry of Health and Chairman, Standing Advisory Committee on Artificial Limbs. He was awarded the Robert Jones Gold Medal in 1937 and he was elected to the executive committee of the British Orthopaedic Association, holding important posts culminating in his election as President in 1966-67. He was President of the Section of Orthopaedics, Royal Society of Medicine and served on the Council from 1964 to 1972. He was Nuffield Visiting Professor at the University of California, San Francisco, in 1963 and in 1964 he was visiting Professor at Los Angeles. In 1964 he was elected a member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons and served until 1972. He was a Hunterian Professor in 1932 and received honourable mention for the Jacksonian Prize in 1933. He made a great contribution to the *Journal of bone and joint surgery* as assistant editor, then deputy editor and he was an active chairman of the editorial board from 1961 until 1973. During the whole of this period he was tireless in editing or rewriting other contributors' articles and he made a most valuable contribution to the style in which these articles were written. His own writings were admirable contributions to the literature and his clarity of thought and economy of expression were a constant challenge to contributors, for he had a great concern for the use of English. He became a Fellow of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland; the Société Internationale de Chirurgie Orthopèdique; a member of the International Skeletal Society; a corresponding member of the Australian and American Orthopaedic Association and a member of the New Zealand Association. The Institute of Orthopaedics was a major concern of his and he was largely responsible for the funding of the only Chair in Orthopaedics in the University by the then National Fund for Research in Crippling Diseases, first held by his respected colleague, Sir Herbert Seddon, and the rich collection of historical books in orthopaedics. He was a first-rate orthopaedic clinician and surgeon and his patients looked upon him as a comforter and friend as well as a surgeon. There can be few famous surgeons who were so selfless and retiring and he was a gentleman whose kindness, courtesy, humour and work for others is long remembered. He was known as Jack to his family, Jacko or JB to his many friends and colleagues. He never married but was survived by his brother Kenneth and many adoring nieces and nephews when he died on 5 February 1981 aged 78 years.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006385
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Doous, Trevor Watson (1932 - 1975)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Holden, Norman Thompson ( - 1978)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/378763378763
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Norman Thompson Holden studied medicine at Cambridge University, the Westminster Hospital and Guy's. He was senior registrar to the traumatic and orthopaedic unit at Ashford Hospital, Middlesex, and orthopaedic registrar to Guy's. He was then appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Enfield Group of Hospitals. He was a Fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association and of the Royal Society of Medicine. He died on 10 January 1978.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006580
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Forster, Henry Vincent (1888 - 1968)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/377917377917
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Henry Forster was born in December 1888 and received his early education at Ashaw College, Durham, and St Francis Xavier's College, Liverpool. He studied medicine at Liverpool University and graduated with honours in 1912. Before this he had obtained his MSc degree for his work with Sherrington in the School of Physiology. During the first world war he joined the RAMC and served as Regimental Medical Officer to the 2nd Lincolnshire Regiment. In the battle of Passchendaele he was awarded the MC and later was posted to Italy and finally invalided home in 1917. After leaving the Army he returned to otolaryngology - a subject he had been interested in before the war and he was soon appointed to the ENT department of the Liverpool Royal Infirmary. Shortly afterwards, became lecturer in laryngology to the University of Liverpool, holding both these posts until his retirement from the United Liverpool Hospitals in 1953. For many years he also visited the Isle of Man as consultant ear, nose and throat surgeon and was adviser to the school medical authorities in Runcorn and Widnes. He obtained his Fellowship in 1948. Forster was past president of the Section of Otology of the Royal Society of Medicine and he also served as President of the British Association of Otolaryngology. He was keenly interested in the Territorial Army and served as Medical Officer to the 59th Medium Artillery Brigade TA until 1939. For relaxation he greatly enjoyed sailing and became an expert and enthusiastic yachtsman between the two world wars. He died in the Liverpool Royal Infirmary on 10 March 1968 at the age of 79; he was survived by his wife, a son who is a doctor and two married daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005734
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Foster, Phillip Stanley (1885 - 1965)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/377918377918
Occupation General surgeon
Details Phillip Foster was born in April 1885 and first lived in Timaru. He was educated in Hawera and later went to the Otago Boys' School. His medical education took place at Otago University where he qualified in 1909. Foster began his medical career at Christchurch Hospital, an association which was to continue in various capacities until his retirement in 1959. After holding resident costs he went to England for postgraduate study, obtaining his English Fellowship in 1912. In 1914 he returned to Christchurch and was at once appointed honorary surgeon to Christchurch Hospital, a position he held until 1939 when the name was changed to that of visiting surgeon. During the first world war he served on the hospital ship *Mahene* but returned immediately to Christchurch in 1918. In 1934 he became the first Director of Surgical Services and continued in that capacity until his retirement. In addition to his other qualifications, Foster was one of the Foundation Fellows of the College of Surgeons of Australasia, as it was called before being granted a Royal Charter. He was also for many years a member of the New Zealand Committee of that College as well as being for a term a member of the Court of Examiners. In national affairs he was a member and later Chairman of the Medical Council of New Zealand, and in 1938 he was President of the New Zealand branch of the BMA on the occasion of their annual meeting in Christchurch. Foster was a foundation member of the Christchurch Rotary Club and held the office of President and later District Governor of that association. In 1953 his work in New Zealand was recognised by being made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George and he received his award on the occasion of the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to New Zealand in 1954. Apart from his profession Foster was a keen cricketer and played for the West Christchurch Cricket Club for 20 years. He was an enthusiastic golfer and his interest is perpetuated in the Foster Cup at the Shirley Golf Club. During many weekends he also held mixed tennis parties at his home which were greatly appreciated by all his guests. Foster travelled widely and was one of the pioneers of neurosurgery in New Zealand until the establishment of the neurosurgical unit at Dunedin. Foster died on 19 April 1965 after a long illness, and was survived by his wife and three daughters, two of whom were married.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005735
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Worcester, Reginald George (1903 - 1972)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/378451378451
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Born on 13 September 1903 at Omeo, Victoria, Australia, son of R J Worcester, he was educated at Melbourne High School, where he won two leaving scholarships and was a leading lacrosse player and the best rifle-shot, and at the University of Melbourne where he won his lacrosse blue and graduated, with first-class honours in gynaecology and obstetrics, in 1927. After holding resident posts at the Melbourne Hospital and the Women's Hospital he came to England in 1934, worked at St Charles's Hospital and the Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, and gained the MRCOG in 1934 and the Surgical Fellowship in 1937. On his return to Melbourne he was appointed to the staff of the Women's Hospital, and was elected FRACS in 1938. His ten years' service in his hospital was interrupted by the second world war, throughout which he was actively engaged in the Australian Army Medical Services, in casualty clearing stations and in command of field ambulances in Borneo and Morotai, then as Assistant Director of Medical Services for the Northern Territory at Darwin, and finally as Colonel in command of 2/9 Army General Hospital; he was awarded the Efficiency Decoration for his war work. Unfortunately he fell victim to persistent amoebiasis and disabling allergies, in spite of which he maintained a busy and useful career for more than twenty years after his return to civil practice. He was gynaecologist to Prince Henry's Hospital 1946-63, and tutor in obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Melbourne for eleven years. He represented Victoria on the Australian Council of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists between 1948 and 1958 and was elected a Fellow of that College in 1949. His favourite recreation was golf. Worcester married, while in England in 1934, Jean, daughter of C Kerville, who survived him with a son and two daughters. He died on 1 March 1972, aged sixty-eight, after five years illness following a severe cerebral stroke, the ultimate result of his wartime disabilities.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006268
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wimberger, Wilfred Emeric (1907 - 1965)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/378454378454
Occupation General surgeon Pathologist
Details Wimberger was born in England in 1907 and graduated at the University of Birmingham in 1930. After holding various house appointments, he was Medical Superintendent for twenty years, 1937-57, and senior surgeon to Hallam Hospital, West Bromwich. His services during this period of heavy air raids in 1940-41 was recognised with gratitude by the County Borough Council. After the war he was active in developing his hospital to take its full share of work and leadership under the new West Regional Hospital Board. Wimberger emigrated in 1957 to Kapuskasing, Ontario, a lumber town four hundred miles north-west of Toronto and nearly half way from Lake Huron to Hudson Bay. He was consulting surgeon to the Sensenbrenner Hospital there which he greatly developed, and under the Ontario Provincial Government Queen's Pathologist for the Cochrane district, he performed the necessary forensic autopsies, and collaborated closely with his friend the Provincial Coroner, Dr Bruce Feaver. He was a public-spirited man keen to serve his community and often performed surgical operations without charge for patients in the remote settlements of northern Ontario where his help was welcomed by Catholic French Canadians though he was an active Anglican churchman. 'Bill' Wimberger had many outside interests, loving his garden and his piano, supporting the Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford, Ontario, and enjoying the good things of life. He studied the history of medicine and for his holidays explored the remote West Indian islands, away from tourist centres. There he contracted the uncommon disease, periarteritis nodosum, from which he died in Hamilton General Hospital, Ontario on 23 April 1965, aged fifty-eight.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006271
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Symonds, Maurice Isidore (1920 - 1980)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-03-19 2017-05-05
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/379166379166
Occupation General surgeon Medical Officer
Details Maurice Isidore Symonds was born in Melbourne on 24 July 1920, the son of Dr H. Symonds, a general practitioner at Murrumbeena. He was educated at Scotch College, Melbourne, and graduated with honours in surgery and medicine at Melbourne University. He was a house surgeon at the Royal Melbourne Hospital before serving in the RAAF from 1944 to 1945. Later he became first assistant to Sir Albert Coates at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and continued his further training at the thoracic unit at Harefield and the Australian Auxiliary Hospital at Denham. In 1951 he became first surgical assistant at Prince Henry's Hospital in Melbourne, but moved to Albury as a consultant surgeon. He was a very informed and active member of the medical staff, holding office as chairman of the medical staff of the Albury Base Hospital, and many positions on the executive with relevance to surgery within the hospital. He spent a great deal of time in consultation with architectural planners, and when the new theatre block was built, in 1973, he personally inspected theatre lights overseas, to ensure that the best lighting available at that time was purchased and installed correctly. He was the medical officer for the North Albury Football Club from 1952 to 1970, and many a Saturday evening and Sunday morning was spent repairing the ravages of Saturday afternoon's play. He was a foundation member of the Albury Lions Club, a member of the photographic club, Albury Golf Club, and the foundation medical officer for the Albury Car Club. Maurice and his wife Shirley shared common interests in photography, music and theatre. Friends were fortunate in benefiting from their skilled photography and professional presentation of excellent slides of holidays at home and overseas. He enjoyed his hobbies and was often to be found in his workshop improving the quality of sound from his stereo, working with his radio or developing films. He died on 21 August 1980 survived by his wife, Shirley.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006983
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/379259379259
Occupation General surgeon
Details David Aiken qualified in Dublin in 1940 and retained a home in Londonderry all his life. He became a Fellow of the College in 1947 and practised in the Sheffield area. After holding posts as senior surgical registrar at the United Sheffield Hospital and resident surgical officer for the Christie Hospital and the Holt Radium Institute, Manchester, he became senior consultant surgeon to Doncaster Royal Infirmary. He was a Major in the RAMC (TA), a Fellow of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and a member of the British Association of Urological Surgeons. He published several papers in the *British journal of surgery* the most recent of which was one entitled *New approach to prostatectomy* (1967). He died in 1987.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007076
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Shaw, Norman Edward (1927 - 1977)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/379116379116
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Norman Edward Shaw was born on 4 April 1927 at Stapleford, Derbyshire. Graduating through the University of Sheffield and holding training posts in the Royal Infirmary he entered national service, being regimental medical officer to the Coldstream Guards serving in Germany. From 1955 he proceeded with his surgical training at Mansfield, the Sheffield University anatomy department, the Children's Hospital and the Royal Infirmary, followed by specialist training and research at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and the Institute of Orthopaedics, London. He was Arris and Gale lecturer at the College in 1964. In 1965 he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Manchester Royal Infirmary and the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Hospital, Oswestry, and later honorary surgeon to the Bethesda Hospital for Handicapped Children. In the Army Emergency Reserve he kept his ties with the Army, but he also served in the St John Ambulance Brigade becoming area commissioner and a serving brother of the Order of St John. He was a member of the council of the Medical Protection Society and, at the time of his death, chairman of the Medical Board of Manchester Royal Infirmary. His professional standards were high, he was a hard-working perfectionist, skilled in his clinical work, teaching and writing. He had a special interest in crippled children and spinal surgery. His recreations included golf, sailing and music. He was an enthusiastic football supporter and gave service to several professional clubs. He was devoted to his family and was survived by his doctor wife, Margaret, and children, Andrew, Alison, Shiobhan and Duncan. He died on 14 May 1977.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006933
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Shepherd, Francis William (1906 - 1978)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Farrar, David James (1942 - 2015)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Neville Harrison
Publication Date 2015-04-17 2017-01-26
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/379296379296
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details David Farrar was appointed as a consultant urological surgeon at Selly Oak Hospital in 1978 and, in 1993, with hospital mergers, moved to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, where he remained until his retirement in 2003. He was born on 3 July 1942 in Rawdon, Yorkshire, the only son of James Farrar, a public health inspector, and Jessie Farrar, a shop assistant. David went to Leeds Grammar School, where he was a keen sportsman, doing well in rugby and boxing, and showed leadership qualities in the school's Combined Cadet Force. He also shone academically and gained a county council award to study medicine at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School. He qualified in 1966. Aspiring to a surgical career, David was a prosector in the anatomy department at St Thomas' and, having passed the FRCS in 1971, was drawn to urology after obtaining a research fellowship at the Middlesex Hospital under radiologist Graham Whiteside, who, with Richard Turner-Warwick, was pioneering the new investigative technique of urodynamics combined with bladder imaging. This post led to a career-long interest in bladder dysfunction and female urology, and the award of an MS degree in 1979. Meanwhile David had secured a competitive senior registrar post on the Portsmouth-Norwich rotation under John Vinnicombe, Forbes Abercrombie, Alan Green and Mike Handley Ashken. Whilst a medical student, David met Pom (Pamela Allberry) a St Thomas' nurse, who also had a Yorkshire family background, and they married in 1969. David's interest in urodynamics continued and he became an active member of the International Continence Society, which was formed in 1971 and continues to flourish as a multidisciplinary organisation, embracing research and practice in the management of all aspects of bladder dysfunction. Continuing this special interest, David was a founder member of the British Association of Continence Care in 1990, a pioneer of the multidisciplinary pelvic floor group at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham in 1999 and of the British Association of Urological Surgeons' section on female and reconstructive urology when it was established in 2001. David was a Royal College of Surgeons' surgical tutor at Selly Oak (from 1984 to 1989) and an examiner in surgery at the RCS. However, there were two areas of postgraduate education that were of special importance to David: the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) and the Burberry Club. The RSM urology section held monthly educational meetings in London, which he attended regularly, travelling from Birmingham. He became a member of the council of the section and progressed to treasurer and then president in 2001. The urology section was a pioneer in holding a winter meeting overseas, usually at a ski resort and linking up with a local urology department, and when president David and his wife hosted a very successful meeting in Arosa, Switzerland. These meetings with their informal and relaxed atmosphere were far more significant as opportunities for continuing medical education than those who had not experienced them would believe, and many lasting friendships were formed. The Burberry Travel Club was started in 1981 by a small group of contemporary urologists (Neville Harrison, Patrick Doyle, Chris Gashes, Hugh Whitfield and David Farrar) who met annually to discuss their difficult urological cases and professional issues, and for their wives to share their pressures and family concerns. The group continued to meet for 34 years until David's death (Patrick Doyle had sadly died whilst at a Burberry meeting in 1998) brought the annual club to an inevitable end. David was very efficient and well organised, keeping careful notes and lists of financial and career details. His qualities as a wise and reliable committee member were recognised when reconfiguring the urological services in the Midlands and, after the merger of Selly Oak with Queen Elizabeth hospitals, when he chaired the combined surgical division. David was widely recognised by patients and colleagues as a dedicated, skilful and compassionate clinician. His affability was always apparent, but his wry sense of humour could elude some. However, given the right opportunity, he could entertain with a store of Yorkshire jokes and sport-related stories. David's love of all sport was lifelong, with rugby, golf and cricket being paramount. He lived conveniently close to the golf club in Solihull, which played a major part in his family and social life. Few people knew about David's bowel malignancy before he died unexpectedly on 16 March 2015 following surgery. He was 72. He was survived by his wife Pom (Pamela), daughter, Charlotte, and son, Nic.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007113
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wangensteen, Owen Harding (1885 - 1981)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-03-24
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007000-E007099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379209379209
Occupation General surgeon
Details Owen Harding Wangensteen, the son of a farmer, was born at Lake Park, Minnesota, USA, on 21 September 1885. He always wanted to become a farmer and was fond of relating how he decided to become a doctor instead. When he was a high school junior, he had the opportunity to help fifty of his father's sows to farrow their young. His father was so impressed that he insisted young Owen become a doctor. The boy held off for three years. Then during a summer hot spell he had to cart manure for three weeks. Anything, he thought, would be better than that. So he liked to say that he entered the medical field 'through the portals of pigs and manure'. He attended the University of Minnesota where he first graduated BA then completed medical school under a wartime accelerated programme. On finishing his internship he spent a year at the Mayo Clinic on a research fellowship in medicine. He then returned to the University in 1925 to undertake a study on undescended testis, for which he received his PhD. For two years from 1927 he studied in Switzerland, first under Fritz de Quervain in his surgical clinic at Berne, and then with Dr Leon Ascher at the Physiologic Institute where he became firmly committed to the idea of a partnership between surgical research and physiology. On returning to Minneapolis he was promoted to associate professor and became the first full-time head of the department of surgery in 1930. He is reputed to have started with one surgical fellow and two interns to take care of 130 patients, he then progressively built up that department to have had a staff of 100 surgical fellows and 18 interns who were responsible for 200 beds. Dr Wangensteen's surgical interests were wide though he always referred to himself as a 'plumber of the alimentary tract'. He initiated the 'second look' after resection of intra-abdominal cancers and was a one-time advocate of gastric freezing in the treatment of peptic ulcer. It was due to his interest in intestinal obstruction that he came to develop the Wangensteen suction tube about which the poet Ogden Nash wrote 'May I find my final rest in Owen Wangensteen's intestine, knowing that his masterly suction will assure my resurrection'. He devised a number of radical operations for cancer and, in encouraging its early diagnosis, he established one of the first cancer detection centres. In a different field he was responsible for establishing a fine school of intracardiac surgery, his trainees including Richard Varco, Walton Lillehei, Norman Shumway and Christiaan Barnard. Altogether some 33 professors of surgery or departmental heads spring from his service and he turned a small and unknown department into a centre of surgical renown. He was a strong believer in the importance of the surgical laboratory in the training of young surgeons. Outside the practical surgical field he was responsible for a number of books as sole or part author and was a co-editor of the journal *Surgery* from 1937 to 1970. He is recorded as having written or co-authored some 900 medical papers and, shortly before his death, he and his second wife, who was a medical historian, had completed *The rise of surgery: from empiric craft to scientific discipline*. He thrived on work, often rising at 1.30, or 2.00 in the morning, working for several hours, then taking an hour's nap before leaving for the office. A man of endless energy, he was still working in Minneapolis until the evening of his fatal heart attack. Wangensteen was President of the American College of Surgeons 1959-60 and he was admitted to the honorary FRCS in the following year. Thereafter he and his wife were regular visitors to the College to work in the library on historical research; a notable example was their quest for, and location of books which had been in Lord Lister's library. He was an Honorary Fellow of two of our sister colleges in the United Kingdom and was recognised by the award of the honorary degrees of several universities as well as by honorary membership of many surgical societies and associations. When he died on 13 January 1981 he was survived by his wife, Sarah, his daughter Mary and sons Owen and Stephen who became a physician.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007026
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gordon, Mendel (1902 - 1983)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-05-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007200-E007299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379469379469
Occupation Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Mendel Gordon was born on 31 May 1902. He went to school in Bournemouth before training at King's College, London and Charing Cross Medical School, where he qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in 1929 and was awarded the Governor's gold medal in medicine and surgery. After house surgeon appointments at Charing Cross Hospital he became registrar in ear, nose and throat surgery at the Royal Free Hospital. He served throughout the second world war in the RAFVR holding the rank of Squadron Leader. Later he worked with Sir Archibald Mclndoe in plastic surgery. He held appointments at the National Temperance Hospital, Sydenham Children's Hospital and Mayday Hospital. His principal interest in later life was in rhinoplasty. He died on 2 March 1983, survived by two sons and a daughter.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007286
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Birdsall, Samuel Ernest (1908 - 1985)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2015-04-24 2018-05-24
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/379321379321
Occupation General surgeon
Details Samuel Ernest Birdsall was born on 14 February 1908 in Skipton, Yorkshire, the only son of James Ernest, an optician, and his wife, Eva. He attended Skipton Grammar School winning an open exhibition to Christ's College, Cambridge. His clinical studies were carried out at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, from whence he graduated in 1932. Junior hospital appointments at St Bartholomew's were followed by consultant appointments in otolaryngology to the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital, the Woolwich and District War Memorial Hospital, the Paddington Green Children's Hospital and the Prince of Wales' Hospital, Tottenham. He served as a specialist in otolgy in the RAMC during the second world war holding the rank of Major. He wrote several articles including a chapter on the surgery of the larynx and trachea in *Modern operative surgery*, edited by Grey Turner and Lambert Rogers. His extra curricular activities were outdoor. He was a keen fisherman and enjoyed shooting. He died on 21 February 1985 and was survived by his two sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007138
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Macintosh, Sir Robert Reynolds (1897 - 1989)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-06-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007400-E007499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379625379625
Occupation Anaesthetist
Details Robert Reynolds Macintosh was born in Timaru, New Zealand, on 17 October 1897 the son of Charles N Macintosh, a surveyor who had been a member of the first rugby football team representing New Zealand abroad in 1893, and his wife Beatrice, née Thompson. He was educated at Waitaki Boys' High School and in 1916 volunteered for war service, initially taking a commission in the Royal Scots Fusiliers and later transferring to the Royal Flying Corps. He was mentioned in despatches but towards the end of the war he was shot down over France and taken prisoner. Although he made a number of attempts to escape none of these was successful and he was not repatriated until the end of the war. He entered Guy's Hospital Medical School and qualified in 1924. His early house appointments included one in Montevideo where he perfected his Spanish and initially he intended to be a surgeon. He passed the FRCS Edinburgh three years after qualification but found that his skills in anaesthesia were too much in demand and he settled in London, where in conjunction with W S McConnell he developed a group practice in private anaesthetics largely concerned with dental work. At this stage in his life he and other consultants from Guy's used to play golf at Huntercombe where they frequently dined with Lord Nuffield and his wife. They were able to give him informal advice on a number of Lord Nuffield's proposed benefactions to medicine. He had on one occasion anaesthetised Lord Nuffield who had unpleasant recollections of previous anaesthetics and who found an intravenous barbiturate induction a pleasant surprise. Lord Nuffield originally proposed to found chairs in medicine, surgery and obstetrics and gynaecology, but when Macintosh commented light-heartedly that anaesthesia was not included, Lord Nuffield took up the point and proposed to endow a chair of anaesthesia. The University said that there was inadequate academic status in anaesthesia to justify a chair but Lord Nuffield insisted on its creation making his other lavish donations conditional on this development. He increased his benefaction to £2 million and the University fell in with his suggestion. Macintosh took up the chair in February 1937 with two main ambitions; firstly to make anaesthesia more safe and secondly to enable anaesthesia to extend the limits of surgery. Macintosh embarked on his academic appointments with great enthusiasm as he loved teaching, although he was not a great speaker and was not always comfortable when lecturing or presenting papers. Within two years he enlisted the support of Dr Kurt Mendelssohn and Dr H G Epstein from the Oxford University physics department and with their help created the Oxford Vaporiser which would deliver a known concentration of ether. Two prototypes had been developed by 1941 and thereafter production was started at the Morris motor works in Cowley. By the end of the war over four thousand had been supplied to service and civilian hospitals and a modification of this vaporiser was used in the Falklands campaign of 1982. His new department also advised Lord Nuffield on the development of a tank ventilator for patients with poliomyelitis. During the war he was consultant in anaesthesia to the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force holding the rank of Air Commodore. He continued to run the department of anaesthesia at the Radcliffe Infirmary. The war research undertaken in his department included assessment of various methods of artificial ventilation, the provision of respirable atmosphere in submarines, the design of life-jackets and the determination of the maximum altitude at which airmen could bale out without oxygen. He ran regular short courses to train young doctors in the skills and techniques of anaesthesia and persuaded the hospital to provide nurses to assist the anaesthetist. He developed the laryngoscope blade which bears his name and in conjunction with Freda Bannister wrote a standard textbook of anaesthesia. At the end of the war he was awarded the Order of Liberty by Norway. Macintosh believed that most anaesthetic deaths were caused by the incompetence of anaesthetists and did much to debunk the then fashionable concept of attributing many of them to "status thymo-lymphaticus". Dr William Mushin joined his department in 1943 and together they undertook an investigation into anaesthetic deaths. In 1949 he persuaded the Association of Anaesthetists to appoint a committee to investigate deaths associated with anaesthesia and this was the precursor of the detailed audit system established later. After the war the anaesthetic department was not given the promised accommodation and many developments were hampered. He continued to receive many invitations to travel abroad where his achievements were recognised by numerous honorary degrees and diplomas. Throughout his life he taught simple but safe methods of anaesthesia which were appropriate even in under-developed countries. He was created a knight in 1955 and retired from his chair in 1965 but maintained his interest in the specialty of anaesthesia, attending meetings up to the age of 90. He was made an honorary Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1965 and of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1966. The award of an honorary FRCS in 1989 gave him especial pleasure. He enjoyed swimming and a good game of tennis. In 1925 he married Rosa Marjorie Henderson and her death in 1956 left him desolate. In 1962 he married Dorothy Ann Manning who survived him and to whom he attributed the happiness of his retirement years. He died on 23 August 1989 aged 91.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007442
