Search Results for thomas turner

First Title value, for Searching Turner, Thomas (1830 - 1922)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

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/375515375515
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in June, 1830, and educated at University College and Hospital, London, where he was Fellowes Gold Medallist in Clinical Medicine in 1855, and for a time Curator of the Museum of Anatomy and Pathology and Demonstrator of Physiology under Professor Sharpey. He then began to practise at Hereford in partnership with Charles Lurgen, and in 1856 was elected to the Staff of the Hereford Dispensary, of which he was Surgeon. In 1863 he was appointed Surgeon to the Hereford General Infirmary, and retained the latter post till he reached the age limit in 1900 and was elected Consulting Surgeon. He took an active part in the public life of the city, and was for three years a Councillor and for twelve years an Alderman of the Town Council. He was also at one time a keen Volunteer, retiring from the force with the rank of Surgeon Major. Turner died at Hereford on February 23rd, 1922, his wife, a daughter of his former partner, having predeceased him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003332
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Turner, Thomas (1793 - 1873)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-01-09 2013-08-01
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/375514375514
Occupation General surgeon
Details The youngest child of Edmund Turner (d1821), banker, of Truro, and of Joanna his wife, daughter of Richard Ferris, was born at Truro on Aug 18th, 1793. He was educated at the Grammar School of his native town during the head-mastership of Cornelius Cardew, and was apprenticed to Nehemiah Duck, one of the Surgeons to St Peter's Hospital, Bristol. He came to London in the autumn of 1815, entered the United Borough Hospitals, and proceeded to Paris, where he spent a year in 1816. He became a member of several French Societies and seems to have begun work for the Paris MD, but in 1817 he was appointed House Surgeon at the Manchester Infirmary. He held office until September, 1820, when ill health obliged him to resign. He took a short holiday devoted to attending classes at the Edinburgh Medical School and then settled in Piccadilly, Manchester. He was soon appointed Secretary to the Manchester Natural History Society and was elected a member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, where he was brought much into contact with John Dalton (1766-1844), the Quaker Physiologist, and on April 18th, 1823, he was elected one of the Councillors of the Society. On November 1st, 1822, he delivered, in the rooms of the Literary and Philosophical Society, the first of a series of lectures upon the anatomy, physiology, and pathology of the human body. The lectures were highly appreciated and were repeated several times. In 1824 he gave an address in which he outlined a plan for establishing a school of medicine in Manchester. The scheme was well received, and in the following October a suitable building was opened in Pine Street, and Dalton gave a course of lectures on pharmaceutical chemistry. A medico-chirurgical society for students was founded, and in 1825 the school was thoroughly organized. The Edinburgh College of Surgeons recognized the course of instruction in February, 1825, and the medical departments of the Navy and Army accepted its certificates from August 20th, 1827. It was not till some years later, and after considerable opposition, that the English College of Surgeons granted recognition. Turner was appointed Surgeon to the Deaf and Dumb Institution in 1825, and in August, 1830, was elected a Surgeon to the Manchester Royal Infirmary and soon attained a large practice. On July 31st, 1832, he laid the foundation stone of a new and larger lecture theatre which was opened in the following October. The school progressed steadily under Turner's control, and the succeeding few years witnessed the dissolution of the Mount Street and Marston [Marsden] Street Schools of Medicine and the increasing growth of the Pine Street School, where he was the moving spirit. The Medical School at Chatham Street amalgamated with the Pine Street School in 1859, and the Royal School of Medicine which was thus formed became the medical faculty of Owens College in 1872. Turner gave the inaugural address and the 'Turner Medical Prize' commemorates his services. Turner was appointed Honorary Professor of Physiology at the Manchester Royal Institution in 1843, and with the exception of two years delivered annually a course of lectures until 1873. He served on the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England from 1865-1873 and was the second representative from the provinces to be elected, Thomas Paget (qv) being the first. He was much occupied from 1852 with the Sanitary Association of Manchester and Salford in trying to improve the intellectual, moral, and social condition of factory hands. He married on March 3rd, 1826, Anna (d1861), daughter of James Clarke, of Medham, near Newport, Isle of Wight, by whom he had a family of two sons and three daughters. Turner died in Manchester on Wednesday, December 17th, 1873, and was buried in the churchyard at Marton, near Skipton-in-Craven. His medical and surgical museum was given to Owens College. Turner assisted to break up the monopoly of medical education possessed by the London Schools at the beginning of the nineteenth century. He showed that the large provincial towns were capable of affording a first-rate medical education. He also recognized the fundamental principle of State Medicine that improvement in sanitary surroundings necessarily implies improvement in the moral atmosphere of the inhabitants.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003331
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Williams, David Clowes ( - 1992)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008400-E008499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380594380594
Occupation General surgeon
Details David Clowes Williams was born in Tarbach, Port Talbot, the son of John Ffoulkes Williams and his wife Elizabeth, née Thomas. He attended the University of Wales in Cardiff and the Welsh National School of Medicine, where he was influenced by the teaching of Professor Grey Turner. He qualified MB BCh from Glasgow in 1929 and became a Fellow of the College in 1944. He held appointments as demonstrator in anatomy at University College, London, honorary surgeon to Aberdare General Hospital and Merthyr General Hospital, before becoming consultant surgeon to the West Wales General Hospital at Carmarthen. He died in 1992.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008411
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

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/374708374708
Occupation General surgeon
Details Belonged to an old county family in Herefordshire. He was the youngest of eleven children, and was educated at Hereford Cathedral School, after which he was apprenticed to John Griffiths, surgeon, of Hereford. He received his professional training at University College, London, the Middlesex Hospital, in Paris, and at Heidelberg. In 1836 he settled in practice in Hereford and was in partnership with Thomas Turner. In 1838 he was appointed Surgeon to the General Infirmary, becoming Senior Surgeon in 1839 and holding office until 1864, when, on his resignation, he was appointed a Life Governor and Surgeon Extraordinary. His practice was large and he was much called in consultation in and around Hereford. He died at Hereford on October 28th, 1878. His photograph is in the Fellows' Album.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002525
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Mills, Yarnold Hubert (1865 - 1932)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

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/376865376865
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 20 January 1865 at Spencer Road, Battersea, the second son and second child of Thomas Reid Miller, a staff officer in the Army, and Ellen Louise Turner, his wife. He was educated at Wellington College and at the London Hospital, where he gained the Buxton scholarship and acted as house surgeon and surgical registrar. He then served for a time as assistant medical officer at the Northumberland House Asylum. Settling at Haverfordwest in partnership with James Wilson, FRCS, he became surgeon to the Pembrokeshire and Haverfordwest Infirmary. He married Mildred Venables Hirst (died 1914), on 1 September 1897, and left one daughter, who married W B H Shaw in 1928. He died on 7 June 1932, and bequeathed his microscopes and lenses to Haverfordwest Hospital. Publications: Strangulation by a solitary band; operation; recovery. *Brit med J* 1899, 1, 1275. An unusual prodromal rash of measles. *Ibid*. 1898, 2, 806. Adrenalin in haematemesis. *Ibid*. 1903, 1, 731.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004682
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Turner, Joseph George (1870 - 1955)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

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/377609377609
Occupation Dental surgeon
Details Born in 1870 he entered the medical school of St Thomas's Hospital in 1886, qualifying as a medical practitioner in 1892 with the Conjoint Diploma, and, having obtained the licence in dental surgery two years earlier, working at the Royal Dental Hospital. He was at one time consulting dental surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital and to the Royal Dental Hospital. He was President and Honorary Life Member of the Odontological Section of the Royal Society of Medicine and was President of the Metropolitan Branch of the BDA. In 1917 he was awarded the John Tomes Prize and in 1947 on 17 July delivered the Charles Tomes Lecture on "Movements of the Teeth" subsequently published in the *British Dental Journal* 1948, 84, 1-9. Turner's father, James Smith Turner, also had strong connections with the Royal Dental Hospital and was partly responsible for the Dentists Act of 1878 and the founding of the British Dental Association. Joseph Turner died on 28 February 1955 at his home at Middleton-on-Sea aged 85, survived by his widow.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005426
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Upcott, Harold (1879 - 1951)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-01-09
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/377032377032
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 9 November 1879, the only son of Sir Frederick Robert Upcott, KCVO, CSI, civil engineer, and his wife Jessie Turner. Sir F R Upcott had a distinguished career as a railway engineer in India. Harold Upcott was educated privately abroad, till he entered St Thomas's Hospital Medical School. After qualifying in 1902 he served as house surgeon at St Thomas's, and was clinical assistant at the Samaritan Hospital. He was for some years private assistant to Berkeley Moynihan at Leeds, and in 1907 settled in practice at Kingston-upon-Hull, Yorkshire, and became ultimately senior surgeon at the Hull Royal Infirmary. During the war of 1914-18 Upcott served in the RAMC in France and Italy, rising to the rank of major. He practised after the war at 13 Albion Street, Hull, and retired to Wrelton Hall, Pickering, North Riding, moving later to China Garth, Thornton-le-Dale, Yorkshire. There he died on 24 May 1951, aged 71, and was buried at Middleton. He was an original member of the Moynihan Chirurgical Club, and had been president of the Hull Medical Society and the Hull and East Yorkshire branch of the British Medical Association. He married in 1906 Alice Weekes, who survived him with three sons; their fourth son died in 1950. Publications: Operations on the spleen, with Berkeley Moynihan, in F F Burghard's *A system of operative surgery*, 1909, 3, 41. Surgery of the spleen, with the same, in W W Keen's *Surgery*, 1913, 6, 619.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004849
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ferraby, George Spencer (1904 - 1988)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-05-13
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/379434379434
Occupation General surgeon
Details George Spencer Ferraby, the son of Dr George Arthur Ferraby, a general practitioner, and of Gertrude Sommers (née Ansell) was born in Nottingham on 29 June 1904. Both his grandfathers were doctors as was his sister and a number of other individuals on each side of the family. After education at Nottingham High School and King's College, London, he entered King's College Hospital and qualified in 1927. Following resident and registrar appointments at King's and various London County Council hospitals he completed the Fellowship and mastership examinations and became a surgeon in the LCC service. On the outbreak of war he first served in the Emergency Medical Service before joining the RAMC in 1943, retiring with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in 1946. He returned to the surgical staff of St Charles' Hospital, Ladbroke Grove, and remained there for the rest of his working life, becoming consultant surgeon at the inception of the NHS. A lifelong bachelor, he lived in one of the apartments attached to his hospital and devoted himself solely to that institution. He was never heard to speak an unkind word and was always most friendly and helpful to anyone with a problem; indeed, something of a father confessor to doctors and nurses alike. He had an upright, athletic figure, and continued skiing every year until long after his retirement from surgery. He was also keen on fly-fishing and metal work. He recorded in his College cv his professional indebtedness to T P Legg, Sir Thomas Fairbank and Harold Edwards at King's; to George Grey Turner at Hammersmith and to P Winsbury White at St Charles' Hospital, with all of whom he had worked. He died on 25 November 1988 aged 84.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007251
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Price, Arthur Kenneth (1910 - 1963)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-04-28 2014-11-25
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/377470377470
