Search Results for

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372234372234
Occupation General surgeon
Details Will Davey wrote the first textbook on surgery in tropical countries. He was born on 28 February 1912 in Dunmurry, near Belfast, in Northern Ireland. His father, Robert, was a minister of religion. His mother was Charlotte née Higginson. One of a family of five, he studied medicine at Queens University, graduating in 1935. During his studies his mother gave him a copy of *For sinners only*, which led to his involvement in Moral Rearmament, an international movement for moral and spiritual renewal. During the second world war he joined up, but was given time to complete his exams, and became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland. He was then assigned to the RAF as a medical officer to a number of operational squadrons. In early 1944 he was part of a medical team assisting the Normandy landings. After the war he trained in gastroenterology at St James's Hospital, Balham, and subsequently became a consultant at the Whittington Hospital, where he ran a gastroenterological unit covering the whole northern area of London. In 1958 he was a Hunterian professor at the College. He ran courses to prepare students for the FRCS. His skills as a teacher led to an invitation from London University to go to Nigeria to become professor of surgery at University College, Ibadan, an offshoot of the British University. The first 14 doctors ever to graduate in Nigeria were among his students. Returning to London, Will wrote *Companion to surgery in Africa, etc*, (Edinburgh and London, E & S Livingstone, 1968), the first textbook on surgery for tropical countries. In 1969 he decided to settle in Australia, and set up as a surgeon in general practice in Portland, where he was also the port and quarantine officer, and medical officer to the town's large meatworks. In his later years he made several visits to India and four to Papua New Guinea, where he was pleased to find his book on tropical surgery being used. He was a past President of the Australian Provincial Surgeons Association. He retired in 1984. He played tennis into his 80s, took on computers at 90 and, latterly, the intricacies of digital cameras. He married Gill née Taylor in Reading, in 1950, after meeting her in the hospital laboratory where she worked. They had five children, ten grandchildren and a great grandson. He died on 30 May 2004 in Altona in Melbourne, Australia.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000047
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23 2010-01-27
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372237372237
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Trevor Dinning, known since childhood as ‘Jim’, was the architect of neurosurgical services in South Australia and the creator of a very successful research foundation. He was born in Dulwich, Adelaide, on 16 February 1919, the second child of Alfred Ernest Dinning, a school inspector and later headmaster of Adelaide Boys High School, and Maud Isabel née Ridley, who died two years after his birth. He was educated at his father’s school and then went on to study medicine at the University of Adelaide, qualifying in 1942 in the top three of the year after completing a shortened wartime course. In 1943 he joined the Army, serving as a captain in the Northern Australia Observer Unit and then in the 2nd 17th Australian Infantry Battalion. He developed pulmonary tuberculosis, which incapacitated him for some two years. He was discharged from the Army in 1946. It was at this time that he decided to make a career in neurosurgery. After his recovery, he took an appointment as lecturer in anatomy at the University of Adelaide, under the brilliant neuro-anatomist Andrew Abbie. During this time he wrote a paper on healed fractures in aborigines, based on the collection of skeletons in the South Australian Museum. Work as an anatomist doubtless contributed to his success as a surgeon: as an operator he was at his best in procedures demanding exceptional anatomical skill. At that time, it was virtually impossible to train as a specialist neurosurgeon in Australia, so, on a grant from the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Jim went to the UK. He entered neurosurgical training at Guy’s Hospital under Murray Falconer. During this appointment he was first author of a paper on ruptured intracranial aneurysm as a cause of sudden death, the work being based on forensic cases. Falconer had been a pupil of Sir Hugh Cairns, who was a pupil of the pioneering American neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing. Jim was to exemplify the best qualities of the Cushing/Cairns school – great interest in the neurosciences, unhurried and meticulous operative technique and total commitment to the welfare of patients. Jim returned to Australia in 1953 and took up an appointment in the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where he was to work for the next 30 years under a variety of titles – first as a member of the honorary staff, then from 1970 as full-time director of neurosurgery. After his resignation in 1979 he remained as a visiting consultant until 1983. He was also chief of neurosurgery in what is now the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. In both hospitals he rapidly established modern neurosurgical units, with rigorous attention to quality control and case audits. He was not the first neurosurgeon to serve these two hospitals – he was preceded Sir Leonard Lindon, one of the founders of Australian neurosurgery. Sir Leonard welcomed and supported Jim, but it is true to say that the development of an integrated state-wide neurosurgical service was very largely Jim’s achievement. He gave special attention to the needs of South Australians living in country areas, and in the 1960s persuaded the then minister of health to equip country hospitals with instruments to care for head injuries. Although he was happiest in his work in public hospitals, he ran a well-organised private service, chiefly at the Memorial Hospital, where after his retirement he treated cases of intractable pain. As a consultant neurosurgeon, Jim was liked and trusted by his colleagues, and admired as a superb diagnostician. As a doctor, he was warm and compassionate. Jim planned his unit with research in mind. When he had promising trainees, he placed them in overseas units with good research facilities, where they learned the skills that have since helped to make Adelaide a leader in head injury research. Most imaginatively, he created in 1964 what is now the Neurosurgical Research Foundation (NRF) to raise funds to sustain research work. The foundation received support because community leaders knew Jim and trusted him, and it received donations from those who knew him as a good doctor. In 1988, when Jim was president of the NRF, fundraising for an academic chair in surgical neuroscience was initiated, and in 1992 the University of Adelaide established a chair of neurosurgery research. This very productive chair is one of Jim’s greatest achievements. Jim was a master of bedside teaching, and he also taught by example. No one who worked with Jim could fail to know that he practised medicine according to the highest ethical standards and expected that his pupils would do the same. His teaching was fruitful. Today, Adelaide’s neurosurgeons are all in a sense his pupils. Some were directly recruited and trained by him. Others came to him trained elsewhere but are proud to have learned from him. Even those who came after his retirement were taught by his trainees and worked in the environment that he made. On a national level, Jim was a major force in the creation of neurosurgical training systems in Australia, which began around 1970, when he was president of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia. Outside Australia, some of Jim’s pupils now hold distinguished neurosurgical positions in Scotland, England and New Zealand. One of his earliest interns, J K A Clezy, was the first professor of surgery in Papua New Guinea, and brought neurosurgery to that country. Jim married Beatrice Margaret née Hay in 1943 and they had one son, Andrew, and three daughters – Anthea, Josephine and Nadia. He had many interests outside his profession, including photography, farming, stock-breeding, bee-keeping and sailing. He died on 22 September 2003 from chronic renal failure after a long illness. He has many memorials. He is commemorated by the Dinning Science Library at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, which is appropriate – he was a very scholarly man. He is remembered in the research foundation that he created. And, lastly, his example and his teaching have entered into the fabric of Australian neurosurgery.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000050
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-06 2018-06-08
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372188372188
Occupation General surgeon Military surgeon Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Born in London on May 1st, 1785. His grandfather, a Scotsman, served with the army at the Battle of the Boyne. His father succeeded his maternal uncle, a retired Naval Surgeon, as manager of a business for the sale of lead plaister. Guthrie learnt French from the Abbé Noel when quite a boy, and spoke it so perfectly that he was often mistaken in after-life for an émigré. At the age of 13 he accidentally came under the notice of John Rush, Inspector of Regimental Hospitals, who had him apprenticed to Dr Phillips, a surgeon in Pall Mall. He attended the Windmill Street School of Medicine, and was one of those into whose arms William Cruikshank - Dr Johnson's 'sweet-blooded man' - fell when he was delivering his last lecture on the brain on June 27th, 1800. From June, 1800, to March, 1801, Guthrie served as Hospital Mate at the York Hospital, Chelsea, which then occupied what is now a part of Eaton Square. Surgeon General Thomas Keate issued an order that all hospital mates must be members of the newly formed College of Surgeons. Guthrie presented himself for examination on the day following the issue of the order, was examined by Keate himself, and made so favourable an impression that he was at once posted to the 29th Regiment. He was then 16 years of age; his Colonel was 24 - but, notwithstanding, it was generally agreed that no regiment was better commanded or better doctored. Guthrie accompanied the 29th Regiment to North America as Assistant Surgeon, remained there until 1807, then returned to England with the regiment and was immediately ordered out to the Peninsula. There he served until 1814, seeing much service and earning the especial commendation of the Duke of Wellington. He acted as Principal Medical Officer at the Battle of Albuera, though he was only 26 years old, and one evening had on his hands 3000 wounded with four wagons, and such equipment as regimental surgeons carried in their panniers, and the nearest village seven miles away. He was appointed in 1812 to act as Deputy Inspector of Hospitals, but the Medical Board in London refused to confirm the appointment on the ground of his youth. He was placed on half pay at the end of the campaign, began to practise privately in London, and attended the lectures of Charles Bell and Benjamin Brodie at the Windmill Street School of Medicine. He hastened to Brussels directly after the Battle of Waterloo in June, 1815, was received enthusiastically by his former comrades, amputated at the hip with success, extracted a bullet from the bladder, and tied the peroneal artery by cutting down upon it through the calf muscles, the latter operation being afterwards known as 'Guthrie's bloody operation'. On his return to London he was placed in charge of two clinical wards at the York Hospital [The Duke's or York Hospital - military - was in Grosvenor Place where Hobart Place now is], with a promise that the most severe surgical cases should be sent to him. He discharged this duty for two years, during which he was amongst the first in England to use lithotrity. He also began a course of lectures which was continued gratuitously to all medical officers of the public services for the next twenty years. At the end of the first course, 1816-1817, the medical officers of the Army, Navy, and the Ordnance presented him with a fine silver loving-cup appropriately inscribed. The cup has become an heirloom in the family of Henry Power (qv), to whom it was presented by his last surviving child, Miss Guthrie. In 1816 Guthrie was instrumental in establishing an Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye, which became 'The Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital', long situated in King William Street, Strand, next to the Charing Cross Hospital, but removed in 1928 to Broad Street, Bloomsbury. Guthrie was appointed Surgeon and remained attached to the hospital until 1838, when he resigned in favour of his son, C W G Guthrie (qv) [but retained his connection with the hospital until 1856]. In 1823 he was elected Assistant Surgeon to Westminster Hospital, becoming full surgeon in 1827, when the Governors made a fourth Surgeon to mark their esteem for his surgical reputation and personal character. He resigned his office in 1843, again to make way for his son. At the Royal College of Surgeons Guthrie was a Member of Council from 1824-1856, a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1828-1856, Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1853, Hunterian Orator in 1830, Vice-President five times, and President in 1833, 1841, and 1854. He was Hunterian Professor of Anatomy, Physiology, and Surgery from 1828-1832. He was elected FRS in 1827. He married twice and had two sons and one daughter, none of whom left issue. He died suddenly on his birthday - May Day 1856, and was buried at Kensal Green. [See entry for his younger son Charles W G Guthrie; the elder son Lowry Guthrie (1814-48) became a clergyman, see Venn's Alumni Cantabrigienses.] Guthrie is described as a man of active and robust frame, keen and energetic in appearance, with remarkably piercing black eyes. Shrewd and quick, he was at times very outspoken and somewhat inconsiderate in regard to other people's feelings; but behind his military brusqueness was much kindness of heart. He was very popular as a lecturer, his lectures being full of anecdotes and illustrative cases, and his Hunterian Oration is memorable; it was given fluently and without notes, as was afterwards done by Sir James Paget, Savory, Henry Power, Butlin, and Moynihan. He was noted for his coolness as an operator and for the delicacy of his manipulations. His unrivalled experience in military surgery, gained during the later years of the Peninsular War and at the most receptive period of his life, justly entitles him to be called 'the English Larrey'. It enabled him to advance the science and practice of surgery more than any other army surgeon since the days of Richard Wiseman. Before his time it was usual to treat gunshot wounds of the thigh by placing the limb on its side. Guthrie introduced the straight splint. He differed from John Hunter in the treatment of gunshot injuries requiring amputation. Hunter was in favour of the secondary operation; Guthrie advocated immediate removal of the limb. After Albuera he introduced the practice of tying both ends of a wounded artery at the seat of the injury; Hunter contented himself with its ligature above the wound. Guthrie also advocated the destruction with mineral acids of the diseased tissues in cases of 'hospital gangrene'. In connection with ophthalmic surgery he taught that the cataracting lens should be extracted, not 'couched', and he was one of the first to describe congenital opacity of the lens. He was heterodox in the treatment of syphilis for he recommended that mercury should not be used, and his advice was largely followed by his pupils. At the College of Surgeons he was in favour of Reform, and did much to secure the passing of the Anatomy Act in 1832. He was opposed to the Charter of 1843. A life-size half-length portrait by Henry Room (1802-1850) hangs in the Secretary's Office at the Royal College of Surgeons. It was presented by his daughter, Miss Guthrie, in 1870. There is a bust by E Davis, also presented by Miss Guthrie in 1870; there are two copies of a fine mezzotint in the College Collection. The plate was engraved by William Walker after Room, and was published by the London Publishing Co on May 10th, 1853. A crayon portrait by Count D'Orsay is in the Westminster Hospital. There is also a clever but rather spiteful pencil sketch in the College Collection. It represents Guthrie lecturing on emphysema - May 6th, 1830 - "Mr Guthrie's 11th Lecture" appears in the handwriting of William Clift below the sketch. It is initialled T M S in the bottom right-hand corner. It was probably made by T Madden Stone, Library Assistant in 1832, who was unfriendly to Guthrie - and not without reason. PUBLICATIONS: - Guthrie is best known by his *Treatise on Gunshot Wounds*, which was first published in 1813 [changed to 1815]. It may still be read with pleasure for the graphic accounts of the Military Surgery of a bygone age. The Commentaries on the Surgery of the War in Portugal, Spain, France and the Netherlands from the Battle of Roliça in 1808 to that of Waterloo in 1815, revised to 1853, of which a new edition was published in 1855, is a digest of the Treatise on Gunshot Wounds. It forms the substance of Guthrie's public lectures and contains his matured opinion on military surgery. In 1819 he published a Treatise on the Operation for the Formation of an Artificial Pupil, which he included in a larger work entitled, Lectures on the Operative Surgery of the Eye. These lectures reached a 3rd edition in 1838. Remarks on the Anatomy Bill in a Letter to the Right Hon Lord Althorp, 1832. The Wounds and Injuries of the Arteries of the Human Body, with the Treatment and Operations required for their Cure, 1846. In these lectures Guthrie drew attention to the anastomotic circulation.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000001
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ackroyd, Jenny Susan (1950 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-06 2016-11-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372189372189
Occupation General surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details Jenny Ackroyd was a consultant general and vascular surgeon at Princess Alexandra Hospital, Harlow. She was born in Leeds on 23 May 1950, the fourth child of Peter Ackroyd and Evelyn née Nutt. Her father, an academic theologian, was subsequently a professor at King's College, London, and was known as 'Old Testament Ackroyd'. She was educated at James Allen's Girls' School in Dulwich, and then went on to New Hall, Cambridge, where she read medicine and fine arts. She then went to Middlesex Hospital for her clinical studies. During her junior doctor training she became the first female surgical registrar and senior registrar at St Thomas's, a particularly male-dominated institution at the time. She was awarded the FRCS in 1979. She also achieved the degree of master of surgery at Cambridge in 1986, possibly the first woman ever to do so. She was appointed as consultant surgeon in general and vascular surgery at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow in 1987 and developed a particular interest in day surgery. There was no dedicated day unit there, so she and a band of enthusiastic helpers helped raise the necessary funds to build one. Her most recent interest was the building of a new surgical wing, opened by the Secretary of State for Health in November 2004, and named in her honour. Jenny was a founder member of Women in Surgical Training, a body formed at the Royal College of Surgeons for the encouragement of training of women in surgery and felt strongly that, at about two per cent, the current representation of female consultant surgeons was unacceptably low. She is remembered as a caring, encouraging, enthusiastic and patient teacher by her junior staff and was nominated by them for a trainer of the year award from the Association of Surgeons in Training. Twelve years ago she developed a melanoma of the eye and after treatment lost the sight of the eye, but continued her professional life and was often known locally as the 'partially sighted, female surgeon from Wareside', to the amusement of her patients. In this capacity she was invited to attend the Woman of the Year lunch in 1993, which was sponsored by the Royal National Institute of the Blind. During this busy professional life, working full-time throughout, Jenny had a fulfilling social and family life. She married Malcolm Lennox, also a consultant surgeon, in 1976, and had two children, Sophie and Sandy. She was a faithful member of St Mary's Church choir and also sang in Ware Choral Society and played the cello. Her manner was sympathetic, concerned and helpful, but most of all she was lively, fun to be with, colourfully dressed and noisy in a delightful way. She died peacefully at home on 5 September 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000002
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ackland, Thomas Henry (1908 - 1994)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Aylett, Stanley Osborn (1911 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-06 2012-07-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372192372192
Occupation Bowel surgeon General surgeon
Details Stanley Aylett was a distinguished bowel surgeon. He was born in Islington, north London, on 8 July 1911, the youngest son of Arthur John Aylett, a building contractor of the firm John Aylett and son, founded by Stanley's grandfather in the 1850s. His mother was Hannah Josephine née Henman. He was educated at Highgate School and won an open scholarship to read medicine at King's College Hospital, where he obtained a BSc in physiology with first class honours and qualified with honours in medicine. He captained the United Hospitals Rugby Football XV. He completed junior posts at St Giles' and King's College Hospital, and spent a year as a ship's doctor with the Blue Funnel Line, before becoming a resident surgical officer at East Ham and Gordon Hospitals. In 1939, he was a surgical registrar at King's and a clinical assistant at St Peter's Hospital, and then a senior registrar at King's. He resigned his post at the outbreak of the second world war, in order to join the RAMC. He and his anaesthetist joined a surgical team in France, at first in a general hospital and later in a casualty clearing station at Lille. During the retreat, he set up operating posts at several locations until he reached de Panne, close to Dunkirk. When ordered to leave on 29 May, he and his companions commandeered a beached pleasure launch, dragged it into the sea, loaded it with their wounded and set off. The leaking vessel soon began to sink, but Aylett and some 20 men were rescued by a destroyer, HMS Havant. After arriving in England, he was sent to Dover to set up a small hospital in the Citadel in anticipation of a German invasion. In 1941, he sailed to the Middle East, to a posting at Alexandria, and then requested a move to forward surgical units, into the Western Desert and Tobruk just as the Axis forces were recapturing it Aylett's was the last surgical unit to escape. In January 1944, he was back in Cambridge, to train and command a field surgical unit, with which he sailed on D-day and accompanied the forces into Germany. In May 1945, he was sent into Sanbostel concentration camp, as a part of the first RAMC unit to reach the camp. His repeated requests for a hospital were turned down, until Lieutenant General Sir Brian Horrocks appeared and at once agreed. Aylett was awarded the French Croix d'honneur for his work in the camp. Later he was sent to Copenhagen to help in the evacuation of German wounded from their hospitals in Denmark. In August 1945 he was posted to Hanover as officer in charge of a surgical division of a general hospital with the acting rank of Lieutenant Colonel. In November 1945 he was demobilised. After the war, he was briefly a surgeon in the Emergency Medical Service in the King's College sector and then a surgical registrar at the Royal Marsden Hospital. At the start of the NHS, he was appointed consultant surgeon to the Gordon, Metropolitan and Potter's Bar Hospitals and consulting surgeon to the Manor House Trade Union Hospital in Hampstead. He developed a special interest in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, or colitis. At that time, the standard treatment was removal of the diseased bowel and a permanent stoma. Aylett pioneered a more conservative resection, allowing the retention of lower-most bowel, avoiding a stoma. The surgical establishment condemned his approach, with surgeons voicing concern that the patient would have intractable diarrhoea and would risk developing cancer in the retained bowel. However, Aylett soon showed good results and demonstrated that the risk of cancer could be overcome by careful follow-up. His approach, ileo-rectal enastomosis, became a standard treatment. Aylett gained many honours. He was Hunterian Professor at the College and in 1974 was made a member of the Académie de Chirurgie Française. He was President of the section for coloproctology at the Royal Society of Medicine, President of the Chelsea Clinical Society, and an honorary member of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons. He published extensively and wrote a textbook on colonic surgery, Surgery of the caecum and colon (Edinburgh and London, E & S Livingstone, 1954), as well as an autobiography based on his war diaries called Surgeon at war (Bognor Regis, New Horizon, c.1979). Among his hobbies were French history, gardening and cooking. In retirement, he enjoyed a full life, travelling to his beloved France and collecting antiques, porcelain and medical instruments. His first marriage to Winsome Clare in 1949 produced a son, Jonathan Stanley, a land agent in Devon, and two daughters, Deidre Clare, a nurse, who predeceased him, and Holly Josephine, a television producer and director. After his marriage was dissolved he married his outpatient sister, Mary Kathleen 'Kay' Godfrey. Stanley Aylett died on 7 January 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000005
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Gayton, William Robertson (1912 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Glashan, Robin Wattie (1933 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-21 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372432372432
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details John Barton Booth was a consultant ENT surgeon at St Bartholomew's and the Royal London Hospitals. He was born on 19 November 1937, the son of Percy Leonard Booth and Mildred Amy née Wilson. He was educated at Canford School and at King's College, London, where he became an Associate (a diploma award given by the theology department), flirted with politics (the Conservative Party) and law, but in the end qualified in medicine. After house appointments at the Birmingham Accident Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, he started ENT training at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital. He subsequently became a senior registrar at the Royal Free Hospital, working with John Ballantyne and John Groves, and for one day a week he was seconded to the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases as clinical assistant to Margaret Dix, who was famous as an audiological physician with a particular interest in balance problems. The influence of these mentors very much guided John into a career in otology and he later confirmed his position in that field by being elected a Hunterian Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons. His lecture was based on his work on Ménière's disease. He was appointed consultant surgeon to the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital and consultant ENT surgeon to the London (later Royal London) Hospital and subsequently to the Royal Hospital of St Bartholomew's. John was never happy with the fusion of the Royal London and Bart's, particularly as the ENT department was relocated at Bart's. He was appointed as a civilian consultant (otology) to the RAF, which gave him the opportunity to practise otology in Cyprus for two weeks in June every year. John Booth had a strong Christian belief and moral code, which underpinned his life. He was always immaculately dressed, precise in his manner, thoughtful in his approach to problems and determined in his belief that a job should be well done and with no half measures. He was always a person who could be relied upon, which explains the succession of responsible positions he held. He edited the *Journal of Laryngology & Otology* from 1987 to 1992, as well as the volume on diseases of the ear in two editions of *Scott-Brown's Otolaryngology*. For the Royal Society of Medicine he was president of the section of otology and council member, honorary secretary and subsequently vice-president of the Society. For the British Academic Conference in Otolarynoglogy he was honorary secretary of the general committee for the eighth conference, becoming chairman of the same committee for the ninth. John inherited the significant voice practice of his father-in-law, Ivor Griffiths, and continued his association with the Royal Opera House, the Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain, the Concert Artists Association and the Musicians Benevolent Fund, until his retirement in 2000. In addition, he was honorary consultant to St Luke's Hospital for the Clergy. John had a great interest in the history of his specialty and in art. He was able, with Sir Alan Bowness, to combine these two interests in a publication on Barbara Hepworth's drawings of ear surgery, which appeared as a supplement in the *Journal of Laryngology & Otology* (April 2000). He married Carroll Griffiths in 1966. They both enjoyed playing golf, either at the RAC Club or on the Isle of Man, where they retired. John took great pride in his membership of the MCC and the R and A at St Andrew's. On retirement he switched from ENT and became a physician at St Bridget's Hospice in Douglas. He managed to combine part-time work at the hospice with the care of Carroll, who had been ill for eight years. She died on 3 July 2004 and John died of a massive coronary thrombosis on 22 July 2005. He left their son, James. Neil Weir
Resource Identifier RCS: E000245
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-20 2012-07-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372195372195
Occupation General surgeon
Details The fourth son of William Keate, D.D., rector of Laverton, Somerset; was born at Laverton on March 14th, 1777. John Keate, his elder brother (1773-1852), was the well-known and ferocious head master of Eton. Robert Keate was educated at Bath Grammar School until 1792, when he was apprenticed to his uncle, Thomas Keate, who in 1798 was elected Surgeon to St. George's Hospital in succession to Charles Hawkins, and was also appointed in the same year Surgeon General to the Army in succession to John Hunter. Robert Keate entered St. George's Hospital in 1793, and was made Hospital Mate in 1794 and Deputy Purveyor to the Forces on Sept. 26th, 1795. In 1798 he became a member of the Surgeons' Corporation and was appointed Staff Surgeon in the Army, from which he retired on half pay on March 25th, 1810, with the rank of Inspector-General of Hospitals. In 1800 he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to his uncle at St. George's Hospital, where he succeeded him as full Surgeon in 1813, and held the post until 1853, outstaying his powers. He was early introduced to practice among the royal family. In 1798 he attended the Princess Amelia at Worthing, who was suffering from a "white swelling of the knee". The Duke of Clarence, later King William IV, always showed great confidence in him, and made him Serjeant-Surgeon Extraordinary, and in 1841 Queen Victoria continued him as Serjeant-Surgeon. Keate used to say, "I have attended four sovereigns and have been badly paid for my services. One of them, now deceased, owed me nine thousand guineas"; but William IV always paid, though there is no doubt that Keate's frequent visits to Windsor led to some loss of practice. It is told of him that he one day received an urgent summons to Windsor to see Queen Adelaide, and he arrived there about the breakfast hour. The Queen, who was suffering from a pain in the knee, gave Keate a hint that the presence of the King might be dispensed with. Keate accordingly said to the King, "Will your Majesty be kind enough to leave the room?" "Keate," replied the King, "I'm damned if I go." Keate looked at the King for a moment and quietly said, "Then, your Majesty, I'm damned if I stay." When Keate got as far as the door the King called him back and said, "I believe you are right, and that you doctors can do anything; but had a Prime Minister or the Lord Chancellor ventured to do as you have done, the next day I should have addressed his successor." Keate contributed little to the literature of his profession, yet he rose to the highest eminence in it. He was anxious to avoid operations, yet he was a good operator, accurate in diagnosis, and a sound practitioner. Timothy Holmes (q.v.) remembered Keate as a very old man when he but seldom visited the hospital. He once saw him operate and his hand shook terribly. Holmes, too, recollected his saving the limb of a lad from amputation after the Assistant Surgeon had actually ordered the boy into the operating theatre. He was a terror to his house surgeons and dressers from the violence of his temper and language. He clung to office at the hospital - there was no rule as to retirement then - until he was bullied into giving up by certain of the governors, who persisted in inquiring at every meeting how often the senior surgeon had visited the hospital, and for how long, and who did the work there which he did not do. Keate was sensible of the value of the scientific advancement of surgery, and deserves our recollection as a good surgeon and an honest man. Sir Benjamin Brodie spoke highly of Keate, who was slightly his senior; and he joined with Brodie in the effort, which the latter began, to raise the surgical practice of the hospital to a higher level, by more careful and systematic visits to the patients, and by more constant and regular instruction of the students. He won the warm friendship of his great contemporary, who speaks of him in his autobiography in the following terms: "He was a perfect gentleman in every sense of the word; kind in his feelings, open, honest and upright in his conduct. His professional knowledge and his general character made him a most useful officer of the Hospital; and now that our *game has been played*, it is with great satisfaction that I look back to the long and disinterested friendship that existed between us." With his death was ended the direct connection of the Serjeant-Surgeoncy with the Army. At the College of Surgeons he was co-opted to the Court of Assistants in 1822, being the last person to be so chosen, and continued as a life member of the Council until 1857. He was President in the years 1831 and 1839, and he served and acted as Examiner from 1827-1855. He married the youngest daughter of H. Ramus, an Indian Civil Servant, by whom he had two sons and four daughters. [One daughter married W E Page FRCP and was the mother of H M Page (1860-1942) FRCS 1886, qv in Supplement.] One of his sons, Robert William Keate (1814-1873), was successively Governor of Trinidad, of Natal, and of the Gold Coast. Keate is described as being a square, compact little man, with a rough complaining voice. He was unmistakably a gentleman, but there was something of the 'Scotch terrier roughness' in all that he said and did. He was always a favourite with the pupils, who never turned him into ridicule in spite of his trying ways. Keate was perfect in minor surgery, the placing of limbs, and bandaging, and was reputed to be the only man who could make a linseed-meal poultice to perfection. He did marvels, too, with red precipitate ointment, saying, "My uncle used it for many years. I have used it all my life, that's why I use it." In standard operations, such as amputation of the thigh by the circular method, he excelled even Robert Liston (q.v.). In chronic and painful diseases of joints he used the cautery freely, and his judgement of tumours was good but wholly empirical. He did not care for anatomy, and he had no other tastes but surgery. He died in Hertford Street, Mayfair, on Oct. 2nd, 1857. A portrait of him hangs in the Board Room at St. George's Hospital. PUBLICATIONS: - Keate wrote only two papers: - "History of a Case of Bony Tumour containing Hydatids Successfully Removed from the Head of a Femur." - *Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1819, x, 278. "Case of Exfoliation from the Basilar Process of the Occipital Bone and from the Atlas after Excessive Use of Mercury." - *Lond. Med. Gaz*., 1834-5, xvi, 13 (with drawing): Le Gros Clark referred to the specimen and reproduced the drawing in the Med.-Chir. Trans., 1849, xxxii, 68.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000008
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching South, John Flint (1797 - 1882)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-08-10 2012-07-19
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372207372207
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on July 3rd, 1797, the eldest son by his second wife of James South, a druggist in Southwark. Sir James South (1785-1867), President of the Royal Astronomical Society, who also qualified as a medical man, was his half-brother. His father made money by prescribing for immense numbers of children with bowel complaints. John Flint South was put to school in October, 1805, with the Rev. Samuel Hemming, D.D., at Hampton, Middlesex, where he remained until June, 1813, making such good progress in Latin that in after-life he was selected to examine the articled pupils in that language before they were apprenticed at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He began to attend the practice of St. Thomas's Hospital a few weeks after leaving school, and on Feb. 18th, 1814, was apprenticed, for the usual sum of 500 guineas, as an articled pupil to Henry Cline the younger, then a Surgeon at the Hospital. He attended Sir Astley Cooper's lectures on anatomy, and made the acquaintance in 1813 of Joseph Henry Green (q.v.), a fellow-apprentice whose support proved afterwards of the greatest service to him. He was admitted M.R.C.S on Aug. 6th, 1819, six months before he had completed his indentures. He then acted for some months as prosector to the Lecturers on Anatomy at St. Thomas's Hospital, and on Dec. 14th, 1810, was appointed Conservator of the Museum and Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy for a term of three years at a salary of £100 a year. He was elected Demonstrator of Anatomy jointly with Bransby Cooper (q.v.) in February, 1823, and on the retirement of Sir Astley Cooper he was appointed Lecturer on Anatomy in 1825 in preference to Bransby Cooper, an event which put the culminating stroke to the disagreements between the two Borough Hospitals and led to the separation of the Medical Schools of Guy's and St. Thomas's. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to St.Thomas's Hospital - a post specifically made for him - on April 9th, 1834, and succeeded Benjamin Travers, senr. (q.v.), as full Surgeon on July 28th, 1841. This post he resigned in April, 1863, having retired from the lectureship of surgery in April, 1860. An attack of illness - largely of a neurotic character - led him to resign his lectureship on anatomy in 1841, and to move from London to Morden Road, Blackheath Park, where he lived for the rest of his life. At the Royal College of Surgeons, South was a Member of the Council from 1841-1873. In 1844 he delivered the Hunterian Oration, which was planned on so large a scale that he never arrived at Hunter's period in the history of medicine. From 1845-1847 he was Professor of Human Anatomy; a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1849-1868; Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1859; and a Member of the Dental Board from 1864-1868. He served as Vice-President during the years 1849, 1850, 1858, and 1859, and was elected President in 1851 and 1860. As Vice-President in 1859 he signalized his year of office by getting the body of John Hunter re-buried in Westminster Abbey, and wrote the inscription for his monument. The last twenty years of his life were spent in gathering materials for a history of English surgery. The materials he accumulated became unmanageable, were afterwards edited by D'Archy Power at the request of his widow, and were published under the title The Craft of Surgery in 1886. The original manuscript volumes containing a transcript of the Court Minutes of the Barber-Surgeons' Company of London, 1540-1745, got scattered and some found their way to Canada. In 1852 he made a journey to Sweden for the purpose of introducing the vegetable marrow, and for this service the Swedish Horticultural Society at Stockholm awarded him its Linnean Medal in bronze at the instigation of his friend, Professor Retzius. South married: (1) in 1832 Mrs. John Wrench, the second daughter of Thomas Lett, of Dulwich House, and (2) in 1864 Emma, daughter of John Louis Lemme, of Antwerp and London, the niece of his life-long friend, J. H. Green. Children of both marriages survived him. He died at Blackheath Park on Jan. 8th, 1882, and was buried in Charlton Cemetery. There is an excellent bust by H. Weekes, R.A., which was executed in 1872. A steel engraving is prefixed to Feltoe's *Memorials*, and his portrait by T. H. Maguire (1840), lithographed by M. & N. Hanhart, is in the Young Collection at the Royal College of Surgeons. South was a man of varied attainments, who had many interests outside his professional work. As a surgeon his name is linked with an historical specimen preserved in the Museum at St. Thomas's Hospital. It is a case of ligature of the abdominal aorta for an aneurysm of the iliac artery. He tells of the operation in the diary which he kept from boyhood; - "June 21st, 1856. At eight this morning went with Sutton Sams to *Dreadnought*, to find Black and get body to take up aorta, which I did pretty well: back home: left by 12.21 North Kent to Hospital. There met Green in consultation about aneurysm case and settled with him about tying aorta. Mr. Simon and Busk afterwards saw it. Waited for Luke but he did not come. I was in a great state of anxiety during the hour; but I had prayed earnestly for help last night and constantly during the morning and was most graciously heard. We went into the theatre a little after two and though it took long to get the patient under chloroform, directly I sat down I was perfectly calm: went through the operation with great quiet and self-possession and not to the disadvantage of the patient. Green, Solly and Clark and also Croft, who had come up from the *Dreadnought*, were very able assistants and part of myself. I never operated with more self-command and steadiness: and He knows in whose help alone I relied: how thankful I am for an answer to my prayers." South was old-fashioned in dress, wearing a black cut-away coat with large pockets, and a high white stock round his neck. His face was close shaved, and his appearance generally somewhat puritanical. His manners were punctilious, but he was easily roused to wrath and did not then measure his language. He was deeply religious, and threw himself with zeal into church work, especially in connection with Sunday schools. From 1843 onwards he was Surgeon to the Female Orphan Asylum. It is characteristic of the leisurely times in which he lived that when an emergency case was admitted to the Hospital during his week on duty, the porter would be sent in a cab to Blackheath to fetch him, a distance of six or seven miles. In 1831 he was a prime mover in establishing the Surrey Zoological Gardens and Botanical Society. PUBLICATIONS: - As an author South is best known by his edition of Von Cheliu's *System of Surgery * (2 vols., 8vo, London, 1847), into which he wove so large a mass of his own experience that it is still of value as representing the surgery of his time. *A Short Description of the Bones*, 32mo, London, 1825; 3rd ed., 8vo, 1837. *South's Knochen-Lehre*, 16mo, Berlin, 1844. *Household Surgery*, 12mo, London, 1847, which had a large sale and of which a 5th edition appeared in 1880. He also assisted J. H. Green in preparing the second and third editions of *The Dissector's Manual*, 8vo, London, 1825.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000020
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Stanley, Edward (1793 - 1862)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-08-10 2012-07-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372208372208
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on July 3rd, 1793, the son of Edward Stanley, who was in business in the City; his mother was sister to Thomas Blizard. He entered Merchant Taylors' School in April, 1802, and remained there until 1808, when he was apprenticed to Thomas Ramsden, Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, who died in February, 1813; Stanley was then turned over to John Abernethy for the rest of his term. He was awarded the Jacksonian Prize for his essay "On Diseases of Bone", and was elected Assistant Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital on Jan. 29th, 1816, at the early age of 24. Even during his apprenticeship he had rendered important services to the Medical School, for his love of morbid anatomy led him, with Abernethy's assistance and approval, to enlarge the Museum so greatly that he practically created it. He subsequently compiled a valuable catalogue of the collection. He acted as Demonstrator of Anatomy until 1826, when he was appointed Lecturer on Anatomy and Physiology in place of Abernethy and held the post without distinction until 1848, when he was succeeded by F. C. Skey (q.v.). He was elected full Surgeon in 1838, and then became famous as a clinical teacher. He was elected F.R.S. in 1830 for his pathological work, became President of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society in 1843, and was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria in 1858. At the Royal College of Surgeons Stanley was a Member of Council from 1835-1862, Professor Human Anatomy from 1835-1838, and Hunterian Orator in 1839, the Oration being published in London as an octavo volume in 1839. He was a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1844-1862, Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1856, Vice-President in 1846, 1847, 1855, and 1856, and President in 1848 and 1857. He resigned the post of Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1861, but continued to attend the weekly operations on Saturdays until May 24th, 1862. On that day, after witnessing the operations, being in his usual health and good spirits, he went with the other Surgeons, on the invitation of Sir William Lawrence, to see a patient in Henry Ward who was suffering from a swelling of the knee. Stanley bent over the patient for a short time, then drew himself up and said, "I think, Mr. Lawrence, this is a case of knee-joint disease, and that if all remedies have failed for many months in your hands the case would be one favourable for resection." He spoke clearly and evidently in full possession of all his faculties: a moment later he staggered against a bed and sank to the floor supported by those around him. He was at once raised and place on the 'state bed' in the front ward. Momentarily he seemed to regain consciousness, and when Mr. Wormald asked if he could do anything, Stanley replied: "I am quite well, Wormald; I never felt better in my life, it's only stomach." Tradition says that Lawrence, looking round, said to his House Surgeon, "Wrong again. Head." However this may be, Stanley quickly became unconscious, passing into a state of coma and died within an hour. He married a highly educated, talented and sympathetic lady by whom he had one son, the Rev. Rainey Stanley, and several daughters. He lived at first in Lincoln's Inn fields, afterwards at 66 Brook Street, the house afterwards occupied by Sir William Savory (q.v.). Stanley is described as being one of the most sagacious teachers and judicious practitioners of his day. He was vivacious in conversation, but solemn and impressive, and his language was clear and empathic when teaching in the wards, where the students knew him as 'the inspired butterman' because he was short and 'podgy'. His unattractive features were redeemed by large intellectual eyes, a genial smile and a face honest, earnest, and good-tempered. He was an eager inquirer after pathological knowledge, a patient, accurate, and intelligent investigator and collector, but was wanting in culture of the higher kind and was without any appreciation of the arts. He always took immense pains in studying his hospital cases, and as the result of this and his innate sagacity he was seldom wrong in the opinions he arrived at. He was never a brilliant operator, yet he shone in the operating theatre, because when grave or unexpected incidents arose he never lost his self-possession, and his courage rose with the emergency. His anatomical knowledge and quiet insistence carried him through all difficulties, and he was fortunate in having James Paget (q.v.) as his Assistant Surgeon. He was, too, a man of peace, and did much to compose the bitter quarrels in which the hospital staff engaged. To this end he was instrumental in arranging the Christmas Dinner which is still a feature in the life of the Hospital, where the members of the Staff and all teachers in the Medical School meet together and, if they are so disposed, play cards until a late hour. Stanley's writings and the specimens he added to the Museum show how extensive was his knowledge of diseases of bone. He had prepared specimens of the arthritis which occurs in locomotor ataxy and has since been called Charcot's disease. There are portraits of him in the College Collection. PUBLICATIONS: - *An Account of the Mode of Performing the Lateral Operation of Lithotomy*, 4to, London, 1829. *Illustrations of the Effects of Disease and Injury of the Bones with Descriptive and Explanatory Statements*, fol., 24 plates, London, 1849. The coloured plates are splendidly executed and are drawn from original preparations, many of which are still preserved in the Museum of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. *A Treatise on Diseases of the Bones*, 8vo, London and Philadelphia, 1849. These two books are classics. *A Manual of Practical Anatomy*, 12mo, London, 1818; 3rd ed., 1826.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000021
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Bastable, John Ralph Graham (1923 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-07 2007-06-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372209372209
Occupation Urologist
Details John Bastable was a consultant urologist at York. Born in 1923, he spent his childhood in Cornwall and studied medicine at Birmingham. He qualified in 1945. After National Service, he was a registrar to Alan Perry at Poplar Hospital and then at the London Hospital, where he became senior lecturer on the surgical unit under Victor Dix, and where David Ritchie supervised his MCh thesis on the effect of vagotomy on the oesophago-gastric junction. He specialised in urology, spending a year as resident surgical officer at St Paul’s Hospital and then at the London. In 1966, he was appointed consultant urologist at York, and remained there until he retired in 1988. At York, he developed a department of urology, introduced day surgery facilities, and also undertook parathyroid surgery, and was involved in the planning committee for the new district general hospital. He married Morag Millar, an anaesthetist. They had three children. In his retirement he found time for music, travelling, walking and history of art. He died after a stroke on 28 May 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000022
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Bigelow, Wilfred Gordon (1913 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372210372210
Occupation Cardiac surgeon
Details Wilfred Gordon ‘Bill’ Bigelow, who helped develop the first electronic pacemaker, was a professor of cardiac surgery at the University of Toronto and a pioneering heart surgeon. He was born in Brandon, Manitoba, in 1913. His father, Wilfred Bigelow, had founded the first medical clinic in Canada. Bill trained in medicine at the University of Toronto and did his internship at the Toronto General Hospital, during which time he had to amputate a young man’s fingers because of frostbite, leading Bill to research the condition. During the second world war, he served with the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, in a field transfusion unit and then as a battle surgeon with the 6th Canadian Casualty Clearing Station in England and Europe, where he saw many more soldiers with frostbitten limbs. After the war, he returned to a surgical residency in Toronto, followed by a graduate fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He returned to Toronto in 1947 as a staff general surgeon. In 1950 he became a research fellow in the university department of surgery. He was made an assistant professor in 1953 and a full professor in 1970. He researched into hypothermia in a cold-storage room in the basement of the Banting Institute. He theorised that cooling patients before an operation would reduce the amount of oxygen the body required and slow the circulation, allowing longer and safer access to the heart. This work led to the development of a cooling technique for use during heart operations. He also discovered that he could restart the heart by stimulating it with a probe at regular intervals, work which led him on to develop the first electronic pacemaker, in collaboration with John Callaghan and the electrical engineer John Hopps. He published extensively and received many awards, including the Order of Canada and the honorary Fellowship of our College. He was President of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery and the Society for Vascular Surgery. He was predeceased by his wife, Margaret Ruth Jennings, and is survived by his daughter, three sons and three grandchildren. He died from congestive heart failure on 27 March 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000023
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Bond, Alec Graeme (1926 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Boustany, Wa'el Seifeddin (1931 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Bowsher, Winsor Graham (1957 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Bradfield, William John Dickson (1924 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Vaughan-Jackson, Oliver James (1907 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372346372346
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Oliver Vaughan-Jackson was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at the London Hospital and a specialist in hand surgery. He was born in Berkhamstead on 6 July 1907, the eldest son of Surgeon-Captain P Vaughan-Jackson RN. He was educated at Berkhamstead and Balliol College, Oxford, where he played for the winning rugby XV, before going on to the London Hospital for his clinical studies. After completing his house jobs he specialised in surgery and passed the FRCS in 1936. Realising war was on the horizon, he joined the RNVR in 1938 and by 1939 found himself a surgeon in the Royal Naval Hospital at Chatham, where he remained for the next four years, until in 1944 he was posted to the RN Hospital, Sydney. At the end of the war, he returned to the London Hospital as consultant orthopaedic surgeon, joining the energetic new team led by Sir Reginald Watson-Jones and Sir Henry Osmond-Clarke. He was also on the consultant staff of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Rochester. At the London his particular interest was in the surgery of the hand, and especially the treatment of the complications of rheumatoid arthritis. In 1948 he published an account of a hitherto undescribed syndrome whereby extensor tendons, frayed by underlying arthritic osteophytes, rupture – a syndrome to which his name is eponymously attached. A gentle and genial man, Oliver was a popular teacher and much admired by his juniors for his patient and painstaking surgical technique. Towards the end of his career he spent a good deal of his spare time in Newfoundland, Canada, at the Memorial Hospital, where a new multidisciplinary department for rheumatology had been set up. He was appointed professor of orthopaedic surgery there. After retirement he went to live in Newfoundland, but returned towards the evening of his life to live in Cerne Abbas, Dorset, where he died on 7 November 2003. He married Joan Madeline née Bowring in 1939. They had two sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000159
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Witte, Jens (1941 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-02 2012-03-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372347372347
Occupation Colorectal surgeon Oesophageal surgeon Upper gastrointestinaI surgeon
Details Jens Witte, doyen of German surgery, was born on 4 February 1941 in Perleberg, Mark/Brandenburg, the eldest of three sons of a surgeon father. He studied medicine at the Universities of Homburg/Saar, Hamburg and Berlin. After qualifying, he became a medizinalassistent in Bielefeld and Hamburg, spent some time in a mission hospital in Tanzania, and returned to work under Egerhard Weisschedel in Konstantz. There followed a series of brilliant appointments under Georg Heberer, first in Cologne and then in Munich, becoming professor in 1982 and head of viszeralchirugie in 1984. His special interests were in oesophageal and colorectal surgery. He was a prominent member of the professional surgical organisation, becoming its President in 1998. Active in the European Union of Medical Specialists, he was President of the section of surgery in 2002 and devoted himself to the integration and training of surgeons in the former East Germany. He was the recipient of many honours, including that of our College. He died unexpectedly on 12 June 2003 in Augsburg.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000160
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Allan, Walter Ramsay (1927 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-15 2006-07-17
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372348372348
Occupation General surgeon
Details Walter Ramsay Allan, known as ‘Peter’, was a consultant surgeon at Bolton Royal Infirmary. Born on 26 October 1927, he was the second of four sons of Walter Ramsay Allan, a general practitioner based in Edinburgh who had fought in the first world war before completing his medical studies at Glasgow University. His mother was Elizabeth Brownlee née Moffat, a classical scholar who studied at Oxford. Peter went to Lincoln College, Oxford, to read medicine, along with his two younger brothers, all of whom represented the university at sport. Peter also won a Scottish cap for cricket in 1950. He went on to Edinburgh for his clinical studies, qualifying in 1951. After house physician and house surgeon posts at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and Stornaway, he spent two years in the RAMC from 1952 to 1954. He returned to continue his surgical training at Bangor Hospital and Manchester, becoming a senior registrar at Preston and Manchester Royal Infirmaries and finally being appointed consultant surgeon at Bolton. Following his retirement he developed an interest in the Scottish writers of the 18th century and enjoyed walking in the Borders and Pennines. He also enjoyed music and made annual trips to Glyndebourne. He married Anne Evans, a senior house officer in anaesthetics, while he was a surgical registrar. They had two daughters (Ann Ellen Elizabeth and Victoria Jane Moffat) and two sons (Walter Janus Thomas and James Dillwyn Douglas). James became a consultant urologist. Peter died on 12 May 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000161
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Cleland, William Paton (1912 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372349372349
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details Bill Cleland was a pioneering thoracic surgeon who helped develop open heart surgery in London in the 1950s. He was born in Sydney, New South Wales, on 30 May 1912, the son of Sir John Burton Cleland, professor of pathology at the University of Adelaide, and Dora Isabel Robson. He was proud to be the 26th head of his ancient Scottish family who were kinsmen of William Wallace. He was educated at Scotch College, Adelaide, and Adelaide University, where he qualified in 1934. He then completed two years as house physician and house surgeon at the Royal Adelaide and the Adelaide Children’s Hospital. He went to England, to King’s College Hospital, in 1938 to be a resident medical officer and passed the MRCP. With the outbreak of war he was evacuated with King’s to Horton, Surrey, where he was busy in the Emergency Medical Service dealing with wartime injuries. This generated an interest in surgery: he quickly passed the FRCS and then went on in 1948 to the Brompton Hospital as house physician and resident medical officer, where he was influenced by Russell Brock, Tudor Edwards and Price Thomas. He soon specialised in chest surgery, moving gradually on into cardiac surgery. He was appointed consultant thoracic surgeon at King’s College Hospital and the Brompton in 1948, and the following year as a lecturer at the Hammersmith, where he worked with Denis Melrose on the prototype heart-lung machine with which he performed the first successful open-heart operation in Britain in 1953. He was a pioneer in the subsequent development of cardiac by-pass surgery, which he described in a classic paper in *Thorax* in 1983. He wrote more than 70 papers, and was much sought after abroad, setting up cardiothoracic units in Russia, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Iceland. He was consultant adviser in thoracic surgery to the Department of Health and the Royal Navy. He married Norah Goodhart in 1940 who predeceased him. They had two sons and a daughter. In retirement he continued to follow up his old patients, and enjoy his hobbies of fishing, the opera, gardening and beekeeping. A strongly built man, he became somewhat frail in old age, and died peacefully at home in Goodworth Clatford, Hampshire, on 29 March 2005, just before his 93rd birthday.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000162
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Doll, Sir William Richard Shaboe (1912 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372350372350
Occupation Epidemiologist
Details Sir Richard Doll, the most distinguished epidemiologist of his generation, established that smoking causes cancer and heart disease. Born in Hampton, Middlesex, on 28 October 1912, he was the son of Henry William Doll, a general practitioner, and Amy Kathleen Shaboe. He was educated at Westminster and St Thomas’ Hospital, doing junior jobs as casualty officer, anaesthetist and house physician. He began his research career under Paul Wood at Hammersmith, while working as a resident medical officer at the London Clinic. When war broke out he was called up into the RAMC, where he served as a battalion medical officer at Dunkirk, was posted to a hospital ship, and served in the invasion of Sicily. He contracted tuberculosis of the kidney in 1944, underwent a nephrectomy, and was discharged in early 1945. He took a course on statistics under Sir Austin Bradford Hill, who was impressed by him, and in 1948 that he went to work with Bradford Hill at the Medical Research Council. They began to study the causes of the huge increase in deaths from cancer of the lung. It was a time when smoking was regarded as normal and harmless. Their preliminary study of hospital patients with cancer of the lung and other diseases showed, to their surprise, that those with lung cancer were smokers, those with other diseases were not. This was confirmed by a prospective study on doctors’ smoking habits. At this stage Doll himself gave up smoking. Immensely distinguished, honoured by innumerable institutions, Doll was a genial and likeable man whose juniors adored him. One of his last public speeches was to a meeting of the Oxford Medical Graduates Club, where to the relief of his audience he showed that there was no statistical harm done by wine. When asked how much, he replied: “enough”. Doll married Joan Mary Faulkner in 1949. They had a son and daughter. He died on 24 July 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000163
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-15 2007-08-09
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372351372351
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details James Daniel Hardy was an organ transplant pioneer and the first chairman of the department of surgery and surgeon in chief at the University Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi. Board certified by both the American Board of Surgery and the Board of Thoracic Surgery and a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, Hardy worked to improve medical and surgical care in Mississippi throughout his career of teaching, caring for patients and clinical research. Over 200 surgeons trained with him during his tenure as chairman of the department of surgery from 1955 to 1987. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, on 14 May 1918, the elder of twin boys, he was the son of Fred Henry Hardy, owner of a lime plant, and Julia Poyner Hardy, a schoolteacher. His early childhood was tough and frugal, thanks to the Depression. He was educated at Montevallo High School, where he played football for the school, and learned to play the trombone. He completed his premedical studies at the University of Alabama, where he excelled in German, and went on to the University of Pennsylvania to study medicine, and during his physiology course carried out a research project (on himself) to show that olive oil introduced into the duodenum would inhibit the production of gastric acid - an exercise which gave him a lifelong interest in research. At the same time he joined the Officers Training Corps. In his last year he published research into the effect of sulphonamide on wound healing. After receiving his MD he entered postgraduate training for a year as an intern and a resident in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and also conducted research on circulatory physiology. Research became a vital part of his professional life. His military service in the second world war was with the 81st Field Hospital. In the New Year of 1945 he found himself in London, before crossing to France and the last months of the invasion of Germany. After VE Day his unit was sent out to the Far East, but when news arrived of the Japanese surrender his ship made a U-turn and they landed back in the United States. He returned to Philadelphia to complete his surgical residency under Isidor Ravdin. He was a senior Damon Runyon fellow in clinical research and was awarded a masters of medical science in physiological chemistry by the University of Pennsylvania in 1951 for his research on heavy water and the measurement of body fluids. That same year Hardy became an assistant professor of surgery and director of surgical research at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine at Memphis, later he was to become an associate professor, and continued in this position until 1955, when he became the first professor of surgery and chairman of the department of surgery at the newly established University of Mississippi Medical Center, School of Medicine, Jackson. As a surgeon charged with establishing an academic training programme, Hardy became known as a charismatic teacher and indefatigable physician. He also actively pursued and encouraged clinical research in the newly established department of surgery. His group’s years of research in the laboratory led to the first kidney autotransplant in man for high ureteral injury, and to advances in the then emerging field of human organ transplantation. The first lung transplant in man was performed at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 1963 and in 1964 Hardy and his team carried out the first heart transplantation using a chimpanzee as a donor. Hardy authored, co-authored or edited more than 23 medical books, including two which became standard surgery texts, and published more than 500 articles and chapters in medical publications. He served on numerous editorial boards and as editor-in-chief of *The World Journal of Surgery*. He also produced a volume of autobiographical memoirs, *The Academic surgeon* (Mobile, Alabama, Magnolia Mansions Press, c.2002), which is a most readable and vivid account of the American residency system and its emphasis on research, which has been such a model for the rest of the world. Over the course of his career he served as president of the American College of Surgeons, the American Surgical Association, the International Surgical Society and the Society of University Surgeons and was a founding member of the International Surgical Group and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary tract. He was an honorary fellow of the College, of the l’Académie Nationale de Médicine and l’Association Français de Chirurgie. The proceedings of the 1983 surgical forum of the American College of Surgeons was dedicated to Hardy, citing him as “…an outstanding educator, investigator, clinical surgeon and international leader.” In 1987 Hardy retired from the department of surgery and served in the Veteran’s Administration Hospital system as a distinguished VA physician from 1987 to 1990. He married Louise (Weezie) Scott Sams in 1949. They had four daughters: Louise, Julia Ann, Bettie and Katherine. He died on 19 February 2003. An annual James D Hardy lectureship has been established in his honour at the department of surgery, University Medical Center, Jackson.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000164
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-15 2014-08-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372352372352
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details William Glasgow Ferguson, or 'Fergie' as he was known, was a thoracic surgeon in Victoria, Australia. He was born in Whitley Bay, Northumberland, on 4 March 1919, the son of William and Sara Ferguson. He studied medicine at Durham, where he qualified in 1942. After four months as a house surgeon at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne, he joined the RAMC and was posted to 144 Field Ambulance, Hull, and in the following March went to Accra, where he served in 2 (WA) Field Ambulance until April 1944, when he went with his field ambulance to Burma. There he was promoted to major and, in the following year, commanded 4 (WA) Field Ambulance with the rank of lieutenant colonel, being mentioned in despatches. At the end of the war he brought his field ambulance back to West Africa and was demobilised in 1946. On his return to the UK, he became a demonstrator of anatomy at the University of Durham, did general surgical training at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, completed the Guy's course and passed the final FRCS. He then decided to specialise in thoracic surgery, undergoing specialist registrar and senior registrar posts at the Royal Victoria Infirmary and the Shotley Bridge Regional Thoracic Surgical Centre. He was awarded the American Association for Thoracic Surgery travelling fellowship in 1953 as a post-doctoral first assistant. In 1958 he moved to Australia, as staff superintendent of Sydney Hospital. Two years later, he became a consultant at Goulburn Valley Base Hospital, Victoria, where he remained until he retired in 1985. He then continued in general practice in Omeo, Victoria, until 1992. He was previously married to Helen née Cowan. He had three children - two sons (Tim and Richard) and a daughter (Lisa). He died in Omeo, Victoria, on 20 July 2005, aged 86. He was also survived by a partner, Anne.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000165
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Goodwin, Harold (1910 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2005-11-23 2014-07-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372354372354
Occupation General practitioner
Details Rustom Jamshedji Jagose, known as 'Rusty', passed the fellowship in 1957 and emigrated to New Zealand, where he was a general practitioner in Cambridge, in the Waikato region of the North Island. Although he did not continue to practise surgery, he regularly attended grand rounds at Waikato Hospital. He died on 16 September 1991 and was survived by his wife Anne and their five children - Pheroze, Maki, Annamarie, Una and Fiona.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000167
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372269372269
Occupation Administrator College secretary
Details Ronald Stuart Johnson-Gilbert, or 'J-G' as he was known with affection throughout the College, was our secretary from 1962 to 1988. He was born on 14 July 1925, the son of Sir Ian A Johnson-Gilbert CBE and Rosalind Bell-Hughes, and was proud to be a descendant of Samuel Johnson. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy and Rugby, from which he won an exhibition in classics and an open scholarship to Brasenose College, Oxford. During the second world war he served in the Intelligence Corps from 1943 to 1946 and learnt Japanese. On demobilisation he became a trainee with the John Lewis partnership for a year and then joined the College on the administrative staff in 1951, becoming the sixth secretary in 1962, having previously been secretary of the Faculties of Dental Surgery and Anaesthetists. He worked under 13 presidents, from Lord Porritt to Sir Ian Todd, bringing to everything he did an exceptional administrative skill, an ability to write succinct and lucid prose, an unrivalled knowledge of the most arcane by-laws of the College and above all an unruffable charm. He served as secretary to the board of trustees of the Hunterian Collection, the Joint Conference of Surgical Colleges and the International Federation of Surgical Colleges. He was the recipient of the John Tomes medal of the British Dental Association, the McNeill Love medal of our College and the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons medal. He served the Hunterian Collection as a trustee for 10 years. A skilled golfer, his other interests included music, painting, literature and writing humorous verse. He married Anne Weir Drummond in 1951 and they had three daughters, Clare, Emma and Lydia. He died on 23 April 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000082
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Jones, Bruce Victor (1919 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372271372271
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Surgeon captain Bruce Jones RN was born on 26 June 1919 at Ringwood, Hants, the first son of Ernest Victor Jones, a dental surgeon, and Gladys Maud Jones née Sloper. He was educated at Great Ballard School near Hilton, Hants. He then moved on the Sherborne School. Initially, he started dental training at the Royal Dental Hospital in 1938 and was awarded certificates of honour, but did not qualify as a dental surgeon. In 1939, because of the war, he transferred to Charing Cross Medical School which had been evacuated to Glasgow. After qualifying MRCS in 1943 and MB in 1944 he joined the Royal Navy, serving as a surgeon lieutenant at sea, on HMS Aberdeen. In 1947, after demobilisation, he did a good surgical rotation at Poole and Hertford General Hospitals and the old Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, passing his FRCS in 1949. Orthopaedics fascinated him: he had appointments at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in London and Heatherwood Orthopaedic Hospital in Ascot. The Royal Navy called, so in 1954 he rejoined on a permanent commission as surgeon lieutenant commander, specialist in orthopaedics. There followed the normal service rotation of orthopaedic jobs in RN hospitals in Chatham, Kent, Hong Kong and HMS Ganges, the RN boys training establishment in Shotley, Suffolk. The Armed Services Consultant Approval Board at the RCS appointed him as a consultant in orthopaedic surgery in 1959. Bruce was then posted to Mauritius to establish joint services medical facilities. He returned to the UK in 1961, to the RN Hospital Stonehouse, Plymouth, Devon, then to RN Hospital Haslar as senior consultant in orthopaedics and later adviser to the medical director general of the Royal Navy. During this time he was delighted to be seconded on an operational posting to the aircraft carrier HMS Albion, the task to cover HM forces’ withdrawal from Aden. He was promoted to surgeon captain during this voyage whilst en route to Singapore. From 1968 to 1976 he was an honorary surgeon to HM the Queen. Later he was a brother of the Knights of Malta. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine for over 50 years and a fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association. Bruce was very keen on inter-service cooperation and initiated the Joint Services Orthopaedic Club. He was a keen and stimulating chairman who encouraged surgeons from the Army and RAF to take a full part in its activities. After retiring in 1976, he became a civil consultant to the RAF Hospital Wroughton, finally retiring in 1984. He was a keen sailor and photographer, and developed a productive interest in beekeeping. Fly fishing and entomology were other interests. Bruce married Sheila Ray Hogarth – a descendent of the painter – in May 1954 and they had two sons. James Victor Hogarth Jones was born in 1955 and is now head of farm business management at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. Bruce Jonathon Hogarth Jones, born in 1959, is now a lawyer with Citibank London. Bruce was an excellent orthopaedic surgeon with a keen interest in the correction of recurrent shoulder dislocation, a common service problem, and hand surgery. When asked how he would like to be remembered, he stated: “conscientious and thorough and unsparing attention to patients’ needs”. That summed up his life as a naval surgeon. He died on 28 February 2005 after many years of infirmity, patiently borne.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000084
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jones, Rhys Tudor Brackley (1925 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372272372272
Occupation General surgeon
Details Air Vice Marshal Rhys Tudor Brackley Jones was born on 16 November 1925 in Middlesex, the son of the late Sir Edgar and Lady Jones. He studied medicine at St Mary’s Hospital, where he qualified MRCS LRCP in April 1950 and became a house surgeon there. His surgical training rotation continued at Harold Wood Hospital, becoming a junior surgical registrar, before call up for National Service by the Royal Air Force in September 1952. He married Irene Lilian Henderson in August 1953. He was rapidly promoted to squadron leader in 1954 whilst serving at the RAF Hospital Wroughton. Typical service annual moves to RAF Hospitals Nocton Hall, Weeton, Uxbridge, Ely and Wegberg happened until 1960, when he passed his FRCS and was posted on active service to the RAF Hospital in Aden. This was a period of terrorist activity and he rapidly gained extensive experience in battle surgery. After returning to the UK, he continued as a general surgeon, gaining the wide experience the service required, before being promoted to wing commander in 1963. He had a sabbatical year and was appointed as a consultant by the Armed Services Consultant Approval Board at the College in 1967. An overseas posting to RAF Hospital Changi soon followed, where a wide range of general surgery was undertaken. After returning to the UK he had a further period of external study before being promoted to group captain. He was soon posted to the RAF Hospital Wegberg as the senior consultant. This hospital was at the western end of British Forces Germany and he was responsible for the surgical treatment of the Army as well as the RAF. He was a very capable surgeon and this was soon recognised by the Army surgeons, with whom he established an excellent working relationship. In 1978 he went to the senior RAF Hospital the Princess Mary’s and was in charge of the Stanford Cade unit, where all the RAF cases of malignant disease were treated. In 1982 he was appointed as a consultant adviser in surgery and was soon promoted to air commodore. This was a busy and difficult period following the Falklands war, and included the dissolution of all military hospitals. In 1987 he was promoted to air vice marshal, with responsibility for all postgraduate training of RAF medical officers. He rapidly became the senior consultant of the RAF and honorary surgeon to the Queen. He retired in 1990 and died suddenly on 8 December 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000085
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Kenyon, John Richard (1919 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Ketharanathan,Vettivetpillai (1925 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23 2012-03-22
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372240372240
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Howard Eddey was a former professor of surgery at Melbourne University. He was born on 3 September 1910, in Melbourne. His father was Charles Howard Eddey, a manager, and his mother was Rachel Beatrice née Hadfield, the daughter of a teacher. He was educated at Melbourne High School, where he was captain of boats and featured in many winning crews. He was also in the school lacrosse team. He went on to the University of Melbourne, where he won a university blue. He was subsequently a resident at the Royal Melbourne Hospital for two years. He then went to the UK, where he studied for his FRCS, winning the Hallet prize in the process. During the second world war he served in the Australian Imperial Force with the 2/13 Australian General Hospital, becoming a Major in the Australian Army Medical Corps. He was captured by the Japanese and spent time in prisoner of war camps in Changi and then in North Borneo. While he was captured he was involved in 'kangkong' harvesting and the treating of a local wild vegetable, to produce a drink that was rich in vitamins. Howard made sure the soldiers drank this frequently, as it reduced the incidence of beriberi and pellagra. During his time in captivity Howard also wrote notes on anatomy on scrap paper. This later became a key anatomy text, used by generations of medical students. He returned to the Royal Melbourne Hospital after the war as an honorary surgeon. He was dean of the clinical school there from 1965 to 1967. As a clinician he gained an impressive reputation as a head and neck surgeon. In particular his parotid gland surgery and cancer work with radical neck dissection gained considerable prominence. In 1966 the University of Melbourne decided to establish a third clinical school at the Austin Hospital and Eddey was invited to become the foundation professor of surgery. He had no background in research, but recruited a team of young surgeons with research skills and the research reputation of the department of surgery was rapidly established. In 1971 Eddey became dean and held this position until 1975. He was a member of the board of management from 1971 to 1977, and was vice-president from 1975 to 1977. In honour of his contribution to the development of Austin as a clinical school, the new operating theatres and library have been named after him. Eddey was regarded as an outstanding teacher and, through his role with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS), helped surgical education in South East Asia. He made many visits to Asian hospitals and was involved with examinations and giving lectures. The RACS created the Howard Eddey medal in recognition of his work in Asia. He was a member of the board of examiners at the RACS from 1958 to 1973, and was chairman from 1968 to 1973. He was a member of council from 1967 to 1975 and served as honorary librarian from 1968 to 1975. He served on many other bodies, including the Cancer Institute and the Anti Cancer Council. His service to the community was recognised by his appointment as honorary surgeon to Prince Charles and he was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George. He was married to Alice née Paul from Kew, Victoria, for 30 years. They had three children - Robert Michael, Peter and Pamela Ann. Eddey died on 16 September 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000053
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Fison, Lorimer George (1920 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372244372244
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Lorimer Fison was an innovative ophthalmic surgeon who introduced a revolutionary new procedure for the repair of retinal detachment from the United States. He was born on 14 July 1920 in Harrogate, the third son of William James Fison, a well-known ophthalmic surgeon, and Janet Sybil née Dutton, the daughter of a priest. He was educated at Parkfield School, Haywards Heath, and then Marlborough College. He then studied natural sciences at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and then went on to St Bartholomew’s Hospital. After qualifying, he joined the Navy during the war as a Surgeon Lieutenant. Following demobilisation, he became a resident surgical officer at Moorfield’s, despite having caught tuberculosis. He then became a senior registrar at St Thomas’s Hospital and later at Bart’s. In 1957 Fison went to the Schepens unit in Boston in the United States, after Sir Stuart Duke-Elder, the then doyen of British ophthalmology, suggested that fellows be despatched to learn the new techniques of retinal detachment surgery. There Fison learnt the procedure of scleral explantation, and was also impressed by the ophthalmic instruments then available in the US. Back in England, Fison faced some opposition when he attempted to introduce the new procedures he had been taught in the States, but was finally given beds at Moorfield’s annexe in Highgate. With the help of Charles Keeler, he modified the Schepens indirect ophthalmoscope, which was put into production and sold around the world. Fison was also the first to introduce the photocoagulator, the forerunner of the modern ophthalmic laser, which was developed by Meyer-Schwickerath in Germany. In 1962, after a brief appointment at the Royal Free Hospital, he was appointed as a consultant at Moorfield’s. He was held in great affection by his colleagues and juniors, who remember his warmth and generosity. Fison was President of the Faculty of Ophthalmologists from 1980 to 1983 and of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom from 1985 to 1987. He was an ardent supporter of the merging of these two organisations – they became the Royal College of Ophthalmologists in 1988. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was an examiner for the FRCS in ophthalmology, Chairman of the Court of Examiners in 1978 and a member of Council. He married Isabel née Perry in 1947 and they had one daughter, Sally, who qualified in medicine. On his retirement he moved to Sidmouth, where he continued his hobbies of woodworking and sailing. He died on 12 February 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000057
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-21 2012-03-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372431372431
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Richard William Porter was a distinguished orthopaedic surgeon in Aberdeen. He was born on 16 February 1935 in Doncaster, the son of J Luther Porter, a china merchant and Methodist minister, and Mary Field. He was educated at Oundle and Edinburgh University, and completed his surgical training at Edinburgh. Following house appointments he became a ships' surgeon for three months before returning to Edinburgh as a senior house officer and passing the FRCS Edinburgh and the DObstRCOG. He began his surgical training as a registrar in Sheffield and after obtaining the FRCS England in 1966 he became a senior registrar on the orthopaedic training programme at King's College Hospital, where he was much influenced by Hubert Wood and Christopher Attenborough. He returned to Doncaster as consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Royal Infirmary and soon took an interest in low back pain, a common problem among the coal miners. He set up a research programme and established a department of bioengineering which attracted postgraduate students from home and abroad. He became an authority on the use of ultrasound in the investigation of back pain published papers and a book on the subject and was awarded an MD in 1981 for this work. His reputation resulted in the presidency of the Society for Back Pain Research and a founder membership of the European Spine Society. He was also on the council of the British Orthopaedic Association and the Society of Clinical Anatomists. In 1990 he was appointed to the Sir Harry Platt chair of orthopaedic surgery in Aberdeen and developed links with China and Romania, and later became the first Syme professor of orthopaedics in the University of Edinburgh and director of education and training at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Following his retirement he returned to Doncaster and, as a devout Christian, played a very full part in the local Evangelical Methodist Church. He published extensively and was the author of three textbooks. In 1964 he married Christine Brown, whom he had known since his schooldays. They had four sons, one of whom is an orthopaedic surgeon, two are Anglican ministers and one a Methodist minister. He died on 20 July 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000244
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-21 2006-10-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372435372435
Occupation Politician
Details Hartley Shawcross, a barrister, Labour politician and an honorary fellow of the College, will be perhaps best remembered as the leading British prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. He was born on 4 February 1902, the son of John and Hilda Shawcross. He was educated at Dulwich College, the London School of Economics and the University of Geneva. He was called to the bar in 1925. He successfully stood for Parliament as a Labour candidate in 1945 and immediately became Attorney General. From 1945 to 1949 he was Britain’s principal UN delegate, as well as Chief Prosecutor at Nuremberg. He later served as President of the Board of Trade before leaving politics and resigning from Parliament in 1958. He went on to help found the University of Sussex and served as chancellor there from 1965 to 1985. He a board member of several major companies. He married three times. His first wife, Alberta Rosita Shyvers, died in 1944. He then married Joan Winifred Mather, by whom he had two sons and a daughter (who became a doctor). In 1997, at the age of 95, he married Susanne Monique Huiskamp. Tall, handsome and with a commanding presence, Shawcross was a most distinguished member of his party, and a good friend to the College.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000248
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wright, Peter (1932 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Enid Taylor
Publication Date 2005-11-02 2008-12-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372333372333