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Smith, Sidney Maynard (1875 - 1928)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-02-21
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/375787375787
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on September 20th, 1875, the son of a civil engineer holding an Admiralty appointment at Chatham. He was educated at Epsom College, where he gained the entrance scholarship in Science to St Mary's Hospital in 1893, and served as House Surgeon to Edmund Owen (qv) in 1898. He served in the South African War as Civil Surgeon with the 3rd Battalion Welsh Regiment, gaining the Queen's Medal with two Clasps, and on his return to London he was elected House Surgeon to the Victoria Hospital for Children in Tite Street, Chelsea, in 1901, was Assistant Surgeon in 1907-1914, but was never full Surgeon. At St Mary's Hospital he was appointed Surgical Registrar in 1904, Demonstrator of Anatomy in 1905, Surgeon to Out-patients with charge of the Orthopedic Department in 1906, and full Surgeon on the resignation of J Ernest Lane (qv) in 1922. Maynard Smith was also Surgeon to the London Fever Hospital, to Epsom College, to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital, Ealing, and to the Royal Masonic Benevolent Institute for Girls, and was for many years Hon Secretary to the Old Epsomian Society. During the European War he was appointed Surgeon-in-Chief to the St John Ambulance Brigade in 1914, and proceeded to France early in 1915 with the Hon rank of Major. He quickly made a reputation both as an administrator and as a surgeon, was appointed Consulting Surgeon to the Fifth Army in 1916, and was chiefly responsible for the treatment of the wounded during the great battles for Passchendaele in 1917. He was subsequently appointed Consulting Surgeon to the Second Army. For his services to the French Army during the fighting round Kemmel he was awarded the Croix de Guerre. For his war services he was three times mentioned in dispatches, was decorated CB, and was created a Knight of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. Returning to London at the end of the War, he continued to practise privately and carry out his hospital duties until his death on March 18th, 1928. Maynard Smith was distinguished by his shrewd judgement and the thoroughness of all his work. Neat and precise in every detail, he was an excellent surgeon and a good teacher. As a man he was modest and unassuming, courteous in manner, a good after-dinner speaker, and a most pleasant companion. Throughout life he was tuberculous, and severe attacks from time to time interrupted his work, but did nothing to spoil his character. He held office in the United Grand Lodge of Freemasons as a Past Grand Deacon. He married in 1917 Isabel Mary, daughter of F I Pitman, and by her had a daughter Isabel Valentine Maynard and a son John Maynard.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003604
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Little, Ernest Muirhead (1854 - 1935)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-08-28
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/376541376541
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Born at Ealing on 26 July 1854, the fourth and youngest son of William John Little, MD, FRCP, and Eliza, his wife, daughter of Thomas Roff Tamplin, of Lewes, Sussex. Dr Little (1810-1894) his father, early became interested in orthopaedics because he had a shortened tendo Achillis, which was divided by Louis Stromeyer of Hanover, who afterwards became a life-long friend. Dr Little was the first to draw attention to that form of spastic paraplegia afterwards known as "Little's disease". He was the founder of the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital. E M Little was admitted to Westminster School on 26 September 1867, and left as a minor candidate, that is to say as one who had stood unsuccessfully for election into College, in December 1869. He worked for a short time in an insurance office and then in a tea-importer's warehouse. Finding a business training uncongenial, he became a student at St George's Hospital and, whilst he was yet unqualified, served as a dresser in the National Aid Society's ambulance during the Turco-Serbian war of 1876. For his services he received the Takova Gold Cross. After a short period (1882-1886) as dispensary surgeon at the Dreadnought Hospital, he was elected surgical registrar at the National Orthopaedic Hospital where he served as surgeon until 1919, when he resigned and was appointed consulting surgeon. From 1895 until 1934 he was surgeon to the Surgical Aid Society succeeding William Allingham. During the war of 1914-18 he acted as surgeon to Queen Mary's Auxiliary Hospital at Roehampton, where disabled officers and men were fitted with artificial limbs, a post which entailed much remodelling of the stumps before an artificial limb could be worn. In this work Little became facile princeps. He remained with the Ministry of Pensions when the war ended, holding the position of a member of the advisory council more especially in connexion with all questions of the fitting of artificial limbs. The results of his experience were published in 1922 in his work *Artificial limbs and amputation stumps*. As a young man he undertook the duties of junior secretary to the International Medical Congress which met in London in 1881, Sir William MacCormac.and Sir George Makins being his immediate superiors. When the Congress met again in London in 1913 he acted as vice-president of the section of orthopaedics. In the same year, 1913, he became the first president of the British Orthopaedic Association and during 1913-1919 he was president of the subsection of orthopaedic surgery of the Royal Society of Medicine. He did much good work for the *British Medical Journal*, serving as one of Ernest Hart's "young men" and becoming a friend of C Louis Taylor and of Sir Dawson Williams. His last years were employed in writing "The First Hundred Years", which formed the basis of the centenary *History of the British Medical Association*. Joining the Association in 1892 he was vice-president of the section of the diseases of children at the Aberdeen meeting in 1914, vice-president of the section of orthopaedics at the Bath meeting in 1925, and president of the same section at the Nottingham meeting in 1926. He married on 11 January 1890 Mary, only daughter of John Burgess Knight, who survived him with three sons and a daughter. He died on 2 October 1935 at 7 Ashley Gardens, Westminster, SW. Mrs Little died on 28 January 1943, aged 82. Muirhead Little lived to see orthopaedic surgery rise from a small and somewhat neglected branch of medicine to a well recognised position, held in high esteem both socially and professionally. Little himself was in part responsible for the social rise and Robert Jones for the operative. Little was transparently honest and was a cultivated gentleman. When he began his professional life three small hospitals were devoted to orthopaedic surgery, the Royal, the National, and the City. Their funds were low and they were not well conducted. Under pressure from the King's Hospital Fund they were amalgamated in 1905, and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital was opened in Great Portland Street in 1909. The staff was carefully selected and the hospital was conducted on modern lines. As an operator Little was slow and painstaking, but lack of early surgical opportunities confined him to the older methods of treatment, and he continued to use splints and tenotomies when his colleagues were employing a more advanced technique. Tall in stature, handsome in face, and quiet in speech, he retained these characteristics to the end of his life. He had an excellent memory and his extensive reading gave him an encyclopaedic knowledge of orthopaedic literature. He had many literary hobbies outside his profession. At the Casual Club, of which he was president in 1901 and in 1929, he proved himself a good debater on a large number of topics unconnected with medicine and introduced without preparation. His character was such that he endeared himself to all with whom he was brought into contact. It was said at his hospital that "house surgeons respected him, nurses obeyed him with alacrity, his colleagues consulted him, and he was adored by his patients for he listened even to the most prolix". Publications: *Medical and surgical aspects of in-knee (Genu valgum)*, by W T Little assisted by E M Little. London, 1882. *Artificial limbs and amputation stumps: a practical handbook*. London, 1922. *History of the British Medical Association 1832-1932*. London 1932. Glisson as an orthopaedic surgeon. *Proc Roy Soc Med* 1925-26, 19, History section, 111-122. A clinical notebook of 1710. *Brit med J* 1928, 2, 1052, describing the MS notebook of Thomas Wallace, containing notes of cases at St Thomas's Hospital in 1710. The MS was presented by Mr W Reeve Wallace to the Royal College of Surgeons Library in 1933. Orthopaedics before Stromeyer. *The Robert Jones Birthday Volume*, Oxford, 1928, pp 1-26.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004358
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Nelson, Henry Philbrick (1902 - 1936)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-09-04
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/376563376563
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details Born at Hawkes Bay, New Zealand on 28 August 1902, the second of the three sons of George Nelson, civil engineer, and Mabel Price, his wife. He was educated at Fount Row, Surrey, at Harrow from Easter 1916 to Midsummer 1918, and at Caius College, Cambridge, from Michaelmas term 1920. He graduated in 1923 after being placed in the second class of Part I of the Natural Sciences Tripos. He then entered the medical school of St Bartholomew's Hospital, and in due course was appointed house surgeon to William McAdam Eccles. He was appointed Luther Holden research scholar at the end of his year of office, and became surgical registrar at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. Deciding to devote himself to thoracic surgery he served as demonstrator of anatomy at St Bartholomew's Hospital and worked assiduously at the anatomy of the tracheo-bronchial lymphatic glands. He also studied the later stages of wounds of the chest at Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton. As surgical scholar of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain he served for a year as instructor of surgery in the thoracic surgical unit under Dr John Alexander at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and visited Canada. On his return to England he was appointed chief clinical assistant to J E H Roberts at St Bartholomew's Hospital, and assistant at the Brompton Hospital for Diseases of the Chest. In 1932 he was the Ernest Hart memorial scholar of the British Medical Association, and whilst holding the scholarship did valuable work on postural drainage in bronchiectasis and lung abscess. In 1933 he was elected assistant surgeon to the Brompton Hospital, and as thoracic surgeon to the London County Council was placed in charge of a special clinic at St Andrew's Hospital, Bow. In 1935 he became surgeon to the Papworth Village settlement for the tuberculous at Cambridge and to the Metropolitan Hospital in London. In April 1936 he was elected assistant surgeon to the London Hospital. He was also thoracic surgeon to the Brighton borough council and to the Middlesex county council. In none of these positions did he ever spare himself but always worked to the uttermost of his strength, with the result that he had no resisting power and fell a victim to a virulent streptococcal infection from a slight operation wound. He died in St Bartholomew's Hospital on 24 June 1936, aged 33. He married Kathleen, daughter of Alan Sullivan of Sheerland House, Pluckley, Kent, on 22 January 1927. She survived him with two daughters. Nelson's early death was a great loss to the surgery of the chest, which he had already advanced very considerably. He was a man of original mind, a great organizer, and a brilliant operator. As an individual he was direct of purpose, enthusiastic, of transparent honesty, modest, and extremely friendly. Publications: Bilharziasis, limited symptomatically to the urinary tract. *Newcastle med J* 1928, 9, 52. Case of impending ischaemic contracture. *Lancet*, 1930, 2, 795. Irradiation of tracheobronchial lymphatic glands in treatment of carcinoma of lung. *Ibid* 1930, 2, 1118. Experimental Coil infection in urinary tract of rabbits. *Trans Med Soc Lond* 1930, 53, 266. Accessory lobe of azygos vein, with G Simon. *Brit med J* 1931, 1, 9. Tracheo-bronchial lymphatic glands. *J Anat* 1932, 66, 228. Causation and prevention of chronic empyemas. *St Bart's Hosp J* 1932, 39, 170. Rib retractor for major thoracotomies. *Lancet*, 1932, 2, 1003. Subclavian aneurysm following fracture of clavicle. *St Bart's Hosp Rep* 1932, 65, 219. Chronic empyemata. *Post-grad med J* 1933, 10, 462. Pulmonary lobectomy, technique and report of ten cases, with J E H Roberts. *Brit J Surg* 1933, 21, 277. Collapse therapy in bronchiectasis; a warning. *Brit med J* 1934, 1, 58. Postural drainage of lungs. *Ibid* 1934, 2, 251. Intrathoracic neoplasms. *Post-grad med J* 1935, 11, 25. A case of delayed metastatic sarcoma of the pleura, illustrating the diagnostic value of artificial pneumothorax, with W Bromme and T Findley. *Amer J Cancer*, 1935, 24, 334. John Melly; address at the memorial service St Bartholomew's-the-Less. *St Bart's Hosp J* 1936, 43, 161.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004380
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Knaggs, Robert Lawford (1858 - 1945)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-07-31
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/376507376507
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Huddersfield, Yorkshire on 27 December 1858, the second son of Samuel Knaggs (1829-1911), MRCS, for whom see *Lancet*, 1911, 1, 1241, and his wife Frances Isabel Battye. He was educated at Huddersfield Grammar School, Rossall School, and Caius College, Cambridge. He took his medical training at Guy's Hospital, where he served as house physician and resident obstetric physician. He passed the Conjoint Board in 1883, took the Fellowship the next summer and graduated in medicine at Cambridge the following year 1885, proceeding later to both the MD and the MCh. Knaggs settled in practice at Leeds, where he became in due course consulting surgeon to the General Infirmary. He excellently upheld the great tradition of Leeds surgery, but being modest and retiring he was overshadowed by the ambitious brilliance of his senior colleague A W Mayo Robson and his junior colleague Berkeley Moynihan. From 1910 till 1919 Knaggs was professor of surgery at Leeds University. During the first world war he combined his civilian duties at the Leeds General Infirmary with those of surgeon to the 2nd Northern General Hospital, holding the rank of major, RAMC(T), gazetted 14 October 1908. After his retirement Knaggs lived in London and devoted his energies to pathological research. He had served on the Court of Examiners of the College 1911-21 and was a Hunterian professor 1923-25. He published a valuable monograph on *Inflammatory and toxic diseases of bone*, 1926, which admirably combined the fruits of his clinical experience and pathologic research. He then worked 1927-30, as an honorary assistant to C F Beadles and T W P Lawrence in the Hunterian Museum, arranging and cataloguing the Strangeways arthritis collection (see *RCS Annual report on the Museum* 1928, 1929, and especially 1930, pages 4-7). The College recognized his work by the presentation of the Honorary medal 1930, which was handed to him by his former Leeds colleague, Moynihan. Lawford Knaggs married twice: (1) in 1926 Adrienne Ernestine Blanche, daughter of A Blouet-Dargonne of Paris and widow of Morton William Smith (1851-1925) of Newquay, Cornwall, Recorder of Rochester from 1897; Mrs Knaggs died on 14 December 1931 at Newquay; (2) in 1933 Anne, daughter of John Simpson of Hunmanby, Yorkshire, who survived him. There were no children of either marriage. Knaggs lived latterly at Glenburnie, 20 Forde Park, Newton Abbot, Devon, where he died on 16 April 1945, aged 86. Knaggs was a tall man, upright in carriage as in character. Though cautious and deliberate in operating, his surgical standards were very high and his width of knowledge exceptional. He was always a general surgeon, even occasionally treating ophthalmic patients, but was chiefly interested in abdominal and orthopaedic surgery. Publications:- Compound depressed fracture of the skull, cerebral abscess, hernia cerebri, recovery; with a consideration of hernia cerebri based on 109 cases. *Med Chir Trans* 1897, 80, 249-302. Volvulus in association with hernia. *Ann Surg* 1900, 31, 405. Diaphragmatic hernia of stomach, torsion of small omentum, and volvulus of stomach. *Lancet*, 1904, 2, 358. Punctured fractures of base of skull. *Ibid*. 1907, 1, 1477. On implantation of the ureters into the rectum by the sacral route; illustrated by a case of inveterate vesico-vaginal fistula. *Brit med J*. 1910, 1, 1224. Contribution to the study of ossification in sarcomata of bone, with O C Gruner. *Brit J Surg.* 1914-15, 2, 366. Osteitis fibrosa. *Ibid*. 1922-23, 10, 487. Leontiasis osteosa. *Ibid*. 1923-24, 11, 347. Osteogenesis imperfecta. *Ibid*. 1923-24, 11, 737. On osteitis deformans (Paget's disease) and its relation to osteitis fibrosa and osteomalacia. *Ibid*. 1925-26, 13, 206. The inflammatory and toxic diseases of bone. Bristol, Wright, 1926. 416 pages. Achondroplasia. *Brit J Surg*. 1927-28, 15, 10. Cretinism. *Ibid*. 1928-29, 16, 370. A report on the Strangeways collection of rheumatoid joints in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. *Ibid*. 1932-33, 20, 113; 309; 425. Acromegaly. *Ibid*. 1935-36, 23, 69.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004324
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Freeland, Ernest Harding (1863 - 1939)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Cramsie, Jack Halling (1900 - 1946)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-06-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004100-E004199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376298376298
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born 15 March 1900, the only son of John Boyd Cramsie, a company director, and his wife Jessie Hailing McIntyre. He was educated at Sydney Grammar School and University, where he served as demonstrator of anatomy. He was also clinical assistant at St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney. Cramsie took the Fellowship in 1929, though not previously a Member of the College, and spent some years in England. He practised for a time at 59 Queen Anne Street, London, and also at Leicester, where he was elected to the staff of the Royal Infirmary. He returned to Australia, practised for some years at Sydney, and died at his home 166 New South Head Road, Edgecliff, on 21 August 1946, aged 46.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004115
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hope, Charles William Menelaus (1880 - 1949)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-07-17
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004200-E004299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376409376409
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Born 20 June 1880 at 11 Eldon Square, Newcastle-on-Tyne, the youngest child, with a brother and a sister, of John Hope, MRCS 1865, and Jessie Anne Martin, his wife. John Hope died in February 1883, and the children were brought up by their grandfather. Charles Hope was educated at Clifton College and the Newcastle Medical School, graduating in the University of Durham in 1903. After holding resident posts at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, he came to London in 1908 as resident anaesthetist at St Mary's Hospital, and later became clinical assistant to G William Hill, MD, in the throat department. He was also registrar and assistant surgeon to the Throat Hospital, Golden Square. He transferred to King's College Hospital on appointment as assistant surgeon for diseases of the throat under Sir St Clair Thomson in 1914, and became surgeon for the throat and nose in 1922, and senior surgeon to the ear, nose, and throat departments on their amalgamation in 1932; he retired in 1941 as consulting surgeon. He was also consulting surgeon to the ear, nose, and throat departments of Finchley Memorial Hospital, and to the nose and throat department of the Royal Eye Hospital, Southwark. He served at the St John's Ambulance Brigade Hospital in France with the British Expeditionary Force during the first world war 1914-18, with the honorary rank of major, RAMC. He was created OBE and Officer of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. In the second world war he served as full-time surgeon, 1939-41, at Horton Hospital, Epsom, under the Ministry of Health's emergency medical service. Hope practised at 13 Queen Anne Street, W; he retired, owing to ill-health, in 1941 to 5 The Avenue, Knaresborough, Yorkshire, where he died, aged 68, on 21 April 1949. A memorial service was held in King's College Hospital chapel. Hope never married. His recreations were gardening and carpentry, and he took a yearly holiday salmon-fishing in Scotland. "Charlie" Hope was a man of generous and kindly nature; as a surgeon, he was thorough, patient, and gentle. He was honorary secretary 1923-26, and president, from 1926 for many years, of the Students Club and Societies' Union at King's College Hospital. He left a third of the residue of his fortune to King's College Hospital, and two-thirds to its Medical School.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004226
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Holman, Charles Colgate (1884 - 1954)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-02-26 2018-02-09
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/377238377238
Occupation General surgeon Obstetrician and gynaecologist Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Born at East Hoathly, Sussex on 18 September 1884, where his father and grandfather had practised, he was educated at Eastbourne College and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. There he took second class honours in the Natural Sciences Tripos part I in 1905, and following the family tradition did his clinical training at Guy's, qualifying in 1908. After holding resident appointments at Guy's and at hospitals in the provinces, he took the FRCS in 1912 and the same year began his long association with the Northampton General Hospital. During the first world war Holman served in the RAMC and was in Mesopotamia for a year. On his return to Northampton he became assistant surgeon in 1919 and surgeon in 1925. He was senior surgeon from 1926 until his retirement in 1952, when the title of emeritus surgeon was conferred on him. In 1939 he formed the first fracture unit at Northampton General Hospital and from then until 1946 he dealt with all fractures coming to the hospital in addition to his general work. He was the first surgeon to the Manfield Orthopaedic Hospital, Northampton in 1925, surgeon to the Children's Orthopaedic Clinic there and consulting surgeon to Kettering General Hospital 1943-52. Holman lived for his work, and was rarely away from the hospital for more than ten days in a year. The first man in Northampton to specialise solely in surgery, in his early days he practised as gynaecologist, obstetrician and orthopaedist as well as general surgeon. Charles Holman throve on difficulties. He had an original mind and devised several new techniques, such as an abdominal approach to femoral hernia and a method of supra-pubic puncture. He also designed special instruments for the insertion of Smith-Petersen pins. For many years he served on the board of management and the house committee of the Northampton General Hospital and was chairman of the medical staff committee. He was president of the Northampton Medical Society, and president in 1933 and 1947 of the Northampton branch of the British Medical Association. He kept meticulous records, read widely, and frequently contributed incisive letters to *The Lancet*. For recreation Holman played bridge and tennis which he continued into his sixties despite a limp caused by poliomyelitis contracted at the age of twenty-one. He was twice married: his first wife V E Fowell died in 1921 leaving two sons, the elder being John Colgate Holman MD, MRCS, MRCOG. In 1923 Holman married Violet Lewis. Two years after retiring, Charles Holman was found dead at his home, Fourview, Woodway, Dodford, near Daventry, on 17 June 1954, aged 69. Publications: Nature and treatment of acute osteomyelitis. *Lancet* 1934. Gastro-jejuno-colic fistula. *Lancet* 1951. Urinary tuberculosis with extensive calcification of bladder. *Brit J Surg* 1952.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005055
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jebens, Erna Henrietta (1890 - 1964)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-03-03
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/377263377263
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Born on 14 August 1890, she was educated privately. She drove an ambulance during the early years of the 1914-18 war, and entered the London School of Medicine for Women in 1916, moving to St Mary's Hospital for her clinical studies, and qualified with the Conjoint diploma in 1921. After holding house appointments at St Mary's and elsewhere she took the FRCS in 1926. A year later she joined the anatomy department of the Royal Free Hospital Medical School, at first as demonstrator and later as part-time lecturer until she resigned in 1954. Her main clinical appointment was as orthopaedic surgeon to the Battersea General Hospital, where she founded the orthopaedic clinic in the 1930s, until her retirement under the age limit in 1955. During the second world war she was assistant surgeon to the Royal Free Hospital, and later to the East Ham General Hospital in the Emergency Medical Service. Miss Jebens was much interested in the theatre, literature, and foreign travel. After her retirement she published the research on the viscosity and pH of synovial fluid, which she had carried out with Mrs Monk Jones, MSc. She practised at 56 Wimpole Street, and died on 6 January 1964 aged 73.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005080
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Rogers, Sir Leonard (1868 - 1962)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-05-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005300-E005399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377503377503
Occupation Pathologist Tropical medicine specialist
Details Born on 18 January 1868 in Cornwall the son of Captain Henry Rogers RN, he was educated at Plymouth College and St Mary's Hospital where he passed the final examination for the Fellowship at the age of 24 while holding the post of resident obstetric officer. He then entered the Indian Medical Service being gazetted Lieutenant on 29 July 1893, his subsequent promotions being to Captain in 1896, to Major in 1905, Lieutenant-Colonel in 1913 and he retired in that rank in 1921. He was, however, immediately appointed to the Medical Board of the India Office on which he served for twelve years being its President in 1928-33 and being promoted Major-General on 3 November 1928. As he himself said he joined the IMS "solely in the hope of finding better opportunities for research when there were few openings in Great Britain", and again "I fear I made little use of the Fellowship except as having been the first to diagnose and operate on biliary abscesses of the liver in 1903 in Calcutta". A dedicated research worker he did, however, in the course of his regimental duties in various parts of India, demonstrate his abilities as an all-round clinician and public health administrator before devoting himself exclusively to research work. As Professor of Pathology in the Medical College in Calcutta he took the initiative in founding and endowing the School of Tropical Medicine which stands in Calcutta as a permanent memorial to his name. Although his work on cholera, amoebic dysentery and kala-azar saved many, he was proudest at having galvanised interest in leprosy by founding the British Empire Leprosy Relief Association in 1923, he himself having for many years been interested and having devised many improvements in the methods of using chaulmoogra oil in its treatment. In the late nineties he commenced research on snake venom and, in the course of hazardous experiments into its nature, improved the methods of production of antivenene. In 1904, by a brilliant piece of work carried out at the research station at Maktesar near Naini Tal in the Himalayan foothills, he predicted the development of Leishman Donovan bodies outside the blood of man, although he had been forestalled by those two workers in the actual discovery of the parasite of kala-azar in 1903. He next turned his attention to cholera and he proved that the mortality could be substantially reduced by intravenous hypertonic saline and oral potassium permanganate, travelling to Palermo in 1911 to test out his methods in a great epidemic raging in that city. In 1912 he discovered the curative action of emetine in amoebic dysentery and in 1915 made another advance by discovering the use of intravenous tartar emetic in the treatment of kala-azar. On his return to England he was appointed a physician to the Hospital for Tropical Disease and lecturer to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Numerous honours and distinctions were awarded him and he had already in 1916 been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1924 he was Croonian lecturer at the College of Physicians and his distinctions included the Moxon Gold Medal of that College, the Fothergill Gold Medal of the Medical Society of London, the Presidency of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from 1933 to 1935, the Laveran Medal in 1956 and honorary membership of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. A prolific writer he published numerous papers and textbooks including one on *Tropical Medicine* in conjunction with Major-General Sir John Megaw, a friend and contemporary, a book on *Dysentery and Bowel Disease in the Tropics* and one on *Leprosy* in conjunction with E Muir. He retained his interest in tropical disease into advanced old age and contributed articles from his home in Cornwall, bombarding younger colleagues with technical advice on medical and financial matters. In 1926 he had entrusted the Medical Research Council with an endowment for research in tropical medicine and in 1945 he raised this to fifteen thousand pounds. A staunch upholder of the Research Defence Society, he was prepared to mount a soap box in Hyde Park in answer to the anti-vivisectionists. In 1950 he published his fascinating and modest memoirs *Happy Toil* (Frederick Muller 1950), which was at first refused by the publishers on the grounds that it was quite impossible for one man to have done so much. In 1953 he received the congratulations of the President and Council on having completed sixty years as a Fellow, and in 1958 at the age of 90 The Lancet published his paper on "The Forecasting and Control of Cholera epidemics in SE Asia and China". A forceful, energetic, striking personality, he exerted a memorable influence on his students by whom he was held in great affection. He was, moreover, of a most upright, kindly disposition, ever helpful to his friends. He married in 1914 in his late forties Una Elsie, daughter of C N McIntyre North who died in 1951 and by whom he had three sons, Dr Gordon Leonard Rogers, Professor Claude Ambrose Rogers FRS, Professor of Mathematics in London University, and Dr Stephen Clifford Rogers. He died in Truro Hospital on 16 September 1962 aged 94, the senior Fellow of both Royal Colleges.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005320