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details The following obituary was published in volume 4: Born on 27 December 1910 and educated at Wycliffe Grammar School, Croydon, he received his medical education at St Thomas's Hospital where he qualified in 1933, obtaining honours in the BS London final examination. After qualification he held a succession of surgical appointments including that of surgical registrar, having passed the Final Fellowship examination at the age of 24. Later he held appointments at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, Sheffield Royal Infirmary, and Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham. He joined the RAMC in 1942 and served as a major with a Field Surgical Unit in North Africa and Italy, where he contracted infective jaundice. After the war he decided to take up thoracic surgery and, after five years as a thoracic surgeon at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, he became consultant thoracic surgeon in the Bath area of the SW region. He married Lois Turner in 1945 by whom he had two daughters. He died at his home in Bath on 25 April 1963 after three or four years of ill health. A memorial service was held in the church of St Michael with St Paul, Bath, on 15 May at which an address was given by Professor Harold Rodgers OBE, FRCS. The following obituary was published in volume five: Arthur Kenneth Price was a student at St Thomas's Hospital and graduated MB BS London and also took the Conjoint Diploma in 1933. After junior surgical appointments at St Thomas's Hospital he became resident surgical officer at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford and passed the Final Fellowship in 1935. He decided to specialise in thoracic surgery, and was appointed thoracic surgeon to the Bristol Royal Infirmary. Price ultimately settled in Bath, where he became a consultant in general and thoracic surgery in the Bath Clinical Area. He was a member of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, and contributed chapters on bronchoscopy, oesophagoscopy and thoracoscopy to Rob and Smith's *Operative surgery*, 1957. He died on 25 April 1963.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005287
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Smith, Sir Thomas Rudolph Hampden (1864 - 1958)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

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/377743377743
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 24 January 1864 the eldest son of (Sir) Thomas Smith FRCS, who became Assistant Surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital a month later and was afterwards Consulting Surgeon and a Governor, was Vice-president of the College in 1887-8 and 1890-91, and was created a Baronet, of Stratford Place, in 1897. His mother was Ann Eliza Parbury. A younger brother, Gilbert, also became FRCS; the eldest sister married Professor Sir Archibald Garrod FRS, FRCP, and the younger sisters married respectively: C P Crouch FRCS, C E Baker FRCS, and T A Mayo FRCS. Rudolph Smith was educated at Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took third-class honours in the Natural Sciences Tripos, part I, in 1889. He received his clinical training at St Bartholomew's, where he was house surgeon, and settled in practice at Stockton-on-Tees about 1897, where he was surgeon to the Stockton and Thornaby Hospital. He succeeded his father in the baronetcy in 1909. He moved to Torquay in 1913, and during the war of 1914-18 was surgeon in command of the Torquay Hospital for Wounded Soldiers. His services were recognised by the CBE in 1920. During 1922 he was the prime mover in building the new Torbay Hospital, to which he became surgeon, and he was consulting surgeon to the Rosehill Children's Hospital, Torquay, and the Brixham and Dartmouth Cottage Hospitals. Sir Rudolph Hampden Smith married in 1897 Ann Ellen, daughter of Joseph William Sharp, but there were no children. Lady Hampden Smith died in 1928 and he survived her by thirty years dying on 25 June 1958 aged 89. His nephew Thomas Turner Smith, eldest son of Gilbert Smith FRCS succeeded him as third Baronet. His recreations were golf, fishing, and gardening. He was a very popular and much respected member of the profession in Devonshire. Publications: Foreign bodies in the salivary duct. *St Bart's Hosp Reps* 1897, 33, 105. Case of Littre's hernia. *Brit med J* 1902, 1, 1474. Chloroform syncope and direct manipulation of the heart. *Brit med J* 1905, 2, 1340. Unusual case of ectopic gestation * J Obstet Gynaec* 1903, 3, 27.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005560
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Davies-Colley, Robert (1881 - 1955)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-02-05
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004900-E004999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377171377171
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 8 August 1881 at Petworth, Sussex, Robert Davies-Colley came from a prominent medical family. His grandfather was Dr Thomas Davies, physician to the Chester General Infirmary, who afterwards took the name of Colley; his father J N C Davies-Colley FRCS was senior surgeon to Guy's Hospital; his mother was a daughter of Charlewood Turner, Treasurer of Guy's from 1856 to 1876; his elder brother Hugh was surgeon to the Cambridge Hospital, Aldershot, and his sister Eleanor was the first woman to be admitted FRCS. Robert Davies-Colley was educated at Westminster School, Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and Guy's Hospital, qualifying in 1906. At Guy's Davies-Colley held various posts including those of lecturer in surgical pathology and curator of the medical school museum. He was then appointed obstetric registrar and considered specialising in that subject, but in 1910 transferred to the dissecting room to teach anatomy. This led to his appointment in 1912 to the surgical staff, and during the first world war he served in France and then as consulting surgeon to the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force with the rank of Colonel; he was mentioned in dispatches and appointed CMG in 1918. In 1933 Davies-Colley was appointed surgeon at Guy's and he also took on other posts. He was Erasmus Wilson lecturer in surgical pathology 1932-35, 1937 and 1939-46 at the Royal College of Surgeons. He was consulting surgeon to the London County Council and to the Florence Nightingale Hospital, an examiner in surgery to London University and the Society of Apothecaries, and a member of the Court of Examiners at the College 1936-41. He took a special interest in the Children's Medical Home at Waddon, Surrey and was for many years its honorary treasurer. During the second world war Guy's was dispersed into numerous centres in Kent; Davies-Colley became the officer in charge of the Farnborough Hospital and the liaison between Guy's and the Kent County Council. Davies-Colley married in 1908 Emily Cecilia, daughter of Arthur Crosby Jones of Chatham. She had been a nurse at Great Ormond Street and Guy's Hospitals, and after her marriage she continued her active voluntary work for Guy's. They had two daughters and one son who was killed in action in 1943, aged 23. Mrs Davies-Colley died on 16 February 1953. Davies-Colley was a large man with a heavy but handsome face and a friendly smile. He died at Guy's on 16 April 1955 aged 73.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004988
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ransome, John Atkinson (1779 - 1837)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-04-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372679372679
Occupation General surgeon
Details Son of Thomas Ransome, manager of Messrs Gurney’s Bank at Norwich. He was born at Norwich on March 4th, 1779, was apprenticed to a surgeon at Lynn, and entering Guy's Hospital became a pupil of Sir Astley Cooper, with whom he was ever afterwards in friendly correspondence. He endeavoured, but unsuccessfully, to establish himself first in Ipswich and afterwards at Bury St Edmunds, but moving to Manchester he was elected Surgeon to the Infirmary on March 20th, 1806. In conjunction with James Ainsworth he lectured on anatomy and physiology at the Literary and Philosophical Institute, the earliest syllabus being published in 1812. The course, perhaps, was a continuation of that given by Peter Mark Roget and Benjamin Gibson in 1806-1807. Thomas Turner founded the Pine Street School of Medicine at Manchester in 1824 and enlisted the willing services of Ransome, who began to lecture on the principles and practice of surgery in 1825. His lectures fulfilled the requirements of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, and the Pine Street School thus became the first provincial medical school whose teaching was formally recognized. Ransome’s lectures dealt chiefly with his own experience gained in a large surgical practice and were greatly appreciated by the students, as he rarely entered upon matters of hypothesis or controversy. The notes were written in his carriage whilst he went from patient to patient. Amongst his patients was William Huskisson, the statesman, who was accidentally killed at the opening of the Manchester and Liverpool Railway on Sept 15th, 1830, and Ransome’s only contribution to surgical literature is the account of the accident, which he published in the *North of England Medical and Surgical Journal* for 1830 (p. 268). He was appointed Librarian of the Literary and Philosophical Society in 1809 and acted as one of the Secretaries from 1810-1820. He lived in Princess Street, at No 1 St Peter’s Square, and finally at Old Trafford, where he died on Feb 10th, 1837, and was buried behind the meeting-house of the Society of Friends in Mount Street. His son was Joseph Atkinson Ransome (q.v.), and it was perhaps the similarity of name that led to the error of including his distinguished father in the first list of 'Fellows when it was intended to honour the son. Ransome had a high and well-deserved reputation as a surgeon; he was a skilled operator, and was the first in Manchester to suggest catgut or silk ligatures for tying arteries on the ground that, being of animal origin, they would the more readily be absorbed. He was a skilled draughtsman and drew the illustrations for Benjamin Gibson’s *Practical Observations on the Formation of an Artificial Pupil, etc.* (London, 1811), a subject to which Ransome himself paid special attention. His strict integrity, spotless moral character, and honourable bearing gained him the respect and goodwill of all those with whom he was brought in contact. There is a fine portrait, a chalk drawing by Bedford, in the possession of the family. It is reproduced in Dr. Brockbank’s *Sketches of the Lives and Work of the Honorary Medical Staff of the Manchester Infirmary.*
Resource Identifier RCS: E000495
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Davy, Richard (1838 - 1920)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-09-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001300-E001399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373577373577
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Chulmleigh in Devon, where his father, J C Davy, had long practised. He became a student at Edinburgh and at Guy's Hospital, and worked under John Hilton and Thomas Bryant. He returned to Edinburgh and followed the clinics of Spence, Syme, and Lister. He was a Clinical Clerk under Dr J Hughes Bennett and Dr Thomas Laycock, and was greatly attracted by William Turner's teaching of anatomy. He graduated in 1862 with 2nd class honours, his thesis being on "Clinical Reports upon certain forms of Cerebral Disease". His interest was distinctly surgical, and he spent the winter of 1863 in Paris, working at anatomy and practical surgery. Some of his Edinburgh friends bore him company, including John Duncan, afterwards a leading surgeon in the Edinburgh school. In 1864 he settled in London, and was appointed Surgeon to the St Marylebone General Dispensary, and in 1871 on the staff of Westminster Hospital, where he held the offices of Assistant Surgeon, Surgeon, and Surgeon in charge of the Orthopaedic Department. He was also Lecturer on Practical and Operative Surgery in the Medical School. Davy has been described by his contemporaries as an unconventional and independently-minded man, more interested in the mechanical side of surgery, in which he exulted, than its scientific aspect. Trained by Spence in the Edinburgh school, he was antagonistic to Listerism and did not believe in the modem theories of sepsis. To him infections following surgical operations were the result of 'diatheses', and if the patient were possessed by the septic diathesis, so much the worse for the patient. Davy was a highly original orthopaedic surgeon; he was an exponent of the removal of the bones of the tarsus for flat-foot and club-foot, and of the excision of the knee- and hip-joints for tuberculous disease. His name has survived in instrument catalogues under the title of 'Davy's rod' or 'lever'. This rod he passed up the rectum in an attempt to compress the iliac arteries during amputation at the hip-joint, but it caused injury of the rectum and soon fell into disuse. In 1893 Davy resigned all his appointments, retired to Devonshire, and became a country gentleman. He died at Burstone Manor, Bow, North Devon, on September 25th, 1920, and was buried at Chulmleigh. He married the daughter of George Cutliffe, of Witheridge, Devon, by whom he had two daughters, one of whom became a nurse at St Thomas's Hospital. Publications: *New Inventions in Surgical Mechanisms*, 8vo, illustrated, London, 1875. *Surgical Lectures delivered in the Theatre of Westminster Hospital*, 8vo, illustrated, London, 1880. *General Remarks on Sanitation*, 8vo, London, 1888. *Westminster Hospital Medical School: The Introductory Address*, 8vo, London, 1875. "Excision of an Osseous Wedge at the Transverse Tarsal Joint in confirmed Club Foot." - *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1876, 1877, 1883. "New Method of Controlling Hemorrhage during Amputation at Hip-joint." - *Ibid.*, 1878, i, 704. "Tibio-femoral Impaction for Excision of Knee-joint." - *Ibid.*, 1883, ii, 758. "Observations on some Local Anaesthetics" (with Dyce Duckworth), 8vo, Edinburgh, 1862; reprinted from *Edin. Med. Jour.*, 1862.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001394
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Negus, David (1930 - 2010)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2012-01-10 2012-11-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001800-E001899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374023374023