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Anthea Mary Stewart Connell was a senior ophthalmic consultant at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Barbados, from 1969 to 1996. She was born on 21 October 1925, the daughter of two medical doctors. Her father, John S M Connell, was a surgeon and gynaecologist and had served as a colonel in the RAMC on wartime hospital ships. Her mother, Constance B Challis, had trained at Cambridge and the University of Birmingham Medical School, and became a public health doctor. Anthea was educated at Edgbaston High School, before moving to City Park Collegiate Institute, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and then to the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. She completed her medical education at the University of Birmingham Medical School, qualifying in 1952. Her ophthalmic training was at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, firstly as a resident, then as a registrar and subsequently as a senior registrar/first assistant in joint appointments at Moorfields, Guy’s Hospital and the London Hospital. In 1969 she moved to Barbados as a senior consultant and head of the department of ophthalmology and assistant lecturer at the University of West Indies until 1991. She initiated the Barbados Eye Study and was its director from 1987 to 1996. This group investigated glaucoma in the Barbadian population and founded the Inter-Island Eye Service. Although living in Barbados, she held courses and organised diploma of ophthalmology examinations in the Caribbean, which were recognised by the Royal College of Surgeons. She was also a fellow of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, giving presentations at their annual meetings. She wrote extensively, covering her work and research in Barbados and the islands. In 1963 she married George E P Dowglass, a master of wine, who was a wine merchant. They had one child, Charlotte, born in 1965, who became financial director to Hampton Court Palace and the Tower of London. Anthea supported the local community, was chairman of the local Conservative Policy Forum, and enjoyed painting in oil and acrylic, showing her work both locally and in London. She died on 23 September 2003 after a long series of strokes.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000146
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Saunders, Dame Cicely Mary Strode (1918 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-02 2012-03-09
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372337372337
Occupation Nurse Physician
Details Dame Cicely Saunders established St Christopher's Hospice in London, which became the model for hundreds of other hospices. She was born in Barnet, Hertfordshire, on 22 June 1918, the daughter of Gordon Saunders, a domineering estate agent, and Mary Christian Wright. She was educated at Roedean and St Anne's College, Oxford, and on the outbreak of war deferred completing her degree to become a nurse. She entered St Thomas's, but a back injury put an end to a career in nursing. She returned to complete her degree at Oxford and qualified as a lady almoner (a hospital social worker). By now she had fallen in love with David Tasma, a refugee from the Warsaw ghetto, who was dying of cancer. Through him she learned how the pain of cancer could be tamed by modern drugs, and that the inevitable distress of the dying could be made tolerable by care in which physical and spiritual needs were combined. At this time she also gave up her agnostic stance and became a committed and evangelical Christian. Her experience as a volunteer at St Luke's Home for the Dying Poor caused her to realise that the received medical views on dying and bereavement needed to be changed, and to do this she needed to become a doctor. She returned to St Thomas's and qualified in 1957, at the age of 38. She set up a research group to study the control of pain, while also working at St Joseph's, Hackney, which was run for the dying by the formidably down-to-earth Sisters of Charity. Before long Cicely had reached the unorthodox conclusion that the usual intermittent giving of morphine for surges of pain was far less effective than giving enough morphine to achieve a steady state in which the dying patient could still maintain consciousness, self-respect and a measure of dignity. It was at St Joseph's that she met Antoni Michniewicz, who for the second time taught her that loving and being in love were powerful medicaments in terminal illness. His death determined her to set up St Christopher's Hospice, named after the patron saint of travellers, as a place in which to shelter on the most difficult stage of life's journey. Her unorthodox views were published as *The care of the dying* (London, Macmillan & Co) in 1960. This opened many eyes, and soon another edition was needed. There followed years of hard work, lecturing, persuading and fund-raising. St Christopher's was set up as a charity in 1961 and the hospice was opened in 1967. That her methods worked was soon apparent and before long Cicely was invited to join the consultant staff of St Thomas's and the London Hospital. In 1980 she married Marian Bohusz-Szyszko who shared her love of music and with whom she was blissfully happy. Sadly he predeceased her in 1995. A tall, impressive lady, she had a tremendous though quiet personality that shone with honesty and wisdom. Innumerable distinctions and honours came her way - honorary degrees and fellowships galore, the gold medals of the Society of Apothecaries and the British Medical Association, the DBE and the Order of Merit - but it was the establishment of hundreds of hospices according to her principles and the revolution in the care of the dying that will be the real measure of her greatness. She died from breast cancer on 14 July 2005 at St Christopher's.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000150
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Guthrie, Charles W Gardiner (1817 - 1859)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-07 2012-07-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372193372193
Occupation General surgeon
Details The younger son of George James Guthrie (q.v.) by his first wife Margaret Paterson, daughter of the Lieutenant-Governor of Prince Edward's Island. He was educated at the Westminster Hospital, where he was elected Assistant Surgeon in 1843 on the resignation of his father in his favour. He became Surgeon and Lecturer on Surgery, and resigned on the ground of ill health shortly before his death. He was also Assistant Surgeon to the Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital, where his father was Surgeon, and succeeded him as Surgeon. He practised at 18 Pall Mall East, but retiring to Clifton died there of ascites due to a liver complaint in August, 1859. He never married, his elder brother left no children, and his sister died unmarried, so that the family of Guthrie ended. Charles Guthrie was a capable surgeon and a dextrous operator, both in the large operations of general surgery and the more delicate ones on the eye. He was kindly, generous, and very sociable; a cause of much anxiety to his father, who on more than one occasion had to pay for cattle shot on the Thames marshes under the impression that they were big game. He might have done well. PUBLICATIONS: - *On the Cure of Squinting by the Division of one of the Straight Muscles of the Eye*, 8vo, London, 2nd ed., 1840. *Report on the Result of the Operations for the Cure of Squinting performed at the Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital between 18 April and 30 October,* 1840, 8vo, Westminster, 1840. *On Cataract and its Appropriate Treatment by the Operation Adapted for each Peculiar Case*, 8vo, plate, London, 1845.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000006
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Hames, George Henry ( - 1909)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-20 2012-03-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372194372194
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Lincolnshire; entered St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1871 and distinguished himself there, gaining the Foster Prize in 1872, being Brackenbury Medical Scholar in 1875, and Kirkes' Scholar and Gold Medallist. He was House Surgeon to G W Callender (qv) in 1875 and House Physician to Reginald Southey in 1876-1877. Meanwhile in 1873-1874 he was Prosector at the Royal College of Surgeons and for some years Hon Secretary of the Abernethian Society. After leaving St Bartholomew's he studied at the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, was Chloroformist at the Cheyne Hospital for Children, and Surgeon to the Western General Dispensary. He became a well-known practitioner in Mayfair at 29 Hertford Street, 125 Piccadilly, 113 Sloane Street, and died at 11 Park Lane on May 28th, 1909. Publication:- Hames was a contributor to the *Saturday Review*.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000007
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Lynn, William Bewicke (1786 - 1878)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-20 2012-07-19
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URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372196372196
Occupation General surgeon Military surgeon
Details Was gazetted Assistant Surgeon in the 5th Foot on July 13th, 1809, and retired on half pay on Sept 25th, 1817, commuting his half pay on June 22nd, 1830. He saw active service in Walcheren in 1809 and served in the Peninsula War from 1810-1814. He also served in Canada during the years 1814-1815. After he had retired he settled in practice in Westminster, and by 1847 had removed to Claygate in Surrey, and later to Aldenham Grove, Elstree, Herts, whence he returned to Claygate, where he died on July 27th, 1878. His son was W T Lynn, the Cambridge astronomer.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000009
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Savage, Christopher Roland (1915 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372338372338
Occupation Vascular surgeon
Details Christopher Savage was a consultant vascular surgeon at Leamington and Warwick Hospital. He was born in Kingston on Thames on 31 August 1915. His father, Arthur Livingstone Savage, was an architect, and his mother was the artist Agnes Kate Richardson. He was educated at Gate House School, Kingston, and Canford School, Dorset, from which he went to St Thomas’s Hospital. After house appointments he worked at the Royal Salop Infirmary before joining the RAF in 1940, where he reached the rank of acting Wing Commander. After the war, he continued his surgical training at the Royal Leicester Infirmary, the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and St Thomas’s. At St Thomas’s he was much influenced by Sir Max Page and Sir Maurice Cassidy, at a time when vascular surgery was just being developed. He was appointed consultant at Leamington and Warwick Hospital in 1956, where he introduced vascular surgery, published extensively on aortic aneurysms, and wrote a textbook *Vascular surgery* (London, Pitman Medical, 1970). He introduced weekly teaching rounds for his registrars and housemen, as well as students from London teaching hospitals. He married in 1953, and had a daughter (Romilly) and two sons (Richard and Justin). He had a stroke in 2000, which impaired his hearing and vision. He died on 2 February 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000151
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Shaw, Denis Latimer (1917 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-07-28 2012-07-19
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372203372203
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details Was the fourth child of the Rev. Peter Bellinger Brodie, M.A., of Worcester College, Oxford, Rector of Winterslow, Wilts, by Sarah, daughter of Benjamin Collins, Banker and printer, of Milford, near Salisbury. The Brodies were originally a Morayshire clan, and the family was fortunate in relations. Dr. Denman, then the accoucheur, had married Brodie's aunt; Sir Richard Goff ['Goff' is crossed out, and the following added: Croft (Lady Croft & Mrs Baillie were Dr Denman's daughters)] had married a cousin; and Dr. Baillie, nephew of William and John Hunter, had married another cousin. Dr. Denman's son afterwards became Lord Chief Justice, and was well known as one of the advocates at the trial of Queen Caroline, whilst Peter Brodie, Benjamin's eldest brother, held a high position as a conveyancer. In 1797 Brodie and his brothers raised a company of volunteers at a time when a French invasion was much dreaded. He was privately educated by his father, and at the age of eighteen went up to London, devoting himself from the first to the study of anatomy. Brodie joined the medical profession without any special liking or bent for it, and in after-days he said he thought those best succeeded in professions who joined them, not from any irresistible prepossession, but rather from some accidental circumstance inducing them to persevere in their selected course either as a matter of duty or because they had nothing better to do. He rose to be the first surgeon in England, holding for many years a position similar to that once occupied by Sir Astley Cooper. Brodie had always a philosophical turn of mind. He learnt much at first from Abernethy, who arrested his pupils' attention so that it never flagged, and what he told them in his emphatic way never could be forgotten. Brodie used to say "that he had always kept in mind the saying of William Scott [afterwards Lord Stowell] to his brother John [subsequently Lord Eldon], 'John, always keep the Lord Chancellorship in view, and you will be sure to get it in the end.'" And a similar aim and distinction were Brodie's. In 1801 and 1802 he attended the lectures of James Wilson at the Hunterian School in Great Windmill Street, where he worked hard at dissection. It was about this time that he formed what proved a lifelong friendship with William Lawrence (q.v.). In 1803 Brodie became a pupil of Sir Everard Home at St. George's Hospital, and was successively appointed House Surgeon and Demonstrator to the Anatomical School, after which he was Home's assistant in his private operations and researches in comparative anatomy, and he did much work for him at the College Museum. "The latter employment," says Mr. Timothy Holmes (q.v.) in his *Life of Brodie*, "was of critical importance for Brodie in several ways - chiefly because it obliged him to work on scientific subjects, and thus prevented a too exclusive devotion to the pursuit of practical surgery. We cannot be wrong in attributing to this cause mainly his connection with the Royal Society, and the many-sidedness of his intellectual activities." At the College he came into contact with Clift, and, through Home, became an intimate in the learned coterie of Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, and the chief link between distinguished men of science of two centuries. Brodie still diligently pursued his anatomical studies at the Windmill Street School, where he first demonstrated for, and then lectured conjointly with, James Wilson until 1812. In 1808, before he was twenty-five, he was elected Assistant Surgeon at St. George's, thus relieving Home of some part of his duties. Brodie remained in this position fourteen years, and his "regular attendance at the hospital was an immense improvement, in the interests both of the patients and the students, on the practice obtaining in the metropolitan hospitals of that day". All through life Brodie was consumed with the rage for work which his father had originally instilled into him. So devoted was he to every phase of his duties that he found no time to travel, only once visiting France for a month and often going without a summer holiday. His very recreations were arduously intellectual. Thus he took a leading part in the life of various learned societies - the Academical Society, banished to London from Oxford in the French revolutionary epoch, the Society for the Promotion of Medical and Chirurgical Knowledge, the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society, of which he was President in 1839 and 1840. He contributed several valuable papers to the last-named society, and at its meetings he stimulated discussion, and had always something of interest to say. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1810, he soon communicated a paper "On the Influence of the Brain on the Action of the Heart and the Generation of Animal Heat", and another "On the Effects produced by certain Vegetable Poisons (Alcohol, Tobacco, Woorara)". The first paper, the subject of which he doubtless derived from John Hunter, formed the Croonian Lecture: the two papers taken together won him the Copley Medal in 1811, an honour never before bestowed on so young a man. In 1809 Brodie entered upon private practice, and in 1822 became full Surgeon at St. George's Hospital, from which time forward his career was one of ever-increasing success. He became a Member in 1805, a Fellow in 1843, and from 1819 to 1823 he was Professor of Anatomy, Physiology, and Surgery at the College. He lectured upon the Organs of Digestion, Respiration, and Circulation, and on the Nervous System, the most interesting of his discourses being upon "Death from Drowning", a subject which Hunter had investigated without hitting upon the scientific explanation of that form of asphyxia eventually brought out by Brodie. While Professor at the College, Brodie was summoned to attend George IV, and with Sir Astley Cooper, who was the operator, and a formidable array of medical men of that time, assisted at an operation for the removal of a small sebaceous cyst from the king's scalp. He became Surgeon to George IV, and attended him during his last illness, when he went every night to Windsor, slept there, and returned to London in the morning. "His habit", says Mr. Timothy Holmes, "was to go into the king's room at about six o'clock, and sit talking with him for an hour or two before leaving for town." The king became warmly attached to him. He was Surgeon to William IV, and in 1834, when he was made a Baronet, he was appointed Serjeant-Surgeon. In this capacity he became examiner by prescriptive right in the College, a privilege abolished by the Charter of 1843, which Brodie was largely instrumental in obtaining. He was a Member of Council from 1829-1862, Hunterian Orator in 1837, Vice-President in 1842 and 1843, and President in 1844. He retired from St. George's Hospital in 1840, but for some time continued his activity at the College, which owes to him the institution of the Order of Fellows. The object of this institution, he maintained, was to ensure the introduction into the profession of a certain number of young men who might be qualified to maintain its scientific character, and would be fully equal to its higher duties as hospital surgeons, teachers, and improvers of physiological, pathological, and surgical science afterwards. The Fellowship may be said to have been largely instrumental in raising the college to what it now is - "the exemplar of surgical education to the whole kingdom". Brodie was the first President of the General Medical Council, having been elected in 1858. Within a week after receiving this honour he became President of the Royal Society, an office which he filled with great dignity and wisdom till 1861. He died, nearly blind following double cataract for the relief of which he had been operated upon by Sir William Bowman (q.v.), at Broome Park, Betchworth, Surrey, on Oct. 21st, 1862. Of the immediate cause of his death, Holmes says: "It seems that nearly thirty years [see BLOXHAM, THOMAS] previously he had suffered from a dislocation of the right shoulder. I am not aware that he ever made any complaint of the part after the dislocation had been reduced, but it was in this same joint that in July he began to complain of pain accompanied by much prostration; and this was succeeded in September by the appearance of a tumour, doubtless of a malignant nature, in the neighbourhood of the shoulder." It thus happened that he who had spent his life treating diseased joints died of a joint disease. He married in 1816 Anne, the third daughter of Serjeant Sellon by his wife Charlotte Dickinson, his brother-in-law being Monsieur Regnault, the French physicist. Three children survived to maturity: Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie F.R.S. (1817-1880), who became Professor of Chemistry at Oxford; a daughter who married the Rev. E. Hoare; and another son, the Rev. W. Brodie. [His granddaughter Mary Isabel married Sir Herbert Warren K.C.V.O. President of Magdalen College Oxford - 1885-1928] Brodie was distinguished as a surgeon with the bent of a physician. He was not a great operating surgeon, nor did he regard operations as the highest aim of surgery. His power of diagnosis was great, and he was a distinguished teacher with an elegant and clear deliverance. He attained high success by the legitimate influence of a lofty order of intellect, by his great stores of surgical knowledge, and the sound decided opinions he based upon them. He was single-minded and upright in character and free from all affectations. He knew his duty and did it well. He lived for a great end, the lessening of human suffering, and for that he felt no labour was too great, no patience too long. As a scientific man his object was truth pursued for its own sake, and without regard to future reward. He recognized the great traditions of wisdom, benevolence, and self-denial as the everlasting bases on which true medicine and surgery rest, and he was in truth a master of medicine. Of Brodie's manner as a lecturer, Sir Henry Acland says: "None who heard him can forget the graphic yet artless manner in which, sitting at his ease, he used to describe minutely what he had himself seen and done under circumstances of difficulty, and what under like circumstances he would again do or would avoid. His instruction was illustrated by the valuable pathological dissections which during many years he had amassed, and which he gave during his lifetime to his hospital." Mr. Timothy Holmes says: "It was Brodie who popularized the method of lithotrity in England, and by so doing chiefly contributed to the ready reception of an operation which has robbed what was one of the deadliest diseases that afflict humanity of nearly all its terror. This will remain to all time one of Brodie's greatest claims to public gratitude." Brodie used to tell that he once prescribed for a fat butler, suffering from too much good living and lack of exercise. Sir Benjamin told him "he must be very moderate in what he ate and drank, careful not to eat much at a time or late at night. Above all, no spirituous liquors could be allowed, malt liquor especially being poison to his complaint." Whilst these directions were being given the butler's face grew longer and longer, and at the end he exclaimed, "And pray, Sir Benjamin, who is going to compensate me for the loss of all these things?" Brodie's personal appearance is admirably portrayed in the picture by Watts. He was not, perhaps, strictly handsome, but no one can deny that the features are striking. A fine forehead, keen grey eyes, a mobile and sensitive mouth, and facial muscles which followed all the movements of one of the most active minds, lent to the countenance a charm and an expressiveness to which no stranger could be insensible. His frame was slight and small; but there was nothing of weakness about it. Those who knew him only as a public man would little suspect the playful humour which sparkled by his fireside - the fund of anecdotes, the harmless wit, the simple pleasures of his country walk. The following is a list of portraits of Brodie: (1) A bust by H. Weekes, R.A., in the Royal College of Surgeons. (2) A portrait in middle life, which appeared in the Medical Circular (1852, I, 817). The copy in the College is accompanied by a strikingly picturesque and vivid appreciation of Brodie as a teacher making his round of the wards. (3) A half-length by G. F. Watts, R.A., painted in 1860, which is reproduced in Timothy Holmes's *Life of Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie*, 1897. (4) A medal presented to Sir Benjamin Brodie in 1840 when he retired from office as Surgeon to St. George's Hospital. There is a bronze replica in the Board Room at St. George's Hospital, and an illustration of it in the *British Journal of Surgery* (1918-19, vi, facing p.158). PUBLICATIONS: - As an author Brodie achieved fame by his treatise on *Diseases of the Joints*, 1818, which went through five editions and was translated into foreign languages. He wrote also on local nervous affections, diseases of the urinary organs, the surgery of the breast, lighting-stroke, besides an important work, published anonymously in 1854, under the title of *Psychological Enquiries* [Times 21 Jan 1938. BRODIE - On Jan. 20, 1938. at Brockham Warren, Betchworth, Surrey, of pneumonia, SIR BENJAMIN VINCENT SELLON BRODIE, Bt., M.A. (Oxon), D.L., J.P., aged 75. Funeral at Betchworth Church, 3 p.m. Monday, Jan. 24. SIR BENJAMIN BRODIE. Sir Benjamin Vincent Sellon Brodie, Bt.,. died at his home, Brockham Warren, Dorking, yesterday at the age of 75. He succeeded as third baronet on the death of his father in 1880. Educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, and a barrister at Lincoln's Inn, he was a county councillor and then a county alderman for Surrey, High Sheriff in 1912, and a member of the Surrey Education Committee. He owned about 1,000 acres in Surrey. Sir Benjamin married in 1887 Caroline, daughter of the late Captain J. R. Woodriff, R.N., his Majesty's Serjeant-at-Arms, and they had one son and two daughters. Lady Brodie died in 1895. The heir is Captain Benjamin Colin (amended to Collins) Brodie, who was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. He served throughout the War with the Surrey Yeomanry and the 4th Battalion, The Gordon Highlanders, winning the M.C. and bar. Later he became a captain in the Army Educational Corps. He is married and has two sons and one daughter.] [SIR BENJAMIN BRODIE Captain Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, MC, the fourth baronet, died on Monday. He served with the Surrey Yeomanry at Gallipoli, with the Gordon Highlanders and the 1st Highland Brigade, British Army of the Rhine, in the First World War. He was joint headmaster of Holyrood School, Bognor Regis, from 1927 to 1940. He was twice chairman of the governors of Tonbridge School; and from 1945 to 1960 of Judd School, Tonbridge. He was twice Master of the Skinners' Company. Brodie succeeded his father in 1938 and the heir to the baronetcy is Brodie's son, Benjamin David Ross Brodie.]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000016
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First Title value, for Searching Johnston, James Herbert (1920 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372440372440
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Herbert Johnston was a pioneer of paediatric urology, determined to make what had been a peripheral interest a specialty in its own right. Appointed first as a general surgeon to a leading children’s hospital, Alder Hey in Liverpool, he soon saw that the urogenital problems required a much closer attention than had been accorded them, and by years of dedicated practice and research he built for himself an international reputation and inspired a succession of young disciples. James Herbert Johnston, known to his intimates as ‘Herbie’, was born on 26 February 1920 in Belfast. His father, Robert Johnston, was in the linen business, his mother, Mary née McCormack, a science teacher. He was always destined for a career in medicine and distinguished himself as an undergraduate by gaining several surgical prizes. He graduated from Queens University, Belfast, in 1943, and after a house job became assistant to the professor of surgery at the Royal Victoria Hospital and at the Children’s Hospital. After military service, from 1946 to 1948, he returned to Belfast, taking the FRCS Ireland in 1949 and the English Fellowship in the following year. He then crossed the Irish Sea, theoretically for a short spell, but actually for the rest of his life, taking up senior registrar posts in Liverpool. There he came under the powerful influence of Charles Wells, who not only trained his registrars but directed them to their consultant posts. Thus it was that in 1956 Herbert was appointed surgeon to the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. Although Charles Wells was much concerned with urology, Herbert had had no specialist training and, curiously, he was at first given responsibility for the management of burns. With this in mind he went to a famous burn unit in Baghdad, but this venture was abruptly ended by the Suez War. At Alder Hey Isabella Forshall and Peter Rickham were making great strides in neonatal surgery, but had no particular interest in urology and Herbert saw both the need and the opportunity to make that field his own. As Hunterian Professor in 1962 he lectured on vesico-ureteric reflux, the topic then exciting all paediatric urologists, and went on to produce a long series of papers illuminating important, or neglected, aspects of children’s disorders. He joined with Innes Williams in writing the standard British textbook on this subject and his published work soon brought him an international reputation, with invitations to deliver eponymous lectures in the USA and elsewhere. In 1980 he was awarded the St Peters medal of the British Association of Urological Surgeons in recognition of his many contributions. In spite of all this evidence of enthusiasm Herbert did not at first acquaintance give an impression of liveliness. Deliberate in speech, he could at times look positively lugubrious. However, he became a popular lecturer, making his points with logic and a clarity laced with dry wit and self deprecating humour. To those who knew him well he was a delightful companion who could make fun of all life’s problems. His hobbies were few, though he was a keen golfer if not an outstanding performer in this field. In 1945 he married Dorothy Dowling, who made a happy home for him and their son and daughter, who are now in the teaching profession. His retirement was marred by a stroke which left him with considerable disability, but he was lucky to have Dorothy to look after him so well. He died on 4 February 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000253
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Jones, Geoffrey Blundell (1915 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2007-08-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372442372442
Occupation General surgeon
Details After qualifying from St James’s Hospital, Leeds, Ivor Fussey studied neurophysiology for nine years, gaining his PhD in 1972, during which time he devised platinum microelectrodes that could be implanted in the brain and used to locate vagal afferent impulses. After this experience he decided to specialise in surgery and did registrar jobs with George Harrison in Derby and Duthie in Sheffield, where he met his future wife Kate, a medical student. He was appointed as a consultant general surgeon to Lincoln County Hospital in 1980, where he developed a special interest in surgery of the breast and, together with Jenny Eremin, established the breast unit in the 1990s. After he retired in 1996 he went to Leicester, where he was a mentor to preclinical staff and students, with whom he was very popular. He died suddenly on 30 November 2003, leaving his wife, Kate, and two daughters, Tamsin and Miekes.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000255
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Cronin, Kevin (1925 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2007-02-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372443372443
Occupation General surgeon
Details Kevin Cronin was born on 24 July 1925, the son of M J Cronin, a general practitioner. He was educated at the Beaumont School, Berkshire, and entered the London Hospital Medical College in 1942. After qualifying, he completed house jobs in neurosurgery under Douglas Northfield, chest medicine under Lloyd Rusby, and ear, nose and throat surgery. His later training in surgery was at the Radcliffe Infirmary. During this time he spent a research year at the University of Oregon, as a result of which he obtained his masters degree in surgery. He was appointed as consultant surgeon to Northampton General Hospital. He was an Arris and Gale lecturer of the College. He married Madeleine and they had a son (Philip) and daughter (Caroline). They had four grandchildren - Sam, Chloe, Christian and Rory. He died on 20 May 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000256
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372215372215
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Paul Brand, a celebrated orthopaedic surgeon, devoted his life to the care of patients with leprosy. He was born in a remote mountain district in south east India, 150 miles from Mysore, on 17 July 1914, the son of Jesse Brand and his wife, Evelyn, both Baptist missionaries. Paul was sent away to England at the age of nine to attend the University College School, Hampstead, and for the next six years did not see his parents. After leaving school, he first decided on a career in building and construction, and in 1930 began a five-year building apprenticeship. In 1936 he began training to become a missionary at Norwood, Surrey. The following year he changed direction, and entered University College Medical School in London. There he met his future wife, Margaret Berry (they were married in 1943). During the second world war, he and his fellow students were on constant call during the Blitz. It was while treating these patients that Brand first began to develop an interest in hand surgery. The medical school was later evacuated to Watford, where he became interested in physiology and the control of pain. In 1944 he was appointed as a surgical officer at the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street, and then became assistant in the surgical unit at University College Hospital. In 1946 Brand and his wife were invited by Robert Cochrane, the foremost authority on leprosy, to join him at the Christian Medical College Hospital at Vellore, Tamil Nadu, southern India. Cochrane challenged Brand to use his skills as an orthopaedic surgeon to research and treat the disabilities associated with leprosy. Through his subsequent research Brand changed the world’s perceptions and treatments of leprosy-affected people. Firstly, he pioneered the idea that the loss of fingers and toes in leprosy was due to the patient losing the feeling of pain, and was not due to inherent decay brought on by the disease. Secondly, as a skilled and inventive hand surgeon, he pioneered tendon transfer techniques with leprosy patients, opening up a new world of disability prevention and rehabilitation. His original tendon transplantation, using a good muscle from the patient’s forearm, became known as the ‘Brand operation’. In 1953 the Brands joined the staff of the Leprosy Mission International and continued to develop their research and training work at Vellore and the newly founded Schieffelin Leprosy Research and Training Centre, Karigiri. In 1964 Brand was appointed as the International Leprosy Mission’s director of surgery and rehabilitation. Two years later, the Brands were seconded to the US Public Health Service Hospital in Carville, Louisiana, a renowned centre for leprosy research. He became chief of rehabilitation and for more than 20 years taught surgery and orthopaedics at the Medical College at Louisiana State University. He served on the expert panel for leprosy of the World Health Organization. He was medical consultant and then international president of the Leprosy Mission, from 1992 to 1999, co-founded the All-Africa Leprosy and Rehabilitation Training Centre (ALERT) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and served on the board of the American Leprosy Missions. After retiring in the mid-1980s, Brand moved to Seattle to become emeritus clinical professor of orthopaedics at the University of Washington. He authored more than 100 clinical papers, as well as the textbook *Clinical mechanics of the hand* (St Louis, Missouri, Mosby, 1985), and two books on religion and medicine (*Fearfully and wonderfully made* [Grand Rapids, Michigan, Zondervan Publishing House, c.1980] and *The forever feast: letting God satisfy your deepest hunger* [Crowborough, Monarch, 1994]). He was appointed CBE in 1961, and was awarded the Damian Dutton award in 1977. He was Hunterian Professor at the College in 1952 and received the Albert Lasker award in 1960. He died on 8 July 2003 from complications related to a subdural haematoma. He is survived by his wife, an expert on the ophthalmic effects of leprosy, his children (Estelle, Chris, Jean, Mary, Patricia and Pauline) and 12 grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000028
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brough, Michael David (1942 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Burgess, Charles Terence Anthony (1913 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-14 2015-09-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372217372217
Occupation General surgeon
Details Charles Burgess, known as Terence, was born in Hoylake, the Wirral, Cheshire, on 10 January 1913, into a medical family. His father, Charles Herbert Burgess, was a general practitioner, as was his grandfather, Robert Burgess. His mother was Meta Jeanette née Leitch. Terence was educated at Haileybury, and then in 1931 went on to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He completed his clinical training in Liverpool. After junior posts, he served in the RAMC and was awarded an MBE for his part in the rescue of wounded servicemen from a hospital transport ship when it was mined and sunk off the Normandy beaches shortly after D-day. He returned to Liverpool to specialise in surgery, training at the David Lewis Northern Hospital. In 1950, he was appointed as a consultant surgeon at Ormskirk District General Hospital and, the following year, to Southport Infirmary. He retired from both positions in 1978. He kept up his links with the RAMC, retiring from the 8th Liverpool Unit in 1963 with the rank of Colonel. He served on the Southport bench as a magistrate from 1971 to 1983, and after retirement became involved with the movement to found the Queenscourt Hospice in Southport, of which he was first chairman of the committee. The hospice education centre is named after him. He wished to be remembered for the good quality, compassionate care he gave to patients and as an enthusiastic educator of medical and nursing staff. Outside medicine, he was involved with his church, St Cuthbert's in Southport, serving as a churchwarden. He played golf, and was interested in cartography and local history. He was a lifelong supporter of Everton Football Club. He married Stella née Smith in 1951 and they had two daughters, Catherine and Priscilla, an ophthalmologist. There are two grandchildren. He died on 29 January 2004, following a stroke.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000030
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by David Currie
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2018-05-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372451372451
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Christopher Thomas Blaiklock was a consultant neurosurgeon at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. He was born on 27 July 1936 in Newcastle upon Tyne and raised in Northumbria. His parents, Thomas Snowdon Blaiklock and Constance Rebecca Blaiklock, were both doctors. He attended Oundle School, Northampton, and then carried out his National Service (from 1954 to 1956) in the Royal Navy. He went on to study medicine at Durham, qualifying in 1961. Chris was influenced by his medical house officer post with the Newcastle neurologist, Sir John Walton. His original intention was to pursue a career as a physician, but, having passed the MRCP in 1966, he came to the view that, with the resources available at the time, he could achieve more for patients as a surgeon and he did his basic surgical training in Cardiff. He decided on a career in neurosurgery which, at the time, could not be said to be the most successful of surgical specialties, but he was fortunate to be regularly in the right place at the right time. He was a neurosurgical registrar at Atkinson Morley Hospital in London, which was famous (or notorious) for giving a rigorous training. While he was there the first CT (computed tomography) scanner in the world was installed and Chris was among the first neurosurgeons to experience the revolutionary transformation of neurological imaging and the huge improvement that brought to patients' experience of neurological diagnosis. In 1972, he was appointed as a senior registrar in neurosurgery in Glasgow with Bryan Jennett at a time when Glasgow was being recognised as a centre of excellence in neurosurgical research. The first CT scanner in Scotland was installed in Glasgow during his training there. In 1974, he was appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. He was only the third neurosurgeon in Aberdeen after Martin Nichols and Bob Fraser. The department covered the whole of the North of Scotland, including the Northern and Western isles. In addition to providing a comprehensive neurosurgery service, the department housed, prior to the advent of intensive care units, the only ventilation unit in the region and the two neurosurgeons were responsible for its management along with a single trainee. Chris brought his experience of CT imaging and saw the installation of the first CT scanner in Aberdeen. He introduced the operating microscope and effectively brought neurosurgery in Aberdeen into the modern era. When the world's first MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner was built and became available for clinical use, Chris was the first neurosurgeon in the world to employ it and gain experience in its use in neurosurgery. Chris was unusual in being a neurosurgeon who was also a member (and subsequently a fellow) of the Royal College of Physicians, and his diagnostic skills were evidence of his broad general knowledge. For many years, the neurosurgeons in Aberdeen also offered the out-of-hours neurology service, handing patients over to the well-rested neurologists in the morning. Chris often remarked that he could just as easily have enjoyed being an engineer. He had a fascination with how things worked. He carried a skill with tools and his manual dexterity into his operative surgery. He was a true craftsman. His operative surgery was calm, precise and quick, and an inspiration to his trainees. He was an NHS partisan. Despite a heavy workload, his waiting times were negligible and he was offended on occasions when it was suggested to him that he might see a patient 'privately'. He was intensely proud of the local service and of the beautiful territory he served. He enjoyed demonstrating the extent of the territory he covered by placing a pair of compasses on Aberdeen and passing it through his most distant centre of habitation - one of the North Sea oil platforms. The circle also passed through Watford. He contributed extensively to NHS administration, both locally and nationally. With the introduction of clinical management, he became director of surgery for Grampian - a post that he accepted without dropping any clinical sessions. He lacked self-importance or pomposity, and was genuinely interested in people and their occupations and he was always available. For a year, while the other consultant post was unfilled, he provided the service single-handedly. Chris Blaiklock died at home on 8 February 2018 at the age of 81 and was survived by his wife Judith, an anaesthetist, and by his son, Ian, and daughter, Fiona. He will be remembered with great affection by former patients, colleagues in all health professions and by his trainees who have occupied consultant posts in Scotland and in other countries.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000264
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372356372356
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details John Kelly was born in Ayr, Queensland, on 12 September 1943, the son of John Kelly, a general practitioner and superintendent of the Ayr District Hospital. He was educated at the Marist Brothers College in Ashgrove, Brisbane, and studied medicine at the University of Queensland. After junior posts at the Royal Brisbane Hospital, where he met his future wife Shelly Parer, he went to England to specialise in ENT surgery, and was a registrar at the Royal Surrey County Hospital, being on duty when the victims of the 1974 Guildford IRA bombing attack were admitted. Later, he was at the Royal Free Hospital under John Ballantyne and John Groves. On his return to Australia he set up in practice at Southport and Palm Beach, where, in addition to surgery, he developed a passion for windsurfing, gardening and classical music. Early in 2004 he was found to have metastatic colorectal cancer, and died on 23 May 2004, leaving his widow and three daughters (Caroline, Krissi and Georgie).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000169
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-23 2012-03-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372359372359
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 19 January 1935, Manohar Rajani qualified in Bombay and after junior posts went to England to specialise in surgery. After passing the FRCS he did a series of training posts, before going to Canada in 1965, where he passed the Canadian FRCS and settled down in practice in Toronto. He died on 13 April 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000172
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-23 2006-12-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372360372360
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Bob Williams was a distinguished urological surgeon based in Leeds. He was born on 18 December 1927 in Motherwell, Lanarkshire, the son of Robert Williams, a steelworker, and Janet McNeil. He was educated at Dalziel High School, Motherwell, and Glasgow Medical School. After house jobs in Glasgow he did his National Service in the RAMC, serving as resident medical officer to the Northumberland Fusiliers in Hong Kong. On his return, he received his general surgical training under Sir Charles Illingworth in Glasgow and John Goligher in Leeds, before deciding to specialise in urology, which in those days was emerging as a separate entity. He became senior registrar to Leslie Pyrah in Leeds, who had set up a pioneering stone clinic. There he carried out a painstaking and far-reaching study of the natural history of renal tract stone, which won him his MD. After this he went to work with Wyland Leadbetter at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, in 1964, where he carried out research on total body water and whole body potassium, which was to win him a commendation for his MCh thesis. On his return he was appointed to the consultant staff of the University of Leeds urological department in 1966. He had many interests which were shown in his numerous publications, most notably on urinary calculi, bladder cancer and lymphadenectomy. He followed Leslie Pyrah in the energetic pursuit of the establishment of urology as a separate discipline in the British Isles, which won him the admiration and respect of his colleagues. Bob was president of the section of urology of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1989 and a very active member of BAUS, of which he was president from 1990 to 1992. He was awarded the St Peter’s medal of the Association in 1993. He examined for the Edinburgh and English Colleges, and was an invited member of Council of our College from 1989 to 1992. In 1958 he married Lora Pratt, an Aberdeen graduate who was a GP and part-time anaesthetist. They had a son (Duncan) and two daughters (Bryony and Lesley), all of whom became doctors. A genial, cheerful and amusing colleague, Bob was struck down by renal failure caused by polycystic disease of the kidneys, but continued with great courage to work and publish and play an active part in BAUS, despite the need for regular dialysis. A renal transplant unfortunately underwent rejection, and he was, reluctantly, obliged to retire in 1991. He died on 26 August 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000173
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Sarah Green
Publication Date 2006-01-13 2015-09-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372362372362
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Sydney Green was a neurosurgeon based in Washington DC and Bethesda. He was born in Glasgow on 10 June 1915 and lived in a one bedroom apartment with his parents and four older siblings, Lionel, Fagah, Mae and Lillah. He often spoke lovingly about his parents Hymen Harry and Sarah Sayetta Green, and told many stories of life at Springhill Gardens. As he played in the courtyard, he would yell up to his mother, 'Ma, throw me a piece!' and his mother would fix him a bread, butter and sugar sandwich and lower it down to him on a pulley which she rigged up on the fourth floor. The family moved to London when Syd was 10. He decided to become a doctor like his brother Lionel and went on to study medicine at Guy's Hospital. He qualified in 1938. During the Second World War, he served as a captain in the RAMC and was aboard the *Dinard* when it was sunk after hitting a mine on D-Day. Later, he crossed the Rhine as surgeon in charge of the Glider Ambulance Unit, 6th Airborne Division, and was one of the first to liberate the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen, an experience which profoundly shaped his feeling toward religion and his Jewish heritage. After the war he returned to specialise in neurosurgery under Hugh Cairns and Murray Falconer and in 1958 went to the United States, where he was in practice in Washington and then Bethesda, working mainly at the Sibley Memorial Hospital. He was much appreciated by his patients and admired by his peers, and was meticulous and incredibly thorough. Intensely devoted to each and every patient, he told how, during the war, he insisted on using more and more blood in an attempt to save one soldier. He was disciplined for his commitment to his patient. Throughout his career, his waiting room was often crowded. He simply wouldn't take shortcuts with any person, much less his patients - but he was well worth waiting for. In 1961 he met a widow, Phyllis Leon Brown. The story goes that she took him on a walk on their second date, and before he knew it they were in a jewellery store choosing rings. They married in 1962 and Syd instantly became a father to three boys, Stuart, Myles and Ken. A daughter, Sarah, was born in 1964. His pride in his family was transparent: family defined his life. He always tried to be home for dinner every night, even if it meant he would have to go back to work late into the evening. He didn't have many hobbies that would take him away from home, but he was passionate about his garden. He would drive up the driveway and, before going inside, he would take off his jacket and lie down in a patch of grass, painstakingly picking out the crabgrass. He would sometimes lose his glasses in the garden, only to find them crunched by the lawnmower weeks later or would come in the house frantically looking for them, only to realise that they were still on the top of his head. He loved to sing off key and tell jokes, good and bad, and to play games. He was intensely alive at every moment and took incredible pleasure in food, whether marmite on burnt toast, over ripe bananas and really crusty bread. Syd had the eccentric habit of grading every meal he ate. While his wife learned to accept a solid B with some satisfaction, other hostesses weren't so thrilled to accept that their meal was anything less than an A+. With Syd, there was no such thing as grade inflation. He was thrilled to see each of his children find his or her life partner, and was passionate about his grandchildren. As Sydney's family tree grew, so did his life force, it seemed. He was famous for travelling to new cities, finding phone books in hotel rooms and looking up anyone who had a name that vaguely resembled his mother's maiden name 'Sayetta'. If he found someone, he would call them and invite them for tea. Whether or not they were related, it was a new person to meet with the potential of connecting with them on some intellectual or emotional level: Syd was a people person to the very end. He saw a great deal during his long life, including two world wars and the horrors of the Holocaust. He was also around to see some of the most fantastic advances in technology and he made sure he kept up with the latest medical breakthroughs, even into his eighties. In 1996 he underwent a pneumonectomy and, after a prolonged battle with chest disease, he died on 14 September 2005. He was 90.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000175
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372363372363
Occupation General surgeon
Details Graham Harris was a consultant surgeon at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary with a particular interest and expertise in surgery of the breast. He was born in Swindon village, Gloucestershire, on 5 June 1928, the son of Walter Albert Harris and Sarah Anne née Pitman. He was educated at Wycliffe College before joining the RAF in 1946, where he served with the radar section. In 1948 he entered St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School, where he completed the early part of his surgical training, becoming junior registrar. He was an assistant lecturer in anatomy at University College, where he published on degeneration in the cerebral cortex following experimental craniotomy. He went on to be senior registrar at Leeds, from which he obtained his consultant post in Huddersfield. There he led one of the then four breast screening units in the UK. An active member of the Moynihan Travelling Surgical Club, he was President of the Yorkshire Regional Cancer Research Group in the 1970s and 1980s. Outside medicine, he was President of the Honley Male Voice Choir. He took early retirement after a myocardial infarction, but continued with his music and his hobby as a caterer. He married Patricia Mary Tippet and they had five children. He died on 29 April 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000176
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372364372364
Occupation Casualty surgeon Accident and emergency surgeon
Details Thomas Lowden was a casualty surgeon in Sunderland. He was born in Leeds on 25 March 1910, where his father, Harold Lowden, was an engineer and his mother, Ethel Annie Lamb, a schoolteacher. From Leeds Grammar School he won a Holroyd scholarship to Keble College, Oxford, and went back to Leeds for his clinical training, qualifying in 1934. After junior posts in Leeds General Infirmary and the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne (from which he passed the FRCS), he joined the RAMC as a surgical specialist in 1941. He served in India, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, North Africa and Egypt, before taking part in the Sicily landings and the invasion of Italy, rising to the rank of acting lieutenant colonel. He remained for a time in Germany, before returning to specialise in accident and emergency surgery, becoming consultant in that specialty in Sunderland in 1946 and establishing its casualty department. He published The casualty department (Edinburgh and London, E & S Livingstone, 1956), and developed a subspecialty of hand surgery and was an early member of the Hand Club (later the British Society for Surgeon of the Hand). After he retired in 1970 he continued to do locums at Hexham General Hospital. He married Margaret Purdie, a doctor, in 1945. They had a daughter, Catherine, who became a teacher, and a son, Richard, a lawyer. Among his hobbies were mountain walking, especially in Norway, 16 mm photography and the history of the Crusades. He died on 9 October 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000177
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-13
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372365372365
Occupation Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Campbell Reid was a leading hand surgeon. He was born on 25 February 1921 in Cardiff, the son of David William Reid, a general practitioner, and Edith Mary née Smith, a nurse. His grandfather, David Spence Clark Reid, had also been a GP. He was educated at Christ’s College, Finchley, where he played in the first XI in football and cricket, and won prizes for shooting. After premedical studies at Queen Mary College he entered the London Hospital Medical College, which at that time was evacuated to Cambridge. After qualifying he was a house surgeon at Chase Farm Hospital and then at Hackney Hospital, where he worked through the V1 air raids. He was then a casualty officer, assistant anaesthetist and house physician at the London Hospital. From 1945 to 1946 he was a casualty officer at Chase Farm Hospital, and then went on to be an anatomy demonstrator at the London Hospital, passing his primary in April 1946. He then passed the final from a registrar post at Haslemere. He decided to specialise in plastic surgery, first as senior registrar to Sir Harold Gillies at Park Prewett, Basingstoke, and later as senior registrar to R G Pulvertaft at Derbyshire Royal Infirmary and at the Royal Hospital, Sheffield. During this time he was awarded a research prize for an essay on reconstruction of the thumb and was later the first to undertake pollicisation in the UK using the Littler neurovascular pedicle. In 1962 he was appointed consultant plastic surgeon to the United Sheffield Hospitals, the Sheffield Children’s Hospital and Chesterfield Royal Hospital. He won the Frank Robinson silver medal from the United Hospitals of South Manchester in 1980, and was the Sir Harold Gillies lecturer and gold medallist of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons in 1981. He served on the council of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons from 1952 and was on the editorial board of the British Journal of Hand Surgery. He published widely on all aspects of hand surgery, including *Surgery of the thumb* (London, Butterworths, 1986) and *Mutilating injuries of the hand* (Edinburgh, Churchill Livingstone, 1979). Outside surgery he was a keen ornithologist and photographer. In 1946 he married Margaret Joyce née Pedler, who was an archivist and head of her division at the Foreign Office. They had a son and two daughters. In 1969 he underwent an emergency replacement of the aortic valve and in 1982 he retired to Eastbourne. He died on 16 August 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000178
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372366372366
Occupation General surgeon
Details Ron Rhind was a general surgeon with an interest in urology based in Hartlepool. He was born in Calcutta on 7 July 1943, where his father, James Albert Rhind, was a general surgeon. His mother was Dorothy Cornelia née Jones. From Sedbergh School Ron went to Leeds to study medicine and did house jobs there after qualifying in 1965. He remained on the surgical rotation, working in Yorkshire hospitals and developing a special interest in urology thanks to the influence of Philip Clarke, R E Williams and Philip Smith, to whom he became senior registrar before going to the Institute of Urology as an RSO. He became a consultant surgeon at Hartlepool General Hospital, where he continued to practice general surgery but concentrated increasingly on urological work. Small, dapper and bustling, Ron was full of energy and self-confidence which was sadly dented in 2001 when, already ill with cancer, he was accused of making errors in the treatment of patients with carcinoma of the bladder and faced with a GMC enquiry. He married Valerie Ross, a nurse, in 1968. They had a son and daughter. He died on 12 March 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000179
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Kirklin, John Webster (1917 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372277372277
Occupation Cardiovascular surgeon
Details John Kirklin, former chairman of the department of surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, revolutionised cardiovascular surgery through his development and refinement of the heart-lung machine. Throughout his life, he sought new methods and techniques to improve the care of patients. Born in Muncie, Indiana, on 5 August 1917, his father was director of radiology at the Mayo Clinic. John earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota in 1938. He then went on to Harvard, where he gained his medical degree in 1942. He completed an internship at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia and then served as a fellow in surgery at the Mayo Clinic. From 1944 to 1946 he served in the US Army, with the rank of Captain. He then spent six months at the Boston Children’s Hospital. In 1950, he joined the staff of the Mayo Clinic, pioneering the development of cardiovascular surgery and performing the first operations for a range of congenital heart malformations. He also modified the Gibbon machine, improving the original pumping and oxygenator system, and performed the world’s first series of open-heart operations using a heart-lung machine. At Mayo he became chairman of the department of surgery, and trained the next generation of cardiovascular surgeons from all over the world. In 1966, Kirklin joined the faculty of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) as chairman of the department of surgery and the surgeon in chief for UAB Hospital. He held these positions until 1982, during which time he built one of the most prestigious cardiovascular surgical programmes in the world. He retired from surgery in 1989. He wrote more than more than 700 publications, but he often stated that his greatest contribution was his textbook, *Cardiac surgery: morphology, diagnostic criteria, natural history, techniques, results, and indications* (Churchill Livingstone, 1956), which remains an important reference text in the field. He also served on multiple editorial boards and served as editor of *The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.* He received many awards, including the American Heart Association research achievement award (in 1976), the Rudolph Matas award in vascular surgery, the Rene Leriche prize of the International Society of Surgery and the American Surgical Association medallion for scientific achievement. In 1972 he was awarded the Lister medal by the College. Many universities awarded him honorary degrees, including the Hamline University, St Paul, Minnesota, Indiana University, Georgetown University, the University of Munich, Germany, and Bordeau and Marseille Universities, France. He was a member of more than 60 local, state, national and international associations and scientific societies, including the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (serving as President from 1978 to 1979), the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, the American College of Surgeons and the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine. His wife Margaret Katherine was a physician. They had two sons and a daughter. The Kirklins have continued the medical tradition: his son is a cardiac surgeon and director of cardiothoracic transplantation at UAB, and his grandson is a medical student at UAB. John died on 21 April 2004 from complications from a head injury that occurred in January. The new clinic at Birmingham Alabama, designed by the world-famous architect I M Pei, is named in his honour.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000090
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Bonham, Dennis Geoffrey (1924 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Keane, Brendan (1926 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Leacock, Sir Aubrey Gordon (1918 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12 2012-03-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372278372278
Occupation General surgeon
Details Sir Aubrey Gordon Leacock, known as 'Jack', was a leading consultant surgeon in Barbados. He was born on 27 October 1918 in Barbados, into an established Bridgetown family. His father, Sir Stephen Leacock, was a leading merchant. He received his early education in Barbados, at Harrison College. In 1928, he won a scholarship to Rugby, from which he went on to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he took first class honours. He went on to St Bartholomew's for his clinical training. He was a senior registrar at St George's, Tooting, and was on blood transfusion duty at the Channel ports when the British Expeditionary Force came back from Dunkirk, a heart condition having prevented him from active service. His interest was always in surgery and he became a senior registrar at St Bartholomew's when many of the consultant staff had both a national and international reputation. Jack Leacock's particular interest was in anorectal surgery. He might well have obtained a consultancy in the United Kingdom, but, when on a short trip home in 1948, he was offered an appointment at the General Hospital in Barbados. At this time general practitioners carried out the general surgery and gynaecology, the only specialists being in ENT and ophthalmology. His London training, surgical skill and imagination completely revolutionised the care of the people of Barbados. He was the first to introduce oesophagectomy for carcinoma of the oesophagus, replacing it with large bowel. His range of surgery was enormous, and done with a high degree of skill. Each year he would visit the USA or UK to keep up to date, particularly in the management of scoliosis, where he used Harrington's rods to correct the deformity. At the time of independence the British, as a goodwill gesture, built the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Barbados. Jack Leacock was involved in its design, and in setting up a blood bank, for which he had to overcome some local beliefs. Early on, he recognised the need for birth control in a small island with a burgeoning population and was one of the founders of the Barbados Family Planning Association in 1950, which effectively halved the birth rate. He was a keen sportsman, enjoying sailing, snow skiing, hang-gliding, wind surfing and polo. He rode until he was nearly 80, and began playing squash in his early seventies. He enjoyed travelling and was a talented pianist. He was equally keen on reading, and after he retired in 1977 he wrote a weekly column in the Barbados *Advocate*, in which he commented on a wide range of topics. He was knighted in 2002 for his many services to Barbados. He died in Barbados on 24 August 2003. He is survived by his wife, Margaret-Ann, whom he married in 1962, and two daughters from his first marriage and one from his second. He had two grandchildren. He gave instructions that there should be no funeral, just a simple cremation, to be followed a week later by a jazz party.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000091
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Leighton, Susanna Elizabeth Jane (1959 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12 2011-07-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372279372279
Occupation Paediatric otolaryngologist
Details Susanna Elizabeth Jane Leighton née Hurley was a consultant paediatric otolaryngologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London. She was born in Kobe, Japan, on 20 January 1959. She qualified at St Thomas's Hospital, London, where she completed an intercalated BSc in anatomy, and was vice-president of the Amalgamated Clubs and secretary of the Medical and Physical Society. After house jobs, she decided to train as a surgeon, and became the lead surgeon on the cochlear implant team at Great Ormond Street. She also developed an interest in airway management in craniosynostosis and wrote extensively on the subject, producing guidelines. She married Barry and had a daughter (Claudia) and two sons (John and Finn). She died from metastatic breast cancer on 6 August 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000092
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lewis, Thomas Loftus Townshend (1918 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372280372280
Occupation Obstetric and gynaecological surgeon Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Tom Lewis was a respected London obstetrician and gynaecologist. He was born in Hampstead on 27 May 1918, but regarded himself as a South African of Welsh origin. His great-grandfather, Charles Lewis, had run away to sea from Milford Haven and settled in Cape Town in about 1850, where he established a sail-making business that was profitable until the coming of steam. His son, A J S Lewis, was a civil servant who became mayor of Cape Town and was ordained into the Anglican Church on retirement. In turn, A J S’s son, Tom’s father, Neville went to London to study art at the Slade School, where he met and married a fellow art student from Dublin, Theodosia Townshend. When the marriage broke up, Neville was left with three children under five, including Tom. They were sent to Cape Town, where they were brought up by their grandparents, A J S and Annie Solomon. Tom was educated at the Diocesan College, Rondebosch, where he had a good education, boxed and played rugby. Every two or three years their father would arrive unannounced from England, and they would go off by car all over South Africa to paint portraits. On one occasion a spear was thrown through a painting, which was feared to be taking part of the soul of its subject. In 1933, Neville and his second wife, Vera Player, bought a house in Chelsea and sent for them. Tom then went to St Paul’s School, from which he went to Jesus College, Cambridge, and Guy’s Hospital. As a student he won the gold medal in obstetrics. In 1943, he travelled by ship to Cape Town and enlisted in the South African Air Force as a doctor, but was then seconded to the RAMC, with whom he served in Egypt, Italy and Greece. After the war, he returned to Guy’s to take the FRCS and specialised in obstetrics and gynaecology. He captained the Guy’s rugby XV from 1946 to 1948, and was only prevented from playing for England against France by hepatitis. He played his last game for the first XV when he was aged 46. He was appointed as a consultant at Guy’s just before his 30th birthday, and to Queen Charlotte’s Maternity Hospital and the Chelsea Hospital for Women two years later. A meticulous surgeon, he was a very distinguished teacher. He wrote three textbooks of obstetrics and gynaecology and his book *Progress in clinical obstetrics and gynaecology* (London, Joe A Churchill, 1956) became a classic. He served three times on the council of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, was its honorary secretary from 1961 to 1968, senior vice-president from 1975 to 1978 and Sims Black travelling professor in 1970. He was President of the obstetric section of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was a consultant gynaecologist to the Army and an examiner to the Universities of Cambridge, London and St Andrews, the Society of Apothecaries and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. As a student, Tom had fallen in love with a Guy’s student nurse, Alexandra (‘Bunty’) Moore. They married in 1946 and had five sons. The eldest, John, became a doctor. In retirement, they built a holiday home on the island of Elba. A superb host, Tom was an authority on wine, fungi and astronomy. He died after a difficult last illness on 9 April 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000093
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lister, James (1923 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372281372281
Occupation Paediatric surgeon
Details Jimmy Lister was an emeritus professor of paediatric surgery at the University of Liverpool and a former vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Born in London on 1 March 1923, the son of Thomas Lister, a chartered accountant, and Anna Rebecca Lister, two of his siblings – John and Ruth – also entered medicine. He was educated at St Paul’s School as a foundation scholar, and then went on to Edinburgh University, qualifying in 1945. He then served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve for three years. His training in Edinburgh and Dundee was followed by a year as Halstead research fellow at the University of Colorado, where he decided on a career in paediatric surgery. On returning to the UK, he went first to Great Ormond Street Hospital, as senior lecturer and honorary consultant. In 1963 he became a consultant to the Children’s Hospital, Sheffield. In 1974 he was appointed to the newly established chair at the University of Liverpool, taking charge of the regional neonatal surgical unit at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, establishing an international reputation in neonatal surgery. Here his observations provided new insights into the pathogenesis and management of many life-threatening congenital disorders. Certainly his years in Liverpool were rewarded by a drop in mortality, from 30-40 per cent in the sixties, to less than 10 per cent. His unit soon attracted many young surgeons from many parts of the world: his ‘boys and girls’, as they were called, became distinguished paediatric surgeons all over the world. He inspired bonds of friendship and loyalty, which he maintained for his lifetime. For all his pre-eminence, Jimmy Lister remained a gentle, modest and self-effacing man who had a ready smile for all those he met. Many honours came his way. He was a council member and then vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and, as convenor of examinations, he was largely responsible for making major changes in the curriculum. He was President of the British Association of Paediatric Surgeons, who awarded him the Denis Browne gold medal. He chaired the Specialist Advisory Committee on Paediatric Surgery in the UK, and was vice-president of the World Federation of Associations of Paediatric Surgeons. He was recognised for his many contributions, gaining some 18 honorary fellowships of medical and surgical bodies worldwide. His publications were many and included a major textbook *Complications of paediatric surgery* (London, Bailliere Tindall, 1986). He was also editor of *Neonatal Surgery* and associate editor of the *Journal of Paediatric Surgery. * He was married to Greta née Redpath, whom he had met while he was in the Navy, and they had three daughters. His wife and one daughter, Diana, predeceased him. He retired to the Borders, where he found it easier to fulfil his commitments to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He died on 9 May 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000094
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Longmire, William Polk (1913 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Lumb, Geoffrey Norman (1925 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Mackie, David Bonar (1936 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 2006-11-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372284372284
Occupation General surgeon
Details David Bonar Mackie was a consultant general surgeon in Salisbury, Wiltshire. His parents David Taylor Mackie and Mary Gray née Chittick were Scottish. His father was a GP in Aberdour, Fife, and then moved to a general practice in Exeter, where Bonar was born in 1936. Bonar was educated at Sherborne School and Pembroke College, Cambridge, going on to the Middlesex Hospital for his clinical studies. After house appointments he completed surgical registrar jobs at the Middlesex and Central Middlesex Hospitals, working for, among others, Cecil Murray, Leslie LeQuesne and Peter Riddle. In 1969 he won a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Mississippi. He was appointed as a consultant to the Salisbury District Hospitals in 1972. There he developed a short stay ward, and breast surgery and specialised urology services. In 1964 he married Jennifer Bland. They had three children, one of whom is a dental surgeon. A keen sportsman, Bonar particularly enjoyed golf and racing. He was medical officer to the Salisbury race course and owned, with friends, several more or less successful horses. He died on 25 January 2005, after a prolonged and slowly deteriorating Pick’s disease.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000097
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Marchant, Mary Kathleen (1924 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372285372285
Occupation Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Mary Marchant was a former plastic surgeon in Liverpool. Born in 1924, she qualified in medicine at Liverpool and began her career as a house officer at Smithdown Road Hospital. She trained in surgery and practised in and around Liverpool, before specialising in plastic surgery. She helped set up the first plastic surgery unit in Liverpool at Whiston Hospital. In 1965, she joined a missionary surgery in Uganda, spending four years there, returning to England in 1969 because of ill health. She joined a general medical practice in Penny Lane, Liverpool, and retired in 1983. She died on 18 August 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000098
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Marsh, John David (1925 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 2007-03-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372286372286
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Marsh was a consultant surgeon to the South Warwickshire NHS Trust. His father, Alfred Marsh, was a general practitioner in Chorley, Lancashire, where John was born on 8 April 1925. His mother was Dorothea Maud née Saywell. From the Terra Nova Preparatory School in Southport he won a scholarship to Clifton College, and from Clifton a minor scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge. He went on to St Thomas’s Hospital for his clinical studies, where he won the London prize for medicine. After house jobs under R H Boggon and R W Nevin, he entered the RAMC and spent his two years National Service at Tidworth. From there he returned to be senior house officer at the Henry Gauvain Hospital at Alton under Nevin, did a casualty post in Salisbury and was resident surgical officer at the Hallam Hospital, West Bromwich. Having passed his FRCS, he returned to be assistant lecturer on John Kinmonth’s surgical unit at St Thomas’s. He spent the next three years on rotation to the Royal Waterloo Hospital and Hydestyle, before becoming senior registrar at King’s College Hospital under Harold Edwards and Sir Edward Muir. He was appointed as a consultant surgeon to the South Warwickshire NHS in 1963. He said of his time there: “Warwick was a happy time. I like to think that my main contribution was those RSOs who we taught. We identified a gap in the market for people with the Primary who needed experience to get the Final. Basically, I did all the things that had not been done to me (with a few exceptions). I came in to help with emergencies and did not allow them to be loaded with things beyond their then experience. Then we tutored them through their exams. Most of them went on to do very well. When I retired after my coronary what I missed most was the stimulus of good juniors and the teaching.” He developed a particular interest in paediatric surgery, was the College surgical tutor for the West Midlands, and served as examiner and Chairman of the Court. In 1952 he married Elizabeth Catherwood, an artist. They had a son (Simon), two daughters (Alison and Catherine) and six grandsons. Among his many interests were walking, reading and history, but above all he was a dedicated Christian and editor of the Christian Graduate and Chairman of the council of the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (from 1970 to 1980). He had his first heart attack in 1980, miraculously surviving a cardiac arrest and, wisely, took early retirement in 1983. He died on 25 January 2004 at Warwick Hospital, where he had worked for 20 years.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000099
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Matheson, John Mackenzie (1912 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372287372287
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Matheson was a former professor of military surgery at the Royal Army Medical College, Millbank, London. He was born in Gibraltar on 6 August 1912, the son of John Matheson, the then manager of the Eastern Telegraph station, and Nina. The family later moved on to Malta and then to Port Said. John was educated at the Lycée Francaise and then at George Watson’s College in Scotland, where he had some problems using English, being more fluent in Arabic and French. He had an outstanding academic career, and managed to finance much of his education through bursaries and scholarships. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University, where he was captain of athletics, and qualified in 1936. He then did research into the treatment of tuberculosis. He had joined the Territorial Army at university, so that, at the beginning of the second world war, he was quickly mobilised into the 23 Scottish General Hospital. On the first day at the new hospital, at the newly requisitioned Peebles Hydro, he met Agnes, known as ‘Nan’, the nursing sister who became his wife three years later. He saw service in Palestine, the Middle East and North Africa, where he was largely responsible for the organisation of medical services in the Tunisian campaign, before and after El Alamein, for which he was mentioned in despatches. He stayed with the 8th Army as they advanced into Italy. After the war, he remained in the RAMC and gained his FRCS as a clinical tutor in the surgical professorial unit in Edinburgh. For the next 36 years he served as a surgical consultant all over the world. From 1948 to 1950, he was medical liaison officer to the surgeon general of the US Army and chief of the surgical section at the Walter Reed Hospital, Washington. For this work he was awarded an OBE. From 1952 to 1953, he was in Canada and Austria. He then spent three years in Egypt in the Suez Canal zone. From 1961 to 1964, he was in Cyprus, and then spent a year, from 1967 to 1968, in Singapore, Hong Kong and Nepal. He also consulted in hospitals throughout the UK. His final posting in the Army was as commandant of the Army Medical College at Millbank and professor of military surgery. He was an honorary surgeon to the Queen from 1969 to 1971. During his time in the Army he was largely responsible for introducing central sterile supply into medical services, and made important contributions to the surgical management of gunshot wounds. On his retirement, he became postgraduate dean of medicine at Edinburgh University, a job he enjoyed for nearly 10 years. He was President of the Military Surgeons’ Society, the RAMC Association, honorary colonel of 205 Scottish General Hospital, and Chairman of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary Samaritans’ committee and Scottish committee member of the Ex-Services Mental Welfare Society. He was a senior elder of the kirk of Greyfriars. His wife, Nan, predeceased him in 1995, but he continued to be active, taking classes in cookery, computing and Gaelic. He had an infectious sense of humour, and his genuine compassion and unfailing optimism made him a much-admired colleague. He died on 9 November 2003. One daughter survives him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000100
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Mawdsley, Alfred Roger (1932 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-14 2006-12-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372220372220
Occupation General surgeon
Details Alexander Cameron, known as ‘Alistair’, was a consultant surgeon at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. He was born in Tranent, East Lothian, on 1 August 1933, the son of Alexander Cameron, a miner who became vice-president of the National Union of Mineworkers for the Scottish area, and Margaret née Hogg, a shop assistant. He was educated at Tranent Public Primary School and then Preston Lodge School, where he gained a distinction in literature and was *dux* of his class. He studied medicine in Edinburgh and then did house jobs at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. From 1957 to 1959, he served as a surgeon lieutenant, first in Portsmouth, and then as a medical officer aboard HMS *Torquay* and then HMS *Scarborough*, part of the Fifth Frigate Squadron of the Mediterranean fleet, visiting Malta and Syracuse. In July 1958, he was present at the nuclear test explosions on Christmas Island. His meticulous medical records of this and his formal instructions for decontamination and cleansing remain intact for safe keeping with his wife. He then sailed back to the UK via Samoa, Auckland, Sydney, Perth, Sri Lanka and the Suez Canal. Returning to civilian life south of the border as senior house officer at the North Middlesex Hospital, he gained his FRCS in 1962. An appointment as research assistant to Leslie Le Quesne and Michael Hobsley from 1964 to 1967 was followed by a rotating registrar post to the Middlesex and Central Middlesex hospitals, where he fell under the influence of Sir Rodney Sweetman, P Newman, Sir Thomas Holmes Sellors and Peter Gummer. He became senior registrar to O V Lloyd Davies from 1967 to 1970, followed by his appointment as senior lecturer with honorary consultant status in 1970. Gaining his masters degree in 1973, he went to Sweden and Germany to learn the techniques of the Koch continent ileostomy, which he went on to popularise in the UK. Appointed consultant surgeon to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in 1973, he was the first person with a specialist colo-proctological interest: the unit is now much expanded. It was usual in those days for the ‘junior’ surgeon in Norwich to have a paediatric interest, so Alistair spent some time at Great Ormond Street to help him in his new venture. He was surgical tutor from 1976 to 1979, and was a popular and outstanding teacher at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. A series of myocardial infarcts obliged him to retire early in 1988. He was operated on at Papworth in 1981 and 1989 by J Wallwork, using a procedure pioneered by his own boss, Sir Thomas Holmes Sellors. Distancing himself from medicine, he was able to continue his interests in astronomy, botany, microscopy, modern languages (French, German, Spanish and Italian), together with his passion for philosophy, poetry, history and politics. It was in these areas he was a formidable opponent in debate. An earlier interest in classical Greek and Latin was rekindled and, with an outstanding knowledge of computer technology, he managed to fill his life restricted by cardiac disability. An article on his experiences as a cardiac patient ‘Reflections in a glass box’, showed true and amusingly thoughtful insight into the NHS, its staff and his own condition. He met Elizabeth (‘Widdy’) neé Padfield when she was a surgical ward sister at the Middlesex. They married in 1970 and had four sons, Duncan, Angus, Hamish and Dougal. Alistair died on 20 February 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000033
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Campbell, Sir Donald (1930 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372221372221
Occupation Anaesthetist
Details Sir Donald Campbell was a former professor of anaesthesia at the University of Glasgow and President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow from 1992 to 1994. He was born on 8 March 1930 at Rutherglen, near Glasgow, the son of Archibald Peter and Mary Campbell. He attended Hutcheson’s Boys’ Grammar School and then went on to the University of Glasgow, where he studied medicine. After completing resident posts, he left for Canada to begin his training in anaesthesia, working in Edmonton and in Lethbridge, Alberta. In 1956 he returned to Glasgow to complete his training at the Royal Infirmary and Stobhill. From 1959 to 1960, he was a lecturer in anaesthetics at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. In 1960 he transferred to the health service department as a consultant anaesthetist, a post he held for the next 16 years. While training in Canada he had developed an interest in anaesthesia for heart surgery and also noted the early development of intensive care units. Using his diplomatic skills, he succeeded in persuading his colleagues that this was the way forward for their patients. The respiratory intensive care unit was opened in 1966, with Campbell as its first director. His research interests covered the development of ventilators, the pharmacology of new analgesic drugs, and the effects of smoke inhalation on the lungs. His published works included over 100 papers on anaesthesia, intensive care, and related subjects in peer-reviewed journals. He was the author of two textbooks. In 1976 he was appointed to the chair of anaesthesia in Glasgow. In this post he was able to develop his interest in medical education. For a period of four years from 1987 he was dean of the medical school. From 1985 to 1990 he was Chairman of the Scottish Council for Postgraduate Medical Education. As a member of the medical advisory committee of the British Council he was involved in arranging attachments to UK departments for many young trainee anaesthetists from overseas and also from the Royal Navy. On the national stage, he was vice-president of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland in 1977, and President of the Scottish Society of Anaesthetists in 1979. He was an examiner and board member of the Faculty of Anaesthetists (the forerunner of the Royal College of Anaesthetists), and was elected dean of the faculty for three years from 1982. He went on to become vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1985 to 1987. Before he retired, he was elected President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, the first anaesthetist to hold this post. He was awarded the CBE in 1987 and he received his knighthood in 1994, in recognition of his contribution to medicine. He suffered a stroke soon after his retirement, and this limited his ability to enjoy his favourite sports of fishing, curling and shooting. It did not, however, suppress his enjoyment of people and his skill as a raconteur. He married twice. His first wife was Nancy Rebecca McKintosh, ‘Nan’. They married in 1954 and had a son and a daughter. After her death in 1974 he married Catherine Conway Braeburn. They had two daughters. He died on 14 September 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000034
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Cheng, Koon-Sung (1966 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Clarke, Samuel Henry Creighton (1912 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-14
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372224372224
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Henry Clarke was a consultant urological surgeon in Brighton and mid Sussex until his retirement in December 1976. He was born in Derby on 1 January 1912, the son of Samuel Creighton Clarke, a general practitioner in Derby and the son of a gentleman farmer from Newtownbutler, Ireland, and Florence Margaret Caroline née Montgomery, a descendent of the Montgomery who accidentally killed Henry II of France in a jousting match in 1559. Clarke was educated at Monkton Combe junior and senior schools, and then went on to St Bartholomew’s medical school, where he was a medical clerk to Lord Horder and a surgical dresser to Sir James Paterson Ross. From 1937 to 1938 he was a casualty officer, house surgeon and senior resident at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton. He enlisted in July 1939, joining the 4th Field Hospital, as part of the British Expeditionary Force. In 1940, at Dunkirk, he organised the evacuation of men on to the boats, under aerial attack. He left Dunkirk on one of the last boats out. In 1942 he was sent out to North Africa, and was present at the Battle of El Alamein. At the end of the North African campaign, as part of the 8th Army, he took part in the invasion of Italy. He ended the war as a Major in the RAMC. After the war, he returned to Bart’s, where he was much inspired by A W Badenoch. After appointments at Bart’s, as a chief assistant (senior registrar) and at St Peter’s Hospital for Stone (as a senior registrar), he became a consultant in general surgery at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital in 1950. In 1956 he was appointed as a consultant urological surgeon to the Brighton and Lewes, and mid Sussex Hospital groups. He was a member of the council of the British Association of Urological Surgeons from 1961 to 1964, and a former Chairman of the Brighton branch of the BMA. He married Elizabeth Bradney Pershouse in 1947 and they had a daughter, Caroline Julia Creighton. There are three grandchildren – Rachel, Brittany and Alexander. He was interested in rugby, tennis and golf, and collected liqueurs and whiskies. He retired to St Mary Bourne, and became an active member of his parish. He died from heart failure on 15 September 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000037
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Coffin, Frank Robert (1915 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Shapland, Sir William Arthur (1912 - 1997)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-19 2012-03-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372370372370
Occupation Accountant Philanthropist