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Rogers, Lambert Charles (1897 - 1961)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-05-06
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005300-E005399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377504377504
Occupation General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details Born on 8 April 1897 in Melbourne son of Charles Robert Rogers and Janet Chant, he was educated in Melbourne until 1915, when at the age of 18 he joined the Australian Naval Transport Service in which he served until 1917. He then came to the Middlesex Hospital to resume his interrupted medical studies only to enable him to join the RNVR as a surgeon probationer and to serve in destroyers until the end of the war. Returning to the Middlesex he qualified in July 1920 and became a house surgeon to John Murray. During this time he was awarded a certificate of distinction as a prosector for the College and the University of London, which interest in anatomy he maintained for the rest of his life, becoming a Fellow of the Anatomical Society. This was followed by a period of five years taken up with time in general practice, as a ship's surgeon, and in visiting clinics abroad. In January 1926 he was appointed the first full-time assistant in the surgical unit of the Welsh National School of Medicine, being promoted to senior assistant in June 1929, and subsequently assistant director under Professor A W Sheen first occupant of the chair of surgery. In 1934 he went to the British Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith, working for a year under Professor Grey Turner, and returned to Cardiff in 1935 to succeed Professor Sheen as professor, the post he occupied from then on until the time of his death. His surgical interests tended to be more and more in the field of neuro-surgery, in which he built up a world-wide reputation, particularly in connection with the surgery of spinal tumours. The achievement of which he was most proud was his founding of the Welsh Surgical Society, of which he was President from 1953 to 1958, which brought together the surgeons of Wales and made him their beloved and respected friend. He had always maintained his connection with the medical branch of the RNVR by holding a permanent commission, so that on the outbreak of war in 1939 he was mobilised and for a considerable time served at the Royal Naval Hospital at Barrow Gurney near Bristol. Later in the war he went to the Far East including the Australian station as a Surgeon-Captain. In May 1946 he returned to civilian life in Cardiff. He continued his connection with the Royal Navy as civilian consultant in neurosurgery. As a provincial surgeon he was for many years a member of the Moynihan Club, being its secretary 1940-50 and ultimately its President 1950-52. At the College he was a member of Council 1943-59, being Vice-President for 1953-55, a member of the Court of Examiners in 1943-44 and from 1946 to 1951 an examiner in anatomy for the Primary, a Hunterian Pro-fessor in 1935, an Arris and Gale lecturer in 1947, an Arnott demonstrator in 1952, and Bradshaw lecturer in 1954. He was President of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland in 1951-52, of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons 1948-54, of the Surgical Section of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1960-61, of the Section of Surgery of the British Medical Association in 1953, and of the Cardiff Medical Society in 1954-55. He was particularly pleased when in 1952 the University of Melbourne conferred on him the degree of MD *honoris causa*. Always a keen supporter of the International Society of Surgery, he was British delegate from 1947 and finally Vice-President. He examined in surgery for the Universities of Cardiff, London, Glasgow, Belfast, Bristol, the National University of Ireland and for Trinity College, Dublin. Surgeon to the United Cardiff Hospitals, he was also adviser in surgery to the Welsh Regional Hospital Board. Most methodical and hard working he contributed extensively to medical literature and acted as editor of Treves's *Surgical Applied Anatomy* for four editions between 1939 and 1955 and of Grey Turner's *Modern Operative Surgery* 4th edition in 1955. A quiet man of strong religious convictions, his innate kindliness and unfailing courtesy gained for him the implicit trust and affection not only of his patients but also of his colleagues and a wide circle of friends from many walks of life. It led him to give unsparingly of his time and substance to many charitable causes, and he was for many years medical officer of the Glamorgan Branch of the British Red Cross. An Australian by birth, he made so notable a place for himself in British surgery that people often forgot a fact of which he was naturally proud. A keen motorist he delighted in all forms of travel. He married in 1952, comparatively late in life, Mrs Barbara Ainsley the widow of Lt-Col J K Ainsley, Royal Artillery. They had a daughter, Anne. He died on 10 October 1961 aged 64 survived by his wife, his daughter Anne and his stepson Clive.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005321
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Doyne, Philip Geoffrey (1886 - 1959)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-05-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005300-E005399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377509377509
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Philip Geoffrey Doyne was born in 1886 of a distinguished southern Irish family. He was the elder son of Robert Doyne FRCS, a prominent ophthalmic surgeon who founded the Oxford Eye Hospital and played a leading part in the establishment of the Oxford Ophthalmological Congress, and a first cousin of P E H Adam FRCS, whose mother was a Miss Doyne and who succeeded Robert Doyne as reader in ophthalmology at Oxford. Doyne was educated at Winchester, Trinity College, Oxford and St Thomas's Hospital where he graduated in 1913. After holding house appointments at St Thomas's he joined the RAMC during the first world war and served in Mesopotamia, becoming the Army Eye Specialist in Baghdad. After the war Doyne returned to St Thomas's in 1919 as ophthalmic registrar, and in 1920 was appointed ophthalmic surgeon to the East London Hospital for Children. He always retained his interest in children's eyes and in 1922 was made ophthalmic surgeon to the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, and in 1932 became consultant surgeon there. In 1921 he held the Lang Research Scholarship at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital (Moorfields). The following year he became assistant surgeon there and surgeon in 1928. In 1924 he was appointed ophthalmic surgeon with charge of out-patients at St Thomas's Hospital. Doyne served for a time as sub-dean of the St Thomas's medical school, and from 1935 to 1946 was head of the ophthalmic department there. During the second world war Doyne moved into simple rooms near the hospital to enable him to carry out his work for the EMS with maximum efficiency. He served on the Ophthalmic Group Committee of the BMA from 1938 to 1945, and at the 1933 meeting in Dublin was a vice-president of his Section. The peak of his career was in 1943 when he was elected Master of the Oxford Ophthalmological Congress, of which his father had been founder and first Master. On retirement Doyne went to live at the family home at Bix Hill, Assendon, Henley-on-Thames. Doyne was of a retiring nature, and made few contributions to the literature of his specialty. At Oxford Doyne rowed for his college, and at his home at Henley was able to keep up this sport, but was better known as a fencer. Twice amateur foils champion of Great Britain (1912 and 1920) he was one of the British Olympic team before the war. To the age of 60 he fenced regularly at the London Fencing Club. He married Ida, daughter of Harcourt Griffin of Bude, in 1915 and their only child married John Emrys Lloyd, a successor of Doyne's as a British amateur champion and Olympic fencer, and a partner in Farrers, solicitors, of Lincoln's Inn Fields. Doyne's health deteriorated shortly after his retirement, and after a long illness he died at his home on 22 January 1959 aged 72. Mrs Doyne presented the College with his copy of Richard Wiseman's *Several chirurgical treatises* 1676, a valuable first edition, in his memory.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005326
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Roberts, Sir James Reid (1861 - 1941)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/376707376707
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 24 January 1861 at Marseilles, son of W H Roberts, an officer in the Merchant Navy. He was educated at Dollar Academy, at Lausanne, at Middlesex Hospital, and at the Durham School of Medicine at Newcastle, where he graduated in 1885, having taken the Conjoint qualification the year before. He entered the Indian Medical Service as a surgeon on 31 March 1888, and saw active service at Chin Lushai on the North-East frontier in 1889-90, receiving the medal with clasp, on the North-West frontier at Hunza Nagar in 1891 and as principal medical officer at the capture of Nilt Fort in 1892, for which he was mentioned in despatches and received a second clasp to his frontier medal. He was then made agency surgeon at Gilgit, and spent the rest of his service with distinction in the political department. In 1900 he was residency surgeon at Gwalior and in 1901-12 residency surgeon at Indore, holding with it from 1906 the post of administrative medical officer for Central India. He retired from this post, in which he had much improved hospital standards in his area, in 1916, when he was made civil surgeon of Simla West. He had been vice-president of the section of tropical medicine at the London meeting of the British Medical Association in 1910. He was promoted major in the IMS, 31 March 1900, lieutenant-colonel on 31 March 1908, created CIE on 11 December 1911, and a Knight Bachelor on 3 June 1913, and on 31 December 1915 he was placed on the selected list for promotion. He saw active service again during the war in Mesopotamia, and retired on 9 July 1919. After retirement he lived for a time at St Fillans, Perthshire, but went back to India, serving first in the State Cabinet of Jaipur and from 1932 on the Council of State of Dewas, living at Sugar Mahal, Dewas, Central India. He received the Kaisar-i-Hind Order, first class, in 1936. He died at Srinagar on 30 May 1941, aged 80.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004524
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Broomhall, Benjamin Charles (1875 - 1961)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-02-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004900-E004999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377107377107
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Godalming 16 March 1875 youngest son of Benjamin Broomhall of the China Inland Mission, an energetic opponent of the opium trade, he was educated at the City of London School intending to go into business, but instead entered the London Hospital, where he became a house surgeon. After holding resident posts at St Mark's and at the Mildmay Hospital, Bethnal Green, he went to China as a medical missionary in 1903. He practised at Tai-Yuan-Fu in Shansi where Dr Arnold Edward Lovitt MRCS had been murdered a few years before during the Boxer Rising. His valuable services were recognised by the Imperial and the Revolutionary governments. He was awarded the Order of the Double Dragon in the last year of the Empire (1910) and the Army and Navy medal by the new Republic (1915), and in 1916 the Order of Golden Grain by Yen Shi San, governor of the "model province" of Shansi. He returned to England during the first world war and served at Graylingwell Military Hospital, Chichester, and then practised at Garstang, Lancashire, where he was medical Officer to the Rural District Council. He went again to China in 1920 and worked at Sianfu in Shensi Province for eleven years. He came home in 1931 and practised till 1939 in Dulwich Village, London SE. He then retired to Redlynch near Salisbury, where he helped in medical activities during the war of 1939-45. Mrs Broomhall died on 29 April 1952, and he died at Little Mount, Redlynch on 2 January 1961 aged 85, survived by two sons and four daughters; one of his sons, Alfred James Broomhall MRCS, was a medical missionary in the Philippines.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004924
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Gough, Alfred (1883 - 1973)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-08-04 2015-02-06
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/377933377933
Occupation General surgeon Gynaecologist and obstetrician
Details The following was published in volume 5 of Plarr's Lives of the Fellows Gough was born in 1883 and educated at Leeds Medical School, which had at the time a staff of outstanding teachers. He graduated in the University of Leeds in 1905, taking the Conjoint Diploma the same year, and served as house physician and surgical registrar at Leeds General Infirmary, and later as surgical tutor and lecturer on surgery in the Medical School. He made his career as a gynaecological surgeon in Leeds and became consulting surgeon to the Public Dispensary and the Hospital for Women. He was a founding Fellow of the British (now Royal) College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. In retirement he Settled at The Hermitage, Jarvisbrook, near Crowborough in Sussex, but later moved to Aberdeen House, Uppingham, Rutland, where he died on 20 January 1973 aged nearly ninety, and was survived by his wife. The following was published in volume 6 of Plarr's Lives of the Fellows Alfred Gough was born in Leeds on 22 December 1883, the son of a plumber. He made his way through elementary and secondary school to the University by sheer hard work gaining scholarships in the days when these were very scarce and the competition very great. He obtained the gold medal in his final year at the Leeds Medical School but little is known of his early activities, apart from records of his house physician, surgical registrar and tutor appointments at Leeds General Hospital. He received his surgical training in the days when it was unusual, if indeed it ever happened, for the surgical team to change into theatre clothes, and right up to his retirement, Alfred Gough never did more in this respect than remove his jacket and waistcoat and don a long white coat over his street trousers! Gough served in the first world war and was attached to the No 7 General Hospital at St Omer in France with the rank of Captain in the RAMC. He returned to Leeds and was appointed to the staff of the Hospital for Women in 1919. Many anecdotes are told of this time. It is said that when testing the patency of Fallopian tubes, he had a nurse standing on a high stool and holding a saline-filled glass funnel as high above her head as possible. The funnel was attached by means of rubber and glass tubing, the lower end connected to the standard apparatus whose end went into the cervical canal. If the saline solution flowed freely and there was no leak back at the cervix, it was assumed the tubes were patent. Mr Gough always took this test very seriously, but for the rest of the team it was regarded as pure pantomime, for no nurse ever succeeded in holding the funnel up aloft sufficiently steady not to slop its contents on to the people below! Alfred Gough did not confine himself to gynaecological surgery, but would tackle just about any abdominal operation current in his day, besides numerous mastectomies. He did all the operations himself (his house surgeon was usually today's equivalent of a pre-registration houseman and by keeping the patients in hospital a long time (even D's and C's stayed a full fortnight!) he managed to keep his thirty-bedded ward full. When the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists was created, he was one of the founder Fellows. His honorary appointment at the Hospital for Women should have terminated in 1943 when he reached the age of 60, but he was persuaded to continue until the end of the war. This he interpreted literally by resigning on VE Day - a typical gesture. About this time, he developed a chronic empyema which undermined his health for many years but did not prevent him from country and fell walking, a pleasure he enjoyed until shortly before his death. He retired from practice in 1951 and went to live in Crowborough, Sussex, and later moved to Uppingham, Rutland, where he died on 21 January 1973. He was survived by his wife Dorothy, two daughters and two doctor sons, one of whom, H Martin Gough, is a consultant gynaecologist in Victoria, British Columbia.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005750
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Morris, John Bentham (1932 - 1970)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-09-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005900-E005999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378139378139
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details John Bentham Morris was born in 1932, the son of a distinguished orthopaedic surgeon, and was educated at King's College, Auckland, and then proceeded to the University of Otago where he graduated in medicine in 1956. After holding junior appointments in New Zealand he came to England and obtained the FRCS in 1960. He then concentrated on orthopaedic training by holding appointments at the Rowley Bristow Orthopaedic Hospital, the Park Hospital at Davyhulme, Manchester, and at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital before going to the United States as a British Orthopaedic Travelling Fellow. On his return to New Zealand he became an orthopaedic surgeon at Middlemore Hospital in Auckland, and had established himself as a dextrous operator, whose good judgement and integrity were respected by his colleagues, when his life was cut short by malignant disease at the early age of 37. Morris was a fine sportsman, particularly distinguished for his record as a cricketer but being a university blue for rugby as well as cricket. When he died on 10 January 1970 his wife and three children survived him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005956
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Brandis, George Hayes (1896 - 1969)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Walker, John Henry Milnes (1902 - 1984)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-08-12
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/379902379902
Occupation General practitioner General surgeon
Details John Henry Milnes Walker was born on 16 March 1902 in Wakefield, the son of John William Walker and his wife Constance Elizabeth, née Holdsworth. His father and grandfather had both been surgeons on the staff of Clayton Hospital and his wife's father had been a physician there. He was educated at Oundle School where he won the Bucknill exhibition to University College London in 1920. He qualified from University College Hospital MB, BS in 1925. Whilst holding house appointments at Salford and Reading Hospitals he passed the primary FRCS and obtained the MRCP. He joined his cousin in general practice in Hale, Cheshire, and shortly after completed the FRCS. He was then appointed honorary surgeon to Altrincham Hospital, the first general practitioner surgeon on their staff to have held the FRCS. In his spare time he continued his surgical training by watching surgeons in Manchester and acting as assistant in the urological unit at Salford Royal Hospital. In 1942 he joined the RAMC and served in Nigeria, India and Malaya. He was OC Surgical Division 134 IBGH with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. On demobilisation he was appointed consultant surgeon to Crewe District Memorial Hospital in 1946. He did much to organise this new hospital and built up a reputation for training of his juniors and care of his patients. From 1964 to 1972 he was an examiner in surgery at Manchester University. In 1962 he was President of the Manchester Surgical Society. In 1931 he married Mary Moon and they had four daughters, Gillian, Phyllida, Primrose and Nicolette. Gillian, the eldest, studied medicine at University College Hospital but gave up her course to marry Geoffrey C Mansfield an anaesthetist and general practitioner in Paignton. The youngest daughter, Nicolette Coward was the first woman to sail the Atlantic solo from Dale, Pembroke to Newport, Rhode Island in 1971. He retired in 1967 to live in the house that he had designed at Bickerton, Cheshire. He devoted most of his time to the Council for the Preservation of Rural England and the Cheshire Conservation Trust. He had a wide range of other interests including gardening, painting and architecture and he made a special study of church spires, visiting them and making notes. His wife sadly died in 1975 and he moved to near Oxford before his final move to Dartmouth in 1982 to be near three of his four daughters. He died on 18 October 1984 survived by his daughters and his younger brother, Professor Robert Milnes Walker, FRCS 1928 (qv), who died the following year.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007719
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Harries, David John (1884 - 1965)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-08-11
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/377955377955
Occupation General surgeon
Details David Harries was born near Llanybyther, Carmarthenshire in 1884. After attending the County school at Llandyssul he obtained his medical education first in Cardiff and later at University College Hospital, London. After holding house appointments in London he returned to Wales and worked at the City Lodge Hospital in Cardiff. During this time he devoted a lot of his time in the study of physiology and soon became lecturer in that subject in the medical school. When the first world war broke out he joined the RAMC and was posted to the Welsh Hospital at Netley. While there he obtained his Fellowship and shortly after was transferred to India as surgeon to Deolali. Within two years his skill was acknowledged by his appointment as consulting surgeon for a large part of India. During his time in India he submitted a thesis on bone surgery for which he was awarded a DSc; in his spare time he designed the local golf course and became a scratch golfer. In 1919 he returned to England a sick man but soon recovered his normal strength and vigour and began his surgical career in Cardiff. In 1922 he was appointed to the honorary staff of Cardiff Royal Infirmary and soon became also attached to numerous smaller hospitals in the vicinity of that city. Harries continued these various appointments until his retirement in 1950 having given a very distinguished service both as a surgeon and a teacher. Harries' liking for physiology and research enhanced his value as a teacher and he also, during his active life, published many papers on abdominal surgery. His many hobbies included golf, reading and gardening and he was always up to date in every aspect of medicine and surgery. He took an active interest in the BMA and was Vice-President of the Section of Surgery at the annual meeting in Cardiff in 1953. Latterly his health became poor and his life more peaceful, he died quite suddenly at his home in Cardiff on 25 February 1965 at the age of 80. He left a widow who all their married life had been untiring in her devotion for his welfare, and one son who is a dental surgeon in Cardiff.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005772
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Tulloch, Alan Keith (1910 - 1986)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Flemming, Cecil Wood (1902 - 1981)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-12-01
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/378657378657
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Cecil Wood Flemming, the son of Percy Flemming, ophthalmic surgeon at University College Hospital and Dr Elizabeth Flemming, physician to the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital, was born on 20 August 1902 at Ewhurst, Surrey. He was educated at Rugby School and Trinity College, Oxford, moving to University College Hospital in 1924. He qualified both MRCS LRCP and BM BCh Oxford in 1926. After holding a surgical appointment at University College Hospital he took the FRCS in 1928 and obtained his MCh Oxford in 1929. In the same year he was appointed surgical registrar at University College Hospital, then the only such post, and in 1933 he was appointed assistant surgeon as junior to Gwynne Williams under whom he began to specialise in orthopaedic surgery. He visited the Bohler Clinic in Vienna for a while. On his return he was also appointed to the staff of the Metropolitan and Harrow Hospital, and in 1940 he was made full surgeon at University College Hospital. He made a considerable impact on major lung surgery, then in its infancy. He also gave much time to the management of surgical tuberculosis in children, but perhaps his most memorable contribution to the hospital and medical school was as a clinical teacher. Having joined the RAFVR in 1936 he was posted to a mobile unit in France in 1939. In 1940 he went to Cairo as Commanding Officer of the RAF hospital and after service in North Africa and Italy he was appointed consultant surgeon to the RAF in the Middle East with the rank of Air Commodore, being largely responsible for establishing the rehabilitation services for the RAF in that area. He was awarded an OBE in 1944. He returned to the University College Hospital in 1946 and, with the advent of the National Health Service, he began to assume an important role in the management of the hospital. He planned the reorganisation of St Pancras Hospital as part of UCH, and the initiation of a large geriatric unit by Lord Amulree stimulated his interest in the orthopaedic problems of the aged. In 1950 he became chairman of the medical committee and a member of the board of governors. He resigned from his other hospitals and devoted all his time to UCH, playing an important part in the planning of a new outpatient and accident department which was finally opened in 1969. As a tribute it was named Cecil Flemming House. He gradually introduced surgical specialisation into his hospital, first setting up an accident and orthopaedic service which, under his direction became one of the most successful training centres for aspiring orthopaedic surgeons. In 1960 he was appointed dean of the medical school and as such he guided the affairs of the school at a difficult time. He continued his busy orthopaedic practice in addition to his teaching and administrative duties until his unexpected illness in the early 1960s. His brilliant teaching career came to a premature end much to the sadness of his colleagues and his students. He was a member of the Court of Examiners of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1952 to 1958. Despite progressive ill-health, he managed to enjoy his retirement with characteristic cheerfulness and determination. He studied his disabilities with interest and objectivity and would, from time to time, report ways in which he had found it possible to avoid their worst consequences. He established a fund to assist students with bursaries for their elective periods. A number of UCH students would escort him for walks in Regent's Park near his last home. With tea and toast and a mini-tutorial afterwards, his otherwise chairborne life was happily relieved. In 1931 he married Elizabeth Haden, herself a UCH doctor, and they had two sons and a daughter. He died on 18 September 1981, aged 79.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006474
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brebner, Innes Wares (1882 - 1977)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/378504378504
Occupation General surgeon
Details Innes Wares Brebner graduated from Edinburgh University in 1906 and was appointed house surgeon of Johannesburg Hospital in 1907. He started in general practice in 1910 and was appointed to the honorary staff of the Johannesburg Hospital as a surgeon in 1915. He served as a Captain in the South African Medical Corps in France in the first world war and was awarded the MBE. After the war he was reappointed to the staff of his hospital as senior honorary visiting surgeon in April 1922. He obtained his FRCS Ed in 1925. Brebner was a legendary figure and a skilled surgeon pioneering amongst other things the operation of pneumonectomy in South Africa. He was held in great affection and respect by his students and was famous for his habitual response to a correct answer from a student 'Ah yes, but why?' He was appointed to the Chair of Surgery at Witwatersrand Medical School in 1931 holding this position until his retirement in 1945. He was consulting surgeon to the Union Defence Forces in the second world war. He was acclaimed both in South Africa and elsewhere. He was awarded an honorary fellowship of the American College in 1938 and of the College of Medicine of South Africa in 1961. In 1945 he was awarded the FRCS, and became Emeritus Professor of Surgery at the University of Witwatersrand in 1949. He retained his interest in surgery during his happy retirement on his farm 'Halfway House' and enjoyed visits from his previous associates and friends for the next twenty two years. In 1973 he donated the Brebner Gold Medal to the College of Medical Sciences of South Africa for excellence in the Fellowship Examination in Surgery. Professor Brebner died at his farm at the age of 95 in September 1977.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006321
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Harding, John Anthony ( - 2014)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2014-10-17 2016-12-08
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/378321378321
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Anthony Harding was a surgeon in New South Wales, Australia. He gained his FRCS in 1973. He died on 15 August 2014.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006138
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Oldham, James Bagot (1899 - 1977)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-02-18
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006800-E006899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379013379013
Occupation General surgeon Military surgeon