Occupation General surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details David Negus was a consultant general and vascular surgeon at Lewisham Hospital, London, and a pioneer in the newly emerging sub-specialty of phlebology. He was born on 11 August 1930 in London, the son of a distinguished otolaryngologist, Sir Victor Ewings Negus, and his wife, Winifred Negus née Rennie. David was schooled at Charterhouse, from where he was called up for National Service at the age of 18 to serve in the Royal Armoured Corps. On demobilisation he proceeded to New College, Oxford, in 1950, taking an honours degree in animal physiology in 1954. He then studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School and qualified in 1958 with both the conjoint and an Oxford degree. Early surgical training was in Cambridge, Southampton and St Thomas', with the FRCS being passed in 1962. He was then appointed as a registrar to the Royal Portsmouth Hospital for two years, before returning to St Thomas' and embarking on a research project into post-thrombotic syndrome under the supervision of Frank B Cockett. This work resulted in the award of an Oxford DM MCh in 1967, an Arris and Gale Lecture delivered in 1970 (*Annals RCSEng* 1979, 47; 92-105) and a lifelong interest in venous disorders. There followed a succession of posts in the St Thomas' training circuit before he was appointed as a consultant to Lewisham Hospital in south London in 1976. At Lewisham he practised the entire range of general surgery, but with a special interest in peripheral vascular surgery, including lymphology and phlebology. He was an active fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, becoming a member of council of both the surgical and the clinical sections, and chairman of the newly-formed venous forum. In 1984 he was appointed Hunterian Professor and delivered a lecture entitled 'The prevention and treatment of venous ulceration'. He published widely, principally on various aspects of venous disorders, including chapters in textbooks and, in 1991, a monograph, *Leg ulcers: a practical approach to management* (Butterworth-Heinemann), which went into several editions. In 1986 he was instrumental (with others) in founding the journal *Phlebology* and three years later became its editor. On relinquishing this post he was appointed editor emeritus. He was elected an honorary member of the Société de Française de Phlébologie in recognition of his considerable contributions to this specialty. In private life he enjoyed sailing, cruising and ocean racing. As a young man he was an above average hockey and tennis player, and for many years enjoyed beagling, being master of Christchurch and New College beagles whilst an undergraduate. As a St Thomas's medical student, he contributed variously to the annual Christmas show and wrote several of the songs which became legendary. He confounded many of his student contemporaries by owning and driving a Rolls Royce, but he was not the only St Thomas's graduate of those days to do this! Of high intellect but quiet disposition, he had a keen wit and a dry sense of humour, always with a twinkle in his eye. Married to Anne (née Turner), a St Thomas' nurse, they had three children: Verity, a literary editor; Rupert, a gastroenterologist at the Royal Free Hospital; and Samantha, a radiologist at St George's Hospital. In retirement he moved to the Isle of Wight, but died on 8 October 2010, aged 80, after a long battle with carcinoma of the bladder, a disease that he faced with typical stoicism.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001840
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Southam, George (1815 - 1876)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

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/376536376536
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Manchester on December 3rd, 1815; was educated at Manchester Grammar School, and then studied at the Manchester Medical School, at University College, London, and in Paris. He returned to Manchester as House Surgeon to the Salford Royal Infirmary, and subsequently was elected Surgeon to the Dispensary there. He then started to practise as a general surgeon at 23 Lesers Street and at Oakfield, Pendleton, in partnership with Dr Broughton Addy. He early distinguished himself by following the example of preceding ovariotomists of operating and removing ovarian cysts in private houses - in two cases successfully: "Removal of a Dropsical Ovary" (*Lond Med Gaz*, 1843, iv, 33); "Removal of an Encysted Tumour of the Left Uterine Appendage" (*Prov Med and Surg Jour*, 1845, 560). A third case was unsuccessful (*Lancet*, 1869, ii, 605). He removed a calculus of unusual size from the bladder by rectovesical lithotomy (*Med-Chir Trans*, 1859, xlii, 427; *Lancet*, 1859, 239); indeed, he performed lithotomy 120 times with the loss of only one patient. In 1848 he was elected to the staff of the Manchester Royal Infirmary as one of the Dispensary Surgeons, equivalent to Assistant Surgeon, being elected Surgeon in 1855. In addition to his busy practice Southam also taught anatomy and surgery, and played a leading part in organizing and developing the Medical School. From 1824 a School of Medicine had existed in Pine Street, Manchester, and, especially through the exertions of Thomas Turner (qv), this had been carried on until 1850. In that year Southam, aided by enthusiastic friends, started a second Medical School in Chatham Street, Manchester. This second school was such a success as to compel amalgamation, and in 1858 the Pine Street and Chatham Street Schools were combined as the Manchester Royal School of Medicine. This in its turn in 1872, following examples in Scotland, and in University and King's Colleges, London, amalgamated with Owens College. Southam, jointly with Edward Lund (qv), became Professor of Surgery, and he also took on the duty of Director of Medical Studies. The present Medical School buildings owe much to Southam's unwearying exertions. He was elected FRCS in 1853, and in 1873, on a requisition signed by 143 Fellows, he became a candidate for a seat on the Council in succession to Thomas Turner (qv), who had sat from 1865-1873. He was elected, and sat for the three years (1873-1876) until his death. During the same three years Southam was President of the Council of the British Medical Association, and but for illness would have been nominated for election as President of the Association at the Annual Meeting which was intended to be held at Manchester in 1876. During the winter of 1874-1875 his practice became more onerous, and he was advised to take a holiday, for he had suffered attacks of angina pectoris. A long and painful illness followed, during which he was comforted by the visits of his friend Gibson, and he died on April 24th, 1876. Southam married in 1842 Rebecca, daughter of Sir Elkanah Armitage. She died, leaving him four daughters and two sons; the younger, F A Southam (qv), followed his father as Surgeon to the Manchester Royal Infirmary The obituary notice in the *Lancet* describes George Southam as plain of speech, with small literary culture and polish, and without conspicuous gifts either intellectual or oratorical. Yet he was clear, self-possessed, distinct of purpose, and kind-hearted. As a surgeon he was unquestionably a most capable man, and a thoroughly skilful and successful operator.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004353
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Swinney, John (1912 - 1988)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007600-E007699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379877379877
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details John Swinney was born in Durham on 12 June 1912, the son of Thomas Swinney, a business man, and Hannah, née Surtees. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Durham University where he graduated MB, BS in 1935, having won the Stephen Scott Scholarship, the Sewell Prize and the Dickenson Scholarship. He was house surgeon and house physician at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle (1935-36) and, after a few months in general practice, he became surgical registrar from late 1936 to 1939. He worked for George Grey Turner, F C Pybus and Norman Hodgson. He proceeded MD in 1937. He enlisted in the RAMC in 1939 and served in France until 1940, the year he became FRCS. He served later in Eritrea, the Western Desert, Sicily and Italy, where he was awarded the Military Cross. He also had the unusual distinction of graduating MS (Hons) on active service overseas. He married Miss Thompson in 1943. He was demobilised in 1945 with the rank of Major and he was appointed assistant surgeon at Newcastle General (Municipal) Hospital. In 1946 he went to the Mayo Clinic with a Rockefeller Fellowship where he spent a year with Gershom Thompson, learning the technique of per-urethral prostatectomhy that Thompson had devised with the 'cold punch'. There followed a year in the University of Colorado before he returned to Newcastle in 1949 to take over the recently established department of prostatic surgery at the General Hospital. Swinney rapidly developed that department to cover the whole specialty of urology. He was a first class surgeon and a man of drive and vision and the demands made by practitioners resulted in the department moving, first to a larger unit at Shotley Bridge General Hospital, and later to the new Freeman Hospital, where he and his colleague, Keith Yeates, had a unit of ninety beds. John Swinney made many original contributions to urological surgical practice. He developed a technique of urethroplasty, he introduced intravesical chemotherapy for some varieties of bladder tumours and he designed endoscopic instruments. He pioneered renal transplantation in the north of England and he devised a method of preserving donor kidneys by machine perfusion. He invited financial support for this research and the response was such that the Northern Counties Kidney Research Fund was established to manage the very large contributions. He was President of the North of England Surgical Society, the Newcastle and Northern Counties Medical Society, the Section of Urology of the Royal Society of Medicine and the European Dialysis and Transplantation Association. The University of Newcastle created a personal chair for him in 1969 and he was awarded the St Peter's Medal by the British Association of Urological Surgeons in the same year. He retired in 1974 and he joined his elder son who farmed in Western Australia. He was soon back in urological practice, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and building up a large practice. He retired from that in 1979 and settled in Banff, Scotland. His publications included *Handbook of operative urological surgery*, and a chapter "Transplant rejection" in *Scientific foundations of urology* and papers on other urological topics. He was an active member of the "Punch Club" which met annually at the hospitals of the few elected members. Professor Swinney was a good natured, kindly man, loyal and generous to his juniors and admired by his colleagues. He died on 29 January 1988 aged 75 and is survived by his wife, and their two sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007694
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hanley, Howard Granville (1909 - 2001)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-11-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008600-E008699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380838380838
Occupation Urologist
Details Howard Hanley was an energetic and engaging urologist, one of those who in the early years of the NHS ensured that it would provide for specialist urology at a time when there was considerable opposition from the general surgeons. Howard was born in Hoylake, on the Wirral, on 27 July 1909. His father, Frederick Thomas Hanley, was engaged in the cotton exchange, his mother Edith née Hill, was the daughter of a ship owner. He was educated at St Bees School in Cumberland, before going on to Liverpool University, where he graduated in medicine in 1932. As a student he devoted himself to boxing and rugby, but after junior house jobs he decided that there were more serious things in life and he headed south for surgical training in London. A post in Hammersmith under George Grey Turner, where research was the order of the day, was a stimulating influence, but it was a residency at All Saints Hospital with Terence Millin which set the course of his career. In 1939, having gained the Fellowship, he was appointed to a full-time post at Hillingdon Hospital (then under Middlesex County Council) and in the same year he married Peggy (Margaret Jeffrey), who was to make a welcoming home for him for the rest of his life. His post at Hillingdon was a 'reserved occupation' and he spent the war serving that community and acquiring the skills which made him a rapid and efficient operating surgeon. He was appointed to St Paul's Hospital for Urinary Diseases in 1947, but did two years in the RAMC before taking up his duties. He then divided his time between Hillingdon and St Paul's, while still acting as civil consultant in urology to the Army. He proved to be an innovator, quick to appreciate the value of new techniques. Among other things, he was the first to see the potential of the X-ray image intensifier in the study of the malfunctioning urinary tract. He soon built up a considerable private practice and a keen following of postgraduate trainees. He served as Dean of the Institute of Urology and later, when on the Council of the College of Surgeons, as Dean of the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences. His teaching reputation brought many invitations to act as visiting professor in the USA. He played an important part in many societies and associations. He was President of the section of urology of the Royal Society of Medicine. As a member of the British Association of Urological Surgeons (of which he later became President) he toured the country, together with Leslie Pyrah, to urge health authorities to set up specialist departments. He was Vice-President of the College in 1979 and his many services to the profession were recognised by the award of the CBE in 1975. In the course of an exceptionally busy career, he still found time for social functions. And he and Peggy were able to enjoy some breaks at their house in the south of France. In the long years of retirement he became increasingly impatient with the handicaps of old age, but it was only towards the end that he ceased to attend functions at the College. He died on 18 February 2001, at the age of 91. He is survived by his wife and two sons, one of whom, David, is a plastic surgeon and a Fellow of the College. There are two grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008655