Details Sir William Shapland, an honorary fellow of the College, was born on 20 October 1912, the son of Arthur Frederick Shapland and Alice Maud née Jackson. Educated at Tollington School, he joined the firm of Allen Charlesworth & Co, chartered accountants. He was given the responsibility of dealing with the accounts of John Blackwood Hodge & Co and Bernard Sunley & Sons, and, later, of advising the chairman, Bernard Sunley, a construction magnate. So valuable was his advice that, in 1946, he was invited to join the group as a non-executive director. In 1954 he became an executive director, succeeding Sunley as chairman of Blackwood Hodge ten years later. In 1960 he helped set up the Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation, which distributes almost £3 million a year to good causes. Charities and institutions as varied as the Scout movement, Charing Cross Hospital and the Wild Fowl Trust have benefited. Among his many honours he was a Waynflete fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and honorary fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford. He died on 1 October 1997, leaving his wife Madeleine and two daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000183
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Shenolikar, Balwant Kashinath (1923 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372371372371
Occupation General surgeon
Details Balwant Shenolikar was born in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India, on 22 November 1923, where his father, Kashinath Shenolikar, was a lawyer. His mother was Indira née Garde. He was educated at the College of Science of the University of Nagpur, and Carmichael Medical College, Calcutta, where he won prizes and medals at every stage of his career, including the silver medal for surgery and the Ghosh gold medal for pathology in his finals. After qualifying he was a demonstrator in anatomy at the Medical College in Nagpur and lecturer in the Robertson Medical School in Nagpur, before going to Hammersmith as a house surgeon. After his surgical training there and in the Royal Halifax Infirmary, he went to be a lecturer and consultant surgeon in Georgetown, Guyana, where he remained, eventually becoming chief of surgery at the Government Hospital, Georgetown. He had close links with Great Ormond Street, where he was an honorary consultant thoracic surgeon. His first marriage to Joan Barbara Thomas in 1948 ended in divorce. They had a son, who became assistant professor of biochemistry in Houston, Texas, and a daughter. He married Audrey Heyworth in 1958, who predecesased him in 1979. They too had a daughter and son, who qualified MB ChB from Dundee. Balwant died on 4 August 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000184
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Shepherd, Mary Patricia (1933 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-19 2007-02-09
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372372372372
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details Mary Shepherd was a former consultant thoracic surgeon at Harefield Hospital, Middlesex. She was born at Forest Hill, London, on 4 July 1933, the youngest of the two children of George Raymond Shepherd, an electrical and mechanical engineer, and Florence May Savile, whose father and grandfather had been general practitioners in Harrogate. She spent a year in school in Maryland when her father’s professional work took the family there, and this experience gave her a lifelong interest in the United States, to which she frequently travelled throughout her life. In 1946 she won a scholarship to James Allen’s Girls School, did well there, and had no difficulty gaining a place at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, where she again won several prizes, notably in surgery, which was always her first interest, and she qualified in 1957. After house jobs and a registrar appointment in surgery at the Royal Free, and passing her Edinburgh fellowship, she became a registrar at Harefield Hospital, where she spent the rest of her professional life, becoming a senior registrar and then consultant. She enjoyed a valuable year at the Toronto Children’s Hospital from 1966 to 1967, where she worked with Mustard, becoming a joint author of papers on membrane oxygenation and the diaphragmatic pedicle graft, later the subject of a Hunterian Professorship (1969) and her thesis for the MS London. Her professional contributions were considerable, with the publication of many papers, of which that on plombage (*Thorax* 1985) is perhaps the most influential. She maintained a characteristic style, with her striking appearance in theatre garb, her white Jaguar, and occasional performances on the piano accordion at social events. Her wide interests were exemplified by her service on the board of visitors at Wormwood Scrubs prison, and her decision to retire at 52. She had a home in Southwold, where she had always spent much of her free time through a lifelong friendship. Thereafter she divided her time between Suffolk and Cape Cod, United States, pursuing her interest in antiques. Her active life was ended when she developed cancer of the thyroid, with which she coped with characteristic fortitude. She died on 20 October 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000185
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Chakrabarti, Ramakanta (1945 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-10-26 2012-03-22
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372459372459
Occupation General surgeon
Details Ramakanta Chakrabarti was a respected surgeon in Calcutta. He was born in Calcutta on 1 October 1945, the son of Rajchandra and Kadambini Chakrabarti. He studied medicine at Calcutta National Medical College, where he subsequently held intern and house surgeon posts. In 1973 he was appointed as a senior house surgeon in general surgery and urology at the Rama Krishna Mission, Seva Prathishthan. He then became a senior surgical resident and postgraduate student at the Willingdon Hospital and Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi, where he was awarded a masters degree in surgery with a thesis on emergency prostatectomy in clinically benign enlargement of the prostate. He was subsequently surgeon to the Lalbag Hospital in Murshidabad. He then went to the UK for further surgical training. He was a senior house officer in the trauma and accident department at Queen Elizabeth II Hospital, Welwyn Garden City, and then senior house officer in orthopaedics at Oldham Royal Infirmary. He then held appointments at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, in urology and transplantation, and at Hull Royal Infirmary in orthopaedics. During this period he passed his FRCS from the London and Glasgow Colleges. He was then a registrar at Withybush General Hospital, Haverfordwest, under David Bird, where he further developed his interest in vascular and urological surgery. In 1986 he returned to Calcutta as a visiting general surgeon to the Dum Dum Municipal Hospital, where he became an outstanding figure, keeping up-to-date with the latest developments in endoscopic surgery by attending seminars and meetings, and becoming a popular member of the Dum Dum branch of the Indian Medical Association. He was married to Maitreyee, a teacher, and they had one daughter, Madhumanti, who is studying at Queen Mary College, London. He died on 3 August 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000272
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Young, Ian William (1929 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372374372374
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Ian Young was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon based in Swindon. He was born in Rugby on 25 February 1929, the only child of George Sangster Young, an electrical engineer and Margaret Fenton Wright Breingan. He was educated at Rugby School and Merton College, Oxford. He then went on to University College Hospital, London for his clinical studies, qualifying in 1954. After house jobs at UCH he served in the RAMC with the 1/6th Gurkha Rifles in Malaya and Hong Kong. He returned to continue his surgical training at UCH as a registrar from 1960 to 1962, and then to the Radcliffe Infirmary, where he specialised in orthopaedics and became senior registrar there and at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre. He was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Swindon in 1967. He married Anne Martine Davies, another UCH medical graduate, in 1955. They had one son and one daughter. His hobbies included squash and bird-watching. He died on 30 August 2005 of a pulmonary embolism.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000187
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Hawkins, Caesar Henry (1798 - 1888)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-25 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372375372375
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details One of the ten children of the Rev. Edward Hawkins, grandson of Sir Caesar Hawkins, Bart. (1711-1786), Surgeon to St. George's Hospital and Serjeant-Surgeon to George II and George III, who was descended from Colonel Caesar Hawkins, commanding a regiment of horse for Charles I. Caesar Hawkins was born on Sept. 19th, 1798, at Bisley, Gloucestershire, and, his father having died whilst he was still young, he was sent to Christ's Hospital (the Bluecoat School), where he remained from 1807-1813, when he had to be withdrawn as he was not destined for either Oxford or Cambridge. He was apprenticed to Mr. Sheppard, of Hampton Court, then the medical attendant of the Duke of Clarence, afterwards King William IV, who lived at Bushey Park. At the end of his indentures in 1818 he was admitted a student at St. George's Hospital under Sir Everard Home and Benjamin Brodie, and attended the chemistry classes of Michael Faraday at the Royal Institution. As soon as he had qualified he began to teach anatomy at the Hunterian or Windmill Street School of Medicine, having Sir Charles Bell as his colleague. He was elected Surgeon to St. George's Hospital on February 13th, 1829, and resigned in 1861, when he was appointed Consulting Surgeon. In 1862 he was gazetted Serjeant-Surgeon to Queen Victoria, and was thus the fourth member of his family to hold a like office. He was a Member of the Council from 1846-1863, and of the Court of Examiners from 1849-1866; was Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1860; delivered the Hunterian Oration in 1849, when H R H the Prince Consort honoured the College with his presence; was Vice-President in 1850, 1851, 1859, 1860; President in 1852 and again in 1861; and Representative of the College on the General Medical Council from 1865-1870. In 1871 he was elected a Trustee of the Hunterian Museum. He was elected FRS on June 9th, 1856. He married: (1) Miss Dolbel, and (2) Miss Ellen Rouse, but left no issue by either. He died on July 20th, 1884, at his house, 26 Grosvenor Street. As a surgeon Hawkins attained eminence and achieved success, his opinion being especially sought in complex cases. For long he was noted as the only surgeon who had succeeded in the operation of ovariotomy in a London hospital. This occurred in 1846, when anaesthetics were unknown. He did much to popularize colotomy. A successful operator, he nevertheless was attached to conservative surgery, and he was always more anxious to teach his pupils how to save a limb than how to remove it. Long after he had become Consulting Surgeon to his hospital he continued to be a familiar figure on the wards, where he gave his colleagues the benefit of his lifelong experience. Caesar Hawkins was a man of sterling worth and merit, as well as of great capacity. His family was, indeed, distinguished for talent, as evidenced by the fact, above alluded to, that four of them rose to the rank of Serjeant-Surgeon. Two of Caesar Hawkin's own brothers were men of mark - Edward (1794-1877) the well-known Provost of Oriel who played so great a part in the life of Oxford during the Tractarian Movement, and Dr. Francis Hawkins, the first Registrar of the General Medical Council, who was known as one of the best classical scholars among the physicians of his time. His nephew Sir John Caesar Hawkins (1837-1929), Canon of St. Albans, was the author of the well known *Horae Synopticae*. Hawkins was not remarkable for graciousness of demeanour on a first acquaintance - in fact, most men complained of him as somewhat dry and repellent under these circumstances. But this vanished on a closer acquaintance, when his genuine kindness of heart and sincerity became recognized. Everyone knew how firm a friend he was to those who had earned his friendship, and how trustworthy a counsellor, and he ended his days amid the universal respect and regard of the many who had been his colleagues and pupils. One of the latter, when addressing students of St. George's at the opening of the session of 1885, thus concluded a reference to the examples left them by their predecessors in the school:- "I would point out to you, as an example of what I mean, the great surgeon who has lately passed away from us, full of years and honours, endeared to those who had the happiness of being his pupils by every tie of gratitude and affection, and reverenced by all who can appreciate stainless honour. Caesar Hawkins was rich in friends, who watched and tended the peaceful close of his long and brilliant career. They can testify how well he bore Horace's test of a well-spent life, '*lenior et melior fis accedente senecta*' (Epist. ii. 211). The old words involuntarily occur to everyone who contemplates an old age so full of dignity and goodness: 'The path of the just is as a shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day'" (Proverbs v. 18). He has been described as one of the cleverest minds in the medical profession, a mind of unquestioned accuracy, unswayed by imagination, temper, or desire for renown. No one was more discreet and honest in council, or less influenced by self-interest. A bust by George Halse was presented to the College by Mrs Caesar Hawkins in June, 1855. Photographs are preserved in the College Collection. PUBLICATIONS:- Hawkins contributed largely to the medical journals, and reprinted his papers for private circulation under the title, *The Hunterian Oration, Presidential Addresses, and Pathological and Surgical Writings,* 2 vols., 8vo, 1874. Among these mention may be made of valuable lectures "On Tumours", and of papers on "Excision of the Ovum", "The Relative Claims of Sir Charles Bell and Magendie to the Discovery of the Functions of the Spinal Nerves", "Experiments on Hydrophobia and the Bites of Serpents", "Stricture of the Colon treated by Operation", etc.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000188
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Skey, Frederic Carpenter (1798 - 1872)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-25 2012-03-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372376372376
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Upton-on-Severn on Dec. 1st, 1798, the second of the six children of George Skey, a Russian merchant in London. He was educated at one or two private schools in early life, the last being that of the Rev. Michael Maurice, the Unitarian preacher, father of Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872), whose friendship he retained through life as they had been schoolfellows. A visit to his father's cousin, Dr. Joseph Skey, Inspector of Army Hospitals at Plymouth, was the beginning of Skey's professional education. During this visit Napoleon was brought to Plymouth in the Bellerophon, and Skey often referred in later life to the fact that he had seen the great Emperor on this occasion. From Plymouth he went to Edinburgh to begin his medical education, stayed there for a year or two, and then spent some months in Paris. He was apprenticed to John Abernethy on April 15th, 1816, paying the ordinary premium of 500 guineas. Abernethy had so high an opinion of his pupil's ability that he entrusted Skey with the care of some of his private patients whilst he was still an apprentice. By the interest of Abernethy, Skey was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1826. The appointment provoked considerable jealousy, more especially in the breast of William Lawrence (q.v.), and when other arrangements were made after the death of Abernethy, Skey resented them as unjust, and resigned in 1831. Associating himself with Hope, Todd, Marshall Hall, Pereira, and Kiernan, he reopened the Aldersgate Street School of Medicine, which had previously been a Cave of Adullam for discontented members of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. The school soon became famous, one of the largest in London, and a thorn in the side of its neighbour. In this school Skey lectured on surgery for ten years, his lectures proving very attractive to students, many of whom became his staunch personal friends. His bearing towards them showed a frankness and cordiality which drew into intimate and enduring friendship not only his own private pupils, but also the great body of students, over whom he exercised an amount of influence larger perhaps than that of any other contemporary teacher. When fresh arrangements had been made in the Medical School at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Skey was elected Lecturer in Anatomy in 1843, a position he resigned on Jan. 5th, 1864. Although the work of St. Bartholomew's Hospital was completely severed from the proprietary Medical School attached to it, Skey was nevertheless elected Assistant Surgeon on Aug. 29th, 1827, after an unsuccessful contest in 1824 when Eusebius Arthur Lloyd (q.v.) was chosen. He did not become Surgeon until May 10th, 1854, and retired under a newly established age limit at 65 on Jan, 18th, 1864. He was then appointed Consulting Surgeon and continued for some time to give clinical lectures. Skey was appointed Consulting Surgeon to the Charterhouse in 1827; on April 10th, 1837, he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society; and in 1859 he acted as President of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member of the Council from 1848-1867 and gave the Hunterian Oration in 1850. He was Arris and Gale Professor of Human Anatomy and Surgery, 1852-1854, when he lectured on "Muscular Action, Dislocations, and the Treatment of Disease"; a Member of the Court of Examiners, 1855-1870; Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1862, and of the Dental Board in 1865. He served as Vice-President in 1861 and 1862, and was elected President in 1863. In 1864 his friend Benjamin Disraeli caused him to be appointed Chairman at the Admiralty of the first Parlimentary Commission to inquire into the best mode of dealing with venereal diseases in the Navy and Army. The report of the Committee led to the framing and passing of the Contagious Diseases Act which was afterwards repealed. For his services Skey was decorated C.B. He practised at 13 Grosvenor Street, but failing health led him to move to 24 Mount Street, Grosvenor Square, where he died on Aug. 15th, 1872. There is a bust of Skey in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, of which there is a copy in the Royal Society of Medicine. A fine lithograph of J H Maguire's is in the College Collection. It was published in 1850 and is said to be a striking likeness, not only of his countenance and expression, but also of the very air and manner of the man. Skey was a man of great intelligence, energy, courage, candour, and good nature, a charming companion, with a genial disposition, full, even in advancing years, of youthful buoyancy. Sympathetic to all, he had in a special degree a fondness for animals. He was a good writer, a clear lecturer, and an excellent teacher. He concerned himself with the broad principles of his subject rather than with details. As a surgeon he was an able operator, and his great ability was conspicuously shown in his treatment of exceptional cases, for he was skilful and ingenious in diagnosis and, in the face of unusual difficulties, fertile in resource. PUBLICATIONS:- "On Structure of the Elementary Muscular Fibre of Animals and Organic Life." - *Proc. Roy. Soc.*, 1837, iii, 462. A creditable performance considering that abstract scientific research was not encouraged by the surgeons of his day and that he had to borrow the use of a microscope. *On a New Mode of Treatment employed in the Case of Various Forms of Ulcer and Granulating Wounds*, 8vo, London, 1837. The remedy was opium in small doses. He employed it with success in chilblains, and afterwards proposed to use it for troops on night duty in the Crimean trenches. *A Practical Treatise on Venereal Disease*, 8vo, London, 1840. The substance of his lectures at the Aldersgate Street School of Medicine in 1838-9. *On a New Operation for the Cure of Lateral Curvature of the Spine: with Remarks on the Causes and Nature of the Disease*, 8vo, London, 1841; 2nd ed., 1842. He divided the tendinous sheath of the longissimus dorsi subcutaneously. Pamphlets and a series of letters in *The Times* on the dangers of over-training. *Operative Surgery*, 8vo, Lond., 1850; 8vo, Phil., 1851; 2nd ed., Lond., 1858. This is a work of much merit, influenced throughout by the author's energetic protest against the use of the knife except as a last resource. He advocated the value of tonics and stimulants in preference to the bleeding and leeching which were still in use. His great energy of thought and action rendered him incapable of steady, constant labour, and it is reported that, when he undertook to write this work, incited by a friend who offered to publish it, he set about it forthwith without previous preparation or any special attention to the literature of his subject. He wrote chapter after chapter right off, mostly in the middle of the night or very early morning, for he slept but little. He lost one of the chapters between his house and hospital, and vehemently declared that he neither could nor would rewrite it, and that the work must either be given up or published without the missing portion. It was recovered by advertising in *The Times*. In his lectures on *Hysteria*, 8vo, London, 1867: 3rd ed., 1870, he maintains the advantages of the 'tonic' mode of treatment by 'bark and wine'.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000189
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Hodgson, Joseph (1788 - 1869)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-25 2012-03-22
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372377372377
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Penrith, Cumberland, the son of a Birmingham merchant. He was educated at King Edward VI's Grammar School and was apprenticed to George Freer, who was Surgeon to the Birmingham General Hospital from December, 1793, to the day of his death in December, 1823. Hodgson thus had much experience at the hospital, but, his father having fallen on evil days, owed the completion of his education to an uncle, who gave him £100. He entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and in 1811 gained the Jacksonian Prize for his essay on "Wounds and Diseases of the Arteries and Veins". The essay was expanded and was published in 1815 with a quarto volume of illustrative engravings from drawings made by the author. It was well received and was translated into French by M. Breschet. The drawings show that Hodgson was no mean artist. He practised at King Street, Cheapside, and eked out his scanty resources by taking pupils and acting as editor of the *London Medical Review*. He also served at the York Military Hospital, Westminster, where he remained for some time in comparatively comfortable pecuniary circumstances, but insufficient practice and a desire to marry his future wife, who was a sister of J. F. Ledsam, took him back to Birmingham in 1818, where he was welcomed and elected Surgeon to the Birmingham General Hospital in December, 1821, on the death of Samuel Dickenson. He soon attained a good practice, and had amongst his patients Sir Robert Peel and many members of his family, who were living at Drayton Hall, near Tamworth. Many years later - in 1850 - he was in personal attendance when the Prime Minister, who had just resigned his office, fell from his horse in Constitution Hill and received the injury which proved fatal. Hodgson resigned his post of Surgeon to the Hospital in April, 1848, and the Governors presented him with the portrait which now hangs in the Committee Room. In the autumn of 1823 he started a movement to establish an Eye Infirmary in Birmingham. It was successful, and the Charity was opened for the reception of patients on April 13th, 1824. He acted as sole Surgeon until May, 1828, when at his request Richard Middlemore (q.v.) was elected as his colleague. He was asked in 1840 to become Surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital and Professor of Surgery at King's College, but declined both offers. It was not until 1849, after having made a considerable fortune in Birmingham, chiefly by lithotomy, that he gave up his house in Hagley Road and returned to Westbourne Terrace, Hyde Park. He was elected a Member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1849 and held office until 1868, being elected to the Court of Examiners, 1856-65; Chairman of the Midwifery Board, 1863; Vice-President, 1862 and 1863; and President, 1864. He delivered the Hunterian Oration in 1855. He was admitted F.R.S. on April 14th, 1831, and was President of the Medico-Chirurgical Society in 1851. He died on February 7th, 1869, twenty-four hours after his wife, and left one daughter. With the exception of Joseph Swan, Joseph Hodgson was the first provincial surgeon to become a Member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, and he was the first surgeon from the provinces to be elected President. He was chosen because his reputation was not confined to the locality of a country town, but was great even in London. He was not brilliant as an operator, and, like most provincial and many London surgeons his contemporaries, he acted as a family practitioner. He was celebrated for the accuracy of his diagnosis, but his caution and his pessimistic prognosis did something to limit his practice. He was a good teacher and was fortunate in his pupils; in Birmingham he taught D. W. Crompton, S. H. Amphlett, Alfred Baker, and Oliver Pemberton; in London, William Bowman and Richard Partridge. Born a Conservatice, he had some lively passages at arms with his Radical fellow-citizens, but his benevolence and kindness of manner made him respected and beloved. He was consistently opposed to all reforms and steadfastly opposed the formation of a School of Medicine in Birmingham. The presentation portrait by John Partridge, painted in 1848, was engraved by Samuel Cousins in 1849. A proof, 'for subscribers only', is in the College Collection.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000190
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Wormald, Thomas (1802 - 1873)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-25 2012-03-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372378372378
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Pentonville in January, 1802, the son of John Wormald, who came of a Yorkshire family, a partner in Child's Bank, and Fanny, his wife. He was educated at the Grammar School of Batley in Yorkshire, and afterwards by the Rev. W. Heald, Vicar of Bristol in the came county. He was apprenticed to John Abernethy in 1818, lived in his house and became a friend. Abernethy used him as a prosector, caused him to teach the junior students, and made him assist Edward Stanley (q.v.) in his duties as Curator of the Hospital Museum. During his apprenticeship he visited the schools in Paris and saw something of the surgical practice of Dupuytren, Roux, Larrey, Cloquet, Cruveilhier, and Velpeau. When Abernethy resigned his lectureship Edward Stanley was appointed in his place, and it was arranged that Wormald should become a Demonstrator. But when the time arrived Frederic Carpenter Skey (q.v.), an earlier apprentice of Abernethy, was chosen, and 'Tommy', as he was known to everyone, was disappointed. He therefore became House Surgeon to William Lawrence, who was of the opposite faction, in October, 1824. It was not until 1826 that Wormald became Demonstrator of Anatomy conjointly with Skey, and when Skey seceded from the medical school to join the Aldersgate School of Medicine, Wormald remained as sole Demonstrator, and held the post for fifteen years. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital on Feb. 13th, 1838, on the death of Henry Earle, and spent the next twenty-three years teaching in the out-patient department without charge of beds. He became full Surgeon on April 3rd, 1861, on the resignation of Eusebius Arthur Lloyd (q.v.), and was obliged to resign under the age rule on April 9th, 1867, when he was elected Consulting Surgeon. He was Consulting Surgeon to the Foundling Hospital from 1843-1864, where his kindness to the children was so highly appreciated that he received the special thanks of the Court of Management and was complimented by being elected a Governor. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member of Council from 1840-1867, Hunterian Orator in 1857, a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1858-1868, and Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1864. He served as Vice-President in 1863 and 1864, and was elected President in 1865. He married Frances Meacock in September, 1828, and by her had eight children. He died of cerebral haemorrhage after a few hours' illness whilst on a visit to the sick-bed of his brother at Gomersal, in Yorkshire, on Dec. 28th, 1873, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery. A pencil sketch by Sir William Ross (1846) is in the Conservators' Room at the Royal College of Surgeons, and a photograph taken later in life hangs by its side. Wormald was the last pupil of John Abernethy, and his death snapped the link connecting St. Bartholomew's Hospital with Hunterian surgery; but it is as a teacher of clinical surgery and not as a surgeon that Wormald is remembered. The long years first as a Demonstrator of Anatomy and afterwards in the out-patient room made him a teacher of the highest class. He was so perfect an assistant that it was said in jest he ought never to have been promoted. He is reported to have been cool, cautious, and safe as an operator, and in diagnosis remarkably correct, particularly in diseases and injuries of joints. He had some mechanical skill, for he invented a soft metal ring which was passed over the scrotum for the relief of varicocele, known as 'Wormald's ring', and would forge his own instruments. He read but little and trusted almost entirely to observation and experience. He exercised a great influence over students and put a permanent and effective stop to smoking and drinking in the dissecting-room. His manner was brusque but not offensive, and was modelled upon that of his master, John Abernethy, whose gestures and eccentricities he often mimicked. He drew well, and illustrated his demonstrations and lectures with freehand sketches on the blackboard. His style of speaking was easy, clear, and forcible. There was no hurry or waste of words, and he had the art of arresting and keeping the attention of his class, partly by his quaintness and originality, partly by his frequent reference to surgical points in the anatomy he was discussing, and partly by his inexhaustible fund of humour and of anecdotes, many of which were not quite proper. In person he was of a ruddy countenance, with light-brown hair lying thin and lank over his broad forehead, his eyes twinkling and roguish; his coat and waistcoat were 'farmer-like', his trousers tight-fitting, with pockets in which he usually kept his hands deeply plunged; his boots were thick and laced. He looked, indeed, more a farmer than a surgeon. PUBLICATIONS:- *A Series of Anatomical Sketches and Diagrams with Descriptions and References *(with A. M. MCWHINNIE, q.v.), 4to, London, 1838; re-issued in 1843. These sketches from one of the best series of anatomical plates made for the use of students. They are true to nature and not overloaded with detail.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000191
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Partridge, Richard (1805 - 1873)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-01-25 2012-03-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372379372379
Occupation General surgeon
Details The tenth child and seventh son of Samuel Partridge, of Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. He was born on January 19th, 1805, and was apprenticed in 1821 to his uncle, W. H. Partridge, who practised in Birmingham. During his apprenticeship he acted as dresser to Joseph Hodgson (q.v.) at the Birmingham General Hospital. He entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, in 1827 and attended the lectures of John Abernethy, acting afterwards as Demonstrator of Anatomy at the Windmill Street School of Medicine. He was appointed the first Demonstrator of Anatomy at King's College, London, when the medical faculty was instituted in 1831, and held the post until 1836, when he was promoted Professor of Descriptive and Surgical Anatomy in succession to Herbert Mayo (q.v.). John Simon (q.v.) became Demonstrator in his place two years later, in 1838. On November 5th, 1831, occurred the 'resurrectionist' case in London which was instrumental in causing the passing of the Anatomy Act in 1832. Bishop, Williams, and May brought the body of Carlo Ferrari, an Italian boy, to King's College asking nine guineas for it. Partridge, being on the alert owing to the Burke and Hare case in Edinburgh in 1830, suspected foul play and delayed payment until the police were informed, saying that he only had a £50 note for which he must get change. Bishop and Williams were hanged, May was respited and sentenced to transportation for life. On Dec. 23rd, 1836, Partridge was elected Visiting or Assistant Surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital; he was promoted to full Surgeon on January 8th, 1838, and resigned the office on April 13th, 1840, when he was appointed Surgeon to the newly established King's College Hospital in Clare Market. He remained Surgeon to King's College Hospital until 1870. In 1837 he was elected F.R.S. He held all the chief positions at the Royal College of Surgeons, serving as a Member of Council from 1852-1868; he was a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1864-1873; Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1865; Hunterian Orator and Vice-President in the same year; and President in 1866. He filled many offices at the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society, where he was elected a Fellow in 1828; he was Secretary from 1832-1836; a Member of Council 1837-1838, and again in 1861-1862; Vice-President, 1847-1848, President, 1863-1864. Partridge succeeded Joseph Henry Green (q.v.) as Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy in 1853. He had himself some skill in drawing, having taken lessons from his brother John, the portrait painter. In the autumn of 1862 he went to Spezzia, at the request of Garibaldi's English friends, in order to attend the general, who had been severely wounded in the right ankle-joint at the Battle of Aspromonte. Having no previous experience of gunshot wounds, he unfortunately "overlooked the presence of the bullet", which Nélaton afterwards localized by his porcelain-tipped probe, and it was subsequently extracted by Professor Zanetti. This failure did him much harm professionally, though Garibaldi himself always wrote to him in the kindest terms, and he died a poor man on March 25th, 1873. Partridge has been described as a fluent lecturer, an admirable blackboard draughtsman, an excellent clinical teacher, and one who, though he operated nervously, paid close attention to the after-treatment of his patients. He was a painstaking but not a brilliant surgeon; minute in detail and hesitating in execution - a striking contrast to the brilliant performances of his colleague, Sir William Fergusson. He was somewhat of a wit, and it is recorded of him that, being asked the names of his very sorry-looking carriage-horses, he replied that the name of one was 'Longissimus Dorsi', but that the other was the 'Os Innominatum'. This was to a student. He wrote very little, and his copiously illustrated work on descriptive anatomy was never printed. There is a portrait of him by George Richmond, R.A., which was engraved by Francis Holl. There are in addition a lithograph by Maguire, dated 1845, and a photograph of a picture by an unknown artist representing Partridge attending the wounded Garibaldi; it is reproduced in the centenary number of the Lancet (1923, ii, 700, fig. 10).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000192
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Hilton, John (1805 - 1878)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-01 2012-03-22
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URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372380372380
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details Born at Sible Hedingham, a small village on the River Colne in the heart of Essex, on September 22nd, 1805, the first son of John and Hannah Hilton. His parents were in humble circumstances when he was born, but his father afterwards made money in the straw-plaiting industry, became the owner of some brickfields, and built the house in Swan Street which is still called Hilton House. In addition to John, the Hilton family consisted of a brother, Charles, who inherited his father's property, and two sisters, one of whom, Anne, married Charles Fagge on December 27th, 1836. Hilton was educated at Chelmsford and afterwards at Boulogne, and became a student at Guy's Hospital about 1824. Guy's separated from St. Thomas's during his student career, and he was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy under Bransby Cooper (q.v.), his fellow-demonstrator being Edward Cock (q.v.), in 1828. The two demonstrators worked together in friendly rivalry, and when Sir Astley Cooper proposed that they should investigate the origin and distribution of the superior laryngeal nerve, Cock undertook the comparative and Hilton the human anatomy side of the question. The results were largely instrumental in causing his election as F.R.S. in 1839. From 1828 Hilton devoted himself so assiduously to the dissecting-room as to acquire the sobriquet 'Anatomical John'. When he was not dissecting or teaching he was making post-mortem examinations, and after sixteen years of this work he had gained an unrivalled knowledge of the anatomy of the human body and had become a first-rate teacher and lecturer. About 1838 he was engaged in making those dissections which, modelled in wax by Joseph Towne, still remain as gems in the Museum of Guy's Hospital. For this purpose Hilton spent an hour or two every morning in making a most careful dissection of some very small part of the body - usually not more than an inch or two. He then left, and Towne copied the dissection in wax. Towne worked alone in a locked room, and the secrets of his art died with him. Hilton was elected Lecturer on Anatomy in 1845 and resigned in 1853. As a lecturer and teacher he was admirable, for he had the power of interesting students by putting the trite and oft-told facts of anatomy in a totally new light, the result of his own observation and experience. He combined, too, elementary physiology with anatomy, for the two subjects had not then been separated. He was, however, a confirmed teleologist and tried to prove that anatomical distribution was due to design rather than to development. He had neither the education nor the inclination to appreciate anatomy in its scientific aspects. Hilton was elected Assistant Surgeon to Guy's Hospital in 1844, Thomas Callaway and Edward Cock being his colleagues, whilst John Morgan, Aston Key, and Bransby Cooper were full Surgeons. He thus had the distinction of being the first surgeon at one of the large London hospitals who was appointed without having served an apprenticeship either to the hospital or to one of its Surgeons. In 1847 James Paget was elected to a similar position at St. Bartholomew's Hospital without either of these qualifications, and the rule previously looked upon as inviolate soon became more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Hilton's period of probation in the out-patient room was of short duration. Aston Key (q.v.) died of cholera after an illness of twenty hours in 1849, and Hilton as the Senior Assistant Surgeon was promoted to fill his place. The ordeal was trying, for he had been an anatomist all his life and had never had charge of beds, but he came well through it. He did not acquire the brilliancy or expertness of the older surgeons, but the very exactness of his anatomical knowledge made him a careful operator. His caution is still remembered by that method of opening deeply-seated abscesses with a probe and dressing forceps after making an incision through the skin, which is known as 'Hilton's method'. He shone especially in clinical lectures, where he brought out the importance of every detail in a case, and so linked them together as to form a continuous chain which interested even the idlest student. He attracted to himself the best type of men, and to be a dresser to Hilton was considered a blue ribbon at the hospital. Yet he was no easy master to serve, for he was rough in speech and was prone to indulge in personalities designed to hurt the *amour propre* of those to whom they were addressed. At the Royal College of Surgeons Hilton was chosen a life-member of the Council in 1854. He lectured as Hunterian Professor of Human Anatomy and Surgery from 1859-1862, but it was not until 1865 that he became a Member of the Court of Examiners, a post he held for ten years. He served as Vice-President during the years 1865 and 1866, and was elected President in 1867, the year in which he delivered the Hunterian Oration. He resigned the Lectureship on Surgery at Guy's Hospital in 1870, though he continued to practise at 10 New Broad Street, E.C. In 1871 he was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria, and in the same year he was President of the Pathological Society. He married twice, and his children survived him. He died at Clapham of cancer of the stomach on September 14th, 1878. Hilton's claim to remembrance rests upon his essay "On the Influence of Mechanical and Physiological Rest in the Treatment of Accidents and Surgical Disease and the Diagnostic Value of Pain". The essay was delivered as his course of Arris and Gale Lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons in the years 1860, 1861, and 1862, with the title "Pain and Therapeutic Influences of Mechanical and Physiological Rest in the Treatment of Surgical Diseases and Accidents". It was published as an octavo volume in 1863; the second edition, with the shortened title *On Rest and Pain*, edited by W. H. A. Jacobson (q.v.), appeared in 1877; the third in 1880; the fourth in 1887; and the fifth in 1892. All the issues except the first are duodecimos; the third, fourth, and fifth contain no material changes. *Rest and Pain* is interesting historically as showing the state of surgery in a large general hospital when its practice was based entirely upon anatomy and was devoid of the assistance it now derives from histology, bacteriology, and anaesthetics. It bears perhaps the same relation to modern surgery as Chambers's *Vestiges of Creation* bears to modern geology and biology. There is much morbid anatomy, and great common sense mingled with very crude speculation. It remains a fascinating work, written by one who, though a master of one side of his subject, was unable to see the whole, partly because he was insufficiently acquainted with advances of his contemporaries, and partly because the means for developing the scientific aspects of surgery were not in existence. The particular points upon which Hilton laid stress in his lectures were the blocking of the foramen of Magendie in some cases of internal hydrocephalus; the cautious opening of deep abscesses; the pain referred to the knee by patients with hip disease and its anatomical explanation; the cause of triple displacement in chronic tuberculous disease of the knee; and the importance of the early diagnosis and treatment of hip disease. All this and many other things which are now the commonplaces of surgery, Hilton set out in *Rest and Pain*, in which the naïve description of his cases and their treatment is by no means the least attractive feature. It was said that no one looking at Hilton would have taken him for a great surgeon: he appeared much more like a prosperous City man. Short, rather stout, and plodding in his walk; dapper in a plain frock-coat with a faultless shirt front, a black stock or bow-tie, a fancy waistcoat festooned with a long gold chain which was hung from the neck; always in boots irreproachably blackened at a time when Warren's and Day & Martn's blackings were at the height of their vogue - such was the picture of Hilton as he sat on the bed of a patient in one of his wards examining an inflamed ulcer with a probe to determine the position of any exposed nerve. A life-size half-length oval portrait of Hilton by Henry Barraud (1811-1874) hangs in the Conservator's room at the College. It was presented by Mrs. Hilton in 1879. There is a photograph in the New Sydenham Society's "Portraits by President" portfolio; and a medallion given by Mrs. Oldham to C. H. A. Golding-Bird, F.R.C.S., in 1894 hangs in the Librarian's room at the College.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000193
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First Title value, for Searching Quain, Richard (1800 - 1887)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-01 2012-03-09
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URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372381372381
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Fermoy, Co. Cork, in July, 1800, the third son of Richard Quain, of Ratheahy, Co. Cork, by his first wife - a Miss Jones. Jones Quain (1796-1865), the anatomist, was his full brother, and Sir John Richard Quain (1816-1876), Judge of the Queen's Bench, was his half-brother. Sir Richard Quain, Bart. (1816-1898) was his cousin. Richard Quain was educated at Adair's School in Fermoy, and after apprenticeship to an Irish surgeon came to London and entered the Aldersgate School of Medicine under the supervision of Jones Quain, his brother, for whom he acted as prosector. He afterwards went to Paris and attended the lectures of Richard Bennett, who lectured privately on anatomy and was an Irish friend of his father. Bennett was appointed in 1828 a Demonstrator of Anatomy in the newly constituted School of the University of London - now University College - and Quain acted as his assistant. Bennett died in 1830 and Quain became Senior Demonstrator of Anatomy, Sir Charles Bell being Professor of General Anatomy and Physiology. When Bell resigned the Chair Richard Quain was appointed Professor of Descriptive Anatomy in 1832, Erasmus Wilson (q.v.), Thomas Morton (q.v.), John Marshall (q.v.), and Victor Ellis (q.v.) acting successively as his demonstrators. He held office until 1850. Quain was elected the first Assistant Surgeon to University College - then called the North London - Hospital in 1834. He succeeded, after a stormy progress, to the office of full Surgeon and Special Professor of Clinical Surgery in 1848, resigning in 1866, when he was appointed Consulting Surgeon and Emeritus Professor of Clinical Surgery. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member of the Council from 1854-1873; a Member of the Court of Examiners, 1865-1870; Chairman of the Midwifery Board, 1867; Vice-President, 1866 and 1867; President, 1868; Hunterian Orator, 1869; and Representative of the College at the General Medical Council, 1870-1876. He was elected F.R.S. on Feb. 29th, 1844, and was Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria. He married in 1859 Ellen, Viscountess Midleton, widow of the fifth Viscount, but had no children. She died before him. He died on Sept. 15th, 1887, and was buried at Finchley. The bulk of his fortune of £75,000 was left to University College to encourage and promote general education in modern languages (especially the English language and the composition of that language) and in natural science. The Quain Professorship of English Language and Literature and the Quain Studentship and Prizes were endowed from this bequest. Quain himself had received a liberal education, and one of his hobbies was to write and speak English correctly. Quain was a short and extremely pompous little man. He went round his wards with a slow and deliberate step, his hands deep in his pockets and his hat on his head. As a surgeon he was cautious rather than demonstrative, painstaking rather than brilliant, but in some measure he made up for his lack of enterprise with the knife by his insistence on an excellent clinical routine, and he was a careful teacher. He had a peculiar but intense dread of the occurrence of haemorrhage. He devoted especial attention to diseases of the rectum. "Even such a matter as clearing out the scybala had to be performed in his wards in a deliberate manner, under his own superintendence." He had certain stock clinical lectures which he delivered each year, and one of these was on the ill consequences attending badly fitting boots, which he illustrated profusely by the instruments of torture called boots devised by some shoemakers. He edited his brother's *Elements of Anatomy* (5th ed., 1843-8), and was author of a superbly illustrated work, *The Anatomy of the Arteries of the Human Body* (8vo, with folding atlas of plates, London, 1844), deduced from observations upon 1040 subjects. The splendid plates illustrating this were drawn by Joseph Maclise (q.v.), brother of the great artist, and the explanation of the plates is by his cousin Richard Quain, M.D. (afterwards Sir Richard). He also published *Diseases of the Rectum* (8vo, London, 1854; 2nd ed., 1855), and *Clinical Lectures* (8vo, London, 1884). He was an unamiable colleague, for he was of a jealous nature and prone to impute improper motives to all who differed from him. He quarrelled at one time or another with most of the staff of University College Hospital. In these quarrels he sided with Elliotson and Samuel Cooper against Liston and Anthony Todd Thomson. At the College of Surgeons he was strictly conservative, and apt to urge views on educational subjects which did not commend themselves to the majority of his colleagues. A life-size half-length portrait in oils painted by George Richmond, R.A., hangs in the Secretary's office at the Royal College of Surgeons, and in the Council Room is a bust by Thomas Woolner, R.A.; it was presented by Miss Dickinson in December, 1887.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000194
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Till, Anthony Stedman (1909 - 2006)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-05-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372539372539
Occupation General surgeon
Details Anthony Stedman Till, known as ‘Tim’, was a consultant surgeon in Oxford. He was born in London, on 5 September 1909, the eldest son of Thomas Marson Till OBE, an accountant, and Gladys Stedman, the daughter of a metal broker in the City. Tim was educated at Ovingdean Hall, Brighton, and Marlborough, before winning a scholarship to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from which he went to the Middlesex Hospital to do his clinical training as a university scholar. After he qualified he was house physician, house surgeon, casualty officer and registrar, and then became an assistant to Sir Gordon Gordon-Taylor, who was a large influence on him. Tim also studied in Heidelberg and became fluent in German. In 1940 he joined the RAMC, and in the same year married Joan Burnyeat, the daughter of Colonel Ponsonby Burnyeat, who had been killed in 1918. Tim was posted to the Middle East, via Cape Town and Suez. He was taken prisoner during the battle for Lemros and was shipped, via Athens, to Stalag 7A. While a prisoner-of-war he operated not only on his fellow prisoners but also on the local civilians, and later, possibly as a result of his services to the local population, he was repatriated to the UK. He was soon back on the continent with the 181st Field Ambulance, and was with the first medical group to enter Belsen. He was always reluctant to talk about the sights he saw, which made a huge impression on him, but did remember how he picked a flower there, finding this a symbol of hope. Shortly after demobilisation in 1945 he was appointed as a registrar in Oxford and, soon afterwards, consultant surgeon. His special interests were thyroid and abdominal surgery, where he made notable contributions in both fields. He was President of the section of surgery of the Royal Society of Medicine, President of the Association of Surgeons, and a member of the Court of Examiners of our College. Outside the profession, he served as a magistrate. He hunted with the Heythrop, and when he gave up riding he bought himself a mountain bike so that he could ‘ride out’ every morning. In retirement he was the District Commissioner – an onerous task. He was also a skilled fisherman and an accomplished artist in oils and watercolour. He had a long and happy retirement in the Cotswolds with his wife Joan, who gave him stalwart support. He died on 31 August 2006, leaving his widow, three daughters (the eldest predeceased him), ten grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000353
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Walt, Alexander Jeffrey (1923 - 1996)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-05-10 2022-02-03
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URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372540372540
Occupation General surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Alexander Walt was a former president of the American College of Surgeons. He was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1923 and went to school and university there. After qualifying in 1948 he completed his house jobs at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, before winning a Dominion studentship to Guy’s Hospital in 1951. He then completed a surgical residency in the USA, at the Mayo Clinic, from 1952 to 1956. He returned to the UK, as a surgical registrar at St Martin’s Hospital, Bath, where he remained until 1957. He then went back to Cape Town, to the Groote Schuur Hospital, as an assistant surgeon for the next four years. He was subsequently appointed to Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan, USA, where in 1966 he became professor and chairman of the department of surgery. He was recognised by his peers by his election to the presidency of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma in 1997, the presidency of the Western Surgical Association in 1987, and the presidency of the American College of Surgeons in 1995. **See below for an additional obituary uploaded 8 October 2015:** Alec Walt was born in Cape Town in 1923, the son of Isaac Walt, a wholesale grocer who had emigrated to South Africa from Lithuania to escape the pogrom. When only two and a half years of age, his mother, Lea, née Garb, and two sisters were killed in a train crash, but his father was determined that all three sons be educated – and all three became doctors. At Grey High School in Port Elizabeth he distinguished himself as a sportsman and formed a lifelong friendship with Bill (later Sir Raymond) Hoffenberg. Together they entered the University of Cape Town as medical students in 1940, but an acute sense of patriotism led them to volunteer for service with the army medical corps – which was approved only at the third attempt. They served for three and a half years with the 6th SA Armoured Division and 5th US Army in Egypt and Greece, and throughout the whole of the Italian campaign, during which time they spent many hours planning how to fail trivial army examinations so that they could remain together as privates in the same unit. It was service with a surgical team in the field which instilled a long-abiding interest in trauma and served him well in later years during his time in Detroit. He played rugby for the Mediterranean forces, and was disappointed that circumstances did not allow him to accept a place in the army team in London where he hoped to see his brother after a 25 year absence. With army planning at the time, he also missed the appointment for an interview for a possible Rhodes scholarship. On demobilisation in 1945, Alec Walt returned to medical school, graduating in 1948 and serving his internship in Groote Schuur Hospital. In 1947 he married Irene Lapping, with whom he had been close friends since boyhood, and they went abroad for his surgical training, firstly to attend the basic science course for the primary fellowship of the College, and then to undertake residency training at the Mayo Clinic. While there he qualified FRCS Canada in 1955 and MS Minnesota in 1956. Returning to England as surgical registrar at St Martin’s Hospital, Bath, he took his final FRCS in 1956 before returning to Groote Schuur with his wife and three children – John Richard, born in 1952, Steven David, born in 1954, and Lindsay Jane, born in 1955 – as an assistant surgeon and lecturer. However, he became increasingly concerned that his family should not be brought up in the political climate of South Africa and in 1961 left a flourishing practice to return to the United States and an appointment with the Veterans Hospital in Detroit. His abilities were clearly recognised, for in 1965 he was appointed Chief of Surgery at Detroit General (later Receiving) Hospital, and the following year Chairman of Surgery and Penerthy Professor of Surgery of the Wayne State University School of Medicine, from which he retired in 1988. He was assistant and, from 1968 to 1970, associate dean of the medical school. As Professor of Surgery, Alec Walt gained recognition as a superb teacher and distinguished academic. He was designated ‘clinical teacher of the year’ on no fewer than three occasions and in 1984 received the Lawrence M Weiner award of the Alumni Association for outstanding achievements as a non-alumnus. On his retirement in 1988, he was a visiting fellow in Oxford with his old friend Bill Hoffenberg, then President of Wolfson College and also of the Royal College of Physicians. He was elected to the Academy of Scholars and was designated Distinguished Professor of Surgery of Wayne State University. Alec Walt’s avid thirst for knowledge made him an active and prolific clinical investigator, his 165 published papers and reviews concentrating on the surgery of trauma and of hepatobiliary disease which, along with breast cancer, were his prime interests. His army experience, which endowed him with unusual skills in the organisation of trauma services, stood him in good stead during the Detroit riots in 1967, when his paper on the anatomy of a civil disturbance and its impact on disaster planning was a classic. On four occasions he took surgical trauma teams for training in Colombia, whose government presented him with the Jorge Bejarano medal in 1981 Principal author of the first paper describing the prognostic value of oestrogen receptors in breast cancer, he was an active participant in therapeutic trials in this disease and latterly became a strong proponent of the need for multidisciplinary care. His final contribution to Detroit surgery was his development of the Comprehensive Breast Center in the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, now named the Alexander J Walt Center. Alec Walt had a distinctive clarity of writing and speaking which led to his appointment to the editorial boards of several medical journals, including the <i>Archives of surgery</i> and the <i>Journal of trauma</i>. He was in great demand as a lecturer, honouring numerous prestigious national and international commitments. He was Hunterian Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1969 and Moynihan Lecturer in 1988, and in 1995 gave a keynote address at the 75th Anniversary Meeting of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. He held leadership positions in many North American surgical organisations, including the Presidency of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, the American Board of Medical Specialties and was Vice-President of the American Surgical Association. He was elected an honorary Fellow of the College of Surgeons of South Africa in 1989, and of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of Edinburgh and Australasia in 1993 and 1995 respectively. A keen contributor to the affairs of the American College of Surgeons, Alec Walt served as a Regent from 1984 to 1993 and as Chairman of the Board of Regents from 1991 to 1993. He was elected 75th President in 1994, an office to which he immediately brought great panache. Unfortunately, during his presidential year he developed a massive recurrence of a bladder cancer, first treated twelve years previously. With typical courage he elected to have chemotherapy ‘spaced’ so that he could preside over the Annual Clinical Meeting, at which his successor was to be inaugurated. The attributes which contributed to Alec Walt’s great distinction as an academic surgeon were a keen intelligence, capacity for hard work, absolute integrity, a deep concern for all people, particularly the young, and, greatest of all, a deep and sincere humility. He did not suffer fools gladly and had no hesitation in attacking the uncritical, unscientific or badly presented paper with a characteristic irony; but he would always have a kind congratulatory word for those who had given of their best. A top sportsman – champion hurdler at school, captain of cricket and an athletic Blue at university – he led by example, not dictate. Realising a boyhood dream of climbing to 17,000 feet in Nepal with one of his sons and his daughter at the age of 62 while recovering from treatment of his bladder cancer, he took with him Tennyson’s Ulysses, a favourite poem, passages from which he would loudly declaim. He was devoted to his wife Irene, his three children, his son-in-law and his 20 month old granddaughter Eve Lenora, all of whom gave him the love and respect which nourished him throughout his professional life, and supported him during his final illness. Alec described his mother as a ‘homemaker’, and his wife had been no less. From the earliest days of his marriage Irene provided a home with an ever-open door, a kindness which endeared her to impoverished and hungry British fellows at the Mayo Clinic, of which I was one. Vivid personal memories of Alec Walt are firstly early days together in Rochester, Minnesota when, as the deluded captain of the first and only Mayo Clinic cricket team which lost their match in Chicago he chastised us for our dismal performance and undisciplined behaviour on the previous night; later, when as visiting professor to his department in Detroit, joint discussions with his students revealed the depth of his feelings for the inequalities of care for women with breast cancer which, later on at midnight in the emergency room, was extended to all of those others whom society had deprived; then at the Asian Association of Surgeons when, as President of the American College of Surgeons he gave a masterly address on surgical training, during which his deep sense of responsibility for the future of young surgeons was only too evident; and finally, on the beach in Bali, when we shared our feelings of good fortune to have had a job in life which had provided us both with such great fulfilment, pleasure, and even fun. Shortly before his death he advised his son John to ‘work hard, be honest, and the rest will take care of itself’ – advice which is exemplified by the life he led. He died on 29 February 1996 aged 72, survived by his wife Irene and his children – John, a lawyer, Steven, a professor of law, and Lindsay Jane, a sculptress. Sir A Patrick Forrest with assistance from Mrs Irene Walt
Resource Identifier RCS: E000354
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Coakley, Patrick Kevin (1928 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-10-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372463372463
Occupation General surgeon
Details Patrick Kevin Coakley was born on 19 December 1928 at Bantry, County Cork, Eire. He attended Blackrock College, Dublin, and studied medicine at the University of Cork, qualifying in 1952. After the surgical rotation he passed the FRCS in Ireland. In 1955 he was appointed to a short service commission in the Royal Army Medical Corps and was quickly promoted to Captain. After his basic military training he was posted to the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital (QAMH) as a junior specialist in surgery, the first of many postings. Later in the year he moved to the British Military Hospital Lagos, where he developed an excellent relationship with the local Nigerian surgeons. On his return to UK in 1957 he served for a short period at the British Military Hospital Chester, before moving to the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith, to work with Ian Aird on a sabbatical year as an honorary registrar. While he was there he passed the FRCS England. After this he was made a senior specialist in surgery and then moved to the Cambridge Military Hospital, Aldershot. Whilst there he was graded as consultant in surgery by the Armed Services Consultant Approval Board of our College and then posted to the British Military Hospital Hong Kong. Here he established good contacts with G B Ong and was soon involved in teaching. His next appointment in 1965 to the British Military Hospital Hanover, Germany, again resulted in a good liaison, with the Medizin Hochschule at Hanover. His teaching ability was now recognised by his appointment as assistant professor of military surgery at the Royal Army Medical College and QAMH Millbank. The Army oncology unit worked closely with the service at the Westminster Hospital and required a surgeon with special skills, and these he had. Another period of postgraduate training was spent in vascular surgery at St Mary’s Hospital. In 1972 he moved to the Cambridge Military Hospital, where large numbers of casualties of the Parachute Regiment from Northern Ireland were being treated. His excellent service here was recognised by the award of the Mitchiner medal from our College and the Royal Army Medical College, and promotion to Colonel. In 1978 he was posted again to Hanover and he renewed his connections with the University. During this time he volunteered to serve with the field surgical team in Belfast, for which he was awarded the General Service medal with NI clasp. Shortly after his return to Hanover he was appointed an officer of the Order of St John in recognition of his work with battle casualties and the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) task in war. In 1982 he was promoted to Brigadier and appointed command consultant in surgery at HQ BAOR, where he became responsible for surgeons and surgery in NATO. Promotion to Major General followed in 1986, when he was appointed director of army surgery, consultant to the Army and honorary surgeon to HM the Queen. He retired in 1988 to Fleet, Hampshire, where he continued playing golf at the Army Golf Club and freshwater fishing in Ireland. His house repair skills were much in demand. On the 18 January 2004 he died from a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm. He was a happy family man and left a wife Janet and children Janet, Fiona and Brendan. He son John predeceased him. He had five grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000276
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Johnson, Alan Godfrey (1938 - 2006)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2008-02-07 2018-05-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372629372629
Occupation Gastrointestinal surgeon General surgeon
Details Alan Johnson was a leading gastro-intestinal surgeon and medical ethicist. He was born on 19 January 1938, at Epsom Downs, Surrey, the son of Douglas Johnson, a doctor. He was educated at Epsom College and Trinity College, Cambridge, with his clinical studies being carried out at University College Hospital Medical School, London. He graduated in 1963 and, after house appointments, trained in surgery at UCH with Anthony Harding Rains and at Charing Cross Hospital with Norman Tanner. In 1971 he was appointed senior lecturer and later reader in surgery at Charing Cross, before taking up the chair of surgery at Sheffield in 1979, an appointment which he held until his retirement in 2003. He specialised in surgery of the upper gastro-intestinal tract, in which he became a world authority. Over the years he published some 200 peer-reviewed articles and 35 book chapters on topics such as gastric motility, portal hypertension, highly selective vagotomy for peptic ulcer, Barrett's oesophagus, surgical treatment of morbid obesity and various aspects of biliary disease. His randomised clinical trial published in 1996 comparing cholecystectomy by either laparoscopy or mini open incision was heralded by The Lancet as setting a new gold standard for surgical research. This was later acclaimed as one of the five most important articles in gastro-enterology published worldwide in that year. He authored or edited ten textbooks and was in wide demand as an authoritative and lucid lecturer. He gave invited lectures in more than 20 countries ranging over five continents. He took an active part in surgical professional organisations and was elected president of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, the British Society of Obesity Surgery and the National Association of Theatre Nurses. For several years he was chairman of the Standing Medical Advisory Committee to the Secretary of State for Health and he also served as chairman of the Specialty Advisory Committee in General Surgery. He chaired several Medical Research Council committees and, owing to his incisive critical faculty, was a much-valued member of the editorial board of a number of surgical journals. He was elected an honorary fellow of the American Surgical Association and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Sheffield University. Alan Johnson was an outstandingly popular colleague with his peers and a much-loved mentor to his junior staff and students. Gentle and compassionate, he had no enemies. Throughout his career he was keenly interested in medical ethics and wrote and lectured widely on this subject, in addition to his many surgical contributions. This interest stemmed from his deep Christian faith. His father had been founder of the Inter Varsity Fellowship and later became the first general secretary of the Christian Medical Fellowship. Following in his father's footsteps, at the time of his death Alan was president of the Christian Medical Fellowship, having previously been chairman. His lectures on medical ethics were legendary; they were always well-reasoned with a touch of humour and never table-thumping. One of them began: "Hitler and Mother Teresa each had 24 hours in every day - they just used them differently!" His last book, titled *Making sense of medical ethics: a hands-on guide* (London, Hodder Arnold, 2006) and written jointly with his son Paul, was completed a month before his death. In his youth he was a keen sportsman, playing hockey and cricket for his school, university and hospital. As he grew older he turned to wood carving and painting in watercolours and pastels. He was also enjoyed ornithology and country walking. He played the piano and the organ and was a patron of the Sheffield Chorale, in which his wife was a singer. Married to Esther, he had two sons, Paul, who became a paediatric surgeon, and Andrew, and a daughter, Fyona. During a routine medical check up two weeks before he died, his doctor jokingly said that Alan was so fit "he would live forever". His reply was typical: "I am going to live forever, but not in this life!" A fortnight later, he was due to preach on 'the place of compassion in modern medicine' at St John's Church, Wotton, near Dorking. There on 15 October 2006, in the churchyard, just before the service began, he had a massive myocardial infarction and died.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000445
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wright, John Kenneth (1918 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Wilson, James Noël Chalmers Barclay (1919 - 2006)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-09 2007-03-08
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372470372470
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details James Noël Chalmers Barclay Wilson, known as ‘Ginger’, was an orthopaedic surgeon. He was born on Christmas Day 1919 in Coventry, the son of Alexander Wilson, a schoolmaster, and Isobel Barbara née Fairweather, many of whose relatives were general practitioners. His parents later moved to Kenilworth, where a great friend of the family was W E Bennett, a founder member and the first treasurer of the British Orthopaedic Association. Bennett may have influenced Wilson’s later choice of specialty. Wilson was educated at King Henry VIII School, Coventry, where he began to study classics, but switched to science, much to the disgust of his headmaster, and won the Newsome memorial gold medal for physics and a prize for shooting. He studied medicine at Birmingham University, where he passed the primary as an undergraduate, won the Peter Thompson prize for anatomy, as well as the senior surgical and Arthur Foxwell prizes, and qualified with honours. In 1939 he was called up as an emergency dresser and lived in the General Hospital, Birmingham, until January 1940. He was one of the first students to enter Coventry after the notorious raid of 14 November 1940. This was followed a few days later by a massive air raid on Birmingham, when the hospital took in over 240 patients in one night. He qualified in 1943. After six months as a house surgeon at Birmingham General Hospital (during which time he won the Heaton award for being the best resident) he joined the RAMC. There he served as regimental medical officer, qualified as a parachutist, and was attached to the 9th Armoured Division, the 11th Armoured Division and the First Airborne Division, with whom he landed at Arromanches shortly after D-Day. In April 1945 he was recalled to the 1st Airborne to prepare for the attack on Denmark and Norway. He flew in on 9 May in a Stirling bomber, landing at Gardermoen. He remained in Norway until late August, returning in time to marry Pat McCullough, a nurse he had met in Birmingham, on 3 September, celebrating with champagne liberated from a German cache in Norway. After the war he returned as supernumerary registrar to Birmingham and, after passing the FRCS, spent a year at the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital as an orthopaedic registrar, followed by three years at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital, Oswestry, where he was much influenced by Sir Reginald Watson-Jones, Sir Henry Osmond Clarke and A M Henry. He earned his ChM degree for a thesis on supracondylar fractures of the elbow, written at Oswestry. In 1952 he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon to Cardiff Royal Infirmary, but after three years moved to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital London to set up the accident service at Stanmore, where he was on call three nights a week and alternate weekends. He was also consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square. His orthopaedic interests were at first general, and he helped to develop the Stanmore total hip replacement, along with John Scales and was the first to put one of them in. Later the same team developed the method for replacement of the upper femur and hip for bone tumour. He devised his own osteotomy for the treatment of hallux valgus in adolescents, and set up the RNOH bone tumour registry, which he directed until his retirement. He established the London Bone Tumour Registry. He described a new sign in the early diagnosis of osteochondritis dissecans of the knee, which became known in the USA as ‘Wilson’s sign’, and described two new conditions - ‘Winkle-Pickers’ disease’ and ‘the Battered Buttock’. After retirement he devoted his energies to developing orthopaedic services throughout the third world, travelling to Addis Ababa (where he was made professor of orthopaedics in 1989), Nigeria, Ghana, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea. He revised and edited the fifth and sixth editions of Watson-Jones’s textbook on *Fractures and joint injuries* and published more than 60 papers in orthopaedic journals. He was founder member and president of the World Orthopaedic Concern, president of the orthopaedic section of the Royal Society of Medicine, an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, and a member of the editorial board of the *Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery*. In the College he was the Watson-Jones lecturer in 1988, and Jackson Burrows medallist in 1991. He was appointed OBE in 1995 for services to orthopaedics worldwide. Among his hobbies he included his vintage Bentley, occasional golf, and making things out of rubbish. He died suddenly on 2 March 2006, leaving his wife (who died two weeks later), two daughters (Sheila Barbara and Patricia Elizabeth Jane), two sons (Michael Alexander Lyall and Richard Noël) and three grandchildren (Sam, Rosie and Alice).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000283
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wilson, Charles Graham (1924 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-09
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372471372471
Occupation General surgeon
Details Charles Wilson was a surgeon at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. He was born in Adelaide on 3 April 1924. His father, Sir George Wilson, was a founding fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and a foundation fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. His mother, Elsa May Cuzens, had been a nurse. He was educated at St Peter’s College, Adelaide, and Adelaide University, where he won a blue for golf. After qualifying in 1947 he was an intern at the Royal Adelaide Hospital for 15 months before joining the RAMC, serving with the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan for a year. He returned to Australia to spend a year as a resident at the Adelaide Children’s Hospital. He then went to England to study for the FRCS, working at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith, and Kingston General Hospital. After passing the Edinburgh and English fellowships he returned to Australia in 1954. He was first a registrar and then a senior registrar at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. In 1959 he became an honorary assistant surgeon, becoming a full surgeon in 1969 and a senior visiting surgeon in 1970. He remained at the Royal Adelaide Hospital until 1988. In 1967 he led the South Australian Civilian Surgical Team to South Vietnam, and in 1969 was lieutenant colonel surgeon at the First Australian Field Hospital for three months, remaining as consulting general surgeon to Central Command from 1969 to 1979. At the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons he was chairman of the South Australia state committee, coordinator of surgical training from 1975 to 1980, and served on the Court of Examiners. He was a keen golfer, serving as captain and later president of the Royal Adelaide Golf Club. He married Lois Penelope Fox: they had two daughters, Susan and Philippa, and one son, Thomas Graham Wilson, who is a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. Charles Wilson died on 15 August 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000284
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Maguire, William Brian (1925 - 2007)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-02-07
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372632372632
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Bill Maguire was an orthopaedic surgeon in Brisbane, Australia. He was born in Newcastle, New South Wales, on 6 March 1925, the second son of John Francis Maguire, a schoolmaster, and his wife, Margaret née Jones. His father had lost his leg in France during the First World War and Bill later based his design for a simple prosthesis on that used by his father. Bill was educated at Coorparoo State Primary and the Church of England Grammar School in Brisbane, where he became a good swimmer and middle distance runner, and played rugby. He also developed an uncommon skill with languages, particularly French, and on leaving school he at first planned to teach French, but later decided to study medicine, for which he won a Commonwealth scholarship to the University of Queensland. There he paid his way by working at the Carlton and United Breweries, the Coca Cola factory, and as a labourer in the Mount Isa mines, working deep underground, freeing rocks that had become jammed after blasting. After a year at university he volunteered for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), where he won his wings and gained his licence. He returned to complete his medical degree, and then held junior posts at the Royal Brisbane Hospital and did his Primary from a post as demonstrator in anatomy. In 1952, by now married to Dorothy Friend, a nurse, he took a ship to England, to work as a registrar at the Queen Alexandra and the Royal hospitals in Portsmouth. He attended the FRCS course at St Thomas’s, passed the FRCS, and then worked at Walsall Hospital. In 1956 he returned to Australia, as medical superintendent at Toowoomba Base Hospital. There he did all types of surgery, but increasingly specialised in orthopaedics. He moved to Brisbane in 1958 as an orthopaedic supervisor. In 1964 he moved into private practice as visiting consultant at the Princess Alexandra and Greenslopes Repatriation hospitals. In the Australasian College Maguire helped develop the training programme in orthopaedics, examined in that specialty, and helped to set up a programme for training Indonesian surgeons in orthopaedics. In 1968 he joined an Australian medical team in Vietnam, where he found his facility in French helpful in dealing with the French-speaking nuns who nursed his patients. There he carried out a number of operations on lepers. When hostilities were over he continued to help Vietnamese doctors who had come to Australia. Bill Maguire was president of the Queensland branch of the Australasian Orthopaedic Association in 1983, served on the Australian Medical Association council in 1961, and continued in the RAAF reserve as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon with the rank of wing commander. He published *All you need to know about joint replacement* (Brisbane, Boolarong, 1990) and various papers on orthopaedic topics, published in the *Medical Journal of Australia* and the *Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery*. In 1996, whilst on holiday in Tasmania, Bill was involved in the notorious Port Arthur massacre, when a mentally disturbed young man murdered 35 people. Bill was one of the first doctors on the scene and helped tend the victims. He was decorated for his bravery. Outside medicine, Bill Maguire had many interests. He continued to fly and was a keen sailor. He was a voluntary doctor at the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane in 1982. Above all, he was devoted to all things French, being a member of the French Orthopaedic Association, where he gave his papers in French, enjoyed Proust, and acted as the interpreter for the Australian Rugby Tour of France in 1984. Taking up golf later in life, he achieved two holes in one. He and his wife, Dorothy, had five sons, John William, Alan Henry, Bruce Douglas, Stephen Francis and Robert Evan. Bill Maguire died on 12 March 2007.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000448
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Coates, Henry (1779 - 1848)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Fisk, Geoffrey Raymond (1916 - 2007)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-02-21 2009-02-10
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372634372634
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Geoffrey Fisk was a senior orthopaedic surgeon at Princess Alexandra Hospital, Harlow. He was born in Goodmayes, Essex, on 26 May 1916. His father, Harry Marcus Fisk, company director of Meredith and Drew, the biscuit manufacturers, was a descendent of an ancient Suffolk family. One of his ancestors, Nicholas Ffyske (1602-1680), was a physician and a prominent Parliamentarian. Geoffrey’s mother was Jane Gerdes. He was a scholar at Ilford County High School, from which he went on to study medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. After qualifying in 1939, he was house surgeon to Harold Wilson, and then casualty officer and senior orthopaedic house surgeon to Sidney Higgs. In 1941 he went to the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) unit at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, as a junior surgeon, registrar and chief assistant, before joining the RAF medical branch in 1945. He was in charge of the orthopaedic division at Northallerton, then went to Wroughton Hospital, before becoming senior orthopaedic specialist at the Central Medical Establishment in London. Leaving the RAF as a wing commander in 1948, he returned to Bart’s as an orthopaedic registrar, was senior registrar at Black Notley and the Seamen’s Hospital, Greenwich, and was appointed as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Albert Dock Orthopaedic and Accident Hospital, Bishop’s Stortford Hospital and St Margaret’s Hospital, Epping, in 1950. In 1965 he moved to the new Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, remaining there until he retired in 1981. Geoffrey Fisk was awarded a Fulbright scholarship in 1952 and spent a year in St Louis, Missouri. Geoffrey was an active member of the management committee of the West Essex Group of Hospitals for 12 years and secretary, then chairman, of the North East Thames Orthopaedic Advisory Committee from 1975 to 1981. He was a Hunterian Professor in our College three times, in 1951, 1968 and 1978, presenting different aspects of his wide experience in hand surgery, on which he published extensively. He was a founder member and later president of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand and received the ‘Pioneer’ award of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand in 1998. Inevitably, he was a fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association. When the Bart’s Orthopaedic Rotational Training Programme was devised in 1969 it included segments at Harlow, where the trainees greatly benefited from his excellent teaching and he regularly attended their meetings until the year of his death. His many interests outside surgery included gardening and classical music. He was a Freeman of the City of London and a Liveryman of two Livery Companies, the Makers of Playing Cards and the Apothecaries, and he was a member of the Royal Institution. Following his retirement, he became a student at Darwin College, the postgraduate Cambridge college, which had been founded in 1964. There he took an MPhil in anthropology, and in 1995 bequeathed first editions of Andreas Vesalius’ *Fabrica* (1543) and Adrian Spigelius’ *Opera* (1645), which includes an early reprint of Harvey’s description of the circulation of the blood. He died on 10 November 2007 at the age of 91 and was survived by his wife of 63 years, Susan Airey (MB ChB Leeds) and by a daughter (Susan Clare) and two sons (Simon James and Jonathan, who is a consultant psychiatrist).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000450
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Hammick, Sir Stephen Love (1777 - 1867)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Pitcairn, Sir James (1776 - 1859)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-02-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372637372637
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on July 18th, 1776, the eldest son of the Rev Robert Pitcairn, of Brasenose College, Oxford, Vicar of English Combe, Somerset, and Incumbent of Spring Chapel, London. The family originated in Pitcairn, Fifeshire, and to it belonged the two well-known physicians – William Pitcairn, MD (1711-1791), Physician and Treasurer to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, and President of the College of Physicians; and his nephew, David Pitcairn, MD (1749-1800), his successor as Physician to St Bartholomew’s. James Pitcairn went to school in London, and then was a pupil of Sir Everard Home at St George’s Hospital at the same time as Benjamin Brodie. Having graduated MD at Edinburgh, he returned to become house surgeon at St George’s Hospital. He was thereupon selected by Sir Everard Home for special service at the request of the Commander-in-Chief, was gazetted at once a Staff Surgeon on Aug 30th, 1799, and was sent in 1814 to Holland, where he served to the end of the campaign, and then with the Russian Contingent at Guernsey. In 1800 he went to Ireland to the charge of the 56th Regiment, which was soon dispatched to the Mediterranean under Sir Charles Stewart, and joined the Army under Sir Ralph Abercrombie on the expedition to Egypt where he served to the close of the campaign. He returned to Dublin in 1802 in charge of the Recruiting Staff, and organized arrangements in view of the threatened invasion of England by Napoleon. From 1804-1815 he supervised the encampments formed at the Curragh and in the Connaught District of Ireland. In 1816 his services were transferred to Munster, and at Cork during thirty-one years he personally superintended the arrangements for foreign service and the embarkation. The position was full of difficulties and obstacles which his good sense and affable nature tended to lessen and remove. He was knighted by Lord Normandy in 1837 for professional services. In 1847 he succeeded Dr George Renny as Director-General of the Medical Department for Ireland until 1852, when he retired with the rank of Inspector of Hospitals. The Medical Officers of the Army presented him with a service of plate and an address. It was said of him that he discouraged criticism of the absent with such interruptions as: “Never let your mouth be opened unless for good; if you cannot speak to the credit of a man, keep it shut. This has been my rule through life and I have never had cause to regret it.” He died at 3 Haddington Road, Dublin, on Jan 12th, 1859.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000453
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Soden, John Smith (1780 - 1863)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-02-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372638372638
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Coventry on March 29th, 1780; was educated at King Edward’s Grammar School. He was then apprenticed to George Freer, of Birmingham, the author of *Aneurysm and some Diseases of the Arterial System* (1807), who evidently inspired his pupils with higher aims that the mere routine of practice, for Soden was Jacksonian Prizeman in 1810 with an essay on “The Bite of Rabid Animal”. Moreover, Joseph Hodgson (q.v.), a fellow pupil with Soden, President of the College in 1864, was the author in the following year (1811) of the Jacksonian Prize Essay on “Wounds and Diseases of the Arteries and Veins” – an elaborate piece of work. Having qualified in 1800, Soden entered the Army as a Hospital Mate on June 13th, 1800, became Assistant Surgeon in the 79th Highlanders three days later, served in Egypt, and resigned before April 16th, 1803. After returning to London he settled in practice at Bath, where he was appointed Surgeon to the United Hospitals, the Eye Infirmary, the Penitentiary, and the Lock Hospital. He thus took up a position as a leading practitioner in Bath, a successful operator and eye surgeon. He was an original member of the British Medical Association. He practised at 101 Sydney Place, Bath, and died in retirement on March 19th, 1863. His son, John Soden (q.v.), succeeded to his practice. He was ambidextrous in operating for cataract, sitting facing the patient, the patient also sitting; he made the lower incision by means of Baer’s triangular knife. Puncturing the cornea almost vertically, he watched for the jet of aqueous humour, then carried the knife across the anterior chamber without touching the iris. Soden made an admirable collection of the Portraits of Medical Men – Ancient and Modern, British and Foreign. It was presented after his death to the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society by his son John Soden, of Bath. The collection consists of four folio volumes containing 872 mounted medical portraits, with two additional volumes, the one of caricatures and newspaper cuttings, the other of autograph letters and signatures of medical men. The six volumes are preserved at the Royal Society of Medicine, where they are known as ‘The Soden Collection’. Publications:- “On Inguinal Aneurysm, Cured by Tying the External Iliac Artery.” – *Med-Chir. Trans.*, 1816, vii, 536. “Of Poisoning by Arsenic” – *London Med Rev*, 1811. *Address* at the Third Anniversary of the Bath District Branch of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, 1839, 8vo, Bath, 1839. *Address* at the Annual Meeting of the Bath and Bristol District Branch of the above, 1854.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000454