Details James Bagot Oldham was born in Belfast on 7 November 1899, the first child of Samuel Charles Oldham, a ship repair director and of his wife Kathleen, née O'Flaherty. Most of his father's family were in the medical profession. He was cousin to Sir Hugh Rigby FRCS, Sergeant-Surgeon to HM George V. He was educated at Birkenhead School and Liverpool University, where he graduated MB, ChB in 1921. After his hospital residence he returned to the university as Gee Fellow in anatomy 1922-23. In 1925 he took his Conjoint Diploma immediately followed by the FRCS, and took a post as resident and registrar at the David Lewis Northern Hospital. While working there he was awarded the Lady Jones Fellowship in orthopaedic surgery, which he held from 1926 to 1928 and went on to be appointed honorary assistant surgeon to that hospital, and also honorary surgeon to the Birkenhead General Hospital and consulting surgeon to the Liverpool Teaching Hospital, positions which he held until retirement in 1964. He worked with G C E Simpson FRCS and Professor T P McMurray, whose teaching and example he found a great influence. In 1939 he became senior honorary surgeon with charge of a teaching unit at the Northern Hospital, a member of the faculty of medicine and, in 1941, lecturer in clinical surgery to Liverpool University. He joined the RNVR in 1924, and was a Surgeon-Commander when war broke out. He served throughout the war in naval hospitals in England and at Scapa Flow. In 1942 he was awarded the VRD and promoted to Surgeon-Captain. In 1944 he was appointed consultant surgeon to the Royal Navy, a position which he held for twenty years. In spite of his naval commitments he still found time for teaching and research. He was a member of the Court of Examiners from 1943 to 1949 and Hunterian Professor in 1944. On return to civil life in 1945 he resumed his hospital appointments. After the introduction of the NHS he served as a member of the board of governors of the United Liverpool Hospitals and on the advisory committee of the Regional Hospital Board. He was a member of Council of the College from 1947 to 1955 during which time he was again Hunterian Professor in 1950. He was awarded a bar to the VRD in 1949 and was made Honorary Surgeon to HM the Queen in 1952. He became a member of the Liverpool Medical Institution in 1925, and devoted himself to its service for over 40 years, holding almost every office in succession up to the presidency in 1953. In 1963 he was President of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland on the occasion of their meeting in Liverpool. In 1964 he was awarded the CBE. J B Oldham was a perfectionist who could be outspoken. Those who did not know him could be put off by his manner, but his surgical and nursing staff were loyally devoted. He was an excellent clinical teacher, particularly interested in helping ex-service men to obtain their higher examinations. Administratively he was deeply involved in the planning of the new Royal Liverpool Hospital. He had little time for leisure during his professional career, though in retirement he devoted himself to his love of gardening and in spite of progressive arthritis almost single-handed landscaped and transformed an open field at his home in North Wales into an impressive garden, much admired by his many visiting friends. As a young man he had been a notable rugby player, representing Cheshire on no fewer than 35 occasions. In retirement, when not gardening, his interests were literary, musical and in the history of medicine. He had published various papers on vascular surgery and the surgery of the autonomic system. In 1931, he married Kathleen Longton Hicks, FFARCS, consultant anaesthetist to Liverpool Teaching and Regional Hospitals. They had no children. He died suddenly on 1 March 1977, aged 77.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006830
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Rose, Dame Hilda Nora (1891 - 1982)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-02-24
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006800-E006899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379017379017
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Born on 11 August 1891 to John Shufflebotham, a Birmingham grocer, Hilda was educated at King Edward's High School for Girls and at the University of Birmingham where, with the reluctant consent of her father, she studied medicine. She graduated BSc in 1914 and MB ChB two years later, and obtained a wealth of practical experience, especially in obstetrics, during the war when many of her senior colleagues were away in the forces. She also held postgraduate appointments at the Birmingham and Midland Hospital for Women and the London Hospital. It is said that her competence so impressed her seniors that one of them offered to resign in her place if she could obtain her FRCS and this she did without difficulty in 1920. Soon after her appointment as consultant to the Maternity and Women's Hospital in Birmingham she acquired an enormous practice especially among her colleagues' wives. When, in 1943 Professor Sir Beckwith Whitehouse died, she was appointed his successor, holding the Chair of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in the University for the next eleven years. She had taken the MRCOG in 1935 and was made FRCOG the next year. She became President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1949 - characteristically insisting that her predecessor, the royal gynaecologist Sir William Gilliatt remain in office long enough to admit the Queen (now the Queen Mother) to the Honorary Fellowship. She was created DBE in 1951 and Honorary LLD of her own university in 1958. She married a colleague, Bertram Lloyd, in 1930 and their supremely happy marriage ended in 1948 when he died after a long period of ill health through which Dame Hilda nursed him with loving care. In 1949 she married Baron Theodore Rose (qv) with whom she had graduated in 1916. They retired early together to live near Ross-on-Wye. Baron Rose died in 1978 and Dame Hilda moved nearer to Birmingham where she continued an active social life in the University and hospital, even superintending all the details of her 90th birthday party before dying on 18 July 1982, one of the most distinguished women doctors of her generation.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006834
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Goldsmith, Sir Allen John Bridson (1909 - 1976)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-12-08
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/378698378698
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details Allen John Bridson Goldsmith was born on 27 November 1909, the son of an Edinburgh MD. He was educated at King William's College, Isle of Man, and the Middlesex Hospital. He qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in 1931 and took the MB BS with distinction in medicine and pathology. He held posts at the Middlesex Hospital and was appointed senior Broderip Scholar and awarded the Lyell Gold Medal. In 1933 he passed the FRCS examination, but as he was under twenty-five he had to wait a year before receiving the diploma. In 1935 he was appointed house surgeon at Moorfields Eye Hospital. Two years later he became surgeon and pathologist to the Central London Eye Hospital, holding the appointment until 1948 when he became surgeon at Moorfields. He also served the Middlesex as ophthalmic surgeon. Other hospitals at which he was ophthalmologist were Paddington Green Children's Hospital, the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, and the King Edward VII Hospital for Officers. He was lecturer in ophthalmology at London University and examiner in ophthalmology to the Royal Colleges. A joint editor of *Recent advances in ophthalmology*, he also published papers in specialist and medical journals. He was honorary secretary and member of the Council of the Ophthalmic Section of the Royal Society of Medicine; honorary secretary, member of Council and Vice-President of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom; Vice-President of the Medical Defence Union; and a member of the editorial committee of the *British journal of ophthalmology*. From 1952 to 1965 he was Surgeon Oculist to the Royal Household and then became Surgeon Oculist to the Queen, retiring from the appointment in 1974. He was created CVO in 1962 and KCVO in 1970. In 1936 he married Rosemary Porter, whose father also was an Edinburgh MD and they had one son and two daughters. He died on 13 December 1976.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006515
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gill-Carey, Chapple (1896 - 1981)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-12-08
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/378700378700
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Chapple Gill-Carey was born in 1896 at Hawera, New Zealand, the son of a farmer from Lancashire, his maternal grandfather being a physician at Wanganui. After attending Wanganui Collegiate School, he went to Guy's Hospital in 1913 and passed the Conjoint Diploma in May 1918. He immediately joined the New Zealand Army Medical Corps in which he served until 1920. On demobilization he returned to Guy's where his house jobs included a year with William Mollison and T B Layton in the ENT department - an association which undoubtedly influenced his future career. In 1923 he gained the FRCS Edinburgh and was appointed to the consultant staff of the Central London Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital, becoming Postgraduate Dean in 1936. Subsequently he joined the staff of St John and St Elizabeth Hospital and was later closely associated with the New Lodge Clinic at Windsor. In 1937 the Central London Throat Hospital and the Hospital for Diseases of the Ear, Nose and Throat amalgamated to form the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital in Golden Square where Gill-Carey served throughout the second world war. When in 1945 the Institute of Laryngology was formed, Gill-Carey became the first Dean, holding the post until 1960. In 1948 he became a Fellow of the College and served on the Council as representative of the British Association of Otolaryngologists from 1957 to 1962. He was President of the Laryngology Section at the Royal Society of Medicine and President of the Association of Otolaryngologists. He retired from active surgery in 1961 but remained a member of the board of management of the Royal National Hospital until 1964, having served the hospital for twenty-seven years. Gill was mentally and physically impressive. He had been a keen rugby footballer and later became an outstanding golfer, frequently playing with his friend, Lord Nuffield, at Huntercombe. Carey and his wife, Margaret, were excellent company and he missed her very much when she died in 1974. When he himself became housebound, he retained his interest in medicine and world affairs and his keen sense of humour. He died on December 21, 1981, at the age of 73, survived by his son from his first marriage who is in practice in Cornwall.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006517
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Barry, Hugh Collis (1912 - 1994)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-15 2015-10-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008000-E008099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380272380272
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Hugh Barry was a senior orthopaedic surgeon at Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. He was born in Orange in 1912 and educated at Sydney Grammar School. He studied medicine at the University of Sydney, won a blue at rugby, and was awarded the Rhodes scholarship for New South Wales, which took him to New College, Oxford. There he worked at the Dunn School of Pathology with his fellow Australian, Howard Florey, gaining a BSc. He went on to the London Hospital to specialise in surgery. During the second world war, Hugh served in a forward surgical unit at El Alamein and also in the Pacific, in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. After the war he returned to Sydney, to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, where he became senior orthopaedic surgeon in 1964, holding this position until he retired in 1972, though continuing in private practice and medico-legal work. He was elected to the council of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1958, serving for 12 years. He was also a member of the Court of Examiners. He was President of the Australian Orthopaedic Association and Chairman in Sydney of the Fifth Combined Meeting of the Orthopaedic Associations of the English-speaking world in 1970. He was on the editorial board of the *Journal of bone and joint surgery* from 1972 to 1976. He wrote *Paget's disease of bone* (Edinburgh, E & S Livingstone, 1959) and *Orthopaedics in Australia: the history of the Australian Orthopaedic Association* (Sydney, Australian Orthopaedic Association, 1983). He died in Palm Beach on 17 September 1994 after a long illness, survived by his wife Mary, two sons, Robert and John, and a daughter, Jane.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008089
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hunt, Frederick Cecil (1899 - 1992)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-10
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008000-E008099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380201380201
Occupation General surgeon
Details Fred Hunt was born at Ilkeston, Derbyshire, on 5 March 1899, the son of John Hunt, a schoolmaster, and his wife Clara, née Beardsley, who had seven children. He was educated at the Elementary School and the County Secondary School in Ilkeston, and entered the London Hospital Medical College in 1916, where he won several undergraduate prizes and then became demonstrator of zoology at East London College in 1918. He qualified MB BS in 1922 and after holding junior posts at the London he returned to the East Midlands, to the General and City Hospitals in Nottingham and Heanor Memorial Hospital, where he became successively casualty officer, house surgeon, surgical assistant and registrar in charge of radium. He obtained the FRCS Edinburgh in 1928 and became assistant honorary surgeon in 1933. In 1931 he married Agnes Rowland, a ward sister at the General Hospital, and they had a son who died in adolescence and three daughters, one of whom became a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, one a radiographer and the other a nurse. Hunt became full honorary surgeon in 1946 and, with the advent of the NHS in 1948, he was appointed consultant surgeon to all three hospitals. Hunt was a meticulous general surgeon, noted for his ability and common sense, who, with his experience with radium was largely responsible for the formation of the radiotherapy department. He gained the FRCS in 1949. Because of his ability his services were in high demand locally. He was secretary of the Nottingham Medico-Chirurgical Society for many years and its President between 1952 and 1953, as well as an active member of the 1921 Travelling Surgical Club of Great Britain.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008018
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ingall, John Robert Franklin ( - 1994)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008000-E008099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380204380204
Occupation General surgeon Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Ingall received his medical education at the Westminster Hospital and qualified with the conjoint diploma in 1952. He gained the London MB BS in the following year. After holding house posts at the Westminster Hospital and surgical registrarships there and at the Royal Portsmouth Hospital, he moved to the United States, where he was Associate Dean and Assistant Professor of Surgery at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He was also Program Director, Regional Medical Program for West New York and consultant surgeon to the Sisters of Mercy Charity Hospital. He later practised as a general and urological surgeon at Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Jack Ingall died on 26 April 1994 in Hemel Hempstead Hospital, and there was a memorial service at St Alban's.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008021
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching James, John Gwyn Howell (1919 - 1995)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008000-E008099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380211380211
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details John Gwyn Howell (Toby) James was born in Pontypridd on 5 May 1919 to Thomas Edwin James, a bank manager, and his wife Margaret, née Williams, a farmer's daughter. After early education in South Wales he studied medicine in Cardiff, and graduated MRCS, LRCP at the Welsh National School of Medicine in 1942. His war service was in the RNVR between 1942 and 1946, mainly in small ships from the Arctic to the Mediterranean, and he attained the rank of surgeon lieutenant commander. After the war he embarked on a career in orthopaedics, holding registrar and senior registrar posts in Cardiff and Birmingham before becoming, in 1952, a consultant in Neath, Port Talbot, Bridgend, Aberdare and Rhydlafar where, in addition to his usual work he built up a service for the surgical treatment of patients with legs of unequal length. Ill health forced him to give up his work at Bridgend, but he continued at Neath and Port Talbot until he retired in 1983. He enjoyed shooting, fishing and painting, and pursued his interests in local history and genealogy, despite failing health in later years. He died aged 76 on 6 January 1995, survived by his wife Nansi, three sons (one an orthopaedic surgeon) and two grandsons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008028
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Mundy, Herbert (1871 - 1932)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-11-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004600-E004699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376882376882
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Kennington, Oxfordshire on 16 July 1871, the son of Job Mundy, a farmer, and his wife, Elizabeth Catherine Stone. He was their third child and third son. Educated at Faversham School, he entered St Bartholomew's Hospital in October 1892. Here he gained the senior anatomy or Foster prize for the best dissection of his year in 1894, and was appointed prosector at the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1898 he won the Brackenbury surgical scholarship, and was nominated by H T Butlin and C B Lockwood to act as their house surgeon. At the end of his year of office in October 1899 he was elected assistant demonstrator of anatomy in the Medical School, becoming demonstrator and holding the post until 1902, when he showed signs of commencing phthisis. He therefore took the additional qualification of DPH, went to South Africa, and entered into partnership in 1903 with Walter Eardley Burnand at Durban. Burnand had been a fellow student, a Cambridge man, who had settled in Natal after serving as a civil surgeon with the South African Field Force in 1901-02; he was a nephew of Sir Francis Burnand, editor of Punch. At Durban Mundy soon built up a large general practice, learning Tamil and Hindustani the better to understand his Indian patients. During the war of 1914-18 he served in East Africa. He married on 26 April 1911 Olive Liddell Stevens, who had been trained as a nurse at the Addington Hospital. She survived him with six children, three of his sons becoming students at St Bartholomew's Hospital. Mrs Mundy died in London on 8 June 1938. He died on 26 May 1932 from an acute attack of malaria, contracted when his car broke down and he was obliged to spend a night on the veldt whilst returning from a visit to his farm in Zululand. He was buried in Stamford Hill cemetery Durban, the funeral being attended by more than a thousand persons. Mundy secured for himself the esteem and respect of his neighbours to an unusual extent. In early life he showed such great promise that he might have been a candidate for election to the surgical staff at St Bartholomew's Hospital, had his health not broken down under the strain of anatomical teaching. He had a vein of humour and shone as a witness in medico-legal cases during his practice at Durban. It is told of him that on one occasion, when an examining counsel was pulled up by the presiding judge for exceeding the limits of courtesy, Mundy said with a bland smile "Thank you, My Lord, but I don't mind, if the court doesn't; I can be just as rude as Mr X is, if I wish to be". His relaxation was big game shooting.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004699
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Boyd, Sidney Arthur (1880 - 1966)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/377843377843
Occupation General surgeon
Details Sidney Arthur Boyd was born at Bedford on 20 July 1880, son of Albert Thomas and Marianne Boyd. He was educated at Bedford School and received his medical training at the London Hospital and Charing Cross Hospital, qualifying in 1902. In 1904 he obtained his MB BS degree with honours in medicine, surgery, pathology and forensic medicine and was awarded the gold medal. After several resident posts at Charing Cross Hospital he took his Fellowship in 1905 and the MS in 1907. In 1912 he was appointed to the staff of the Hampstead Central Hospital and later became attached to the Victoria Hospital, Leatherhead, the Alexandra Orphanage, the LCC Hospital at New End, Hampstead, and the Mildmay Mission Hospital. During the first world war he was gazetted a temporary Major in the RAMC, serving in the Mediterranean and Egypt, and was twice mentioned in dispatches. After the war he also held the post of lecturer in applied anatomy to King's College, London, 1919-25. Owing to a rule at the Hampstead General Hospital, Boyd had to retire in 1937 after holding the post of consultant for 25 years. When the second world war came his Hospital invited him to return, and he worked there until the end of 1945. His work during the war was invaluable in helping to keep the hospital running efficiently during the emergency. Boyd lived in Hampstead all his life and took an active part in public affairs, being a member of the Hampstead Borough Council for forty years. He was Mayor of the Borough 1938-45, and in recognition of his leadership of the Council during the war years was made a Freeman of the Borough in 1946. He was also a JP for the County of London. Boyd was a man of strong Christian faith, and his association with the Mildmay Mission Hospital was especially dear to him. An active member of the British Medical Association, he was honorary secretary of the Hampstead division in 1914 and again in 1949. He was elected a Fellow of the BMA in 1960. Sidney Boyd was a brilliant abdominal surgeon; his particular forte was in the treatment of a bad appendix abscess, and in those pre-antibiotic days his mortality was very low. He was always a strong supporter of the use of the Battle incision for the treatment of appendicitis, and the complications of that incision were unknown in his hands. He married in 1910 Viola Evangeline, daughter of Henry Fox, and they had one son and three daughters. Boyd died at his home on 2 November 1966, at the age of 86; his wife survived him and died on 12 February 1968. Publications: Foreign bodies in the vermiform appendix. *Brit med J* 1912, 1, 828. Non-parasitic cysts of the liver. Lancet, 1913, 1, 951.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005660
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Turner, Philip (1873 - 1955)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-06-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005400-E005499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377611377611
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Kensington on 27 December 1873 one of the three sons of Arthur James Turner, he was educated at King's and University Colleges, London, graduating in science in 1894, and qualified from Guy's Hospital in 1897. He won honours in forensic medicine at the MB examination in 1899 and took the MS and the Fellowship in 1901. At Guy's he won the Treasurer's gold medal in clinical surgery, was medical registrar 1902-03, and demonstrator of anatomy, lecturer in surgery and instructor in operative surgery 1903-08. After holding a clinical assistantship at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, he was appointed assistant surgeon at Guy's under Sir Alfred Fripp in 1908 and became surgeon in 1925. He was elected a consulting surgeon on his retirement in 1933. Turner's dry and reserved personality was the antithesis of Fripp's sociable and enthusiastic character. But they made an excellent team and shared a distaste for heroic or showy surgery. Turner deliberately avoided the more difficult fields of surgery, but made himself a master of the ordinary work of a general surgeon. His opinion was highly valued by his specialist colleagues, and his worth was recognised by his election as President of the clinical and paediatric sections, as well as the surgical section, of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was essentially a craftsman and anatomist, and in his work on inguinal hernia and the descent of the testicle he showed himself capable of thorough and detailed research. He devised and described the best method of trans-scrotal fixation of the undescended testis, which became established practice as "Turner's operation". His textbook of operative surgery, written jointly with R P Rowlands, was very successful. Turner was assistant surgeon at the Belgrave Hospital for Children 1904-08 and subsequently surgeon to the Eltham and Hornsey Hospitals and the Surrey dispensary. In the war of 1939-45 he returned from retirement to take charge of the Joyce Green Hospital at Dartford, Kent, one of the Emergency Medical Service hospitals in the sector managed by Guy's. Here his personality at last developed itself fully and he seemed able to deploy all his abilities as teacher, anatomist, surgeon, and administrator. He became the moving spirit of the hospital and continued at work till 1950. In these years he made a wider circle of friends than he had ever cared to cultivate before. His collection of books, including literary first editions, was sold at Hodgson's auction rooms on 13 December 1950. Turner married in 1908 Helen B Lambert, formerly a sister at Guy's. Mrs Turner was matron of the Red Cross workrooms at the Royal Academy during the war of 1914-18; she died in 1932. Turner examined in surgery for the Admiralty and the Society of Apothecaries. He was a frequent contributor to the professional journals. He died in St Mary Abbott's Hospital, Kensington, to which he had been consulting surgeon 1922-39, on 16 February 1955 aged 81. A memorial service was held at Guy's Hospital Chapel on 1 March. Publications. *The pocket osteology*. London, Bailliere, 1908. *Aids to osteology*, with N L Eckhoff. 1908. *Inguinal hernia, the imperfectly descended testicle and variocele*. London, Churchill 1919. *The Operations of Surgery*, by W H Jacobson, editions 6-8 by R P Rowlands and P Turner. London, Churchill 1915-36. An eventful locum. *Guy's Hosp Gaz*. 1954, 88, 516.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005428
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gray, Sir Archibald Montague Henry (1880 - 1967)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-08-04
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/377938377938
Occupation Dermatologist
Details Archibald Gray was born at Ottery St Mary, Devon, the son of Frederick Archibald Gray MRCS (1872) in practice there; he was educated at Cheltenham College and then at University College and Hospital London. He graduated with honours in 1903 and proceeded to the MD with the University Gold Medal in 1905. After holding resident posts at his own hospital which included house surgeon to Horsley and house physician to Rose Bradford and at the Hospital for Women in Soho Square, he early acquired a local fame as an able surgeon. He then proceeded to Vienna for a year in order to train as a dermatologist and on his return was appointed to the dermatological department at the University College Hospital, becoming ultimately consulting physician to that Hospital and to the Hospital for Sick Children. The reason for this strange change may be traced to the fact that no forseeable vacancy in the gynaecological department presented, and this, at a time when the London teaching hospitals were more inbred than they now are, virtually debarred Gray from following up his surgical promise in his chosen field. At this juncture the department of dermatology at University College Hospital became vacant on the death of the famous Henry Radcliffe Crocker FRCP (1845-1909). It was generally believed at the hospital that Gray's ability and character persuaded some of his future colleagues to suggest to him that there could be a future for him at his old hospital. In any event he returned from Vienna well equipped to carry the dermatological department (1909) and his later success in this new field justified the change and kept for University College Hospital a man who became one of its most loyal and devoted sons; and who served it in many ways including a period as Dean of the Medical School. From the outset of his career Gray showed that medicine was not his only field of activity for he displayed administrative gifts and interests which were widely spread over all his professional life. He joined the Officers Training Corps (RAMC) and commanded the University College section. At the beginning of the first world war he was attached to the Medical Director-General's staff of the War Office with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and in 1918 was appointed consulting dermatologist to the BEF for the remainder of the war. He later became consultant adviser to the RAF, the Ministry of Health and to certain special hospitals of the LCC. London University was the object of his prolonged interest and service. He was a member of the Senate for many years, being Deputy Vice-Chancellor (1938-39) and Dean of the Medical Faculty (1932-36). He also represented the University on the General Medical Council and served on several Government committees; including the committee on the medical service of the Navy, Army and Air Force (1931-33), on the Goodenough Committee (1942-44) and on a Ministry of Health survey of the Medical Schools of London (1945-46). From 1948-1962 he was adviser to the Ministry on dermatology. Particularly fruitful were his years of activity on the King Edward Seventh Hospital Fund. His war work was rewarded by the CBE; he was knighted in 1946 and created KCVO for his work on the King Edward Seventh Hospital Fund in 1959. His eminence as a dermatologist also received recognition here and abroad, in honorary membership of numerous American dermatological societies and he was chosen Harveian Orator to the Royal College of Physicians in 1951. At the Royal Society of Medicine he was one of the honorary secretaries (1920-24), then honorary treasurer and lastly President (1940-43). Gray was secretary of the section of dermatology at the last general International Congress of Medicine (1913), a Vice-President of the 8th Congress of Dermatology (1930) and President of the 10th Congress in London (1952). He was for some years editor of the *British journal of dermatology* and a contributor to various textbooks. The writer first knew Gray when he was regarded as a budding gynaecological surgeon and the sudden change in the direction of his work was a nine day wonder at the University College Hospital and its medical school. However he slipped into dermatology with characteristic competence and eagerness, habits which set the pattern for the rest of his life. He was easy in his relations, occasionally curt with the vague and the indecisive, but never hurtful, for he was without malice. Gray was a man of small stature, his quiet face frequently lit up by a charming smile. He was kind to his patients and was prepared to take endless trouble for them for he remained a good physician despite his contacts with the world of administration. Gray married in 1907 the daughter of F B Cooper of Newcastle, Staffs., and they had a son and a daughter. The disability of his last years was grievous for a man who remained actively intelligent, but he bore it with dignity, finally dying at his home, 7 Alvanley Gardens, NW6, after a long illness at the age of 87, on 13 October 1967. He was survived by his wife and children. A memorial service was held at the Vincent Church, Gordon Square, on 14 November 1967.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005755
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gillies, Sir Harold Delf (1882 - 1960)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-06-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005400-E005499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377624377624