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Franklin, Richard Harrington (1906 - 1991)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-08
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/380122380122
Occupation General surgeon
Details Richard Harrington Franklin, or 'Dick' as he was always known, was born in London on 3 April 1906, the son of Major P C Franklin. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and St Thomas's Hospital Medical School. He qualified in 1930 and proceeded to a house post at St Thomas's, taking the Fellowship in 1934. In 1935 Grey Turner was appointed as the first Professor of Surgery to the new British Postgraduate Medical School at Hammersmith. In an inspired choice he appointed Dick as his first assistant and senior lecturer. They formed a productive and happy team whose influence is still present in surgery, particularly that of the oesophagus. Dick's world reputation is soundly based on his pioneering contributions to oesophageal surgery. The second world war changed surgery and Dick joined the Emergency Medical Service, taking charge of surgery in the Hammersmith sector. These years called on his skills and powers of endurance in managing the large numbers of casualties from Blitz and doodlebug and at the same time keeping the hospital open despite the constant risk of bombing. In 1946 he succeeded Grey Turner on the staff and in the following year was appointed, in addition, to the Kingston Hospital group. These years saw a renaissance of London as a world centre for postgraduate training with Hammersmith in the van. Dick performed the first successful repair, outside the USA, of congenital atresia of the oesophagus, reported when he was Hunterian Professor in 1947 and subsequently in the *Annals* in 1948. Anastomotic dehiscence was the prime cause of death in oesophageal operations and he demonstrated that sound healing was best achieved by full-thickness interrupted silk sutures, commencing with four such sutures posteriorly. This measure was the critical factor in reducing mortality in oesophageal surgery which in his time changed from being one of occasional success to that of a routine safe procedure. His writings on the oesophagus were crowned by his 1953 monograph *Surgery of the oesophagus*. To the *Annals* he made eight contributions, including an important joint paper with Barrett on cardiospasm in 1949 and his 1978 Hunterian Oration. From 1955 to 1965 he was a member of the Court of Examiners and during that decade was the acceptable face, in the eyes of the candidates, of that maligned body. He was elected to Council in 1964, where his voice was one of reason and conciliation, reinforced by his habitual dry humour and laced with the odd short pithy remark. In 1974 he became Vice-President. Of particular pleasure to him was his appointment as honorary consultant to the Royal Navy, a post which he held for twenty years. The award of the CBE in 1973 was a fitting reward for a full life's work. He gave good service to many surgical bodies including the Association of Surgeons, and the Section of Surgery of the Royal Society of Medicine, becoming its President in 1969. His first love, however, was the Grey Turner Surgical Club, of which he was a founder in 1951 and later President. Among the many lectures he delivered by invitation, pride of place goes to the Grey Turner Memorial at Newcastle in 1971 and the Ivor Lewis in 1975. He retired from surgery in 1971 and moved home from Twickenham to Aldeburgh to indulge his two great loves of swimming and sailing. Unlike the many lucky surgeons who have never had to submit to the knife, Dick required surgery for a perforated duodenal ulcer, but was fortunate to have the closure performed by an old friend and colleague from the Hammersmith. He married Helen, second daughter of Sir Henry Kimber, Bart., in 1933, and she predeceased him after a long illness in 1987. They had two sons, Richard, and Peter, who died from complications of measles encephalitis which struck when he was only 14. As Dick would have wished, he died while still enjoying an active retirement, having taken his usual swim in the sea on the very day of his death, 17 September 1991.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007939
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching McDougall, The Rev Francis Thomas (1817 - 1886)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

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/374782374782
Occupation General surgeon Priest
Details Born at Sydenham, Kent, the only son of William Adair McDougall, Captain in the 88th Regiment. His mother, whose maiden name was Gell, had strong evangelical principles. McDougall was educated at Malta, where his father's regiment was quartered, and attended the hospitals at Valetta. He entered as a medical student at King's College, London, in 1835, and matriculated in the University of Oxford from Magdalen Hall on February 28th, 1839, graduating BA in 1844, MA in 1845, and being created DCL on June 28th, 1854. Whilst he was at Oxford McDougall, weighing 9 stone 8 lb, rowed bow in the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race on July 11th, 1842, F N Menzies being stroke and the course from Westminster to Putney. The Oxford crew won, and the race is memorable as being the first in which the short digging 'Waterman's stroke' was abandoned for what afterwards became known as the 'Oxford stroke'. On leaving Oxford he became Medical Officer to some ironworks in South Wales, and married Marriette, daughter of Robert John Bunyon, whose elder sister was married to Bishop Colenso. The ironworks failed and McDougall was ordained in 1845 by Dr Stanley, Bishop of Norwich. He became Curate of Farnlingham Pigot, and in 1846 of St Mark's, Lakenham, a populous suburb of Norwich, and afterwards of Christ Church, Woburn Square, London. He was offered a permanent position at the British Museum in 1847, and almost at the same time came the offer of a curacy and of mission work in Borneo. He chose the first, repented, and set out for Borneo in December, 1847. There with the help of Mrs McDougall he did much good work amongst the Chinese and Dyaks, establishing a 'Home School' in which the children were taught from infancy the principles of Christianity. He returned to England in 1853 and arranged for the transfer of the mission to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, as the funds of the Borneo Mission were exhausted. He was in Sarawak again in 1854, and was consecrated at Calcutta on St Luke's Day, 1855, Bishop of Labuan, as this small island was alone under the direct control of the Colonial Office and no precedent existed for a bishopric beyond the dominions of the Crown. He sent a three-column letter to *The Times*, dated from Sarawak, May 27th, 1862. It is a fine pirate story, telling of an encounter with Malay pirates at sea in which quite unostentatiously he shows himself a first-class fighter, a surgeon, and a priest. Some exception was taken to the letter, in which the Bishop says: "My double-barrelled Terry's breech loader, made by Reilly, New Oxford Street, proved itself a most deadly weapon from its true shooting, and certainty and rapidity of fire. It never missed fire once in 80 rounds, and was then so little fouled that I believe it would have fired 80 more with like effect without wanting to be cleaned." Dr Tait, then Bishop of London, told him dryly that when next there was occasion for such a letter he had best let his wife write it for him. In 1857 he wrote a *Malay Prayer Book*, and in 1868 published a *Catechism for the Use of the Missions of the Church in Borneo*. Bishop McDougall's health failed in 1867; he returned to England, resigned his Bishopric in the spring of 1868, and was presented by Dean Stanley to the vicarage of Godmanchester, Huntingdonshire, which he held until 1874. Here he formed a close friendship with Harold Browne, Bishop of Ely, who appointed him Archdeacon of the Diocese in 1870 and Canon of Ely in the following year. When Dr Browne was translated from Ely to Winchester he made McDougall a Canon of Winchester in 1873 and Archdeacon of the Isle of Wight in 1874, adding the small Vicarage of Milford-on-Sea, Hants, in 1881. This cure he held until 1885, when he became Rector of Mottistone with Shorwell, Isle of Wight. He died on November 16th, 1886, his wife having died on May 7th preceding. One of his daughters married F Charlewood Turner, MD, Physician to St Thomas's Hospital, the second married Charles Henry Turner, DD, Bishop of Islington, whose fourth son, George Charlewood Turner, MC, was Master of Marlborough College.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002599
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lund, Edward (1823 - 1898)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

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/374764374764
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on May 23rd, 1823, the ninth son of Thomas Lund, of Peckham, Surrey. He was apprenticed to Dr William Parker Hoare, of Faversham, Kent, and in 1842 entered as a student at Guy's Hospital. In 1848 he went to Manchester, where his talents as a surgeon soon brought him to the front. In 1850 he was appointed Anatomical Demonstrator in the Pine Street Medical School. Not only was he a fine teacher, but his personality was such that the students became warmly attached to him and testified their feeling by making him a presentation in February, 1854, at the Queen's Hotel, Piccadilly, Manchester. In 1855 he was elected Dispensary Surgeon to the Manchester Royal Infirmary with care of a district. He attended to his new duties most assiduously, treating out-patients and instructing students in minor surgery. In 1857 the Dispensary Surgeons were relieved of the obligation to visit patients in their homes. On the amalgamation of the Pine Street and Chatham Street Schools in Manchester, Lund became a member of the teaching staff of the Manchester Royal School of Medicine, where he had as his colleagues R C Smith, Thomas Turner, and George Southam (qv). In 1868, on the retirement of J A Ransome, he became full Surgeon to the Royal Infirmary, and was active in effecting the union of the Medical School and Owens College, which gave a great impetus to medical education in Manchester. Southam and he became joint Professors of Surgery in the new Victoria University, and in 1874 Lund was admitted to the Senate of the University and succeeded Southam as sole Professor in 1877, the date of Southam's death. He held office as Professor till 1888. His lectures were notable. Lund had the great merit of having been one of the first to recognize the immense practical importance of Lister's employment of antiseptics in operative surgery, and his reputation and influence were very valuable in bringing about the acceptance of antiseptic surgery in Manchester. Lund's skill as an operator and his ingenuity in devising methods of treatment contributed largely to his success both as a teacher and practitioner. A humble but most useful invention, credibly attributed to him, is 'Lund's corkscrew lever', the uses of which are not necessarily connected with medicine bottles. He was a Member of Council of the Surgical Section of the International Medical Congress in 1881, in which year he was also chosen President of the Lancashire and Cheshire Branch of the British Medical Association. He served as a Member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons 1878-1894, an evidence of the esteem in which he was held as a surgeon throughout the North of England. In 1883 he was elected a Member of the Court of Examiners, and was appointed Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology together with John Wood in 1884, delivering three lectures on "Injuries and Diseases of the Head and Neck, the Genito-urinary Organs, and the Rectum". He resigned from the Council and the Examinership in 1887, as he was then in a weak state of health. He had also resigned his post at the Manchester Royal Infirmary in 1882, and had been appointed Consulting Surgeon. In 1883 he gave an address before the Medical Society of London on "The Present Aspect of the Antiseptic Question". He married in 1849 Charlotte, youngest daughter of D H Webster, of Kirby, Northants. He died at his residence, Whalley Range, Manchester, on February 4th, 1898, was buried in the Southern Cemetery, and was survived by a daughter and three sons. He had practised at 22 John Street, Manchester. Lund's portrait is in Jamyn Brookes's portrait group of the Council which now hangs in the Royal College of Surgeons, and there is a good photogravure of him in the College Collection and another photograph in the Council Album. Publications:- *The Art of Medicine; its Objects and its Duties: an Address*, 8vo, London and Manchester, 1860. "Observations on Some of the More Recent Methods of Treating Wounds, and on Excision of the Knee-joint," 8vo, Manchester, 1870; reprinted from *Manchester Med Rep*, 1870, i, 260. *Case of a Foreign Body in the Bladder, with Stricture of the Urethra*, 8vo, plate, London, 1871. *The Present Aspect of the Antiseptic Question*, 8vo, Manchester, 1883. *Hunterian Lectures* (1885) *on Some of the Injuries and Diseases of the Neck and Head, the Genito-urinary Organs, and the Rectum*, 8vo, with photographs, London, 1886.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002581
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

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 Davies-Colley, Eleanor (1874 - 1934)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-05-01 2020-07-02
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003900-E003999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376124376124