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Young, George William ( - 1850)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Bridge, Stephen Franklin (1790 - 1877)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Brietzcke, Henry (1841 - 1879)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373148373148
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in London in 1841, the son of E J Brietzcke, formerly of the Admiralty. He entered as a student at Guy’s Hospital in October, 1860. A severe attack of rheumatism towards the end of his time at the hospital, followed by cardiac trouble, caused him to become Surgeon to one of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s ships. Sailing on June 11th, 1864, the vessel was wrecked near its destination. Brietzcke endured many privations and went through considerable perils, but returned to England with improved health, though during the remainder of his life he remained somewhat of an invalid. He joined the Naval Medical Service, and was on the West Coast of Africa for one year. He then became House Surgeon to the Sheffield Public Hospital and Dispensary, retained this post for three years, and finally entered upon general practice in Derby in 1869. From this, poor health and partnership troubles compelled his retirement in 1871. After a time he obtained the appointment of Medical Officer to the Fulham Convict Prison, and in 1872 was transferred to the post of Assistant Surgeon to the Parkhurst Prison, Isle of Wight. Thence he was moved successively to Portland, Portsea, and Millbank, being appointed Senior Medical Officer to Portsea in October, 1876. He married in 1874, and when he died at Portsea he left a widow and two young children. He was buried on March 11th, the prison officials attending the funeral. Despite his wretched health Brietzcke was a hard worker and a keen reformer. It was chiefly as an indefatigable officer of the medical convict service that he was best and most widely known and appreciated. Being of a warm, generous, sympathetic temperament, thoroughly unselfish, hating and fighting abuses of all kinds, gifted with far more than ordinary talent for appreciating the humorous in all matters, his company and correspondence were highly prized by his friends. Amongst the many abuses against which he vehemently protested was that which made the medical officers in the convict service hold an inferior position, both in regard to the large amount of work expected of them and the inadequacy of their pay, when contrasted with the more favoured position occupied by other officers of the service having unskilled work to perform. Brietzcke himself once wrote to a friend: “My great difficulty appears to be how to detect the malingerer. I have always found it difficult enough to make a correct diagnosis in any disease when the symptoms are at all obscure, but it seems ten times more so when you know that nearly every assertion your patient makes is false. And most of these men employ their solitary hours (which are not a few) in endeavouring to discover means for deceiving the doctor.” Publications: “Caries of First Lumbar Vertebra; Inflammation of the Membranes of the Cord extending to the Brain; Death by Coma.” – *Lancet*, 1872, ii, 668. “A Case of Aneurysm of the Arch of the Aorta, in which Death occurred from Rupture into the Pericardium.” – *Ibid.*, 1875, ii, 730. Extensive researches on urea in relation to muscular force were embodied by him in a paper in the *Brit. and For. Med.-Chir. Rev.*, 1877, lx, 190.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000965
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brigham, William ( - 1864)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Gordon-Taylor, Sir Gordon (1878 - 1960)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-03-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372643372643
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on 18 March 1878 at Streatham Hill, London, the only son of John Taylor, wine merchant of Dean Street, Tooley Street, London Bridge and Alice Miller Gordon daughter of William Gordon, stockbroker of Union Street, Aberdeen; he and his sister were taken by their mother to Aberdeen when their father died in 1885. Educated at Gordon College and Aberdeen University, as a student he would retire at eight in the evening and would be called by his mother at midnight in order that he might continue his studies. As a result, he passed in English in March 1896, in logic and geology in March 1897, in botany in July 1897 and obtained the degree of MA with third-class honours in classics in April 1898. On the family returning to London, he entered the school of the Middlesex Hospital, being awarded a gold medal in anatomy in the intermediate examination for the London MB. Qualifying in May 1903 with the conjoint diploma and passing the final MB London also, he became, in addition to his other duties, a demonstrator of anatomy under Peter Thompson, working together with Victor Bonney to obtain first-class honours in anatomy in the BSc in 1904. In 1905 he took the BS examination and in 1906 the MS, at the same time passing the Fellowship examination. His first consultant appointment was that of surgeon to out-patients at the Royal Northern Hospital but, when a vacancy occurred at the Middlesex, he applied and was appointed to that hospital in 1907 at the age of 29, becoming assistant surgeon to (Sir Alfred) Pearce Gould and (Sir John) Bland Sutton. He also became attached as consultant to a number of smaller hospitals, St Saviours, the West Herts, Potters Bar, Welwyn, Kettering, Teddington and Hampton Wick Hospitals, and to the Ross Institute for Tropical Diseases. During the war of 1914-18 he was gazetted Captain in the RAMC in March 1915 and, serving first at home, proceeded to France being involved in the battles of the Somme and Passchendaele. He was promoted Major, later acted as consulting surgeon to the 4th Army, and was awarded the OBE, returning to England in December 1918. By his experiences in France he had proved the value of prompt and fearless surgery in wounds of the abdomen, which often necessitated multiple resections of the intestine. After the war he built up a great reputation as an intrepid general surgeon, whose profound knowledge of anatomy and whose operative skill enabled him to undertake the most formidable operations. As a result of his war experience, he was a pioneer in the use of blood transfusion, using the Kimpton Tube technique as he distrusted the addition to blood of anti-coagulants, and so he was one of the first in the field in performing immediate gastrectomy for bleeding peptic ulcer. A truly general surgeon, it was however particularly in the field of the surgery of malignant disease affecting the breast, mouth and pharynx that his interest lay. His enthusiasm for anatomy led him to become an examiner in the Primary Fellowship examination in London for many years 1913, 1919, 1940-4 and 1950-3, and in 1934 he was the first surgeon anatomist to go to Melbourne, Australia, to participate in the second Primary examination to be held in that country as at the first only one anatomist, William Wright of the London, had taken part. He made five subsequent visits to Australia as an examiner, and conducted the examination in Calcutta and Colombo in 1935 and 1949. In 1932 he was elected to the Council of the College and thus began another of his life interests. In 1938 he spent some time as lecturer in surgery at the University of Toronto, where he delivered the Balfour lecture. On the outbreak of war in 1939 he offered his services to the Army, and, being rejected on grounds of age, he crossed Whitehall to be received enthusiastically by the Royal Navy, being gazetted Surgeon-Lieutenant and, very rapidly, promoted Surgeon Rear-Admiral, a very fruitful association which led him all over the world. He was, at some time, an examiner in surgery to the Universities of Cambridge, London, Leeds, Belfast, Durham and Edinburgh. At the College he was elected to the Council in 1932, was Vice-President 1941-3, Bradshaw lecturer in 1942 and a Hunterian professor in 1929, 1942 and 1944. In 1945 he delivered the Vicary lecture, and again in 1954. In 1950 he was appointed Sub-Dean of the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences in recognition of his great assistance to overseas students. In 1952 when a memorial plaque to John Hunter was unveiled in St Martins in the Fields, he delivered the address, and in 1955 he was appointed a Hunterian Trustee. In 1941 he acted for a time as exchange Professor at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston and again in 1946, when he was also postgraduate Professor in Cairo. In 1943 he was a member of a mission to Russia sponsored by the British Council and, while there, he conferred the Honorary Fellowship on the Russian Surgeons Yudin and Burdenko. For the remainder of his life he acted as surgical adviser to the British Council in their choice of representatives to undertake missions abroad and to areas where British surgery could be of assistance. After his theoretical retirement during the war, distinctions were showered upon him. An outstanding orator, the result of punctilious care, effort and his upbringing in the classics, he gave the first Moynihan memorial lecture in Leeds in 1940, the oration to the Medical Society of London in 1940, the Syme oration to the Royal Australasian College in 1947, the Lettsomian lectures to the Medical Society of London in 1944, the Sheen memorial lecture to the University of Wales in 1949, the Rutherford Morison memorial lecture in Newcastle in 1953, the Hunterian oration to the Hunterian Society in 1954, the John Fraser memorial lecture in Edinburgh in 1957, the Diamond Jubilee oration to the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1958, the Mitchell Banks memorial lecture in Liverpool in 1958, the Cavendish lecture to the West London Medico-Chirurgical Society in 1958, the Harveian lecture to the Harveian Society in 1949, and the Founder's Day oration to the Robert Gordon College, Aberdeen. All his life he maintained his contact with Scotland and with the classics, introducing Latin and Greek quotations in his addresses without any suspicion of pomposity. He was elected a member of the Highland Society of London in 1955, was Vice-President of, and honorary surgeon to, the Royal Scottish Corporation, was chairman of the Horatian Society and a member of the Classical Association. His very infrequent holidays were spent in the Highlands. He was President of the Medical Society of London in 1941-2, President of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland in 1944-5, and President of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1944-5, being elected an Honorary Fellow in 1949. In 1956 he was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Society of Medicine, and on his eightieth birthday the *British Journal of Surgery* published a special edition in his honour. The Australasian College honoured him in 1949 by founding the Gordon Taylor prize for the best candidate in their Primary examination, on the suggestion of six of their Fellows all holders of the Hallett Prize, and that College commissioned his portrait by James Gunn in August 1960. He himself presented the portrait of his wife, painted in 1922 by Cowper, to the Australasian College. His own portrait by Anna Zinkeisen was commissioned by the Middlesex Hospital, where it now hangs. He was made consultant surgeon to the Alfred and St Vincent Hospitals in Melbourne and was an honorary member of surgical societies in Belgium, Norway, Greece, France and Germany, although his feelings for the last were antipathetic. A keen cricketer and member of the MCC, he was a regular attender at Lords, and it was one evening on leaving the ground that he was struck down by a motor car, sustaining injuries from which he died. A touch of irony, as he was an inveterate walker and detested motor cars, and never had any desire to drive one; having sold his Rolls at the outbreak of war in 1939, he never subsequently owned a car. It must be obvious to any reader of this tale of achievement that this was no ordinary man: indeed he was rightly regarded as the doyen of surgery of his generation. Few men, if indeed any others have inspired such universal respect, admiration and affection. Pre-eminent as a surgeon himself, he performed over one hundred hind-quarter amputations, his joy was to educate, instruct and help young surgeons from all over the world. In Australia his was a name to conjure with, and at the Middlesex out of his forty house surgeons twenty-five achieved consultant status, and of these, twelve at the Middlesex itself. He never forgot a face and, more important, the name that went with it. Christmas cards, penned in his own florid handwriting, were sent every year to surgeons all over the world. He lived for surgery and to keep himself fit always walked and became an expert ballroom dancer. He delighted to entertain visiting surgeons in the Oriental Club or his beloved Ritz, and, although abstemious himself, he was a connoisseur of food and wine. His dapper, trim figure in double-breasted jacket, hatless and with bowtie and wing collar, complete with the pink carnation in the button hole, brought a thrill of excitement to any surgeon lucky enough to encounter him and to be recognised immediately and addressed by name. He was indeed, as Sir Arthur Porritt, the President, described him in his funeral oration quoting Chaucer's words, “a very parfit gentil knight”. He married Florence Mary FRSA, FZS, eldest daughter of John Pegrume, who died in 1949. He died in the Middlesex Hospital following an accident on 3 September 1960. He was cremated at Golder's Green on 8 September, D H Patey reading the lesson. A memorial service was held in All Souls, Langham Place on Thursday 13 October 1960, conducted by the Vicar and by the Chaplain of the Middlesex Hospital. The oration was delivered by Sir Arthur Porritt, who was supported by the Council of the College. The lesson was read by T Holmes Sellors, and the church was filled by representatives of many learned societies and Sir Gordon's colleagues, friends and patients A bibliography of his publications, compiled by A M Shadrake, was appended to the memorial pamphlet published by the Middlesex Hospital, and his principal writings are listed at the end of Sir Eric Riches's Gordon-Taylor memorial lecture *Ann. Roy. Coll. Surg. Engl.* 1968, 42, 91-92; they included: Books 1930. *The Dramatic in Surgery*. Bristol, Wright. 1939. *The Abdominal Injuries of Warfare*. Bristol, Wright. 1958. *Sir Charles Bell, his life and times*, with E A Walls. Edinburgh, Livingstone. On Cancer Statistics and Prognosis 1904. *Arch. Middlesex Hosp.* 3, 128, with W S Lazarus-Barlow. 1959. *Brit. med. J.* 1, 455. Mitchell Banks Lecture. On Cancer of the Breast 1948. *Ann. Roy. Coll. Surg. Engl.* 2, 60. 1948. *Proc. Roy. Soc. Med.* 41, 118. On Malignant Disease of the Testis 1918. *Clin. J.* 47, 26. 1938. *Brit. J. Urol.* 10, 1, with A S Till. 1947. *Brit. J. Surg.* 35, 6, with N R Wyndham. On the Oro-pharynx 1933. *Proc. Roy. Soc. Med.* 26, 889. On Retroperitoneal and Mesenteric Tumours 1930. *Proc. Roy. Soc. Med.* 24, 782. 1930. *Brit. J. Surg.* 17, 551. 1948. *Roy. Melb. Hosp. clin. Rep.* Centenary Volume, p. 189. On the Hindquarter Amputation 1935. *Brit. J. Surg.* 22, 671, with Philip Wiles. 1940. *Brit. J. Surg.* 27, 643. 1949. *J. Bone Jt. Surg.* 31 B, 410, with Philip Wiles. 1952. *J. Bone Jt. Surg.* 34 B, 14, with Philip Wiles, D H Patey, W Turner-Warwick and R S Monro. 1952. *Brit. J. Surg.* 39, 3, with R S Monro. 1955. *British Surgical Progress,* p. 81. London, Butterworth. 1959. *J. Roy. Coll. Surg. Edin.* 5, 1, John Fraser Memorial Lecture. On War Surgery 1955. War injuries of the chest and abdomen. *Brit. J. Surg.,* Supplement 3. On Tradition Moynihan (1940) *Univ. Leeds med. Mag.* 10, 126. Rutherford Morison (1954) *Newcastle med. J.* 24, 248. Cavendish Lecture (1958) *Proc. W. Lond. Med.-Chir. Soc.* p. 12. Fergusson (1961) *Medical History,* 5, 1. The surgery of the "Forty-five" rebellion. (Vicary Lecture 1945). *Brit. J. Surg.* 33, 1.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000459
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Adams, Josiah Oake (1842 - 1925)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Adams, Matthew Algernon (1836 - 1913)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-08-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372831372831
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in 1836 and received his professional training at Guy's Hospital. He practised at Leeds, where he was for a time Senior Resident Surgeon at the Public Dispensary; he was also Assistant Surgeon to the 9th Herefordshire Rifle Volunteers. Before 1871 he had removed to Ashford Road, Maidstone, where he was Surgeon to the Kent County Ophthalmic Hospital. Later he was appointed Public Analyst for the County of Kent and for Maidstone, and was a Member of Council and then President of the Society of Public Analysts, as well as a Member of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. He was also for a time Medical Officer of Health and Gas Analyst for the Borough of Maidstone. In 1870 he had been appointed a Certificated Teacher in the Science and Art Department. He resided and practised for many years at Trinity House, Maidstone, and then moved to The Kulm, Bearsted, Kent, where he died during April, 1913. At the time of his death he was still Public Analyst for Kent and Maidstone, and was Vice-President of the Society of Public Analysts and a Fellow of the Society of Medical Officers of Health, as well as Consulting Surgeon to the Kent County Ophthalmic Hospital. He was the inventor and author of “The Hormagraph, an Instrument for Investigating the Field of Vision”. Publications: *Pocket Memoranda relating to Infectious Zymotic Diseases*, 24mo, London, 1885. “Contribution to the Etiology of Diphtheria.” *Public Health*, 1890. “The Relationship between the Occurrence of Diphtheria and the Movement of the Sub-soil Water.” * 7th and 8th internat. Congr. of Hygiene and Demography*, 1891 and 1894. “On the Estimation of Dissolved Oxygen in Water.” *Trans. Chem. Soc.*, 1892. *Annual Reports of the Medical Officer of Health for the Borough of Maidstone, to the Local Board, for the years* 1879-81, 8vo, Maidstone, 1880-82. *Report to the Local Board on the Outbreaks of Small-pox in Maidstone*, 8vo, 2 diagrams, Maidstone, 1881.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000648
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Richards, Stephen Higgs (1928 - 2006)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372472372472
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Stephen Higgs Richards was an ENT surgeon in Cardiff. He was born on 8 April 1928 in Llanbrynmair, Montgomeryshire, the fifth son of Sylfanus Higgs, a farmer, and Gwladys Jane née Brown. He went to Machynlleth County School and then to Guy’s Hospital, where he qualified in1951. After house jobs at Guy’s and Putney he did his National Service in the RAMC as RMO to the 5th Training Battalion RASC. Following demobilisation, he was a registrar at the Royal Berkshire Hospital and then at the Radcliffe Infirmary, and became a lecturer at Manchester Royal Infirmary. He specialised in otorhinolaryngology and was appointed as a consultant ENT surgeon in Cardiff. He published on veingraft myringoplasty and mastoidectomy using an osteoplastic flap. He married Dorothy Todd in 1956 and they had one son, Jamie, and two daughters, Jane and Aileen. Among his hobbies he enjoyed ancient cartography and shooting. He died in Cornwall on 9 March 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000285
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-06-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372550372550
Occupation General surgeon
Details Tom Williams was chairman of the department of surgery at the University of Alberta, Canada. He was born in Rhewl, Wales, on 17 April 1925, and spent his childhood and youth in north Wales. He studied medicine in Liverpool, where he completed junior surgical posts, before going to Edmonton, Alberta, in 1956 on a research fellowship to work with Walter McKenzie. There he was offered the post of clinical lecturer and in due course was appointed clinical professor and chairman of the department of surgery at the University of Alberta in 1975, which he combined with being consultant surgeon to two other hospitals in Edmonton and the Seton Memorial Hospital in Jasper, 250 miles away. His main research interest was in wound healing, but he was highly regarded as a surgical teacher. He was a founder member of the Canadian Association of General Surgeons and served as secretary, archivist and then president. He married Betty née Shepherd, a pathologist, and had four children (Howell, Dorothy, Anne and David), three of whom became doctors – one a surgeon at Alberta University Hospital. Tom was keen on walking and climbing in the Rockies, and as a hobby repaired and restored vintage motor-cars. He died on 24 March 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000364
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-07-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372551372551
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Alfred Beck was a consultant trauma and orthopaedic surgeon in Cardiff. He was born in Uhersky Brod, Moravia (now in the Czech Republic), on 28 January 1912. His father, Ignaz, was a wholesale merchant and councillor, from a prominent family in the Jewish community which included rabbis and businessmen. His mother was Rose Fürst. Alfred qualified at King Charles’ University, Prague, in 1935 and, after six months as a house surgeon at Ruzomberok, he completed two and a half years in the Czechoslovakian Army, before becoming a surgical registrar in Benesov, near Prague. A year later the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia and Alfred secretly crossed the border into Poland, where he joined a volunteer unit. He first went to France and then to England, where he was accepted at St George’s. He then worked as a doctor at Colindale Hospital, and narrowly escaped death in a bombing raid. After the war he found that his parents, two brothers and several other relatives had been killed by the Germans in Aüschwitz. He specialised in orthopaedic surgery, was for many years a registrar at St Mary Abbott’s Hospital, and then at Cardiff, where for over 20 years he was consultant in charge of the accident unit at St David’s Hospital. After retirement from the NHS he joined an independent medical group in the City of London, where he continued to work until he was 80. He published on stress fractures, devised an instrument for extracting the femoral neck, and a way of measuring disuse atrophy. A man of exceptional patience and modesty, he was a keen gardener, specialising in cacti. He died on 24 October 2006, and is survived by his wife Martha, whom he married in 1953, and his son Richard. His daughter Linda predeceased him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000365
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bell, David Millar (1920 - 2006)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-02-01 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372386372386
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Tavistock Place, London, on Jan. 1st, 1811, the son of Daniel Curling, F.S.A., Secretary to the Commissioners of His Majesty's Customs, and Elizabeth, daughter of William Blizard and sister of Sir William Blizard. He was educated at The Manor House, Chiswick, and was afterwards apprenticed to his uncle Sir William Blizard (1743-1835), Surgeon to the London Hospital. During his apprenticeship he was a student at the London Hospital and attended the lectures of Edward Stanley (q.v.) and Sir William Lawrence (q.v.) at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where Blizard, his master, had himself been educated. Curling began to write before he was qualified, and communicated an article on the cranium to Partington's *Cyclopoedia*, and another, on cases he had observed at the London Hospital, to the Hospital Reports in the *London Medical Gazette*. Sir William Blizard resigned his office of Surgeon to the London Hospital in 1833, James Luke (q.v.) was promoted, and Curling was elected Assistant Surgeon in January 1834, after a severe contest with William Coulson (q.v.). In the same year he gained the Jacksonian Prize at the Royal College of Surgeons for his essay "On Tetanus", which was published in 1836. About a year after his election Curling was required to reside in the immediate neighbourhood of the hospital, and for seven years he occupied a place called 'The Mount', in the Whitechapel Road, a name given, it is said, because of the accumulated rubbish carted there after the Great Fire of London. He devoted much time to surgical pathology whilst acting as Assistant Surgeon, made the post-mortem examinations, and lectured on morbid anatomy. In 1841 he was appointed, in conjunction with James Luke, Lecturer on Surgery at the London Hospital, and in 1849 was appointed Surgeon in the place of John Goldwyer Andrews (q.v.). He was admitted a F.R.S. on June 6th, 1850, and bequeathed at his death the sum of £200 to the Scientific Relief Fund of the Royal Society. Curling was Consulting Surgeon to the Jewish, to the German, and to the Portugese Hosptials: he was also Consulting Surgeon to the London Orphan Asylum and a member of the Medical Board of the Royal Sea-Bathing Hospital at Margate, in the affairs of which he took an active interest. At the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society he filled the office of Surgical Secretary in 1845-1846 and President in 1871-1872. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member of Council from 1864-1880, a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1871-1879, Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1872, Vice-President in 1871 and 1872, and President in 1873. He discovered during his long tenure of office in the out-patient room of the London Hospital that the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the testicle needed revision. He published a paper in 1841, "Some Observations on the Stucture of the Gubernaculum and the Descent of the Testis in the Foetus", and in 1843, *A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of Testicle, Spermatic Cord, and Scrotum. *The book met with a hearty reception, ran through many editions, and was translated into foreign languages, the Chinese version being made by Sir Patrick Manson in 1866. Curling published in 1851 *Observations on the Diseases of the Rectum*, which also had a large sale, and, like "Curling on the Testis", became a standard work. His paper at the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society seems to have been the first to draw attention to the occurrence of duodenal ulcer after burns of the skin. He died at Cannes on March 4th, 1888. Curling's punctuality at the London Hospital was proverbial; he entered the gates as the clock struck the hour. In the wards he was exact and conscientious to a degree, his strong sense of duty to the patient leading him into the minutest supervision of the dresser's work. His sound judgement was grounded on vast clinical experience; he was consequently opposed to fanciful inductions. "His practice and his teaching were not at variance; both were sound, upright, and just." He was not personally popular, for his manner was cold, yet he was a staunch and sincere friend, whom to know was to trust and to honour. He was punctual in the performance of his duty in a remarkable way. He was not a good speaker, and instructed his pupils rather by what he did than by what he said. They could readily perceive that Curling's treatment of his patients was guided by fixed princicples, and that they could gain from him much valuable information. He was a careful and cautious operator, whose first consideration was a regard for the good of the individual patient. At the College he enjoyed the complete confidence of his colleagues on account of his zeal and the great interest he took in his work. The estimation in which his judgement was held by his contemporaries was shown by the fact that he was appointed five times to the important post of Surgical Referee at the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society, the last time succeeding the period of his Presidency. Curling was a man of commanding stature. There is an engraving of him from a daguerrotype in the *Medical Circular*, a photograph in the Fellows' Album, and another in *Photographs of Eminent Medical Men* (Barker and Edwards, 1867, i), and there is an engraving in the possession of the London Hospital. In later life he is described as a gentleman, tall, erect with white hair, pale complexion, and an inheritor of the large nose which marked the Blizard family.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000199
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Magri, Joseph (1926 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-09
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372475372475
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Joe Magri was a consultant urologist at Oldchurch Hospital, Romford. He was born in Valletta, Malta, on 2 March 1926, the son of Francesca and Tancred Magri. He was educated at the Jesuit College and Malta University, where he qualified in 1949. He then moved to England to specialise in surgery. He was a house surgeon in orthopaedics and accident surgery at the City Hospital, Sheffield, and then a surgical registrar in Barnsley, where, with the help of only an anaesthetist and a house physician, he dealt with all the emergencies that arose in that busy mining town. He went on to become an anatomy demonstrator in Sheffield, passed the primary and final FRCS, and became a surgical registrar in Leicester. He was RSO (senior registrar) at St Peter’s Hospital in 1959 and was appointed consultant urologist, Oldchurch Hospital, Romford, in 1963. There he published a review of partial cystectomy for bladder cancer and a few years later a ‘no-catheter’ technique for prostatectomy. A genial, friendly man, Joe Magri’s many interests included bridge, sailing, skiing and the opera. He attended Covent Garden regularly. He also built his own Gilbern car from a kit. He met his Swedish wife Margareta Johansson while on holiday in Malta, where she was working as a private secretary in an architect’s office. Together they refurbished a house in Mill Hill. They had no children. He died of metastatic carcinoma on 6 April 2005. He is survived by his widow.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000288
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Sengupta, Dipankar (1936 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372476372476
Occupation General Practitioner
Details Dipankar ‘Dip’ Sengupta was a general practitioner in Scarborough. He was born in Bengal and studied medicine in Calcutta. He went to England to specialise in surgery and completed a number of junior posts in London, Glasgow and Scarborough, including a registrar post in neurosurgery, in which he carried out research into cerebral blood-flow. He entered general practice in Eastfield, Scarborough, in 1974, where he at once became a great favourite with his patients, and stimulated many changes in his practice. In 1996 he suffered a dissecting aneurysm of the aorta, from which he survived. Predeceased by his wife, he died on 28 July 2005, leaving a son and daughter.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000289
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Perrins, David John Dyson (1924 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-09 2012-03-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372477372477
Occupation Medical Research Council research fellow Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details David John Dyson Perrins was an expert in the use of hyperbaric oxygen and a former MRC research fellow at Churchill Hospital, Oxford. Born in 1924, he studied medicine at Jesus College, Cambridge, and rowed for the university in the 1946 Boat Race. He completed his clinical studies at St Thomas's, where he was a house surgeon. After National Service in the Royal Navy, he trained in plastic surgery, gaining experience in the use of hyperbaric oxygen treatment. He completed his MD thesis in 1972 on hyperbaric oxygen and wound healing, and spent ten years at the Churchill Hospital, Oxford, studying the use of oxygen as a radiosensitiser. He also undertook experimental work with W S Bullough at London University on chalones, the mitotic inhibitors in skin. He then moved to Stockholm for two years, to work with Per Oluf Barr on the use of hyperbaric oxygen to prevent amputation in patients with diabetic vascular disease. On his return to the UK he was an honorary adviser to the Federation of Multiple Sclerosis Treatment Centres, researching into the use of hyperbaric oxygen to slow the progress of the disease. He was a former vice president of the International Society of Hyperbaric Medicine. David Perrins died on 2 November 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000290
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lewis, Cecil Wilfred Dickens (1916 - 2006)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-01 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372389372389
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details Born on July 3rd, 1812, the son of William N. W. Hewett, of Bilham House, near Doncaster, by his second wife. His father was a country gentleman whose fortune suffered from his love of horse-racing. Prescott Hewett received a good education and passed some years in Paris, where he acquired a perfect mastery of French, and learnt to paint in the studios, having at first intended to become a professional artist - a notion which he relinquished on becoming intimate with the son of an eminent French surgeon. He thus became inspired with a love for the surgical profession, and remained always an admirer of the French school of surgery. He never abandoned the practice of art, and his "delightful and exquisitely elaborate drawings" were exhibited, shortly before his death, in the Board Room at St. George's Hospital, "where one of these charming pictures now hangs near Ouless's portrait of its painter". He learned anatomy in Paris and became thoroughly grounded in the principles of French surgery. On his return to England he entered at St. George's, where he had family influence, his half-brother, Dr. Cornwallis Hewett, having been Physician to the hospital from 1825-1833. The excellence of his dissections recommended him to Sir Benjamin Brodie, and he was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy and Curator of the St. George's Hospital Museum when he was on the point of accepting a commission in the service of the H.E.I.C. He became Curator of the Museum about 1840, the first record in his handwriting being dated Jan. 1st, 1841. Here he began in 1844 the series of post-mortem records which have been continued on the same pattern ever since, and constitute a series of valuable pathological material which for duration and completedness is perhaps unmatched. Many of Brodie's preparations in the Museum of St. George's were put up by Hewett. He was appointed Lecturer on Anatomy in 1845 and Assistant Surgeon on Feb. 4th, 1848, becoming full surgeon on June 21st, 1861, in succession to Caesar H. Hawkins (q.v.), and Consulting Surgeon on Feb. 12th, 1875. He was elected President of the Pathological Society of London in 1863, and ten years later occupied the Presidential Chair of the Clinical Society. He was admitted F.R.S. on June 4th, 1874. He was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria in 1867, Sergeant-Surgeon Extraordinary in 1877 on the death of Sir William Fergusson (q.v.)., and Sergeant-Surgeon in 1884 in succession to Caesar Hawkins (q.v.). He also held from 1867 the appointment of Surgeon to the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII, and on Aug. 6th, 1883, he was created a baronet. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was Arris and Gale Professor of Human Anatomy and Physiology from 1854-1859, a Member of the Council from 1867-1883, Chairman of the Board of Examiners in Midwifery in 1875, Vice-President in 1874 and 1875, and President in 1876. Prescott Hewett married on Sept. 13th, 1849, Sarah, eldest daughter of the Rev. Joseph Cowell, of Todmorden, Lancashire, by whom he had one son, who only survived his father a few weeks, and two daughters. He died on June 19th, 1891, at Horsham, to which place he had retired on being created a baronet. As a teacher Hewett was admirable, for he could make his pencil explain his work. Gradually - for he was of a shy and retiring disposition - he became known first in professional circles as a first-rate anatomist and one of the best lecturers in London, then as an organizer of rare energy and power; lastly, as a most accomplished surgeon and an admirable operator. He was equally skilful in diagnosis, and his stores of experience could furnish cases in point in all medical discussions. Hewett, when Professor at the College of Surgeons, delivered a course of lectures on "Surgical Affections of the Head" which attracted the universal admiration of all surgeons; their author could never be persuaded to publish them, though when his friend and pupil Timothy Holmes (q.v.), afterwards edited a *System of Surgery*, Hewett embodied their contents in the exhaustive treatise on "Injuries of the Head" which forms part of that work. His fastidious taste made him shrink form authorship, as indeed he shrank from all forms of personal display, for he had much professional learning which was always ready at command, and an easy lucid style. Lecturing he loved, and few lectured better. "He was," said one who knew him, "one of the fittest men in the world to instruct students, for he had all the clearness of expression which is required to impart knowledge of subjects teeming with difficulties of detail, his ready pencil would illustrate the most complicated anatomical descriptions, and his stores of experience could furnish cases in point in all discussions; the clinical instruction which he was wont to give in the wards was equally admirable. He was one of the most trustworthy of consultants, never failing to point out any error in diagnosis, yet with such perfect courtesy and delicacy that it was a pleasure to be corrected by him." He presided over the Clinical and Pathological Societies, but his increasing engagements prevented him from allowing himself to be nominated for the Presidency of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society, though he was deeply interested in its work, and had enriched its *Transactions* with some papers which became standard authorities on their respective subjects. Hewett started life as a poor man, and had every reason to feel the truth of the line, "Slow rises worth by poverty opprest". But he did rise gradually to eminence and distinction among the surgeons of London, and few men were more beloved by those who were connected with him in practice, whether as pupils or patients. "The reason", as one of his old pupils said, "was that he was emphatically a gentleman - a man who would not merely scorn a base action, but with whom anything base would be inconceivable." Hewett's collection of water-colour sketches was presented to the nation after his death, and were exhibited at the South Kensington Museum at the beginning of 1891. A half-length subscription portrait painted by W.W. Ouless, R.A., hangs in the Board Room at St. George's Hospital, and there is a photograph in the Council Album.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000202
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Birkett, John (1815 - 1904)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-01 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372390372390
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details Born April 14th, 1815, at 10 The Terrace, Upper Clapton, Middlesex, the only child of John and Mary Birkett. Educated at various private schools; at one the master was a Frenchman, at another a mathematician and astronomer, and at a third a Greek scholar. Birkett thereby gained a wide general knowledge. In September, 1831, he was bound apprentice to Bransby Cooper, then Surgeon to Guy's Hospital, being, as is thought, the last pupil to pay the customary fee of £500 which gave the apprenticeship some claim to consideration when a vacancy occurred on the hospital staff. Birkett did not begin his medical studies at Guy's Hospital until October, 1832. He was admitted M.R.C.S. on Oct. 6th, 1837, and was immediately appointed a Demonstrator of Anatomy. He held the post until 1847, and had in succession as his colleagues James P. Babington, Thomas Moody, and Alfred Poland. He was elected F.R.C.S. without examination in 1844 and signalized the session 1845-1846 by giving demonstrations on microscopic anatomy on certain evenings in each week, and in this way beginning the teaching of histology in the medical school. In 1847 he was appointed to make the post-mortem examinations in the hospital, and in May, 1849, he was elected Assistant Surgeon in consequence of the death of John Morgan and the promotion of Edward Cock (q.v.). In the same year he gained the Jacksonian Prize for his Essay on "Diseases of the Mammary Gland". In this year, too, making a bid for practice he moved from 2 Broad Street Buildings, where he had lived since 1840, to Wellington Street, Southwark. He lectured on anatomy jointly with John Hilton (q.v.) in 1851, and two years later he was elected Surgeon to Guy's Hospital on the resignation of Bransby Cooper, his former master, and this post he held until 1875, when he retired on reaching the age of 60. As full Surgeon he lectured on surgery conjointly with John Poland, and in 1856 he moved to Green Street, Grosvenor Square, where he spent the rest of his active life until he retired to Sussex Gardens in 1896, where he died after a prolonged illness on July 6th, 1904. At the Royal College of Surgeons he served on the Council from 1867-1883, and was Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology from 1869-1871, lecturing on the nature and treatment of new growths. He was an Examiner in Anatomy and Physiology (1875-1877), a Member of the Court of Examiners (1872-1882), of the Examining Board in Dental Surgery (1875-1882), Vice-President (1875 and 1876), and President (1877). He was one of the Founders of the Pathological Society of London and served as a Vice-President (1860-1862), doing good work by insisting upon the use of the microscope in the investigation of tumours at a time when such a method was unusual. He served for some years as Inspector for the Home Office of the Anatomical schools of Anatomy in the Provinces. He was Master of the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers in 1871 and 1892. In 1842 he married Lucy Matilda, daughter of Halsey Jansen; five sons and a daughter survived him out of a family of seven boys and three girls; two of his sons were distinguished football players. John Birkett was essentially a surgeon of the old school, a reliable operator, a good anatomist, and very careful in the after-treatment of his patients. He obtained good results because he was clean in himself, was not engaged in anatomy, and was accustomed to have the patient washed before he was brought into the operating theatre. The diagnosis and treatment of tumours of the breast, hernia operations, and the surgery of the arteries interested him most; abdominal operations and surgical interference with joints and veins were abhorrent to him. As a teacher he was slow and uninspiring; as an individual he was a cultured gentleman of wide knowledge, an excellent field botanist, and a great walker. In these walks he carried into private life the characteristics which had made him successful as a surgeon. Few men knew better than he how to use a map. To form one that could be serviceable and easily consulted even if the walk were no longer than from Sevenoaks to Maidstone or across the Yorkshire Moors from Danby to Goathland he would make the starting-point the centre by joining two or more of the ordnance survey plans. Then after bevelling the edges that the junction might be almost invisible, colouring the areas of equal height, describing concentric circles increasing by two or more miles, mounting on linen and constructing a case no whit inferior to that sold in the map-sellers' shops, he was secure from losing his way in his peregrinations, come fog, come snow, or blinding rain. Publications: - A. Von Behr's *Handbook of Human Anatomy, General, Special and Topographical.* Translated from the original German and adapted to the use of English students by John Birkett. 8vo, London, 1846. *Description of Some of the Tumours Removed from the Breast and Preserved in the Museum of Guy's Hospital,* 8vo, with 6 plates, London, 1848. *Diseases of the Breast and their Treatment* [Jacksonian Prize Essay], 8vo, plates, 1850. *Adenocele of the Mammary Gland, *8vo, London, 1855. *Contributions to the Practical Surgery of New Growths or Tumours. Series iii. Cysts* 12mo, plates, London, 1859. Articles on "Injuries of the Pelvis", "Hernia", and "Diseases of the Breast" in Holmes's *System of Surgery,* 1870, and again in Holmes and Hulke's *System of Surgery,* 1883.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000203
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Travers, Benjamin junior (1808 - 1868)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Bond, Charles John (1856 - 1939)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Barker, Edgar ( - 1874)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Barker, Edward (1818 - 1885)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-03-11 2012-03-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372649372649
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Chesham, Buckinghamshire, on July 3rd, 1809, the eldest son of Henry Nathaniel Rumsey, a surgeon, by his wife, Elizabeth Frances Catherine, second daughter of Sir Robert Murray, Bart, whom he had married late in life. His grandfather, the youngest son of an old Welsh family, had settled and practised in Chesham from the middle of the eighteenth century. Rumsey's father had taken shorthand notes of John Hunter's lectures in 1786 and 1787. His notes were printed by James F Palmer in his edition of Hunter's works, who says of them, "one might almost suppose that the writer had had access to the Hunterian manuscript: for besides being generally more full, it never omits examples and illustrations in proof of opinions. The style too is characteristically Hunterian." Rumsey received a desultory education, one of his tutors being the Rev Joseph Bosworth, DD (1789-1876), the eminent Anglo-Saxon scholar. He was apprenticed at the age of 16 to Dr Attenburrow at the Nottingham Hospital, and afterwards became a house pupil of Caesar Hawkins (q.v.), Surgeon to St George's Hospital. In 1831 he was Resident Physician for three months to Lord Dillon at Ditchley, in Oxfordshire, after which he returned to Chesham and took over the family practice. Three years later he went to Gloucester, where he remained for twelve years, acting as Surgeon to the Dispensary, and being appointed Cholera Inspector in 1849. Having overworked himself in this office, he retired to Cheltenham, and from 1851 built up a large practice by his delicate generosity, untiring industry, his suavity, and his kind-heartedness. He got into financial difficulties towards the close of his life owing to the failure of *The European*, and his friends - Dr William Farr being Chairman of the fund - presented him in 1876 with a handsome sum of money, a service of silver plate, and obtained for him a Civil List pension of £100 a year. He died at Prestbury, near Cheltenham, on Oct 23rd, 1876. Rumsey was one of the leading sanitarians of his generation. Lacking the science, philosophic insight, organizing power, and literary genius of Sir John Simon, and the masterly command of statistics possessed by Dr William Farr, he was none the less a great man. In 1835, after having devoted much attention to the establishment of provident societies among the working classes, he commenced his labours as Hon Secretary of the Sick Poor Committee of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association - labours which were continued for ten years. He furnished materials for a series of Reports, on which was founded a Bill, introduced into the House of Commons in 1840 by Mr Serjeant Talfourd, for the better regulation of Medical Relief under the Poor Law. This led to his being examined, first in 1838 by the Poor Law Committee of the House of Commons, and again in 1844 by Lord Ashley's Select Committee on Medical Poor Relief, when he submitted a mass of evidence, collected with much labour, relating to the sickness prevalent among the poor in towns, and forcibly showing the need of preventive measures, under the superintendence and control of a General Department of Public Health. The results of these investigations, and of his previous inquiries into the working of the so-called self-supporting Dispensaries, were embodied in two pamphlets, one published in 1837, on *The Advantages to the Poor of Mutual Assurance against Sickness*, the other in 1846, in connection with Lord Lincoln's Public Health Bill and Sir James Graham's Bill for the Regulation of the Medical Profession, on *The Health and Sickness of Town Populations*. After the publication in 1836 of his paper on the "Statistics of Friendly Societies", with suggestions and forms for an improved Registration of Sickness in connection with them, Rumsey on many occasions, either singly in papers of remarkable ability, or in co-operation with others, pointed out with much clearness and force certain "Fallacies of Vital and Sanitary Statistics", and the difficulty of drawing correct conclusions regarding the Public Health from returns of mortality, apart from records of sickness. In 1848, in his "Remarks on the Constitution of the Authorities under the Public Health Bill", then before Parliament, he anticipated and indicated with great precision the defects - many of which had remained unremedied - of that important measure. The same high intelligence and remarkable mental activity and acuteness were conspicuously manifested by him in the prominent part he took in all the subsequent phases of sanitary legislation, and in the valuable evidence given by him before the Royal Sanitary Commission in 1869. He was consulted in 1849 by the authorities of the Colony of St Christopher's, and in 1850 by the nascent Colony of New Zealand, on their sanitary schemes. His merits and public services were repeatedly recognized. In 1863, by the advice of the Privy Council, he was nominated by the Queen a Member of the General Medical Council; in 1868 and 1869 he was nominated a Member of the Royal Sanitary Commission. It was mainly under Rumsey's guidance, and largely at his instigation, that the British Medical Association procured the appointment of the Royal Sanitary Commission, whence has sprung the improved sanitary legislation of our days; and he will be remembered among the band of workers - Farr, Simon, Stewart, Michael, Acland, Stokes, Clode, and Chadwick - who have placed the health of the people upon a new and surer footing. He died at the beginning of November, 1876, and at the time of his death was an honorary member of the Metropolitan Association of Health Officers and a Fellow of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society. Rumsey's best-known book, which for many years was the only work on the subject, was his *Essays on State Medicine* (8vo, London, 1856). To attempt to write his full bibliography would be useless in any short notice of his life, but the following remarks by his able biographer in the *British Medical Journal* may be taken as covering most of the ground: "The very numerous and able papers presented by him...to the British, the Social Science, and the British Medical Associations, and to the Manchester Statistical Society, or published either separately or in various reviews, form a record of unwearied literary and philanthropic activity such as not many public men can boast of. Amongst the most important of these, not already adverted to, are his Address on Sanitary Legislation and Administration read at the first Meeting of the Social Science Association in 1857; Public Health, the right use of Records founded on Local Facts, in 1860; A Proposal for the Institution of Degrees or Certificates of Qualification in State Medicine, in 1865; Comments on the Sanitary Act, in 1866; an Address on State Medicine, delivered at the Dublin Meeting of the British Medical Association in 1867, and followed by the formation of the Joint Committee of the British Medical and Social Science Associations, which applied for and obtained from Her Majesty's Government the appointment of the Royal Sanitary Commission in 1868. On Population Statistics, with reference to a County Organization for Sanitary Administration, in 1870; and a paper on The State Medicine Qualification, which was read before the London Meeting of the British Medical Association in 1873, and led to the appointment of a Committee for the promotion of legislation on that subject."
Resource Identifier RCS: E000465
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brookes, Andrew Good (1814 - 1894)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Islam, Mohammed Shamsul (1937 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-10-17
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372745372745
Occupation General practitioner
Details Mohammed Shamsul Islam was born in Tangail, East Bengal, the former training station for ICS officers, on 7 June 1937. He qualified in Dacca and then went to England to specialise in surgery. Sadly, the college has no more information about his subsequent career until he settled down in general practice in Cheshire. He died on 24 February 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000562
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Foss, Martin Vincent Lush (1938 - 2008)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-10-17
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372746372746
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Martin Foss was a consultant trauma and orthopaedic surgeon at Luton and Dunstable Hospital. He was born in Bristol on 12 February 1938, the son of George Lush Foss, a general practitioner, and Eileen Isabelle née Buller. His paternal grandfather, Edwin Vincent Foss, was also a general practitioner. Martin was educated at St Michael’s Preparatory School and at Marlborough, from which he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, going on to University College Hospital for his clinical course. After qualifying he became house surgeon to David Matthews and Doreen Nightingale at University College Hospital and then house physician to Lord Amulree at St Pancras Hospital, the UCH geriatric unit. Between 1964 and 1966 he worked for Donal Brooks and Kenneth Stone as orthopaedic and casualty senior house officer at the Barnet General Hospital, followed by a further year as an orthopaedic senior house officer at the North Middlesex Hospital. This was followed by two years as general surgical registrar at the Whittington Hospital, during which time he passed the FRCS of both colleges. He then specialised in orthopaedics and trauma, first as an orthopaedic registrar at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and then as a senior orthopaedic registrar at University College Hospital. In 1973 he was appointed consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital. He retired in 1996, having served as medical director of the Luton and Dunstable NHS Trust from 1991 to 1996. Martin undertook the full range of orthopaedic surgery in a very busy unit on the M1 motorway, but had a special interest in paediatric orthopaedics. His only publication was on bone density, osteoarthritis of the hip and fracture of the upper end of the femur in 1972. At Cambridge he played a full part in college life and won his oar in the successful first VIII. He loved the outdoor life, birdwatching, painting, walking and, after he retired, travelling. He was a lifelong freemason, gaining high office as provincial grand master for Bedfordshire. He married Anthea Noelle Johnson in 1963 (they divorced 1992), with whom he had two daughters, Victoria Charlotte and Caroline Louise. He died on 2 February 2008. Alan Lettin
Resource Identifier RCS: E000563
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Alcock, Sir Rutherford (1809 - 1897)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-08-21 2016-01-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372838372838
Occupation General surgeon
Details Son [1] of Thomas Alcock, a medical man practising at Ealing. Educated at Westminster Hospital, where he filled the post of House Surgeon, and in 1832 was appointed Surgeon to the British Portuguese forces acting in Portugal. In 1836 he was transferred to the Marine Brigade engaged in the Carlist war in Spain, and within a year was appointed Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals. [2] On his return to England he lectured on Surgery at the Sydenham College, [3] but in 1844 he was nominated Consul at Foochow, one of the ports newly opened to trade by the treaty of 1842. He was transferred to Shanghai in 1846 and had with him Sir Harry Smith Parkes. Under Alcock's direction the municipal regulations for the Government of the British Settlement of Shanghai were established and the foundations were laid of the city which has since arisen there. In 1858 he was appointed the first Consul and in 1859 British Minister in Japan, where the admission of foreigners proved so distasteful that an attack was made upon the British Legation on July 5th, 1861, and Alcock with his staff were in serious danger. Alcock returned to England in 1862 and, having already been decorated CB, was promoted KCB on June 19th, 1862, receiving the Hon DCL at Oxford on March 28th, 1863. He returned to Tokio in 1864, leaving in the following year on his appointment as Minister-Plenipotentiary at Pekin. Here he conducted affairs with such delicacy and tact that Prince Kung said: "If England would only take away her missionaries and her opium, the relations between the two countries would be everything that could be desired." In 1871 he retired from the service of diplomacy, settled in London, and interested himself in hospital management, more especially at the Westminster and Westminster Ophthalmic Hospitals, and in hospital nursing establishments. He served as President of the Geographical Society (1876-1878) and as Vice-President of the Royal Asiatic Society (1875-1878). [4] He married: (1) Henrietta Mary, daughter of Charles Bacon, in 1841; (2) Lucy, widow of the Rev T Lowder, British chaplain at Shanghai. He died without issue at 14 Great Queen Street, London, on Nov 2nd, 1897. There is a portrait of him late in life in the Board Room of the Westminster Hospital, a copy is in the collection of the Royal College of Surgeons [5], and one, made in 1843, by L A de Fabeck, is reproduced in Michie's *Englishman in Japan*. Publications: *Notes on the Medical History and Statistics of the British Legion in Spain*, 8vo, London, 1838. *Life's Problems*, 8vo, 2nd ed., London, 1861. *Elements of Japanese Grammar*, 4to, Shanghai, 1861. *The Capital of the Tycoon*, 2 vols., 8vo, London, 1863. *Familiar Dialogues in Japanese with English and French Translations*, 8vo, London, 1863. *Art and Art Industries in Japan*, 8vo, London, 1878. He also edited in 1876 the *Diary of Augustus Raymond Margary* (1846-1875) (the traveller in China). [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] ? Nephew; [2] He was honored with the Knighthood of the Royal Spanish order of Charles III in 1839-40 (*London medical gazette* 1839-40, xxv, 720.); [3] He won the Jacksonian Prize in 1839 and again in 1841.; [4] He was a member of the Board of Guardians of St George's Hanover Square and took "a deep personal interest" in the scheme for emigrating pauper children to Canada. (see his letter to the *Spectator* 5 July 1879 [reprint in the Library]); [5] The words 'a copy is in the collection of the Royal College of Surgeons' are deleted and 'no!' added; Rutherford Alcock contributed to the *London Medical Gazette* on lithotripsy (?) 1829, 4, 464; 1830, 5, 102; on transport of wounded 1837-8, 21, 652; on medical statistics of armies 1838 22 321 & 362; on gunshot wounds & other injuries 1839 24 138 etc; on clinical instruction 1839 25 694, & on his Jacksonian prize 1840, 26, 607 and to *The Lancet* 1839/40, 1, 929 on concussion & 1840-41, 1 & 2 on amputation (a series of lectures); Portrait (No.47) in Small Photographic Album (Moira & Haigh).]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000655
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Aldersey, William Hugh ( - 1885)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-08-21 2013-08-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372839372839
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at Guy's Hospital and, in addition to the other qualifications, he passed the First MB Examination at the University of London in 1856. Served as Medical Officer on the Indiana during the Crimean War, and afterwards practised at Buntingford, Herts, for the South-Eastern District of which he was Medical Officer. Later he moved to Hayling and Havant in Hampshire, acting as Medical Officer of Health for the Urban and Rural Districts. He retired to Surbiton, living at 7 St James' Road, where he died on Sept 7th, 1885. He was a Fellow of the Obstetrical Society.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000656
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Aldersmith, Herbert (1848 - 1918)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-08-21 2016-01-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372840372840
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he gained the senior scholarship, and during his career as a student won the Gold Medal at the Society of Apothecaries and the Scholarship and Gold Medal at the MB Examination of the University of London. He filled the offices of House Surgeon and House Physician at St Bartholomew's Hospital, and, settling in Giltspur Street, was appointed in 1872 Medical Officer of Christ's Hospital (the Bluecoat School), then in Newgate Street. This post he held until 1913, moving with the school to Horsham. He continued to live at Horsham after his connection with the school ended, died suddenly at Carlton Lodge, Horsham, on March 24th, 1918, and was buried at Itchingfield. [1] Aldersmith lived entirely for the Bluecoat School, and greatly to its advantage. His kindness of heart and his friendly interest endeared him to all the boys brought into contact with him. The declaration made by the Orator at the Speech Day on the occasion of his retirement, that "there is no healthier school in England than Christ's Hospital", was a tribute to his skill and care. He was an influential and respected honorary member of the Medical Officers of Schools Association, who became an authority on ringworm before the recent advances in diagnosis and treatment. He began life as H A Smith, became H Alder-Smith when he began to practice, and finally H Aldersmith, by which name he was generally known in later life. Publications:- Ringworm and Alopecia Areata: their Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment, 8vo, illustrated, 4th ed., London, 1897. [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] His daughter Dorothy Constance, wife of Charles Ernest Robinson of Hillcote, Storrington died 20 Sept, 1940 (*The Times* 23 Sept 1940)]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000657
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Simpson, David Andrew (1954 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372487372487
Occupation Consultant in accident and emergency medicine Accident and emergency surgeon
Details David Simpson was a consultant in accident and emergency medicine. He was born in London in 1954 and entered King’s College Hospital for medical training. He had considered a career as an engineer, but changed his mind after early training in this discipline. After gaining his FRCS, he became a surgical registrar at the Westminster Hospital and then settled on a career in accident and emergency medicine. He became an associate member of the British Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons and a member of the British Association for Accident and Emergency Medicine, and his future career seemed assured at a time when the specialty was expanding from the old ‘casualty departments’ to the modern ones capable of dealing with a variety of emergencies. He was very interested and had a great knowledge of ‘Scott of the Antartic’, to whom he was distantly related. On entering the Cambridge/Norwich senior registrar training programme he was described as a likeable and hard working, intelligent trainee, but then he developed health problems which dogged his lifestyle and made it difficult for him to engage in permanent posts. Eventually he went to the Middle East, working mainly in Saudi Arabia, and from thence to New Zealand, where he died suddenly on 14 July 2003. He is survived by Raja, his second wife, and Sue and his children, Duncan and Victoria.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000300
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Simon, Sir John (1816 - 1904)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-01 2012-03-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372391372391
Occupation Chief Medical Officer General surgeon Pathologist
Details Born in London on Oct. 10th, 1816, the sixth of the fourteen children of Louis Michael Simon (1782-1879) by his second wife, Mathilde Nonnet (1787-1882). His father, who had been a shipbroker and served on the Committee of the Stock Exchange from 1837-1868, was the son of an Englishman who had married a French wife, whilst his mother was the daughter of a Frenchman who had married an English wife. John Simon was christened at St. Olave's, Hart Street, E.C. - Pepys' church - and began his education at Pentonville, after which he was for seven and a half years at Greenwich under the Rev. Dr. Charles Parr Burney, son of Dr. Charles Burney and grandson of Johnson's friend, where he had John Birkett (q.v.) as a schoolfellow. He then lived with Leonard Molly, a pastor, for a year at Hohensolms, near Wetzler, in Rhenish Prussia, and acquired a good knowledge of German. He was apprenticed, on his return to England in the autumn of 1833, to Joseph Henry Green (q.v.) for the usual fee of 500 guineas. Green was Surgeon to St. Thomas's Hospital and Professor of Surgery at the newly founded King's College, and his pupil attended both institutions. In 1838, a year before the end of his apprenticeship, Green allowed Simon to obtain the M.R.C.S. that he might be appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy at King's College, having Francis Thomas MacDougall (q.v.) as his colleague, and in 1840 he was elected the senior of two Assistant Surgeons appointed on the opening of the Hospital founded in connection with King's College. The junior Assistant Surgeon was William Bowman (q.v.), with whom Simon formed an intimate friendship and from whom he learnt to work on scientific lines. The outcome was a paper read before the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society on June 8th, 1847, on "Subacute Inflammation of the Kidney" (*Trans. Roy. Med-Chir. Soc.*, 1847, xxx, 141) which is illustrated with a plate showing the microscopic appearances described. In 1844 Simon gained the Astley Cooper Prize with a "Physiological Essay on the Thymus Gland" (4to, London, 1845), and contributed to the Royal Society "The Comparative Anatomy of the Thyroid Gland" (*Phil. Trans.*, 1844, cxxxiv, 295). He was elected F.R.S. on Jan. 9th, 1845, and was afterwards a Vice-President. Simon was invited in 1847 to accept the newly created Lectureship on Anatomical Pathology at St. Thomas's Hospital with charge of beds, and he thereupon resigned his demonstratorship of King's College, but retained the Assistant Surgeoncy. Green resigned his office of Surgeon, and on July 20th, 1853, Le Gros Clark (q.v.) and John Simon were elected "to do out-patients". Simon then severed all connection with King's College, and on July 6th, 1863, became full Surgeon to St. Thomas's Hospital in succession to G.W. Macmurdo (q.v.). He resigned his lectureship in 1871 and the office of Surgeon in 1876. As a surgeon Simon was not brilliant, for he was neither rapid nor graceful, but every operation he performed was carefully planned and prepared for. He was in the habit of going frequently to the dead-house and there performing every kind of operation, endeavouring to make improvements on old methods and to learn the exact landmarks and lines of section to be made in novel or unusual operations, particularly where bones were concerned. He repeated Syme's amputation in this manner many times before he performed it on the living patient, and he was the first surgeon in this country to undertake Pirogoff's method of removing the foot. He was particularly apt in the diagnosis of abscesses within bones, which he located with great accuracy. He was equally good in the treatment of difficult strictures of the urethra, and in passing a catheter he almost seemed to confer intelligence on the instrument. He was the first to open the membranous part of the urethra by the same route as was afterwards followed by Edward Cock (q.v.). Simon devised and practised the operation before Cock published his results and substantiated his claim to priority in the *St. Thomas's Hospital Reports* (1879, x, 139). A proof of the paper with Simon's corrections is in the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons. As a pupil of Joseph Henry Green he was an expert lithotomist, using a pointed and extremely stout knife, and a grooved staff. Simon was a great power in the Medical School at St. Thomas's, and it was in some measure due to his incisive and satirical pen that St. Thomas's Hospital was not converted into a country convalescent hospital at the time it was compelled to move from its old site at the foot of London Bridge. Without respect of persons he was active in removing abuses, in introducing reforms, and in extending the area and efficiency of instruction. In particular he was especially active in securing suitable accommodation for the treatment of diseases of the eye when Richard Liebreich (1829-1916) was appointed Ophthalmic Surgeon. At the Royal College of Surgeons Simon was a Member of the Council from 1868-1880, a Vice-President in 1876 and 1877, and President in 1878. Throughout his life Simon was interested in pathology. He was an original member of the Pathological Society in 1846, contributed several papers to its *Transactions*, and was elected President in 1867. The best exposition of his aims and methods in pathological teaching is to be found in his Inaugural Address delivered at St. Thomas's Hospital in 1847, which was afterwards published in his *General Pathology as Conducive to the Establishment of Rational Principles for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Disease,* 1850. Simon said of the latter work that as a result of its publication he woke up to find himself famous - not as a surgeon, but as a sanitary reformer. The judgement proved true; few now think of Simon as a surgeon, all know him as the maker of modern sanitary science in England. Simon was one of the illustrious figures in Victorian medicine. When he began his labours in the field of public health it was not thought to be the duty of the State to seek out and prevent the causes of disease and death in its citizens. There was no administrative authority in the country, central or local, that had any medical officer or medical adviser for sanitary purposes: the development of a science and practice of preventive medicine was quite unknown. In 1848 Simon was appointed the first Medical Officer of Health of the City of London. He was the first and for many years the only Medical Officer of Health in London. He was the head of the Medical Department of the Government from the years of its creation in 1855 to his retirement in 1876, and must be considered the founder and in some directions its creator. Simon's record of ability and industry was marvellous, whilst his imaginative faculty was of a very high quality. Cultivated as a linguist, as a student of Oriental literature, and as the friend of artists, poets, and philosophers, he was able to think grandly, to project his mind into the future, to discern the real meaning of social evils as well as their probable developments, and so to devise schemes of prevention and amelioration which could never have occurred to move plodding, if equally industrious, minds. One can scarcely estimate the importance to civilization and humanity of Simon's work. It may be briefly stated that he drained the city and rendered it healthy, abolished the pernicious system of central cesspools under houses, intramural slaughter-houses, and other malodorous trade establishments, and conducted an active crusade against smoke, intramural graveyards, Thames pollution, impure water, and overcrowded dwellings. To enumerate the full details of Sir John Simon's official career would be to write a history of hygienic reform. For many years after the close of his official life in 1876 as Chief Medical Officer to the Privy Council and afterwards to the Local Government Board, Simon occupied himself with public work and was a Crown Representative on the General Medical Council. In the latter part of his life he gradually and completely lost his sight. He married on July 22nd, 1848, Jane O'Meara, daughter of Matthew Delaval O'Meara, who had been Commissary-General in the Peninsular War. They had no children and she died on Aug. 19th, 1901. Lady Simon was a close friend of Ruskin, who used to call her "dear P.R.S." (Pre-Raphaelite sister and Sibyl). Simon died at his house, 40 Kensington Square, where he lived since 1867, on July 23rd, 1904, and was buried at Lewisham Cemetery, Ladywell. A bust by his friend Thomas Woolner, R.A., was presented to the College by the subscribers to the Simon Testimonial Frund on Dec. 14th, 1876. It is a remarkable presentation of a remarkable head. A photograph in late middle life faces pages 187 in MacCormac's *Address of Welcome*. An excellent likeness in extreme old age is appended to the obituary notice in the *Lancet* (1904, ii, 308) and is reproduced in the *St. Thomas's Hospital Reports* (1905, xxxiii, facing page 393). Sir John Simon was remarkable for the extent of his knowledge. The influence of Joseph Henry Green, to whom he had been articled, coupled perhaps with his early education in Germany, gave a philosophical basis to his thoughts and actions through life. In 1865 he edited the *Spiritual Philosophy* of his old master. He was widely read in the classics and in English literature and became an excellent writer of English prose. In youth he pursued a course of reading in metaphysics and in Oriental languages, and his general culture allowed him to value and to appreciate the friendship of such literary and artistic friends as Thackeray, Tennyson, Rossetti, Alfred Elmore, R.A., Sir George Bowyer, George Henry Lewis, William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Tom Taylor, Ruskin, Sir Arthur Helps, Thomas Woolner, R.A., and Robert Lowe, afterwards Lord Sherbrooke. He was mainly responsible with J. A. Kingdon (q.v.) for the establishment by the Grocer's Company of scholarships for the promotion of sanitary science. Considering his eminence Sir John Simon received little public recognition during his lifetime. He was decorated C.B., the ordinary reward of a faithful public servant, on his retirement in 1876, but it was not till Queen Victoria's Jubilee that he was promoted K.C.B. The Harben Medal of the Royal Institute of Public Health was awarded him in 1896, and the Buchanan Medal of the Royal Society in November, 1897. Publications: Simon's chief reports and writings on sanitary objects were issued collectively by subscription by the Sanitary Institution of Great Britain in two volumes in 1875. *English Sanitary Institutions Reviewed in their Course of Development and in Some of their Political and Social Relations,* 8vo, London, 1890. A charmingly written and fair-minded account of the development of public health in England from the earliest times. It appears now to be somewhat difficult to obtain. *Personal Recollections of Sir John Simon, K.C.B.* This was privately printed in 1898. It consists of 34 pages printed by Wiltons Ltd., 21 & 22 Garlick Hill, E.C., and is dated Oct. 4th, 1894. It was revised on Dec. 2nd, 1903, "in blindness and infirmity". The Library of the Royal College of Surgeons possesses a copy enriched by the author's corrections. Bibliography in the *Catalogues of the Surgeon General's Library,* series i and ii.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000204
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Alderson, Richard Robinson ( - 1888)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-08-21 2013-08-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372842372842
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at the London Hospital; practised at York, where he was Surgeon to the York Union, Assistant Surgeon to the 2nd West York Militia (Light Infantry), and Honorary Surgeon to the 11th Derbyshire Volunteer Rifles. During the Crimean War he was a First-class Staff Surgeon to the Osmanli Horse Artillery - Turkish Contingent - and on his return to England he practised in Aberdeen Walk, Scarborough, where he seems to have remained until 1863. He moved about this time to Filey, and appears to have died there at some time before 1888. He passed the examination for the Fellowship, but is not registered in the College books as Fellow, nor did he receive the diploma, probably because he never paid the additional fees.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000659
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Stoner, Harry Berrington (1919 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-26
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372321372321
Occupation Trauma researcher
Details Harry Berrington ‘Berry’ Stoner was a world authority in the much-neglected field of trauma research. He was born in Sheffield on 1 February 1919, the son of Harry John Stoner, a dental surgeon, and Elizabeth née Spriggs. He graduated with many medals and honours from Sheffield University Medical School in 1942, and soon afterwards was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He joined the biological research staff pool of the War Office and was seconded to the department of pathology at Sheffield University to work under the direction of Harry Green who headed a Medical Research Council group investigating aspects of the response to injury. As the war progressed this group was incorporated into the Army and Stoner was promoted to the rank of Captain with the No. 2 traumatic shock team, which carried out field research on injured soldiers in north west Europe during campaigns such as the Rhine crossing. The work he undertook was of such quality that he was able to proceed to an MD in 1946, the year he was demobilised. He immediately returned to the department of pathology at Sheffield University as a member of the MRC external scientific staff. He continued his interest in injury, which had been stimulated by his war experiences, and from 1948 to 1949 held a Rockefeller travelling fellowship in medicine at Harvard University. In 1953 he was appointed as head of the MRC experimental pathology of trauma unit, which was part of the toxicology research unit at Carshalton. Here he further developed Cutherbertson’s theory of the ebb and flow responses to injury. During this time he was UK representative on the scientific sub-committee of the Council of Europe. The work on shock at Carshalton was of the highest quality and the focus of worldwide attention, but after 20 years was reaching its limits because it was confined to animal experimentation. For it to progress it was obviously necessary to transfer it to a clinical environment. The mid 1970s were years when a major expansion of UK medical schools was taking place. In 1977 the opportunity afforded by the establishment by the University of Manchester of a new university hospital at Hope Hospital, Salford, was taken to link Stoner’s unit with an academic department of surgery with an interest in surgical metabolism and trauma. As a consequence Manchester University gained its first MRC unit with the creation of the trauma unit, with laboratories in both the medical school and at Hope Hospital. The work of the unit thrived and it attracted medically qualified research fellows who studied the early responses to injury in the accident and emergency department, the intermediate metabolic and physiological consequences in the intensive care unit, and the late sequalae such as sepsis in a purpose-built surgical high dependency unit. This latter subsequently developed into the UK’s first clinical intestinal failure unit. The collaboration between a team of MRC-employed basic scientists and academic clinicians was an exemplar of how clinical research should be conducted, and many clinically relevant findings were produced. Amongst these were the demonstration of the case against the prevailing concept of injury and sepsis induced hyper-metabolism, which had resulted in injured and septic patients being given enormous calorie loads. The development of an acclaimed sepsis scoring system and the consequent demonstration of glucose intolerance in injury and sepsis with its associated hyperventilation and the necessity for the use of lipids as a source of energy provision in such cases were major clinical outcomes of Stoner’s work. It was no surprise that Stoner was awarded an honorary professorship in surgical science, a Fellowship of the College (which also made him a Hunterian professor) and numerous eponymous lectureships, including the Royal College of Pathologists’ Roy Cameron lecture in 1985. Berry Stroner inspired affection and fierce loyalty from everyone who worked for and with him. His trainees have continued his work on the physiological and metabolic responses to injury and, through his principal protégé and successor Roderick Little, have ensured that the developing specialty of emergency medicine has a sound scientific basis. He retired in 1984, but continued research work for many years, working in collaboration with vascular surgeons. He was a devout Catholic, a Francophile and a talented artist, a skill he pursued in retirement. This culminated in a one-man show in Manchester to celebrate 100 years of the Entente Cordiale, at which he delivered his speech in French. He leaves a daughter (Susan), two grandchildren (Amanda and Emma) and three great grandchildren (Hannah, Matthew and Daniel). He died on 9 July 2004 in Hope Hospital.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000134
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Percival, William ( - 1849)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-03-27
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372653372653
Occupation General surgeon
Details The son of a surgeon in good practice in Bath. After a short stay in London he returned to Bath and began professional life as his father’s assistant in the year 1801. On the death of an elder brother, a surgeon, he began to practise on his own account. In 1817 he succeeded his father as surgeon to the Casualty Hospital, and in 1826 was the first surgeon appointed to the Bath United Hospital, then newly formed by the Union of the Casualty Hospital and the City Dispensary. He continued to hold office till 1857, discharging his duties with the utmost attention. This long period of service was the more honourable to him because, during the greater part of it, from the wide extent of his private practise, the calls upon his time were so incessant that his gratuitous labours must have entailed upon him sacrifices which few are found willing to make. In his private practice he took the highest position in Bath, and while he was at his zenith his practice probably exceeded that of any other provincial surgeon. For a long period his receipts verged upon, if they did not exceed, £4,000 a year. On his retirement from the hospital he was at once made one of its Vice-Presidents, and his bust, executed in marble by the then popular sculptor Behnes, was set up in the hall of the institution. After this honour had been paid him the working men of Bath presented him with a handsome testimonial to mark their sense of his services to the public. His professional character stood very high, and he has been described as the very type of an English gentleman – simple, unaffected, perfectly self-possessed. In politics he was a strong Liberal and was an active politician. For forty years he was a member of the Bath Corporation and twice Mayor of the City. He was also Deputy Lieutenant of the County. At the time of his death he was Consulting Surgeon to the United Hospital, Surgeon to the Puerperal Charity, Vice-President of the British Medical Association, and Fellow of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society. He died of pleuropneumonia after a few days’ illness on Jan 17th, 1861, at his residence, 1 Circus, Bath. Norman contributed three papers to the *Medico-Chirurgical Transactions*, of which the first (1819, x, 94) on aneurysm, contains the history of two hospital patients in whom he had successfully tied the external iliac artery. In a second paper (1837, xx, 301) he described the dissection, twenty years afterwards, of one of these men. In a third paper (1827, xii, 348) he describes a remarkable case of extra-uterine foetation, which, in the ninth month of pregnancy, the foetus was extracted by means of an incision through the posterior wall of the vagina. He communicated also some three or four other papers, dealing with remarkable cases, to the Bath and Bristol Branch of the British Medical Association. A numerous and valuable series of preparations made by him for the Museum of the United Hospital, of which they constituted the first nucleus, must not be omitted form the list of his scientific labours. A fine mezzotint portrait of Norman is in the Young Collection (No 59). It was published by Henry Benham on Oct 16th, 1840, and is engraved after the painting by W O Geller. It represents a seated figure in the typical professional costume of the period.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000469
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brookes, William Penny (1809 - 1895)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373159373159
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in August, 1809, the son of a medical practitioner in Much Wenlock, Shropshire. He was educated at various schools in the county, and was then apprenticed to Dr Barnett, of Stourport. He became a student at Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospitals in 1827, but soon afterwards went to Paris, where he studied under Dupuytren, Chopart, and Laennec. He is said to have graduated in Paris and at Padua. During his residence in the French capital the revolution of 1830 broke out, and the lives of English dwellers in Paris were in especial danger; a fellow-student was in fact shot whilst sitting at his window. Brookes succeeded to his father’s practice in Much Wenlock, the latter having died in 1830. He passed his life in his native town, and did not retire till 1891, when he was presented by his friends and admirers with an illuminated address and pieces of plate. Brookes was in many respects a remarkable man of wide influence. He was an active philanthropist, devoting his talents to the public service. When he first came into his practice Much Wenlock was a small insanitary place of less than 500 houses, but owing to Brookes’s endeavours an open sewer in the main street was covered over, gas lighting was introduced, a library and reading-room were added; here Brookes obtained for exhibition the ancient deeds of Much Wenlock Abbey, and a large collection of coins and local antiquities. He was an accomplished Latinist and Hebraist, and a diligent reader, and so convinced of the value of athletics in education that he took a leading part in the movement which resulted in the institution of the National Olympian Association in 1850. This was the germ of the International Olympian Society of Paris, which has held contests in Athens, Paris, and London within recent years. In the middle years of the nineteenth century Brookes was an ardent advocate of reform in the Royal College of Surgeons, and wrote much on the subject in the *Lancet*. He died at Much Wenlock on December 10th, 1895.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000976
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wood, Richard (1779 - 1860)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Brookhouse, Joseph Orpe (1835 - 1905)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373161373161
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Brighton, being descended on his father’s side from a Staffordshire family, while on his mother’s he derived from the Halfords of Leicestershire. He was educated at Ashby-de-la-Zouche Grammar School and received his professional training at Guy’s Hospital. Two years after qualifying he settled in Nottingham (1859) in partnership with John Norton Thompson, MRCS. Later he succeeded to the practice of Dr (afterwards Sir) William Tindal Robertson, MP, and was appointed Physician to the Nottingham General Hospital. He was one of the founders of the Nottingham and Midland Eye Infirmary, and was for some years its Surgeon. He was Senior Physician to the Nottingham General Hospital at the time of his death, and was Chairman of the Medical Committee as well as Physician to the Sherwood Forest Sanatorium for Consumption, and Consulting Medical Officer to the Midland and Great Northern Railways. His duties in connection with these appointments often led to his appearance in courts of law, where his clear, fearless, and straightforward evidence was of the greatest value. His long experience of railway compensation cases made his opinion particularly valuable and supplied him with an almost inexhaustible fund of anecdote. At the meeting of the British Medical Association at Nottingham in 1892 he presided over the Section of Pharmacology and Therapeutics. He was a successful medical practitioner with simple unconventional methods, which inspired confidence. He also loved music and pictures and was in touch with the intellectual and social life of his day. His death occurred at Nottingham on October 27th, 1905. He practised at 1 East Circus Street, Nottingham. Publications:— “Obstruction of Bowel by Large Intestinal Concretion (consisting mainly of Cholesterin): Enterotomy. Death.” – *Lancet*, 1882, ii, 216. “On Defective Nerve Power as a Cause of Bright’s Disease.” – *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1876, i, 473. “Address to Therapeutic Section of the British Medical Association, Nottingham.” – *Ibid.*, 1892, ii, 250.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000978
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brooks, James Henry (1807 - 1886)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Broughton, Francis (1817 - 1882)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Brown, Arthur Thomas F. (1865 - 1893)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-13 2013-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373164373164
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on January 12th, 1865, and was educated at Guy's Hospital, where he was House Surgeon and Resident Accoucheur. He entered the Madras Army as Surgeon on July 28th, 1891, and resigned on account of ill health on July 29th, 1892, when he held the rank of Surgeon Captain, a designation introduced in November, 1891. He died on August 29th, 1893. (In the Fellows' *Register* he appears as Arthur Thomas Brown.)