Occupation Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Born at Dunedin, New Zealand, on 17 June 1882, he came of a distinguished family. His father Robert Gillies was a land agent and a member of the New Zealand House of Representatives, and his mother was Emily Street from Birtley, near Guildford. Edward Lear, the artist and nonsense-verse write, was his great-uncle, and Sir Archibald McIndoe, who succeeded him as a leader in plastic surgery, was his cousin. Educated at Wanganui College, where he was captain of cricket, he went up to Caius College, Cambridge. There he distinguished himself as a sportsman, rowing in the Boat Race of 1904 and playing golf for the University for three years. He continued his medical training at St Bartholomew's, was awarded the Luther Holden Scholarship, qualified in 1908 and obtained the FRCS in 1910. After holding house appointments at Bart's he developed an interest in otolaryngology. For some years he worked as assistant to Sir Milsom Rees and became surgeon to the Ear Nose and Throat Department at the Prince of Wales's General Hospital, Tottenham and pathologist at the Throat Hospital, Golden Square. Then came the 1914-18 war which caused the mutilation and disfigurement of so many men and showed Gillies clearly where his genius lay. Early in the war he joined the RAMC and whilst on leave in Paris he met Hippolyte Morestin, a pioneer in maxilla-facial surgery. Gillies immediately realised the need to start special treatment of facial wounds and through the force of his conviction and personality he managed to persuade the War Office to allow him to set up a unit at Aldershot. At this time he knew little of the specialty, but his own surgical skill, artistic temperament, endless patience and tremendous confidence carried him through. He pressed for a hospital of his own and with the help of Sir William Arbuthnot Lane the Red Cross was persuaded to build a hutted hospital at Sidcup. This soon became the largest centre of its kind in the world. During this time Gillies discovered independently the potentialities and varied applications of the skin tubed pedicle. Being a painter himself, plastic surgery as practised by Gillies became an art and he often called upon the talents of artists to help him. F Derwent Wood RA, a sculptor, collaborated with Gillies in cases when the manipulation of living tissues needed to be supplemented with modelling in some artificial substance such as wax. When Gillies was in need of a good draughtsman in 1915 he was delighted to meet Henry Tonks FRCS, who had given up surgery to become a professional artist and was later Director of the Slade School. On the outbreak of war Tonks volunteered to serve in any useful capacity and Gillies found him at Aldershot waiting for a suitable job. He painted portraits of men with facial injuries and helped to design their repair. These paintings were deposited in the War Collection at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. After the war Gillies saw that this new specialty was still necessary in peace-time and by 1920 he had established it in Britain. He set up in private practice, was elected to the staff of St Bartholomew's and was appointed consultant in plastic surgery to the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital, St Andrew's Hospital, Dollis Hill, St James's Hospital, Balham, the North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary, the London County Council, and the ministries of Health and of Pensions. At the same time his international reputation grew and he became an honoured guest in many countries. He was appointed OBE in 1919 and CBE in1920, and was knighted in 1930. Gillies was a splendid lecturer and was much in demand at home and abroad. He was a superb teacher and his pre-operative planning clinics were conducted with infinite patience. In these the use of exact patterns of flap and pedicle and the marking of the skin of the exact site and length of incision all made a deep impact. The outbreak of war in 1939 made even greater demands on Gillies. He organised plastic surgical units in different parts of the country and personally supervised the largest unit at Park Prewett Hospital, Basingstoke. By spending hundreds of hours in the theatre repairing shattered faces he restored the morale of thousands. Shortly after the war Gillies formed the British Association of Plastic Surgeons of which he was the first president. He was also president of the International Society of Plastic Surgeons. He continued to train men from all over the world and to travel widely himself teaching, operating and advising. His impressions were recorded in his paintings which were seen at the Royal Society of Medicine and later at two one-man exhibitions in London. In 1920 Gillies's book *Plastic Surgery of the Face* was published, which remained the leading textbook in its field until the appearance in 1957 of the *The Principles and Art of Plastic Surgery*, written with Dr Ralph Millard. This book reflects Gillies' personality, for it is a brilliant exposition of the subject and at the same time an entertaining, vivid account of his work, superbly illustrated in colour. In spite of the claims of his professional life Gillies for many years managed to maintain his position in the world of golf. He played for England against Scotland in 1908, 1925 and 1926 and won the St George's Grand Challenge Cup in 1913. He was also a highly skilled fly-fisherman. Gillies married Kathleen Margaret Jackson in 1911 and they had two sons and two daughters. During the second world war their elder son, Flying Officer John Arthur Gillies, RAAF, was a prisoner in Germany. Lady Gillies died on 14 May 1957. His second wife was Marjorie E Clayton, who had been for many years his personal assistant. He died on 10 September 1960 at the age of 78. The British Association of Plastic Surgeons created a fund in his memory to promote education and research in plastic surgery. Publications: *Plastic surgery of the face,* 1920 *The principles and art of plastic surgery*, with Ralph Millard. 2 vols 1957
Resource Identifier RCS: E005441
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brownlee, Joseph John (1901 - 1972)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-07-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005600-E005699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377857377857
Occupation Genito-urinary surgeon Urologist Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Joseph Brownlee was of Irish descent; his father, J J Brownlee, who died in 1928, came from Northern Ireland and was one of the earliest doctors in Christchurch; his mother's maiden name was McKee. Brownlee received his early education at Waitaki Boys High School; he kept a great interest in his old school and became Dominion President of the Old Boys Association. He qualified from Otago Medical School in 1926; while there he developed considerable prowess at running and hurdling, and at one stage the Otago record for the 100 yards was held jointly by Brownlee and Arthur Porritt. In 1927 he became a house surgeon at Auckland Hospital and then came to England where he stayed for seven years holding various surgical appointments and obtaining his Fellowship in 1934. In 1935 he returned to Christchurch and was appointed assistant surgeon to the genito-urinary department of Christchurch Hospital. In 1940, early in the second world war, he came to England as one of several surgeons from Commonwealth countries to be trained in plastic surgery by Sir Harold Gillies; he returned to New Zealand through the Middle East, where he spent several months observing the requirements of a plastic unit dealing with war casualties. Then at Burwood Hospital, Christchurch he set up the first plastic unit in New Zealand. Brownlee was senior surgeon at this plastic unit 1942-1955. From 1955 to 1966, when he retired from practice, he carried on his plastic work at various private hospitals and in addition visited Invercargill and Dunedin in a consultant capacity. In 1946 he was elected to the North Canterbury Hospital Board and served on it until 1957. He was also chairman of the building committee of the Princess Margaret Hospital. An important part of Brownlee's life was his annual holiday camp on the shores of Lake Hawea; the fishing there was excellent and he became an expert fly-fisherman; each camp lasted for several weeks and about twenty people were generally present. At these camps he fed, sheltered and entertained not only his friends but many widows, orphans and underprivileged people at his own generous expense. Brownlee was a keen Mason, who thought deeply about religion and politics. In 1966 Brownlee retired from medicine because of failing health and for the last few years of his life he was confined to a chair. He died at his home on 1 November 1972 in his 71st year. His wife, son and daughter survived him. His son J J Brownlee qualified in medicine but gave up practice for farming; his daughter married M T Milliken and practised surgery at Christchurch.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005674
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lees, Alec Antony (1890 - 1971)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Lendon, Alan Harding (1903 - 1973)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Raper, Frederick Peter (1913 - 1966)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006000-E006099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378238378238
Occupation General surgeon Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Born in 1913 at Grassington, Yorkshire, he was the elder son of Professor H S Raper DSc, FRS, Professor of Physiology in Leeds from 1917 to 1923 and in Manchester from 1923 to 1946, when he became Dean of the Faculty until his death in 1951. Raper was educated at Giggleswick School and the medical school of Leeds, which he entered in 1931. After qualification he held appointments as house surgeon and receiving room officer culminating in his appointment in 1941, after being admitted a Fellow, as resident surgical officer in the General Infirmary, holding this position until 1944. He then entered the RAMC serving until 1947 as a surgical specialist in India. Returning to Leeds in 1947 he was appointed surgical tutor to the University and in 1950 was awarded a travelling scholarship by the United Leeds Hospitals, tenable at Ann Arbor, Michigan for further training in urological surgery. Returning to Leeds in 1951 to the post of senior registrar in the United Hospitals and St James's Hospital, in 1952 he was appointed consultant urological surgeon. In April 1964 he became senior consultant and senior clinical lecturer on the retirement of Professor L N Pyrah. He held many appointments in addition to those in the hospital and university. A member of the council of the British Association of Urological Surgeons from 1959 to 1962 and secretary of the Urological Section of the Royal Society of Medicine from 1956 to 1957, becoming Vice-President from 1957 to 1961, he was secretary of the Leeds and West Riding Medico-Chirurgical Society from 1957 to 1961. He was also President of the Leeds Medical Sciences Club from 1964 to 1965. As a surgeon Raper was an expert craftsman, gentle and dexterous, and was at the same time an able diagnostician. Although he had had a very thorough grounding in general surgery, when it was decided in 1948 to form a department of urology in Leeds, he expressed a desire to become attached to it and to abandon general surgery. His year's experience at Ann Arbor convinced him of the correctness of his decision. Latterly he had become deeply involved with F M Parsons in the problems of renal transplantation, particularly the feasibility of using cadaver kidneys. As a member of the planning committee of the new teaching hospital in Leeds, he had devoted many hours to the consideration of the problem associated with the integration of a new medical school adjacent to both hospital and university. He was a popular teacher with both under and postgraduate students: possessing considerable powers of exposition aided by a dry sense of humour. Outside his profession he had many interests. A painter in water colours from early days, and a lover of music, he was an enthusiastic walker in the Yorkshire Dales from his cottage at Malham. Raper died suddenly in the General Infirmary on 31 January 1966 at the early age of 52, leaving a widow and two daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006055
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ravdin, Isidor Schwaner (1894 - 1972)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-02 2020-08-05
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006000-E006099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378240378240
Occupation General surgeon
Details Isidor Schwaner Ravdin was born in Evansville, Indiana, on 10 October 1894, his father and grandfather having been doctors. In 1916 he graduated in science at the University of Indiana, and in 1918 in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. After holding junior surgical posts in Philadelphia, in 1927 he came to Edinburgh and spent a year with Sir David Wilkie. He also worked in the physiological laboratory and so laid the foundation of his subsequent researches into physiological and biochemical problems applied to surgery. On his return in 1928 he was made Professor of Surgical Research, and in 1935 Harrison Professor of Surgery. He thus undertook a fantastic programme of clinical and laboratory work, his chief contribution being the introduction of intravenous feeding to overcome malnutrition in surgical patients. He also stimulated by his example and advice a large number of assistants who subsequently distinguished themselves as a result. In the second world war he served in the Eastern theatre and ultimately became the first Major-General in the Medical Corps Army Reserve: After the war he was appointed John Rhea Barton Professor and Chairman of the Department of Surgery in Philadelphia, retiring in 1959 because he wanted to make way for a younger man, and he became Vice-President for Medical Affairs. Ravdin was awarded many honours including the Presidency of the American Surgical Association in 1958 of the American Cancer Society in 1963, and of the American College of Surgeons in 1960, having been Chairman of its Board of Regents from 1954 to 60. In 1956 he was awarded the Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. In 1921 he married Betty Glenn who was also a physician, and she was a wonderful support to him in the rest of his strenuous career. Unfortunately in the end he suffered from a chronic illness which incapacitated him mentally and physically and his death on 27 August 1972 came as a merciful release.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006057
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Orr, Ian Morison (1901 - 1966)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Parker, Geoffrey Edward (1902 - 1973)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-09-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006000-E006099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378192378192
Occupation General surgeon Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Geoffrey Edward Parker was born on 24 June 1902 and was educated at Windlesham House School, Hove, Marlborough College, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He came to St Thomas's Hospital for his clinical course and qualified with the Conjoint Diploma and the Cambridge MB in 1926. Two years later he took the FRCS. After holding junior posts at St Thomas's, the West London Hospital, and the National Temperance Hospital he ultimately became consultant surgeon to the French Hospital, the Italian Hospital and the Woolwich Group. He was specially interested in urology. During all this time his career closely resembled that of many a London surgeon, but it was in the latter part of the second world war that he distinguished himself to a unique degree. He served with the RAMC from 1942 in North Africa and Italy, but also acquired special experience in parachute jumping, unarmed combat and the use of small arms. Early in 1944 he was parachuted into France in the Jura mountains and worked as a surgeon with the Maquis, caring for the resistance fighters with supreme courage which was rewarded by the DSO in 1945, and also by the Croix de Guerre with Palm and Gold Star, and he was made Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur. Later he received honours also from Belgium and Italy. His experiences were described in his books *The black scalpel* 1968 *and Surgical cosmopolis* 1970. At Cambridge Parker was awarded a blue for boxing, and he also played squash and golf. In later life he did a good deal of writing and painting, his pictures having appeared in exhibitions in England, France and America. In 1930 he married Kathleen Hewlett Johnson and had two sons and a daughter. This marriage was dissolved and in 1967 he married Margaret Lois Wilsdon who survived him. Parker died on 5 December 1973 at the age of 71.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006009
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching McConnell, Adams Andrew (1884 - 1972)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Mehta, Sorab Jal (1929 - 1972)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-09-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005900-E005999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378124378124
Occupation Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Sorab Jal Mehta was born in 1929 and had his medical undergraduate education at the Grant Medical College, obtaining the MB BS degree from the University of Bombay in 1953. After holding junior appointments at home he came to England in 1955 and did his surgical training at the Birmingham Accident Hospital, Newport General Hospital, and St Lawrence's Hospital, Chepstow, and took the FRCS in 1958. On his return to Bombay, Mehta was appointed honorary plastic and reconstructive surgeon to Wadia Children's Hospital, the Tata Memorial Hospital, and the Goculdas Tejpal Hospital, this third attachment carrying with it the title of Honorary Professor of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the Grant Medical College. An accomplished and dedicated surgeon, his clinical and technical ability soon took him to the top in his special field. But in addition to his professional accomplishments his interests ranged widely over music, art, philosophy and religion, subjects which he could discuss with expert knowledge and appreciation. A warm-hearted and generous friend, his passing away at the peak of his career left a void not only in plastic surgery but also in the hearts of his many friends. "Whom the gods love die young" is an old saying, and how true it is of Sorab Mehta who died after a short illness on 6 November 1972. He was survived by his wife and two sons aged 16 and 14 years.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005941
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cantlie, Sir Neil (1892 - 1975)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Clark, Sir Wilfrid Edward Le Gros (1895 - 1971)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006200-E006299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378399378399
Occupation Anatomist
Details Born on 5 June at Hemel Hempstead the second of the three sons of the Rev Travers Clark, he was a grandson of Frederick Le Gros Clark, President of the College in 1874, member of Council from 1864 to 1879 and surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital. For his education Le Gros Clark went to Blundell's School, Tiverton, proceeding to St Thomas's Hospital in 1912 where he gained an Entrance Scholarship, the William Tite Scholarship and the Musgrove Scholarship. Qualifying with the Conjoint Diploma in July 1917, he entered the RAMC immediately and without serving a house appointment, as was the usual pattern at the time. He served in France until the end of the war, an experience which affected his outlook profoundly, as it did that of many of his contemporaries. On demobilisation he returned to St Thomas's to take up an appointment as a house surgeon to Sir Cuthbert Wallace, during which period he passed the Final examination and was admitted a Fellow. Intending to take up a career in experimental anatomy, he decided first to gain experience as a practising surgeon and, with this end in view, obtained the post of Principal Medical Officer in Sarawak, Borneo, at that time governed by Rajah Brooke, an appointment which offered opportunities for both practical surgery in the most general sense and for the investigation of the anatomy of the primates of that country in particular the rare Spectral Tarsier and the tree shrew, a research stimulated by Sir Grafton Elliot Smith FRS, then Professor of Anatomy at University College, as shedding light on the evolution of the more primitive primates. Shortly after his arrival one of his native dressers developed a perforated duodenal ulcer and, the patient willingly consenting, he operated in spite of the tearful entreaties of the relatives to stay his hand. A speedy and uninterrupted convalescence followed and this so impressed the natives as in every respect miraculous that from then on he could do no wrong. As a mark of their esteem his shoulders were tattooed with the insignia of the Sea Dyaks. Writing in 1961 in retrospect he described this period as probably the best three years of his life culminating in the meeting with his future wife who, with her mother, was on a visit to Sarawak. On his return to England he became for a short time a demonstrator of anatomy at St Thomas's under Professor F G Parsons FRCS, before proceeding to St Bartholomew's in 1924 as reader in anatomy, the post being elevated to that of a professorship in 1927. In 1929 he again returned to his old school, St Thomas's, succeeding Parsons as professor, and in 1934 he accepted an invitation to fill the chair of Dr Lee's Professorship in Oxford which position he held until his retirement in 1962. While in Oxford he was elected a Fellow of Hertford College. On his return to England in 1923 he had continued his work on primate evolution, publishing a series of papers in the *Proceedings of the Zoological Society* which were summarised in the book *Early forerunners of man* published in 1934. As a result he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1934. His early work on the tree shrews led him to the opinion that they should be classified as primates rather than as insectivores, and a survey of the anatomy of the brain caused him to investigate the relationship of the thalamus to the cerebral cortex, tracing the paths of visual stimulation to cortical areas. A further study of the anatomy of the hypothalamus followed from this, as did that of the anatomy of colour vision with the publication in 1936 of *Morphological aspects of the hypothalamus*. His interest in primate evolution was again stimulated at the end of the second war by the discoveries of fossil primate remains in South and East Africa by Professor Dart and Dr Brown, and Le Gros Clark went out to determine the importance of the finds at first hand. In 1955 his book *The fossil evidence of human evolution* was published, the British Museum having produced his *The history of the primates* in 1949. After the discoveries of Dr Leakey in Africa in 1959 a further more comprehensive book *The anatomy of man* was published. He was also intimately concerned in the unmasking of the 'Piltdown Man' fraud in 1953. As a teacher of anatomy Le Gros Clark was outstanding and influenced profoundly the status of his subject, changing it from the routine repetition of the minutiae of topographical anatomy to a study of function and its relevance to cell biology and embryology. His book *The tissues of the body*, published in 1939 and his contribution to a reformed textbook, Cunningham, edition of 1943, had a useful influence on anatomical teaching. As he and his wife had together sponsored causes directed to world peace, he was greatly distressed by the outbreak of the second world war, but nevertheless he helped to organise a team of young men for research work connected with the war effort. After the war he bent all his efforts to the creation of a new and modern Department of Anatomy at Oxford, and in 1950 was president of the first post-war International Anatomical Conference held at Oxford. The new department was finally opened in 1959 and formed an occasion for the presentation to him of his bust by Epstein. In 1968 he published his autobiography *Chant of pleasant exploration*. He was a member of the Livery of the Salters Company, of which he was Master in 1954, and for which a portrait of him by Anna Zinkeisen was commissioned. The portrait shows him holding in his hand a book by an early English traveller to Borneo, opened at the title page *A voyage to Borneo*. He was knighted in 1955 and in 1961 was elected President of the British Association. For the College he was Arris and Gale lecturer in 1932, received its Triennial Prize in 1947, was Hunterian Professor in 1934 and 1945, and was an examiner in his subject, as he was also for the Universities of London, Durham, Wales and Bristol. He was for a time a member of the Medical Research Council, and editor of the *Journal of anatomy*, and was an honorary member of several foreign scientific societies. His first wife Freda, née Giddey, died in 1963 leaving him with two daughters. In 1964 he married Violet, widow of Dr Leonard Brown, an old friend. He was an unaffected, simple, sincere man, always ready to help and advise the young. A very characteristic manner of rather hesitant speech in no way detracted from his brilliance as a lecturer. He died quite suddenly on 28 June 1971 while on a visit to the home of a lifelong friend from his student days. Publications: Books mentioned above and numerous papers in *Phil Trans Roy Soc* and other scientific journals on neurology, anatomy, anthropology and palaeontology.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006216
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Millard, Albert Henry (1915 - 1975)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Colebrook, Leonard (1883 - 1967)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006200-E006299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378411378411
Occupation Bacteriologist
Details Leonard Colebrook was born on 2 March 1883, son of May Colebrook and his wife Mary Gower, and was educated at three schools: Guildford Grammar School, The High School at Eastbourne, and Christ's College at Blackheath. He was admitted as a student to St Mary's Hospital Medical School during the South African war in 1900 and qualified as a doctor in 1906. He was attracted to that remarkable intellect, Sir Almroth Wright, and he was one of the group of brilliant disciples of this great man which included Sir Alexander Fleming, Major Douglas, John Freeman, John Matthews ("honest John"), R M Fry, Ronald Hare, A B Porteous "Proteus", and many others who became famous in their time. He was greatly attached to Almroth Wright, went with him to Boulogne in the first world war and worked with him in the old casino there. He advocated for war-wounds of that war, not to use antiseptics, but to use the inborn powers of nature to overcome the septic wounds by means of the patient's own resistance, using only hypertonics such as hypertonic saline or magnesium sulphate to draw the patient's own bactericidal serum into the wound, holding that antiseptics did more harm to the patient and his tissues than they did to the germs causing the sepsis. This was sound advice at the time, awaiting the discovery of an antiseptic which would kill the germs without harming the host. This was discovered by Domagk in Germany in 1932, twelve years after Colebrook had returned to St Mary's with Almroth Wright. His great work with Sir Almroth secured his appointment to Queen Charlotte's Hospital in 1930, and during this time he used 'Prontosil' and later its key substance sulphonamide in the treatment of puerperal sepsis and his work brought this disease to an end. It was a triumph of therapeusis ranking with Lister's in 1867, and he can be regarded as having achieved one of the greatest advances in therapeutics which has probably saved a million lives since it was discovered. When the second world war came in 1939 he again entered the Army as a Colonel at the age of 56, became bacteriologist to the Army in France and introduced the dusting of wounds with sterile sulphonamide powder, which caused sepsis almost to vanish. This was his second great contribution to medicine and surgery. His third great contribution came after his return from France in 1940, when he joined a team at the Medical Research Council and worked on the septic element in burns and scalds, and helped to produce their well known Special Report No 240 in 1945. Following this he organised the burns unit at the Accident Hospital at Birmingham. Possibly the tedious course of his burns patients' cure led Colebrook to his great campaign for the prevention of burns by measures such as screening fires and non-inflammable clothing. As a student he was a diffident and little known person. He was tremendously keen on games, but he would always be seen sitting shyly by himself and little known to other players because he was almost always 'twelfth man'. So he remained, quiet and self-effacing all through his life, during which he never lost his devotion to his great master Sir Almroth Wright whose biography he published in 1954, an admiring and loving book about a most remarkable man. Honours in many came to him in due course: Honorary FRCOG in 1944, FRS in 1945, FRCS and Honorary DSc of Birmingham University in 1950. The Blair Bell Medal was presented to him in 1955, and in 1962 the Royal Society of Medicine gave him their Jenner Medal. Colebrook was twice married, first in 1914 to Dorothy Scarlett Campbell, and secondly in 1946 to Vera Scovell. There were no children of either marriage. He never changed from the shy student of the 1900s, and his husky endearing voice and furtive smile was long remembered by all who knew this remarkable man, always self-effacing but a real and lovable genius. As the years pass his medical stature will grow when men remember his conquest of the poignant disease puerperal sepsis, his overcoming of sepsis in wounds by sulphonamide dusting, and his great efforts to reduce the horror and the incidence of burns. To his intimate friends he was always known as "Coli" just as his great friend and colleague Porteous was known as "Proteus". Others may remember him as "Elsie" (from his initials LC), with which name he would sign presentation copies of his great life of his dear friend and master Almroth Wright. He died on 29 September 1967 aged 84. Publications: Prontosil in puerperal infection. *Lancet*, 1936,1, 1289, 1300, 1441. *The prevention of puerperal sepsis*. 1936. *A new approach to the treatment of burns and scalds*. 1950.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006228
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hurley, Michael Vincent (1893 - 1964)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/378019378019
Occupation General surgeon
Details Michael Vincent Hurley was born in 1893 and graduated MB BCh in the National University of Ireland in 1919, in Dublin. After holding a number of junior hospital posts in London he passed the Conjoint Examination and also the FRCS in 1923, and became a registrar at Poplar Hospital in 1924. In 1925 Hurley went to the United States and became a Fellow in Surgery at the Mayo Clinic where he worked till 1927. He ultimately settled in New York, where he was appointed associate surgeon to the Hospital for Ruptured and Crippled, and surgeon to the New York Polyclinic Hospital, and Adjunct Professor of Surgery at the Polyclinic Medical School. He was certified by the American Board of Surgery in 1939 and was a member of the American Medical Association. Michael Hurley died of coronary disease on 29 May 1964 at the age of 71.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005836
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Morley, John (1885 - 1974)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-02-10
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/378952378952
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Morley was the last of a line of distinguished part-time Professors of Surgery in Manchester. Born on 10 October 1885, the son of the Reverend J S Morley, MA, schoolmaster and clergyman, he was educated at Bishop's Stortford College and Manchester University, where he graduated MB ChB with first class honours in 1908. He was house surgeon to Professor G A Wright and A H Burgess and demonstrator in anatomy to Professor Grafton Elliot Smith, with Geoffrey Jefferson and Harry Platt. He was appointed surgical registrar to Manchester Royal Infirmary in 1911, the year in which he became ChM and FRCS. In 1912, aged 26, he was elected assistant surgeon to Ancoats Hospital, where his surgical colleagues were W R Douglas and Harry Platt. He joined a Territorial Field Ambulance in 1914 'spending three weeks in a field near Bolton' before embarking for Egypt and Gallipoli. There he established a field surgical unit that dealt with large numbers of casualties, often under fire. He was invalided home at the end of 1915 with severe jaundice and dysentery and he spent the rest of the war doing his military duties, civilian hospital work, and private practice at the same time. For his distinguished service at Gallipoli, he was awarded the Croix de Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur. Morley was elected assistant surgeon to Manchester Royal Infirmary in 1921. He was a master surgical craftsman, a man of sound judgement and a conscientious teacher and he built up a very large practice. His combination of unflagging industry and technical excellence greatly influenced his students and assistants and many were proud to recall that they were trained by him. He was best known for gastric, thyroid, parathyroid, biliary and pancreatic surgery and for his thorough investigation of the mechanisms of abdominal pain. His observations were made at the bedside and in the operation theatre and radiological studies by E W Twining were added. The results were discussed in his book *Abdominal Pain* published in 1931. He succeeded his former chief, A H Burgess, to the Chair of Clinical Surgery, in 1936. His teachings were lucid and practical and his mordant humour was often directed at idle students. He was President of the Manchester Medico-Legal Society and the Manchester Pathological Society, twice President of the Manchester Medical Society, external adviser in surgery to the University of London, and external examiner to the Universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Birmingham and Durham. He served on the Court of Examiners 1941-43. The late Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Horrocks consulted Denis Poole-Wilson, FRCS in 1947 because of attacks of pain, apparently of renal origin, resulting from gunshot wounds in Bizerta in 1943. The General had already undergone six major abdominal operations. Poole-Wilson correctly traced his problem to his biliary tract and Morley and Poole-Wilson performed a seventh operation in December 1947. 'I was operated on by that fine surgeon and very charming man, Professor Morley. When I came round from the anaesthetic he was holding up a curious looking object which he assured me was a piece of my shirt that had been lurking in my bile duct ever since I was wounded at Bizerta.' When John Morley retired, Geoffrey Jefferson wrote, 'no one in his generation was more widely sought as a consultant or was better trusted as a surgeon.' He retired to the Eden Valley in Cumbria, exercising his skills as a shot and fisherman. His first wife, by whom he had three sons and a daughter, died in 1928. In 1930 he married Dr Margaret Greg, who survives him. His youngest son, a Pilot Officer in the RAF, was killed in action in 1943, aged 20. His elder sons are both surgeons and his daughter, a physiologist, married a physician. Honest John, as he was known, died in 1974 in his 89th year. His example of probity and professional excellence is unlikely to be surpassed.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006769
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Adams, William Stirk (1896 - 1978)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/378445378445
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details William Stirk Adams was born at Acocks Green, Worcestershire, on 31 May 1896 and educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham. His father was a schoolmaster. He won an entrance scholarship to Birmingham University in 1915. He served as a Surgeon Probationer RNVR in 1916 to 1917; qualified MRCS LRCP in 1919 and served as Surgeon Lieutenant RN from 1919 to 1921. He took the MB ChB in 1921 and after house posts and resident surgical officer at the General Hospital, Birmingham, he was appointed assistant surgeon to the throat and ear department at that hospital in 1926. He was appointed honorary aural surgeon to the Children's Hospital, Birmingham, in 1931. He travelled extensively and studied at leading continental otolaryngological clinics. With the formation of the United Birmingham Hospitals he became honorary surgeon to the throat and ear department and continued to serve until his retirement in 1961. During the second world war, in the absence of junior colleagues in the Services, he carried an enormous clinical burden, holding honorary appointments at Ellen Badger Hospital, Shipston-on-Stour, the Royal Cripples' Hospital, Birmingham, the City of Birmingham Mental Hospitals, Sutton Coldfield Cottage Hospital and Tamworth General Hospital. He was Hunterian Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1944. He was a member of the Medical Research Council Committee on the Prevention of Deafness from 1944 to 1947 and carried out extensive and important research work on tubotympanic deafness in children. He wrote regularly on his specialty. Stirk Adams taught his students with a thoroughness and conscientiousness that earned their admiration and respect so that his opinion was greatly sought after by general practitioners and colleagues. He had the reputation of being a hard taskmaster and to his juniors it was immediately apparent that in his clinical work he was a perfectionist. He would tolerate nothing slipshod or second rate. His enthusiasm for postgraduate education led to the foundation in 1947 of the Midland Institute of Otology, of which he was the first President, and to the formation of the Nursing Association of that Institute. This greatly enhanced the recruitment of nurses to the specialty of otolaryngological nursing. A bachelor, behind a somewhat austere exterior he was a sensitive and shy man with deep religious convictions who fought strenuously for those things in which he believed. He enjoyed his leisure to the full being a keen sailor in his younger days and a knowledgeable gardener and keeper of bees. He died on 1 February 1978 at the age of 81.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006262
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Collins, Frederick Michael (1900 - 1973)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-30 2015-05-08
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/378413378413
Occupation Military surgeon
Details The following was published in volume 5 of Plarr's Lives of the Fellows Born at Poona in India on 5 September 1900 son of Denis Collins (afterwards Major-General) RAMC, he was educated at Stoneyhurst College, Pembroke College Cambridge, and King's College Hospital Medical School, whence he qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in 1922, graduating in medicine and surgery at Cambridge in 1924. After resident posts at King's College Hospital he joined the RAMC winning the Montefiore and Tropical Medicine Prizes while training at Millbank. He took the Fellowship in 1928, and was posted to India as a surgical specialist; promoted to Captain, and with a fine future before him in the RAMC, Collins was offered the post of personal surgeon to the Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, and transferred to the IMS. After only two years at the Viceregal Lodge, Collins was posted to the Madras Presidency with the brevet rank of Major. During leave between the two posts he took the MCh at Cambridge in 1934. He was sent to outlying districts to gain experience, but while at Ootamacund he pricked a finger while operating and incurred infection which threatened his life and necessitated amputation of the finger from his right hand. He was however appointed Professor of Operative Surgery at Madras and second surgeon to the General Hospital. In 1940 he became Professor of Surgery and Principal of Andhra Medical College, but was recalled to military duty because of the increasing demands of the second world war, and served in command of the surgical divisions of Army Hospitals in Assam and later at Dehra Dun. At the end of the war in 1945 he succeeded Grant Massie as Consulting Surgeon, India Command, which was by that time a mainly administrative post. He retired in the rank of Colonel when India became independent in 1947, and joined the Ministry of National Insurance in London, where before long he became Deputy Chief Medical Officer, forming and developing a new department to deal with the medical aspects of National Insurance and later taking over the medical side of the Ministry of Pensions. When he retired from the Ministry he carried on medical board work at Roehampton. Collins married Vera Curzon in 1927, they had a son and daughter, but Mrs Collins died after long and tragic illness in 1964, to his great grief. He married secondly in 1965 Marion, widow of J R Galvin. They settled at 24 Buillards Oak, Midhurst, Sussex, where after eight happy years he died on 5 November 1973 aged seventy-three, survived by his wife and the children of his first marriage. A requiem mass was celebrated at St Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Midhurst on 9 November 1973. Freddy Collins was a fine operative surgeon and an able administrator, conscientious, systematic and industrious. He was always cooperative and loyal to his colleagues in military and civil service. The following was published in volume 6 of Plarr's Lives of the Fellows Frederick Collins was born on 5 September 1900 in Poona, India, the only son of Denis Joseph Collins, physician and surgeon, Major General, Army Medical Service and Julie Furgius, née Rearden, whose father was a wine merchant and importer. He was educated from 1910 to 1912 at Belaeden College, Dublin, and was at Stonyhurst College from 1912 to 1917. He went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1917. In 1920 he entered King's College Hospital, where he obtained the Burney-Yeo Scholarship in anatomy and physiology. After holding resident surgical posts at King's he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and during his training period at the Millbank College won the Montefiore and tropical medicine prizes. After passing the Final FRCS in 1928 he was posted to India as a military surgical specialist. In 1933, the Countess of Willingdon, the Vicereine, on learning that he was the son of her old friend General Collins, persuaded Captain Collins to apply for a transfer to the Indian Medical Service with the object of making him personal surgeon to the Viceroy; this move may have been unfortunate as Collins' qualifications and administrative ability would probably have helped him to attain high rank in his father's old service. After two years at Viceregal Lodge, Collins was posted to the Madras Presidency. He had expected a teaching post, but was sent for some time to gain experience in outlying districts. At Ootacamund he pricked a finger while operating and developed a severe infection which led to the amputation of a finger on his right hand. Before the outbreak of the second world war he was appointed Professor of Operative Surgery and second surgeon at Madras General Hospital and in 1940 became Professor of Surgery. He was transferred to the Andhra Medical College as Principal and Professor of Surgery. On being recalled to military service in 1942 he did excellent work as an officer commanding surgical divisions of general hospitals in Assam and at Dehra Dun. In 1945 he succeeded Grant Massie as consulting surgeon, India Command. On the grant of independence to India he returned to the United Kingdom and joined the administrative staff of the Ministry of Pensions and rose to become Deputy Chief Medical Officer. Outside his medical career his main interests were rugby, tennis and golf. He married first, in 1927, Vera Isobel Curzon, who died in 1964, and second in 1965, Marion Galvin, nee Arrow, who survived him. He died on 5 November 1973, leaving one son and one daughter.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006230
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cook, Edwin Harry Leonard (1916 - 1971)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Riddell, Athol George (1917 - 1974)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-03-04
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/379069379069
Occupation General surgeon
Details Athol George Riddell was born in Whitstable on 31 January 1917. He was educated at Folkestone and University College, London, where he gained the Gold Medal in physiology, graduating from University College Hospital Medical School in 1939. After holding a resident surgical post on the Professorial Unit there he entered the RAF Medical Service, where he remained until 1946 in the rank of Squadron-Leader. For his work on malaria in India during this period he was appointed MBE. Returning to University College Hospital after the war, he became successively surgical registrar, John Marshall Fellow in surgical pathology and resident assistant surgeon in the years 1946-62. He obtained the FRCS in 1948. In 1952 he was awarded a Bilton-Pollard Travelling Fellowship and spent two years at the Massachusetts General Hospital as a research fellow and fellow in clinical surgery. There he came under the influence of two men who determined the future course of his life. These were E D Churchill, whose example inspired him to seek a career in academic surgery, and William McDermot, who gave him an abiding interest in the problems of the surgery of the liver. He was awarded the MS London for his thesis on liver disease on the work he did there. From 1955 to 1964 he worked in the department of surgery of the University of Manchester, first as lecturer and later as reader. In 1964 he was appointed to the Chair of Surgery at Bristol. Here he continued his work on liver surgery and laid the foundations for a programme of experimental liver transplantation and preservation and storage of the liver. At this time he became interested in the immunological aspects of malignant disease and especially in the preservation of human spleen cells and their application in the treatment of cancer. Undoubtedly his greatest achievement at Bristol was the complete reorganization of the undergraduate curriculum. The development of an integrated programme of teaching which surmounted all the usually accepted departmental barriers was largely due to his enthusiasm and leadership, and he threw all his energies into the project. Though he worked long hours on clinical and administrative duties he gave much of his spare time to the welfare of his staff and spared no effort to ensure that his trainees received appropriate and personal guidance. A member of the South-Western Regional Hospital Board, he was appointed to the new regional health authority and also served on the Department of Health's advisory panel on transplantation. He was an examiner in surgery to the Universities of Manchester, Bristol, and Leeds, and for the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. The breadth of his surgical interests was shown by his membership of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Association of Surgeons, and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, among many other affiliations. Athol Riddell was a powerful personality and his greatest characteristics were his intellectual honesty and personal integrity. He was basically a shy person and only those who got to know him well could really appreciate his appealing qualities as a friend. An evening spent in his company was a stimulating and amusing affair of intellectual cut-and-thrust which would have gone down well at a high table. He was a golfer of considerable prowess. From his father he had acquired a wide interest in natural history. In earlier years his interests had centred on lepidoptera, and he amassed a comprehensive collection of moths. Later he became a member of the Alpine Garden Society and applied the same devotion and enthusiasm which characterized his professional work to the nurturing of these rare and temperamental jewels. He had created a beautiful alpine garden at his home in Clevedon, and he died when its beauty was at its height. He married Valeria Wiltshire in 1946 and they had two sons. He died suddenly on 11 May 1974, aged 57.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006886
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Fish, Sir Eric Wilfred (1894 - 1974)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-12-01
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006400-E006499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378662378662
Occupation Dental surgeon
Details Eric Wilfred Fish was born on 30 January 1894, the son of a Methodist Minister. He was educated at Kingswood School, Bath, and his first qualification was in dentistry at Manchester. This was followed by the MB ChB in 1916 and service in the RAMC during the latter two years of the Great War. After an interval in dental practice he took the MD of Manchester University and while in practice at Sevenoaks gained the DSc (London) in 1932 on the strength of research work he had pursued during the previous ten years and which subsequently continued throughout three decades. The histopathology of enamel, dentine, and the dental pulp, the surgical pathology of the mouth and in particular infection in bone, full denture prosthesis, and the aetiology and treatment of periodontal disease were areas of his chief contributions. To all of these he brought experimental innovation, histological techniques of great skill and most of all a penetrating insight which clarified many of the problems of his time and have passed almost intact into basic understanding and practice today. For Wilfred Fish, by the generosity of a benefactor, the John Hampton Hale Laboratory was established at the Royal Dental Hospital and his work continued in the Meyerstein Research Laboratory at St Mary's Hospital, where in a neighbouring laboratory he came into fruitful contact with Alexander Fleming. At both hospitals he held consultant appointments over many years, taking his share of clinical work, teaching and administration whilst engaged in busy dental practice in the West End of London. But for more than thirty years it was his research work which claimed most of his effort and concentration of thought and provided the subjects for the continuous output of published work which gained for him an international reputation and numerous academic honours. The implications of 'dead tracts' in dentine, of the stabilization of full dentures, of the formation and treatment of periodontal pockets, to mention only a few of his favourite topics, were of immediate practical importance and he applied them daily in his treatment of patients. After serving some time on the Dental Board of the United Kingdom he was elected Chairman in 1944, and was appointed CBE in 1947. When the board became the General Dental Council in 1956 he assumed its presidency which he held until 1964, thus completing twenty years at the head of the statutory body charged with dental education and maintaining the highest professional standards. Of all his activities the one which gave him the keenest satisfaction was his association with the Nuffield Foundation Fellowship scheme, for here he could use his encyclopaedic knowledge and shrewd foresight to encourage younger workers in various research fields. In the field of international dentistry he was active within the International Dental Federation, holding office as President of its Scientific Commission from 1931 to 1936 and he was President of the International Dental Congress held in London in 1952. At the Royal College of Surgeons of England he held all the prizes and lectureships open to him. He became a Fellow of the newly-established Faculty of Dental Surgery and Dean of the Faculty in 1958, was later elected to the Fellowship of the College and played an invaluable part in the creation of the Department of Dental Science, of which he became the first director, the last major appointment of his professional life. It seemed entirely fitting that the conferment of knighthood in 1954 should mark his contribution to the profession. When he retired to a quiet life in Sussex it seemed to many that a gap was left which none could fill. He married Hilda Russell in 1916 and had one son and a daughter. This marriage ended in divorce and in 1950 he married Myfanwy Hazel Bruce Hodge. He died on 20 July 1974 aged 80 years.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006479
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Faulkner, Mildred (1897 - 1982)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Thomas, Gareth Gambold (1937 - 1978)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-03-24
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/379176379176
Occupation Paediatric surgeon Paediatric urological surgeon
Details Gareth Gambold Thomas was born on 13 July 1937 at Tonypandy, South Wales. After education at Porth County Grammar School and Edinburgh University he began his training in paediatric surgery in Swansea, continuing it in Edinburgh and again in Wales at the Cardiff Royal Infirmary. After becoming FRCS in 1968 he was senior registrar in Sheffield, taking a special interest in the problems associated with spina bifida, and thereafter at the Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool. He was also honorary clinical tutor in paediatric surgery at Liverpool University. In 1976 he was invited to join the staff of the Sophia Children's Hospital, Rotterdam, and he was put in charge of the paediatric urological department. He built up a unit of the highest standards, his work and worth being appreciated by many paediatric surgeons and urologists in the Netherlands. He was working there when he died suddenly on 12 June 1978 at the age of 40. He maintained a constant interest in the academic aspects of his work and made contributions to the literature. He was also a keen Territorial, holding the rank of Major and senior surgical specialist in the Army Volunteer Reserve, being awarded the Territorial Decoration in 1974. A kindly man, devoted to his family, he was survived by his wife Jennifer and his three children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006993
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Burns, Bryan Hartop (1896 - 1985)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-04-27
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007100-E007199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379356379356
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Bryan Hartop Burns was born on 14 December 1896, at Higham Park, Rushden, Northants. He was the elder of the two sons of Hartop Burns, farmer, and Florence Ann, née Fuller. Both parents came from farming and landowning families in Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire. He was educated first at Kimbolton School (1904-1909) then at Wellingborough School (1909-1914). On leaving school he joined the Northamptonshire Regiment in January 1915 as a Second Lieutenant and served throughout the first world war, rising to the rank of Captain. This period included a short spell in Ireland during the disturbances in Dublin. On demobilisation he went up to Clare College, Cambridge, in 1919 to read medicine. He took his BA in 1922 and continued his studies at St George's Hospital Medical School. There he took the Conjoint qualification in 1923. In 1924 he won the Brackenbury Prize for medicine and in 1925 the Allingham Prize for surgery. He took his Cambridge degree in 1925 and in 1926 the FRCS. He was appointed resident assistant surgeon at St George's in 1928 and later general surgeon until his retirement in 1962. His main interest was, however, in orthopaedic surgery and he became orthopaedic surgeon to St George's during the same period. He was registrar to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. He was also appointed surgeon to the Belgrave Hospital for Children and to the Royal Masonic Hospital. Burns named Sir Claude Frankau, Sir Crisp English and W H Trethowan as surgeons who had particularly influenced him, but Blundell Bankhart and Emslie stimulated his interest in orthopaedics. He published numerous papers on orthopaedic subjects and described the first insertion of a pin for fracture of the neck of the femur under X-ray guidance at a meeting of the Orthopaedic Section of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1933. During the second world war he was director of orthopaedic surgery at Botley's Park War Hospital (later St Peter's), Chertsey, Surrey. This was one of the first receiving hospitals for casualties after D-Day. Here he had ample opportunity to develop his views on the importance of internal fixation of fractures for the purpose of early mobilisation. He had been treating upper femoral fractures with a long Smith Petersen nail inserted from above, and rapidly adopted the Küntscher nail for the purpose. He was a skillful innovator, with Burns plates and Burns radius-holding forceps and a self-retaining screw-driver to his credit. He was in the forefront of British hip surgery and made important advances in vertebral disc surgery with R H Young. After the war he published, with his friend and colleague V H Ellis, the work for which he may be best remembered and which has influenced generations of students: *Recent advances in orthopaedic surgery* (1946). He was an impressive and revered teacher of undergraduates and graduates. His distinctions included being a member of the Court of Examiners of the Royal College of Surgeons (1942-45), President of the Orthopaedic Section of the Royal Society of Medicine, Fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association and member of SICOT and the Société Française Orthopédique. On retirement he was appointed Emeritus Surgeon to St George's, and was able to devote more time to his interest in golf and cricket. He married in 1938 the Hon Dorothy Garthwaite, daughter of Lord Duveen. There were no children. He died after a short illness on 6 December 1984, eight days before his 88th birthday. His wife died shortly after, on 12 April 1985.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007173
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Lichter, Ivan (1918- 2009)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Richard Bunton
Publication Date 2015-06-12 2018-01-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007400-E007499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379647379647
Occupation Thoracic surgeon Specialist in the care of the terminally ill
Details The recent death of Ivan Lichter ONZ has deprived New Zealand medicine of an extraordinary talent. Not only did Ivan have a very successful career as a thoracic surgeon but he went on to become a leading authority and visionary in the care of the terminally ill patient. Ivan was born in South Africa and graduated from the University of Witwatersrand (Johannesburg) in 1940. After spending some time in the South African armed forces, he specialised in thoracic surgery and built up a successful practice. He married Heather Lloyd in 1951 and they had four children: twins David and Jonathan who both practise medicine, Barry a journalist and Shelley who is also practising medicine. South African politics and a strong anti-semitic movement saw Ivan move his family to New Zealand in 1961. He told me that his choice was either to go to some place in Texas or to a place called Dune Din (!) in New Zealand. Thankfully he chose the latter, where he joined John Borrie. Between them they provided the thoracic surgical care for the lower half of the South Island. It was my pleasure to be Ivan’s registrar in the 1970’s as I was starting out in my training. Ivan was a meticulous surgeon. He bought a systematic and very disciplined approach to surgical issues. His pre-operative assessment always started with a thorough history and examination and then a careful review, in strict chronological order, of the radiology and other investigations. A complete picture was established which allowed the optimal planning for treatment. He also had a strong interest in research. He was the first in the world to use oesophageal motility studies in clinical medicine. He had modified a standard nasogastric tube to allow the recording of oesophageal pressures at three levels – five centimetres apart. It was not the most refined of devices and the motility studies became known as the ‘chunder studies’ – I suspect Ivan was unaware of this. His initial papers were not accepted for publication due to the reviewer's lack of understanding of oesophageal physiology. However, he was recognised by those that were to become world leaders in this field and they corresponded with Ivan on a regular basis. Ivan was a pioneer of overnight pH studies – this being done with a rather industrial pH probe which had to remain in the oesophagus overnight. However, the information gathered allowed him to take a rather more scientific approach to hiatus hernia surgery than was possibly the ‘norm’ in the 1970’s. He also took a keen interest in undergraduate education. He was an advocate of clear concise record keeping and he championed the same discipline that he bought to the operating room to this aspect of clinical medicine. The principle of SOAP – S(subjective), O(Objective), A(Assessment) and P (Plan) – was promoted by Ivan and the patients’ notes had pre-printed forms with these headings. He felt that this lead to a logical and more accurate approach to patient care. He participated in College activities and was, for a period of time, an examiner in cardiothoracic surgery. Ivan was fundamentally a shy person. It is also fair to reflect that he did not suffer fools lightly. Outwardly he did not display a great deal of emotion and for this reason Ivan was considered by some to be somewhat ‘cold’ and distant. Although those of us who worked closely with him knew differently, it came as a surprise to his colleagues when Ivan moved into the emotionally demanding field of caring for the terminally ill. He is considered by many to be the founding father of the modern hospice movement in New Zealand. This new direction for Ivan was really an extension of his philosophy that the needs of the patient were a clinician's prime concern. In the 1970’s he was holding multidisciplinary meetings regarding his patients which included all medical and allied health personnel involved in their care. They were held in the Chapel of Wakari Hospital and became known as the ‘prayer’ meetings, but they left a lasting impression on a surgical Trainee – probably more interested in cutting than cuddling at that stage – that what we do as surgeons in the operating room is only a small part of overall patient care, and that the non physical needs of the patient are as important as the physical needs, if not more so. Ivan retired from thoracic surgical practice in 1982. By this time his interest in palliative care was a passion. He had been influenced by Kubler-Ross’s work – particularly by her book “On Death and Dying”. He left Dunedin in 1986 and moved to Wellington to become director of Te Omanga Hospice where he remained until 1993. Ivan was awarded New Zealand’s highest honour, the Order of New Zealand (ONZ), in 1997 in recognition of his contribution to medicine and in particular for his promotion of the principle of holistic patient care. He also published widely in this field. The exodus of talented medical practitioners from South Africa has been of benefit to New Zealand for a number of years, and no more so than when Ivan Lichter decided to make his home here. Ivan’s contribution to New Zealand medicine has been immense. As a skilled thoracic surgeon he helped many patients and as a mentor he instilled sound surgical principles into his trainees. However, I suspect his greatest contribution came at a time when most surgeons would have chosen retirement. Ivan developed an interest that turned into a passion that saw him at the cutting edge of caring for the terminally ill patient. The benefits that have accrued as a result of this are immeasurable.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007464
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Paul, Milroy Aserappa (1900 - 1988)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-07-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007500-E007599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379751379751
Occupation General surgeon
Details Milroy Aserappa Paul, the eldest son of Samuel Chellar Paul, one time senior surgeon to the Colombo General Hospital, and of Dora Eleanor Paul (née Aserappa) was born in Colombo on 20 January 1900. His mother was the daughter of Dr Simon de Melho Aserappa, MD Edinburgh. Milroy was educated at Ladies College, the Government Training College, and at Royal College, Colombo, where he won prizes in science and mathematics as well as the Rayapakse Prize. After one year at Colombo Medical College he came to King's College, London, where he won the Self Medal, and to King's College Hospital where he was awarded prizes in surgery, orthopaedic surgery, hygiene, psychological medicine and forensic medicine. He qualified in 1924, and after resident appointments was casualty officer in 1926 and then surgical registrar at King's College Hopsital in 1927 after completing the fellowship and mastership examinations. He was a great admirer of Sir Cecil Wakeley and later named his first child, Wakeley Wisekumer Paul, after him. On returning to Ceylon, as Sri Lanka was then called, he became surgeon to Jaffna Hospital 1930-1933, and then, in 1934, surgeon to Ceylon General Hospital. From 1936-1965 he was the founder Professor of Surgery, first at the Colombo Medical College and the Childrens Hospital. During the second world war, with the rank of major (temporary Lieutenant Colonel) in the Ceylon Medical Corps, he became officer in charge of the surgical division at 55 British Military Hospital, Colombo, and also surgical consultant to the Royal Air Force, holding the last appointment until the RAF left Ceylon in 1960. Milroy Paul, although having the advantage of distinguished medical forbears on both sides of his family, was a man who, by sheer hard work and brilliance, achieved great distinction in his own country and became widely known outside Sri Lanka. He was a man of great presence and striking appearance. He retained close contact with the Royal College of Surgeons and was three times appointed as a Hunterian Professor in 1950, 1953 and 1955. He was also diligent in keeping the College informed of the progress of its fellows in Sri Lanka and India, contributing valuable information to the *Lives of the Fellows*. His publications covered various congenital abnormalities, pancreatic cysts, amoebic abscess of the liver and tropical elephantiasis. He was a founder member of the Ceylon Association for the Advancement of Science in 1944, and its President in 1954. He was also a founder member and first President of the Association of Surgeons of Ceylon 1963-64. He was first married in 1927 to Winifred Hanah Penmany Canagasary, by whom he had one son. After the death of his first wife in 1944 he married Irma Maheswari Philips in the following year. They had three sons, one of whom became a dental surgeon, and a daughter who qualified in medicine. Paul was a keen tennis player and swimmer, and he was a frequent visitor to the UK, the last occasion being in 1986. When he died on 8 October 1988, in his 89th year, he was survived by his second wife and the children of both marriages.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007568
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Maconie, Alan Cameron (1901 - 1989)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-06-15 2015-10-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007400-E007499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379658379658
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Alan Cameron Maconie received his medical education at St Bartholomew's Hospital whence he qualified MB, BS in 1923. After holding house posts at St Bartholomew's and the Royal Northern Hospitals, he specialised in otolaryngology and was successively surgeon in the ENT departments at the Virginia Water and Heatherwood Hospital, the Holloway Sanatorium, and the Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital, Taplow. Later he became surgeon in charge of the ENT department, and consultant surgeon at the King Edward VII Hospital, Windsor and Maidenhead. His death was reported in the GMC list for 3 March 1989.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007475
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wilson, John Walker (1899 - 1983)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Whitaker, Allen James (1905 - 1976)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-04-13
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/379220379220
Occupation General practitioner
Details Allen James Whitaker, the fifth son of Dr James Smith Whitaker who was formerly a family doctor in Great Yarmouth, was born in Hendon on 16 April 1905. His father, having been the first medical secretary of the British Medical Association, became senior medical officer at the Ministry of Health on its creation in 1919 and was knighted one year before his retirement in 1932. Allen was the seventh child in a family of eight and was educated at University College School before entering University College, London. He then went to University College Hospital where he qualified in 1930, holding resident appointments there and at Kingston General Hospital. He entered general practice in Guildford with his brother, Donald Faraday Whitaker, in 1932, and practised there for forty years. He was notable as a dedicated general practitioner and he also took a special interest in the orthopaedic department of the Royal Surrey County Hospital where he worked for thirty years. During the second world war he served as a Surgeon-Lieutenant RNVR and was mentioned in dispatches. On demobilisation he returned to his practice where, as senior partner, he planned and developed an outstanding purpose-built and independent surgery premises in Guildford. He was active in medical politics at the local level, was Chairman of the Guildford division of the BMA in 1957 and was particularly interested in postgraduate medical education. He was a member of the South West London and Surrey Local Medical Committees and was a founder member of the Royal College of General Practitioners, later serving on its council. He thereby became the co-opted GP member of the Royal College of Surgeons Council for five years, at the end of which period he was elected to the FRCS. He had married Dr Barbara G C Clarke in 1934, herself a general practitioner, and they had three daughters two of whom are in medical practice. When he died at his home on 22 February 1976 he was survived by his wife and daughters, Annette, Diana and Rosalind.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007037
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cosin, Lionel Zelick (1910 - 1994)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007800-E007899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380055380055
Occupation General surgeon Geriatrician
Details Lionel Zelick Cosin, son of Benjamin Cosin, a tobacconist, and his wife Mary, née Magoon, was born in London on 8 November 1910. He was educated at Westminster City School and Guy's Hospital Medical School, qualifying in 1933. His brother, the radiologist Dr C F Cosin, was senior to him at Guy's. His house posts were at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Tottenham, and the Royal Northern Hospital, Holloway, under the supervision of Arthur Dickson Wright, Hamilton Bailey and W B Gabriel. He passed the FRCS in 1936. On the outbreak of war he was appointed medical superintendent in the Emergency Medical Service at Orsett Hospital, Essex. It was a move which was to change his life. As well as the daily coach convoys bringing the blitz casualties from London he had also to look after some 300 chronic in-patients. On inspection he found that many were suffering from treatable illnesses and more were in need of active rehabilitation. With enthusiasm and reorganization and with emphasis on an acute approach he achieved a high home return rate, so that only one in five patients was required to be in hospital for over six months. In 1948 he moved to Langhorn Hospital, East London, where he pioneered a day care unit for the mentally ill. In 1950 he was invited to become the Director of Geriatrics, a new specialty, at the United Oxford Hospitals and lecturer to the University and Magdalen College. He established his unit at Cowley Road Hospital and, developing the systems from Orsett, he reduced the average hospital stay from 286 to 51 days. He invented the concept of the 'floating bed' to allow respite short stay for patients. His name rests securely on the development of the geriatric day hospital and he planned the building of a new, purpose-built unit in 1957. This was renamed after him on his retirement in 1972. Lionel Cosin was a prolific and lucid writer, publishing over eighty articles, mainly on geriatric topics. He gained international renown, holding visiting professorships and lecturing to some ninety universities throughout the world. He was also a generous supporter of many Jewish charities. He died on 21 March 1994, survived by his wife Pamela, née Keenlyside, whom he had married in 1941 and their two children, Benjamin and Philippa.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007872
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Duke-Elder, Sir William Stewart (1898 - 1978)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/378628378628
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details William Stewart Duke-Elder was born on 22 April 1898 at Tealing, near Dundee, the son of a Scottish minister. Before proceeding to St Andrew's University as a foundation scholar in 1915 he had been a brilliant pupil at school and was invariably top of the class. He graduated MA in 1919 with first class honours in natural science and also took the BSc with distinction in physiology. He qualified with the MB ChB in 1923, obtained the FRCS England in 1924 and the MD of St Andrews, in which he gained a Gold Medal, in 1925. Also in 1925 he obtained a PhD from London University. Early in his career at the instigation of Sir John Parsons FRS he devoted time to researching the physiology of the eye at University College London with Professor Starling and in biochemistry with Dr Drummond. He was consecutively Plimmer Research Fellow (1926), Laking Research Scholar (1926-29), Reittinger Professor (1926), BMA Scholar (1927), BMA Middlemore Prizeman (1929) and Research Associate (1933). At an early stage in his career he built up a large private practice and in 1932 he operated on the then Prime Minister, Ramsey Macdonald, for glaucoma which brought his name before the public. He achieved the distinction of being appointed Surgeon Oculist to King Edward VIII and subsequently to King George VI and then Queen Elizabeth II. He was knighted in 1933 and was appointed KCVO in 1946 and GCVO in 1958. Duke-Elder was best known for his many contributions to medical literature, the first and foremost being his *Textbook of ophthalmology* in seven volumes (1932-1954). In recognition of this he was awarded the Fothergillian Prize of the Medical Society of London. Realising that some of this work already needed rewriting and updating, he decided to bring out a much larger work entitled *A system of ophthalmology* in fifteen volumes, the first being published in 1958 and the last in 1976. In these volumes he enlisted the help of his colleagues, but there is no doubt that the inspiration and clarity were his. *Recent advances in ophthalmology* was published in 1927 and *Practice of refraction* in 1928. Early in life he learned to depend upon fewer hours of sleep than most people, and that is part of the explanation of his amazing output of literature. Apart from these major works and a series of articles in many ophthalmic and scientific journals he was for many years editor of the *British journal of ophthalmology* and of *Ophthalmic literature*. The amalgamation of the three main eye hospitals in London (Moorfields, the Royal Westminster and the Central London) and the formation of the Institute of Ophthalmology, was put into action a year before the inauguration of the NHS largely due to his efforts, encouraged and assisted by Sir John Parsons and Ida Mann. As early as 1937 Duke-Elder made plans for an Institute of Ophthalmology, for research done in the British Isles was mainly clinical and there was no centre where properly organised research work was undertaken. This was especially true of ocular pathology and the basic sciences. As Director of Research at the Institute for seventeen years he organised and coordinated the work. He gave much time to arranging research projects and was instrumental in acquiring financial help from charitable organisations. It was largely for this that he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, a distinction which nowadays is rarely conferred upon members of the medical profession who are primarily involved in clinical work. He was the second ophthalmologist to gain this distinction in the present century. The establishment of a special fellowship examination in ophthalmology at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1947 was mainly due to his efforts. Previously anyone who wished to sit for it had to pass the examination in general surgery first. Duke-Elder was one of the pioneers who initiated the Diploma of Ophthalmological Medicine and Surgery (DOMS), later to be changed to the Diploma of Ophthalmology (DO), and was one of the first to be appointed an examiner in these. In 1945, he helped to set up the Faculty of Ophthalmologists at the College. He was its first President, holding office for four years. The purpose of the Faculty was to act as a single authoritative and representative body to represent ophthalmology in matters of public and professional interest and to further the good of the community on ophthalmic matters. In 1950 he chaired the XVI International Congress of Ophthalmology in London. Duke-Elder was a warm-hearted and friendly Scot with a delightfully informal manner. His charming smile and puckish sense of humour put strangers at ease. He also had the ability to listen, and to take a friendly interest in the personal problems of his colleagues. His advice was invariably sound and given with careful thought. His judgement and sense of timing was amazing and always based on a profound knowledge of his subject. He had the capacity and power of cheerfully over-riding difficulties which to some would have seemed insurmountable. He excelled at committee meetings when he would sum up the situation with a wise and simple solution showing foresight and judgement and rendering further discussion unnecessary. His private practice was enormous not only because of his clinical skill and judgement, but also because of his kindness and obvious concern for each patient's welfare. His opinion was sought from all over the world. In the second world war he was consultant ophthalmic surgeon to the Army with the rank of Brigadier. His duties involved visits to overseas hospitals and units in many theatres of the war. He was subsequently civilian consultant in ophthalmology to the RAF and also ophthalmic advisor to the Ministries of Health, Supply and Labour and to the London Transport Board. The many medals he was given included the William MacKenzie Medal (Glasgow) in 1929, the Nettleship Medal (Ophthalmological Society of the UK) 1933, the Howe Medal (USA) 1946, the Research Medal of the American Medical Association 1947, the Donders Medal (Holland) 1947, the Doyne Medal (Oxford) 1948, the Gullstrand Medal (Sweden) 1952, the Medal of Strasbourg University 1962 and of Ghent University 1953, the Gonin Medal (International) 1954, the Lister Medal (Royal College of Surgeons of England) 1956, the Bowman Medal (Ophthalmological Society of the UK) 1957, the Ophthalmiatreion Medal (Athens) 1957, the Proctor Medal (USA) 1961 and the Lang Medal (Royal Society of Medicine of London) 1965. He also received the Bronze Star Medal of the USA and the Star of Jordan (1st Class). He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Phoenix of Greece and a Commander of the Orthodox Crusaders of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre (Jerusalem). In 1944 he was admitted to membership of the Most Venerable Order of St John of Jerusalem and in 1954 was appointed Hospitaller of the Order in succession to Lord Webb-Johnson. His services to the Order were immense. In 1882 under the Ottoman Government a British eye hospital and dispensary had been built in Jerusalem near the Jaffa Gate by the Order of St John for the people in Palestine suffering from eye disease. This hospital, was restored and reopened in 1919, its work grew rapidly and it was busy throughout the second world war. Following the break between the Arabs and Israelis, the resulting Armistice line was such that the hospital was now on the Israeli side of the city of Jerusalem and Arab patients could no longer be treated there. To cater for them (since they always constituted the bulk of patients) a temporary hospital was set up in two houses owned by the Order of St John in the centre of the old city, then in Jordan. As Hospitaller and Chairman of the Hospital Committee Duke-Elder worked hard to get a better hospital, and eventually contributions flowed in. A magnificently equipped new St John Ophthalmic Hospital, situated on the Nablus Road in East Jerusalem was opened in October 1960 by Lord Wakehurst, Lord Prior of the Order, on behalf of the Grand Prior, the Duke of Gloucester. Before the hospital itself was completed he had organised the building of a set of pathological laboratories where early research into the cause of trachoma was carried out. He worked indefatigably as Hospitaller making all the appointments to the medical and nursing staff, keeping the equipment up to date and seeking financial help and visiting the hospital annually, with his wife. It was largely due to his efforts that the hospital flourished. Duke-Elder, who had been promoted to the rank of Knight of the Order of St John, was subsequently promoted Bailiff Grand Cross of the Order and also Councillor of the Hospital Committee. Duke-Elder was a happily married man with a charming wife who greatly helped and supported him throughout his professional life. She had graduated in medicine in 1926 and subsequently worked as clinical assistant in Stewart's out-patient clinic at Moorfields. During the second world war she was in charge of the Zachary Merton Hospital at Banstead to which special cases were referred from the army. An ideal hostess, she never forgot the names of newcomers, nor omitted to cater for their special needs. Few married couples can have done so much for so many of their colleagues, they had no children, and when he died on 27 March 1978, Phyllis survived him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006445
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Williams, Evan William Meurig (1907 - 1985)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-08-14
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/379949379949
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Evan William Mcurig Williams, the son of William John Williams, a coalminer, and of Alice Williams (née Davies), was born at Mountain Ash on 14 December 1907. He was educated at the primary and grammar schools in Mountain Ash and at the Welsh National School of Medicine where he was Alfred Sheen Prizeman in anatomy and physiology, 1927. He then moved on to Guy's Hospital where he won the treasurer's gold medal for surgery in 1931. After qualifying he was genitourinary and orthopaedic houseman at Guy's and then in general practice and medical officer to Harrow Hospital from 1936 to 1942. He joined the Royal Air Force Medical Service in 1943 as an orthopaedic specialist and attained the rank of Squadron Leader. On demobilisation he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon at the Prince of Wales Orthopaedic Hospital, Rhydlafar, Cardiff, where he pioneered, and was in charge of, the spinal injuries unit. He was also consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the East Glamorgan and Merthyr Hospitals. In 1959 he was awarded his MCh for a thesis on spinal injuries and in 1970 was elected FRCS. He became a noted authority on spinal injuries and introduced the Meurig Williams fixation plate for the treatment of spinal fractures. In his earlier training he acknowledged his indebtedness to WH Trethowan, C Lambrinudi, Ralph Thompson, Sir Reginald Watson-Jones, Sir Henry Osmond-Clarke and AO Parker. Meurig was associated for over 50 years with the Venerable Order of St John of Jerusalem, becoming a Knight of the Order and, at the time of his death, holding the post of Bailiff of St David's, third in the Welsh hierarchy of the Priory for Wales Order of St John of which he was vice-chancellor. The day before he died he had unveiled a plaque at a church in North Wales to commemorate its association with the Order of St John. In 1961 he became a freeman of Mountain Ash Urban District Council and was awarded the OBE in 1978. A fluent Welsh speaker and scholar, Meurig was a white bard member of the Eistedfodd Gorsedd and a life member of the Honourable Society of Cymrodorion. He published many articles on the subject of spinal injuries and also produced a film about their treatment. Not surprisingly, he was much sought after as a speaker on this subject at home and abroad. He also translated a St John first aid manual into Welsh. Always tireless in his work, he was a kindly, sympathetic man who worked long hours during the Aberfan disaster. He was married in 1936 to Miss Davies by whom he had two daughters, Elizabeth and Glenys. After her death he married Peg Grubb in 1960 and they had one son, Rhodri. At the time of his sudden death, aged 77 years, on 21 October 1985, he was survived by his second wife, the children of both marriages and three grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007766
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Golding, Sir John Simon Rawson (1921 - 1996)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/380145380145
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details John Golding was born in London on 15 April 1921 and his early schooling was at Hilltop Court School, Seaford, and then Marlborough. From there he went to Caius College, Cambridge, and the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, graduating in 1944. He did his National Service in the RAMC and in 1946 was posted to the Middle East where, in Tobruk, he enjoyed being the only doctor within hundreds of miles. He returned to the Middlesex Hospital in 1948, training in orthopaedics there and also at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. In 1953 he accepted the post of senior lecturer in orthopaedic surgery at the newly-opened University College Hospital of the West Indies in Jamaica, seven miles outside Kingston. Six months after arriving on the island it was swept by a devastating epidemic of poliomyelitis, which affected about 1500 people. It was this event, and the realisation that the epidemic would leave a huge load of severely disabled people, together with his response to this challenge, that provided the grounding for Golding's unique reputation in Jamaica. With characteristic vigour, he set up a rehabilitation unit in a disused drama theatre, which in time became the Mona Rehabilitation Centre, serving the whole of the English-speaking Caribbean. Thus, after the epidemic had died down, the need for the centre remained to treat people paralysed in road traffic accidents or by gunshot wounds. In 1956 he was one of five British orthopaedic surgeons who were invited to make a tour of the United States and Canada, and in 1959 he was appointed OBE. He lectured in many different countries and visited Haiti to work no fewer than sixteen times. He was a founder member of World Orthopaedic Concern and later its Secretary General. For his services to orthopaedics he was awarded the Order of Jamaica, the highest decoration that the country can give, and he was knighted in 1986. He established the Hope Valley School, ensuring that handicapped people had the stimulus of working alongside those who were not, together with a farm, and Monex, a company selling jewellery and woodwork made by the patients. The patients also made all the island's flags, repaired the hospital's linen, cleaned specimen tubes for re-use in the hospital laboratories and serviced headsets for Air Jamaica, together with many other fundraising initiatives. In 1994 he was elected Chairman of the Commonwealth Caribbean Medical Research Council, an organisation aiming to promote and coordinate research within the region. Golding himself made a number of research contributions on subjects of particular interest in the tropics, notably the bones in sickle cell disease, tuberculosis of the spine and scoliosis. He was also instrumental in setting up the 1966 Commonwealth Paraplegic Games, from which the Jamaican team emerged loaded with gold medals. Thereafter they took part in such contests all over the world. In later years Golding developed an interest in the hospice movement and in helping terminally ill cancer patients, and initiated the National Road Safety Council of Jamaica, a development concerned with his anxiety about the increase in road accidents. At the time of his death, breathalysers had been introduced and he was negotiating with the Government over legal requirements for seat belts and crash helmets. In 1965 he had been promoted to the Princess Alice Chair of Orthopaedic Surgery at what had now become the University Hospital, and much of the foregoing activity was achieved in addition to the usual heavy workload of the professor of orthopaedic surgery. John Golding's principal relaxation was sailing, but there is little doubt that the overwhelming interest in life was his work. He wrote a book, *Ascent to Mona*, describing the development of medicine in Jamaica up to the time of the founding of the university, and he was also passionately interested in the Renaissance. His favourite maxim was 'the greatest of all mistakes is to do nothing because we can do so little'. Golding died of a heart attack on 23 March 1996, having spent the last morning of his life visiting terminally ill cancer patients. He was survived by his wife, Pat, a son, Mark, a daughter Anna, four grandchildren, and a brother Anthony. His funeral was organised by the Jamaican Government and was attended by the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition. Numerous tributes were made by colleagues to testify to his impact on his adopted country. As already mentioned, he was honoured with the Order of Jamaica, and the road to the hospital has been named after him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007962
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Dalgleish, Roy (1929 - 2014)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Kathryn Dalgleish
Publication Date 2015-09-14 2015-12-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008000-E008099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380239380239
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details Roy Dalgleish was a consultant surgeon at Manchester Royal Eye Hospital. He was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1929 and studied medicine at the University of Witswatersrand, qualifying MB BCh in 1952. After junior posts in Johannesburg, he went to the UK for further postgraduate studies and clinical and research work. As well as holding his consultant post, he was a senior lecturer in ophthalmology at the University of Manchester. He published several papers outlining original research work in his specialty. Following his retirement, he maintained his ties with South Africa and, with his wife, spent six months of each year there at their coastal home. This pattern continued for over 20 years. His hobbies included breeding pedigree cattle in north Wales. Roy Dalgleish died from acute myeloid leukaemia on 13 December 2014. He was survived by Vivienne, his wife of 52 years, their four children and their grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008056
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Ashworth, Arnold ( - 1993)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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
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First Title value, for Searching Roberts, Richard Lloyd Brunt (1920 - 1984)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-07-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007500-E007599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379770379770
Occupation General practitioner
Details Richard Roberts (Roy) was born in Holywell in 1920. After school in North Wales he studied at the Liverpool University Medical School graduating in 1942. He played an active part in the Medical Student Society and was an excellent speaker at meetings. He decided on a career in surgery and took the primary Fellowship while working in the department of anatomy at Liverpool. He held house appointments in the Royal Liverpool United Hospital and obtained his final Fellowship in 1948. After holding registrar appointments at the Royal Liverpool and at the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospitals he moved to London to the Wanstead Hospital. While working there he decided to give up his career in surgery. Doctor Roberts, as he would have preferred to be called, then entered general practice. He worked in the Woodford Green and Waltham areas. He continued to work in general practice for some 32 years when he had to retire owing to ill health as he had developed cardiac symptoms. His work as a general practitioner may have been prompted by his great interest in the BMA. He became Chairman of the Waltham Forest Division and also of the Redhill Division. He was also Chairman of the local medical committee and of the Redhill and Waltham Forest Family Practitioner Committee. He also held a hospital practitioner post in rheumatology at the Hackney Hospital. His work in general practice and with the BMA occupied all his time and he found no interest in outside matters. Being forced by ill health to retire in 1983 he returned to his well loved Wales and lived in Bangor. He enjoyed only one year of retirement, dying on 22 February 1984, from cardiac failure due to ischaemic heart disease. Richard was survived by his wife Constance and four daughters and nine grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007587
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Elias, Ezzat Radi (1942 - 1984)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-05-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007200-E007299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379430379430
Occupation General surgeon
Details Ezzat Radi Elias was born in Khartoum, Sudan on 16 August 1942, the eldest son of Radi, a Presbyterian minister and Farida Yassa (Awad). Educated at the Evangelical High School and the University in Cairo he graduated MB, BCh with honours in 1965. As a British Council scholar he studied at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School gaining his PhD degree in 1973. He became FRCPS Glas, FRCS Ed in 1978 and FRCS (and MB, BS London) in 1979. Besides holding a registrar post at Hammersmith Hospital he became lecturer in medicine, University of Khartoum and visiting Associate Professor in the American University of Beirut. He died in 1984.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007247
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Sharp, Henry Sutcliffe (1910 - 1984)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/379805379805
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Henry Sutcliffe Sharp was born in Leeds in 1910 into a distinguished medical family. He was educated at Haileybury and Caius College, Cambridge, whence he graduated MB, BCh in 1936 having obtained the Conjoint Diploma in the previous year. After holding junior appointments at St Thomas's Hospital, London, and the General Hospital at Nottingham he became a Fellow in 1939. After the outbreak of war he joined the RAMC and served with the rank of Major as a specialist in diseases of the ear, nose and throat, initially in the Middle East, including Crete, and subsequently in the Head Injuries Unit at Oxford. After demobilisation he was appointed a consultant surgeon to the ear, nose and throat departments of the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, Charing Cross Hospital and Putney Hospital. His main interest was paediatric otolaryngology and he was a pioneer in the reconstruction of the auditory passages in childhood. He retired from his hospital appointments in December 1975 and sadly in the latter years of his life chronic illness greatly curtailed his interests, especially golf which was his main hobby. He was twice married and died on 17 November 1984 survived by three sons, one of whom is a doctor.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007622
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Sengupta, Amarendra (1933 - 1987)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/379807379807
Occupation Cardiothoracic surgeon
Details Amarendra Sengupta was born in Calcutta, India, on 10 January 1933 and qualified MB, BS at the University of Calcutta in 1956. After holding junior appointments at the Christian Medical College in Vellore he came to England in 1958 to obtain further general surgical training in Swindon and Northampton. Subsequently he became surgical registrar in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery at the London Chest Hospital and Southampton Chest Hospital respectively. He became a Fellow in 1962 having obtained the Fellowship of the Edinburgh College in the previous year. In 1963 he obtained a research fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, USA, where he undertook studies with the basic problems involved with the implantation of the artificial heart. He became chief resident in cardiovascular and thoracic surgery at the Clinic in 1963 and later at Mount Sinai Hospital, Cleveland. He obtained the Fellowship Diploma in Surgery of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in 1967 and certification by the American Boards in general surgery in 1970 and thoracic surgery in 1971. In 1969 Sengupta went into private surgical practice in Rochester, New York, with attending appointments at Rochester General Hospital, St Mary's Hospital, Park Ridge Hospital, Rochester, and became Clinical Associate Professor of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery in the University of Rochester School of Medicine. He died on 6 January 1987, four days before his fifty-fourth birthday.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007624
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Turner, Wing Lincoln (1916 - 1994)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-08 2016-01-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008300-E008399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380564380564
Occupation Accident and emergency surgeon General surgeon
Details Educated at Liverpool University, Turner qualified MB ChB in 1941 and was elected to the Fellowship on 12 March 1979. After holding house posts at Mossley Hill Hospital, and Broadgreen Hospital, Liverpool, he was assistant medical officer at Fazakerley Isolation Hospital, Liverpool, before becoming consultant surgeon at Mossley Hill Hospital and Newsham General Hospital, Liverpool. In 1981 he became consultant surgeon in accident and emergency surgery at the Sefton and Broadgreen Hospital, Liverpool, and in 1983 was given the title of emeritus consulting surgeon at the Royal Liverpool Hospital. He retired in 1984 and died aged 78 on 2 November 1994, survived by his wife Margaret and son Martin.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008381
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching McCluskey, Brian Charles (1936 - 1992)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-21
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008100-E008199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380367380367
Occupation General surgeon
Details Brian McCluskey was born on 19 January 1936 in Christchurch, New Zealand, the son of Charles Henry McCluskey, a commercial traveller, and Patricia, née Parker. He was educated at Christchurch Boys' High School and the University of Otago Medical School, where he qualified in 1959. After holding junior appointments in Waikato and Auckland and also serving as a Captain in the New Zealand Territorial Army he came to England to take the FRCS, working at Hillingdon Hospital and St Mary's Hospital, Portsmouth. He then returned to Australia where he was appointed senior lecturer in surgery at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne, and where subsequently he built up a large and successful private practice in general surgery. Brian McCluskey was a man of enormous energy with wide sporting interests, particularly in rugby and rowing in his university days, and later in sailing and skiing. He was an enthusiastic golfer and last played less than a week before his death. He took part in many ocean races, including the Sydney to Hobart race in 1988 where he finished second in his class and ninth overall. He also had a passion for business enterprises including blueberry farming, scallop fishing and second-hand cars, but none of these achieved the success of his surgical practice. He was married twice, firstly to Ann Hargreaves, a physiotherapist, in 1960, by whom he had two daughters, Sarah Jane and Deborah Anne, who both became chartered accountants, and a son, Richard, a pilot. When they divorced in 1991 he married Margot Rodda, a nurse. He died prematurely on 31 January 1992 at the age of 56.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008184
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Rains, Anthony John Harding (1920 - 2014)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2014-07-18 2014-11-07
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/377855377855
Occupation General surgeon
Details Anthony ('Tony') Harding Rains was the first holder of the chair of surgery at Charing Cross Hospital, an authority on diseases of the biliary system, but arguably best known for his longstanding editorship of *Bailey and Love's short practice of surgery* (London, H K Lewis). Tony was the tenth child born to Robert Russell Harding Rains and Florence (née Rapson). His father was a medical practitioner, as were two great uncles in the 1840s, while his mother hailed from farming stock. He was educated at St Monica's School, Warminster, and Christ's Hospital School, Horsham, before proceeding by means of an entrance scholarship to St Mary's Hospital Medical School. Here he won the Kitchener scholarship and gained merit in anatomy and forensic medicine. Qualifying in 1943, he became house surgeon to C A Pannett, before joining the Royal Air Force, where he served in India and Japan as a lecturer in aviation medicine. After demobilisation, he worked with R M Handfield-Jones and Arthur Porritt back at St Mary's, before passing the FRCS in 1948 and relocating as a lecturer in surgery at Birmingham University to F A R Stammers. He later became a senior lecturer and then a consultant in Birmingham, but in 1959 returned to London as the foundation professor of surgery at Charing Cross Hospital, where he remained for the rest of his clinical career. He was not a prolific author, but became an authority on diseases of the biliary tree, giving a Hunterian lecture titled 'Biliary obstruction in the region of the porta hepatis' (*Ann R Coll Surg Engl*. 1959 Feb;24[2]:69-100) and publishing a book *Gallstones: causes and treatment* (London, William Heinemann Medical Books) in 1964, as well as several articles on related matters. However, in the field of medical publishing, his name was preeminent from 1965 as the co-editor (with W M Capper) of successive editions of *Bailey and Love's short practice of surgery*, at a time when this book was required reading for all UK medical students and trainees in surgery. Tony was a founder member of the Surgical Research Society and an honorary consultant to the Army. He was long associated with the Royal College of Surgeons, being an examiner in pathology for the primary FRCS and later a member of the Court of Examiners. He was the organising secretary of the international Lister Centenary Conference in 1967. He followed Sir Cecil Wakeley as editor of the *Annals* in 1969 and in 1974 introduced a restyled and resized journal, remaining editor until 1984. He was elected to Council in 1972, becoming vice president in 1983. The following year he gave the Hunterian oration titled 'The continuing message' (*Ann R Coll Surg Engl*. 1984 May;66[3]:151-8). He was created CBE in 1986. In 1943 he married and had three daughters, two of whom became nurses. Tony was a softly spoken, modest and gentle man. He was kind to his juniors and much loved. After he retired from Council, he left living in London for a country life, where he enjoyed gardening, painting and forestry. He rarely set foot in the College again, believing that when one retired from responsibility at the College one should stay away. He died on the 23 June 2014, aged 93.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005672
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Bruce, Harold Wilson (1876 - 1965)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-07-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005600-E005699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377858377858
Occupation Hospital administrator Medical Officer
Details Harold Wilson Bruce was born in 1876 and trained at Guy's Hospital, where he qualified MB BS in 1897. He proceeded MD in 1899 and passed the FRCS in 1901. After holding a house appointment at Guy's he served in the Boer War and then went to India to join the team fighting plague in Bombay. On his return to England in 1903 he entered the service of the Southwark Board of Guardians as second assistant medical officer at their infirmary, which has since been renamed Dulwich Hospital. He became medical superintendent in 1905 and remained there for 25 years. In 1930 he was invited by Sir Frederick Menzies to join the head-quarters staff of the London County Council, to which the London Poor Law hospitals had been transferred a few months earlier. The hospitals which had been taken over from the boards of guardians were formed into a general hospital division under Dr W Brander and those from the Metropolitan Asylums Board (except the mental hospitals) into a special hospitals division under Dr J A H. Brincker. Bruce was Brander's deputy and with Dr R C Harkness - all three with long experience of hospital administration - they formed a most efficient team. Bruce was especially concerned with hospital extensions and improvements; he surveyed every hospital in his division and became expert in the reading of plans, a rare quality in a doctor. In 1937, when Brander retired, Bruce succeeded him as head of the general hospitals division. It was not long before he became deeply involved in the preparation of the hospitals for the war which started a couple of years later. He retired in April 1941 after having borne imperturbably the immense strain of coping with the problems caused by the heavy bombing of London since the autumn of 1940. During this time many of the hospitals in his division were seriously damaged and more or less put out of action. His great skill in the planning of hospitals was recognized nationally in 1934 when he was appointed by the Minister of Health to serve on a departmental committee on the cost of hospitals and other public buildings. His vast store of knowledge included every detail of how a municipal hospital worked. He was a tireless worker and expected the same standard of service from all his staff, medical and lay. He recognized the important part that lay staff can play in hospital administration, but insisted that there must be a "captain of the ship" with medical qualifications and clinical experience. He was tall, spare, and always well groomed, with an air of distinction. His opinions were sound and he expressed them forcibly, often demolishing those who argued with him by a few acid comments. After the death of his wife he went to live in a hotel in Bickley. He was one of the last survivors of the small group, not being replaced, who after years of skilled clinical work in the large London municipal hospitals turned out most successful administrators. They were a loss to clinical medicine, but their background was invaluable to their subsequent work and influence. He served in the first world war as a senior officer in field ambulance work. His great experience, he was much older than the rest of his team, and his general affability made him an asset to any unit. He had been an athlete in his younger days, and had run in very good company. While serving in France, he made a successful cross-country run when over 50. Bruce died in hospital on 16 June 1965 aged 89.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005675
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Buckley, George Holden (1896 - 1967)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Kirshnan, Turuvekere Dharmayya Venkata (1905 - 1968)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Learmonth, Sir James Rognvald (1895 - 1967)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

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/378067378067
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details James Learmonth was born on 23 March 1895 at Gatehouse-of-Fleet, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, the elder son of William Learmonth and Kathleen Macosquin Craig. His father, a native of Edinburgh, was the headmaster of the parish school of Girthon, having previously spend many years in Orkney. His mother came from Coleraine, Northern Ireland. Learmonth's second Christian name, with its Scandinavian spelling, was used by his family and his contemporaries for many years. His scholastic training began under favourable auspices, for his father was a typical Scots dominie with a wide range of scholarship, and gave him by his example and influence a powerful intellectual stimulus. He continued his education at Kilmarnock Academy, and in April 1913 he entered the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Glasgow. His medical studies were interrupted by the first world war in which he saw active combatant service, having been commissioned to the King's Own Scottish Borderers. A gruelling period in France was followed by a tour of duty as officer-in-charge of the Anti-Gas School, Scottish Command. He returned to the University of Glasgow in October 1918 graduating MB ChB with Honours in June 1921; he gained the Brunton Memorial Prize as the most distinguished graduate of the year. After holding the posts of house physician and house surgeon at the Western Infirmary, Glasgow, he was appointed assistant to Professor Archibald Young, first at the Anderson College of Medicine and later at Glasgow University. In the interval, during the year 1924-1925, he made his first visit to the United States, having been elected to a Rockefeller Fellowship of the Medical Research Council to be spent at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. Here he came under the aegis of Dr Alfred W Adson in the section of neurosurgery, an experience which was to influence much of his surgical life. Returning to Scotland he obtained his ChM degree with high commendation in 1927 with a thesis on the pathology of spinal tumours, and in the following year his FRCS Edinburgh. This was succeeded by an invitation from Dr Will Mayo to join the permanent staff of the Mayo Clinic. From 1928 to 1932 his work was concentrated on his chosen specialty, and he was appointed Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery in the University of Minnesota. Much time was also spent in research, mainly on the innervation of the bladder. His interest was greatly aroused in the role of surgery of the sympathetic nervous system in treatment of peripheral vascular disease and pelvic dysfunction. In October 1932 he was appointed to the Regius Chair of Surgery in the University of Aberdeen in succession to Sir John Marnoch. He remained a faithful alumnus of the Mayo Clinic, however, and was gratified when some thirty years later, in 1964, he received a Mayo Centennial Outstanding Achievement Award. In Aberdeen he still retained his special interest in surgical neurology but his clinical range was widely extended, both in teaching and in practice, to include all fields of surgery. He became increasingly involved also in the tasks of administration and medical school planning at Foresterhill, the new home of the Aberdeen School. In 1935 he was honorary surgeon to HM The King in Scotland. He was Vice-President of the Section of Surgery at the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association that year, and President of the Section in 1939. In 1939 he succeeded Sir David Wilkie as Professor of Systematic Surgery in the University of Edinburgh. The onerous duties which now confronted Learmonth, especially anxious to justify his election to this chair, were not lessened by the outbreak of war which considerably disrupted the work of his department. Learmonth and his depleted staff made an important contribution to the care of the wounded by organising a unit at Gogarburn Hospital for the treatment of peripheral nerve and vascular injuries, as well as meeting the demands of the civilian population at the Royal Infirmary. For his wartime services he was appointed CBE in 1945. In 1946 he took over the Regius Chair of Clinical Surgery vacated by Sir John Fraser. As the holder of both Edinburgh chairs he was fully engaged in teaching and administration as well as his own practical surgery. He organised the rapidly-developing units in vascular, thoracic, paediatric, plastic, and urological surgery, and he instituted, as a forum for surgical discussion, a Saturday morning departmental meeting, which has become a regular feature of the Edinburgh scene and a valuable training ground for young surgeons. He was elected President of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland in 1948. In that year he was called in to attend King George VI at Buckingham Palace. On 12 March 1949, assisted by James Paterson Ross and others, he carried out a successful lumbar sympathectomy for the relief of impaired circulation of the King's right leg. He later received the accolade of KCVO at the Sovereign's hands. In 1950 he was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. In 1951 he was appointed a member of the Medical Research Council and in the same year was awarded the Lister Medal "in recognition of his distinguished contribution to surgical science". In 1954 he made a tour of Australia as a Sims Travelling Professor. His international reputation was attested by his election to Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and of the American College of Surgeons in 1949, of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1954, and of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 1954. In addition he was made, *honoris causa*, a Doctor of Medicine of the University of Oslo in 1947, a Doctor of Laws of the Universities of Glasgow (1949), St Andrews (1956), and Edinburgh (1965). He was a member or an honorary member of many surgical societies including the International Surgical Society, the Academies of Surgery of Paris, of Lyons, of Belgium, and of Denmark, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh. In September 1956 he decided to retire from Edinburgh University. He had found the pace becoming too fast and the strain increasingly severe. He chose to live in the pleasant village of Broughton, in Peebleshire, resisting the call to return to his native Galloway. Now within convenient reach of both Edinburgh and Glasgow he was able to indulge in the quiet pleasures of the countryside, tending his modest garden with scientific care and reading the classics of English and ancient literature, biographies and history. From 1960 to 1966 he served as Assessor of the General Council of the Court of the University of Glasgow, an appointment which gave him much satisfaction. He died on 27 September 1967, of bronchial carcinoma, at the age of seventh-two and was cremated privately in Edinburgh. He was survived by his wife, Charlotte Newell Bundy of St Johnsbury, Vermont, USA whom he first met at the Mayo Clinic and married in 1925. There were two children, Jean Katherine Bundy born 1929, and James William Frederick born 1939. Learmonth's literary output was considerable; 118 papers stood in his name as author or co-author. The impressive list of his publications covered a wide range but were mainly concerned with his specialties, vascular and neurological surgery. Notable amongst his contributions were the Heath Clark Lectures (1947) on the *Contribution of surgery to public health*, the Harveian Oration on the *Surgery of the spleen* (1951) and the Linacre Lecture on the *Fabric of surgery* (1953). He was the MacEwan Lecturer in 1956 and the John Fraser Lecturer in 1961. In 1954 he delivered the Stephen Paget Lecture on the *Surgeon's debt to animal experiment*. Learmonth had an intellectual appearance, studious and alert, not tall but of sturdy physique; purposeful, quiet-spoken with a quick wit and a dry humour. His eyes had a quizzical, if at times a searching and slightly disapproving look, often modified by a shy disarming smile. If under stress he seemed austere and even brusque, in his relaxed moments he had a boyish gaiety and was warm-hearted and kind. He was held to be supremely competent as a surgeon of the academic type, his skill being based on his profound knowledge of anatomy and pathology and his wide scholarship. Meticulous and painstaking to a degree, he was careful and delicate in the handling of human tissue. He was gentle, reassuring and courteous to his patients. He was a fine teacher and gave much encouragement to research projects, not only in the subject under investigation but on the literary standard to be attained on publication; if his comments were sometimes outspoken, they were always fair. He maintained the highest ethical standards of the profession. His hobbies were few and he never indulged actively in sports, but he played an occasional game of golf; he had the rare pleasure once of doing a hole in one at Spey Bay. He also enjoyed watching cricket. When pressed to contribute his "scientific philosophy" to a Mayo Clinic publication in the year of his death, he summed it up characteristically by quoting the principles which Francis Bacon declared should guide the ideal scientist. To these he added Sydenham's comment that "he had weighed in a nice and scrupulous manner whether it be better to serve men or to be praised by them" and, as Learmonth wrote, "decided on the former". Selected publications: Leptomengiomas (endotheliomas) of the spinal cord. *Brit J Surg* 1927, 14, 397. The innervation of the bladder. *Proc Roy Soc Med* 1932, 25, 24. The surgery of the sympathetic nervous system. *Brit J Surg* 1937, 15, 426. *The contribution of surgery to preventive medicine*. Heath Clark Lectures, 1949. London, 1951. *The fabric of surgery*. Linacre Lecture, 1952. *The Eagle*, 1953, 55, 119. *A search for similarities*. Macewen Memorial Lecture. Glasgow, 1956. *Surgery and the community*. Maurice Bloch Lecture. Glasgow, 1960.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005884
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Newell, Robert Leech (1894 - 1969)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-09-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005900-E005999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378165378165
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 8 February 1894 in Higher Crumpsall, Manchester, the youngest son of the eight children of Mr and Mrs John Newell, he was educated at the Manchester Grammar School and the Medical School of the University of Manchester. An undergraduate at the beginning of the first world war, he volunteered for active service and he was given a commission in the RAMC but he was allowed to stay to serve for sixteen months as a student house surgeon/house physician until 1916, when he graduated, MB ChB, and was awarded the Bradley Memorial Scholarship for Clinical Surgery. He then served as a regimental medical officer in France and Italy and early in 1918 was given command of a motor ambulance convoy, having responsibility for the evacuation of the wounded at the battle of Piave. For this service he was honoured by the King of Italy by the award of the Croce di Guerra. Later he commanded a 200 bed prisoner of war hospital in Arquata. He was demobilized in 1919 with the honorary rank of Major, RAMC. On his return to civilian life he set about obtaining surgical qualifications to follow a career in surgery. To this end he held the appointment of demonstrator in anatomy at the University of Manchester. In this capacity he was soon recognised as an outstanding teacher, a virtue which he held for the rest of his professional career. He soon negotiated the necessary examinations, passing both the primary and final examinations at the Royal College of Surgeons at the first attempt, becoming a Fellow in 1921. In the same year he was awarded the degree of MD (Manchester) for a dissertation on the anatomy and histology of the prostate gland. He was continuously associated with the Manchester Royal Infirmary for many years, gradually climbing the surgical ladder and consecutively holding the appointments of surgical registrar, resident surgical officer, surgical tutor and assistant surgical officer. In 1936 he was elected as honorary assistant surgeon at the Manchester Royal Infirmary and in 1948 became a full surgeon in charge of a unit. During this period he served in honorary capacity to many hospitals in the Manchester district, but particularly at the Stockport Royal Infirmary, where he established a large surgical clinic, and on his retirement from the appointment, owing to the pressure of work, he was made an honorary consulting surgeon at the hospital. Bobby Newell was a typical general surgeon and he played a very full part in the clinical and scientific surgery carried out in Manchester during his period of office. He published many valuable papers on a variety of subjects and was in great demand to speak at surgical societies. He was, however, very interested in hospital services and to this subject he devoted much time and energy. In 1938 he delivered to the Manchester Medico-Ethical Society a paper entitled "The hospital of the future" and this was subsequently published. It had always been one of his aims in life to improve the hospital services in Manchester and to make them second to none. It is well recognised that 'What Manchester does to-day the rest of the country does tomorrow'. This was well demonstrated in the 1930's, firstly by the formation of a Council of representatives of the Honorary Medical Staffs of the Manchester Hospitals, and also the Voluntary Hospital Consultative Committee. These committees were formed to facilitate the relationships between the voluntary hospitals and the Public Health Authority hospitals. From them eventually emerged in 1936 the Joint Hospital Advisory Board. This was the first board of its kind to be formed in this country and in many ways was the forerunner of the Regional Hospital Boards as they exist to-day. In all these early committees Newell was a driving force. He was Honorary Secretary from their initiation until their dissolution in 1948. At the beginning of the National Health Service he served as a Member of the Manchester Regional Hospital Board for six years and afterwards for many years on its technical and advisory committees. He was also for a long time a Member of the Board of Governors of the United Manchester Hospitals. He was generally regarded by his colleagues as an ideal committee man and served on the Board of Management of the Manchester Royal Infirmary and many of its sub-committees for many years. His greatest hobby was photography in which he became an expert. His presidential address to the Manchester Medical Society in October 1957 on 'Recollections of my teachers' was illustrated in the most beautiful way with the aid of photographs and films of many of the University's distinguished scientific staff and teachers. A cine-film he made of the British Medical Association's procession to the Cathedral during the meeting of the Association in Manchester in 1929 was much enjoyed and long talked of by his contemporaries. One of his greatest interests was medical illustration and the university department of medical illustrations in the Manchester Royal Infirmary owes its existence to-day largely to his interest and influence. He was a very active member of the British Medical Association. In addition to being successively secretary and President of the South Lancashire and East Cheshire Branch, he served for seventeen years as a member of the Council and also served on many sub-committees. In 1929, on the occasion of the annual meeting of the Association in Manchester, he acted as the local secretary and was largely responsible for the great success of the meeting. For many years he was chairman of the Consultants and Specialists Committee, and was one of the members of the negotiating body which met with the Ministry prior to the introduction of the National Health Service. His large administrative interest and occupation did not exclude him from the scientific society meetings and he was a constant worker for the Manchester Medical Society, of which he held the office of president. He was also successfully president of the section of surgery and served on innumerable other committees of the Society. He was a member of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, and for many years a member of the Moynihan Chirurgical Club with which he made many visits abroad. He was intimately associated with the scientific life of the city and he held the appointment for many years as Dean of Postgraduate Studies. His interests extended, also, to undergraduates and for many years he served on the editorial committee of the Manchester medical gazette. On the 8 February 1959 on reaching the age limit he retired from the hospital service and from private consulting practice. He stayed in the Manchester district for only a short time as he did not enjoy very good health. In 1928 he married Madeline Frances Ree, the daughter of Dr and Mrs Alfred Ree, a director and former president of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. He died on 13 January 1969 in Church Stretton and was survived by his wife and two sons and two daughters, but his wife did not survive him by very long.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005982
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ormerod, Frank Cunliffe (1894 - 1967)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Sheikh, Hyder Ismail (1931 - 1971)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006000-E006099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378246378246
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details Hyder Ismail Sheikh was born on 5 April 1931 at Shahada, Maharashtra, India and educated at the University of Bombay, where he graduated in 1956 with first-class honours in medicine and surgery. After holding house appointments at the Jamsetji Jeejeebhoy Hospital, Bombay, he came to England and was elected senior house officer at the Victoria Hospital, Blackpool in 1959. Later he held house or registrar's posts in general, orthopaedic or thoracic surgery at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, the North Lonsdale Hospital, Barrow-in-Furness, the Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, and the Park Hospital, Manchester. He gained the Fellowship in 1961. He emigrated to Canada in 1966 and settled in practice as a thoracic surgeon at Edmonton, Alberta, living at 15111 Rio Terrace Drive. He was appointed a Fellow in the Division of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery of the Medical Research Institute of the University of Alberta and Associate Resident in the parallel division of the University Hospital; he was later a sessional instructor in the University. Sheikh died of carcinoma, a month before his fortieth birthday, on 7 March 1971, survived by his wife Joan and their three young children, a daughter and two sons. Publication: Duodenal ischaemia complicating acute pancreatitis. *Brit med J* 1965, 1, 1539-40.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006063
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hobbs, John James Barclay ( - 1972)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

First Title value, for Searching Wostenholm, Maurice Humphrey (1915 - 1952)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-06-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005500-E005599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377696377696
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Born in South Africa on 31 May 1915 the son of Harold Wilson Wostenholm, a financier, he was educated at St Andrew's College, Grahamstown and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he took third-class honours in the Natural Sciences Tripos part I in 1937. He took his medical training at the London Hospital, qualified in 1941, and after holding the usual house appointment at the Hospital served in the RAMC till the end of the war in 1945, as a graded surgeon with the rank of Captain. He was first assistant in the ear department at the London Hospital in 1946, and took the Fellowship in 1947. He then settled in practice at 23 Dalkeith Road, Harpenden, Herts, and was appointed in 1951 ear nose and throat surgeon at Bedford General Hospital and was also attached to the St Albans City Hospital. He was a brilliant operator, of sound judgment. His enthusiasm, energy, and tireless attention to detail were combined with an amiable and helpful nature. He had proved himself supremely self-disciplined through difficulties and frustrations. Wostenholm married in 1940 Marigold Jessie de Mancha. He and his wife were killed in a car accident on 12 December 1952, aged 37 and 38. One son had died in childhood, and they were survived by three sons. They were buried at Westfield Cemetery, Harpenden.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005513
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Dharmaratna, Daranagama Arachchige Jayasiri ( - 1996)

2025-06-18T16:12:35Z