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in London 21 August 1874, the second daughter of J N C Davies-Colley, surgeon to Guy's Hospital, and Sophia Margaret Turner, his wife. Her maternal grandfather, Thomas Turner, was Treasurer of Guy's Hospital. She was educated at the Church of England High School for Girls in Baker Street, London, and at Queen's College, Harley Street, W1. She worked for some time after leaving school at the East End branch of the Invalid Children's Aid Association and acted as a School Board Manager, living in a workman's flat in Wapping. She received her medical education at the London School of Medicine for Women, where she acted as demonstrator of anatomy and at the Royal Free Hospital in Gray's Inn Road, where she filled the post of surgical registrar. In 1907 she was appointed house surgeon to the New Hospital for Women in Euston Road. She subsequently joined the staff of the South London Hospital and at the time of her death was senior surgeon, whilst at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital she was the senior obstetrician. She was also surgeon to the Marie Curie Hospital. She died, unmarried, at 16 Harley Street, W on 10 December 1934. Miss Davies-Colley was skilful and conscientious in her profession, shy and reserved socially. She had the distinction of being the first woman admitted after examination a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. **See below for an expanded version of the published obituary uploaded 2 July 2020:** Eleanor Davies-Colley, senior surgeon at the South London Hospital for Women, was the first woman to become a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, gaining her FRCS by examination in 1911. She was born at Hilliers, Petworth, Sussex, on 21 August 1874, the second daughter of John Neville Colley Colley-Davies and Sophia Margaret Colley-Davies née Turner. There was a long tradition of medicine in the family. Her father was a distinguished surgeon at Guy’s Hospital, London and her paternal grandfather, Thomas Davies, was a physician to Chester General Infirmary (he later took the name Davies-Colley). Her mother’s father was Thomas Turner, treasurer of Guy’s, and her uncle, Francis Charlewood Turner, was a physician at the London Hospital. Two of Davies-Colley’s younger brothers, Robert and Hugh, became surgeons and fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons. Other family members were also accomplished: her older sister Frances Baker was successful painter who trained at the Slade; her cousin, Harriet Weaver, was a political activist and feminist publisher, who become a patron of James Joyce. Davies-Colley spent her childhood divided between Harley Street in London and Sussex, and attended the Church of England High School for Girls in Baker Street and then Queen’s College, Harley Street. On leaving school, she chose to live among the poor in London’s East End, working for the Invalid Children’s Aid Association and then as a London School Board manager, living in a ‘people’s dwelling’ in Wapping on a very small income. In her mid-twenties, she decided to become a doctor and studied at Regent Street Polytechnic for matriculation and preliminary science examinations for London University. In 1902, she enrolled at the London School of Medicine for Women, where she was an outstanding student, qualifying with the MB BS in 1907. She became a house surgeon at the New Hospital for Women in Euston Road (later renamed the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital after its founder). She then became a demonstrator in anatomy at the London School of Medicine for Women and a surgical registrar at the Royal Free Hospital. In 1910, she was awarded an MD by the University of London and in 1911 she obtained the FRCS by examination, becoming the first woman to gain the fellowship. In the same year, with others, including the surgeon Maud Chadburn and her cousin, Harriet Weaver, Davies-Colley began raising funds for a hospital for women and children in South London, staffed only by women. An outpatients’ department was opened in 1912 and in 1916 the first inpatient beds were opened in a new building at Clapham Common. Davies-Colley remained on the staff of the hospital as senior surgeon until her death. She was also a surgeon at the Marie Curie Cancer Hospital and senior obstetrician at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital. In 1917, she was a founder member of the Medical Women’s Federation. Davies-Colley lived with her colleague Maud Chadburn for 25 years, who described her in an obituary in the *Medical Women’s Federation Quarterly Review*. As a surgeon, she was skilful and experienced, very observant, with a clear, logical mind. As a person, she was shy, ‘humble-minded’ and reserved, preferring to miss meetings and social functions, although ‘…to meet friends in real friendship was a great joy to her.’ She travelled widely and ‘knew beautiful places in Italy, Egypt, Palestine and Turkey as well as England, Wales and Ireland’. She was exceptionally sensitive to and appreciative of beauty: ‘All her life sunshine, beautiful country, beautiful surroundings, appealed to her at once and strengthened her.’ She loved to garden at her country cottage in Essex, and also enjoyed reading and art. Above all, she had a ‘nobility of character…integrity of purpose…and a high sense of honour’. Chadburn summed her up as ‘…a rare spirit, a delightful human being, an honest level-headed worker, an able surgeon and a great and good friend’. Davies-Colley died unexpectedly of thyroid toxaemia at her home 16 Harley Street on 10 December 1934. She was 60. In 2004 one of the lecture theatres at the Royal College of Surgeons in Lincolns Inn Fields was dedicated to her memory. Sarah Gillam
Resource Identifier RCS: E003941
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Parkhouse, Helen Fitzmaurice (1956 - 2010)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2011-11-11 2014-06-10
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/373759373759
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Helen Parkhouse was a well-respected urological surgeon, a senior lecturer with honorary consultant status in the department of urology at St Thomas' Hospital, London. Born in Manchester into a non-medical family on 5 February 1956, Helen was the only daughter of Austin Fitzmaurice, a shopkeeper, and Margaret Fitzmaurice née Graham, a housewife. She had two younger brothers, Anthony and David. She was educated at St Hugh of Lincoln Primary School and then Loreto Convent School in Manchester. Here she had a good academic record and gained the school prize for physics and became deputy head girl. She then proceeded to Birmingham University for her medical education. When qualified she became a house physician at the Royal Hospital, Wolverhampton, to W A Hudson, a consultant cardiologist, and followed this with her first surgical posts, as a house surgeon to J B Marczak, a general surgeon, and then to J W Jowett, a thoracic surgeon. With the intention of training in surgery, she spent six months as a senior house officer at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, gaining experience in the accident and emergency department under the supervision of R B Duthie and J Cockin, J Spivey, D J Fuller and J Kenright. She studied for the primary FRCS while she was a resident medical officer at the London Clinic. In order to gain more experience in the generality of surgery, Helen spent a year as a senior house officer at Kingston General Hospital with WJ (Bill) Bradfield, Paul Jarrett, Graham Farrington and Muriel Waterfall. She then gained valuable experience at registrar level in general surgery at the Cheltenham General Hospital working with Peter Boreham, John Fairgrieve and S Haynes. It was during this post that she was successful in the final FRCS examination, and met her future husband, then a houseman. Helen then entered a two-year rotating registrar post based at St Thomas' Hospital from 1982 to 1984. The first year was spent at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital, where she worked in general surgery with Michael Williams, Robert Heddle and Richard Collins. She gained her first experience of pure urology at St Thomas' Hospital with Kenneth Shuttleworth, Wyndham Lloyd-Davies and Michael Bultitude. This confirmed Helen's desire to specialise in urology. To this ends, she wisely obtained a two-year research post at the Middlesex Hospital under the guidance of Richard Turner-Warwick and Euan Milroy, until April 1986. It was during this period of research that she investigated bladder dysfunction in Parkinson's disease and various aspects of urinary incontinence. Some of her early papers were written at this time, and numerous presentations were given to learned societies at home and abroad, particularly in the USA. She was the main author of some of these. She then had a spell as a senior house officer in paediatric surgery at Great Ormond Street for Sick Children, working with Philip Ransley and Patrick Duffy. In July 1986 she became a clinical lecturer at this institution, a post she held for over a year. She was then a senior registrar in paediatric urology for eight months. This broadened her urological experience, and made it possible for her to publish further papers and give lectures. In 1989 she was a Hunterian professor, the same year as her husband. Proceeding to a further senior registrar appointment at St Bartholomew's Hospital, she worked with Bill Hendry, Hugh Whitfield and Roger Kirby. She passed the relatively new diploma of FRCS (Urol) during this year, and the stage was set for her to apply for consultant posts. She first became a senior lecturer with consultant status at St Thomas' Hospital. The following year she was appointed to Mount Vernon Hospital for three years, having some sessions at Hillingdon Hospital, Uxbridge. In 2002 she held a consultant urologist post at Benenden Hospital, Cranbrook, Kent for a year. As a consultant she was joint author of *Color atlas of urology* (second edition, London, Wolfe, 1994) and, with Krishna Sethia, produced *Urology* (London, Mosby-Wolfe, 1995). After 18 years in the NHS, she then decided to practise exclusively in the private sector, specialising in female urology. She was initially based at the London Clinic and then had rooms in Harley Street and was a consultant urologist at King Edward VII's Hospital (Sister Agnes) in Beaumont Street, London, and the Lister Hospital. She also consulted at the McIndoe Surgical Centre, East Grinstead, Sussex, and the Nuffield Hospital, Haywards Heath. She also carried out medico-legal work, and was a practising member of the Academy of Experts from 1990. Helen was a member of numerous learned societies, including the British Association of Urological Surgeons, the International Society of Urology and the International Continence Society, and was an associate member of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She was a regular contributor at all of them. From 1985 to 1996 she read some 20 papers and had three poster presentations, both at home and abroad. She was a strong supporter of the urology section of the Royal Society of Medicine and became a member of the council. Helen was a good athlete and excelled at tennis at club level. She enjoyed skiing, particularly at the yearly 'uro-ski' meetings of the section of urology of the Royal Society of Medicine. Other outside interests included the governorships of two schools, Cumnor House School, Danehill, and Burgess Hill School for Girls. She enjoyed opera and was a regular supporter of the Glyndebourne Festival. She had a passionate interest in helicopter flying and held a commercial pilot's licence. She married Nicholas Parkhouse, a plastic surgeon, in 1986. They had four children - Emma, Clare, James and Tom. Perhaps Helen would have described her role as a mother as being her finest achievement. Tragically, she died in her sleep at home in Chelwood Gate, near Haywards Heath, on 30 June 2010, aged just 54. This was almost certainly due to a sudden and complete heart block. Nick awakened in the morning to find his wife dead by his side.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001576
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ashken, Michael Ralph Handley (1931 - 2016)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by Peter Worth
Publication Date 2016-10-27 2017-08-03
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009200-E009299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381441381441
Occupation Urologist
Details Michael Handley Ashken was a consultant urologist at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. Michael's father, Laurence Handley Ashken ('Laurie'), was one of five children born in the East End of London and his mother, Eva Ashken née Cameron, came from Glasgow. With support from his family, Laurie studied medicine at the Middlesex Hospital and, after qualification, became a general practitioner in London. Michael was one of two children; his sister, Tanya, was eight years younger and became a successful sculptor and silversmith living in Wellington, New Zealand. At the age of seven, Michael went to boarding school, four years at Dunhurst and then on to Bedales, where he excelled at all sports, especially cricket, which he enjoyed playing and watching whenever possible all his life. He started his pre-clinical training when he was 17 at the Middlesex Hospital at the time of the onset of the NHS. After his first MB, when he was awarded the Charles Bell prize in anatomy, he did a BSc in physiology, gaining a 2.2. During his clinical years, he won the Lyell gold medal in surgery and the Fitton prize in orthopaedics, as well as gaining honours in medicine in his finals when he qualified in November 1955. His house jobs at the Middlesex were for Richard Sampson ('Dick') Handley, the breast surgeon and Edward Hart, the paediatrician. He worked hard during this job, learning anatomy and physiology, as well as attending the famous anatomy course held by Frank Stansfield, and passed the primary FRCS without having to attend the Royal College of Surgeons' course. He also won the Colin McKenzie prize in anatomy and physiology. He then did the necessary casualty job at Guildford, before going to Manchester as a senior house officer in a surgical rotation involving orthopaedics, urology, thoracic and general surgery. This was followed in January 1959 by a registrar post at the Middlesex with John Howard Lees Ferguson and he passed the final FRCS exam in May 1959. Once he had achieved this, he was called up for military service and successfully managed to swap a posting to Germany to one in Malaya, where he gained a lot of clinical experience. It was at a cricket match in 1950 that he first met Iris Platt, a South African, who had come to England to do her first MB at Guy's. She also did a BSc and qualified in March 1956. Mike and Iris were married in May 1956, when Michael was just about to start his second house job and Iris her first as a house physician in paediatrics at Guy's. Their daughter, Sharon, was born in Manchester in December 1957. Their son, Ian, was born in June 1960 in Malaya and Peter, their second son, was born in October 1964. When Michael returned from Malaya at the end of his National Service, he was given the choice of which registrar