Resource Identifier RCS: E000981
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brown, Frederick James (1824 - 1879)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373165373165
Occupation General surgeon
Details Fifth son of Dr Robert Brown, who was for many years Medical Superintendent of the Quarantine Station at Stangate Creek. He received his professional training at University College and the University of Edinburgh, and joined the Navy in 1846. He entered into the strong movement then on foot for the removal of the disadvantages under which the Medical Department of the Service was labouring, and in order the more fully to carry out his views left the Navy, where he had been Assistant Surgeon at Haslar, etc., and began to practise at Chatham, whence he removed to Rochester, where he was appointed Consulting Surgeon to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Rochester, a post which he held until March, 1878. He died on April 27th, 1879. At the time of his death he was a Fellow of University College, London, and a Non-resident Member of the Epidemiological Society. His photograph is in the Fellows’ Album. Publications:- “Questions and Observations in Hygiene,” 1849. Paper on “Typhoid Fever” at the Epidemiological Society, 1855. Paper on “Xiphisternal Chisel-sound” at the London Medical Society, 1856. Two controversial pamphlets of importance, which are: “Requisitions of the Naval Medical Officers, based on the Principle of Equality with the Army,” 8vo, London, 1865. “Comments on the Recommendations of the Committee appointed to Inquire into the Position of the Medical Officers of the Army and Navy,” 8vo, London, 1866.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000982
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brown, George (1801 - 1870)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Brown, George (1814 - 1874)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Brown, Henry John (1819 - 1885)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Brown, Isaac Baker (1812 - 1873)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373169373169
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Colne Engaine, Essex, the second son of a gentleman farming his own land; his mother was a daughter of the Rev James Boyer, well known as Head Master and rigid disciplinarian of Christ’s Hospital – the Blue Coat School – when S T Coleridge, Charles Lamb, and Leigh Hunt were pupils. Baker Brown was educated under William Eve and was apprenticed to Benjamin Gibson, a surgeon practising at Halstead, Essex. He entered Guy’s Hospital in 1830 as a house pupil of John Hilton (qv), and at the end of the session of 1831 won the anatomical prize given by Bransby Cooper (qv) in memory of his uncle Sir Astley Cooper. From this time until 1833 he devoted himself more particularly to midwifery under the guidance of Dr James Blundell, who was then Lecturer on Obstetrics to the hospital. He also studied at Lane’s School, adjoining St George’s Hospital, in 1833, and as soon as he had qualified he settled in Connaught Square, and entered into partnership with Samuel Griffith, who practised in the Edgware Road, and remained with him until 1840. He gave up general practice in 1847, and, devoting himself entirely to the diseases of women, was appointed Consulting Physician to the Paddington Lying-in Charity. Impressed with the want of hospital accommodation in the west and the north-west of London, he took a leading part in the foundation of St Mary’s Hospital in 1848. The first committee met in his dining-room and he was appointed Surgeon-Accoucheur, and, on the opening of the medical school, Co-lecturer in Midwifery and Diseases of Women. His later title was Surgeon-Accoucheur to the hospital, Dr Tyler Smith being Physician-Accoucheur. He retired from St Mary’s in 1858, when he established the London Surgical Home, at which his subsequent operations were performed. During the ten years of its existence he operated upon nearly twelve hundred patients, and it was here that Nélaton, who resided with him as his guest for a few days in 1861, watched his ovariotomies, afterwards giving his celebrated clinical lecture in Paris. In 1865 he was President of the Medical Society of London, and in 1866 he published *Curability of some Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, and Hysteria*, for which he was arraigned before the Obstetrical Society of London in 1867. From this time onwards he was a ruined man, and during the last few years of his life was helpless from several paralytic seizures. He was twice married. Lennox Browne, FRCS Edin, a distinguished laryngologist, was a son by his first wife; by his second wife he left three young children, one of whom was educated at Epsom College. He died, almost destitute, at 2 Osnaburgh Place, Regent’s Park, NW, on February 3rd, 1873. Baker Brown filled an important place in the early history of ovariotomy in England. He found a disease called ‘ovarian dropsy’; he left it as ‘ovarian cyst’. He appears to have proceeded by the method of trial and error, for he made repeated attempts to cure the condition by tapping and pressure, by injection of iodine, by excision of a portion of the cyst wall, and by the formation of a fistulous opening. It was only after these methods failed that he advanced to complete removal of the cyst and undertook his first operation in 1851. The initial mortality aroused fierce opposition in the profession, not so much against himself and his fellow-pioneers as against the operation as an operation. Baker Brown met it by showing his own sister, his fourth, and first successful, ovariotomy; she had afterwards married and had several children. Then came the battle of the pedicle; Baker Brown used a clamp and cautery, which was in general use until a ligature free from sepsis was obtained. In the end he left ovariotomy a recognized operation, but still susceptible of great improvement with the growth of abdominal surgery. In addition to his work in connection with ovariotomy he made considerable advances in the repair of ruptured perineum. In later life he became obsessed with the idea that removal of the clitoris was a panacea for many mental troubles occurring in women. The hypothesis was fundamentally wrong and was based on imperfect physiological knowledge, so that the operation was unjustifiable. Baker Brown is described as a man of middle height and of a spare figure, his face being of the Jewish type, his eyes sagacious, his nose prominent, and his mouth indicating sagacity. He dressed always in black with a white tie. He was spruce in his attire, and on every day in the year had a flower in his buttonhole. He was a skilful operator, but was rash and impetuous, being deficient in reflection and jumping too hastily to conclusions. Publications: *On Rupture of the Perinoeum and its Treatment*, Illustrated by Cases, 8vo, London, 1852. *On Scarlatina and its Successful Treatment by the Acidum Aceticum Dilutum of the Pharmacopoeia*, London, 1846; 2nd ed., 1857. *On Vesico-vaginal Fistula, and its Successful Treatment*, 8vo, London, 1858 *Sull’ idrope ovarico, sua natura, diagnosi: e cura, risultato di trent anni d’ esperienza.* Traduzione sulla 2a edizione Inglese con note e aggiunte sulla ed una memorial intitolata l’ovariotomia in Italia fino al giugno, 1865, 8vo, Sinigaglia, 1865. *On some Diseases of Women admitting of Surgical Treatment*, 8vo, plates, London, 1854. *On Surgical Diseases of Women*, 8vo, 15 plates, 3rd ed., London, 1866. *On the Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy and Hysteria in Females*, 8vo, London, 1866. *On Ovarian Dropsy: its Nature, Diagnosis and Treatment*, 8vo, London, 1862. *On Sterility: its Causes and Treatment* (read before the Medical Society of London), 16mo, London, 1871 (?). “Ovarian Dropsy Treated by Pressure.” – *Lancet*, 1844-9. “Clinical Lectures on Uterine Haemorrhage, Retroversions, Retroflexion and Ante version of Uterus, Remediable by Operation, etc.” – *Ibid.*, 1864, ii, 5, 34.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000986
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Cardell, John Magor (1832 - 1875)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Brown, John (1844 - 1929)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Brown, Richard (1822 - 1883)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Brown, Robert (1800 - 1858)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-20 2018-03-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373173373173
Occupation General surgeon
Details Began the practice of his profession in Preston, where he soon rose in public estimation, and was much sought after by a large circle of patients. Connected with the Dispensary, he rose in time to be its Senior Hon Surgeon. He was a Member of the Preston Town Council from its first constitution under the Municipal Reform Act until his death, and in 1847 was elected an Alderman. He was also a Member of Council of the British Medical Association and Fellow of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society. Alderman Brown was noted for his kindness and suavity both as a public man and a friend. Despite the claims of his extensive practice, he managed to devote much time to archaeological pursuits, and in these he found full scope for his active and cultivated intellect. He was a member of the Lancashire and Cheshire Historic Society. His vigour was impaired by a serious illness, and he was compelled to relinquish much of his former activity towards the close of his life. He had been confined to his house in Winckley Square, Preston, for some months before his death on February 1st, 1858. His son was Sir Robert Charles Brown (q.v.).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000990
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Barnes, Christopher Hewetson (1801 - 1875)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Barnes, John Wickham (1830 - 1899)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372948372948
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Bath, where his father had long been in general practice. His grandfather and youngest brother were also medical practitioners. He entered Charing Cross Hospital in 1849, attending also the adjacent Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital, where he had the advantage of G J Guthrie’s (qv) teaching. Guthrie appreciated his pupil, and for two half-yearly periods he acted as House Surgeon, subsequently becoming a Life Governor of the Institution. Next he was appointed House Surgeon to the Kent County Ophthalmic Hospital, Maidstone. Having to leave on his marriage in 1853, he started practice in Maidstone, then moved to Aylesford. Desiring to practise in London he accepted the post of District Medical Officer for Islington at £40 a year, where although the area was small he was able to develop a practice which brought him in £1000 after one year. The appointment led him to espouse the cause of the Poor Law Medical Officers. He was Hon Secretary of the Poor Law Medical Officers’ Association for twenty years, the office being at 3 Bolt Court, Fleet Street. He laboured to secure a legal superannuation allowance for Poor Law Officers, then a voluntary matter with Boards of Guardians and only occasionally given. His continued exertions in conjunction with his friend, Joseph Rogers, met their reward in the Poor Law Officers’ Superannuation Act of 1896. He received two silver medals from the Medical Society of London for his services in the matter. For a quarter of a century he was Surgeon in the 2nd Middlesex Volunteer Artillery and retired with the rank of Surgeon Lieutenant-Colonel and with the Volunteer decoration. About three years before he died he went to live at Walton-on-the-Naze, but shortly before his death on October 12th, 1899, moved back to London. His son, Dr Raglan W Barnes, followed him in the medical profession, and at the time of his death was serving in South Africa as a Major in the RAMC.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000765
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Pratt, David (1930 - 2006)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2008-10-17
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372747372747
Occupation General surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details David Pratt was a consultant general and vascular surgeon at St James’s University Hospital, Leeds. He studied medicine in Leeds, where he had a distinguished undergraduate career, gaining first class honours and graduating with distinctions in surgery and forensic medicine. After house appointments, he served as a surgeon lieutenant on HMS Eagle during the Suez Crisis. He returned to Leeds, where he completed his surgical training. In 1962 he gained his FRCS, winning the Wilson Hey gold medal. He was appointed as a consultant to St James’s and Chapel Allerton hospitals, Leeds. His consultant career was marked by great diagnostic flair and superb technical skills: but above all he is remembered by patients for his caring personality and by his colleagues for the help he gave them in difficult times. Behind an unassuming demeanour there was a lively mind and a gentle sense of humour. David was a valued member of the Travelling Surgical Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1971 onwards. He and his wife, Libby, made many friends when attending overseas and home meetings. He was greatly respected in this forum of surgeons whose members represent most parts of the UK and many specialties. He was also a member of the Vascular Society and many of his publications reflected this interest; his wider knowledge of surgery was apparent in other papers and lectures. During a visit of the Travelling Surgical Society to Gibraltar and southern Spain he gave a paper on ‘Delorme’s procedure’ illustrated by his own pastel drawings: colo-proctologists present were surprised at the depth of his knowledge and his carefully assessed results. His other interests included photography, domestic cooking and watercolour painting in which in retirement he took lessons. He died suddenly at home of acute coronary insufficiency on 23 May 2006. He is survived by Libby and three sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000564
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by John Blandy
Publication Date 2008-10-17 2015-09-11
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372748372748
Occupation Accident and emergency surgeon
Details Chandra Pal de Fonseka was an accident and emergency surgeon in Bristol. He was born in Panadura, Ceylon, on 22 December 1919 into a family with many medical connections. His grandfather and two uncles were medical practitioners. His father, Hector Clarence de Fonseka, was a landowner who managed his own rubber and coconut estates. His mother was Inez Johanna née Gunewardene, whose three brothers studied medicine in London. Three of his cousins were also in medicine. Chandra qualified in medicine from the University of Ceylon with the Sir Andrew Caldecott and Dadabhoy gold medals in his final examination. He then held house appointments in his own teaching hospital. At the end of the war it was difficult to get a passage to England, so he signed on as ship's doctor to the Blue Funnel liner SS Demodocus, which was a naval auxiliary that had been held up in Colombo because her doctor had fallen ill and had been sent back to England. After a seven-month voyage, he arrived in Liverpool in November 1946. He attended the primary course at the Middlesex Hospital, passed the examination, and returned to Ceylon, where he underwent an arranged marriage to his first wife Rukmani Dias. He returned to London to specialise in surgery, doing registrar jobs at Hammersmith, the North Middlesex and St Mark's hospitals, enriching his experience by attending rounds and courses in a number of hospitals, among which he particularly valued his experience at St James's, Balham. Having passed the FRCS in 1949, he became a resident surgical officer at St Bartholomew's Hospital, Rochester, for two years and was then a registrar in Bath under Sholem Glaser who, with the other five general surgeons, gave him a glowing testimonial. There he met Peter London, then the senior registrar in orthopaedics. From Bath he went to Bristol to widen his experience in cardiothoracic surgery under Ronald Belsey in the Frenchay Hospital thoracic unit for another two years. Belsey was unstinting in praising his clinical and operative skills. Whilst there he did his best to learn neurosurgery and plastic surgery, experience which he found particularly valuable on his return to Ceylon in 1956 as senior lecturer in the university department of surgery in Colombo. Celyon had won its independence from Britain in 1948 without a drop of blood being shed. In 1958 communal riots broke out between the Tamil and Sinhalese populations. Chandra was in the theatre round the clock, dealing with gun-shot and knife wounds under the most difficult circumstances. His Tamil anaesthetist was beaten up by a Sinhalese mob. Buddhist priests complained to the administrator (a Tamil) that another doctor was treating Tamils rather than Sinhalese and the doctor was duly dismissed. The Prime Minister was assassinated in September. Laws were passed to outlaw the Tamil language and make Sinhalese the only official language. Chandra was appointed professor of surgery in July 1960. The workload increased, especially in cancer. In 1962 his marriage was dissolved and he married his second wife, Maria Thérése Bertus in Colombo. In 1963 he was asked to set up a new department of surgery in Kandy. By now Chandra was one of the senior figures on the medical scene, having become president of the medical section of the Ceylon Association for the Advancement of Science. He had been granted a sabbatical year to study in the UK and had planned visits to the foremost centres in Britain and Germany, with introductions from Ronald Raven and Sir James Patterson Ross among others. But permission was repeatedly refused for his wife to accompany him until eventually she was allowed to go as a pilgrim to Rome with their new baby daughter. They eventually made their way to the UK in 1964. There Chandra was appointed senior research fellow to set up the road accident research unit in Birmingham, the report of which was published in five volumes in 1969. During this period he was a clinical assistant to the accident department of Dudley Road Hospital. In 1969 the Medical Research Council invited him to set up a similar study into accidents in the home and he was appointed honorary lecturer in accident epidemiology in the department of public health in the University of Bristol. This project developed into the National Home Accident Monitoring Scheme of the Home Office. From then on he continued to work in the accident and emergency department until he retired in 1985. He was a man of great integrity, charm and courtesy, who was widely admired for his qualities not only as a technical surgeon but as a teacher. He published extensively on road and domestic accidents, and was in demand as a lecturer in Europe and America. His many outside interests included geology, cosmology and astronomy, and with Thérése he was a keen traveller and photographer. He was for many years treasurer of the Society of St Vincent de Paul, a charity for the disabled that was affiliated to the Catholic Church. He died on 5 April 2008, leaving his widow and the youngest of their two daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000565
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Enid Taylor
Publication Date 2008-10-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372749372749
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Allan Isadore Friedmann was a consultant ophthalmologist at the Royal Eye Hospital. He was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, on 15 June 1916 to Joseph and Matilda Friedmann. His father was a pharmacist. He was educated locally at Grey College School in Bloemfontein, matriculating with first class honours. His undergraduate medical education was at Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg, and he then held house jobs in the General Hospital, Johannesburg, including the department of ophthalmology. He served the rest of the war in the South African Medical Corps, attaining the rank of captain. After going to England, he was initially senior lecturer to the College from 1963 to 1966 and was subsequently reader to the department of ophthalmology. At the same time, in 1963, he was appointed consultant ophthalmologist to the Royal Eye Hospital. His work was greatly influenced by two London ophthalmologists – A Sorsby and H B Stallard. He was interested in and wrote about the causes of blindness in children. He played tennis most of his life and was also interested in music and photography. He married twice. He married Marion Bernstein in 1940 and they had one son, who was “non-medical”. He died on 20 November 2005 and is survived by his second wife, Shu Qi Zhang.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000566
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-09-18 2013-08-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372849372849
Occupation General surgeon
Details Third son of the Rev Samuel Alford, of Queen's College, Oxford, who graduated BA in 1797 and MA in 1800. He was born at Curry Rivel, near Taunton. The Alford family had held property in West Somerset from the middle of the sixteenth century, and son had succeeded father in the church for several generations. Henry Alford (1810-1871), Dean of Canterbury, and Bishop Alford were cousins of Henry Alford, FRCS. Alford became a house pupil at the Bristol Infirmary in 1822, and five years later came to London to complete his medical education at St Bartholomew's Hospital. After qualifying, he practised at Ilminster until he was appointed Surgeon to the Somerset and Taunton Hospital in 1830, when he settled in Taunton. He resigned his office in 1859 and was appointed Consulting Surgeon. He was Bailiff of Taunton, a churchwarden of St Mary's Church, a keen politician, and a hearty supporter of Sir Robert Peel in his policy of repealing the Corn Laws. He died at South Road, Taunton, in his 92nd year on June 29th, 1898. He married twice, and by his first wife left four children. His son, Henry J Alford, MD MRCS, was also educated at St Bartholomew's Hospital, and was Medical Officer of Health for Taunton.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000666
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Allingham, William (1829 - 1908)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-09-25 2016-01-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372858372858
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated for the profession of architecture at University College, where he gained prizes. He even practised as an architect, exhibited studies at the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, and obtained honourable mention for a design of a building to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. In this year, however, he decided to abandon architecture for medicine. Entering as a student at St Thomas's Hospital, he carried off prize after prize - the Descriptive Anatomy Prize, the Anatomy Prize (1854), the Medicine Prize, the Clinical Medicine President's Prize, and the Clinical Medicine Treasurer's Prize (1855). After qualifying in 1855 he volunteered as Surgeon in the Crimean War. He was in time to be present at the siege of Sebastopol and to see a vast amount of practical surgery in the most arduous circumstances at the hospitals at Scutari. During a large part of his war services he was attached to the French Army, which was extremely badly provided with surgical aid, and there is no doubt that under the strenuous nature of the duties which devolved upon him, Allingham gained the courage and sense of responsibility which marked him out as a successful operating surgeon from the beginning of his career. After his return home he was Surgical Tutor, Demonstrator of Anatomy, and then Surgical Registrar at St Thomas's Hospital. He set up in practice in 1863 as a consultant at 36 Finsbury Square, EC, but removed to Grosvenor Street, where he soon became a well-known authority on diseases of the rectum and enjoyed a large practice. In 1871 he published his classical book on Diseases of the Rectum. It was accepted at once as an authoritative and inclusive work, though some surgeons differed from the author on points of technique. William Allingham was not attached to the staff of any of the great London Hospitals possessing a medical school, but was for many years Surgeon to the Great Northern Central Hospital and to St Mark's Hospital for Fistula and Diseases of the Rectum. He was also Consulting Surgeon to the Farringdon General Dispensary and to the Surgical Aid Society, of which, together with some of his relatives and others, he was one of the founders in 1862. He was a Member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1884-1886, and retired from practice in 1894. Allingham was one of the first surgeons in England to specialize in the treatment of diseases of the rectum, out of which he made a considerable fortune. He was kindly, generous, and hospitable. After his retirement he lived for some time at St Leonards, and then at Worthing, where he died on Feb 4th, 1908. He married twice: (1) Miss Christiana Cooke, by whom he had six children - four sons and two daughters. The eldest son was Herbert William Allingham, (qv). Of his two daughters both married medical men; the elder, who afterwards became Mrs Chevallier Tayler, having been first the wife of Mr Charles Cotes, of St George's; the younger was married to Claud E Woakes. (2) Miss D H Hayles, [1] who, like Mr Herbert William Allingham, predeceased the subject of this memoir. William Allingham appears in the portrait group of the Council by Jamyn Brooks (1884). Publications: Fistula, Hæmorrhoids, Painful Ulcer, Stricture, Prolapsus, and other Diseases of the Rectum, their Diagnosis and Treatment, 8vo, London, 1871. The Diagnosis and Treatment of Diseases of the Rectum. Edited by Herbert William Allingham. 8vo, London, 1871. The final 1901 edition, a collaboration between father and son, was practically rewritten. The work was translated into several foreign languages. "On the Treatment of Fistula and other Sinuses by Means of the Elastic Ligature, being a Paper (with Additional Cases) read before the Medical Society of London, November, 1874." 8vo, London; reprinted again in 1875, etc. [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] who had nursed him through a severe illness]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000675
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ambler, Edward Holland (1821 - 1879)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Thompson, Heath Thurlow (1920 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Trevor-Roper, Patrick Dacre (1916 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-26
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372325372325
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon
Details Patrick Dacre Trevor-Roper, known as ‘T R’, was an acclaimed eye surgeon and a successful campaigner. He was born in Alnwick, Northumberland, on 7 June 1916, where his father, Bertie William Edward Trevor-Roper, was in general practice. His mother was Kathleen Elizabeth née Davison. He was educated at Charterhouse, where he was a senior classical scholar, and won an exhibition to Clare College, Cambridge. He went on to the Westminster Hospital for his clinical training. There he was introduced to the delights of ophthalmology by the leading eye surgeon E F King, who occupied a neighbouring mattress in the hospital air raid shelter and introduced him to Moorfields. He served with the New Zealand Medical Corps from 1943 to 1945 and then specialised in ophthalmology, becoming consultant ophthalmic surgeon to the Westminster and Moorfields Eye Hospitals in 1947. There he established the Moorfields eye bank. He also set up the Haile Selassie Eye Hospital in Addis Ababa and organised the opening of an ophthalmic unit in Lagos and a mobile eye unit in Sierra Leone for the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind. He was vice-president of the Ophthamological Society of the UK, section President of the Royal Society of Medicine and a founder member of the International Academy of Ophthalmology. He was Doyne medallist of the Oxford Ophthalmogical Society. The Patrick Trevor-Roper undergraduate award at the Royal College of Ophthalmogists was established in 1997. For 38 years he was editor of the *Transactions of the Ophthalmological Society of the UK* (which became *Eye* when the Society became the Royal College of Ophthalmologists). He wrote several key textbooks on ophthalmology, including *Ophthalmology: a textbook for diploma students* (1955), which later became *Lecture notes in ophthalmology* and then *The eye and its disorders*. But it was as the author of *The world through blunted sight* (London, Thames and Hudson, 1971) that he became known to the wider public. In this amusingly written book, he argued that the proportions, perspectives and palette of many celebrated painters was the result of ophthamological problems such as short sight, astigmatism, glaucoma and cataract. A gentle, dithery, sometimes impatient, boffin-like man, he had an endless sense of fun and was popular with students, who invited him to be president or chairman of many of their societies. His large circle of friends, who would meet at weekends at Long Crichel House in Dorset, a former rectory and a centre for like-minded writers, included music and literary critics, composers, poets, artists and actors. In 1955 he was one of a handful of establishment figures to give evidence to the Wolfenden Committee, which ultimately decriminalised homosexual activity between consenting adults. In those days, this was a brave thing to do. Trevor-Roper told the committee that gay men posed no threat to heterosexual youth, and provided evidence of the extent of blackmail of homosexuals, which had led to many suicides. Later, in the 1960s, he campaigned against the “venal manipulations of drug companies”, particularly the bogus conferences where speakers would puff the companies’ new products. He also campaigned successfully against the opticians’ monopoly of the sale of reading glasses. A trustee of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, he helped found the HIV/AIDS charity, the Terrence Higgins Trust, which was run from his house until it expanded into larger premises. He travelled widely, visiting, among other places, Borneo, Nigeria, Malawi and the Falklands. In 2003 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and a year later was found to have a cancer in the neck, from an unknown primary. He died on 22 April 2004 and is survived by his partner of many years, Herman Chan. His brother Hugh, the historian Lord Dacre of Glanton, and his sister, Sheila, predeceased him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000138
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-26 2012-03-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372326372326
Occupation Pharmacologist
Details John Vane shared the Nobel prize in 1982 with Bergström and Samuelsson for discovering how aspirin works, based on the research he had carried out at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences in our College, where he was successively senior lecturer, reader and then professor between 1955 and 1973. Born on 29 March 1927 in Tardebigg, Worcestershire, he was the son of Maurice Vane and Frances Florence née Fisher. As a boy he blew up the kitchen with a chemistry set, so his father built him a shed in the garden to serve as a laboratory. He read chemistry at Birmingham University, graduating at 19, and then went on to St Catherine's College, Oxford, to read pharmacology, winning the Stothert research fellowship of the Royal Society in 1951. Between 1951 and 1953 he was assistant professor of pharmacology at Yale, coming back to our College where the head of the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences was William Paton, succeeded by Gustav Born, then both leading pharmacologists of their day. It was at a time when prostaglandins were being discovered, and Vane had a notion that aspirin might work by inhibiting their formation, and went on to show that aspirin and indomethacin did in fact inhibit prostaglandin synthetase. Later he developed the anti-inflammatory drugs which inhibited cyclo-oxygenase-2 (the Cox 2 inhibitors) and captopril, the first of the ACE inhibitors. In 1973 he left the College to become director of research and development at the Wellcome Foundation, where his research group discovered prostacylin, the agent which dilates blood vessels and prevents platelets from sticking together. He retired from the Wellcome in 1985 to set up a new research establishment, the William Harvey Research Institute at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He retired again in 1995, but continued as the director of the institute's charitable foundation. He was an inspiring teacher and many young surgeons spent a profitable year under his supervision at the College learning the principles of basic scientific research. He married Elizabeth Daphne Page in 1948. Basically shy, he was a most agreeable companion. He and Daphne built a house in Virgin Gorda in the Caribbean, where he enjoyed underwater swimming. He died from pneumonia on 19 November 2004, leaving Daphne and their two daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000139
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Barrett, John (1811 - 1881)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Barrett, Thomas (1816 - 1868)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372953372953
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated in London and Paris. Was at one time Surgeon to the Somerset Militia and Coroner for North Somerset. He was Mayor of Bath in 1859-1860, and at the time of his death was JP for Bath and Surgeon to the St Catherine’s Hospital and Bath Eye and Ear Infirmary, and also Hon Consulting Physician to the Bath Police. He died at Bath on Nov 29th, 1868, having lived and practised at 38 St James’s Square, Bath. Publications:- *Advice on the Management of Children in Early Infancy*. Papers on “Aural Surgery” and “The Varieties and Treatment of Otorrhoea”, in medical journals.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000770
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Seymour-Jones, John Anthony (1911 - 2008)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Neil Weir
Publication Date 2010-05-20 2012-03-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373179373179
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Tony Seymour-Jones was an otolaryngologist to the Portsmouth and South East Hants Health District. He was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham, on 7 April 1911, the son of Bertrand Seymour-Jones, a consultant otolaryngologist, and Hilda Katherine née Poole, the daughter of a mining agent. Educated at West House Preparatory School, Edgbaston, Birmingham, Seymour-Jones proceeded as an exhibitioner to Shrewsbury School and from there as a classics scholar to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Whilst at Cambridge he switched to natural sciences as he decided to pursue a career in medicine. He undertook his clinical studies at St Thomas' Hospital, London, where on qualifying he became a house surgeon and later a clinical assistant to the ear, nose and throat department. Here he was influenced by Walter Howarth, Geoffrey Bateman, and by the general surgeon Sir Heneage Ogilvie. After gaining his FRCS in 1940, Seymour-Jones joined the RAMC as a consultant otolaryngologist with the rank of temporary major and served in the Italian Campaign and at the Cambridge Military Hospital, Aldershot. He made a life-long friendship with a captured Italian surgeon. At the end of the Second World War, Seymour-Jones became a registrar to the Portsmouth, Southsea and Cosham Eye and Ear Hospital, before being appointed as a consultant otolaryngologist to the Portsmouth Group of Hospitals. He was also on the staff of King Edward VII Hospital, Midhurst. He served as chairman of the British Medical Association Portsmouth division and of the South Western Laryngological Association.He represented Wessex on the council of the British Association of Otolaryngologists and served on the council of the section of laryngology of the Royal Society of Medicine. He sailed, and became commodore of the Royal Albert Sailing Club. Musical evenings were a source of enjoyment, and he had a repertoire of songs which he sang in Italian, French and German. Tony Seymour-Jones met his future wife, Elizabeth Irving Pinches, daughter of H I Pinches, a physician at the Royal Masonic Hospital, whilst she was a staff nurse at St Thomas'. They were married on 15 June 1940. She predeceased him, in 2003, as did his son Nicholas, an architect. At the grand age of 97, Tony Seymour-Jones died on 28 June 2008 at Queen Alexandra Hospital, Portsmouth, shortly after a massive stroke and myocardial infarction. He is survived by his daughters Carole and Louise, six grandchildren, and four great-grand children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000996
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wapnick, Simon (1937 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-07-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372558372558
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details John Rashleigh Belcher was a thoracic surgeon at the Middlesex Hospital, London. Born in Liverpool on 11 January 1917, he was the ninth in a long line of doctors who originally hailed from Bandon in Cork. He was educated at Epsom and St Thomas’ Hospital, where he graduated at the age of 21, having asked for an early viva. At the outbreak of war St Thomas’ was evacuated to Farnham and there he met his wife, Jacqueline Phillips. It was a watershed time in medicine: on one side of the ward leeches were being applied and on the other an early sulphonamide drug (M&B 693) was being prescribed. He joined the RAFVR as soon as possible and was posted to Cottesmore. He became FRCS in 1942 and was posted to Canada. On his return he went to RAF Wroughton, where he gained huge experience from D-day casualties. After demobilisation, he returned to St Thomas’ as resident assistant surgeon, before becoming interested in thoracic surgery. He worked at the Brompton in 1947 and became senior registrar at the London Chest and Middlesex hospitals. In 1951 he was appointed to the North West Thames region as a thoracic surgeon, a post which included the London Chest Hospital and places as far afield as Arlesey, Pinewood and Harefield. He was appointed consultant thoracic surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital in 1955. He promoted lobectomy for lung cancer at a time when the conventional wisdom, endorsed by Tudor Edwards, was that nothing short of pneumonectomy was of any use, and he published on the treatment of emphysematous cysts. He performed over 1,000 closed mitral valvotomies, even as fourth operations, and reported on these. He was Hunterian lecturer in 1979. Unfortunately his reputation in this field was less widely acknowledged than his expertise in ‘lung volume reduction surgery’. He was a kind, supportive and tolerant boss who was always ready to praise. He was president of the Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland in 1980. He travelled extensively with the British Council and set up cardiothoracic units abroad. A devoted family man, he had wide musical tastes, was a compulsive gardener and an accomplished artist and photographer. Jacqueline died in 2006 and he died on 12 January 2006, leaving a daughter and two sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000372
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-07-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372559372559
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Peter Wilson was a consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital. He was born in Deptford, London, on 16 October 1932, the son of Joseph Henry Wilson, a housing administrative officer for Bermondsey Borough Council, and Sarah Heaton, a teacher of physical training whose father had owned a brewery. The first of his family to go into medicine, his younger sister also eventually became a doctor. He was educated at several schools, including Upholland Grammar School and Newcastle-under-Lyme High School, where he gained colours in hockey, cricket and rugby, before going on to St Thomas’ Hospital in 1950. After junior posts he did his National Service in the Royal Navy and then specialised in orthopaedics, becoming a registrar at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Hospital, Oswestry and then a senior registrar at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital Birmingham under Peter London and J H Hicks. He was appointed consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital in 1970. Peter was particularly interested in the treatment of multiple and major injuries and was a pioneer in the operative fixation of fractures. Having been chairman of the regional junior hospital staff committee from 1968 to 1970 and a member of the BMA junior group council (from 1969 to 1970), he went on to chair the regional senior hospital staff committee from 1970 onwards, and was medical director of the trust board. He was active in the St John Ambulance Brigade. He retired in 1994, and continued to play golf, cricket and cultivate his garden. He was married twice. In 1951 he married Sheila Patricia Hansen, who predeceased him. They had three children, a daughter (Sallie Anne) and two sons, Michael John, a solicitor, and David Ian, a plastic surgeon. In 2002 he married Anne Elizabeth Mary Stott née Binnie. Peter Wilson died on 19 November 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000373
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Amphlett, Edward (1848 - 1880)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-09-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372860372860
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on Oct 20th, 1848, the second son of Samuel Holmden Amphlett (qv), by Mary Georgiana, his wife. He was nephew of Sir Richard Amphlett, of Wychbold Hall, near Droitwich, at one time Lord Justice of Appeal. Edward Amphlett was the grandson of George Edward Male, an early nineteenth century authority on medical jurisprudence. He was educated for the sea, and served as midshipman in the Royal Navy for several years, seeing many parts of the world and acquiring great interest in nautical matters. At the time of his death he was Surgeon to the Naval Artillery Volunteers, with whom he had recently been a cruise on board HMS *Esk*. He suffered so severely from asthma that he was invalided out of the service. Determining to enter the medical profession, he first graduated at Cambridge from Peterhouse as a Junior Optime in the Mathematical Tripos (his uncle, Sir Richard Amphlett, who died in 1883, had been Sixth Wrangler). He is thus one of the first Cambridge man on our record. Entering at Guy’s Hospital, he was House Surgeon and Resident Obstetrician. After qualifying and passing the Fellowship examination he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to Charing Cross Hospital, and began to devote himself to practice and more particularly to diseases of the eye, which he had studied at Vienna. At the time of his death, besides being Assistant Surgeon, he was also Demonstrator of Surgical Pathology in Charing Cross Hospital Medical School and Assistant Surgeon at the Central London Ophthalmic Hospital. He practised at 40 Weymouth Street, Portland Place, W, and died there on Sept 9th, 1880. His elder brother was Richard Holmden Amphlett, QC, Recorder of Worcester.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000677
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Amphlett, Samuel Holmden (1813 - 1857)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Browning, Charles (1805 - 1878)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Brownless, Anthony Colling (1815 - 1897)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Bruce, Alexander (1842 - 1869)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Brush, John Ramsay (1817 - 1891)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-05-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373190373190
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born February 27th, 1817. Educated at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and in Paris. He was gazetted Assistant Surgeon to the 26th Foot on June 8th, 1841, was transferred to the St Helena Regiment on August 4th, 1843, and to the 2nd Dragoons on October 13th of the same year. He became Staff Surgeon (2nd Class) on April 2nd, 1852, was transferred to the 93rd Foot on May 14th, was further transferred to the 2nd Dragoons on July 21st, 1854, and joined the Staff once more (2nd Class) on January 18th, 1856, being placed on half pay on October 11th, and restored to full pay on September 21st, 1860, on receiving an appointment. He retired on half pay on August 16th, 1861. He was at one time Surgeon to the 17th Depot Battalion at Limerick, and at the time of his retirement Surgeon to the Military Prison at Gosport. He saw much active war service, being Assistant Surgeon to the 26th Cameronians during the first Chinese War (1841-1842), for which he was awarded a Medal. In Turkey he was Surgeon to the 93rd Highlanders and to the Scots Greys during the Crimean Campaign, and was present at Balaklava, Inkermann, Tchernaya, Sebastopol, etc. For this service he was awarded a Medal with three Clasps, the Turkish Medal, and was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. In his latter years he lived at Newton Abbot, South Devon, and then at 2 Eaton Villas, Duchess Road, Clifton, where he died, November 18th, 1891. Publications:- “Observations on Glanders,” a paper read before the Paris Medical Society and printed in *Prov. Med. and Surg. Jour.*, 1841, ii, 222, 241. “Successful Treatment of Poisoning by One Ounce of Oxalic Acid.” – *Lancet*, 1861. “Cancer of the Pylorus.” – *Lond. Med. Gaz.*, 1851, xlvii, 980.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001007
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-22 2012-03-14
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372395372395
Occupation General surgeon Obstetric and gynaecological surgeon Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Born at St. Albans, Hertfordshire, on February 3rd, 1818, the son of William Wells, a builder, by his wife Harriet, daughter of William Wright, of Bermondsey. He soon showed a marked interest in natural science and was sent as a pupil, without being formally apprenticed, to Michael Thomas Sadler, a general practitioner at Barnsley in Yorkshire. He afterwards lived for a year with one of the parish surgeons at Leeds, where he attended the lectures of William Hey II (q.v.) and Thomas Pridgin Teale the elder (q.v.), and saw much practice at the Leeds infirmary. In 1836 he went to Trinity College, Dublin, where he learnt more surgery from Whitley Stokes, Sir Philip Crampton, and Arthur Jacob. In 1839 he entered St. Thomas's Hospital, London, to complete his education under Joseph Henry Green (q.v.), Benjamin Travers, senr. (q.v.), and Frederick Tyrell. Here, at the end of the first session, he was awarded the prize for the most complete and detailed account of the post-mortem examinations made in the Hospital during the time of his attendance. He joined the Navy as an Assistant Surgeon as soon as he had qualified, and served for six years in the Naval Hospital at Malta. He combined a civil practice with his naval duties, and was so highly spoken of that the Royal College of Surgeons of England elected him a Fellow in 1844. His term of service at Malta being completed, he left the Navy in 1848, having been promoted Surgeon on Feb. 3rd of that year. He then proceeded to Paris to study pathology under Magendie and to see the gunshot wounds which filled the hospitals after the struggle in June, 1848. He afterwards accompanied the Marquis of Northampton on a journey to Egypt, where he made some valuable observations on malarial fever. Wells settled in practice at 30 Brook Street, London, in 1853 and devoted himself at first to ophthalmic surgery. In 1854 he was elected Surgeon to the Samaritan Free Hospital for Women and Children, which was then an ordinary dwelling-house - 27 Orchard Street, Portman Square - with hardly any equipment. It had been established for seven years and was little more than a dispensary, as there was no accommodation for in-patients. About the same time he was editor of the *Medical Times* and *Gazette* for seven years (1851 ?-1858). Wells temporarily abandoned his work in London on the outbreak of the Crimean War, volunteered, and was sent first to Smyrna, where he was attached as Surgeon to the British Civil Hospital, and afterwards to Renkioi in the Dardanelles. He returned to London in 1856, and in 1857 lectured on surgery at the School of Anatomy and Medicine adjoining St. George's Hospital, which was commonly known as 'Lane's School'. Wells did an unusual amount of midwifery in his youth, but never thought seriously about ovariotomy until one day in 1848 when he discussed the matter at Paris with Dr. Edward Waters, afterwards of Chester. Both surgeons came to the conclusion that, as surgery then stood, ovariotomy was an unjustifiable operation. Spencer Wells and Thomas Nunn (q.v.) of the Middlesex Hospital assisted Baker Brown (q.v.) in his eighth ovariotomy in April, 1854. This was the first time that Wells had seen the operation, and he admitted afterwards that the fatal result discouraged him. The ninth ovariotomy was equally unsuccessful, and Baker Brown himself ceased to operate on these cases from March, 1856, until October, 1858, when Wells's success encouraged him to recommence. The experience of abdominal wounds in the Crimea had shown Wells that the peritoneum was much more tolerant of injury than was generally supposed. He therefore proceeded to do his first ovariotomy in 1858 and was not disheartened although the patient died. He devoted himself assiduously to perfect the technique, and the rest of his life is practically a history of the operation from its earliest and imperfect stage, through its polemical period, to the position it now occupies as a well-recognized and most serviceable operation, still capable perhaps of improvement, but advantageous alike to the individual, the family, and the State. It has saved many lives throughout the world, has opened up the field of abdominal surgery, and has thereby revolutionized surgical practice. Wells completed his first successful ovariotomy in February, 1858, but it was not until 1864 that the operation was generally accepted by the medical profession. This acceptance was due chiefly to the wise manner in which Wells conducted his earlier operations. He persistently invited medical men in authority to see him operate. He published series after series of cases, giving full accounts of the unsuccessful as well as the successful cases, until in 1880 he had performed his thousandth ovariotomy. He had operated at the Samaritan Free Hospital for exactly twenty years when he resigned his office of Surgeon in 1878 and was appointed Consulting Surgeon. He frequently modified his methods throughout the whole of this time, and always towards greater simplicity. The hospital never contained more than twenty beds, and of these no more than four or five were ever available for patients needing ovariotomy. At the Royal College of Surgeons Spencer Wells was a Member of Council from 1871-1895; Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology, 1877-1888, his lectures dealing with "The Diagnosis and Surgical Treatment of Abdominal Tumours"; Vice-President, 1880-1881 ; President, 1882 ; Hunterian Orator, 1883 ; Morton Lecturer "On Cancer and Cancerous Diseases", 1888 ; and Bradshaw Lecturer "On Modern Abdominal Surgery" in 1890. He received many honours, acting as Surgeon to the Household of Queen Victoria from 1863-1896 ; he was created a baronet on May 11th, 1883, and he was a Knight Commander of the Norwegian Order of St. Olaf. He married in 1853 Elizabeth Lucas (*d*. 1886), daughter of James Wright, solicitor, of New Inn and of Sydenham, by whom he left five daughters and one son, Arthur Spencer Wells, who was Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1893-1895. Spencer Wells's operations were models of surgical procedure. He worked in absolute silence, he took the greatest care in the selection of his instruments, and he submitted his assistants to a rigorous discipline which proved of the highest value to them in after-life. At the end of every operation he personally superintended the cleaning and drying of each instrument. He was an ardent advocate of cremation, and it was chiefly due to his efforts and to those of Sir Henry Thompson (q.v.) that this method of disposing of the dead was brought into early use in England. Almost to the last Wells had the appearance of a healthy, vigorous country gentleman, with much of the frankness and bonhomie of a sailor. He was an excellent rider, driver, and judge of horseflesh. Besides his London residence, 3 Upper Grosvenor Street, he owned the house and fine gardens at Golder's Green, Hampstead, which were bought for public recreation in 1898. He drove himself daily in a mail phaeton with a splendid pair of horses down the Finchley Road from one house to the other, dressed in a grey frock-coat with a flower in the buttonhole and a tall white top hat. A half-length oil painting by Rudolph Lehmann executed in 1884 represents Wells sitting in the robes of a President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. It was bequeathed to the Royal College of Surgeons at his death. A bust executed in 1879 by Oscar Liebreich is in possession of the family. He appears in Jamyn Brookes's portrait group of the Council. PUBLICATIONS:- *The Scale of Medicines with which Merchant Vessels are to be Furnished…with Observations on the Means of Preserving the Health and Increasing the Comforts of Seaman*, 12 mo, London, 1851 ; 2nd ed., 8vo, 1861. *Practical Observations on Gout and its Complications,* 8vo, London, 1854. *Cancer Cures and Cancer Curers*, 8vo, London, 1860. *Diseases of the Ovaries : their Diagnosis and Treatment,* 8vo, London - vol. i, 1865 ; vol. ii, 1872. It was also issued in America, and was translated into German, Leipzig, 1866 and 1874. *Note-book for Cases of Ovarian and other Abdominal Tumours*, 8vo, London, 1865 ; 2nd ed., 1868 ; 7th ed., 1887. Translated into Italian, Milan, 12mo, 1882. *On Ovarian and Uterine Tumours, their Diagnosis and Treatment*, 8vo, London, 1882. Translated into Italian, 8vo, Milan, 1882. *Diagnosis and Surgical Treatment of Abdominal Tumours*, 8vo, London, 1885. Translated into French, 8vo, Paris, 1886.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000208
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-22 2012-03-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372396372396
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Ely in Cambridgeshire on Sept. 11th, 1818, the second son of William Marshall, solicitor, an excellent naturalist. John Marshall's elder brother, William (d. 1890), sometime Coroner for Ely, was an enthusiastic botanist, who first elucidated the life-history of the American pond-weed, *Anacharis alsinastrum*, which had been accidentally introduced into this country and had done much damage to the waterways. John Marshall was educated at Hingham, Norfolk, under J. H. Browne, uncle of Hablot K. Browne ('Phiz'), and was apprenticed to Dr. Wales in Wisbech. He entered University College, London, in 1838, where William Sharpey was lecturing on physiology. He was on terms of intimacy with Robert Liston for many years, acting for a time as his private assistant and beginning to practise at 10 Crescent Place, Mornington Crescent. He succeeded Thomas Morton (q.v.) about 1845 as Demonstrator of Anatomy at University College, and in 1847, by the influence of Quain and Sharpey, he was appointed an extra Assistant Surgeon at University College Hospital. The appointment caused considerable surprise, for Marshall was looked upon as an anatomist, who had never held the office of house surgeon, and had shown no special surgical aptitude. He moved to George Street, Hanover Square, and in 1854 to Savile Row, where he remained until his retirement to Cheyne Walk, Chelsea - the west corner house overlooking the bridge. On June 11th, 1857, he was elected F.R.S., after presenting in 1849 a valuable piece of original work "On the Development of the Great Anterior Veins in Man and Mammalia" (*Phil. Trans.*, 1850, cxl, 133). In 1866 he was appointed Surgeon and Professor of Surgery at University College in succession to John Eric Erichsen (q.v.), and in 1884 he retired with the rank of Consulting Surgeon to the Hospital. Many thought at the time of his appointment as Professor of Surgery that the post should have been offered to Lister. At the College his career was extremely active. He became a Member in 1844, a Fellow in 1849, was a Member of Council from 1873-1890, of the Court of Examiners from 1873-1881, was representative of the College on the General Medical Council from 1881-1891, Vice-President in 1881 and 1882, President in 1883, Bradshaw Lecturer in 1883, his subject being "Nerve-stretching for the Relief or Cure of Pain", Hunterian Orator in 1885, and Morton Lecturer in 1889. He was official representative of the College at the Tercentenary of the University of Edinburgh, on which occasion he was created LL.D. He acted as President of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society of London in 1882-1883, and in 1887 he replaced Sir Henry Acland as President of the General Medical Council. For four years he held the Chair of Fullerian Professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution. Marshall adopted the galvano-cautery, and the operation for the excision of varicose veins. This operation was at first violently assailed; it is now accepted. He was one of the first to show that cholera might be spread by means of drinking water, and issued an interesting report on the outbreak of cholera in Broad Street, Soho, in 1854. He also advocated the system of circular wards for hospitals, and to him are largely owing the details of the modern medical student's education. He also tried hard to establish a teaching University in London. He gave his first course of lectures on anatomy to the art students at Marlborough House in 1853, a course which he repeated when the art schools were removed to South Kensington. On May 16th, 1873, he was appointed Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy. This office he held until his death, and his great facility in drawing on the blackboard gave additional attraction to his lectures. He died at his house in Cheyne Row, after a short illness from bronchitis, on New Year's Day, 1891, survived by his wife, one son, and two daughters. A bust of him by Thomas Thornycroft, dated 1852, is in the possession of the family; another, by Thomas Brock, R.A., dated 1887, was presented to University College by Sir John Tweedy (q.v.) on behalf of the subscribers to the Marshall Memorial Fund. A replica is in the College Hall. He appears in Jamyn Brookes's portrait group of the Council. Marshall was a good surgeon of the old school, who failed to appreciate the new surgery introduced by Lister, which was enthusiastically taken up by the younger men at University College Hospital. He was a somewhat slow operator and an uninspiring teacher. Verbatim notes of his lectures taken by James Stanton Cluff are preserved in the Library of the College, to which they were presented to Sir John Tweedy after passing through the hands of Marcus Beck.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000209
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Pheils, Murray Theodore (1917 - 2006)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-11-21
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372756372756
Occupation General surgeon
Details Murray Pheils was professor of surgery at the University of Sydney. He was born in Birmingham on 2 December 1917, the younger of the two sons of Elmer Theodore Pheils, an osteopath, and Lilian Mary née Cole. His father Elmer was a colourful character: he was born in Toledo, Ohio, and trained as an osteopath under George Still, the founder of that profession, subsequently qualifying in medicine from Ohio. He went to London in 1907, and soon built up a successful practice, including among his patients George Bernard Shaw and Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother), who he cured of torticollis by massage. Despite early hostility, he was widely accepted by regular members of the profession, and insisted that both his sons went to medical school. Murray was seven when Shaw became his father’s patient and soon got to know the great man well, describing their friendship in ‘Thank you Mr Shaw’ (*Brit med J* 1994 309 1724-1726). Murray Pheils was educated at Leighton Park School and followed his elder brother to Queens’ College, Cambridge, before going on to St Thomas’ Hospital for his clinical training. There he was influenced by B C Maybury, B W Williams, R H O B Robinson and T W Mimpriss. After qualifying, he was house surgeon and casualty officer at St Thomas’ and St Peter’s, Chertsey, before joining the RAMC in 1942. There he served in Africa and in the South East Asia Command and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Whilst still on the house at St Thomas’ he married Unity Louise McCaughey, who came from a family long established in New South Wales. Her grandfather Sir Samuel McCaughey had set up the Murrumbidgee irrigation scheme which transformed agriculture in New South Wales. After the war, Murray obtained an ex-serviceman’s registrar post at St Thomas’ and then held further general surgery and urology posts at St Thomas’ and St Peter’s. In 1951 he was appointed as a consultant at St Peter’s, having obtained his Cambridge MChir. He became a very successful surgeon with a lucrative private practice, particularly after the Nuffield Private Hospital was built and opened. However, as the years passed Murray became restive – he had always wanted a teaching hospital post but, because of his late arrival back from the Far East after the war and, by that stage, having three young mouths to feed and educate, he had to take the post at Chertsey. Following a trip out to Australia in 1965, Murray had renewed his friendship with John Lowenthal, who was chairman of the Sydney University department of surgery. He was informed that there was to be a teaching department established at the Repatriation Hospital at Concord and they were looking for a mature surgeon to run the new teaching department. Murray returned to the UK, saw the post advertised, applied and was appointed to start in mid 1966. He rapidly made his mark not only as a clinician but also as a teacher. Casualties were being received from the Australian Forces in Vietnam. The condition of the evacuees was very poor and the whole process needed urgent attention as preventable deaths were all too common. Murray went to the Army hospital at Ingleburn and triaged the evacuees so they were transferred to an appropriate hospital for treatment. Furthermore, surgical teams of senior registrars and junior consultants were sent to Vietnam to improve the standard of care. With the backing of his colleagues, Murray was instrumental in transforming the management of the Australian Vietnam War casualties. His Second World War experience was invaluable in this respect. He became a full professor in 1973 and chairman of the university department in 1979. As the Concord department grew and evolved (the hospital became an acute hospital), so Murray’s department developed a special interest in bowel cancer. He published extensively on colorectal cancer, as well as writing a landmark paper on ischaemic colitis with Adrian Marston and others. He also published on abdominal actinomycosis, vesicocolic fistula and cholecystitis. He set up the section of colon and rectal surgery at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and endowed the Murray and Unity Pheils travel fellowship. Until he was over 80 he had a medico-legal practice in Sydney. He was a consultant to the New South Wales Law Reform Commission on informed decisions about medical procedures. He continued his interest in the Army, as a colonel in the RAAMC and as a consultant surgeon to the Australian Army. Outside surgery, he had a keen interest in his family and that of his wife, and wrote *The Return to Coree: the rise and fall of a pastoral dynasty* (St Leonards, New South Wales, Allen & Unwin, 1998). He died on 19 December 2006, leaving his wife, Unity, two sons (Michael Murray and Peter John) and two daughters (Diana and Johanna). Peter John Pheils is a consultant surgeon in Broadstairs, Kent.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000573
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Anderson, Richard Benjamin (1874 - 1900)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-10-02 2013-08-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372867372867
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Lincolnshire, the son of a medical man, he was educated at St Mary's Hospital. Entered the school in 1866, won a prize in 1867, and became Prosector at the Royal College of Surgeons, House Surgeon at St Mary's, and afterwards at the South Devon and East Cornwall Hospital, Plymouth. Admitted FRCS in 1873 and joined his brother, James G Anderson, who was in practice in Tobago, acting as colonial surgeon. By 1889 he was a member of the Legislature, a Justice of the Peace for the Islands, and a landowner. In this year he was consulted by a native woman suffering from necrosis of the lower jaw. The patient and her husband proved troublesome and Anderson declined further attendance. Litigation followed, and Anderson was finally imprisoned by Justices Corrie and Cook for fourteen days in default of finding bail. In 1891 Anderson brought an action in London ("Anderson v Corrie and others") and obtained a verdict in his favour with £500 damages against Mr Justice Cook (Justice Corrie having died). Lord Esher on appeal decided that no action could lie against a judge for an act done in his judicial capacity, and refused to award damages, though he confirmed the verdict of the jury. The rest of Anderson's life was spent in a campaign against the wrongs and injustice done to the medical profession, and he strove to advance his cause by acting as Hon Secretary of the Corporate and Medical Reform Association. This labour and the disappointments no doubt shortened his life, for he died of angina pectoris, in straitened circumstances, at 82 Montague Place, Russell Square, on Sept 8th, 1900, and was buried at the Lambeth Cemetery, near Balham.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000684
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Kindersley, Hugh Kenyon Molesworth, Second Baron Kindersley of West Hoathly (1899 - 1976)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Somervell, James Lionel (1927 - 2009)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-06-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373198373198
Occupation General surgeon
Details James Somervell continued his family’s tradition of missionary work in India. He was born on 23 April 1927 in Kodaikanal, southern India. His father, Theodore Howard Somervell, was a surgeon and mountaineer, who took part in the ill-fated 1922 and 1924 Mallory expeditions to conquer Everest. He became superintendent of the Neyyor Hospital and of the South Travancore Medical Mission, and, in the later phase of his career, was based at Vellore Christian Medical College. James’ mother, Margaret Hope Simpson, was also from a missionary background. He was educated at the Downs School, Colwall, and then Peekskill High School, New York (during the Second World War). He then studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, going on to University College Hospital for his clinical studies. He qualified with the Trotter medal in surgery and the Yellowes medal in medicine. He became a house surgeon to R S Pilcher and then completed a house physician appointment at the North Middlesex Hospital. He was subsequently a casualty officer at the Royal Surrey Hospital. He then became a registrar at the Vellore Christian Medical College, southern India, under Paul Brand. In 1956, he joined the London Missionary Society, which sent him to work in the CSI Campbell Hospital in Jammalamadugu, southern India, where he stayed for the next 12 years. In 1968, he returned to England as a senior registrar at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham. He published on neonatal and infantile intestinal obstruction in India, on family planning by salpingectomy, with a record of 500 cases, and on leiomyosarcoma of the rectum. Like his father, his main interest outside medicine was mountaineering. In 1952 he married Mary Stapleton and they had two sons and one daughter. He died on 20 August 2009.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001015
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Buck, John Edward (1915 - 2006)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-08-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372562372562
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details John Buck was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in the Woolwich and Greenwich area. He was born in Hove, Sussex, on 30 October 1915, the son of Arthur Herbert Buck, a general surgeon, and Lilian Maude Bligh, a theatre sister who was a direct descendant of the captain of the Bounty. John was brought up in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and was educated at St Michael’s School and Brentwood College. He then went to Edinburgh University to read medicine. There he won a blue for rowing, and swam and sailed for the university. He was springboard diving champion for Scotland in 1937 and 1938, and remained a keen sportsman for the rest of his life. After qualifying, he became house surgeon to the surgical outpatients at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, house physician to the Deaconess Hospital and then house surgeon to the orthopaedic department at the Royal Infirmary. He listed David Wilkie, John Fraser, Walter Mercer, Ian Smellie and Ritchie Russell among his memorable teachers. At the outbreak of the second world war he was house surgeon at the Sussex County Hospital in Brighton. On completion of this appointment, he was commissioned into the RAMC, serving first in 180 Field Ambulance. In 1941 he was promoted to Captain and posted to the Military Hospital in Delhi. He then joined the 151/156 Parachute Regiment as its regimental medical officer, accompanying them to Egypt and later to Europe, where he was taken prisoner at Arnhem. Released in 1944, he returned to the UK, as a trainee surgeon at the Royal Herbert Hospital at Woolwich. Following demobilisation, he returned to the Royal Sussex Country Hospital, as a resident surgical officer, acquiring the Edinburgh FRCS in 1946. He later trained in orthopaedic surgery, at the Royal National Orthopaedic and Charing Cross hospitals. In 1951 he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Woolwich, Greenwich and Deptford hospital group. He retired in 1984. John was a member of the Royal Society of Medicine, the British Association of Sports Medicine, and was a fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association. He had a special interest in sports injuries and in the lumbar spine, developing an original operation (Buck’s fusion) for spondylolysis and published several papers on these topics. He was surgical adviser to Charlton Athletic Football Club for many years. He was a life member of the United Hospitals Sailing Club and a member of the Bexley Sailing Club, only giving up at the age of 83. He remained a parachutist and skydiver until the age of 64. He married his former ward sister, Dorothy Maud Kench, in 1995. He died on 30 March 2006, aged 90.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000376
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Laidlaw, Cecil D'Arcy (1921 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-12-19 2007-08-23
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372500372500
Occupation Radiologist
Details D’Arcy Laidlaw was a radiologist in Brisbane, Australia. He was born in Witbank, Transvaal, South Africa, on 12 November 1921. His father John was an inspector of railways. His mother was Caroline née Wilson. He was educated at Reading School, from which he went to Oxford for his preclinical studies, going on to St Bartholomew’s. With the advent of the Second World War, D’Arcy was keen to serve in the forces, a desire intensified by the death of his brother, Kenneth Wilson Laidlaw, during the retreat to Dunkirk in June 1941. As a consequence, D’Arcy chose to study for the conjoint, the shortest route to qualifying as a doctor, gaining the MRCS LRCP in 1943. After completing a surgical house job at Leicester City General Hospital he joined the RNVR and served on the aircraft carrier HMS *Formidable*, mainly in the Pacific. The *Formidable* was attacked three times by kamikaze planes, which gave him and his colleagues much experience of trauma and burns. After VE day *Formidable* repatriated prisoners of war from South East Asia to their homes in India and Australia. On being demobilised, he became a casualty officer at the Royal Free Hospital, then held RSO posts in Grantham and Leeds. He then held a series of registrar jobs in Wakefield and Hereford, and then worked as an orthopaedic registrar in Bath, before passing the FRCS after attending the course at Guy’s. He then held registrar posts at the City General Hospital, Stoke-on-Trent, St Chad’s Hospital Birmingham, and in Bristol, where he became private assistant to R V Cooke in 1957. In the same year he gained his MB BS by sitting the London University examination. In 1958 he was a temporary senior surgical registrar at Cardiff Royal Infirmary, and for the next two years he was a senior registrar in Bristol and Exeter, and did research into the cause of clubbing which was published in Clinical Science in 1963. In 1962 he developed widespread severe acute rheumatoid arthritis, which forced him to give up surgery. He retrained in radiology at Bristol Royal Infirmary, qualifying DMRD in 1966. He emigrated to Australia in 1966 to become director of radiology at the Wimmera Base Hospital, Victoria, and then joined a private radiology practice in Melbourne. D’Arcy then took the position of director of radiology at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, Brisbane, in 1972, where he taught medical students and registrars. In 1981 he established his own private practice at Sherwood, subsequently expanding this to Strathpine in Brisbane. He had a lifelong passion for art, especially painting and sculpture, and underwent a formal training, which culminated in a degree in fine art in 1989. He exhibited in Brisbane and Noosa, Queensland. In 1951 D’Arcy married Florence Lois née Smith, a general practitioner, who predeceased him in 1976. They had three children: their daughter, Ailsa Mary Carole, is a general practitioner, one son, Phillip Kenneth D’Arcy, was a medical student who died before he could qualify, and a second son, Andrew Alistair Louis, is an electrical engineer. D’Arcy Laidlaw died on 7 September 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000313
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching McKenzie, Evan Robert (1924 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-12-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372501372501
Occupation General surgeon
Details Evan McKenzie was director of surgery at Timaru Hospital, New Zealand. He was born on 18 February 1924 in the old gold mining town of Naseby, Central Otago, the seventh child of the Rev Duncan Norman McKenzie and his wife Sarah. During his childhood the family moved around various parishes in the South Island, but spent most time in Outram, near Dunedin. He had his secondary education at the John McGlashan College in Dunedin, and then went on to study medicine at the Otago Medical School. He was a junior resident at Dunedin Hospital and then a demonstrator of anatomy at the medical school. In 1952 he went to England to specialise in surgery. He was a senior house officer at the City General Hospital in Sheffield, being promoted to registrar when he passed the FRCS. Later, in 1954, he moved to the Sallop Royal Infirmary in Shrewsbury, where he was resident surgical officer. He married Sylvia Killick in the same year. In 1955 he returned to Dunedin, where he held the post of assistant lecturer in surgery at the Otago Medical School and senior registrar at Dunedin Hospital. There he became a popular trainer of young surgeons, a part he continued to play after being appointed visiting surgeon at Oamaru Hospital. From Oamaru he moved north, in 1961, as junior consultant surgeon at Timaru, where he remained until he retired as deputy superintendent and director of surgery in 1989. When the call for volunteers to go to Vietnam came in 1968 Evan served as the senior surgeon with the 1st New Zealand Services Medical Team, and returned in 1970. His leadership was not forgotten by the Department of Health, who seconded him as consultant to Western Samoa in 1976. In 1982 he accepted the position of team leader for the International Committee of the Red Cross surgical team in Peshawar, Pakistan. His contributions to the Rotary Community were recognised by the award of the Paul Harris medal. He provided medical services for the racing clubs in Timaru, Waimate, Geraldine and Ashburton, the South Canterbury Rugby Union, and the Boxing Association. He and Sylvia had three daughters and in due course six grandsons. He died on 2 October 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000314
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Jefferiss, Christopher David (1940 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-08-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372566372566
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Christopher Jefferiss was a consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon in Devon. He was the son of Derek Jefferiss, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist in Exeter. Like his father, he was an undergraduate at the Middlesex Hospital, where he qualified in 1964. He held a variety of junior posts at the Middlesex, Weymouth and District, and the Royal Devon and Exeter hospitals, before becoming a senior house officer at the Princess Elizabeth Orthopaedic Hospital in Exeter in 1970, gaining the FRCS in the same year. He then abandoned his intention of becoming an obstetrician and gynaecologist in favour of orthopaedics, becoming successively registrar, senior registrar and finally consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at the Princess Elizabeth and Royal Devon and Exeter hospitals, eventually specialising in the surgery of the hand and the foot. He was an active member of the Hand Society and also the British Society for the Surgery of the Foot, and published 14 papers as author and co-author, mostly to do with the hand. Christopher played a leading part in the postgraduate orthopaedic training programme in Exeter. He became lead clinician in orthopaedics in 1996, and in 1997 clinical director for trauma, orthopaedics and rheumatology. In 2001 he was awarded a certificate of commendation by the BMA and the chairman’s award from the Devon and Exeter NHS Trust in recognition of his outstanding service. He was much sought after as a medico-legal specialist and was regarded by all as a man of great integrity and wisdom. He died on 26 November 2004 from a cerebellar tumour, and is survived by his wife Madlen, a former Bart’s theatre sister and by their three children, Fred, Lizzie and Emily.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000382
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Davis, John Marshall (1920 - 2006)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-08-23 2008-12-05
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372568372568
Occupation Anaesthetist
Details Douglas Donald Currie Howat was a consultant anaesthetist at St George’s Hospital, London. He was born on 10 January 1920, in Denholm in Roxburghshire on the Scottish borders. His grandfather ran a muslin factory in Glasgow, but his father, Reginald Douglas Howat, preferred the life of a country gentleman and had become a general practitioner. His mother, Christine Evelyn née Ireland, came from a long line of Church of Scotland ministers. His father soon left Scotland for Bradford, where he was an assistant medical officer of health. When Douglas was six years old the family moved to London, and, at the age of eight, he gained a scholarship to Dulwich College. An only child, Douglas’ childhood was, by his own admission, lonely, but rather than dwelling on his solitude, he developed considerable self-sufficiency, exploring London on long cycle rides and reading voraciously. He greatly enjoyed being sent to Scotland for his holidays. At the age of 16 he was expected to choose a profession. He thought of becoming a barrister, but his father claimed he could not afford this and suggested he do medicine, as he knew the dean of St George’s Medical School who would accept him. Douglas switched to science and took his first MB from school, won a scholarship, and was accepted by King’s College to study medicine. At King’s, he met Joan Overstall, then secretary to the University Conservative Society. She was from Lancashire, reading French, Italian and law. They kept in touch during his clinical years at St George's Hospital and in 1943, after Douglas qualified, they married. After he qualified, he had a short flirtation with medicine and gained the MRCP, but changed to surgery. He completed a resident surgical officer post in Slough, before accepting an anaesthetist post at St George’s, having enjoyed his student experience in this field under the inspiration of Joseph Blomfield, who was noted for supervising his students administering ether whilst holding a cup of tea and a cigarette in his hands. Douglas passed the diploma in anaesthetics, was called up into the RAF and served at Cosford, being demobilized in 1948. By this time his three children had been born, Catherine (1944), David (1946) and Michael (1947). Joan always fully shared in Douglas’ professional life. Douglas continued his anaesthetic training at St George’s, working half his time at the Brompton Hospital with anaesthetists Ruth Mansfield and Bernard Lucas and surgeons Brock, Cleland, Price Thomas, Barrett and Tubbs. He was appointed as a consultant anaesthetist in Nottingham in a tuberculosis unit, but did not settle there and soon returned to London, to a post where he worked at Woolwich, Lewisham and Maidstone, until appointed to St George’s, where he started cardiac anaesthesia, working with Charles Drew. Later he worked extensively with Rodney (later Lord) Smith in pancreatico-biliary surgery. Meanwhile, Douglas was extending his horizons, attending the Royal Society of Medicine regularly, and he started travelling overseas, reading papers at the Second World Congress of Societies of Anaesthesiologists in Toronto and visiting hospitals and lecturing in Europe and USA. At home he served as vice-dean at St George’s and chaired the regional postgraduate advisory committee and became examiner for the fellowship at the Faculty of Anaesthetists. In 1965 he took on the highly responsible task of organising secretary for the Fourth World Congress of Societies of Anaesthesiologists, held in 1968 in London. Douglas subsequently held office in all the important anaesthetic organisations in the UK. He was president of the section of anaesthetics of the Royal Society of Medicine (from 1976 to 1977) and its international affairs secretary. In the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland he was honorary treasurer (from 1969 to 1974), vice-president (1974 to 1976) and an honorary member (1986). He became regional adviser to the Faculty of Anaesthetists, served on the board of the Faculty of Anaesthetists of the Royal College of Surgeons, becoming vice-dean, quietly revolutionising this rather vaguely defined post. His contribution to the College was noted by his being elected FRCS in 1984. In 1979 he delivered the biennial Frederic Hewitt memorial lecture. Douglas became extensively involved in international affairs. Not only his linguistic skill but even more his wise counsel was immensely valuable. He had an ability to establish rapport with all sorts of people and where diplomacy was needed, he was asked to go. From 1976 to 1980 he was consecutively chairman of the executive committee of the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiology and its vice-president, but it is as a European figure that he is best known. As early as 1966 he was, with members of the Royal College of Physicians, one of the UK representatives considering the implications of Britain joining the European Economic Community. When Britain eventually joined in 1973 he continued to represent British anaesthesia on the council of the European Union of Medical Specialists and chaired its anaesthetic monospecialist committee. He was involved with the foundation of the European Academy of Anaesthesia that notably strengthened the links with our overseas colleagues and established anaesthesia as a major specialty in countries where this had not before been the case. Douglas’ childhood interests continued throughout his life. He was always a great reader, though long solitary walks in the Chilterns succeeded long cycle rides in London and these he meticulously recorded in a diary. The Times crossword, chess, history of anaesthesia and the music of Beethoven were added. In 1984 Douglas retired from St George’s and this gave him more time to pursue his interest in the history of medicine. A steady stream of small research projects were reported at professional meetings, always in an entertaining way. He was president of the History of Anaesthesia Society during 1993. Douglas died on 15 November 2006, following gall-bladder surgery, a year and nine months after Joan. He had achieved much. He worked in an unobtrusive yet effective way, never losing his sense of humour, however provoked. He was just as happy carrying out the mundane chores as the most prestigious ones, indeed he said he enjoyed being given a job to do, but not becoming a figurehead. Although a national and international figure, he never forgot that the prime responsibility of a clinician is to serve his patients with skill and knowledge, and to support his surgeons and his trainees in all their endeavours.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000384
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Moore, Charles John (1929 - 2007)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2009-11-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372958372958
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details John Moore was a consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon in the Chelmsford Hospital Group and to the Regional Orthopaedic Centre, Black Notley, from 1967 to 1994 and, on retirement, an honorary consultant to the Mid-Essex NHS Trust. Born on 10 October 1929, he went to preparatory school in Lytham during the war years and then to Aldenham School, before entering Cambridge University to study natural sciences. From 1948 to 1951 he was a resident in Trinity Hall, before going to St Mary’s Hospital in London for his clinical studies. After qualifying, John entered the Army for National Service and joined the SAS, serving with great distinction in 22 SAS regiment based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In May 1957, Captain Moore was parachuted into the jungle on the Perak/Thai border and walked several miles over difficult and treacherous terrain to render aid and rescue two injured ‘policemen’. They recovered in hospital and John was mentioned in despatches. His natural reticence meant he failed to reveal this side of his life to his many friends and, until his death, the true facts were only known to close Army colleagues. Resuming his medical training after National Service, he decided to pursue a surgical career and orthopaedics as a specialty. A spell as a senior house officer at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital led to a registrar post in Sheffield with Holdsworth. Here he met his future wife, Anne Young, a doctor whose parents lived in the city. They married in Sheffield. For his senior registrar training he went to the (Royal) London Hospital and was made a consultant at Chelmsford and Black Notley hospitals in 1967. With his colleague and contemporary in Chelmsford, Michael Heywood-Waddington, he built up a credible and excellent orthopaedic service, also running the ‘accident department’ with limited support from junior staff. They provided an expanding service bordering both Colchester and London. Operating lists were split between St John’s and Broomfield hospitals until 1985, when a third colleague was appointed and beds and accident and emergency facilities moved to Broomfield. Throughout these formative and difficult years, John Moore proved to be a loyal and hardworking colleague who demonstrated the qualities of commonsense, competence and integrity of the highest order. The spirit of mutual goodwill and respect in the Chelmsford hospitals continued to grow between all levels of staff and outside, with general practitioners who were of a uniformly high standard. John looked after his fair share of general orthopaedics and fractures, and undertook all forms of major joint replacements, but he developed a special interest in rheumatoid disease and surgery of the hand. He was a fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association and of the Royal Society of Medicine, and a member of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand. He enjoyed an extensive private practice and, from 1996, concentrated on medico-legal work. At Black Notley, as part of the Regional Orthopaedic Centre Team, an equally happy atmosphere prevailed, and John played a part in contributing to the paid and unpaid activities, including training, audit and clinical case discussions. He was a skilled craftsman in the theatre and at home was an excellent silversmith. During all his years in Chelmsford, John lived at Bracondale House in Little Baddow with his wife, Anne, and their three children, Andrew, Elizabeth and Richard, two of whom were born in Chelmsford. They were a close-knit family. Predeceased by his wife, Anne, in 1998 after a long illness, John Moore faced his own final illness over three years with dignity and courage, always conscious that he was over the mean survival time for his malignant blood condition. He remained positive and without self-pity, living life to the full in spite of many admissions to Springfield Hospital. John enjoyed fishing in Scotland, as he had done throughout his professional life, and attended colleagues’ farewell dinners out of his respect for them. He died on 20 May 2007. At a well-attended memorial service held at Little Baddow Parish Church, his colleague and exact contemporary in Chelmsford, Michael Heywood-Waddington, gave an address that ended: “I know that all of you here will agree that it has been a privilege to know John, and in whatever way you have been a part of his life, I hope I have been able to express adequately our thanks that he was the sort of man he was – quiet, modest, generous, kind, able and loving. We will miss him greatly.” John Moore is survived by his three children, Andrew, a mechanical engineer, Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ Grimwood, who served in the Armed Forces before she married, and Richard, who also initially served in the Army but in civilian life became a ‘specialist’ carpenter. There are three grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000775
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Stewart, John Oscar Reginald (1922 - 2008)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2009-11-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372959372959
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Oscar Reginald Stewart, known as ‘Oscar’, was one of three general surgeons serving the whole of Lincolnshire from Lincoln County Hospital in the days when no government targets had to be reached and, as a result, waiting lists were small. He was born in Belfast on 2 November 1922. His father, J C P Stewart, was a civil servant and his mother Emilie (née Shaw), a housewife. After schooling at the Royal School Dungannon, County Tyrone, Oscar obtained his medical training at Queen’s University, Belfast. He admired many of his tutors, particularly Sir Ian Fraser. After qualification, house appointments followed at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, and were supplemented by a further house surgeon post at the Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford, and later at the Lancaster Royal Infirmary. As a surgical specialist he served in the RAF in Egypt, and then continued his surgical training in Sheffield as a surgical registrar. His definitive senior registrar training was obtained at Addenbrooke’s Hospital Cambridge with mentors such as Brian Truscott and John Withycombe. Oscar married Mary Wilkie in 1959 and she continued her medical career as a community medical officer, schools and company doctor and magistrate for over 20 years. This, combined with looking after three children and supporting Oscar, led to a busy life. As a true general surgeon, Oscar Stewart moved easily between endocrine, vascular, gastrointestinal and urological surgery, often on the same operating list, as did so many trained in that era. He had little time for sub-specialisation in the context of a busy hospital in the east of England. For years he ran the casualty department until an orthopaedic surgeon took over the ‘Dickensian’ premises. Universally loved by colleagues, nurses and secretarial staff, he was renowned for his dedication and kindness and always held to the maxim “Never destroy hope”. Thus he helped as many as he could and comforted those he could not. Oscar’s meticulous surgical technique was passed on to many others and he was respected by the juniors who learned their craft from him. He never was one to suffer fools gladly and was at times thought to conduct his ward rounds rather like a figure played by James Robertson Justice, particularly after being invited to a Buckingham Palace garden party during his period as sheriff. Oscar was elected city sheriff in 1988 and he and his wife occupied the post with great dignity. His impish sense of humour was displayed when he and the mayor paid an annual Christmas visit to Lincoln County Hospital. Oscar took great delight in wearing his ‘badge’ and armed himself with a water pistol: very few nurses escaped attention from the ‘sheriff of Lincoln’ during the visit! At other times he, with the rest of the medical staff and nurses, dressed up in pantomime clothes, to entertain patients, and then carve the turkeys and serve patients with Christmas lunch. No one suffered ill effects, but the advent of pre-cooked meals and ‘health and safety regulations’ stopped this ritual in Lincoln, as was the case in most provincial hospitals. No staff party was ever complete without Oscar encouraging the singing with a medley of popular tunes. Very knowledgeable and interested in the history of medicine, in retirement Oscar Stewart pursued this as a hobby and gained a diploma in the subject from the Society of Apothecaries. He opened a medical museum at Lincoln County Hospital, which following his death was named the ‘Oscar Stewart Museum of Medical History’: it was officially opened by his son, James, a consultant physician. Oscar also served as president of the Lincoln Medical Society. Oscar Stewart gained a great insight into civic buildings, and after he became sheriff of Lincoln he co-authored with Joe Cooke a book, *The Stonebow and guildhall guide* (1990), still available in the tourist centre in Castle Square, Lincoln. The sale of first batch of books repaid the £10,000 loaned by the city council and the proceeds continue to expand the mayor’s charity. Bound copies of the book are given to visiting VIPs. Until he himself became chairman of the group staff committee, when meetings were drawing to a close, they were often enlivened by Oscar asking, under ‘any other business’, the question: “What can be done about consultant car parking at the front of the hospital!” He leaves three children. Charles is a financial consultant with British Gas, Catherine is a housewife and James is a consultant gastroenterologist in Leicester. There are five grandchildren. He died on 22 November 2008. His wife, Mary, having predeceased him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000776
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bartleet, Edwin (1802 - 1876)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Bartleet, Thomas Hiron (1837 - 1891)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372961372961
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Birmingham, the son of Edwin Bartleet (qv). After attending King Edward VI’s Grammar School he entered Queen’s College and the General Hospital as a medical student, later migrating to King’s College Hospital, London. After a course in midwifery at the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, and in operative surgery at Paris, he joined partnership, upon the retirement of his father, with Dr M Hazelwood Clayton, and after Clayton’s death in 1873 with Edward Malins. He was elected Surgeon to the Children’s Hospital, and in 1867 Surgeon to the General Hospital, after a contest which cost him £800. For some years he taught physiology at Queen’s College, but in conjunction with James Russell he took an energetic part in the amalgamation of the two medical colleges, Queen’s College and Sydenham College, and the foundation of Mason’s Science College. When this was accomplished he resigned in favour of a regular Professor of Physiology and devoted himself to the teaching of surgery. He practised at 27 Newhall Street, residing at 26 Hagley Road, Edgbaston. He was an active member of the Birmingham branch of the British Medical Association. For some years Secretary, later President of the branch, at the meeting of the Association in Birmingham in 1890 he was President of the Surgical Section. He followed his father-in-law, Samuel Berry (qv), and his senior partner, Clayton, in actively forwarding the Birmingham Medical Benevolent Association. He was also a devoted member of St George’s Church, Edgbaston, acting as churchwarden under the Rev C M Owen. He made a number of communications to the Birmingham medical periodicals on surgery. Although for some two or three years he had suffered from diabetes, he continued at work until a few days before his death in 1891. He was buried with his father and mother at Chipping Campden. He married in 1867 the only child of Samuel Berry, FRCS, and was survived by her, two sons, and three daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000778
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Heath, Christopher (1835 - 1905)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-04 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372402372402
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon
Details Born in London on March 13th, 1835, the son of Christopher Heath (1802-1876) and Eliza Barclay. His father was the well-known Irvingite who was instrumental in building the beautiful Catholic Apostolic Church in Gordon Square, where he afterwards acted as angel, or minister, of the congregation. Heath was educated at King's College School, which he entered in May, 1845. He was apprenticed to Nathaniel Davidson, of Charles Street, Manchester Square, and began his medical studies at King's College, London, in October , 1851. Here he gained the Leathes and Warneford Prizes for general proficiency in medical subjects and in divinity, and was admitted an Associate in 1855. From March 11th to Sept. 25th, 1855, he served as hospital dresser on board H.M. Steam Frigate *Impérieuse* in the Baltic Fleet during the Crimean War, and was awarded a medal. He was appointed Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy at King's College, and served as House Surgeon at King's College Hospital to Sir William Fergusson (q.v.) from May to November, 1857. In 1856 he was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy at Westminster Hospital, where he was made Lecturer on Anatomy and Assistant Surgeon in 1862. Heath was consulting Surgeon to the St. George and St. James's Dispensary in 1858, and in 1860 he was elected Surgeon to the West London Hospital at Hammersmith; in 1870 he was Surgeon to the Hospital for Women, Soho; and later he was Consulting Surgeon to the National Dental Hospital in Great Portland Street. He was elected Assistant Surgeon and Teacher of Operative Surgery at University College Hospital in 1866, where he became full Surgeon in 1871 on the resignation of Sir John Eric Erichsen (q.v.). He was appointed Holme Professor of Clinical Surgery in 1875, resigned his hospital appointments in 1900, and was then made Consulting Surgeon and Emeritus Professor of Clinical Surgery. At the Royal College of Surgeons he gained the Jacksonian Prize in 1867 with his essay upon "The Injuries and Diseases of the Jaws, including those of the Antrum, and with the Treatment by Operation, or otherwise." He was a Member of the Council from 1881-1897; Examiner in Anatomy and Physiology from 1875-1880; a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1883-1892; and an Examiner in Dental Surgery in 1888. He was Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology in 1887, Bradshaw Lecturer in 1892, and Hunterian Orator in 1897. He was a Vice-President in 1895, and was called upon to act as President when John Whitaker Hulke (q.v.) died on Feb. 19th, 1895. Heath was elected President in his place in the following July and served his term of office during the year 1895-1896. In 1897 he visited the United States and delivered the second course of "Lane Medical Lectures" which had been recently founded at the Medical College, San Francisco. He visited Montreal on his way back to England and was given the honorary LL.D degree by the University of Montreal. He was President of the Clinical Society of London and an Associate Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Heath lived for many years at 36 Cavendish Square; the house has now been rebuilt. He married (1) Sarah, daughter of the Rev. Jasper Peck; and (2) Gabrielle Nora, daughter of Captain Joseph Maynard, R.N. He died on Aug. 8th, 1905, leaving a widow, five sons, and one daughter. His fourth son, P. Maynard Heath, F.R.C.S., became Surgeon to the Evelina Hospital for Sick Children. Heath was a brilliant surgeon and a great teacher. His intimate knowledge of anatomy made him a dexterous operator, but his comparative inability to appreciate new truths of bacteriology cut him off from the scientific side of surgery. Early in his career he showed a very special aptitude in the art of surgery, of which his master, Sir William Fergusson, was so excellent an exponent. For thirty-three years Heath was one of the most active members of the Surgical Staff of University College, and his boldness and skill were exhibited in his successful case of simultaneous ligature of the carotid and subclavian arteries for aneurysm in 1865. The patient lived for five years afterwards in spite of her intemperate habits. As a teacher Heath was at once direct and practical, and as an examiner prompt, penetrating, and just. He served the College in various capacities for many years, and in all of these devoted himself with zeal and energy to its interests. He was a born conversationalist with marked antipathies; a hard hitter with a confident belief in his own opinion. In person he was tall and handsome; in mind wonderfully alert, seeing instantaneously any flaw in the argument of his adversary. There is a marble bas-relief by Mr. Hope Pinker in the hall of the Medical School buildings of University College Hospital, and there is a good likeness of him in the portrait group of the College Council, by Jamyn Brookes. PUBLICATIONS:- All Heath's works were published in London. The chief of these are:- *A Manual of Minor Surgery and Bandaging,* 1861; 13th ed., 1906; 16th ed., 1917 (edited by H. MORRISON DAVIES). *Practical Anatomy. A Manual of Dissections,* 1864; 9th ed., 1902 (edited by J. E. Lane); translated into Japanese, Osaka, 1880. This text-book displaced *The Dublin Dissector,* which had been the favourite of many generations of medical students (see HARRISON, ROBERT). *Injuries and Diseases of the Jaws,* 1868; 4th ed., 1894 (edited by H. P. DEAN); translated into French, 1884. *Essay on the Treatment of Intrathoracic Aneurism by the Distal Ligature*, 1871; re-issue, 1898. *A Course of Operative Surgery*, 1877; 2nd ed., 1884; translated into Japanese, Osaka, 1882. *The Student's Guide to Surgical Diagnosis*, 1879; 2nd ed., 1883; Philadelphia, 1882; New York, 1881. *Clinical Lectures on Surgical Subjects*, 1891; 2nd ed., 1895; second series, Philadelphia, 1902. He edited a *Dictionary of Practical Surgery* in 2 vols., 1886.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000215
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Barton, George Kingston (1815 - 1890)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Barton, Samuel (1790 - 1871)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Campbell, George Gunning ( - 1858)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Langstaff,(1) George (1780 - 1846)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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/372665372665
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Richmond in Yorkshire, in or about the year 1780, and received his preliminary education in that town. Proceeding to London to study medicine, he was attracted by the reputation of Abernethy and entered St Bartholomew's Hospital. Here he soon distinguished himself by his love of observation. “His interest in the study of morbid action would seem to have been only increased by the death of his patient, for he diligently sought every opportunity of verifying the results of his observation by a careful examination of the diseased organs, and of determining the traces impressed by disease on the human frame.” Before settling in practice he made several voyages to the East and West Indies, and became a zealous naturalist and zoologist, laying the foundations of the collection of specimens which afterwards grew into his museum. During an eastward voyage he made some important observations on the cause of the luminosity of the sea at night. In the years following his Membership examination - that is, between 1804 and 1813 - he settled in St Giles's Cripplegate, and in the latter year received the appointment of Surgeon to the workhouse, where he had abundant opportunities of studying both pathology and practical anatomy. During many years he acquired a large local practice. He was a good surgeon and operator, and was the first to call attention to that bulbous condition of the extremities of the nerves in an amputated limb, which he termed ‘ganglionated’. He possessed several specimens in his collection illustrative of this condition (*see Lancet*, 1846, 439). Besides drawing largely for his collection on the specimens afforded him in the Workhouse Infirmary, he wrote important papers on pathology in the *Transactions of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society*, of which body he became a Fellow in 1814. In 1842 he published the catalogue of his museum, in the compilation of which he had been assisted by one of his pupils, Erasmus Wilson (q.v.). The full title of the work is *Catalogue of the Preparations illustrative of normal, abnormal, and morbid structure, human and comparative, constituting the Anatomical Museum of George Langstaff,* 8vo, pp. 518, London (Churchill), 1842. In his *catalogue raisonnée* he records the great work of his life: 2380 preparations are described, and Langstaff refers to it as a brief abstract of ten bulky MS volumes, in which he had preserved careful descriptions, case-histories, collateral circumstances, etc. “The consequences of Mr Langstaff's excessive devotion to his museum, and the resulting neglect of the calls made upon his attention by practice, began to be apparent towards the latter years of his life.” But he still supported himself with the belief that present loss of income could be compensated for by the sale of his museum, in which he had sunk thousands of pounds in the purchase of alcohol (methylated spirit was as yet unknown) and glass. Pleasant and sociable, a typical collector ever ready to impart his experience to others, he impressed his friends and admirers as a great man with a magnificent hobby that might prove his ruin. His *Lancet* biographer, who was probably George Macilwain, his contemporary among the Fellows of 1843, writes as follows: “The catalogue being finished, the preparations were transferred to the auction-rooms of Mr Stevens, in Covent Garden. The sale commenced; and, to Mr Langstaff's chagrin and disappointment, many of the preparations sold at prices less than the original cost of the glass and spirit. With the hope of averting the sacrifice, the sale was suspended. But now another evil presented itself - the collection was too bulky and fragile to be moved without difficulty; while, on the other hand, the rent of the rooms would each day be diminishing its proceeds. In this dilemma, application was made to the Council of the College of Surgeons, who consented to receive the collection and purchase such of the preparations as were suitable for the Hunterian Museum. The sum given by the College was very small, and another and a smaller sum was offered for the remainder of the collection.” The Museum Committee actually paid £165 15s 6d, for 1500 preparations. This was in October, 1842. Langstaff had previously sold to the College some 257 specimens, and he was proud that he had always put up the preparations with his own hands. The poor prices were probably accounted for by the state of the specimens. The College at that time gave large prices and was buying freely. Thus in January, 1842, they gave £800 13s Od for a specimen of Mylodon. In March, Liston offered 307 specimens, which were bought for £450 (his own price). Langstaff's biographer concludes:- “Such was the honour and reward of the devotion of a life and fortune to science. The disappointment naturally preyed upon Mr. Langstaff's mind, and weakened his constitution; and his death, which took place at his house at New Basinghall Street, on the 13th of August [1846], was undoubtedly hastened by this sad blight of his expectations and hopes. It is remarkable that his Commonplace Book, a bulky folio, preserved in the College Library, says nothing of this sale, though it contains many interesting accounts of cases, notably his own first attack of gout, in describing which he follows Sydenham's precedent. Among the College Archives are two MS lists by Clift, entitled severally, “Mr Langstaff's Collection. List of Specimens proposed to be taken by the Royal College of Surgeons, July, 1835”, and “List of Preparations selected…July, 1835”. In Sir James Paget's handwriting we find a note on the title-page of the last-mentioned MS to the effect that “Mr Langstaff sent the College detailed descriptions and histories of nearly all the pathological specimens named in this list, and these descriptions and histories were used in describing for the catalogue all those of this portion of his Museum which are still preserved in the Pathological Series.” Publications:- “A Case of Fungus Thematodes.” - *Trans. Roy. Med.-Chir. Soc.*, 1812, 277. “A Case of Fungus Hæmatodes, with Observations; to which is added an Appendix by William Lawrence, Esq.” - *lbid.*, 1817, viii, 272. “Practical Observations on the Healthy and Morbid Conditions of Stumps.” - *Ibid.*, 1830, xvi, 128. “A Case of Polypus of the Uterus.” - *Ibid.*, 1882, xvii, 63. “History of a Case of Medullary Sarcoma which affected several important Viscera; with a Description of the Morbid Appearances which were observed on Dissection.” - *Ibid.*, 1833, xviii, 250. Besides these he contributed several papers to the *Lancet*. (1) The name is so spelt by himself: Clift spells it LONGSTAFF.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000481
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ludlow, Samuel ( - 1853)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Toogood, Jonathan (1784 - 1870)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching West, Sir Augustus (1788 - 1868)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Anderson, William (1842 - 1900)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-10-02 2016-01-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372868372868
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in London, Dec 18th, 1842, and educated at the City of London School. Studied for a time at Aberdeen and afterwards at the Lambeth School of Art, where he won a medal for artistic anatomy. Entered St Thomas's Hospital in 1864, when Sir John Simon (qv) and Le Gros Clark (qv) were surgeons. There he won the first College Prize, the Physical Society's Prize, and the Cheselden Medal. After acting as House Surgeon at the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary, he returned to St Thomas's Hospital on the opening of the new buildings in 1871, to fill the offices of Surgical Registrar and Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy. In 1873 he was appointed Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the Imperial Naval Medical College in Tokio, where he lectured on anatomy, surgery, medicine, and physiology. He remained in Japan until 1880, when he returned to London and was appointed Assistant Surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital and Senior Lecturer on Anatomy in the medical school. He became full Surgeon in 1891. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was elected a Member of the Board of Examiners in Anatomy and Physiology for the Fellowship in 1884, and served as a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1894-1900. In 1891 he was Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology, and in the same year was elected Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy in succession to John Marshall (qv). He died suddenly on Oct 27th, 1900, the result of the rupture of a cord of the mitral valve without any other morbid condition of the heart or other organs. He married: (1) In 1873, Margaret Hall, by whom he had a son and a daughter; (2) Louisa, daughter of F W Tetley, of Leeds, who survived him. Anderson may be said to have been steeped in art; [1] form and colour appealed equally to him, and his residence in Japan, when the old world there was changing into the new, gave full scope to his love of art. It enabled him to form a superb collection of Japanese paintings and engravings, most of which are preserved in the British Museum. Between 1882 and 1886 Anderson prepared a *Descriptive and Historical Account of a Collection of Japanese and Chinese Paintings in the British Museum* (London, 1886), which contains a very complete account of the general history of the subject. In 1886 he also published in portfolios to make two volumes, *Pictorial Arts of Japan, with some Account of the Development of the Allied Arts, and a Brief History and Criticism of Chinese Painting*. Many of the plates are reproduced in colour. Anderson was Chairman of the Japan Society from its constitution in January, 1892, until his death eight years later. In 1880 he was decorated by the Emperor of Japan a Companion of the Order of the Rising Sun. Anderson was a good surgeon and a competent operator, but except for a small book issued in 1897 (*The Deformities of the Fingers and Toes*) he published no surgical work. The book was based on his Hunterian Lectures given in 1891, and in it he advised excision in preference to notching of the fibrous bands in Dupuytren's contraction. He was an excellent teacher for art and medical students, his lectures being made especially attractive by the facility with which he sketched on the blackboard. Personally he was a handsome man of distinguished appearance, quiet in voice and manner, highly cultivated but very retiring. Dr Frank Payne says: "To speak of Anderson we must first observe that he was notable for the thoroughness of his work. He continued to give lectures and demonstrations on anatomy at a stage of his career when most surgeons prefer to reserve their mornings for the consulting-room. In operations he was indefatigable. He would go straight through a long list, and at the end of it was quite willing to take two or three cases from the medical ward in addition. All this would be done with unruffled composure and without any outward signs of fatigue. In his intercourse with colleagues, students, and nurses he showed the unaffected sweetness of his nature; it would be difficult to remember an instance of his being impatient or out of temper. Though his retiring disposition prevented him from becoming a prominent personality in the eyes of the public, no one was more highly esteemed or, by those who knew him well, more warmly loved, while all his abilities and attainments were recommended by the conciliatory grace of modesty." Portraits of him appear in the *Transactions of the Japan Society*, iv; in the *Lancet*, 1900, ii, 1869; and in the *St Thomas's Hospital Gazette* 1900, November. [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] An outline of the history of art in its relation to medical science. Introductory address, Medical and physical society, St. Thomas's Hospital 1885- St. Thos. Hosp. Repts. 1886, 15, 151-181]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000685
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Anderson, William Alexander ( - 1882)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-10-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372869372869
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at St George’s Hospital, the Windmill Street School of Medicine, at Edinburgh, and in Paris. Assistant Surgeon at the Royal Naval Hospital, Plymouth, 1827-1828. He was a JP for the County of Middlesex and the City of Westminster, and lived for a time at Wilton Lodge, Hillingdon Heath, near Uxbridge, Middlesex. He died there on Oct 22nd, 1882.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000686
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Anderson, William John (1821 - 1871)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-10-02 2013-08-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372870372870
Occupation General surgeon
Details Only son of William Anderson, of Paddington, gentleman. Admitted to the Head Master's House (C T Longley) at Harrow in January, 1835, left at midsummer, 1839, and matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on Oct 16th, 1839, but never graduated. Educated at St George's Hospital and in Paris. He started practice in Prince's Street, Cavendish Square, removing in 1849 to 10 Welbeck Street, where he restricted his practice to midwifery, was District Accoucheur to St Mary's Hospital, and Accoucheur to the St George's and St James's Dispensary. He was Hon Secretary to the Harveian Society and a member of the Royal Institution. He left this country to reside at Balmain, in New South Wales, and died on a voyage home from Sydney in 1871. Publications: *The Causes, Symptoms and Treatment of Eccentric Nervous Affections*, 8vo, London, 1850: 'Eccentric' affections being such as originate in causes extraneous to the nervous centres. *The Symptoms and Treatment of the Diseases of Pregnancy*, 8vo, London, 1852. *Hysterical and Nervous Affections of Women*, 12mo, London, 1853. "Continued Fever in Children," reprinted from *Assoc. Med. Jour.*, 1854, 751. With which is: "On the Use of Nitrosulphuric Acid in Cholera and Diarrhœa", reprinted from *Assoc. Med. Jour.*, 1853, 964. 8vo, London, 1854. "Remarks on the Treatment of Procidentia Uteri." *Assoc. Med. Jour.*, 1854, 904. "Some Anomalous Cases of Scarlatina." *Lancet*, 1854, i, 327. "On Leucorrhœa." *Med. Times*, 1856, xxxiii, 108, 435. "On the Submucous Section of the Sphincter Ani for Spasmodic Constriction with Anal Fissures." The paper is interesting because it emphasizes the advantages of operative treatment, as practised by Professor Blandin of Paris, over the older method of stretching the sphincter ani in cases of fissure which had been recommended by M Recamier.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000687
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Dave, Nareshkumar Balvantrai (1937 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-12-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372759372759
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Nareshkumar Balvantrai Dave was born on 25 August 1937 and passed the FRCS in 1967. At some time he went to Tampa, Florida, USA, from where the College was informed of his death on 5 January 2003 by his employer. It is understood that he specialised in orthopaedics and trauma, but the College has no further information about him. We would be grateful for any details that can be supplied.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000576
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Phillips, Charles Henry (1787 - 1863)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-01-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372760372760
Occupation General surgeon
Details The son of John Phillips, surgeon, of Pall Mall and Great Burton, Suffolk, was appointed Assistant Surgeon to the Grenadier Guards on June 16th, 1808. He was with his regiment in the Walcheren Expedition, in Spain at the Battle of Barosa, for which he received the Medal, and at the Battle of Corunna, for which he was mentioned in dispatches. He returned with the wounded, and on arrival at Spithead, transports signalled that they were without medical care. Phillips, at great personal risk owing to the high sea, induced boatmen to take him abroad. He retired from the Army before July 18th, 1811, and was appointed Surgeon to the Marylebone Infirmary. In later days he was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to William IV, and, his father dying in 1840, Queen Victoria appointed him to succeed as Surgeon to Her Majesty’s Household. He died long after his retirement at 6 Trafalgar Square, Chelsea, London, SW, on Aug 8th, 1863.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000577
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bates, William (1819 - 1874)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Batten, Thomas ( - 1885)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Allamand, Pablo Juan Bautista (1909 - 2009)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-09-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373200373200
Occupation General surgeon
Details Pablo Juan Bautista Allamand was the doyen of surgery in Chile. Born on 5 August 1909, he was made an honorary fellow of our College in 1972 during the presidency of Sir Edward Muir. He died on 27 July 2009.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001017
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Attard, Joseph (1932 - 2009)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-09-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373201373201
Occupation General surgeon
Details Joseph Attard (known to all as ‘Pep’) was a consultant general surgeon in Malta. He was born on 14 September 1932 in Senglea, a town in the Grand Harbour area of Malta. His father was Caesar Attard, a general practitioner and junior surgeon at the main civil hospital of Malta in Floriana. His mother, Gabriella Tenaglia, was the theatre nurse at the private Blue Sisters’ Hospital. His education at St Joseph’s School, Valletta, was interrupted by the air raids of 1940, when the family was evacuated to Birkirkara, where part of the Jesuit College had been transformed into a hospital where Caesar Attard became the chief surgeon. Joseph completed his secondary education in the College and matriculated in 1948. He entered the medical school at the Royal University of Malta, graduating in 1955. He then did house jobs at St Luke’s University Hospital in Malta and went on to England to specialise in surgery, working in various hospitals in London, Gulson Hospital in Coventry and Southampton General Hospital. In 1961 he married Maureen Brown, a nursing sister at the Temperance Hospital in London. By the time they returned to Malta in 1970 they had two boys and one girl, none of whom followed in their parents’ footsteps. On settling down in Malta, Joseph set up in private practice, soon developed a large clientele and introduced cosmetic surgery to Malta. In 1974 Malta became a republic. The Royal Navy withdrew from the dockyard, and by 1977 there was turmoil. The two private hospitals were closed by the Maltese Government and Joseph worked abroad in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and in various hospitals in England. Finally political stability returned and he was able to go home. He published on traumatic injuries of the pancreas. He was a keen violinist and enjoyed cooking. His wife, Maureen, died in 2006. He was still working when he developed a sudden homonymous hemianopia and was found to have a brain tumour from which, despite intensive treatment, he died on 11 April 2009.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001018
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Tuckwell, William (1784 - 1845)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-05-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372689372689
Occupation General surgeon
Details Was born of yeoman stock at Aynho, Oxfordshire, and was educated at the local grammar school under Mr Leonard, known for his scholarship and his addiction to green tea. He was apprenticed to a surgeon at Woodstock, and afterwards became a pupil of John Abernethy at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he formed friendships with Frederic Carpenter Skey (q.v.) and Sir George Burrows. He came to Oxford without introductions, friends, or money, and was made ‘Chirurgus Privilegiatus’ by the University on Nov 10th, 1808. He took lodgings in ‘The High’ and soon acquired a practice, for he had ability, engaging manners, and was not lacking in self-esteem. He was elected Surgeon to the Radcliffe Infirmary on March 15th, 1809, succeeding Edward Metcalfe Wardle, Surgeon from 1781-1808, and held the post until 1836, when he was made a Life Governor. He was also Consulting Surgeon to the Warneford Hospital, Oxford. His wife Margaret (d. 1842) bore him four children, of whom the eldest son, the Rev W Tuckwell (b. 1830), the head master of the Collegiate School at Taunton, wrote *Reminiscences of Oxford*, and Henry Matthew Tuckwell, MD (b. 1835), the second son, long had the chief medical practice in the City and University. Lewis Stacey (b. 1840), the fourth son, became Vicar of Northmoor, Oxon. Tuckwell practised in High Street, Oxford, in the somewhat gloomy stone house facing Magdalen College School, but died at Cowley House, where he had retired, on Sept 20th, 1845. He was well adapted for University practice: his professional knowledge was of so high an order that there was some talk of his coming to London when John Abernethy retired. He was also a good classic and acquainted with French, Italian, and Spanish. He dined often at high tables, and his own dinner-parties were noted for conviviality and wit. He was, too, a skilled player at piquet, whist, and chess. In costume and behaviour he was a survival from more picturesque times. His son says: “He paraded Oxford in a claret-coloured tail-coat with a velvet collar, canary waistcoat with gilt buttons, light brown trousers, two immense white cravats propping and partly covering the chin, a massive well-brushed beaver hat. His manner and address appear to have been extraordinarily winning: he overflowed with anecdote and quotation, yet knew how to listen as well as talk.” He preserved, too, the charitable spirit of practitioners before the introduction of out-patient departments by throwing open his surgery in the early morning to necessitous patients, to whom he gave the same quality of service as to those who were able to pay him adequate fees.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000505
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Carter, John Collis ( - 1866)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-02-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373042373042
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Little Wittenham, Berkshire, on October 2nd, 1828, traced his descent from Thomas Carter, armiger, of Higham, Bedfordshire, who lived in the reign of Edward IV. When he had authenticated his descent to the satisfaction of the Heralds’ College, and established his right to armorial bearings, he became qualified in the Order of St John of Jerusalem to be promoted from a Knight of Grace to a Knight of Justice. A later ancestor, the Rev Nicolas Carter, preached before the Long Parliament. His grandfather, the Rev Henry Carter, was Rector of Lower Wittenham for fifty-seven years. The sister of his grandfather was Elizabeth Carter (*Dict. Nat. Biog.*), the Greek scholar who translated Epictetus, and was the friend of Johnson, Edmund Burke, and Horace Walpole. His father, Major Henry Carter, Royal Marines, and his wife were staying with the grandfather when he was born. He was christened Robert Brudenell, the name of his father’s neighbour and lifelong friend Robert, sixth Earl of Cardigan, the father of Lord Cardigan of the Light Brigade. Carter’s mother died soon after his birth, and he was brought up by Mrs Fearne. After serving an apprenticeship to a general practitioner, he entered the London Hospital at the age of 19, and qualified in 1851. He then acted as an assistant to a practitioner in Leytonstone, during which he made his first publication, *The Pathology and Treatment of Hysteria* (1853). In 1854 he moved to Putney and published a second book, on *The Influence of Education and Training in Preventing Diseases of the Nervous System*. One may smile at the subjects adopted by a young medical assistant, but his account of hysteria, which he based upon the teaching of Stephen Mackenzie, to whose memory he dedicated the book, shows remarkable literary talent together with much observation, apparently made during his apprenticeship in the country. The obituary in *The Times* noted this first evidence of his talent. With the Crimean War he volunteered and was appointed a staff surgeon in Turkey, where he came under the notice of W H Russell, correspondent of *The Times*; with this introduction he wrote letters to *The Times* from the front, which subsequently determined his future; also letters and contributions to the *Lancet*. He received both the English and Turkish War Medals. On his return he moved from Putney to Fulham, then to Nottingham for five years. There in 1859 he took part in founding the Nottingham Eye Infirmary, and at the same time began to direct special attention to ophthalmology. Once again, in 1862, he moved to Stroud to a partnership with George Samuel Gregory, and had a share in establishing the Gloucestershire Eye Institution. Meanwhile he published *The Physiological Influence of Certain Methods of Teaching, The Artificial Production of Stupidity, The Principle of Early Medical Education, The Marvellous*. In spite of all this, he said: “Nevertheless I was able to go up from my country practice for the FRCS examination without either rest for study or coaching – and to pass.” He married at the age of 40, and looking around for better opportunities he applied to *The Times*. Concerning this crisis he referred to himself in a letter to the *Lancet* as “a conspicuously unsuccessful general practitioner in the country.” His Crimean letters were looked up, and as a result he was put upon the editorial staff. This determined him to settle in London. In the following year, 1869, he was appointed Surgeon to the Royal Eye Hospital, Southwark, and held the post until 1877. He became Ophthalmic Surgeon to St George’s Hospital in 1870 in succession to Henry Power (qv), and was appointed Consulting Surgeon in 1893. His literary abilities gave distinction to his writing on ophthalmology, and his *Students’ Manual* was the most widely used of the day. Another of his appointments was that of Ophthalmic Surgeon to the National Hospital for Paralysis and Epilepsy. In addition to *The Times* Carter joined the staff of the *Lancet*, and at that time James Wakley (qv) was desirous of initiating the ‘Hospital Sunday’. Carter wrote on this and also in *The Times*. On the start of the Mansion House Fund Carter was elected a member of the first Council. He was Hunterian Professor at the College in 1876-1877; Orator in 1874; Lettsomian Lecturer in 1884, and President in 1886, of the Medical Society of London. From 1887-1900 he was the representative of the Apothecaries’ Society on the General Medical Council, and was instrumental in introducing a modification in the procedure of that body, whereby before deciding upon an offence an interval of probation might be afforded by postponing a definite decision until the following session. But it was his position on the staff of *The Times* which enabled him to place the views of the medical profession on subjects of the day before the general public, and the lucidity of his style always enabled him to do so with effect. Said the *Lancet*: “Eloquent, incisive, more than occasionally bitter, he was also a generous writer, and few members of the Medical Profession have wielded greater power with the pen, while he possessed the equally valuable gift of being able to speak in public with the same command of language and high level of literary style. Carter’s ‘leaders’ belong to an older day; he used the Latin ‘period’ and a rotund full-dress method; but any appearance of pomposity thus given to his writings was purely superficial; no writer of to-day is more fastidious than was Carter in his choice of language, or more resolutely averse from the use of ‘stale metaphors, trite tags and obvious morals’.” Although his handwriting was good, he was the first on *The Times* to use a typewriter. Carter sat on the first London County Council, and obtained a special committee to report upon the Care of the Insane. The Council did not accept the recommendations, and he was not re-elected. At the age of 87 he volunteered to write again for the *Lancet* whilst the staff were depleted by the War. He died at his house on Clapham Common on October 23rd, 1918, in his ninety-first year, and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery. There is a portrait of him by ‘Stuff’ in the *Vanity Fair Album* wearing two pairs of spectacles, a habit also noted by ‘Jehu Junior’ in the biographical note, *Vanity Fair*, April 9th, 1892. There is also a portrait in the *Leicester Provincial Medical Journal*, 1890. Carter was twice married: (i) to Helen Ann Beauchamp, daughter of John Becher, and (ii) to Rachel Elizabeth, daughter of Stephen Hallpike, and widow of Walter Browne. He had four sons. Publications:– *On the Pathology and Treatment of Hysteria*, London, 1853. *On the Influence of Education and Training in Preventing Diseases of the Nervous System*, London, 1855. “Hints on the Diagnosis of Eye Disease,” Dublin, 1865; reprinted from *Dublin Quart. Jour. Med. Sci.*, 1865. “The Training of the Mind for the Study of Medicine” (Address at St George’s Hospital), London, 1873. *A Practical Treatise on Diseases of the Eye*, with plates, Philadelphia, 1875. Translations of Schaller on “Ocular Defects”, 1869, and of Zänder on “The Ophthalmoscope”, 1864. Contributions to Holmes’s *System of Surgery*, and to Quain’s *Dictionary of Medicine*. *Ophthalmic Surgery* (with W A Frost), 1887; 2nd ed. 1888. *On Defects of Vision remediable by Optical Appliances* (Hunterian Lecture RCS), London, 1877. *Eyesight Good and Bad.* A treatise on the exercise and preservation of vision, London, 1880; translated into German, Berlin, 1884. Cantor Lectures on “Colour Blindness” delivered at the Society of Arts, London, 1881. “Eyesight in Civilization,” London, 1884; reprinted from *The Times*, 1884. “The Modern Operations for Cataract” (Lettsomian Lectures, Medical Society of London), London, 1884. “Eyesight in Schools” (Lecture before the Medical Officers of Schools), London, 1885; reprinted from *Med. Times and Gaz.*, 1885. “On Retrobulbar Incision of the Optic Nerve in Cases of Swollen Disc.” – *Brain*, 1887, x, 199. “On the Management of Severe Injuries to the Eye.” – *Clin. Jour.*, 1894, iv, 317. *Sight and Hearing in Childhood* (with A H Cheatle), London, 1903. *Doctors and their Work; or Medicine, Quackery and Disease*, London, 1903. “Medical Ophthalmology” in Allbutt’s *System of Medicine*, vi.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000859
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Hadfield, Geoffrey John (1923 - 2006)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-08-29
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372570372570
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Hadfield was an outstanding teacher and ambassador for British surgery. He was born in Long Ashton near Bristol on 19 April 1923. His family hailed from Plymouth. His father, Geoffrey Hadfield, was professor of pathology at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and later became the Sir William Collins professor of pathology and dean of the Institute of Basic Science in our College, for which he became FRCS ad eundem, after his three children had already passed the FRCS in the usual way. John’s mother was Sarah Victoria Eileen D’Arcy Irvine of Irvinstown, Northern Ireland. His elder sister Esmé was an ENT surgeon and his younger brother, James Irvine Havelock Hadfield, a general surgeon. He was educated at the Merchant Taylors’ School, where he won a prize for recitation of the 19th psalm, was coached in rugby football by K R J Saxton, the All Black, and developed the habit of wearing a bowler hat, which provided an effective means of identification when travelling abroad. He completed his preclinical studies at Queen’s College, Cambridge, and went to London, to Bart’s, for his clinical work, where he was a dresser to Sir James Paterson Ross and Sir Geoffrey Keynes. After qualifying he became house surgeon to J B Hume, Harold Rogers and Alec Badenoch, was RMO at St Andrew’s Hospital, Dollis Hill, and demonstrator of anatomy at Bart’s. He passed the primary with ease in 1948 and the final a few weeks later, a feat which is said to have left Cave bereft of speech - a notable achievement. He did his National Service in the RAMC in Malaya, ending up commanding the 21 Field Surgical Unit in North Malaya. He returned to Bart’s as research assistant on the surgical unit under John Kinmonth and then did a registrar post in Colchester under Ronald Reid, before going to Bristol Royal Infirmary as senior registrar to Milnes Walker, from which he gained the British Empire Cancer Campaign travelling fellowship to the New York Memorial Hospital. He returned to Bart’s as a senior lecturer in surgery under Paterson Ross, taking time to be a clinical assistant to Naunton Morgan and Henry Thompson at St Marks, until he was appointed consultant in general surgery at Stoke Mandeville. From 1960 to 1988 he was honorary surgical tutor at University College, London, where he built up an international reputation as a teacher of generations of house staff, registrars, and men and women attending the Penrose May course at our College. He published extensively on a wide range of surgical topics, ranging from endocrinology through to urology, to cancer of the breast. In collaboration with Michael Hobsley he edited five volumes of *Current surgical practice* (London, Arnold), the royalties from which were used to set up a scholarship awarded on the basis of an MD or MS thesis. Together with Hobsley and Basil Morson, he wrote *Pathology in surgical practice* (London, Edward Arnold, 1985). He was on the editorial board of the *British Journal of Surgery*, and a member of many surgical associations both in England and Pakistan, which he visited regularly, and was honoured with the Sitara award. When Rodney Smith became the first Penrose May tutor at the College, John Hadfield, Alan Parks and Felix Eastcott were course tutors, teaching in the College and arranging for young surgeons to visit their hospitals. John continued with this work long after the others had moved on, and in this way came to know a large number of surgeons, many of whom became distinguished in their own countries. Among these, Adibul Rizvi went on to become a world-famous urologist and transplant surgeon in Karachi. As a result of this John was invited to teach and examine all over the world and became the recipient of numerous honorary degrees and awards. In the College he was Arris and Gale Lecturer in 1954, Hunterian Professor in 1959, Erasmus Wilson Demonstrator in 1969, a member of Council from 1971 to 1983, Arnott Demonstrator in 1972, Stanford Cade Memorial Lecturer in 1978 and vice president from 1982 to 1983. He served on the Court of Examiners from 1972 to 1978 and was its chairman from 1977 to 1978. He was a keen Territorial, serving with the 17 London General Hospital then based on the Duke of York’s HQ, Chelsea, and later 219 Wessex City of Bath General Hospital as officer in charge of the surgical division and later as their honorary colonel. A keen sailor until arthritis prevented him from climbing the mast, he taught his daughters to sail. After retirement he served as a sidesman in Exeter Cathedral for 17 years. In 1960 he married Beryl Sleigh, a Bart’s physiotherapist, by whom he had three daughters (Catherine Marian Elizabeth, Frances Margaret Rosemary and Patricia Mary). Frances is a staff nurse at St George’s. When he retired he moved to Devon, where he continued to sail and walk, and it was when he and Beryl were in the process of returning to London to live near one of their three daughters that he unexpectedly died on 26 December 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000386
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Bergmann, Ernst von (1836 - 1907)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-02-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000800-E000899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373047373047
Occupation General surgeon
Details Came of a family of Lutheran Pastors, of long standing in East Prussia and Livonia, his father being Pastor of Rujen in Livonia; but his mother, having to take refuge from an epidemic, he was born at Riga, then the capital of the Russian Baltic Provinces, in December, 1836. On leaving school he failed to get permission from the Czar to enter the theological faculty, so he matriculated in the medical faculty of the Germano-Russian University of Dorpat in 1854. He graduated in 1860 with a “Dissertation on the Passage of the Balsams of Copaiba and Cubebs into the Urine”. After visits to German Hospitals he settled down in Dorpat as a Clinical Assistant and qualified as Dozent in Surgery in 1863. Inspired by the renown of Pirogoff, he volunteered for employment in the Prussian and Austrian War of 1866, and after the battle of Königgrätz, which ended the fighting, was appointed to a Prussian Lazaret. Later he returned to Dorpat for the autumn session. Similarly he served as Chef-Artz at Base Hospitals in Alsace, at Mannheim, and Carlsruhe during the Franco-German War of 1870-1871. Upon this in 1871 followed his appointment to the Professorship of Surgery at Dorpat in succession to Adelmann. When in April, 1877, Russia declared war upon Turkey, Bergmann became Surgeon Consultant to the Army of the Danube invading Roumania. During the campaign up to the battle of Plevna he had the additional advantage of treating wounded under the better conditions supplied by the Baltic Hospital of the Red Cross. He then made a name for himself in the History of Military Surgery by adopting Lister’s antiseptic methods for the first time, for Lister’s proposals had been ignored in the Franco-German War. Moreover, Larrey’s immediate amputation had dropped out of use, being rendered largely impracticable by the wider manoeuvres of war. Bergmann had learnt the principles of Listerian surgery through Nussbaum and Richard Volkmann, and thus replaced the vague ideas concerning putridity and fermentations, about which Bergmann himself had written in 1865. Statistics from the American Civil War stated that of 1000 gunshot wounds of the knee-joint 837 died, of 1000 gunshot wounds of the elbow 194 died. After the battle of Gorni-Dubnik Bergmann dressed 15 cases of gunshot fractures involving the knee-joint, and that for the first time, some thirty to sixty hours after the injury, by thoroughly exploring and cleaning the wound and joint, using as fluid 5 per cent carbolic acid; 8 healed without suppuration, or as good as none; in 7 cases there was suppuration, in 2 slight, in 5 severe and prolonged; 2 dressed forty-eight and sixty hours after wounding underwent secondary amputation through the thigh and recovered. One dressed forty-eight hours after the injury, suffered from pyaemia, underwent secondary amputation, and died. There was much limitation of movement in all the healed cases, in many ankylosis. Among a more inclusive number of 59, 30 healed, 2 after secondary amputations; 24 died, 9 of whom had been amputated; and 5 cases were lost sight of. Even so, this was an enormous advance both in respect to the saving of life, and avoidance of amputation. Bergmann’s service was cut short by severe dysentery complicated by pyaemia. Upon his recovery he accepted the call to become Professor of Surgery at Würzburg, the title of his inaugural lecture in October, 1878, being “The Treatment of Gunshot Wounds of the Knee-joint in War”. There he remained until 1882, when the call to become Professor of Surgery at the Universität’s Klinik in Berlin placed him in the highest rank of German surgeons. Later he was raised to Geheimrath. Bergmann’s second memorial in the history of surgery is the establishment of the aseptic method. Lister’s antiseptic method reached its acme of fame and of general use on the occasion of the 7th International Congress held in London in 1881. After Koch’s report upon the effect of sublimate in destroying anthrax bacilli, Bergmann substituted for carbolic acid the use of perchloride of mercury. The further work of Koch at the Gesundheit’s Amt in Berlin introduced the bacteriological apparatus necessary to produce sterilization by heat. Numbers of Koch’s pupils explored all possible modes of infection of wounds, through the surgeon and his assistants, through the patient’s skin, the dressings, the hospital, the operating theatre, instruments, and apparatus, also the means of sterilizing by steam under pressure, by boiling water, to which salt or bicarbonate of soda was added. Neuber began, at a special hospital in Kiel, to attain sterility in everything coming in contact with a wound. Bergmann in his Klinik, together with his Assistant, Schimmelbusch, and others, adapted bacteriological apparatus and methods to the purposes of surgery. Thus at the 10th International Medical Congress at Berlin in July, 1890, Bergmann and Schimmelbusch demonstrated the methods which ensured sterility of dressing and apparatus, using the bacillus of blue pus as the naked-eye indicator. The Preface by Bergmann to the book by Schimmelbusch begins: “During the 10th International Medical Congress the undersigned exhibited in the Klinik the apparatus for the sterilization of dressings, and entrusted his surgical Assistant, Dr C S Schimmelbusch, with the demonstration of their efficacy against the micro-organisms which affect the course of healing and the treatment of wounds”. The illness and death of Frederick, Crown Prince and Kaiser, was a severe trial and a grave misfortune to Bergmann. The Crown Prince began to suffer from hoarseness in January, 1887. At the beginning of the following March, Gerhardt saw an irregular projection of the left vocal cord and on the diagnosis of a polypoid thickening the galvano-cautery was applied. There followed a further growth and a diminution of movement of the cord. On May 15th epithelioma was definitely diagnosed, and in consultation on May 16th Bergmann recommended laryngofissure and the removal of the affected cord, also possibly part of the thyroid cartilage if involved. It was common knowledge that Hahn in Berlin had successfully operated upon Montague Williams (*Dict Nat Biog*) in that way for the same disease. On May 18th Tobold confirmed the recommendation, and to the proposed operation the Crown Prince agreed, using the words, “Fort muss die Schwellung auf jeden Fall” (Buchholtz, s 462). The operation was fixed for the morning of May 21st, the Crown Princess, the promoter of nursing in Germany, in full accord and supervising preparations. Throughout the operation of complete laryngectomy had been specifically excluded. However, by a telegram sent to Queen Victoria, Morrell Mackenzie had been summoned, and he arrived at 5 pm on the 20th. He brought no instruments with him, and if the use of strange instruments had anything to do with his primary mistakes, quite apart from his persistence in them subsequently, then upon him lay the responsibility. At the consultation held at 6 pm immediately upon his arrival Mackenzie gave the opinion that the growth was of a non-malignant polypous or fibromatous nature. Gerhardt objected on the ground of his previous observations of the fixation of the vocal cord. Mackenzie proposed to nip off a bit for examination, to which Bergmann objected as complicating the operation and its result. On the following day Mackenzie punched off what proved to be a bit of normal mucous membrane, and there was afterwards visible a wound of the *right* vocal cord which had previously been seen to be quite sound. On June 8th, in the absence of Gerhardt, Mackenzie removed two superficial bits of tissue which Virchow reported to be specimens of ‘pachydermia’. As to Virchow’s aloofness in using an indefinite term ‘pachydermia’ instead of ‘leukoplakia’, already defined as a precursor of epithelioma, there is to be noted that the galvano-cautery had already been applied, and there was the uncertainty as to what Mackenzie had actually removed. As far as it went it was claimed for Virchow’s report that it favoured the diagnosis of a non-cancerous growth. Mackenzie persisted in making optimistic assertions as regards prognosis, whilst attributing the fixation of the cord and the steady progress of the disease to perichondritis. Even when Bramann, Bergmann’s first assistant, had been compelled to perform tracheotomy at San Remo on Feb 9th, 1888, Mackenzie continued to make and publish what he afterwards printed in his *Frederick the Noble* about the diagnosis and the adoption of the tracheotomy. Bergmann was urged to go to San Remo, where he arrived on Feb 11th, and spent miserable days arguing with Mackenzie over tracheotomy tubes (*see* his Diary in Buchholtz). After the return to Berlin on March 10th a piece of necrosed cartilage was coughed up, attributed by Mackenzie to perichondritis, but on April 12th Mackenzie had to send to Bergmann for help. When he arrived with Bramann they found the patient nearly asphyxiated, but when another tube was skilfully inserted the asphyxia was relieved and life was prolonged for a further six weeks. A local post-mortem examination was made on June 30th which fully confirmed the correctness of the original diagnosis. Henry Butlin (qv) on November 21st, 1888, addressed a letter to Bergmann on behalf of himself and colleagues expressing sympathy and appreciation. The College conferred the Honorary Fellowship on Bergmann on July 25th, 1900. His speech on receiving the diploma, delivered in vigorous German, was an *apologia pro vita sua*. Bergmann, in conjunction with his assistants, made a great number of contributions to surgery, including articles in the *Deutsche Chirurgie*. He continued active as the Professor of Surgery to the age of 70; towards the end it was noticed that his hand was becoming shaky. His remarkable position at the head of German surgery of his day is shown by the Festschrift in commemoration of his 70th birthday which fills two volumes of the *Archiv für klinische Chirurgie* (1906, lxxxi, with portrait), the first composed of contributions by friends and colleagues, the second volume by assistants and pupils. A fine portrait is included. He died at Wiesbaden on March 25th, 1907, after undergoing two operations for intestinal obstruction, due, as was shown at the post-mortem examination, to an inflammatory stricture of the splenic flexure of the colon. There was a State Funeral at Potsdam. Publications:– *Das putride Gift und die putride Intoxication*, Dorpat, 1868. *Die Resultate des Gelenkresectionen*, Giessen, 1874. “Die Diagnose der traumatischen Meningitis.” – *Volkmann’s Sammlung, klin. Vortr.*, 1876, No. 101, 837. “Kopfverletzüngen.” – *Pitha’s Handbuch*, 1873, Bd. iii, Abt. 1. *Die Behandlung der Schusswunden der Kniegelenks im Kriege*, Stuttgart, 1878, 274, 1. “Die Lehre von den Kopfverletzungen.” – Billroth und Leuke: *Deutsche Chirurgie*, 1880, Lief. 30. “Die Hirnverletzungen.” – *Volkmann’s Sammlung*, 1881, No. 190. “Die Erkrankungen der Lymphdrüsen.” – Gerhardt’s *Kinderkrankheiten*, 1882, Bd. vi, Abt 1. “Die isolerten Unterbindungen der Vena femoralis communis.” –* Würzburg Universität Festschrift*, 1882, Bd. i. Von Bergmann, E, und O Angerer: “Das Verhältniss des Ferment-intoxication zur Septicæmie.” – *Würzburg Universität Festchrift*, 1882. *Die Schicksale der Transfusion im letzten Decennium*, Berlin, 1883. “Die chirurgische Behandlung von Hirnkrankheiten.” – *v. Langenbeck’s Arch.*, 1888, 36, 2 Auf., 1889; 3 Auf., 1899. “Die chirurgische Behandlung der Hirngeschwülste.” – *Volkmann’s Sammlung*, N.F. 200, C 57. “Die Behandlung der Lupus mit dem Koch’schen Mittel.” – *Volkmann’s Sammlung*, N.F., 22, C 7. *Anleitung zur aseptischen Wundbehandlung von Dr. C. Schimmelbusch*. Mit einem Vorwort des Herrn Geheimrath Professor E. von Bergmann, Berlin, 1892. Von Bergmann, Von Bruns, und Von Mikulicz:– *Handbuch der praktischen Chirurgie*, 1902. *Arch. f. klin. Chir.*, 1906, Bd. lxxxi, Th. I, II.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000864
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Bernard, Ralph Montague (1816 - 1871)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Robertson, Douglas James (1919 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-12-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372504372504
Occupation General surgeon
Details Douglas Robertson was a consultant general surgeon at the Royal Hospital, Sheffield. He was born in London in 1919 of Scottish parents. His father, Falconer Robertson, was a banker, and his mother, Jane Mary Duff, was a teacher. Douglas was educated at the Stationers’ Company School. He entered St Bartholomew’s Hospital at the age of 17 in 1936, being interviewed by Sir William Girling Ball. He passed the Primary at the age of 20 and qualified in 1942, winning the gold medal in obstetrics and the Brackenbury prize in surgery. He was invited by Sir James Patterson Ross to be his house surgeon on the professorial unit, but Douglas had already joined the Royal Navy and soon found himself as a surgeon lieutenant on Arctic convoys. Later he was posted to Ceylon with the Fleet Air Arm. He returned to Bart’s in 1946 and at once became interested in the new specialty of vascular surgery. He was appointed second assistant to Sir Edward Tuckwell in 1947 and chief assistant to the surgical unit under Ross in 1950. Having won a travelling fellowship, he took the opportunity to visit the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Eric Hüsfeldt in Copenhagen and Sir James Learmonth in Edinburgh. He was a Hunterian Professor at the College in 1954. He was finally appointed consultant surgeon to the Royal Hospital, Sheffield in 1955. At the Royal Hospital he continued to practise a wide range of general surgery and to build up a large practice. He was secretary and later president of the Moynihan Club, and was a moving figure in establishing St Luke’s Hospice, under the aegis of Dame Cicely Saunders, the first such hospice to be set up in the provinces. He married Alison Duncombe, née Bateman, a medical social worker and had two daughters, Joanna and Fiona. He was a popular figure, clever, quick-witted, funny, mercurial and very effective. A contemporary recorded that ‘there was never any hurry or worry about his surgery’. He enjoyed driving fast cars, music, reading and walking in the hills of Galloway, where they had a second home. He died on 7 December 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000317
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Baird, John ( - 1844)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-01-16 2016-02-05
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372761372761
Occupation General surgeon
Details Practised at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and his death was reported to the Council in July, 1844, the authority for the report being The Times for June 19th, 1844. [2] [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] MRCS under the name John Forster (He changed his surname to BAIRD c.1821/2); [2] In 1830 opened an Egyptian mummy belonging to the Literary & Philosophical Society of Newcastle see letter inserted at life of *Greenhow* (T.M.) i.e. **his** entry]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000578
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Thomas, William Lloyd (1791 - 1855)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Appleyard, John (1848 - 1905)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-10-02 2016-01-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372878372878
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at University College and at the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin. House Surgeon at University College Hospital, at the Male Lock Hospital, and at the South Staffordshire General Hospital, Wolverhampton. He went to Bradford, where, for a time, he was Dispensing Surgeon at the Bradford Infirmary. Later he became Assistant Surgeon to the Eye and Ear Hospital, and after that was appointed to the Staff of the Bradford Royal Infirmary. At the time of his death, on Nov 4th, 1905, he was Consulting Surgeon to the Bradford Royal Infirmary and Honorary Surgeon to the Bradford Girls' Home. He practised at Clifton Villas, Manningham, Bradford. [1] [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] where his son William (d.1961) FRCS 1907 succeeded him.]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000695
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Armstrong, Robert ( - 1855)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-10-02 2016-10-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372883372883
Occupation General surgeon
Details At one time he was Physician to the Royal Naval Hospital, Plymouth, and at the time of his death (1), which occurred before 1860, was Inspector of Hospitals and Fleets. He was residing at Hills Court, Exeter, when he died. Publication: *The Influence of Climate and Other Agents on the Human Constitution, with Reference to the Causes and Prevention of Disease among Seamen; with Observations on Fever in general, and an Account of the Epidemic Fever of Jamaica*, 8vo, London, 1843. [(1) Date of death 28 June 1855 - details on gravestone. Notified by Alan Taylor by email 11 October 2016.]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000700
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Godlee, Sir Rickman John (1849 - 1925)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-11 2012-03-22
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372408372408
Occupation General surgeon Thoracic surgeon