job he would like at the Middlesex. He chose the one with Sir Eric Riches and Richard Turner-Warwick (with whom he had been at school at Bedales) for six months. He then did thoracic surgery with Thomas Holmes Sellors and John Rashleigh ('Jack') Belcher. Then, as was customary, he took two years out of surgery to do a MS thesis on 'A study of the renal vascular patterns in hypertension, chronic pyelonephritis and other diseases'. This was initially rejected, but when accepted he was awarded a Hunterian professorship in 1966. In 1964, he was appointed as a senior registrar to Oswald Vaughan Lloyd-Davies and Richard Turner-Warwick. He was appointed as a consultant urologist to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in February 1968, but before starting he went to Mount Sinai Hospital in New York for three months to work with Herbert Brendler and where he also met Elliot Leiter, who later became a great supporter of the section of urology at the Royal Society of Medicine. With his appointment in Norwich as the first pure urologist, he set up what was to become an important urology department with Alan Green, which over the years was popular with trainees, many of whom subsequently became consultants in prestigious centres. He was at the forefront of certain aspects of urological techniques and popularised continent urinary diversion in collaboration with Nils Koch in Sweden and Ernst Zingg and Urs Studer in Bern. In 1982, he published a book on this subject (*Urinary diversion* Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, Springer-Verlag, 1982). He was appointed as clinical tutor in 1970 to the postgraduate medical centre as well as chairman of the consultant staff committee. He was president of the section of urology at the Royal Society of Medicine from 1990 to 1991. He was the first president to take the section to North America for the winter meeting, which proved very popular and was supported by American urologists. The title of his presidential address was 'The changing fellowship', which drew on his experience as an examiner and senior examiner at the Royal College of Surgeons. He was president of the British Association of Urological Surgeons from 1994 to 1996. As a result of this and his involvement in examining, he travelled widely both nationally and internationally. He was also involved in setting up the Royal College of Surgeons' urology diploma. He was a member of a contemporary urological travel club for 25 years and the Grey Turner Surgical Travelling Club. In 2006, his family set up a charitable trust to celebrate his 75th birthday, to sponsor visiting lecturers to the local East Anglian annual urology meeting in Cambridge. Michael reduced his clinical commitments in 1991 and finally retired in 1996. Sadly, his retirement years were dogged by medical problems, but he enjoyed his woodworking hobby of making and designing chairs. He always said it was a great hobby as wood does not bleed! He very much enjoyed his travels to the States and to the southern hemisphere. He continued to enjoy watching and encouraging the progress of his children and six grandchildren. He was able to celebrate his very happy marriage to Iris with their diamond wedding anniversary in May 2016. Michael Handley Ashken died on 22 September 2016. He was 85.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009258
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Smith, John William (1864 - 1926)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-02-07
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/375739375739
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Lancaster on August 13th, 1864, the eldest son of Thomas Davidson Smith, whose family had been settled in the district for centuries. He received his early education at the Friends' School and at the ancient Royal Grammar School, Lancaster, where he had a good grounding in the classics, for which he retained a love throughout life. He preferred to become a student of medicine instead of following the paternal business, and in 1880 entered the University of Edinburgh. Many of his fellow-townsmen, including Sir William Turner (qv), who was also educated at the Grammar School, were Edinburgh medical graduates. Naturally enough Smith attracted the attention of Turner, who appointed him one of his Junior Demonstrators of Anatomy. After graduation in 1886 he became Resident House Surgeon to John Duncan in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. This fortunate appointment profoundly influenced his future career. Duncan was a remarkable man, and an illustration of the dictum of the late Sir William Dalby, given in his shrewd and witty *Dr Chesterfield's Letters to his Son*, that the largest practices and widest influences are not necessarily in the hands of those men who are most in the public eye. During his distinguished Edinburgh career Smith was elected President of the Royal Medical Society. He studied for a few months in Vienna and in Berne, and in 1889 became Junior Demonstrator of Anatomy at the Victoria University, Manchester, under Professor A H Young (qv), himself an old pupil of Sir William Turner. This post he held for two years, during which he published several papers on human and comparative anatomy. In 1891 he was elected Resident Surgical Officer to the Manchester Royal Infirmary, thus following the old-time tradition of the training for the practice of surgery - that a surgeon should first, and above all things, be an anatomist. In 1894 Smith began private surgical practice, and held some junior non resident appointments on the staff of the Infirmary, such as that of Junior Anaesthetist. He became interested about this time in the medical services of the Army, the Volunteer Army Medical Service Corps or Bearer Company being then the sole outlet for the energies of a civilian. He became an enthusiastic volunteer officer in this corps, and in the dark period of the South African War went out early in 1900 in command of the first detachment of 72 men who had volunteered for ambulance service. On arrival he was separated from his men and was detailed for service at Bloemfontein, where he was put in charge of the Surgical Division of No 9 General Hospital, South African Field Force, and was in that post for six months. He had left papers behind him in charge of a friend, which the latter was to present in case a vacancy occurred on the honorary staff of the Manchester Infirmary. A vacancy duly occurred, but the friend forgot to hand in Smith's application. Another man was elected, but luckily there was a fresh vacancy within a year, when in 1901 Smith was elected Assistant Surgeon, and became full Surgeon in 1910. After the war his interest continued in the Volunteer Bearer Company, and in 1908, on the formation of the Territorial Force, he was given a commission as Major in the new RAMC (TF). He commanded a Field Ambulance Company and rarely missed a camp. He succeeded G A Wright (qv) in command of the 2nd Western General Military Hospital, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel RAMC (T). It thus fell to his lot, in conjunction with F A Westmacott, to mobilize the hospital early in August, 1914. The hospital was originally equipped and designed to comprise 500 beds under one roof, and there was the nucleus of a trained military staff of officers and orderlies. Except that all contracts for equipment had long been made out and placed and a building earmarked for the hospital, everything else had to be done de novo. A large school in the centre of the town near the Southern Railway centre, with a smaller one a few hundred yards distant, were taken over and rapidly transformed into hospitals. At a very early date patients were being admitted, first from training centres in the district, then direct from the front. The accommodation was rapidly extended again and again. The extension went on almost continuously until about 1917, by which time the original base hospital of 500 beds in two buildings, with a few odd auxiliary hospitals, had increased to a base hospital with 5000 to 6000 beds, and some 120 auxiliary hospitals, making a total all told of upwards of 20,000 beds. Smith remained in command till late in 1915, when he began to devote himself wholly to work as head of the Surgical Department of the Hospital. He was made Brevet Colonel in 1917 - an honour granted to many men engaged in similar military medical work at that time - and later was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Lancaster in recognition of his services. He continued in practice till 1922, when he retired owing to failing health. He had been Professor of Systematic Surgery in the Victoria University since 1911, and was Emeritus Professor at the time of his death. He was a skilful surgeon, his judgement and knowledge of human nature being appreciated by all. He possessed shrewd common sense, and expressed his views clearly in matters of policy connected with the Medical School. Much interested in medico-legal cases, he was often a witness on behalf of the Corporation Tramways Committee, to which he was Consulting Surgeon, and was for some years Medical Referee in the County Court. He lived at Richmond Road House, Ingleton, Carnforth, Yorks, after his retirement in 1922, died there on April 13th, 1926, and was buried at Tatham Church, Wennington, on April 16th. He married in 1910 the daughter of Henry James Mason, who survived him, with two children, a son and a daughter. Publications: "Anatomy of *Spheniscus Demersus*."- *Studies in Anatomy from the Anatomical Department, Owens College*, 1891. "Muscular Anomalies in Human Anatomy."-*Ibid*. "Six Months with a Military Hospital (South African Field Force)."- *Manch Med Chron*, 1901. "Enteroptosis." - *Ibid*, 1913. "Operative Treatment of Carcinoma Recti." - *Ibid* 1911. "Atony and Prolapse of Large Intestine." - *Ibid*, 1920. "Surgical Anatomy of the Rectum." - *Jour Anat and Physiol*, 1913, xlvii, 350. "Excision of the Rectum for Carcinoma; a Record of 34 Cases, 1904-10." - *Brit Med Jour*, 1911, I, 366.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003556
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Davies-Colley, John Neville Colley (1842 - 1900)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-09-14
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001300-E001399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373576373576
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Chester on September 9th, 1842, one of the four sons of Dr Thomas Davies (d.1892), Physician to the Chester General Infirmary, who afterwards took the name of Colley. Educated at King's College School, London, when Dr Major was Head Master. He was admitted a pensioner at Trinity College, Cambridge, as John Neville Colley Davies in 1860 and became a Scholar of the College in 1863. He graduated BA in 1864, being bracketed Forty-first Wrangler and appearing top of the second class in the Classical Tripos. He subsequently became a Fellow of Trinity College and was later a Fellow of St Catharine's College. During his undergraduate career he proved himself so good an oarsman as to have been the reserve man in the University crew. Davies-Colley entered Guy's Hospital in 1884, where he attracted favourable notice, both as a student and athlete, and was appointed Surgical Registrar and Tutor in June, 1868. He then became Lecturer on Experimental Philosophy and Demonstrator of Anatomy at Guy's Hospital, and in 1872 was appointed Assistant Surgeon, at which date Thomas Bryant (qv), Senior Assistant Surgeon, succeeded Edward Cock (qv) as Surgeon. In 1880, upon the resignation of Cooper Forster (qv), Davies-Colley became full Surgeon. He lectured upon anatomy during several sessions, and then for many years gave half the course on surgery. He was also Visiting Surgeon, and at the time of his death Consulting Surgeon, to the Seamen's Hospital, Greenwich, and was Examiner in Anatomy on the Conjoint Board of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons (1888-1892); Examiner in Anatomy for the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons (1887-1888); Examiner in Anatomy to the University of Cambridge; and a Member of the Court of Examiners (1892-1900). He also examined in surgery at the University of Cambridge. His career as a hospital surgeon and teacher was one of great success, and as an examiner he was conspicuously popular with those students who knew their subjects, for he was quiet, clear, and scrupulously courteous. As a teacher he was extremely lucid and painstaking, his somewhat deliberate methods of imparting instruction being particularly appreciated by his pupils. His slow and cadenced method of speaking was adopted as a remedy for a defect of speech: he had an obstinate proclivity to stammer, but by taking thought over his manner of elocution he overcame the infirmity early in his career. He held in turn the appointments in the Medical School of Guy's Hospital of Demonstrator of Anatomy, Demonstrator of Practical Surgery, Lecturer on Anatomy, and Lecturer on Surgery. As a surgeon he held a very high place in the opinion of all his confreres. He was bold in scheme and careful in procedure, while his great industry and fine memory allowed him to carry about with him the results of his experience to be produced in a moment exactly when and where it was wanted. He trod in the footsteps of Henry Howse (qv), who introduced Listerism into the surgical routine at Guy's Hospital. He subsequently followed the latest trend of aseptic surgery, and, well informed in all that was then known, undertook the biggest operations up to the last. His work at the Royal College of Surgeons was notable. He was elected to the Council in July, 1896, and both there and at the examination table was conspicuous by his abilities. One of his last acts at the College was the unveiling in the theatre of the Lister portrait by W W Ouless. In November, 1899, Davies-Colley first became aware that he was suffering from cancer of the liver, but to others he gave no sign of his knowledge. He continued imperturbably at his work, and with failing strength completed the first half of the winter session at Guy's Hospital. He married the daughter of Thomas Turner, for many years Treasurer of Guy's Hospital, and sister of Dr F Charlewood Turner, Physician to the London Hospital. Two of his sons became Fellows of the College, Robert Davies-Colley, CMG, becoming Surgeon to Guy's Hospital, whilst his daughter, Miss Eleanor Davies-Colley, had the unique distinction of becoming the first Woman Fellow of the College. He practised at 36 Harley Street. He died at his country house, Borough, Pulborough, Sussex, on May 6th, 1900, and was buried in the churchyard, Pulborough. He was survived by his widow and children. His portrait (of early date) is in the Council Album, and a good one accompanies his biography in the *British Medical Journal*. In *Guy's Hospital Gazette* (1900, June 9) there is a fine portrait, which some do not, however, regard as a good likeness. A Davies-Colley Memorial, for which subscriptions were invited at a meeting of the staff of the Medical School of Guy's Hospital, took the form of a collection of books now in a special case in the Guy's Hospital Library. Some £380 were subscribed towards this object. Publications: Davies-Colley put his name to no separate work, but up to the time of his death was still employed upon an important book on surgery, which from its practical nature might have become a classic if published. "Carbuncle," "Gonorrhoeal Rheumatism," "Injuries and Diseases of the Neck, Throat, and Oesophagus," and "Malignant Pustule" in Heath's *Dictionary of Surgery*. Articles on "Muscles" in Morris's *Treatise of Anatomy*. "A Case of Resection of the Tarsal Bones for Congenital Talipes Equino-varus." - *Med.