Details Born of Quaker parents in Queen Square, London, W.C., on February 15th, 1849, the second son of Rickman Godlee, a barrister of the Inner Temple who had married Mary Lister, the only sister of Joseph, Lord Lister. Marcus Beck (q.v.), therefore, was a cousin, and Lord Lister his uncle. Godlee was brought up in the prosperous and quiet environment of which he afterwards gave so charming an account in the *Life* of his uncle. He was sent to Mr. Abbott's school at Grove House, Tottenham, where most of the Friends' children were educated, and here he learnt to become a field botanist and ornithologist, for natural history was prominent in the curriculum. He graduated in Arts at the University of London before he embarked on medicine, and entered University College in 1867, where he soon attracted attention as a neat dissector. He graduated M.B. and M.S. at the University of London, winning a Gold Medal at each examination. He served the office of House Surgeon to Sir John Eric Erichsen (q.v.), and at the end of the year 1872 he went to live with his uncle, who was then Professor of Clinical Surgery in the University of Edinburgh. He studied his methods, and published the results of his observations in the *Lancet* (1878, i, 694, 729) with the title, "The Antiseptic Treatment in Edinbugh". Godlee then returned to London and was appointed Surgical Registrar at University College Hospital. Whilst acting in this capacity, on May 20th, 1874, he opened an abscess connected with acute necrosis of the tibia. He made careful drawings of the microscopic appearances of the pus with the aid of a camera lucida, and observed "certain curious minute bodied which were arranged in rows or chains". They were streptococci, but he failed to name them. It was not until the International Congress of 1881 that Koch showed photographs of the micro-organisms he had found at the margins of erysipelatous lesions. Godlee afterwards wrote on the drawing, "This was, so far as I know, the first time that organisms were seen in the pus of an abscess immediately it was opened". The drawing is now in the Lister wall case in Room I of the College Museum. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to Charing Cross Hospital and Lecturer on Anatomy in the Medical School in 1876, and resigned both offices in 1878. He was also Surgeon to the North-Eastern (now the Queen's) Hospital for Children in the Hackney Road from 1876. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to University College Hospital in 1877. The post was a new one and carried with it an Assistant Demonstratorship of Anatomy in University College. As a demonstrator of anatomy Godlee was able to make use of his great artistic powers. He began the drawings for *An Atlas of Human Anatomy* in 1876, with the design of illustrating most of the ordinary dissections and many not usually practised by the student. The *Atlas* was accompanied by an explanatory text. Over one hundred dissections were made for its preparation, mostly by himself during the years 1876-1880, the years during which he waited for patients. He drew each dissection in pencil, giving the vessels and nerves their distinctive colours, and the drawings were then reproduced on stone. The lithographer was able to retain the clarity of the originals but lost much of their softness. Parts I-V of the *Atlas* were published in 1877-1878, and the whole appeared with 48 plates in 1880. Godlee also made the drawings for Quain's *Anatomy* and Erichsen's *Science and the Art of Surgery*. He drew them on wood himself and they were then beautifully engraved by the elder Butterworth. There appears to be very little doubt that Godlee inherited his artistic powers and tastes through his mother from the Lister side of the family. The collection at the Royal College of Surgeons contains drawings made by Sir Joseph Lister in 1862-1864 when he was planning his operation for the excision of the wrist. Some are in black-and-white, some in water-colour, and some in oils. They all show that Lister could have made his name as an artist and draughtsman. Godlee's style resembles that of his uncle, but his work is rather more accurate and delicate. He was appointed Surgeon to the Brompton Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest on Nov. 6th, 1884, and retained the office until June 6th, 1900, when he was nominated Consulting Surgeon. The post was a new one; his predecessors, Robert Liston, Sir William Fergusson, John Marshall, and Sir Joseph Lister, had only been called in occasionally. Godlee soon justified the appointment. He began to lecture, and published in the *Lancet* for 1885 and 1887, "The Surgical Treatment Empyema and of Pulmonary Cavities", and in 1890 there appeared, "On the Surgical Aspect of Hepatic Abscess, being three Lectures delivered at the Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest, Brompton", with 7 illustrations. In 1898 he joined Sir James Kingston Fowler in writing the surgical portion of *The Diseases of the Lungs*, in which they were assisted by Drs. Percy Kidd and A.E. Voelcker. Godlee acted as private assistant to Lord Lister for some years whilst he was waiting for promotion at University College, and on November 25th, 1884, he came prominently before the public as a pioneer in cerebral surgery. The patient, a man of 25, was diagnosed by Dr. Hughes Bennett as having a tumour of the brain. He was admitted into the Hospital for Epilepsy and Paralysis, Regent's Park, and the position of the tumour was located by the recent experimental work of Ferrier as being situated in the cortical substance near the upper third of the fissure of Rolando. The patient expressed a strong desire to have it removed, and Rickman Godlee was called upon to operate. The localization proved to be accurate and the glioma was extirpated without difficulty, but the patient died of secondary surgical complications. An outcry at once arose that the operation was unjustifiable, but *The Times* published two sensible leading articles and it was generally agreed that an advance had been made in regard to surgical interference with the human brain. The details of the case appear in the *Lancet* (1884, ii, 1090). Godlee became full Surgeon at University College Hospital in 1885 and resigned on April 1st, 1914. He succeeded his cousin, Marcus Beck, as Professor of Clinical Surgery in 1892, and was appointed Holme Professor of Clinical Surgery in 1900 in succession to Christopher Heath (q.v.). At the Royal College of Surgons Godlee held many honourable offices. He was an Examiner in Anatomy in 1884, a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1893-1903, Bradshaw Lecturer in 1907, and Hunterian Orator in 1913. He was elected a Member of the Council in 1897, and as Vice-President filled the place of President during the year 1911 when Sir Henry Butlin died in office. He was re-elected President in 1912 and again in 1913. One of his last acts as President was to deliver an address in the United States on the occasion of the Foundation of the American College of Surgeons, of which he was elected an honorary Fellow. He then reviewed the history of the English College in such a spirit of brotherhood that his address on the eve of the Great War formed a valuable link between the medical activities of the two countries. At the Royal Society of Medicine Godlee acted as one of the honorary librarians from 1907-1916, having filled the same post in the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society from 1895, and was President in 1916-1917. During the War (1914-1918) he worked steadily to maintain medical efficiency, and was a constant attendant of the Central Medical War Committee, whose duty it was to recommend methods by which our armies abroad could be adequately supplied with medical officers without depleting the medical service at home. He was also Chairman of the Belgian Doctors' and Pharmacists' Relief Fund, and in this position was instrumental in bringing to the notice of the General Medical Council the advantage of allowing Belgian practitioners to qualify in England and thus to place them in a position to earn their living. Early in 1916 it became possible to relieve the medical men and pharmacists in Belgium itself, and for some months sums of money were sent to Brussels every week through the agency of the International Commission for Relief until the amount disbursed had risen to £25,000. Godlee carefully investigated the amounts paid out and made himself acquainted with the details of each grant and the destination of every cheque. In 1920 he retired to Combe End, a farm which he had long cultivated at Whitchurch in Oxfordshire. It overlooked the Thames and the grounds ran down to the river. Here he made many improvements and additions to the house, acted as a gentleman farmer, took part in the affairs of the village, and wrote a history of it in the Parish Magazine. He did not, however, lose interest in the College, and was enabled to carry out a project which had been long in his mind - the worthy display of Lord Lister's instruments and manuscripts. It was proposed at first to place the memorial in the Library, but when this was found inappropriate, a cabinet made from the design of the College architect - Mr. Freer - was placed in the Museum and was formally inaugurated on the occasion of the First Lister Memorial Lecture, May 14th, 1925. Godlee married in 1891 Juliet Mary, daughter of Frederic Seebohm, LL.D., D.Litt., of the Hermitage, Hitchin, but had no children. He died at Whitchurch on Sunday, April 18th, 1925, with the diagnosis of ruptured abdominal aneurysm, but there was no post-mortem examination. He was buried at Whitchurch. Lady Godlee survived him. Many honours fell to Rickman Godlee. He was surgeon to the Household in the time of Queen Victoria, and Surgeon in Ordinary to King Edward VII and to King George V. He was created a baronet in 1912 and was decorated K.C.V.O. in 1914. He was a Fellow of University College, London, an Hon. LL.D. of the University of Toronto, a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and an Hon. M.D. of Trinity College, Dublin. A striking portrait in oils was presented to the College by Lady Godlee in 1925. Godlee retained to the last many traces of his Quaker ancestry. Absolutely honest, downright, and somewhat sarcastic, he took nothing for granted that was capable of demonstration. Whatever he undertook was done thoroughly, and he thus became an expert oarsman, for he loved the river; a good carpenter; an excellent farmer; and a field naturalist. His artistic tastes extended beyond drawing, for he made a fine collection of etchings and was an expert in books, their paper and their binding. Courteous in manner and easy of address, he filled the office of President of the College with great dignity. He was a good teacher, but not so good as Marcus Beck, and he left no school as did his cousin. He operated well and did much to improve the surgery of the chest, and more to ensure that his uncle's methods were carried out in their entirety. He left about £94,000, and, after making certain specific bequests, directed that the residue should be divided between University College Hospital and College, £10,000 being devoted to the foundation of Travelling Scholarships. PUBLICATIONS:- Godlee has a permanent place in the history of surgery both for his *Life of Lister* and for the part he took in collecting and publishing Lister's writings:- (i) *Lord Lister*, 8vo, portraits, illustrations, etc., London, 1917; 3rd ed., revised, 8vo, Oxford 1924. This biography is written, like all Godlee's works, in excellent idiomatic English. It is written, too, in the spirit dictated by Lister himself, who said that "a scientist's public life lies in the work that is his". That is to say, the main part of the biography is a history of antiseptic surgery written by one who was intimately associated with Lister in his experimental work and its developments, and who for many years, in association with Sir W. Watson Cheyne, assisted him in his operative practice. It includes, therefore, a graphic sketch of Victorian medicine in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and London, as well as on the Continent. It shows how the revolutionary doctrines were received and the spirit in which they were interpreted. (ii) *The Collected Papers of Joseph, Baron Lister*, 2 vols., 4to, Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1909. These volumes were prepared for the Press by a committee consisting of Sir Hector C. Cameron, Sir William Watson Cheyne, Bart., Rickman J. Godlee, C. J. Martin, M.D., and Dawson Williams, M.D. The volumes are illustrated throughout and must always remain the classical corpus of Lister's work. Amongst his other publications are: - *An Atlas of Human Anatomy illustrating most of the Ordinary Dissections and many not usually Practised by the Student*, 8vo, London, 1880. Parts I-V were published in 1877-8. "Cases of Intussusception treated by Operation." - *Lancet*, 1898, ii, 1262. "Case of Rare Fracture of the Radius," 8vo, London, 1884; reprinted from *Clin. Soc. Trans*., 1883, xvi, 120. "Nephrectomy for Tumour in an Infant," from *Clin. Soc. Trans.*, 1885, xviii, 31. "On a Case of Obstruction of One Ureter by a Calculus, accompanied by Complete Suppression of Urine," 8vo, London, 1887; reprinted from *Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1887, lxx, 237. "Surgical Treatment of Empyema" and of "Pulmonary Cavities," Lectures, *Lancet*, 1886, i, 51; 1887, i, 457. "Reflections suggested by a Series of Cases of Renal Calculus." - *Practitioner*, 1887, xxxix, 241, 329. "Some Cases of Abdominal Cysts following Injury," from *Clin. Soc. Trans*., 1887, xx, 219. *Introductory Address in the Faculty of Medicine at University College, London, October,* 1889, 8vo, London, 1889. "On the Surgical Aspect of Hepatic Abscess. Being three Lectures delivered at the Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest, Brompton," 8vo, 7 illustrations, London, 1890; reprinted from *Brit. Med. Jour.,* 1890, i, 61, etc. *The Past, Present and Future of the School of Advanced Medical Studies of University College, London:* being the Introductory Address at the Opening of the Winter Session, October, 1906, 8vo, illustrated, London, 1907. *The Bradshaw Lecture on Prognosis in Relation to Treatment of Tuberculosis of the Genito-urinary Organs,* delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons of England, December, 1907, with portrait of Dr. William Wood Bradshaw, 8vo, London, 1908. *The Hunterian Oration* delivered at The Royal College of Surgeons, 1913, with portraits of John Hunter and of the several conservators, plates of the Museum, John Hunter's death-mask, etc., 8vo, London, 1913. *Birmingham and Midland Institute. Our Attitude towards Modern Miracles.* A Presidential Address, 1919, 8vo, portrait, 1919. "Thomas Wharton Jones," with portrait, and bibliography of Wharton Jones, 8vo, London, 1921; reprinted from *Brit. Jour. Ophthalmol*., 1921, v, 97, 145. *The Diseases of the Lungs* (with JAMES KINGSTON FOWLER), 8vo, London and New York, 1898. Godlee revised the 6th and 7th editions of Heath's *Practical Anatomy*, 8vo, 24 coloured plates, London, 1885 and 1888. Appendix, "Superficial and Surgical Anatomy" (with G.D. THANE), in Quain's *Anatomy*, 10th ed., 8vo, London, 1896. *Two Cases of Bronchiectiasis,* etc (with Charles Theodore Williams), 8vo, London, 1886. "Stretching of the Facial Nerve for the Relief of Spasm of the Facial Muscles" (with W. ALLEN STURGE), 8vo, London, 1881; reprinted from *Clin. Soc. Trans.*, 1881, xiv, 44. "The Doctors and Mr. Lloyd George. Reply of the Royal Colleges" (with Sir THOMAS BARLOW), a letter in *The Times*, 1912, Feb. 15. *Six Papers by Lord Lister, with a Short Biography and Explanatory Notes by Sir Rickman J. Godlee, Bt., K.C.V.O.* (Medical Classics Series), 8vo, portraits, coloured plates, etc., London, 1921. *See also* Holmes and Hulke's *Surgery*. A further list of pamphlets is contained in a volume of *Pamphlets and Reprints*, presented to the Library by Lady Godlee after Sir Rickman's death. Among the 37 titles are a number not mentioned in the foregoing bibliography.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000221
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cheyne, Sir William Watson (1852 - 1932)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-11 2012-06-27
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372409372409
Occupation General surgeon Member of Parliament Naval surgeon
Details The only child of Andrew Cheyne of Ollaberry, Shetland and Eliza Watson, his wife (d. 1856), was born off Hobart's Town, Tasmania, on 14 December 1852. His father (d. 1867) was the owner of ships trading in the South Sea islands. His parents dying young, Cheyne was brought up by his uncle, who was the Minister of Fetlar, one of the Shetland Islands. He was educated in the name of William Watson at the local grammar school until 1864, when he went to the Aberdeen Grammar School. In November 1868 he entered King's College, Aberdeen, where he remained until the summer of 1870. He entered the University of Edinburgh in May 1871, resuming his full name of William Watson Cheyne, but symptoms of incipient tuberculosis prevented him from taking the full medical course. He devoted himself therefore to chemistry and obtained the first university prize in the subject in his first year and again in his second year. He was anxious to go to sea at this time but was unable to afford the preliminary expense, and he continued his medical studies, hoping to get the position of a ship's surgeon. In 1872 he won medals for anatomy, physiology, and chemistry, becoming the possessor of twelve such medals before he graduated. The courses of surgery, physiology, and practical anatomy were so arranged in his second year as to leave the hour 12-1 free. One wet day in October 1872 during this interval he drifted for the sake of shelter and warmth into Joseph Lister's lecture room, was fascinated by what he heard, the chemistry of anaesthetics, and attended the full course in 1872-73. At the end of the course it happened that the examinations for the physiology and the Lister class prizes were held on the same day. Chyene entered for both, tied with his chief competitor in physiology, both obtaining 99 per cent marks, in the morning and gained the Lister prize with 96 per cent marks in the afternoon. This success brought him prominently under the notice of Lister, at whose suggestion he applied for a dressership and was selected out of a class of 200-300 students. Cheyne graduated M.B., C.M. with first-class honours in the university and, again at Lister's suggestion, applied for the post of house surgeon at the Royal Infirmary. As there was no vacancy for a year, Cheyne, who had been left a legacy of £150, visited Strassburg and Vienna in the autumn of 1875. On his return to Edinburgh he began some bacteriological experiments and won the Syme bacteriological scholarship, which was of the value of £100 a year and was tenable for two years. He served as house surgeon to Lister from October 1876 and was appointed demonstrator of anatomy in the university. One spring morning in 1877 he awoke in his lodgings to find Lister standing beside his bed with the news that he was going to London as surgeon to King's College Hospital. He said that he had accepted the invitation on condition that he might bring his own house surgeon and he asked Cheyne to accept the post. Cheyne was overjoyed, and with him went John Stewart as senior assistant, W. B. Dobie and James Altham as dressers. Lister with this team took over the wards at King's College Hospital in the winter of 1877-78, and Cheyne acted as house surgeon until he was chosen additional surgical registar to the hospital in 1879, with special charge of Lister's patients, when he was succeeded by John Stewart as house surgeon. Cheyne's position as a resident in the hospital at first was neither easy nor pleasant. He had to contend with the open hostility of the nursing staff who were Sisters of St John and looked upon surgery as a hand-maid of nursing and an incentive to the high church ritual to which they were devoted; the other surgeons, his colleagues, were merely apathetic and the students, finding that the methods taught had no examination value, attended Lister's lectures in such small numbers that Cheyne was often present to assist in forming an audience. As there was no immediate prospect of making a living Cheyne entertained some thoughts of entering the Indian Medical Service. Lister, however, came to the rescue and gave Cheyne a retaining fee of £200 a year to administer anaesthetics for him and share with R. J. Godlee, F.R.C.S., the work as his private assistant. In 1879 he passed in immediate succession the examinations for the Membership and Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England; in 1880 he gained the Boyleston medical prize and gold medal; in 1881 he won the Jacksonian prize for his essay on the history, principles, practice, and results of antiseptic surgery, and in 1889 he was awarded the triennial Astley Cooper prize. Gerald F. Yeo, F.R.C.S., resigned his office of assistant surgeon at King's College Hospital in March 1880 to devote himself wholly to experimental physiology. Cheyne was appointed in his place, becoming surgeon in October 1887 and consulting surgeon on 25 October 1917. At the Royal College of Surgeons Cheyne was a Hunterian professor of comparative anatomy and physiology in 1888, 1890, and 1891, and a Hunterian professor of surgery and pathology in 1892. He delivered the Bradshaw lecture in 1908 and the Hunterian oration in 1915. From 1902 to 1907 he was a member of the Court of Examiners and a member of the Council from 1897 until 1918, becoming President in 1914-16. In 1924 he was awarded the first Lister medal in recognition of his contributions to surgical science, and in the same year he delivered the Lister memorial lecture which was afterwards published. His war service was considerable. During the South African war he served as a civil consulting surgeon to the forces and was created C.B. In 1908 he received a commission as surgeon rear-admiral in the Royal Naval Reserve and saw active service during the war of 1914-18, first with the fleet in the Dardanelles and afterwards at the naval hospital in the lines at Chatham. For these services he was created a K.C.M.G., and in 1919 was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Orkney and Shetland with the rank of vice-admiral. He retired from practice in 1917, and was then elected M.P. for the Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews; from 1918 to 1927 he represented the combined Scottish universities. He spoke rarely and confined himself strictly to medical subjects. The House always listened to him with attention not unmixed with amusement, for he addressed it as though he was lecturing to a class. He married: (1) in 1887 Mary Emma (d. 1894), daughter of William Servanté, of Plumstead, by whom he had two sons, Joseph Lister Cheyne, lieutenant-colonel, Military Cross, in command of the 16/5th Lancers until 18 Janaury 1933, who succeeded to the title, and Hunter Cheyne; (2) in 1894 Margaret (d. 1922), daughter of George Smith of Lerwick, by whom he had one son, who predeceased his father, and a daughter. He died in a nursing home after a prolonged illness on 19 April 1932. Watson Cheyne rose to the top of his profession. He owed his position in part to the accidents of fortune, but mainly to his indomitable pluck and perserverance. An early and favoured disciple of Lister, he did much to promote the spread of antisepsis both by example and precept. He was not endowed by nature with a great degree of originality and was sometimes wrong in his deductions, but he clung firmly to the principles he had learnt from his great master. A good and safe surgeon, he was not a brilliant operator; as a speaker a certain shyness taught his hearers to look to the matter rather than to the manner of what he said. Accident made him a London surgeon. His blue eyes, open countenance, bluff and hearty manner showed him to be a Norseman by heredity and that his real home was the sea. W. G. Spencer, F.R.C.S. wrote of him: "He gave at King's College Hospital a flamboyant account of Koch's tuberculin to those invited, including C. Macnamara, F.R.C.S. and myself. There were two children in Macnamara's ward at Westminster Hospital with advanced hip-joint disease. On repeating Watson Cheyne's prescription and injecting tuberculin, both had acute suppuration and quickly died; no further use was made of the remedy. Operations for cancer of pharynx: he operated very well, but by removing the pillars of the fauces rendered the patients liable to fatal pneumonia by deglutition, as distinguished from the tongue operations then done in front of the fauces." *Publications*: For reprints of his articles up to 1896 see Surgeon General's Library, Washington, *Index Catalogue* 2nd Series, v.3, p.413. *Antiseptic surgery: its principles, practice, history, and results.* London, 1882; German translation 1883. Jacksonian prize essay; original MS. in College library. *Manual of antiseptic treatment of wounds, Ibid.* 1885. *Suppuration and septic diseases.* Edinburgh, 1889. *Abstract of all cases of tubercular disease…treated..with tuberculine.* London, 1891. *The treatment of wounds, ulcers, and abscesses. *Edinburgh, 1894; Philadelphia, 1895. *Tuberculous disease of bones and joints, its pathology, symptoms, and treatment.* Edinburgh, 1895; 2nd ed. London, 1911. *The objects and limits of operations for cancer.* Lettsomian lectures. London, 1896; New York, 1896. *Treatment of wounds* (Bradshaw lecture R.C.S.). London, 1908. *Lister and his achievements *(1st Lister lecture R.C.S.). Ibid. 1925. *Three orations: the Lister centenary. Ibid. *1927. *Manual of surgical treatment,* with F. F. Burghaard, 6 parts. London, 1899-1903; new edition, 5 volumes. Ibid. 1912-13. Editor of *Recent essays by various authors on bacteria in relation to disease.*New Sydenham Society, London, 1886.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000222
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Makins, Sir George Henry (1853 - 1933)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-11 2012-03-14
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372410372410
Occupation Military surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Born at St Albans, Herts, 3 November 1853, the only son of George Hogarth Makins, MRCS, and his wife Sarah Ellis. His father practised medicine at Walton-on-Thames and was Master of the Society of Apothecaries in 1889, but his chief interests lay in chemistry and metallurgy. He was at one time professor of chemistry at the Middlesex Hospital, and was advisor to H.M. Mint in matters concerning the coinage. He also played the organ at Hook Church, Surrey, having previously made a pitch-pipe for the vicar, which is preserved in the church. George Henry Makins was educated at the King's Collegiate School, Gloucester, and entered St. Thomas's Hospital, London in 1871, when George Rainey lectured and William Anderson was demonstrator of anatomy. He was house physician to J. Syer Bristowe in 1876, and at the end of his term of office went to Bethlehem Hospital, where he made a life-long friendship with Sir George Savage, who was afterwards superintendent of the hospital. From Bethlehem he went as house surgeon to the Seamen's Hospital at Greenwich, and then returned to St Thomas's, where he was house surgeon during the year 1878 to Francis Mason and William MacCormac. He spent some months at Halle and Vienna in 1879, and on his return to London in 1880 he was appointed resident assistant surgeon at St Thomas's Hospital, a post he held for five years. During this period he worked with Charles Smart Roy, who was then superintendent of the Brown Institute in the Wandsworth Road. He was elected surgical registrar to St Thomas's Hospital in 1885, and became assistant surgeon at the Evelina Hospital for Children. In 1887 he was elected assistant surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital in place of Francis Mason, becoming surgeon in 1898, and resigning under an age limit in 1913. His services at this time were so well recognized that he was given the title of emeritus surgeon with the care of patients for an additional term of two years. During 1887-99 he was demonstrator of anatomy in the Medical School, and in 1890 he succeeded Edward Nettleship as dean of the School. In this position he did much to complete the school buildings by the addition of two wings. In 1900 he was appointed lecturer on anatomy conjointly with William Anderson. His war service began in November 1899, when he accompanied Sir William MacCormac to South Africa as a civilian consulting surgeon, at the beginning of the Boer War. He first treated the wounded at the base, but was at the front during the fighting about the Modder River and with Sir Frederick Roberts' advance to Bloemfontein and Pretoria. For his services he was decorated C.B. He returned to England in 1900 and in 1901 published *Surgical experiences in South Africa*, which became a textbook at the Staff College and was used both in France and Germany. In 1908 he joined the Territorial Force, received a commission as major RAMC, à la suite, and busied himself with work for the British Red Cross at Devonshire House. In September 1914 he left for France as consulting surgeon, having Sir A. A. Bowlby as his colleague. He landed at St Nazaire and gradually made his way to Paris, where he worked for a short time in the British hospitals. From Paris he moved with G.H.Q. to St Omer, and spent a short time at Boulogne with F. F. Burghard and Percy Sargent as his colleagues. He finally took over the supervision of the newly established hospital centres at Camiers and Étaples, and made frequent trips up the line to the front. At Étaples he established a research centre, where new methods of wound treatment were put on trial. He left France in July 1917 and was appointed by the Government of India chairman of a commission to report on the British station hospitals. The Commission occupied seven months, which were spent in travelling over 11,000 miles in a special train, reporting and inspecting on hospitals all over India. Whilst in India he heard that H. M. King George V had conferred upon him the unusual honour of Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George. He returned home in March 1918 and retired from military service with the rank of major-general. He then gave up private practice, left 49 Upper Brook Street, and moved to 33 Wilton Place. He was for some years a member of the executive committee and later chairman of the Athenaeum Club. It was during his chairmanship that an additional storey was added to the Club buildings. At the Royal College of Surgeons Makins was a member of the board of examiners in anatomy for the Fellowship, 1884-94; and a member of the Conjoint examining board, 1894-99. He served on the Court of Examiners 1901-08; elected to the Council in 1903, he was a vice-president in 1912 and 1913 and president 1917-20. In 1913 he delivered the Bradshaw lecture, and in 1917 he was Hunterian orator. In April 1929 he was awarded the honorary gold medal of the College in recognition of his services, more especially in arranging and describing the specimens in the Army Medical War Collection. He was for some years treasurer of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, and chairman of the distribution committee of the Hospital Sunday Fund. He married in 1885 Margaret Augusta (d. 1931), daughter of General Vesey Kirkland of Fordel, Perthshire, and widow of Major-General B. Fellowes; there were no children. As Miss Kirkland she accompanied her father wherever he was engaged in military service; as Mrs Fellowes she went with her first husband to South Africa, the West Indies, and Ireland. When he died in 1879 she entered the Nightingale School of Nursing at St Thomas's Hospital and, after a short training, was selected by Florence Nightingale to accompany Sir Frederick Roberts' force to the Transvaal in February 1881. On her return to England she was appointed sister-in-charge of Leopold ward at St Thomas's Hospital, and in 1882 she was seconded for service in the Egyptian war. She again returned to St Thomas's Hospital, and in 1884 was amongst the first to receive from Queen Victoria the decoration of the Royal Red Cross, which had been instituted in the previous year. She accompanied her second husband, G. H. Makins, to the Boer War in 1899. During the war of 1914-18 she was in charge of the Hospital for Facial Injuries in Park Lane. Makins died after a short illness at 33 Wilton Place, S.W., on 2 November 1933, the eve of his eightieth birthday; he was buried in Kensal Green cemetery. He left £1,000 to St Thomas's Hospital Medical School's war memorial fund. Makins was possessed of great administrative and constructive ability, which was shown so early that MacCormac as secretary-general of the International Medical Congress held in London in 1881 made him the assistant secretary. In this position Makins, by his mastery of detail, did much to ensure the running of the huge meeting, whilst MacCormac took general control and by his personality and linguistic powers supplemented the work. In 1913 Makins as treasurer was most helpful at the International Medical Congress, which was again held in London. As a surgeon he stood in the first rank, skilful, imperturbable, conservative, but resourceful. His wartime experience made him especially interested in diseases and wounds of the blood-vessels. As a man he was certainly the best loved surgeon of his generation. Absolutely honest in thought and purpose, he was a genuine friend, and had a keen desire to help in every good cause. Courteous to all, quiet and unassuming, he was seen at his best sitting before the fire in an old jacket with a pipe in his mouth and his elbow on his knee. In disjointed sentences and with a characteristic smile he would then thresh out a difficult problem in surgery, or give good practical advice. When necessity arose he spoke impressively, shortly, and always to the purpose. Tall, but of a spare and active habit, he took early to mountaineering and was a member of the Alpine Club. He was too a skillful dry-fly fisherman, and shared a cottage on the Test with Sir George H. Savage. A bronze bust by Mrs Bromet stands in the inner hall at the Royal College of Surgeons; it does not do him justice. Makins himself presented it to the College in 1931. *Publications:* *Surgical experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900, being mainly a clinical study of the nature and effects of injuries produced by bullets of small calibre.* London, 1901; 2nd edition, 1913. A case of artificial anus treated by resection of the small intestine. *St Thos. Hosp. Rep.* 1884, 13, 181. Rickets, in Treves, *System of surgery,* 1895, 1, 363. Surgical diseases due to microbic infection and parasites. *Ibid.* 1895, 1, 294. Injuries of the joints; dislocations, in Warren and Gould, *International text-book of surgery*, 1899, 1, 589. *Gunshot injuries of the arteries* (Bradshaw lecture, R.C.S.). London, 1914. *On gunshot injuries to the blood-vessels, founded on experience gained in France during the great war 1914-1918.* Bristol, 1919. *Operative surgery of the stomach,* with B. G. A. Moynihan. London, 1912. The influence exerted by the military experience of John Hunter on himself and the military surgeon of today. (Hunterian oration, R.C.S.). *Lancet,* 1917, 1, 249. *Autobiography*:- typescript copy, with portrait-photograph, in the R.C.S. library.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000223
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Goodlad, William ( - 1844)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-06-12 2012-02-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372698372698
Occupation General surgeon
Details Practised as a surgeon in Bolsover, then in Bury, and finally in Mosley Street, Manchester, where he was Surgeon to the Union Hospital. He died at his residence at Cheetham Hill on Feb 14th, 1844. He became known as a medical author by winning the Jacksonian Prize in 1812 with his Essay entitled "Diseases of the Vessels and Glands of the Absorbent System", republished as *A Practical Essay on the Diseases of the Vessels and Glands of the Absorbent System. To which are added Surgical Cases with Practical Remarks,* 8vo, London, 1814. On his title-page it appears that this republication is the Jacksonian Essay in substance, and we also infer from the dedication that he received his professional training at the Manchester Infirmary as pupil of its Surgeon, Robert Wagstaffe Killer, to whom he dedicates his book "as a token of respect for his abilities, and of gratitude for his friendship". The book was published by Goodlad in German in conjunction with Carmichael and Henning under the title *Ueber die Skrofelkrankheit*, the translator being J L Choulant (Leipzig, 1818). His Jacksonian Essay in MS (4to) is in the College Library. PUBLICATIONS: In addition to the work mentioned, Goodlad further published:- "Observations on Mr Barlow's Theory on the Origin of Urinary Calculi." - *Edin. Med. and Surg. Jour.*, 1809, v, 438. "Observations on Purulent Ophthalmia." - *Ibid.,* 1810, vi, 15. "Case of Inguinal Aneurysm, Cured by Tying the External Iliac Artery." - *Ibid.*, 1812, viii, 32. "Additional Observations on the Treatment of Scrofula." - *Ibid.*, 1815, xi, 204. "Observations on Diseases which are produced by Irritation in the Urethra." - *Lond. Med. Repos.*, 1814, ii, 449. "History of a Tumour Successfully Removed from the Face and Neck, by previously Tying the Carotid Artery." -* Lond. Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1816, vii, 112. *A Letter to Sir B. C. Brodie containing a Critical Inquiry into his Lectures illustrative of Certain Local Nervous Affections*, 8vo, London, 1840.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000514
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Bland-Sutton, Sir John (1855 - 1936)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-18 2012-03-22
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372412372412
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon Obstetric and gynaecological surgeon Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Born at Enfield Highway on 21 April 1855, eldest son and second of the nine children of Charles William Sutton, who had a farm where he fattened stock, killed it and sold it in Formosa Street, Maida Hill. His mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph Wadsworth, a Northamptonshire farmer. Bland-Sutton says that he learnt from his father to stuff birds, beasts, and fishes, to charm warts and to pull teeth; from his mother an intimate knowledge of the Bible. Educated at the local school, he acted there for two years as pupil teacher with the intention of becoming a schoolmaster, but being a biologist at heart he determined to become a doctor as soon as he had the money necessary to pay the fees. He attached himself therefore to the private school of anatomy kept by Thomas Cooke, F.R.C.S., which then occupied a tin shed in a disused churchyard in Handel Street, just off Mecklenburgh Square. Here he learnt anatomy, and taught it to lazy and backward medical students until he had earned enough to pay the fees at the Middlesex Hospital. He entered there as a student in October 1878 and was immediately appointed prosector of anatomy, (Sir) Henry Morris being lecturer on the subject. In 1879 he was advanced to be junior demonstrator, became senior demonstrator in 1883 and lecturer 1886-96. In 1884 he was Murchison scholar at the Royal College of Physicians. Two years later he was elected assistant surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital, with the proviso that he should remain in London during the months of August and September, when the senior surgeons were accustomed to take their annual holiday. He performed his duties thoroughly, and devoted himself especially to pelvic operations upon women. In 1886 he became assistant surgeon to the hospital for women, then a small institution in the Fulham Road, and was promoted surgeon six months later with charge of fifteen beds. Here he soon acquired fame as an operating surgeon, and disarmed criticism by welcoming professional men and women to the operating theatre and by publishing his results widely in the medical papers. In 1889 he changed his name by deed pool from J. B. Sutton to John Bland-Sutton. In 1905 he became surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital and filled the post until 1920, when he resigned and was made consulting surgeon. During his tenure of office he was a most liberal supporter of the hospital. In 1913 he presented to it the Institute of Pathology, which was built on the site of the museum, of which he had been curator from 1883 to 1886. To the hospital chapel he gave a beautiful ambry, a piscina, and a font, and made considerable contributions towards the cost of the mosaic pavement in the baptistry. He also assisted largely in the purchase of a playing field for the students of the medical school. At the Royal College of Surgeons he won the Jacksonian prize in 1892 with his essay on diseases of the ovaries and the uterine appendages, their pathology, diagnosis and treatment. In 1885, 1886, 1887 and 1889-91 he gave the Erasmus Wilson lectures on the evolution of pathology. He was elected a member of the Pathological Society in 1882, and served on the council of the society from 1887 to 1890 but held no other office. He was an examiner in anatomy for the Fellowship in 1895. He was a Hunterian professor of comparative anatomy and physiology for the years 1888-89 and gave a lecture again as Hunterian professor in 1916; was Bradshaw lecturer in 1917; and Hunterian orator in 1923. Elected to the Council in 1910, he was vice-president in 1918, 1919, and 1920, and was President for the years 1923, 1924, and 1925, being preceded by Sir Anthony Bowlby and succeeded by Lord Moynihan. In 1927 he was elected a trustee of the Hunterian collection. During the war he was gazetted major, R.A.M.C.(T.) on 16 September 1916 and was attached to the 3rd London General Hospital at Denmark Hill. The surroundings and discipline of a military hospital proved uncongenial, and in 1916 he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel, placed upon an appeal board, and directed to collect he specimens of gunshot wounds which formed a unique display in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, till they were destroyed by the bombing of 1941. Always interested in animals, their habits and diseases, Bland-Sutton became a prosector at the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park in 1881 whilst he was still a student at the Middlesex Hospital. He retained his interest in the gardens throughout his life, and in 1928 was made vice-president of the Zoological Society of London. In 1891-92 he lectured on comparative pathology at the Royal Veterinary College in Camden Town in succession to Prof. John Penberthy, F.R.C.V.S. He was president of the Medical Society of London 1914; president of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland 1929; president of the Royal Society of Medicine 1929; president of the International Cancer Conference held in London in 1928. He was, too, a Knight of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem from 1924. He married: (1) in 1886 Agnes Hobbs of Didcot, who died in 1898; and (2) in 1899 Edith, the younger daughter of Henry Heather Bigg. She survived him but there were no children by either wife. Lady Bland-Sutton died in 1943 and was by her will a most generous benefactress to the College. She founded a research scholarship in memory of her husband, and also bequeathed a suite of Chippendale furniture for the president's room, and the silver table ornaments made for the dining hall at 47 Brook Street, mentioned below, as well as much other furniture. Bland-Sutton died after a short period of failing powers at 29 Hertford Street, Mayfair on Sunday, 20 December 1936. His body was cremated, and memorial services were held in the chapel at the Middlesex Hospital on the 23rd and in Westminster Abbey on 29 December. *Portraits*: Three-quarter length, sitting, in presidential robes, by the Hon. John Collier, R.A., hangs in the Royal College of Surgeons of England. It is a good likeness and is well reproduced in black and white in Sir A. E. Webb-Johnson's eulogy in the *Middlesex Hospital Journal*, 1937, 37, 4, and in the *Annals* of the College, 1950, 6, 362. An earlier portrait by Collier is at the Royal Society of Medicine. The Middlesex Hospital has a marble bust by Sir George Frampton, and a drawing by George Belcher. Bland-Sutton's professional life was typical of his generation. Born into a large middle-class family where money was not too abundant, he had to rely entirely upon himself. This he did, as was then usual amongst the younger men who aspired to the staff of a teaching hospital, by coaching. Some did this by taking a house, marrying, and securing as many resident pupils as possible, each of whom paid an inclusive fee of £126 a year. The less fortunate, like Bland-Sutton, had to content themselves with private classes at £8 to £10 a head, for a three months' course of tuition. The direct way to promotion was through the dissecting room, for as yet pathology was little more than morbid anatomy. Sutton was a first-rate teacher and soon made enough money to travel as far as Vienna. He climbed the ladder by the ordinary steps, slowly at first as a junior demonstrator of anatomy, then as curator of the hospital museum, next as assistant surgeon to a small special hospital, finally as assistant surgeon, surgeon, and consulting surgeon to his own hospital, the Middlesex. He had to fight every step of the way, for there was plenty of competition and continuous opposition, but he had good health, a constant fund of humour, was a loyal friend, and was generous in giving both publicly and in private. He had hobbies, too, which sustained him: a love of travel, a curiosity about animal life and a certain artistic sense. Throughout his life he was a general surgeon, more especially skilled in abdominal operations. Of slight physique and with very small and bright eyes, he had a curious bird-like habit of rapidly cocking his head sideways when he wished to emphasize a joke or a witty remark. A fluent writer and an entertaining after-dinner speaker, he retained and perhaps cultivated his native and marked cockney accent. He lived at 22 Gordon Street, Gordon Square, from 1883 to 1890; at 48 Queen Anne Street, 1890 to 1902, and thereafter at 47 Brook Street, Grosvenor Square. Here he built in 1905, at the back of the house, a copy, reduced by one-third, of the Apodama or audience chamber at Susa or Shushan (in Persia) where it is recorded in the Book of Esther that Ahasuerus gave the great feast and afterwards invited Vashti to show her beauty to the assembled princes and people. In the reduced copy of this splendid hall Bland-Sutton and his gifted wife delighted to exercise a generous hospitality; Rudyard Kipling, and old and intimate friend, was a frequent guest. The house and the hall were pulled down for an extension of Claridge's Hotel, and Bland-Sutton moved finally to 29 Hertford Street, Mayfair. *Publications*: Comparative dental pathology, in J. Walker *Valedictory address*, Odontological Society, 1884. *A descriptive catalogue of the pathological museum of the Middlesex Hospital*, with J. K. Fowler. London, 1884. *An introduction to general pathology*, founded on lectures at R.C.S. London, 1886. *Ligaments, their nature and morphology*. London, 1887; 4th ed. 1920. *Dermoids*. London, 1889. *Surgical diseases of the ovaries and Fallopian tubes*. London, 1891. *Evolution and disease*. London, 1890. *Tumours innocent and malignant*. London, 1893; 7th ed. 1922. Osteology in H. Morris *Treatise of anatomy*, 1893. Tumours, and Diseases of the jaws in Sir F. Treves *System of surgery*, 1895, 1. *The diseases of women*, with A. E. Giles. London, 1897, 8th ed. 1926. Tumours in Warren and Gould *International textbook of surgery*, 1899, 1. *Essays on Hysterectomy*. London, 1904. *Gall-stones and diseases of the bile-ducts*. London, 1907; 2nd ed. 1910. Tumours in W. W. Keen *Surgery*, 1907, 1 and 1913, 6. *Cancer clinically considered*. London, 1909. *Essays on the position of abdominal hysterectomy in London*. London, 1909; 2nd ed. 1910. *Fibroids of the uterus*. London, 1913. *Misplaced and missing organs* (Bradshaw lecture R.C.S.). London, 1917. *Selected lectures and essays*. London, 1920. *John Hunter, his affairs, habits and opinions (the Hunterian Oration)*. London, 1923. *Orations and addresses*. London, 1924. *The story of a surgeon*. London, 1930. *On faith and science in surgery*. London, 1930. *Man and beast in eastern Ethiopia*. London, 1911. *Men and creatures in Uganda*. London, 1933.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000225
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Woolriche, Stephen (1770 - 1856)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372594372594
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on June 3rd, 1770, became Surgeon's Mate, and on May 30th, 1794, was gazetted Surgeon to the 111th Foot. From March, 1798, to May 22nd, 1806, he was on half pay, when he exchanged into the 4th Foot. On June 18th, 1807, he was appointed Surgeon to the Staff. He was on active service in Holland in 1799, at Copenhagen in 1807, in the Peninsula 1812-1814, and was present at the Battle of Waterloo. He was promoted to Deputy Inspector of Hospitals on May 26th, 1814, and Brevet Inspector of Hospitals on Dec 9th, 1823. He retired on half pay on May 25th, 1828, and on July 22nd, 1830, was promoted to be Inspector-General of Hospitals. He was one of the seven officers of the Army Medical Department upon whom the CB (mil) was conferred for the first time in 1850. He lived in retirement at Qwatford Lodge, Bridgnorth, and died on Feb 29th, 1856.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000410
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Lawrence, John ( - 1863)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-06-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372704372704
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Pulborough, Sussex, on Nov 3rd, 1779, the eldest child of Peter Patrick Martin, who had migrated from Edinburgh whilst the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 was still fresh in the popular recollection and settled in Pulborough as a general practitioner. A clever and well-informed man, he advocated opinions far in advance of his time, and secured a good social and professional position. He continued to frequent medical schools to the advanced age of 91 and was hence known as the ‘Old Student’; his death occurred suddenly in Paris. Thomas Martin was encouraged by his father to read widely. At the age of 15 he joined the Petworth Corps of Yeomanry, embodied owing to the threat of invasion from France, and served for two years. On Oct 1st, 1796, he entered the United Hospitals of Guy’s and St. Thomas’s. Cline was at that time lecturing on anatomy with Astley Cooper as his assistant and demonstrator. Fordyce at seven o’clock in the morning was teaching to large classes the practice of medicine, including materia medica and chemistry; Haighton, the principles of midwifery and of physiology. Among the surgeons were William Cooper, the uncle of Astley Cooper. Those were the days of dissecting under difficulties, when bodies for dissection were obtained through a class of men later named ‘resurrection men’. Students were little cared for as regards libraries and reading-rooms, but the Medical and Physical Society of Guy’s was already flourishing. The students of those days visited in turn the other hospitals, to witness at St Bartholomew’s operations by Sir James Earle, the son-in-law of Pott, and by Abernethy, then Assistant Surgeons; at the London Hospital Sir William Blizard was in high repute; at Westminster, Lynn, who had assisted John Hunter in the formation of his Museum, was pre-eminent as an operator. Thomas Martin became early familiar with private practice as locum tenens for Prince at Tunbridge Wells. After eighteen months he went in the same capacity to ‘Old Newnham’ at Brighton, and then to Wicher, of Petersfield. After that, on Feb. 19th, 1810, he settled in practice at Reigate, and a few years after married a Miss Charrington. At Reigate he built up a large practice. In 1812 he was one of the Associated Apothecaries and Surgeon-Apothecaries who, led by Dr G Mann Burrows, agitated for medical improvements by legislation. He was the founder of the Surrey Medical Benevolent Society, acting as Secretary, and later as President, being present at fifty-four annual meetings. When Sir Charles Hastings founded the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association at Worcester, Martin supported him by forming the South-Eastern Branch, which he and his son, P Martin, fostered with Pennington, Bird, and Ansell. Martin started the “Institute of Medicine, Surgery and Midwifery” for the spread of their opinions as to medical reform. The Poor Law Medical Officers chose Martin as Treasurer, their object being to obtain redress for grievances under the New Poor Law System. In 1830, perceiving that the population around him was becoming troublesome in a variety of ways from the want of rational evening employment and recreation, Martin, with the support of Lords Somers and Monson, suggested the formation of a Mechanics Institute on the new Birkbeck type, and this became a recognized benefit to the neighbourhood. In addition, he established or helped other institutions - the Cottage Gardeners’ Society, the Victoria Club Benefit Society, the Surrey Church of England Schoolmasters’ and Schoolmistresses’ Association, a Savings Bank for adults and a Penny Bank for children, National Schools at Reigate and at Red Hill, church buildings, etc. Benevolence was his watchword throughout life, and he was courteous, tactful, strong of will, an early riser, marvellously energetic both in body and in mind. From his father he inherited a liking for medical classics; he was musical, and after getting through a hard day’s work in the saddle, although the byways around Reigate might be knee-deep in mud, he would ride the twenty miles into London to listen to an oratorio and ride home again to breakfast and his daily round. When he was 85 he drove twice in one week to the Crystal Palace at Sydenham to listen to a Handel Festival Society Concert, and in the same week to the Harveian Oration by Dr H W Acland, and was aggrieved because he could not also visit the Royal Academy on the same day; for he had lost a leg in an accident, replaced by an artificial limb. Just before he died he read through the latest edition of Carpenter’s *Physiology*. He died at Reigate on Feb 12th, 1867. His son, P Martin, who had been in practice with his father, predeceased him; William Martin (q.v.) survived him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000520
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Richardson, William Worsley (1915 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-02-01 2007-03-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372513372513
Occupation General surgeon
Details ‘Bill’ Richardson, who ultimately became one of only two consultant general surgeons at Chase Farm Hospital in Enfield, had an interesting and varied career before studying medicine. Although he was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1915, his early childhood was spent in Fiji, where his father, Pud, grew bananas for export, and his mother, Margaret, was a schoolteacher and governess. At the age of nine, Bill was sent to board at Barker College in Hornsby, then to Suva Grammar School in Fiji, and finally at Knox Grammar School at Wahroonga, New South Wales. Whilst boarding at Knox, his father moved to Innisfail, North Queensland, to the South Johnston Sugar Mill. Bill left school at 16 to work in the laboratory of the Colonial Sugar Refinery. During the Depression years he lived in a boarding house, but later rented a flat in Kirribilli, with views over Sydney harbour and the new bridge. He lived a ‘bohemian’ life, mixing with a group of young people, including his future wife, Margaret. He then moved to Auckland, to work in a New Zealand sugar refinery. He and Margaret married in 1936, although it was unheard of for an employee to marry so young. A son, Marcus Worsley, was born in 1940, and the following year Bill joined the Navy, where he served on motor gun-boats escorting larger vessels through the Mediterranean. He returned to New Zealand in 1945. The Repatriation Board supported his studies at Otago University in Dunedin, which Bill supplemented by back-breaking work during vacations in a brewery. His wife was the first medical artist at Otago Medical School. Graduating at the age of 36, he became house surgeon at Dunedin Hospital under Michael Woodruff who, though a fiery and unpredictable chief, supported Bill Richardson in his application for a Nuffield fellowship to study in England. Arriving in London with his wife and son in 1954, he worked for two years at the Bland-Sutton Institute of the Middlesex Hospital. A daughter, Patricia Margaret ('Patsy'), was born in 1956. During this time he worked on breast cancer, as an assistant pathologist, and produced the Scarff-Bloom-Richardson classification of the disease in 1957. He published (jointly with Bloom) ‘The natural history of untreated breast cancer (1805-1933)’, based on the records of the Middlesex Hospital Cancer Charity. Having passed the FRCS in 1955, he became registrar to Oswald Lloyd-Davies, who became his mentor and long-time friend, and, working with R Vaughan Hudson, developed an interest in thyroid diseases. He was appointed consultant at Chase Farm Hospital in 1960. He was an excellent mentor to staff at all levels, retaining links with overseas trainees and teaching them with enthusiasm In addition to his heavy workload for the NHS in general and vascular surgery and urology, he also developed a substantial private practice. In the seventies, when private practice was under threat, he helped set up the private North London Nuffield Hospital, which opened in 1976. He loved to travel and spoke fluent Italian. When his wife developed encephalitis, he nursed her back to health. After she died in 1989, he returned to Adelaide, where he enjoyed a quiet independent life in his own home, near his family, reading, listening to music and continuing to travel. He died on 27 July 2005, after a short illness. He is survived by Marcus and Patsy. He also had a grandson, Thomas.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000326
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Kemp, Hubert Bond Stafford (1925 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-02-01
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372514372514
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Hubert Bond Stafford Kemp, known as ‘Hugh’, was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital (RNOH), Stanmore. Born on 25 March 1925, the son of John Stafford Kemp and Cecilia Isabel née Bond, he was educated at Cardiff High School, the University of South Wales and St Thomas’ Hospital. After various junior appointments, he received his orthopaedic training at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Hospital in Oxford and was appointed senior lecturer at the Institute of Orthopaedics at the RNOH in 1965 with honorary consultant status. In 1974 he relinquished the senior lectureship to become a full consultant at the RNOH, a post he held until his retirement in 1992. With the incorporation of the RNOH into the Bloomsbury Health Authority in 1984, he became a consultant at the Middlesex Hospital. He was honorary consultant orthopaedic surgeon to St Luke’s Hospital for the Clergy between 1975 and 1990. His main surgical interest lay in the treatment of musculo-skeletal tumours and, between 1985 and 1991, he was a member of the MRC working party on osteosarcoma. He was chairman of the London Bone Tumour Unit from 1985 to 1991. He contributed to *Orthopaedic diagnosis* (Berlin/New York, Springer Verlag, 1984), *Postgraduate textbook of clinical orthopaedics* (Bristol, Wright, 1983, second edition Oxford, Blackwell Science, 1995), *Ballière’s clinical oncology* (London, Ballière Tindall, 1987-8) and *Essential surgical practice* (third edition, Oxford/Boston, Butterworth-Heinemann,1995). Hugh Kemp was a fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association and was awarded the Robert Jones prize and gold medal in 1969 for a dissertation on Perthes disease, winning a Hunterian professorship in the same year. He was also a member of the British Orthopaedic Research Society and the International Skeletal Society. He was an accomplished artist and enjoyed fishing. He died from heart failure on 25 November 2004, leaving a wife, Moyra (née Odgers), whom he married in 1967, and three daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000327
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Shah, Feroz (1927 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Smith, Beatrice Gwendoline (1903 - 1990)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Atherstone, William Guybon (1814 - 1898)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-10-07 2016-01-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372893372893
Occupation General surgeon
Details Eldest son by his first wife of Dr John Atherstone, who married Elizabeth Damant, of Fakenham. He probably came from Atherstone in Warwickshire, she of a Flemish family settled in Norfolk after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Commissary-General John Damant married into the Korsten family, of Cradock Place, Port Elizabeth, and induced John Atherstone and Lieut Damant, of Fakenham, in Norfolk, to emigrate in 1820 in the ss *Ocean* as one of the settlers whom the Earl of Bathurst was introducing into the Colony. John Atherstone had been House Surgeon at Guy's Hospital, and he brought his wife, William Guybon, and three daughters with him. In August, 1820, he became District Surgeon of Uitenhage for a year, and then went to Cape Town in 1828, where he practised successfully for five years. In 1828 he was District Surgeon at Grahamstown and practised there until he was killed by falling out of a cart in 1858. Two of his sons by a second wife, and therefore half-brothers to William Guybon Atherstone, also practised medicine in the Colony. William Guybon Atherstone, born at Sion Hill, Nottingham, on May 27th, 1814, accompanied the family to South Africa and was educated at Grahamstown School in the old 'Messenger House' and afterwards at Uitenhage. He went with his father to Cape Town, where he attended the natural history lectures given by Dr Andrew Smith (afterwards Sir Andrew Smith, who, many years later, as Director-General of the Army Medical Department, was made a scapegoat for the medical scandals of the Crimean War). In 1829 he returned to Uitenhage, where he attended the academy kept by Dr Rose Innes, and seems to have stayed there for two years, as he was apprenticed to his father in 1831. In 1834 he acted as staff medical officer under Sir Benjamin D'Urban on the outbreak of the second Kafir war, and in 1886 he received his certificate as a qualified medical man. He then went to Europe and attended the lectures of Stokes and Graves in Dublin during the year 1887, and qualified MRCS Eng in the following year after being one of Michael Faraday's pupils. He was joined by his friend Fred W Barber, spent a year in Paris, and took the degree of MD at Heidelberg in 1839. He then returned to England, and having on April 13th, 1839, married his cousin, Catherine Atherstone, sailed back with her in the Robert Small, a vessel of 1000 tons. He settled in practice with his father in Grahamstown in December, 1839, and spent the rest of his life in the Colony except for a short period in 1876, when he again visited England. He at first acted as Gaol and District Surgeon at Grahamstown, and in 1847 he performed an operation under ether which must have been one of the first administrations in South Africa. He also did some original work jointly with his father in investigating horse-sickness and tick-fever. In 1857 and again in 1866 he was keenly interested in the development of railways, urging the annexation of the Congo area so that a line might be carried from the Cape to Cairo, and in 1878 he tried to get a telegraph line carried overland to Egypt. Both projects were defeated, but he familiarized his contemporaries with these schemes, which were afterwards carried into effect. Although Cecil J Rhodes was in South Africa during his lifetime there is no evidence that the two kindred spirits ever met. He fostered, too, the infancy of ostrich-farming at Heathertown Towers and Table Farm. As a prospector with a sound working knowledge of geology he made many important journeys, visiting Namaqualand in 1854; Stormberg in 1870; Kimberley and the Lydenburg goldfields in 1871. In 1867 he identified the first diamond found at Colesberg Kop - now Kimberley - examining it under a polariscope and trying its hardness on glass. The window pane on which he experimented has been framed and preserved. In 1888 the Kimberley Companies clubbed together and presented him with a 4-carat diamond in recognition of his services. Atherstone maintained his interest in science to the end of his life, for he was much more than a prospector, being a good field botanist, an artist, and a very competent musician. He founded in 1855 the Medico-Chirurgical Society which afterwards became the Albany Museum, esteemed the second best in the Dominion. In 1887 he helped to found the Bacteriological Institute in Grahamstown, and in 1888 he initiated the South African Geologists' Association. He became a member of the Legislative Assembly for Grahamstown in 1881, and in 1884 he was elected to the Legislative Council (the Upper House) for the Eastern District, a position he retained until 1891. His eyesight having failed about 1887 he retired from practice, but in 1896 he consented to serve as President of the South African Medical Congress when it met in Grahamstown. He died at Grahamstown on June 26th, 1898, his family consisting of two sons and three daughters. Atherstone was a man brimful of original ideas, who must be looked upon as one of the great pioneers of South Africa. He was energetic to a marvellous degree and he had the knack of imparting his enthusiasm to all about him. No one excelled him in patriotic feeling; he loved South Africa and everything in it. Geology was his particular branch, and his observations were keen and practical. There were few persons at the Cape in the early seventies of the nineteenth century who understood the bearing of geology on economics; but Atherstone fully appreciated the importance of thoroughly unravelling the geological problems of the country and thus assisting in its development. He had often to battle against adverse influences, but his good work lives after him and science in South Africa owes him much. He received no great recognition:- The Royal College of Surgeons elected him a Fellow of twenty years' standing in 1888, and he was made an Honorary Corresponding Secretary of the Royal Colonial Institute and a Fellow of the Geological Society. He left behind him an account of his life and works in 155 closely written notebooks. They begin in 1843, have not been published, and are still in possession of the family.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000710
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Beaumont, William Rawlins (1803 - 1875)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-12-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372982372982
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in Beaumont Street and entered as a student at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he gained the favourable notice of John Abernethy, and subsequently of Amussat, under whom he studied anatomy in Paris. He was for a time Surgeon to the Islington Dispensary. In 1841 he settled in Toronto and was appointed Professor of Surgery in King’s College, now the University, in 1843, retaining the Chair until 1853, acting at the same time as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. He succeeded Dr Widmer as Consulting Surgeon to the Toronto General Hospital, and had charge of the hospital at Port Colborne during the Fenian raid in 1866. Whilst he was Surgeon to the Islington Dispensary he invented an instrument for the insertion of quilled sutures in cases of vesicovaginal fistula. It is described and figured in the *London Medical Gazette*, 1836-7, xix, 335, and also in *Medico-Chirurgical Transactions*, 1838, xxi, 29, P1. 1. The instrument had scissor handles and lock, the blades were curved like calipers; one blade ended as a curved pointed-eyed needle and was armed with a loop of thread. The other arm ended in a slot. On closing the instrument the pointed end penetrated the two margins of the fissure and carried the suture loop through the slot. On the outer side of the slot was a slide ending in a blunt point, which being pushed down, the point passed into and held the loop as the instrument was reopened. A quill could be passed through the loop, and the free ends of the sutures were then knotted over a second quill on the opposite side of the approximated fissures. The title of the paper in the *Medico-Chirurgical Transactions* adds a use for cleft palate. The operation was limited to the soft palate of young children. For this the instrument appears unsuitable. But Beaumont invented a modification, or rather a different instrument altogether, of which an example is preserved in the College Museum (D 34), entitled “Beaumont's Sewing Machine Suture Carrier for Operations on Cleft Palate”. It is a straight instrument carrying a needle, like the present sewing-machine needle armed with thread; the thread was caught by a fine hook and held as the needle was drawn back. At right angles are two flat jaws closing like a bracket by pushing down a slide. These grasped the margins of the cleft palate, and the needle carried the loop of thread through them. The hook held the loop as the needle was withdrawn, and on shifting the grasp on the palate and again protruding the needle, a chain stitch was made by the second loop passing through the first. This is apparently the instrument referred to by Sir James Paget as tried by Mr Lawrence at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. An annotation in the *Lancet*, 1866, i, 302, stated that Singer took his idea from the Beaumont instrument exhibited in the shop of Freeman, a surgical instrument maker in New York. But the statement is not confirmed by the *Encyclopoedia Britannica*, Art. “Sewing Machine”. (*Vide* A E J Barker.) Beaumont also described and figured in the *London Medical Gazette*, 1837, xx, 122 (Figs. 1, 2) a vaginal speculum which revived an idea found in Hippocrates. He had used it in his vesicovaginal fistula operations. Five steel blades were hinged at one of their ends, much as the ribs of an umbrella. The place of the projecting stick of the umbrella was taken by a rounded cap, over the ends of the blades. After the instrument had been passed closed into the vagina, a handle occupying the place of the stick of an umbrella, was rotated to separate the blades, after which the handle was withdrawn and the fistula came into view between two of the separated blades. Beaumont also published papers in 1833, “On the Treatment of Fracture of the Leg and Forearm by Plaster of Paris”, and in 1838, “On Polypi of the Uterus, Nose, and Ear”. In 1841 he went to Canada, and in 1843 was elected Surgeon to the University, then of King’s College, later of Toronto; and Surgeon to the Toronto General Hospital, where he gave Clinical Lectures. He described in the *Medico-Chirurgical Transactions*, 1850, xxxiii, 241, with woodcut, the case of a boy, aged 7, from whom he had removed a cartilaginous tumour weighing 8 oz and measuring 3 4/16 x 2 8/10 in in diameter. The tumour first noticed three months before, being then the size of a nutmeg, had replaced completely the left side of the mandible, except the condyle and its neck, as far forwards as the second bicuspid tooth. The boy healed quickly after disarticulation of the left half of the lower jaw. Increasing difficulty of vision ending in blindness enforced Beaumont’s retirement in 1873, and he was elected Emeritus Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto. He died on Oct 13th, 1875, in Toronto. Beaumont was an accomplished anatomist, perfectly versed in surgery, most painstaking and correct in diagnosis, most skilful in the use of the knife, engrossed in his subject, and capable of communicating knowledge. As a man he was singularly polite, as gentle as a woman, neat in person, and possessed of a charity which thinketh no evil. His work at the Toronto General Hospital, where he delivered his clinical lectures, was worthy of his great teacher Abernethy. Publications: In addition to the articles already mentioned, Beaumont also published: Clinical lectures on *Traumatic Carotid Aneurysms*, 1854, and on *The Several Forms of Lithotomy*, 1857. Beaumont’s Lithotomy Knife is preserved in the Museum of the College (G 106 and 8). In the *Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1863, xlvi., 174, drawing, p.176, Beaumont described a variation of Langenbeck’s and Graefe’s iridectomy hook or forceps. A fine pointed hook protected by a guard was passed through a corneal puncture, and on withdrawing the guard the hook caught in the iris. In 1862 he described a wound of the orbit penetrating 5 1/2 in, yet followed by recovery.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000799
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ballantyne, John Chalmers (1917 - 2008)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Neil Weir
Publication Date 2009-10-21
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372896372896
Occupation Otolaryngologist ENT surgeon
Details John Ballantyne, a genial, kindly, hard-working man who gave much to British and world otolaryngology, was a consultant otolaryngologist at the Royal Free Hospital, London. He was born during a Zeppelin raid on Nottingham on 26 September 1917. He was a triplet – preceded by his sister, Jeannie, and followed by his identical twin brother, Rollo. His father, the Reverend John Charles Ballantyne, was a Unitarian minister. His mother, Muriel, née Taylor, was ethereal, artistic and musical. All her children, including the triplets’ older brother David, skilfully played the piano. Ballantyne was raised in Liverpool and attended St Christopher’s preparatory school. On the recommendation of their uncle Arthur Ballantyne (professor of ophthalmology at Glasgow), John and Rollo, who had decided to read medicine, took their first MB at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, London. This was during the deanship of Charles Wilson (later Sir Charles and Lord Moran), who positively encouraged students to take the MB (as opposed to qualifying with the conjoint board examination only). He must have welcomed the versatile Ballantyne twins who enjoyed athletics and swimming and founded the St Mary’s Music Society. They followed an accelerated course to enable them to qualify early, in 1942, in order to join the Services during the Second World War. The captains Ballantyne joined the RAMC and were posted to Gibraltar. John was attached to the Royal Scots and began training as an otolaryngologist with R Scott Stevenson, whose interest in deafness and ease in writing left a marked impression. John’s first paper to be published in the *Journal of Laryngology and Otology* (JLO) was co-authored with his mentor, Scott Stevenson, and was entitled ‘The conservative treatment of chronic suppurative otitis media’. After the war, he completed his Army service in Hamburg and Oxford, before, in 1947, becoming registrar to Jack Angell-James in Bristol. From 1949 to 1950 he combined the posts of registrar to the Royal Cancer Hospital, London, with a research registrar post in the audiology unit at Golden Square Hospital, working with Edith Whetnall. This post stimulated John’s interest in deafness and the structure and function of the inner ear. After three successful years as senior registrar to John Simpson and Ian Robin at St Mary’s he gained his first part-time consultant post at the Royal Northern Hospital in 1953. At the same time he became assistant director to the audiology unit at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital and also otologist to the London County Council (LCC). This experience led to the publication of his first book, *Deafness* (London, J & A Churchill, 1960). It was written to help parents of deaf children and the adult deaf and has been used by generations of audiologists in training. John’s second daughter Deborah, an audiological scientist, translated the book into Italian. After five years at the audiology unit and the LCC, John moved on to a consultant post at the Royal Free Hospital. His senior colleague, W G Scott-Brown, introduced him to private practice in Harley Street and to his textbook *Diseases of the ear, nose and throat* (London, Butterworth), first published in 1952. The two Johns, John Ballantyne and John Groves, helped Scott-Brown with the second (1965), third (1971) and fourth (1979) editions, with each succeeding edition becoming a volume larger. John Ballantyne edited the second and third editions of *A synopsis of otolaryngology* (Bristol, J Wright) in 1967 and 1978 with his former chiefs from St Mary’s. He edited both the ear volume and the nose and throat volume for the third edition of Rob and Smith’s *Operative surgery* (London, Butterworth) in 1976, contributing chapters on stapedectomy and nasal surgery. In 1986, he repeated the exercise for the fourth edition, this time with Andrew Morrison and D F N Harrison as his co-editors of the ear, nose and throat volumes, respectively. Experience gained from a sabbatical with Hans Engstrom resulted in the joint publication of a paper on the morphology of the ‘vestibular ganglion cells’. This work stimulated his collaboration with Imrich Friedmann (who was for many years the JLO’s adviser in pathology) in co-editing a book in 1984 entitled *Ultrastructural atlas of the inner ear* (London, Butterworth). John Ballantyne was much in demand as a teacher, examiner and committee member. He never refused these duties, although in 1971 he is minuted as having seriously questioned the value of the repetitious work of the British Medical Association (BMA) otolaryngology group. It ceased to function the same year. And yet, if he could help to lessen deafness no task was too small. (He agreed, for example, to represent the BMA otolaryngology group on a British Standards Committee studying noise from toys.) At the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) John chose as the title of his 1976 section of otology presidential address, ‘The hearing ear; variations on a theme of Helmholtz’, which enabled him to utilise his knowledge and love of music. He memorably played the passage in Smetana’s first string quartet (from ‘My life’), in which the composer described his own tinnitus. During his time as honorary secretary of the British Association of Otolaryngologists (from 1972 to 1977), he also represented the association on the council of the Royal College of Surgeons. He examined for the FRCS in England and Ireland, and was a civilian consultant in otolaryngology to the Army. As a distinguished editor of the JLO (from 1978 to 1988), John Ballantyne, with only the help of his tireless secretary, performed all the tasks of sub-editing and proofreading himself, including hand-writing letters to each author. He co-authored with Ted Evans and Andrew Morrison an influential report (published as the first JLO supplement in 1978) on cochlear implantation (CI), which paved the way for further work by the Medical Research Council and then the later adoption of CI by the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS). As chairman of the DHSS advisory committee on services for hearing impaired people (ACSHIP) from 1974 to 1980, he introduced hearing therapists and contributed to the establishment of specialist audiological physicians. For the British Academic Conference in Otolaryngology, he served as honorary secretary and later chairman of the general committee for the conferences in Edinburgh and London respectively, and was invested as master of the seventh conference in Glasgow in 1987. In the same year, he was elected as an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. John Ballantyne delivered the 16th James Yearsley lecture in 1970 on the subject of ototoxicity, the Sir William Wilde lecture in 1975 and the Toynbee lecture in 1984. He was awarded the Harrison prize in otology of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1971, and the Jobson Horne prize of the British Medical Association in 1982, and was a member of the Collegium Oto-Rhino-Laryngologicum Amicitiae Sacrum. For 20 years he was a most supportive director of the Britain Nepal Otology Service. John Ballantyne was honoured with a CBE for services for the deaf in 1984 and received the honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, the College of Surgeons of South Africa and the Royal Society of Medicine. In retirement he was a founder member of the RSM’s Retired Fellows’ Society. The last meeting he was able to attend at the RSM was in December 2006, when fittingly he chaired a lecture given by his daughter, Jane. He for many years was administrator of the RSM Music Society, ending up as president. He never lost his youthful curiosity or humour, and was always reading, learning and wanting to know more. While in Gibraltar in 1942 he met Barbara Green, a Wren from Bristol. They married in 1949 and she survives him with their two daughters, Jane, an anaesthetist and professor of pain control, University of Philadelphia, USA, and Deborah, chief audiological scientist at ‘La Sapienza’ University in Rome. John Ballantyne died on 25 June 2008, aged 90.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000713
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bateman, Patricia Jane (1943 - 2008)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by John Blandy
Publication Date 2009-10-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372897372897
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details Pat Bateman was a consultant ophthalmologist in Cambridgeshire. She was born in Bristol on 11 May 1943, the daughter of Sam Roylance, headmaster of Cottam Grammar School in Bristol, and Emily Grace, a consultant paediatrician. She received her medical education at St Bartholomew’s and, after qualifying, completed junior posts at Bart’s and at Redhill General Hospital, before specialising in ophthalmology. From 1980 to 1998 she was a locum consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Doddington and, from 1992 to 2003, an associate specialist at Hinchingbrooke Hospital, Huntingdon. A modest person with great talents, she lived for serving others, and family, friends and patients were never disappointed. Her incisive mind and endless patience made her a good medical ophthalmologist: her calligraphic hand and clear notes were legendary. Her courage and sense of humour were valued, though she was never afraid to give her moral view when necessary. Her early surgical work ran into conflict with her wish to be a present and supportive mother, and the winners were the many consultants who knew they had a conscientious colleague who would always stay to the end of the clinic and complete what was in front of her. Pat was on her local parish council for 11 years and during her time as chairman made great improvements to the village, turning its clay pit into a nature reserve, where a commemorative stone has now been placed. Pat was a churchwarden at Little Shelford for a time, but in her latter days found her spiritual home and comfort at the Unitarian Memorial Church, Cambridge. She obtained an MSc in medical anthropology before she retired, which was the spring board into her archaeological, anthropological and biographical interests in retirement. She was also a proficient watercolour artist with an excellent sense of colour. She married Anthony Malcolm Bateman, a general practitioner at Great Shelford. Pat was adored by her family: her daughter Wigs works in international public health in Sydney, Australia, where she is married to Zac, an academic psychologist. Pat’s son, David, is a design engineer in London. Her courage in the last weeks of her life was inspiring, after her stage four glioma had been diagnosed. She died on 7 July 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000714
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Connolly, Rainer Campbell (1919 - 2009)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by T T King
Publication Date 2009-10-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372898372898
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Campbell Connolly was a consultant neurosurgeon at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. He was born on 15 July 1919, the elder son of George Connolly, a solicitor who had served in the First World War, and his wife, Margaret, née Edgell, of Brighton. His grandfather, Colonel Benjamin Bloomfield Connolly was a distinguished military surgeon who had been principal medical officer of the Cavalry Brigade at El Teb (Sudan) and was commander of the Camel Bearer Company on the expedition to relieve General Gordon. Connolly’s education was at Lancing College, Bedford School and St Bartholomew’s Hospital, from which he graduated in 1941. Owing to the shortage of junior medical staff, he was immediately employed as a locum anaesthetic houseman and gave a number of anaesthetics for Sir James Paterson Ross who had, at the start of his career, an interest in neurosurgery. This position led to Connolly’s appointment as a house officer at the wartime hospital, Hill End, St Alban’s, to which the professorial surgical department of St Bartholomew’s had been evacuated. Though Paterson Ross was nominally in charge of neurosurgery, J E A O’Connell was the neurosurgeon within the professorial unit. While working at Hill End, Connolly was seconded to Sir Hugh Cairn’s head injury hospital at St Hugh’s, Oxford, to learn about electroencephalography, which it was thought might be useful in neurosurgical diagnosis. Oxford was one of the few places in the country where this new technique was being explored. This experience put him in contact with Cairns, who was responsible for the organisation of neurosurgery in the Army. Connolly eventually spent almost a year at St Hugh’s. Early in 1943 he found himself posted to an anti-aircraft battery in south London, where he had little to do until his commanding officer told him that he was to accompany the battery to a destination in West Africa. Alarmed, he wrote to Cairns and was almost immediately removed and placed in a holding post at Lancing. Connolly was one of the last survivors of the young neurosurgeons who staffed the mobile neurosurgical units that had been established by Hugh Cairns at the beginning of the Second World War. These saw action in France and Belgium in 1940, and the first one was captured at Dunkirk. Subsequently another six were formed and deployed in the Western Desert, Italy, Northern Europe and Burma. Through the influence of Cairns, Connolly was posted to mobile neurosurgical unit No 4 in Bari, Italy, when the senior neurosurgeon of the unit, Kenneth Eden died suddenly of poliomyelitis in October 1943. With its head, John Gilllingham, and John Potter, he accompanied the unit in the campaign up the east coast of Italy, ending at Ancona with the rank of major and with a mention in despatches. This unit treated over 900 head injuries from the battles at the Gothic Line and the Po Valley, as well as those from partisan activities in Yugoslavia. Many of the Yugoslavian patients had open head wounds for which treatment had been delayed by difficulties in transport, a subject on which Connolly contributed a paper to *War supplement No.1 on wounds of the head* published by the *British Journal of Surgery* in 1947 (*Br J Surg* 1947;55(suppl1):168-172). The results were surprisingly good, the mortality being 20 per cent. The use of penicillin, first clinically tested by Florey and Cairns, and then by Cairns in mobile neurosurgical unit No 4 in North Africa, was considered to be an important factor in these results. After VE day, Connolly returned to England in July. He was posted to the Far East, spending six unproductive months in India following the ending of the war in August. After demobilisation, he returned to Bart’s to a post created to accommodate ex-servicemen such as himself whose training and careers had been affected by war service. He obtained the FRCS in 1947. Cairns had plans for an organised training scheme for neurosurgeons, something not achieved until many years later, and he offered Connolly an appointment at Oxford to a training programme of some years’ duration, beginning as a house surgeon. At the same time Cecil Calvert, in Belfast, who had done much of the surgery at St Hugh’s during the war, invited him to the Royal Victoria Hospital as a consultant. The rigours of being a houseman at Oxford under Cairns were known to Connolly: he took the offer in Belfast and stayed there for four years. In 1952 he moved to the Midland Centre for Neurosurgery in Birmingham. In 1958 he was appointed as the second neurosurgeon to O’Connell at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and remained there until his retirement as senior neurosurgeon in 1984. He was also in private practice and established a reputation especially for judgement and skill in intervertebral disc surgery. He was on the staff of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and the King Edward VII Hospital for Officers and was a civilian consultant to the Royal Navy from 1971 to 1984. In the College he was Hunterian Professor in 1961, speaking on cerebral ischaemia in subarachnoid haemorrhage. He was president of the section of neurology of the Royal Society of Medicine from 1980 to 1981, a Freeman of the City of London and a liveryman of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. He married Elisabeth Fowler née Cullis, who was an anaesthetist at St Hugh’s. He died of cancer of the prostate on 14 August 2009, survived by his wife, two daughters and a son.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000715
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Dahrendorf, Ralf (1929 - 2009)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by John Blandy
Publication Date 2009-10-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372899372899
Occupation Politician sociologist
Details Ralf Dahrendorf was a German sociologist and politician who became director of the London School of Economics (LSE). He was born in Hamburg on 1 May 1929, the son of Lina and Gustav Dahrendorf, a member of the Social Democrat party in the Reichstag of 1932, where the Nazis had a majority. Just months later, in 1933, when Hitler gained power, Gustav was arrested. On his release he took his family to Berlin, but continued to work against the Nazis and was sentenced to seven years hard labour in 1944 for his part in a plot against Hitler. Meanwhile Ralf was printing pamphlets against the SS and, at the age of 16, was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, until he was released, starving, in 1945. Ralf entered Hamburg University to study classics, philosophy and social science, gaining his PhD in 1952. He was then awarded a Leverhulme scholarship to study at the LSE and gained his second PhD in 1956. In 1958 he returned to Hamburg as professor of sociology, and then went from one distinguished chair to another, at Columbia University, New York, Tübingen, University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Harvard and Konstanz. He was elected to the Bundestag in 1969 when Brandt formed his first coalition government, and became a commissioner in the European Union in Brussels in 1970, which did not inhibit him from becoming one of its sharpest critics. In 1973 he was offered the chance to become director of the LSE. A year later he was invited by the BBC to give the Reith lecture, which he gave on the topic of liberty, survival and justice in a changing world. He was insistent that governments should plan for a period longer than the usual length of a parliament. After ten years at the LSE, he returned to his chair at Konstanz and then in 1986 spent a year in New York on a research grant. From 1988 to 1997 he was warden of St Antony’s College in Oxford. After becoming a naturalised British citizen in 1988 he joined the Liberal Democratic party and in 1993 received a life peerage. He was married three times, his first two marriages ending in divorce. By his first wife, Vera, he had three daughters – Nicola, Alexandra and Daphne. His second wife was Ellen and his third wife, Christine. He died on 17 June 2009.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000716
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Glenn, James Francis (1927 - 2009)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by John Blandy
Publication Date 2009-10-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372900372900
Occupation Urologist
Details Jim Glenn was an internationally celebrated urologist, a former chief of urology at Duke University and dean of Emory University school of medicine. He was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and educated at the University High School there, from which he went to Rochester University and afterwards to Duke University to study medicine, qualifying in 1952. He specialised in urology and completed a surgical residency at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston and trained in urology at Duke University. He served briefly on the academic staff at Yale and at Wake Forest University, before returning to Duke in 1963 as a professor and later a chief of urology. He went on to Emory University in Atlanta as dean of the medical school and was later president of Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. He then returned to Kentucky, where he was director of the Markey Cancer Center at the University of Kentucky from 1989 to 1993 and chief of staff at the University of Kentucky Hospital from 1993 to 1996. He was acting chairman of surgery at the University of Kentucky from 1996 to 1998. He was a born organiser, becoming president of the American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons in 1993. A past president of the Société Internationale d’Urologie, in 2007 he received that organisation’s highest honour. He was a former governor of the American College of Surgeons and a former president of the American Urological Association. He received the Association’s lifetime achievement award in 1994. He was a frequent visitor to England, and always went out of his way to welcome visitors from the UK. He was made an honorary fellow of our College in 1987. He was awarded the St Paul’s medal of the British Association of Urological Surgeons in 1996. He died on 10 June 2009, leaving his widow Gay née Elste Darsie, two sons (Cambridge F Glenn II and James M Glenn), two daughters (Sarah Brooke Glenn and Nancy Carrick Glenn) and seven grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000717
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Gray, Thomas Cecil (1913 - 2008)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-10-21
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372901372901
Occupation Anaesthetist
Details Thomas Cecil Gray was the first professor of anaesthesia at Liverpool University and undoubtedly one of the great British pioneers of modern anaesthesia. He was born in Liverpool on 11 March 1913, the son of Thomas Gray, a local publican, and Ethelreda Unwin. A devout Roman Catholic, Cecil was educated at the Convent of the Sacre Coeur in Bath and then Ampleforth. It had been his intention to enter the Monastery, but being caught smoking in the bushes within two months of becoming a novice monk made it clear to all except Cecil that this was not his vocation. To the dismay of his mother, he returned to Liverpool to study medicine. Graduating with distinction in anatomy in 1937, he became a trainee in general practice in the city, before purchasing a practice in Wallasey with the help of his father. He rapidly became fascinated by anaesthesia, which at that time was mostly practiced on a part-time basis by general practitioners. Under the tutelage of Robert Minnitt, he rapidly collected the 1,000 cases required for the diploma in anaesthesia, which he obtained in 1941, and shortly afterwards became a full-time anaesthetist to several hospitals in the city of Liverpool. His academic career began in 1942 with his appointment as demonstrator in anaesthesia in the University of Liverpool. Largely as the result of Minnitt’s mission to ensure proper teaching and training in anaesthesia, Cecil was appointed reader and head when the academic department was established in 1947. In 1959, he was awarded a personal chair in anaesthesia, which he held until his retirement from active practice in 1976. He was the first postgraduate dean of the faculty of medicine in Liverpool University from 1966 to 1970 and then dean of the faculty of medicine until 1976. Very early in his full-time career in anaesthesia Cecil Gray and John Halton set out to investigate the feasibility of inducing neuromuscular blockade by means of a derivative of wourali, the crude South American arrow poison which was eventually purified as d-tubocurarine chloride by Burroughs Wellcome. Within a year they had collected 1,200 surgical cases in which the drug had been used safely. Their first public dissertation ‘A milestone in anaesthesia – d-tubocurarine’ was delivered to the section of anaesthesia of the Royal Society of Medicine on 1 March 1946. Much often sceptical discussion about the safety of this potential poison took place at subsequent meetings of the section. In April 1948, Cecil Gray attempted to allay this scepticism with his detailed report on 8,500 patients anaesthetised by a group of enthusiastic colleagues across the Liverpool region who had willingly adopted the technique of hypnosis, muscle relaxation and controlled ventilation without serious morbidity or mortality, thereby confirming Cecil’s firm belief that one of the most potentially dangerous of drugs was one of the least toxic when used carefully. With modification this technique has survived nationally and internationally to the present day. He must also be remembered for his major contribution to education and standards of training in anaesthesia. Aware of the changes which would follow the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948, he saw the need for a high standard of formal training and postgraduate education in anaesthesia and an examination structure similar to the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons. On becoming reader and head of the new department of anaesthesia in the University of Liverpool in 1947, he persuaded the dean of the Liverpool Medical School and the board of clinical studies to support the establishment of a postgraduate course. The first enrolments took place in October 1948. Within a year the hospital authorities within the area accepted the proposals for a full-time course and empowered the academic department to recruit junior staff for the hospitals throughout the region. Most of the surgeons tacitly agreed to the presence of trainees in the operating theatres. All trainees would attend lectures until 11am each morning, including Saturday, and all were required to have had some anaesthetic experience prior to enrolment. This course was the first in the United Kingdom, and by 1952 had expanded its horizons, drawing students from the Indian sub-continent, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Africa and Australia. Cecil’s profound interest in medical education and his organisational skills led to his election as a foundation member of the board of the faculty of anaesthetists of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1948. He served as vice-dean from 1952 to 1954 and as dean from 1964 to 1967. He also played an active role in the foundation of the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiology and the European Congress of Anaesthesiology. He was invited as either a visiting professor or lecturer to many university departments and anaesthetic societies overseas. In 1948 Cecil and Edward Faulkner Hill were appointed as joint editors of The British Journal of Anaesthesia and oversaw a gradual improvement in coverage, quality and circulation. He retired from this role in 1964. Cecil was invited to deliver numerous eponymous lectures. His many honours included the Clover medal, the James Young Simpson gold medal, the Henry Hill Hickman medal of the Royal Society of Medicine, the George James Guthrie medal, the gold medal of the Royal College of Surgeons, the John Snow silver medal and the Magill gold medal of the Association of Anaesthetists. In 1982 he was awarded a gold medal by Pope John Paul II in recognition of the role which he had played in the organisation of the Pope’s visit to Liverpool. In 1961 he became the first anaesthetist to be awarded the Sims Commonwealth travelling professorship of the Royal Colleges of Physicians, Surgeons and Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. This provided the opportunity for Cecil and his wife to travel to Australia, where they spent three months engaged in educational activities and valuable interchange of ideas. He wrote numerous papers and co-edited several editions of *General anaesthesia* (London, Butterworths), which became the ‘Liverpool Bible’ of anaesthesia. His last publication in 2003 was the biography of Richard Formby, the founder of the Liverpool Medical School at the Royal Institution, which subsequently moved to the Infirmary in 1844. Cecil was president of the section of anaesthesia of the Royal Society of Medicine, the Association of Anaesthetists, the Liverpool Society of Anaesthetists and the Liverpool Medical Institution. He was active in the British Medical Association and the Medical Defence Union, of which he was vice-president from 1954 to 1961 and again from 1983 to 1988, and served as honorary treasurer from 1976 to 1981. From 1966 to 1983 he was a much respected member of the Liverpool Bench. Cecil, a man of great charm, talent and boundless energy was a gifted teacher, inspiring students, trainees and colleagues with devotion and enthusiasm. His advice, either deliberately sought or volunteered, was always sound. No problem was insurmountable. Consequently he had a profound influence on the lives of many whose progress he followed assiduously and with considerable pride. A good friend and mentor of many, friendships made endured. Cecil was married twice. In 1937 he married Marjorie (Margot) Kathleen née Hely, a talented amateur actress and artist, by whom he had two children, David (who is a consultant anaesthetist in Liverpool) and Beverley. Marjorie (Margot) died in 1978. In 1979 he married Pamela Mary (Corning). Their son James Frederick was born in 1981. Cecil, a true native of Liverpool, was a generous, entertaining host with a wicked sense of humour. He had a passion for amateur dramatics, as both a player and producer of the Irish Players for over 20 years. An accomplished pianist and opera lover, he was a member of the Royal Philharmonic Society, the Liverpool Welsh Choral Society and the Verdi Society. The night before he died he gave a faultless rendition of Debussy’s ‘Clair de lune’. He died on 5 January 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000718
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Juby, Herbert Bernard (1925 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Neil Weir
Publication Date 2009-10-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372902372902
Occupation ENT surgeon
Details Bernard Juby was a consultant ENT surgeon at the Ipswich Hospital. He was born in Stowmarket, Suffolk, on 9 April 1925, the only son of L H Juby, a draper, and Ethel née Quinton. He was educated at Culford School. His early wish was to be a farmer, but was encouraged by his mother to read medicine. He attended St Bartholomew's Medical School from 1942 to 1947. As a house surgeon to F C W Capps he had an early experience of ENT surgery. After a surgical officer post at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital, where he gained from the influence of Donald Barlow, Juby became an ENT registrar at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital and was later a senior registrar at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital. His training was interrupted by National Service in the RAMC in Berlin. There he rapidly learnt to cope with all surgical emergencies, including salvaging the one remaining upper limb of a brigadier involved in a road traffic accident. Bernard Juby’s interest in ENT must have been maintained during this period as in 1953 he published a paper entitled ‘The incidence of middle ear disease in serving soldiers’ in the *Journal of the RAMC* (*J R Army Med Corps*, 1953 Apr;99(3):115-7). In early 1958 he was appointed as a consultant ENT surgeon at the Dryburn Hospital and the following year to the Durham and Shotley Bridge General Hospital. He longed, though, to return to his native Suffolk and, in 1962, was appointed to the West Suffolk General Hospital in Bury St Edmunds. Three years later, on the retirement of Kenneth Mackenzie, he moved over to Ipswich Hospital, where he continued his ENT practice until his retirement in 1987. Juby’s was a general ENT practice, but he will be remembered for his review paper published in 1969 in the *Journal of Laryngology and Otology* entitled ‘The treatment of pharyngeal pouch’ (*J Laryngol Otol* 1969 Nov;83(11):1067-71)and for his chapters on the same subject in Rob & Smith's *Operative surgery* (London, Butterworth’s, 1986). Bernard Juby represented East Anglia on the council of the British Association of Otolaryngologists and served on council of the section of otology of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was medical officer to Ipswich Town football club. Outside medicine, he built a dry stone wall whilst in Yorkshire. He was a keen golfer and a long-standing member of the Ipswich Philatelic Society. A charming man with a dapper demeanour, Bernard Juby married Elizabeth Birdwood (a Bart’s nurse) in 1949. They had two sons (one a solicitor) and two daughters (one a nurse who died of cancer of the spine at the age of 46 and the other an occupational therapist). Bernard Juby died peacefully in St Elizabeth Hospice, Ipswich, of hepatocellular carcinoma on 22 May 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000719
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Atkins, James Ramsey (1802 - 1869)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372903372903
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born in HM Dockyard at Devonport, where his father held an important office. Educated at a neighbouring Grammar School he was articled at the age of 17 to Dr James Bell, the surgeon to the dockyard. After four years’ apprenticeship, during which time there were opportunities of seeing casualties and attending operations, he came to London and became a student at Carpue’s School and was a pupil of Sir George Tuthill, working at the Middlesex Hospital under Dr Southey and Sir Charles Bell, and later attending obstetric lectures at Guy’s Hospital. He passed for the Navy Board and was appointed Assistant Surgeon to the Royal Naval Hospital at Plymouth, where he came under the notice of Sir Stephen Love Hammick. He retired from the Navy after uncomfortable experiences in HM Sloop Pelorus and became medical superintendent of a private lunatic asylum – Holly House, Hoxton – which he conducted successfully for twelve years before he removed to Stoke House, Newington Green, where, as a licensed proprietor, he received a limited number of mild cases. He died on Dec 24th, 1869, at 29 Lordship Road, Stoke Newington. Publications: Atkins published a work on Mania in 1849 and another on Organic and Animal Life in 1859. He also contributed to the Reports of the Commissioners of Lunacy in 1847 – “Observations on the Medical Treatment of Insanity”, and was the author of several statistical papers relative to insanity.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000720
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First Title value, for Searching Atkins, William (1817 - 1875)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372598372598
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on Aug 25th, 1777. He was Regimental Mate in the 49th Foot from June 17th, 1796, to Jan 23rd, 1797, and Surgeon's Mate on the Hospital Staff, not attached to a regiment, from Jan 24th to April 5th, 1797. He was gazetted Assistant Surgeon to the 13th Regiment of Foot on April 6th, 1797, was transferred to the 14th Dragoons on March 15th, 1799, and became Surgeon to the 4th Battalion of the 60th Foot on April 25th, being transferred to the 63rd Foot on July 25th. He became Staff Surgeon on Aug 27th, 1803, and Deputy Inspector of Hospitals, afterwards Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals (Brevet), on July 17th, 1817. The last-mentioned grade was abolished from 1804-1830, but the rank Deputy Inspector-General (Brevet) seems to have been conferred during that period. Kidd was again gazetted Deputy Inspector-General on Jan 27th, 1837, and became Inspector-General of Hospitals on Dec 16th, 1845, on which date he retired on half pay. He had served in the Peninsular War in 1810-1813, and had devoted his life to the service of his country in various parts of the globe, being stationed at one time at Corfu. He was held in high esteem by his brother officers. He died from bronchitis after a few hours’ illness on Dec 24th, 1849.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000414
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Carpue, Joseph Constantine (1764 - 1846)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-10-18 2016-04-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372599372599
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born on May 4th, 1764, at Brook Green, the son of a gentleman of small fortune descended from a Spanish family. As a Roman Catholic he was educated at the Jesuits' College, Douai, being at first intended for the Church. At the age of 18, before the Revolution, he travelled about France on foot, saw Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette at the dinner table with Philip Egalité, Duke of Orleans, waiting on them. Later, in Paris, he listened to the declamations of Danton, Marat, and Robespierre. This was the beginning of what he continued through life, journeying on foot through Wales and the Highlands of Scotland with Sharon Turner the historian, also through Holland, Italy, Germany, and even, in 1843, the Tyrol. After the Church Carpue next thought about becoming a bookseller in succession to an uncle Lewis in Great Russell Street; then his admiration for Shakespeare turned his thoughts towards the stage, and up to the time of his death he continued to advocate the erection of a colossal iron statue of Shakespeare at the mouth of the Thames. Finally, fixing on surgery, he studied at St George's Hospital under Keate and George Pearson. On qualifying as a surgeon he was appointed Staff Surgeon to the Duke of York's Hospital, Chelsea, in 1799, and, through Pearson, became an ardent vaccinator. The former post he resigned Oct 1st, 1807, because he declined to go on foreign service, but he continued Surgeon to the National Vaccine Institution until his death. At the Duke of York's Hospital he held classes in anatomy with a fee of 20 guineas for the course, and had for years an overflowing attendance. He delivered three courses of daily lectures during the year without intermission except for a few days in summer. He also gave lectures on surgery twice a week in the evening. A strange occurrence happened in 1800. West, President of the Royal Academy, Sir Joseph Banks, and Cosway, agreeing that the classical representation of the Crucifixion was unsatisfactory, called upon Carpue. A murderer was about to be executed. Keate, Master of the College of Surgeons, gave permission. A structure was erected, including a cross, near the place of execution. The executed murderer, whilst still warm, was nailed on the cross, the cross suspended, and after the body had fallen into position, a cast was taken under the direction of Banks. The cast was removed to Carpue's anatomy theatre, and in 1843 was still in existence in the studio of Behnes. In connection with his anatomy teaching Carpue published a *Description of the Muscles of the Human Body*. He took up medical electricity, had a fine plate machine in his dining-room and made many experimental researches, including that on himself for the relief of lumbago, by passing the current through his loins. He published a book on the subject in 1803. On the occasion of the illness of Princess Amelia, at Worthing, Carpue was introduced to the Prince Regent, who talked with him on medical subjects, as he did later when king. Hence, when Carpue published his *Account of Two Successful Operations for Restoring a Lost Nose*, in December, 1815, he dedicated it to the Prince Regent. Carpue began with an historical account of the Tagliacotian operation by tracing the first description of the operation to the Sicilian surgeon Branca in 1442. Tagliacozzi (1546-1599) first noted his operation in his *Epistola ad Hieronymum Mercurialem de Naribus multo ante abscissis reficiendis*, 1587. He described it more fully in *De Curtorum Chirurgia per Insitionem*, libri duo, 1597, which included the well-known engraving of an arm attached to the nose by a flap of skin. Outside Italy the only reported case subsequently had been that by Griffon, of Lausanne, in 1590, mentioned by Fabricius Hildanus. The operation had been popularly confused with transplantation of skin, particularly from the buttock of a donor. Butler, in the 1st canto of his *Hudibras*, had mixed up this transplantation of skin with the superstition about sympathy. The nose restored from the donor's buttock, Butler's 'parent breech', was said to disappear on the death of Nock, the donor, the portion of the donor's spirit, or numen, having to rejoin that of its parent breech, alias Nock- "When the date of Nock was out, Off dropped the sympathetic snout." What had occurred in several instances was healing by first intention when a cut-off nose had been sutured into place at once. Carpue entered upon a long disquisition concerning healing by first intention, and mentioned more or less veracious instances. Yet owing to cold or other causes, a restored nose might shrivel up or slough off. Carpue's attention had been attracted to the description of the Indian method in the *Gentleman's Magazine*, 1794, given by two English surgeons, Thomas Cruso and James Findlay. It was also described in Pennant's *View of Hindoostan*, 1798, ii, 237, as a procedure practised from time immemorial by the caste of the Koomas - potters and brickmakers. His first case was that of an officer the tip of whose nose had sloughed in 1809, not so much the result of syphilis as from the excessive administrations of mercury for hepatitis. There are four plates in illustration of the operation and result. The second case was that of an officer the tip of whose nose had been cut off at the Battle of Albuera, in 1810; Plate V illustrates the deformity and the result of the operation. In both instances an exceedingly good result was obtained considering the surgery of the time. In 1819 Carpue published a *History of Suprapubic Lithotomy*, giving a history of other methods, without adding anything from his own experience, but the book is a useful compendium. Carpue saw the operation performed in Paris by Soubervielle. Franco had pushed up the calculus in a boy's bladder; John Douglas and Cheselden injected water to distend the bladder. In either procedure the fold of peritoneum was likely to be raised. But Frère Côme introduced his sonde-à-dard, by an incision in the perineum, to push forward the wall of the bladder after he had emptied it of urine. Consequently a perforation of the fold of peritoneum was likely. Either this accident, or the over-distension of the bladder causing rupture, was the reason why the operation failed. Suprapubic lithotomy was resuscitated by Carson, who showed that the fold of peritoneum was raised when the rectum was inflated; by Petersen, of Kiel, who carefully distended the bladder; and by the method of Sir Henry Thompson in pushing up the exposed fold bluntly with the fingers. Carpue was also Surgeon to the St Pancras Infirmary, and after seeing at Greenwich Hospital multiple punctures made into inflamed areas, he adopted the practice. It was especially through Sir Joseph Banks that Carpue was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. At the College of Surgeons he was one of the original Fellows but was not elected to the Council. Although successful at first in attracting a large anatomical class, private medical schools died out as the staff of the great hospitals set themselves to give medical instruction systematically and ceased to take private pupils. J F South, although he allowed that Carpue was a very good anatomist, depreciated him for holding private classes. Soon after the opening of the railways to Brighton, Carpue in travelling there put his two daughters in a first-class carriage, whilst he himself with two servants travelled in an open car. A collision occurred which threw him and his servants out upon the line. One of the servants was killed, and Carpue sustained severe contusions. After a tedious process at law he obtained a verdict for damages in the sum of £250, most of which had already been spent in costs. He did not recover, suffered from increasing bronchitis, and died on Jan 30th, 1846. His portrait, as well as a marble bust, was presented to St George's Hospital by his daughter, Miss Emma Carpue, who left St George's Hospital £6,500 and £1000 to the Society for the Relief of the Widows and Orphans of Medical Men. Carpue is described as a tall, ungainly, good-tempered, grey-haired man who wore an ill-fitting suit of black relieved by an enormous white kerchief which encircled his neck like a roller towel. He was a facile draughtsman on the blackboard and thus earned the name of 'the chalk lecturer'. Each pupil was made to repeat after him and in identical words the description of the bone or organ which he had just given. Tom Hood alludes to Carpue in his "Pathetic Ballad of Mary's Ghost":- "I can't tell where my head is gone, But Dr Carpue can. As for my trunk, it's all packed up To go by Pickford's van." Publications:- "Cast of Crucifixion," from an unpublished MS in Carpue's handwriting. - *Lancet*, 1846, I, 167. *Description of the Muscles of the Human Body*, London, 1801. *An Introduction to Electricity and Galvanism, with Cases showing their Effects in the Cure of Disease*, London, 1803. *An Account of Two Successful Operations for Restoring a Lost Nose from the Integuments of the Forehead in the Cases of Two Officers of His Majesty's Army*, to which are prefixed historical and physiological remarks on the nasal operation, including descriptions of the Indian and Italian methods, with engravings by Charles Turner, London, 1818, translated into German, Berlin, 1817. *A History of the High Operation for the Stone by Incision above the Pubes* (with observations on the advantage attending it, and an account of the various methods of Lithotomy from the earliest periods to the present time), London, 1819.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000415
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-11-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372600372600
Occupation Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details George Bancroft-Livingston was a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Lister Hospital, Stevenage. He was born in Ross, California, on 13 October 1920, one of two children of Henry Livingston, a diplomat, and Barbara née Bancroft. He was educated at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, from the age of eight, the second of three generations to attend the school. He went on to study medicine at Middlesex Hospital, qualifying in 1944. From 1946 to 1949 he served as a squadron leader in the RAF, based in Wales. Formerly a senior registrar and research assistant at the Middlesex Hospital, he moved to Belfast in 1953 and became the Barnett tutor in obstetrics and gynaecology in 1954, and subsequently lecturer in midwifery and gynaecology at Queens University, Belfast. He moved to England in 1958 to take up the post of consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist to the North Herts Hospital, Hitchin, and the Luton and Dunstable Hospital, before moving to the Lister Hospital in Stevenage. He was awarded his FRCOG in 1960, and went on to examine for the college, especially in Northern Ireland and Basra, Iraq. George married Stella Pauline Deacon in 1950. They had a son, Mark, who became a general practitioner, and four daughters. George upheld his Catholic faith during his professional life, steadfastly refusing to undertake any abortion work as a gynaecologist. He retired in 1985 and became a Brother of the Order of St John in 1996, receiving his ten-year medal of service posthumously at his funeral. He died suddenly on 16 April 2007 after a short illness.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000416
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Baddeley, William Edward ( - 1869)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Bagshaw, [1] Edward Lloyd (1809 - 1885)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-04 2016-02-05
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372914372914
Occupation General surgeon
Details [2] Received his professional training at St George's Hospital, where he was House Surgeon. Practised at 9a Russell Street, Bath, where he was Surgeon to the Penitentiary, and died at his residence, 13 St James's Square, Bath, on Sept 22nd, 1885. [Amendments from the annotated edition of *Plarr's Lives* at the Royal College of Surgeons: [1] an 'e' is added - making 'Bagshawe'; [2] Son of Sir W G Bagshawe. Entered St George's Hospital as a perpetual pupil under T Rose in 1827]
Resource Identifier RCS: E000731
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bailey, Henry Bennett ( - 1906)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-11-04 2013-08-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372915372915
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at Guy's Hospital, where he gained the second Scholarship in 1869, and afterwards at St Bartholomew's Hospital. House Surgeon for five years at the Loughborough General Hospital and Dispensary, which was called later the Infirmary. He then practised at Grantham, Lincolnshire, first at 21 North Street, then at 35 High Street, and lastly at Vine House. He was Surgeon to the Grantham Provident Dispensary, Medical Officer to the Spittlegate District and Workhouse, Public Vaccinator to the Union, and Medical Referee to various Assurance Societies. He retired to Riversdale, Shelley Road, Worthing, spent the last year or two of his life in travelling, and died at Westleigh, Thrale Road, Streatham Park, SW, in 1905 or 1906. He was Medical Officer to the Actors' Association.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000732
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Schiess, Frank Alfred (1940 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-02-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372518372518
Occupation Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Francis Rankin Kilpatrick, known as ‘Kilp’, was a urological surgeon in London. He was born in Windsorton near Kimberley in Cape Province, South Africa, on 18 September 1908. His father had been a draper’s assistant who emigrated from Northern Ireland to South Africa in 1897, where he flourished, ending up as the owner of his store. He returned only once to Ireland, to bring back his wife, Annie Rankin. He died in 1923, leaving Annie to bring up Kilp (then only 14) and three other children. Kilp and his brother John went to England before the war to study medicine at Guy’s Hospital. Kilp qualified in 1933, and held house jobs and junior surgical posts. He left Guy’s to be RMO at Putney Hospital for a few years, where his reputation grew, and he was invited back to Guy’s. But for the war he would have been appointed to the staff (according to his backer, Nils Eckhoff). Instead he was appointed surgeon to the Emergency Bed Service, working at Guy’s and the Wildernesse (where he was surgeon superintendent). At the outbreak of war Hedley Atkins was responsible for the surgical organisation: Kilp and Sam Wass were the surgical registrars who took turns to deal with the emergency surgery throughout the Blitz, the anaesthetics being provided by another South African, Abe Shein. Those days have been vividly described: the casualties were operated on in an improvised four-table operating theatre in a cellar. The operations went on day and night, even though the hospital itself was heavily damaged. On five occasions the daily total of admissions was more than 100. This intense activity was to be repeated later in the war during the V1 and V2 attacks of 1944 and 1945. After the war Kilp was appointed consultant surgeon to Guy’s in 1946 and to St Peter’s Hospital in 1948. At St Peter’s Kilp was worshipped by the younger RSOs for his meticulous technique of retropubic prostatectomy, which in his hands was notably gentle and bloodless, and for the endless pains he took in teaching. In a day when some surgeons were famous for their arrogance, few people were so courteous and friendly to people of every walk of life. His juniors like his patients regarded him as their friend. He married Eileadh Morton, a radiographer, in 1939. They had three children – Stewart, Bruce and Fiona. He retired to Fittleworth, where he developed a keen interest in bird-watching and photography. He died on 19 August 2005, aged 96.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000331
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wheeldon, Francis Tasker (1917 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Murley, Sir Reginald Sydney (1916 - 1997)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-03-08 2007-03-21
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372520372520
Occupation General surgeon
Details Reginald Murley, known universally to friend and foe alike as ‘Reggie’, was a consultant surgeon at the Royal Northern Hospital and a former President of the College. He was born on 2 August 1916. His father, Sydney Herbert, was a fur trader and a general manager of the Hudson Bay Company. His mother, Beatrice, was a cousin of Lillian Bayliss, founder of the Old Vic theatre. Reggie was educated at Dulwich College, where some of the features of his rugged extrovert personality rapidly became apparent. In 1934 he entered St Bartholomew’s Hospital, then at its zenith as one of the leading teaching hospitals, where he won several prizes in anatomy and physiology. Anticipating that war was inevitable, he joined the Territorial Army early in 1939 and a week before the second world war began found himself in the No 168 City of London Cavalry Field Ambulance, and as a consequence had to wear breeches, spurs, and learn to ride a horse. He travelled widely in the Army, seeing service in Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia, gaining invaluable experience, mainly in plastic surgery. He returned to England in 1944 and was posted as a surgeon to No 53 Field Surgical Unit in France, Holland and Germany, and gained extensive experience of the surgical aspects of modern warfare prior to his demobilisation as a Major. Following his return to civilian life, he was appointed as an anatomy demonstrator at Bart’s. From 1946 to 1949 together he was surgical chief assistant there, with clinical assistantships at St Mark’s and St Peter’s Hospitals. He passed the final FRCS examination in 1946. In the same year, he was appointed consultant surgeon to St Alban’s City Hospital, and in 1952 as consultant surgeon to the Royal Northern Hospital in London. He continued to serve both these institutions with distinction for the remainder of his professional life. He did some excellent research on Geoffrey Keynes’ conservative approach to breast cancer and demonstrated that it had advantages in survival rate over the then widely practised radical mastectomy. He also worked on the detection and prevention of venous thrombosis, was awarded an Hunterian Professorship on this subject, and became an early advocate of emergency pulmonary embolectomy. Although he always saw himself first and foremost as a practising surgeon, by the mid 1940s Reggie became increasingly apprehensive about the introduction of a National Health Service and his interest in, or rather his disillusionment with, medical politics dates from this time. As a senior surgical registrar at a special meeting of the Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons just before the NHS began he had the courage and temerity to criticise the College and the President for “*a tactical blunder which had confused and divided the profession, weakened the position of the BMA and strengthened the hand of the minister*”. Though he and his fellow rebels lost the ensuing vote, Reggie remained opposed to ‘nationalised medicine’ and he firmly believed that the profession had been sold out by the machinations of a few senior members. He was a founder member of the Fellowship for Freedom in Medicine and was its President in 1974. As one of the College’s first surgical tutors and a regional adviser, he was elected to the Council in 1970, and as President on Bastille Day (14 July) in 1977. He devoted himself with his customary vigour to that office: he was frequently controversial, loyally adherent to his principles, acerbic but amusing, argumentative but endearing, and, above all, devoted to the College and its history. He was an accomplished public speaker and punctiliously disciplined in keeping to his allotted time span, which was remarkable given that he was an inveterate chatterer who attempted to dominate every conversation. Much as he enjoyed his three years as President, he came to feel in his latter years that his most important contribution to the College was his eight years as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Hunterian collection. John Hunter, the founder of scientific surgery, was Murley’s hero and his devotion to the collection of Hunter’s specimens knew no limits. Ever alert to the slightest whiff of a threat, he fiercely opposed any attempt to diminish the importance of Hunter in the College’s scheme of priorities. During a particularly difficult period, when his health was already in decline, he earned the unfailing support of the elected trustees during a long period of arduous meetings and only relinquished the chair when he felt that the ship was in calmer waters once more. Reggie’s appointment to the 1st Cavalry Division in 1939 was apposite, for this ambience suited his attributes well, and he remained a cavalryman at heart throughout his life. With his booming, resonant voice, accompanied by a hearty guffaw, staff and patients alike became aware of his arrival long before he appeared in person. Not for him the constraints of devious Machiavellian diplomacy which he generally termed ‘pussy-footing around’. He remained firmly wedded to the Cardigan principle of a full-blooded frontal assault, sabre drawn, no matter how great the odds. It was these very qualities which made him such a steadfast ally and stalwart opponent: no one was left long to linger in anguished doubt as to the respective camp to which they had been assigned. Reggie was without question a member of that rapidly dwindling band of men known as ‘characters’: a quality composed of a judicious mixture of intelligence, ability and individuality; difficult to define but instantly recognisable features common to many men who made our country great and now in very short supply. In 1947, he married Daphne Butler née Garrod who had been twice widowed in the war; he inherited a step daughter, Susan, and they had a further two daughters, Jennifer and Hilary, and three sons, David, Gavin and Anthony. There are nine grandchildren. Sadly his final years were clouded by steadily progressive disability and he died on 2 October 1997.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000334
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Alpar, Emin Kaya (1943 - 2005)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-03-15 2007-08-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372521372521
Occupation Trauma surgeon
Details A trauma surgeon, Emin Alpar was a former medical director of the Birmingham Accident Hospital. He was born on 30 August 1943, in Istanbul, Turkey, the son of Mithat Alpar, an industrialist, and Nevin Alpar, a housewife. He was educated at Ankara College, where he gained a baccalaureate in 17 subjects, and went on to study medicine at Ankara University. In 1966 he graduated with first class honours. He trained in surgery at Bristol, the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Oswestry, Liverpool and Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, New York. He was particularly influenced by Donal Brooks, Robert Owen and Sir Reginald Watson-Jones. In 1973 he returned to Turkey to complete his National Service, working as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Sarikamis Military Hospital. In 1975 he was appointed associate professor of orthopaedic surgery at Hacettepe University. Five years later, in 1980, he transferred to Birmingham, as a senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham department of surgery. He was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon at the Birmingham Accident Hospital (1981), Birmingham General Hospital (1993) and University Hospital Birmingham (1995). From 1990 to 1993 he was medical director of the Birmingham Accident Hospital. In 1994 he set up a MMedSci course in surgery of trauma at the University of Birmingham, and was course director until 2000. He was chairman of the Institute of Accident Surgery from 1993 to 2002. Essentially a trauma surgeon, he felt that the trauma surgeon must be a generalist because trauma does not observe anatomical boundaries. He was particularly interested in the treatment of whiplash injury and the association with atypical carpal tunnel syndrome. A committed teacher and trainer, he was supportive of all staff. As a result of his experience he was much in demand as an expert witness in medico-legal disputes. Alpar played basketball as a young man and enjoyed swimming and walking later in life. He was interested in history and specifically the history of medicine. In 1966 he married Oya, now professor and head of the centre for drug delivery research at the School of Pharmacy, University of London. They divorced in 2003. They had two sons – Bora and Burak, both of whom work in the finance sector. Alpar died early in November 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000335
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bendall, Robin (1933 - 2006)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-03-15 2007-05-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372522372522
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Robin Bendall was an orthopaedic surgeon in London. He was born on 1 April 1933 in Notthingham, where his father, Oliver Francis Bendall, was a wholesale grocer. His mother was Winnie May née Barrett. He attended West Bridgford Grammar School, Nottingham, and then went on to Guy’s Hospital Medical School, where he qualified in 1956. After serving as house surgeon to J S Batchelor at Guy’s he did his National Service in the RAF, with postings to Christmas Island and Nocton Hall Hospital. Following demobilisation he became a general surgical registrar at Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup, gaining his FRCS in 1964. He was then an orthopaedic registrar at St George’s Hospital, London, and subsequently held a senior orthopaedic post at Charing Cross Hospital, where he was influenced by David Trevor. He was appointed as a consultant to St George’s Hospital, St James’s Hospital, Balham, and Queen Mary’s Hospital for Children at Carshalton. Influenced by Douglas Freebody, he developed an interest in the treatment of low back pain and published on the subject. At Carshalton he treated children with scoliosis. He set up the St George’s orthopaedic training scheme, and was secretary of the south west metropolitan orthopaedic advisory committee and a member of the clinical and orthopaedic sections of the Royal Society of Medicine, serving as secretary of the latter in 1980. He was a fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association. In 1958 Robin Bendall married June Mary Nicholls, a nursing sister, by whom he had two sons, Stephen (a consultant orthopaedic surgeon) and Timothy, and a daughter, Claire. He later divorced and married Tricia. Sadly, Tricia died and he brought up their son, Olly, on his own. His grandchildren were Emma, Gabby, Georgie and Max. Robin Bendall died quite suddenly from a heart attack on 5 October 2006 whilst removing his luggage from an airport conveyor belt.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000336
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hulme, Allan (1917 - 2008)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by E C Hulme
Publication Date 2010-10-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373213373213
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Allan Hulme was chief of neurosurgery at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol. He was born in June 1917 in Seaton Carew, but spent his childhood in Stockport, Lancashire. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School, where he was in receipt of a scholarship. In 1935, he won an exhibition to St John’s College, Cambridge, to read agricultural science. A year after going to Cambridge, he decided that his true vocation lay in medicine, and the university and college authorities allowed him to switch courses. In 1939, he graduated BA in medicine. Allan Hulme returned to Manchester, to pursue his medical training at the Manchester Royal Infirmary as a house surgeon under the tutelage of Sir Geoffrey Jefferson, newly appointed professor of neurosurgery at the University of Manchester, a mentor for whom he developed the utmost regard and admiration. In 1942, Allan Hulme gained his BChir. He also married Christine Annie Pepper, whom he had met in Cambridge whilst she was nursing at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. Their marriage lasted for 59 years. In 1942, Allan Hulme joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving first in East Africa (Nigeria), then being transferred to India, and finally Burma. While in India, his interest in neurosurgery was kindled by having to deal with combat-related traumatic head injuries. During this highly formative period, he was strongly influenced by a second mentor, Gordon Paul, a surgeon from Bristol, who informed him of the possibility of obtaining a position in Bristol after the war finished. After his demobilisation in 1946, Allan returned briefly to Manchester, but influenced by this advice, applied for and obtained a post in neurosurgery at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol. This had been developed as an Emergency Medical Services hospital, housed in a series of single-story brick buildings, by the US forces during the Second World War, and it was during this period that neurosurgery was established. After the war, when the hospital was handed back to the newly-formed NHS, Frenchay became the south-western regional centre for the specialty of neurosurgery. In 1947, shortly after starting work at Frenchay, Allan obtained his FRCS. At the time of his appointment, the chief of neurosurgery was George Alexander, another strong influence. He was acknowledged in an important paper which Allan Hulme published in 1960 on the surgical approach to thoracic intervertebral disc protrusions, which is still being cited more than 40 years later (*J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry*. 1960 May;23:133-7). Allan was promoted to senior registrar then full consultant by the early 1960s. The third consultant was Douglas Phillips. Work in the unit was arduous and demanding, with long and frequently unsocial hours. He showed paramount devotion to the welfare of his patients, often making the journey from his home in Long Ashton in the western suburbs of Bristol, even when not on duty, to check on the progress of patients in person. Because of his wide geographical coverage of the Frenchay neurosurgical unit, he also held regular clinics in Taunton and Exeter. On the retirement of Douglas Phillips in the late 1960s, Allan became chief of neurosurgery. Arising from his surgical work, he developed a strong interest in the mechanisms of control of intracranial pressure. He initiated and undertook pioneering research into this with colleagues at the Burden Neurological Institute, particularly Ray Cooper. They studied the control of intracranial pressure during anaesthesia, after traumatic head injury, and before and after surgery for intracranial space-occupying lesions. These studies involved the implantation of miniaturised subdural pressure transducers into the skull, along with other intracranial monitoring devices such as oxygen electrodes and thermistors to monitor local blood flow. Allan retired from his post as chief of neurosurgery in 1979, and retired to Balquhidder in Perthshire, where he passed a long, productive and happy retirement amongst his beloved Scottish hills, which he loved to paint and photograph to the very end of his life. He died on 29 December 2008 and was survived by his three children, Edward, Martin and Catherine.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001030
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Ainslie, Derek (1919 - 2006)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-11-08 2009-02-26
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/372602372602
Occupation Ophthalmologist
Details Derek Ainslie was an ophthalmologist and a pioneer in the development of vision corrective surgery. He was born in Hereford on 19 September 1919, the third child and second son of Janet (née Rogers) and William Ainslie, a surgeon and a fellow of the Edinburgh College. Derek Ainslie was educated at Hereford Cathedral Preparatory School, Sherborne and Clare College, Cambridge, going on to complete his clinical training at the Middlesex Hospital. He subsequently joined the RAMC and was en route to the Far East when the war ended. He remained in the Army, working in Africa until 1948 and reaching the rank of major. He underwent training in ophthalmology at Birmingham Eye Hospital, the Middlesex Hospital, and as senior resident officer at Moorfields Eye Hospital. Soon after completing his training he was appointed consultant ophthalmologist to the Middlesex and Moorfields Eye hospitals, in 1962. His work in ophthalmology was remarkable: he was a pioneer in corneal refractive surgery, using a microkeratome and surgical cryolathe. He worked closely in parallel with José Barraquer, a Spanish surgeon, in what was then a contentious field of work, but which has developed into the laser refractive surgery of today. Derek wrote extensively on the use of antibiotics in ophthalmology, corneal grafting and refractive keratoplasty. Sadly his work was interrupted in 1975 with the onset of a severe illness compounded by deteriorating vision from glaucoma. He retired prematurely at the age of 55. He examined for the diploma in ophthalmology and was a member of the Court of Examiners for the FRCS in ophthalmology. He was an adviser to the Merchant Navy from 1953 to 1963, and ophthalmic surgeon to Chorleywood College for Girls, a school for the partially sighted and blind. He married Robina Susan Lock in 1960, a medical practitioner. They had one son and two daughters. He had a wide interest in music, was a keen salmon and trout fisherman, and an ardent supporter of Arsenal Football Club. He died on 1 August 2006, and is survived by his third wife, Diana, children and grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000418
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Vellacott, Keith David (1948 - 2007)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-02-10
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372771372771
Occupation General surgeon
Details Keith Vellacott was a consultant surgeon at Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport. He was born in Tavistock, Devon, on 25 February 1948, the son of Douglas Hugh Vellacott, a surgeon and a fellow of the College, and Lorraine Freda Tibbs. From Kelly College, Devon, Keith followed his father and grandfather to the London Hospital, where he qualified in 1972. He was a house surgeon to John Blandy in the urology department at the London, and a house physician in paediatrics. He then became a casualty officer and a demonstrator in anatomy at Bristol Royal Infirmary, where he went on to the senior house officer rotation, from which he passed the FRCS. After a year as registrar in general surgery at Cheltenham, he spent two years in Nottingham, where he worked with Jack Hardcastle on the development of flexible fibreoptic sigmoidoscopy (publishing his results in 1981) and played a major role in the ground-breaking study of screening for carcinoma of the colon, for which he was awarded the Patey prize of the Surgical Research Society in 1980. He returned to Bristol as a senior registrar in 1981. After a period as locum consultant in Gloucester, he was appointed as a consultant surgeon to the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport in 1986, becoming honorary senior lecturer in surgery there in 1997. By now an expert and accomplished endoscopist, Keith introduced flexible colonoscopy and endoscopic retrograde cholangiography to Newport, as well as laparoscopic cholecystectomy, and continued his work, now on a national basis, in the screening for colorectal cancer. He organised undergraduate teaching and was appointed clinical director. In 1973 Keith married Jinette, a nurse. They had two sons, Darren (who predeceased him) and Guy, and a daughter, Adele. Keith was, like his father, a man of quiet charm and serious demeanour, who was highly respected by his collegues. His hobbies included sailing, badminton, model-making and reading, and he played an active role in the St Woolos Rotary Club. By a strange irony, in 1999 he himself was found to have carcinoma of the colon, and over the next eight years underwent five successive resections, in spite of which he returned with undiminished energy to his work. His outstanding contributions were recognised by the award of the MBE in 2007, but sadly he died in harness, before he could be invested with his insignia.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000588
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Baillie, Herbert (1819 - 1890)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-03-15 2014-07-24
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372525372525
Occupation General surgeon
Details James Hadfield was a consultant general surgeon with a urological interest at Bedford Hospital. He came from a distinguished medical family: his father, Geoffrey Hadfield, was professor of pathology at the London School of Medicine for Women at the Royal Free Hospital. His mother was Sarah Victoria Eileen Irvine. His elder brother, Geoffrey John, became vice-president of our College and his elder sister, Esmé Havelock Hadfield, was an ENT surgeon at High Wycombe and Amersham hospitals. James was born at Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, on 12 July 1930. He was educated at Winchester House School, Brackley, Radley College, and then Brasenose College, Oxford. He completed his clinical training at St Thomas' Hospital, qualifying in 1955 and winning the Clutton medal and the Beaney prize in surgery. At Oxford he rowed for his college and the Isis VIII, and gained an Olympic trial in 1952. He continued to row at St Thomas', becoming captain of the United Hospitals Boat Club in 1953 and of his hospital in 1954. James won the senior IV pairs sculls, and double sculls at the United Hospitals Regatta, competing in no fewer than ten races in one day. He was house surgeon at St Thomas' to R H O B Robinson, a general surgeon specialising in urology and one of the founder members of British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS). From 1962 to 1966 James was surgical tutor and first assistant in surgery, and George Herbert Hunt scholar to Oxford University in 1965. He was appointed consultant general surgeon at Bedford Hospital in 1966, and was medical director there for several years. In retirement he taught anatomy at Cambridge and was tutor to undergraduates at Jesus College. His main interests were in urology and the surgery of the parathyroid gland, and he had a great interest in training young surgeons from overseas. He examined for Oxford, Cambridge and the conjoint, as well as for the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. As an examiner he was fair, but sometimes a little fearsome in his approach to candidates. His publications reflected his surgical interests, including stone formation in the urinary tract, the management of bladder outflow obstruction and diseases of the parathyroid glands. He was an Arris and Gale lecturer at our College in 1973. James was a family man who enjoyed country pursuits, painting and collecting watercolours, as well as gardening. For a time he bred and trained gun dogs. In 1957 he married Ann Pickernell Milner, a sister-tutor at St Thomas', also from a medical family. They had three children. Esmé Victoria became a general practitioner in Birmingham, and married a consultant head and neck surgeon. Another daughter, Countess Helen Sarah Orsich, entered television as a producer, and their son Geoffrey Havelock became a translator. There were six grandchildren. He died on 17 May 2006 from carcinoma of the duodenum.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000339
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bradford, Edward (1802 - 1888)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

First Title value, for Searching Collis, John Leigh (1911 - 2003)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372229372229
Occupation Thoracic surgeon
Details Jack Collis was a pioneering thoracic surgeon. He was born in Harborne, Birmingham, on 14 July 1911, the son of Walter Thomas Collis, an industrial chemist, and Dora Charton Reay. His choice of medicine was greatly influenced by his local GP and his two medical uncles, one of whom was a professor of medicine at Cardiff. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and studied medicine at Birmingham. There he was a member of the athletic club and captained the hockey team. He was equally outstanding as a scholar, winning the Queen’s scholarship for three years running, and the Ingleby scholarship and Priestley Smith prize in his final year, together with gold medals in clinical surgery and medicine. He graduated in 1935 with first class honours. He was house physician to K D Wilkinson at Birmingham General Hospital and then house surgeon to B J Ward at the Queen’s Hospital. He went on to be surgical registrar to H H Sampson at the General Hospital, before becoming a resident surgical officer at the Brompton Chest Hospital in London under Tudor Edwards and Clement Price Thomas. The outbreak of war saw him back in Birmingham as resident surgical officer at the General Hospital. By July 1940 he was surgeon to the Barnsley Hall Emergency hospital, which received Blitz casualties from Birmingham and Coventry. He was in charge of the chest unit for the next four years, during which time he wrote a thesis on the metastatic cerebral abscess associated with suppurative conditions of the lung, where he showed the route of infection via the vertebral veins. This won him an MD with honours, as well as a Hunterian professorship in 1944. In February 1944 he joined the RAMC to command the No 3 Surgical Team for Chest Surgery, taking his team through Europe into Germany shortly after D-day, for which he was mentioned in despatches. From Germany he was posted to India to receive the anticipated casualties in the Far East. He ended his war service as a Lieutenant Colonel. At the end of the war he applied to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, from his posting in India, with a glowing reference from Tudor Edwards. He was appointed initially as a general surgeon, though he was soon engaged mainly in thoracic surgery, especially thoracoplasty for tuberculosis, and spent much time travelling between sanatoria in Warwick, Burton-on-Trent and Malvern. With the advent of cardiac surgery, Jack was responsible for a successful series of mitral valvotomies and was one of the first to remove a tumour from within the cavity of the left atrium, using a sharpened dessert spoon and a piece of wire gauze. Later he withdrew from open heart surgery to concentrate on the surgery of the oesophagus. He became celebrated for three advances in the surgery of the oesophagus – the Collis gastroplasty for patients with reflux, the Collis repair of the lower oesophagus and, above all, a successful technique for oesophagectomy. In this his mortality and leakage rates were half those of his contemporaries. He attributed his success to the use of fine steel wire: his assistants attributed it to his outstanding surgical technique. He was Chairman of the regional advisory panel for cardiothoracic surgery, an honorary professor of thoracic surgery at the University of Birmingham, and was President of the Thoracic Society and the Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons. He was Chairman of the medical advisory committee at the Birmingham United Hospitals from 1961 to 1963, and Chairman of the planning committee from 1963 to 1965. He trained a generation of thoracic surgeons whose friendship he retained, along with those medical orderlies who served with him during the war. Vehemently proud of Birmingham, he devoted much of his retirement to promoting the city. He married Mavis Haynes in 1941. They had a holiday bungalow in Wales, where he enjoyed walking, gardening and fishing. They had four children, Nigel, Gilly, Christopher and Mark, two of whom entered medicine. He died in Moseley, Birmingham on 4 February 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000042
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372232372232
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Brian Cummins was a consultant neurosurgeon at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol. He was born in Somerset on 10 March 1933, the son of Peter Cummins (known as ‘Cecil’ or ‘Pop’) and his wife, Rita. His early years were spent in Bath, but he moved to Edmonton, Alberta, in 1946, when his family emigrated to Canada. At the age of 16 he entered the University of Alberta to study classics and modern languages, at the same time as helping his father build the family home. He spent his vacations working as a foreman in pipeline construction in Manitoba. He graduated with honours in 1953. A chance encounter with a book on the surgery of epilepsy by Wilder Penfield, director of the Montreal Neurological Institute, raised in him an ambition to become a neurosurgeon and he spent two years on the medical course at Alberta, before returning to England to complete his studies at Bristol in 1961, when he won a gold medal. After qualifying, he held a junior post in neurosurgery in Oxford under Joe Pennybacker and John Potter, where he developed his interest in head injury management, brain tumour and spinal injury. He returned to Bristol in 1968 as senior registrar. He became a consultant neurosurgeon at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, in 1973. He retired in 1999. Cummins’ interests in neurosurgery were wide, encompassing tumours, spinal surgery and head injuries. He was instrumental in bringing the main technological advances in neurosurgery to Bristol and pioneered teleradiology. He was involved in improving the standards of head injury care in the region by education and guidance on management, and helped the College and the Society of British Neurological Surgeons in producing their booklet on the topic. He was an advocate of multidisciplinary clinics and this, plus his interest in the rehabilitation of head injuries, led to his setting up a head injury unit at Frenchay in 1992, of which he was director for three years. He also took part in the charity Headway which sought to help these patients. He also established a combined clinic for managing brain tumours. In spinal surgery he developed a steel prosthetic joint for implanation into the cervical spine. He was an enthusiastic and patient teacher of junior staff and would spend much time supervising them in operations. Consultant surgeons from at least half the neurosurgical units in the UK trained with him at some stage. He was an adviser on head injury to the Department of Health, the Royal Colleges, and to the World Health Organization in Bosnia. He advised on neurosurgical services in India and South East Asia, and raised funds for a children’s unit. His character was enthusiastic and extroverted. Love of outdoor activities resulted in him breaking both hips rock climbing in 1970. He was so grateful for the help he received from the mountain rescue team that he joined the organisation to advise and teach. He enjoyed skiing, canoeing, hill-walking and travel to remote places, and he was an extremely knowledgeable gardener, studying for a degree in botany during his early retirement. He married Annie in 1961 and they had two sons, Sean and Jason. He died on 16 August 2003 after a short illness of carcinoma of the pancreas.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000045
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372241372241
Occupation Obstetric and gynaecological surgeon Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Briant Evans was a former consultant obstetric and gynaecological surgeon at Westminster Hospital, Chelsea Hospital for Women and Queen Charlotte’s Maternity Hospital. He was born in London in 1909, the eldest son of Arthur Evans, a surgeon at the Westminster Hospital. He was educated at Westminster School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, before completing his clinical studies at the Westminster Hospital. On the day he qualified in April 1933 his father, who had a large number of theatrical clients, took him to the theatre. They went to see Sir Seymour Hicks in his dressing room in the interval. On hearing that Briant had just qualified, he asked “How do I look?” Briant said, “Very well sir.” “Good, here’s your first private fee,” he replied, handing him a £1 note from his coat pocket. Following junior appointments at Westminster Hospital, Chelsea Hospital for Women and Queen Charlotte’s Maternity Hospital, he acquired his FRCS and the MRCOG. During the war he served in the Emergency Medical Service in London and was in the RAMC from 1941 to 1946, serving in the UK, Egypt (with the 8th General Hospital, Alexandria), Italy and Austria (where he was officer in charge of the No 9 field surgical unit) and was obstetric and gynaecological consultant to the Central Mediterranean Force. He ended the war as a lieutenant colonel. He was subsequently appointed obstetric and gynaecological surgeon to Westminster Hospital, obstetric surgeon to Queen Charlotte’s Maternity Hospital and surgeon to the Chelsea Hospital for Women. He examined for the Universities of Cambridge and London, and for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Briant was much loved and respected by his patients and colleagues. He made operating appear easy. Quiet in manner and ever courteous, he loved teaching and was never happier than when accompanied by students on ward rounds and in the theatre. After retiring he bought a farm in Devon and his son Hugh was brought in to run it. He loved country life. He was a keen gardener, enjoyed sailing and had been a good tennis player in earlier days. His last home was in Buckinghamshire. In 1939 he married Audrey Holloway, the sister of David Holloway, who was engaged to Briant’s sister, Nancy. His wife died before him. They leave three sons (Roddy, Martin and Hugh), eight grandchildren and six great grandchildren. He died from a stroke on 3 March 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000054
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23 2007-08-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372243372243
Occupation General surgeon
Details Richard Vasey ‘Dick’ Fiddian was a consultant general surgeon at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital from 1964 to 1989. He was born on 6 October 1923 in Ashton-under-Lyne in Lancashire, where his father, James Victor Fiddian, was a general practitioner-surgeon. His mother, Doris Mary née White, came from a farming family. Dick was the last of five children, and the second son. From the age of eight he attended the Old College boarding school in Windermere, and then, at 11, went to Manchester Grammar School. In October 1941 he went up to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, to read for the natural sciences tripos. In 1943 he was drafted into the Army and spent three years as a fighting soldier in the Royal Engineers, rising to the rank of captain. As well as serving in the field with the 14th Army in Burma, he also helped to oversee the rebuilding of the Burma Road with the help of Japanese POWs. In October 1946 he returned to Emmanuel College, completing his first and second MB. He was also awarded an MA in anthropology, physiology, pathology and biochemistry. Whilst at Emmanuel, Fiddian became captain of the golf team, and was awarded a Cambridge blue. After qualifying, he did two years of house appointments at Bart’s, including anaesthetics, and a further year as junior registrar (SHO) to Rupert Corbett and Alec Badenoch. He then took a year off as a ship’s doctor on the Orsova of the Orient Line, before taking his Fellowship in 1956. He then became a registrar to Norman Townsley and John Stephens at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. When the Queen came to open the new operating theatres, Fiddian escorted the Duke of Edinburgh round the male Nightingale ward and introduced him to his patients, one of whom had been operated on by Dick, but failed to recognise his surgeon. He was heard to say in a broad Norfolk accent: “Nice to meet the Duke, but who was that good-looking young man in a white coat walking with him?” Dick returned to Bart’s in 1958 as chief assistant to John Hosford, whom Dick greatly admired. He also worked with Sir Edward Tuckwell, whose rapidity as an operator was legendary. After two years he went to the North Middlesex Hospital under Basil Page, the urologist. Spending a year in Boston, Massachusetts, he worked as an assistant in surgery at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital under Francis Moore, professor of surgery at Harvard and chief surgeon at the Brigham. In 1963 he completed a Milton research fellowship in surgery at Harvard Medical School. In 1964 he was appointed as a consultant to the Luton and Dunstable Hospital. There he developed a special interest in wound infection and made some useful contributions on the use of metronidazole. He retired from the NHS in 1989. In 1985 he started learning Spanish at the local adult education college in Luton, continuing to study the language until he was 80. He visited Spain many times and often went on cultural trips, which he thoroughly enjoyed. After his retirement he studied Spanish literature at Birkbeck College, and received an award from the Institute of Linguists for his command of the language. He married twice. His first wife was Aileen, an Australian he met on board ship. They had one son, Jonathan. After her death he married Jean née Moore, a medical secretary, by whom he had a son, James, and two daughters, Emily and Sarah. They also adopted the child of one of Jean’s friends. Although they became estranged, they remained good friends and Jean cared for him in his latter days, which were marred by a degree of dementia. He died on 30 December 2004. Dick Fiddian was an extremely affable man who was everyone’s friend, not because of a wish to be universally liked, but for his capacity to see the best in people. He was a self-effacing man, describing his contributions to the literature as “numerous, none of which were important”. Conversation with him was always a pleasure, as was listening to his after-dinner speeches which were interspersed with bon mots and limericks which probed the idiosyncrasies of the company, never with malice but always with a twinkle in his eye.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000056
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ford, Colin Gagen (1934 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23 2007-02-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372245372245
Occupation General Practitioner
Details Colin Gagen Ford was a former general practitioner in Chislehurst, Kent. He was born in Merton Park on 11 December 1934, the son of Bertram Leonard Ford and Kathleen May née Gagen. He attended Rutlish School, but left at 16 after gaining his O levels. He joined Cable and Wireless, becoming a proficient morse operator, and whilst working there attended evening classes to gain the necessary A levels for entry to medical school. His studying was interrupted by his National Service: he served with the Royal Marines, winning the coveted green commando beret and serving in Cyprus. He went on to St Mary’s to study medicine, graduating in 1962. He played rugby for the second XV and rowed for the college. After qualifying, he was a house surgeon to Sir Arthur Porritt and H H G Eastcott at St Mary’s and was then a house physician at Paddington General Hospital. He then went into general practice, but later returned to hospital medicine and developed an interest in orthopaedics. However, he failed to gain a place on a training programme, being told he was “too old and too experienced”, although he did achieve his FRCS in 1973. After several locums, he returned to general practice. He married Ann McAra, a consultant anaesthetist, in 1969 and they had two sons and two daughters – William, Kate, Robert and Helen. He was interested in old cars, sailing and golf. He had a long battle with alcohol and finally retired in 1991 on medical grounds. He died from pancreatitis as a result of alcoholic liver disease on 29 March 2004.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000058
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Fuller, Robert Charles (1914 - 2004)

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372330372330
Occupation General surgeon
Details John Herbert Harker Webster was a consultant surgeon in Southampton. He was born in Heswall, Cheshire, on 2 October 1929, the son of Herbert Webster, a biscuit manufacturer, and Doris Louise née Harker, the daughter of a chandler. In 1935 the family moved to Prenton in order to be near to Birkenhead Preparatory School. However, in 1939 he was evacuated to mid-Cheshire because of the war. The schooling there proved unsatisfactory and in 1940 John was sent to Ellesmere College, a school with a fine tradition of choral music, piano and organ teaching. From there he gained a place at Cambridge. He admitted to being absolutely hopeless at ball games, although in his own words he did “become a competent small bore .303 shot” and became a competent rower, rowing fairly consistently in all the major meetings at Cambridge, Putney, Bedford, Chester and Henley. He obtained an upper second degree in anatomy, physiology, pathology and pharmacology. He went up to London and studied for his clinical examinations at the Westminster Medical School, where he won prizes in medicine, surgery, pathology and obstetrics. After qualifying he became house surgeon to Sir Stanford Cade. He then did his National Service in the Royal Air Force from 1955 to 1957, ending up as a medical officer on an Army troop ship, being involved in the preparation of Christmas Island for the first British hydrogen bomb test. On returning to civilian life in 1959 he met Joy, his wife, at St Albans and they were married the following year at Epsom. He was a junior hospital doctor in Sheffield as registrar, lecturer and then senior registrar. He was given the most enormous responsibilities and, as was the case in those days, given wide knowledge of practically all surgical procedures. In 1967 he was appointed to the Southampton hospitals as a consultant general surgeon with a special interest in vascular surgery, more specifically to his favourite, the Royal South Hants. John noted that he had operated not only from his base at the South Hants, but in places as far flung as Southampton General Hospital, Southampton Western Hospital, Romsey and Lymington Hospitals, the Isle of Wight, Haslar, Basingstoke, Torquay and even the Royal Free. John was a member of the Peripheral Vascular Club, a club made up mostly of so-called ‘second-generation’ vascular surgeons. These surgeons had learnt their trade from single-handed vascular surgeons in the teaching hospitals such as London, Leeds and Edinburgh. They in turn became consultants in their own right in what were then considered to be provincial hospitals. This club formed a great part of John's life; he and Joy enjoyed travelling widely with the fellow members. His teaching abilities, particularly at technical surgery, were renowned. Many of his students were endowed with a sense of confidence, the major characteristic needed in a vascular surgeon. In its heyday his unit attracted excellent senior registrars and lecturers, many of whom have become famous in their own right across the country. He had a particular interest in cervical rib surgery and, together with Peter Clifford, David Whitcher and Richard Bolton from the teaching media department, produced an excellent film on first rib resection, which, in 1988, received an award from the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland for the most outstanding contribution of the year to surgical education. He was a council member of the Vascular Society. He retired in 1994. John was a rather retiring person and sometimes taciturn, but he was a great raconteur once he got going and told many stories. He was a character, a good friend and an excellent surgeon. There was an intellectual side of John's character. If you looked at the bookshelves in his office you were more likely to find works on art and poetry, rather than the latest textbook of anatomy. He made sure he filled in *The Times* crossword every day, and actually became a semi-finalist in a crossword competition. His main regret was not to pursue music, but in retirement he improved his skill on the keyboard and built his own clavichord. He was also a great fly fisherman, fishing with his old chief and mentor from the Westminster Hospital, Robert Cox. Mixed in with all this was a love of golf and, above all, a love of his family, his son, two daughters and eleven grandchildren. He died on 31 August 2003.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000143
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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

2025-07-27T01:34:17Z