- Chir. Trans.*, 1877, lx, 11. In this article he recommends the procedure for cases where ordinary methods had been unsuccessfully employed or were likely to fail in a severe case. "On Malignant Pustule." In this article he advocated the excision of the whole of the inflamed area, or, at any rate, of the indurated skin, with the subsequent use of iodoform, perchloride of mercury, or a strong solution of nitric acid. The full title of this article is "Notes of Two Cases of Malignant Pustule, together with a Table of Seventeen Cases treated at Guy's Hospital: with a Report on the Microscopical Examination of Sections of Skin affected with Malignant Pustule, removed during life by F Charlewood Turner," 8vo, 3 coloured plates, London, 1882; reprinted from *Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1882, lxv, 237. "A New Operation for the Cure of Cleft of the Hard and Soft Palate, with an Account of Six Cases so treated." - *Ibid.*, 1894, lxxvii, 237. All these papers are highly practical and good examples of the sound common-sense principles of surgery which he always taught. He sent numerous reports of cases to the *Guy's Hosp. Reps.*, of which journal he edited many volumes in conjunction first with Dr Frederick Taylor and then with Dr Hale White. His reports of cases and articles are in most of the volumes from 1870 onwards and cover a wide range of subjects. He contributed also a number of reports of cases to the *Trans. Clin. Soc.*, *Trans. Pathol. Soc.*, the *Lancet*, and other medical journals.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001393
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Griffiths, Victor George (1920 - 2014)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2014-06-13 2014-07-18
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/377651377651
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details Of those serving the needs of Malta and its population after the Second World War, the name of Victor Griffiths stands out as a most remarkable man. A gifted general surgeon, he had a very wide repertoire, including thoracic surgery. He served Malta as professor of surgery and of anatomy over many years and was described on his death by a former trainee, Michael Camilleri of the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA 'as an expert diagnostician, a technically gifted thyroid, prostate, breast, stomach, biliary and colonic surgeon. He based his craft on mastery of anatomy and respect for the physiological consequences of different surgical options that led him to choose the least traumatic one'. Over a long professional life, he trained many surgeons who now practise in various parts of the world. He was a very cultured man with wide ranging interests and was the last local civilian surgeon to the Royal Navy in Malta. He was born on 23 September 1920 in Paola, a town in the Grand Harbour area of Malta. Known for having the largest parish church on the island and the Hal Safleni Hypogeum (Neolithic underground temple and burial place), it also has the only mosque and Islamic cultural centre in Malta. Victor was the son of William Edward Griffiths and Liberata Jessie Chapman. Both the Griffiths and Chapman families had naval connections, and came out to Malta in the 19th century. His father worked in the expense accounts department of the Royal Naval Dockyard, and was active in Lord Strickland's Constitutional Party, a pro-British political party, whose followers were known as 'Striklandjani'. Reputedly his father had an undercover role in intelligence and security in the Dockyard. His father had two daughters from a previous marriage and Victor Griffiths was the eldest of four sons of a second marriage. Victor Griffiths received his education at HM Dockyard School and the Lyceum, the oldest secondary school in Malta, before going to the Royal University of Malta, where he qualified with a BSc in 1939 and an MD in 1942. Local house appointments were undertaken after qualification, but he felt it was necessary to gain further experience in the UK, hopefully proceeding a surgical career. In Malta his surgical mentor was Peter-Paul Debono, whom he regarded as a master-surgeon. During his university medical training he met Mary Dolores Grech Marguerat, the daughter of Oreste Grech Marguerat and one of the few female medical students in his year. She and Victor often sat at lectures in close proximity: Mary, in the hope of improving her own lecture notes, borrowed those of Victor. On one occasion, Victor passed on a page on which was written a single sentence: 'Marie, je t'aime'! Their courtship was in part continued on long walks into the country village where her family had been evacuated. They both qualified in 1942, and married in April 1949. In November 1942, Malta had its first outbreak of poliomyelitis and a second occurred in 1945. Hugh Seddon of Oxford had launched orthopaedic services on the island, and the governor offered Verdala Castle, now the president's summer residence, as a children's orthopaedic hospital. Mary Marguerat became the medical officer and was also a founder of the Malta Polio Fund, which, having widened it scope, is still active today. From 1945 Victor Griffiths continued his studies on a Maltese government scholarship in England with the aim of obtaining the FRCS in one year, which, to everyone's surprise, he did. Advised to get more experience in provincial hospitals, he worked at the Royal United Hospital Bath and in other registrar posts. For a period he worked at Hammersmith Hospital and the British Postgraduate Medical School under many of the top surgeons, including George Grey Turner, who had come down from Newcastle-upon-Tyne. It is thought he visited other London teaching hospitals, as his study wall had shields, not only of the British Postgraduate Medical School, but of St Bartholomew's, Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals. On returning to Malta in 1947, Victor Griffiths was appointed as a consultant surgeon, and in 1960, a lecturer in surgery. In 1969 he succeeded Alfred Craig as professor and head of surgery at the University of Malta and director of surgery at the health department, where he proved an inspiration to medical students and house surgeons alike. He relinquished this post in 1977 as a result of the medical union's dispute with the Dom Mintoff government. He was appointed as a consultant adviser and director of the department of surgery in 1987, retiring in 1991. From 2003 to 2008 he was university ombudsman, an ideal person to settle disputes at any level. A great believer in teamwork in the care of patients, with his colleague Alex J Warrington he performed many combined procedures, despite limited resources. The Griffiths-Warrington team performed synchronous combined abdominoperineal resection of the large intestine in patients with chronic ulcerative colitis, alternating their roles as the abdominal or perineal surgeons to hone their skills in the different parts of the surgery. During surgery he taught continually, peppering assistants and students with questions and training them to marshal their thoughts. He encouraged them to think about current practice and when conventional measures should be questioned or even abandoned. Victor Griffiths had a long interest in and fascination for the basic sciences, and was appointed professor of anatomy to the University of Malta in 1953. To glean ideas on the running a professorial department, he went back to England. From October 1953 to March 1954 he joined Alec J E Cave as an honorary lecturer in the department of anatomy, St Bartholomew's Medical School. The main author of this tribute, then demonstrating anatomy under Cave, found Griffiths a stimulating colleague with a wide anatomical knowledge, an excellent teacher of students as well as a fair examiner of their knowledge. Both Alec Cave and Victor Griffiths had the ability to make any lecture more interesting by building up blackboard pictures in coloured chalks. Throughout his active university life and beyond Griffiths' talks were, in addition to their academic value, inspiring in their use of the English language and syntax. It was said of him that: 'Compared with the way this eloquent speaker expressed words, more recent presentations look thin and shallow despite today's use of audio-visual technology.' In 1990, in retirement, Griffiths became the first editor of *BOLD*, the principal publication of the International Institute on Ageing, United Nations - Malta, and only stepped down in 2012. Outside medicine, he was a voracious reader with an insatiable appetite for learning. He was a founder member of the British Cultural Association in 1979 and became its chairman in 1988. He was a great supporter of English teaching in Maltese schools through 'speak your mind' debates with sixth form pupils. Many honours came his way: he was a Knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and in 1996 received Malta's National Order of Merit. In 2002 he became a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE), in recognition of his work promoting relations between the United Kingdom and Malta, especially in medicine, culture and education. It was presented to him by the British High Commissioner on behalf of HM The Queen. Victor and Mary had two children. Their first child, Margaret Mary, was born in May 1950. She read languages at Bristol University, and became an educator at university and school level, and currently works in the field of dyslexia. She married Henry Naud and has two children, Chantal and Robin. Chantal has two sons, so Victor Griffiths became a great- grandfather before he died. Victor and Mary's second child, William Edward Griffiths, was born in January 1955, studied natural sciences at Oxford University and followed his parents into medicine. After house appointments in Bath and Oxford and a short spell of missionary hospital work in Zambia, he entered general practice in Richmond, Surrey. He married Lucy Boyce. Sadly, Victor Griffiths recognised the onset of his own Alzheimer's disease. He died on 28 March 2014, aged 93, and was survived by his wife Mary, two children, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005468
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Dunlop, Sir Ernest Edward (1907 - 1993)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007900-E007999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380102380102
Occupation General surgeon
Details Ernest Edward Dunlop, widely known as 'Weary', was a quite exceptional man whose stamina, sheer tenacity and bravery whilst a prisoner of war in the Far East gave him a unique position in Australia and in the College. He must be one of the few surgeons whose likeness was printed on an Australian stamp as well as on the 1995 Australian 50 cent piece, with the head of the monarch on the obverse. No account such as this can encompass such a legend, and the reader is urged to study *The War Diaries of Weary Dunlop*, a remarkable illustrated record of his period in captivity which was published forty years after the end of the second world war. He was born in Australia at Wangaratta, Victoria, on 12 July 1907, the younger of the two sons of James Henry Dunlop, a farmer at Sheep Wash Creek, and Alice Emily Maud, a teacher. His great-grandfather, Henry Nagle Walpole, had served as a surgeon with the East India Company during the Indian mutiny. After education at Stewarton State School and Benalla High School, Victoria, where he won a number of prizes, he studied at the Victorian College of Pharmacy, winning the Gold Medal in 1927 and 1928. Then, like Sir Thomas Dunhill before him, who had also been a pharmacist before becoming a surgeon, Dunlop determined to study medicine. He secured an exhibition to Melbourne University and a resident scholarship to Ormond College, where he was president of the students' club. He won prizes in physiology, obstetrics and gynaecology, and graduated with first class honours. He was house surgeon and registrar at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1935 and 1936, and was registrar at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, in 1937. In the pattern of those times he then came to the United Kingdom to study for the final Fellowship at St Bartholomew's Hospital, having passed the primary in Australia. He was house surgeon at Hammersmith Hospital to Grey Turner and A K Henry, and later on was to list with gratitude Sir Alan Newton, Sir Victor Hurley, Sir William Upjohn, Professor Edgar King, Sir Gordon Gordon-Taylor and, most notably of all, Sir Thomas Dunhill, as his surgical mentors. Throughout his early years Weary was an outstanding sportsman: he won Blues at Melbourne University for Australian Rugby Union Football and heavyweight boxing, and won Australian Rugby Union caps between 1932 and 1934. Shortly before the war he was in the memorable St Mary's XV for 1939, won a Barbarian cap, and was selected for the Commonwealth XV. Throughout his life he continued to enjoy tennis, golf and cricket. He stood 6'4", and was described by Robert Marshall as being 'a huge, slow, affable, shambling bear of a man who spoke slowly, courteously and calmly. He seemed the very personification of his undergraduate nickname but, in the true Australian tradition, the label 'Weary' was no more accurate than 'Tiny' would have been. His apparent slowness concealed a mind like a steel trap'. Then came the war. He had just been appointed an EMS specialist surgeon in the St Mary's sector in 1939 when he volunteered for the medical branch of the Australian Imperial Forces in London, and was posted to Palestine, which he recorded as 'the most unholy land'. He served in Tobruk, Greece and Crete, where he narrowly escaped capture. Early in 1942 he landed in Java, three weeks before the Dutch surrender. A fellow prisoner, Maurice Kinmonth FRCS, described the drama of the handover of the Allied Hospital. A tiny Japanese General was received by the towering Colonel Dunlop, who stood rigidly to attention. The General, by way of showing his displeasure, drew his sword and flashed it repeatedly on either side of Weary's head. Weary never blinked. Australians were not easily intimidated. Although Weary was neither a combatant nor the most senior officer of the combined forces, he was, by general consent, appointed Officer-in-Charge. He commanded the camp at Bandoeng until January 1943, when several thousands of prisoners were transported via Singapore up the Malaysian peninsula to an unknown destination. Many camp sites were prepared to build the notorious Burma-Thailand Railway. It was at this time that Weary's outstanding stoicism and courage were tested to the full. 'Part hero, part saint' said one of his colleagues. His surgery in the most primitive conditions saved many lives and brought relief to innumerable sick and wounded. No less important was his leadership and inspiration for his fellow prisoners. 'Weary Dunlop was a lighthouse of sanity in a universe of madness and suffering'. By surreptitious means he established a relationship with Mr Boon Pong, a courageous Burmese river trader, who bravely agreed to supply essential foods and medicines which significantly relieved the suffering of the sick and starving. After the war, Weary returned to Melbourne to marry his fiancée Helen Raeburn Ferguson, from whom he had been separated since 1939. He became honorary surgeon to the Royal Melbourne Hospital from 1946 to 1967. He was also consultant surgeon to the Peter MacCallum Cancer Clinic, the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital, and the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital. For the rest of his working life he was a very general surgeon who was known for 'working on and on at all hours, day and night', a pioneer in laryngectomy, thoraco-abdominal surgery, oesophagectomy and surgery of the aorta. In 1969, when he was 62, he led the Australian surgical team to South Vietnam. He was absolutely dedicated to the cause of war veterans, former prisoners-of-war and war widows. He embraced innumerable other good works. He was President of the Australian Anti-Cancer Council, the Victorian Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependency, and the Victorian-Asian Medical Association. He was Patron of the Dunlop/Boon Pong/Thailand/Australia Medical Exchange, and the Sir Edward Dunlop Medical Foundation for Ageing Ex-Servicemen. He was named Australian of the Year in 1977, and starred in a BBC 'This is your Life' programme in 1979. With his old friend Robert Casey, Weary Dunlop was actively involved in the Colombo Plan for a number of Asian countries. He was honoured by the surgical and medical associations of many countries. He was an untiring surgical traveller, notably with the International Society of Surgery, of which he was a Vice-President. The last few years of Weary's domestic life were marred by his wife's Alzheimer's disease. She died in 1988. They had two sons, Richard and Alexander, one of whom became a medical practitioner in Melbourne. Weary himself remained remarkably fit and vigorous until he developed pneumonia and died on 2 July 1993. His State funeral on 12 July was attended by 1500 people in the Cathedral, together with representatives of the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition, the Governor-General, the Governor of Victoria, members of the judiciary and of many associations and national institutions. The eulogy was given by the Rt Hon Sir Ninian Stephen, former Governor-General of Australia (1982-1989) who movingly said that 'he was loved and respected at a distance by millions, and intimately by his family and those fortunate enough to be his close friends at home and overseas'. More than twenty thousand people lined the streets of Melbourne. Some of Weary's ashes were scattered in Melbourne. The rest were take by his sons to the River Kwai, where they launched them in a bamboo boat decorated with orchids to the strains of a piper playing 'Flowers of the Forest'. There are statues of Weary Dunlop in Melbourne and Benalla, Victoria, near the family farm. The inscription on the base of the latter reads: *When despair and death reached out to us Weary Dunlop stood fast, a lighthouse of sanity in a universe of madness and suffering*.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007919
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gask, George Ernest (1875 - 1951)

2025-06-27T21:53:22Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-06-27
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/376338376338
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 1 August 1875, the fourth and youngest son of Henry and Elizabeth Gask, he was educated at Dulwich College. He studied at Lausanne, Freiburg, and Baden before entering St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College in 1893. He qualified in 1898, and was appointed house surgeon to John Langton. He held the usual posts of demonstrator of pathology and surgical registrar, and in 1907 was elected assistant surgeon under D'Arcy Power. By 1914 he was recognized as an excellent consultant and teacher, and well-known as an expert mountaineer and alpinist. He was particularly interested in the surgery of the chest, at that time a new specialty. The outbreak of war in August 1914 found him ready and equipped to play a distinguished part in the RAMC. He went to France in 1916, was four times mentioned in despatches, and won the DSO in 1917. He was appointed consulting surgeon to the Fourth Army in 1918, and was created CMG in 1919 for his services. He was active throughout in securing the most up-to-date surgical treatment for wounds of the chest and lungs. The West London Medico-Chirurgical Society awarded him its gold medal for his part in this work. Gask was not only an extremely able surgeon and a man of imperturbable character, he was moved by a deep sense of mission to improve the education of younger surgeons. Though silent and reserved, he exerted considerable personal magnetism and evoked warm affection in those who knew him well. He was withal a shrewd judge of men, and determined and unhurrying in the pursuit of any goal that he set before himself. Before and during the war he prepared the way for the introduction of whole-time professorial units in the teaching hospitals, and when he was appointed the first professor of surgery in the University of London in 1919, he was ready at once to start his unit at St Bartholomew's. He was bold enough to bring (Sir) Thomas Dunhill from Melbourne as his deputy, and had as his assistants Geoffrey Keynes and R Ogier Ward. This brilliant team established the success of Gask's innovation beyond criticism. Gask served as professor till 1935, when he retired at the age of sixty and was succeeded by (Sir) James Paterson Ross. Gask instituted the exchange of duties with leading surgeons from outside his hospital, thus bringing to St Bartholomew's among others Harvey Cushing, Moynihan, (Sir) David Wilkie, G Grey Turner, and (Sir) Max Page, all Fellows of this College. He usually walked to the Hospital from his house at 4 York Gate, Regent's Park, nearly 3 miles away, arriving at 9 am. During the period of his professorship Gask took an active part in professional activities. He was an original member of the Radium Trust, and served on the Medical Research Council 1937-41; he was one of the originators of the project for a Postgraduate Medical School in London, which he hoped to see established at one of the old undergraduate teaching hospitals, whose great traditions might thus be carried on at a new level. When the British Postgraduate Medical School was set up at the London County Council's Hammersmith Hospital he gave himself wholeheartedly to its service, as perhaps the most active member of its governing body. He took a leading part in the conduct of the *British Journal of Surgery*, attracting a wider membership to the general committee as the original founders gave up the work, and he himself succeeded Moynihan as chairman of the editorial committee and maintained the very high standard which the *Journal* had won. He examined in surgery for the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London, and Bristol. At the College he was a member of Council 1923-39 and vice-president 1933-34, being elected in March 1933 after the sudden death of Sir Percy Sargent. He gave a Hunterian lecture in 1930, and the Vicary lecture the same year; he was Bradshaw lecturer in 1932, and gave a special Hunterian lecture in 1937, describing the lately discovered papers of John Hunter's army service in Portugal in 1762-63. He was president of the Medical Society of London in 1935. With all this busy practice and administrative work Gask found time for much writing both professional and historical. With W G Spencer he issued a revision of Walsham's Practice of surgery in 1910, which was long a popular textbook, and with J Paterson Ross he published a pioneer study of the *Surgery of the sympathetic nervous system* in 1937. His historical writings were reprinted in a volume which his numerous friends and admirers gave him on his seventy-fifth birthday in 1950. Gask retired completely from all this activity in 1935 at the age of 60, settled in the country, and devoted himself to gardening. He served as a magistrate and on the rural district council. If he had not returned to full activity during the second world war, which broke out four years later, it might have been asked how a man of such great abilities, personal eminence, and successful achievement failed to win the very foremost position in his profession. Gask's very qualities were his only drawback he was ambitious not for himself but for his ideas, he was without guile and without a sense of rivalry. His calm and happy nature had the infinite patience of genius, but not its driving impetus. Immediately war broke out in September 1939, Gask was invited act temporarily as a surgeon at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, and a took part in the work of the rapidly expanding Oxford medical school. He was made a member of the high table at Christ Church, where his scholarly and friendly nature was warmly appreciated, and he admitted MA by decree of the University. He had been elected emeritus professor of surgery in the University of London when he retired in 1935 and consulting surgeon and a governor of St Bartholomew's. As the war went on he added to his duties at Oxford, becoming adviser in surgery for the region (Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire) under the Ministry of Health's Emergency Medical Service, and also working for the Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust and for the Bucks and Oxon region hospitals Council. Gask married in 1913 Ada Alexandra, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Crombie, CB MD of the Indian Medical Service. He died on 16 January 1951, aged 75, at his home Hatchmans, Hambleden Henley-on-Thames, survived by his wife and their son, Dr John Gask. He had suffered for some months from coronary thrombosis. The funeral at Hambleden was conducted by the Dean of Christ Church, and the memorial service was held at St Bartholomew-the-Less on 1 February. He left £1,000 to St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College. Gask practised a technique of extreme gentleness in the handling of tissues, at a time when the importance of this was barely appreciated, and later developed and taught the "no-touch" technique, the tissues being moved entirely by forceps. He was never ruffled even in the most trying circumstances, and an unexpected crisis made him pause for reflection rather than rush ahead. He believed in learning from the work of other surgeons, was an early member of Moynihan's Chirurgical Club for visiting surgical clinics in Britain, and for many years organized the very successful European tours of the Surgical Pilgrims. Earlier he had been a regular visitor to Switzerland for climbing and was honorary secretary of the Alpine Club. Many foreign honours came to him: he was an honorary Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, of the Académie de Chirurgie in Paris and the Société chirurgicale at Lyons, and a corresponding member of the Roman Academy of Surgery. He was decorated with the Legion of Honour (Officier) in 1937. The *British Journal of Surgery* for July 1950 (vol 38, no 149) was dedicated to him in honour of his seventy-fifth birthday. It contains a good photograph and an unsigned appreciation by Geoffrey Keynes. Gask was a man of splendid physique and fine appearance. Principal publications:- *The practice of surgery*. 10th edition of W J Walsham's *Surgery, its theory and practice*, by W G Spencer and G E Gask, London, 1910; 11th edition, *Surgery, a textbook*, by Gask and H. W Wilson, 1920. Methods of treating wounds of the chest, Lettsomian Lectures. *Trans Med Soc Lond* 1921, 44, 161. A contribution to the study of the treatment of epithelioma of the tongue by radium. Hunterian lecture, Royal College of Surgeons. *Lancet*, 1930, 1, 223. Vicary's predecessors. Thomas Vicary lecture, RCS 1930. *Brit J Surg* 1931, 18, 479-500. Experiences of the surgery of the sympathetic nervous system. Bradshaw lecture, RCS 1932. *Brit J Surg* 1933, 21, 113-130. *Surgery of the sympathetic nervous system*, with J Paterson Ross. London, Bailliere, 1937. A German translation of this book was published. Clean wounds, ancient and modem. Annual oration 1934. *Trans Med Soc Lond* 1934, 57, 270. Changing surgery. Presidential address 1935. *Trans Med Soc London*, 1936, 59, 1. John Hunter in the campaign in Portugal 1762-63. Special Hunterian lecture, RCS *Brit J Surg* 1937, 24, 640-668. *Essays in the History of Medicine*. London, Butterworth 1950, with portrait photographs of Gask. This volume was prepared by a group of his friends, published by subscription, and presented to him at a small gathering in his sick-room on his seventy-fifth birthday, 1 August 1950.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004155
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset