Charles Wilkinson was a surgeon practicing at Pulteney Street, Bath, in c1846. He was a member of the Company of Surgeons in 1791, and last appeared in the Medical Directory in 1849.
No biographical information was available at the time of compilation.
John Abernethy was born in Coleman Street, London, in 1764. He was educated at Wolverhampton Grammar school, and at the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to Charles Blicke, surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. Abernethy remained at Bart's for the rest of his career, being appointed assistant surgeon in 1787, and promted to full surgeon in 1815. During the 1790s Abernethy published several papers on a variety of anatomical topics. On the strength of these contributions he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1796. Between 1814 and 1817 he served as Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons. Abernethy also offered private lectures in anatomy in a house in Bartholomew Close, near to the hospital. The governors of Bart's then built a lecture theatre within the hospital to accommodate his classes. In 1824 Thomas Wakley, editor of the newly established journal The Lancet, published Abernethy's lectures without his permission. Abernethy sought an injunction but was unsuccessful, and remained resentful about the incident. Abernethy had himself attended the lectures of John Hunter, with whom he was also personally acquainted, and after Hunter's death he professed himself to be the spokesman for Hunter's physiological and pathological views. He died in 1831.
John Abernethy was born in Coleman Street, London, in 1764. He was educated at Wolverhampton Grammar school, and at the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to Charles Blicke, surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. Abernethy remained at Bart's for the rest of his career, being appointed assistant surgeon in 1787, and promted to full surgeon in 1815. During the 1790s Abernethy published several papers on a variety of anatomical topics. On the strength of these contributions he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1796. Between 1814 and 1817 he served as Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons. Abernethy also offered private lectures in anatomy in a house in Bartholomew Close, near to the hospital. The governors of Bart's then built a lecture theatre within the hospital to accommodate his classes. In 1824 Thomas Wakley, editor of the newly established journal The Lancet, published Abernethy's lectures without his permission. Abernethy sought an injunction but was unsuccessful, and remained resentful about the incident. Abernethy had himself attended the lectures of John Hunter, with whom he was also personally acquainted, and after Hunter's death he professed himself to be the spokesman for Hunter's physiological and pathological views. He died in 1831.
Sir Everard Home was born in Hull, Yorkshire, in 1756. He was educated at Westminster School, and became a surgical pupil of his brother-in-law John Hunter (1728-1793), surgeon at St George's Hospital, London. Home qualified through the Company of Surgeons in 1778 and was appointed assistant surgeon in the new naval hospital at Plymouth. In 1779 he went to Jamaica as staff surgeon with the army, but on returning to England in 1784 he rejoined Hunter at St George's as assistant. He was elected FRS in 1787, and in the same year he became assistant surgeon at St George's Hospital. In 1790-1791 Home read lectures for Hunter and in the following year he succeeded Hunter as lecturer in anatomy. Home joined the army in Flanders in 1793, but returned just before Hunter's sudden death in 1793. He then became surgeon at St George's Hospital and was also joint executor of Hunter's will with Matthew Baillie, Hunter's nephew. In 1793-1794 they saw Hunter's important work, On the Blood, Inflammation and Gun-Shot Wounds, through the press and in 1794 Home approached Pitt's government to secure the purchase for the nation of Hunter's large collection of anatomical and pathological specimens. After protracted negotiations the collection was purchased for £15,000 in 1799 and presented to the College of Surgeons. In 1806 the collection was moved from Hunter's gallery in Castle Street to form the Hunterian Museum at the new site of the college in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Home was chief curator and William Clift, who had worked with Hunter since 1792, was retained as resident conservator. Clift also had charge of Hunter's numerous folios, drawings, and accounts of anatomical and pathological investigations, which were essential for a clear understanding of the collection. In the years following Hunter's death Home built up a large surgical practice and published more than one hundred papers of varying quality, some very good, mainly in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. The society awarded him its Copley medal in 1807. He gave the Croonian lectures fifteen times between 1794 and 1826. As Hunter's brother-in-law and executor he had great influence at the Royal College of Surgeons where he was elected to the court of assistants in 1801, an examiner in 1809, master in 1813 and 1821, and its first president in 1822. Having, with Matthew Baillie, endowed the Hunterian oration, he was the first Hunterian orator in 1814, and again in 1822. He became Keeper and a trustee of the Hunterian Museum in 1817 and was Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the College from 1804 to 1813, and again in 1821. His Lectures on Comparative Anatomy were published in 1814 with a volume of plates from drawings by Clift. A further volume of lectures followed in 1823 accompanied by microscopical and anatomical drawings by Bauer and Clift. Two more volumes appeared in 1828. This work, although lacking in structure, is an important record of Hunter's investigations, especially the last two volumes. Home drew heavily on Hunter's work in the papers and books which he published after Hunter's death. Before the collection was presented to the Company of Surgeons in 1799 Home arranged for Clift to convey to his own house Hunter's folio volumes and fasciculi of manuscripts containing descriptions of the preparations and investigations connected with them. He promised to catalogue the collection, refusing help, but, despite repeated requests, only a synopsis appeared in 1818. B C Brodie says that Home was busily using Hunter's papers in preparing his own contributions for the Royal Society. Home himself later stated that he had published all of value in Hunter's papers and that his one hundred articles in Philosophical Transactions formed a catalogue raisonée of the Hunterian Museum. Home destroyed most of Hunter's papers in 1823. After his death in 1832, a parliamentary committee was set up to enquire into the details of this act of vandalism. Clift told this committee in 1834 that Home had used Hunter's papers extensively and had claimed that Hunter, when he was dying, had ordered him to destroy his papers. Yet Home, who was not present at Hunter's death, had kept the papers for thirty years. Clift also declared that he had often transcribed parts of Hunter's original work and drawings into papers which appeared under Home's name. Home produced a few of Hunter's papers which he had not destroyed and Clift had copied about half of the descriptions of preparations in the collection, consequently enough of Hunter's work survives to suggest that Home had often published Hunter's observations as his own. Although the full extent of Home's plagiarism cannot be determined, there is little doubt that it was considerable and this seriously damaged his reputation.
Various unofficial records collated by members of Bedford College on an ad-hoc basis.
Gay Sweatshop was formed in London in 1975 and had its roots in the lunchtime theatre club "Ambience" held at the Almost Free theatre. Inter-Action, a co-operative community arts resource centre, staged a popular Women's season at the Almost Free theatre in 1974 and, inspired by their success, advertised for gay actors to take part in a gay theatre season planned for autumn 1974. The aim was to encourage gay people to produce a season of gay plays and eventually form a company. The season was postponed until early 1975 and after holding meetings throughout the autumn of 1974, a small group of founder members emerged. These included Drew Griffiths, Alan Pope, Roger Baker, Alan Wakeman, Laurence Collinson, John Roman Baker, Ed Berman, Gerald Chapman, Philip Osment, Suresa Galbraith and Norman Coates. The intention of the group was to counteract the prevailing conception in mainstream theatre of what homosexuals were like, therefore providing a more realistic image for the public. The season was called "Homosexual Acts" and included three plays, all of which were written and directed by homosexuals. "Homosexual Acts" was originally scheduled to last until April but was extended to June and additional plays were requested.
By 1975 the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) had local groups established in most towns. They invited Gay Sweatshop to perform at the annual conference in Sheffield. Initially this was problematic as Gay Sweatshop had no resources to put on a touring production. However, an Arts Council grant allowed them to put together "Mister X", jointly written by the group. The play was based on a combination of personal experiences and a book called "With Downcast Gays: Aspects of Homosexual Self-Oppression", written by Andrew Hodges and David Hutter. "Mister X" was a huge success at Sheffield and so the decision was made to take it on tour. News of the tour spread quickly throughout the gay communities and the tour was seen by many whom would not have usually had the courage to attend a gay play.
In 1976 Gay Sweatshop put on a lunchtime season at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) running from February through to July. Productions included "Mister X", "Any Woman Can" by Jill Posener, "Randy Robinson's Unsuitable Relationship" by Andrew Davies, Ian Brown's play "The Fork", "Stone" by Edward Bond and "Indiscreet", a follow up to "Mister X" written by Roger Baker and Drew Griffiths. The ICA season was a turning point for Gay Sweatshop. They received an Arts Council grant for the first half of the year, "Mister X" broke box office records for lunchtime theatre and women were participating in productions for the first time. The company had invited the women because they felt that lesbian actors, directors and writers were needed to provide a more complete picture of homosexuality. In November 1976 the company took "Mister X" and "Any Woman Can" on tour to Dublin. Although there was considerable opposition the Irish Gay Rights Movement welcomed the productions and the company returned in January 1977 to repeat the plays. During the Christmas of 1976 the company produced "Jingleballs", a gay pantomime starring both lesbians and gay men. The pantomime was successful but the Irish tour had revealed fundamental differences in how the men and women viewed the company. In 1977 two artistically separate companies were formed under the umbrella organisation of Gay Sweatshop. At the same time the company realised the need for a full-time administrator and appointed David Thompson. In April 1977 the company obtained an annual programme award of £15,000, which although it had to be re-applied for every year was enough to guarantee a year's worth of productions.
As separate companies both went on to produce critically acclaimed plays. The women produced "Care and Control", a piece focusing on child custody. This theme had been raised at many of the post performance discussions. The men produced "As Time Goes By", a three-part production set in 1896 after the Oscar Wilde trial, in Berlin in the 1930s and in 1969 when Gay liberation was born. The play was a collaborative effort between Noel Greig and Drew Griffiths.
In early 1978 the first Gay Times festival was held at the Drill Hall. This was based on the three sections of "As Time Goes By" and included workshops, discussion groups and performances. It was followed by a tour of "As Time Goes By" that concluded with a visit to Holland. It was here that the men's touring company split up following tension within the group. Meanwhile the women's group produced "What the Hell is she doing here?" that toured until the end of July. During the summer of 1978 a new nucleus of people emerged including Angela Stewart Park, Stephanie Pugsley, Sharon Nassauer, Sandra Lester, Noel Greig, Philip Timmins, John Hoyland and Jill Posener. They devised a mixed show called "Iceberg". This focussed on the lives of gay men and women in a repressive society and sought to show that they were central to any kind of anti-fascist struggle. The production went on tour to Queen's University in Belfast where a rally was arranged against the play by the Democratic Unionist party.
During 1979 and 1980 a number of productions were put on. The men's company produced "The Dear Love of Comrades" in March 1979 while the women produced "I like me like this", a radical lesbian musical written by Angela Stewart Park and Sharon Nassauer. 1980 saw another mixed production written by Angela Stewart Park and Noel Greig. The play, "Blood Green" is set in the future and deals with issues of genetic engineering, transexualism, sado-masochism and violence against women.
In 1980 the Arts Council announced the suspension of their programme grants. This meant that Gay Sweatshop would have to apply for individual project grants for specific productions. The company had to give up their full-time administrator and recently acquired office and rehearsal space. Although they tried to continue it became too much of a burden for the two remaining directors, Noel Greig and Philip Timmins, and the administrator, Gean Wilton, and at the end of March 1981 Gay Sweatshop was closed as a company.
Gay Sweatshop was revived in 1983 as a mixed company rather than the two artistically separate companies that had existed since 1977. Noel Greig, inspired by the issue of Greenham Common, wrote "Poppies" that put forward a response to the nuclear threat and militarism from a radical gay male perspective. He applied for project funding from the Arts Council and with the help of Martin Humphries as administrator, began planning the tour from a room in his house. The play toured from November to December. In 1984 a new management committee was formed consisting of Noel Greig, Martin Humphries, Philip Timmins, Kate Owen and Philip Osment. They began planning a 10th anniversary festival for 1985. At the same time Martin Humphries and Noel Greig applied to the Greater London Council for a grant to supplement their touring subsidy from the Arts Council. Gay Sweatshop eventually received a grant in 1985 that allowed them to put on a second production of "Poppies" with the tour running from March to May.
By the 1980s the Gay movement had become somewhat apathetic. In part this was due to the belief held by some that the ideals that had originally inspired the movement had become redundant and old-fashioned. There was also a feeling of pessimism about the future due to the growing paranoia about AIDS. At the same time they realised that Gay Sweatshop was very much an all-white group. The festival scheduled for the 10th anniversary of the company provided them with an opportunity to respond to the new challenges and serve as a platform for a wide range of work including; Gay teachers, problems facing young gays and lesbians, lesbian custody, experiences and black lesbians and the issue of AIDS. In response to the success of "Gay Sweatshop x 10" the Greater London Council awarded the company an annual grant that allowed them to get a full-time administrator and office space. The following year Gay Sweatshop was finally awarded charitable status in recognition of its educational work.
"Compromised Immunity" by Andy Kirby developed from the festival and was first staged in 1986 with external funding. Gay Sweatshop took the production on tour from April to June 1987. The company decided to stage another festival in 1987, this one called "Gay Sweatshop x 12". Nine plays were given staged rehearsed readings, including "This Island's Mine" by Philip Osment and "Twice Over" by Jackie Kay. "This Island's Mine" was initially performed in February and then on tour from March until April. "Twice Over" was seen as a breakthrough play for Gay Sweatshop as it was the first play by a black author. The Arts Council awarded a grant and the play was on tour from October to November 1988.
The late 1980s saw a new management group emerge after the departures of Philip Timmins in 1986, Martin Humphries and Noel Greig in 1987 and Kate Owen and Philip Osment in 1988. In 1990 Bryony Lavery was commissioned to write "Kitchen Matters", a play about theatre and the problems of putting on a show with project funding. The Greater London Arts was at this point giving Gay Sweatshop an annual grant of £21000 although the amount had been fixed for three years.
November 1990 saw the company struggling for funds once again. The Arts Council had turned down their application for a grant and it looked likely that the company would have to close. However, in 1991 Gay Sweatshop was promised revenue funding providing that there was both a male and female director. Lois Weaver and James Neale -Kennerley were appointed. 1992 saw productions of "Drag Act" by Claire Dowie, "Jack" by David Greenham and "Entering Queens" by Phyllis Nagy. During the season of 1993/4 the company produced two plays, "Stupid Cupid" by Phil Willmott and a company devised piece called "In your Face". The season 1994/5 again saw the company putting on two plays. The first was a piece adapted by Malcolm Sutherland called "F***king Martin" and the second, "Lust and Comfort", another company devised piece. In 1995 Stella Duffy's play "The Hand" was performed. During the early 1990s most of the company's funding was being spent on touring productions.
Gay Sweatshop eventually collapsed in 1997. The Arts Council withdrew all its funding and the company failed to attract any major sponsorship because of the controversial nature of the productions.
Born 1840; educated St Paul's School, London; career in the Board of Trade, 1856-1901, ending as Assistant Secretary to the Finance Department; contributor to the Academy, the Magazine of Art, and the Saturday Review; published volumes of poetry; died 1901.
Publications: preface to The life and works of Joseph Wright (Bemrose and Sons, London, 1885) by William Bemrose; preface to A concise history of painting (1888) by Mrs Charles Heaton; introduction to Exhibition of drawings in water colour by A W Hunt (London, 1897); introduction to Exhibition of drawings and studies by Sir Edward Burne-Jones (London, 1899); introduction to Exhibition illustrative of the French revival of etching (London, 1891); introduction to Catalogue of coloured Chinese porcelain exhibited in 1896 (London, 1896); introduction to Catalogue of Blue and White Oriental porcelain exhibited in 1895 (London, 1895); introduction to Historical catalogue of the collection of water colour drawings by deceased artists (Manchester, 1894); A dream of idleness and other poems (London, 1865); A few words about Hogarth; A history and description of Chinese porcelain (Cassell and Co, London, 1901); A question of honour (London, 1868); The British contemporary artists (Heinemann, London and New York, 1899); Corn and poppies (E. Matthews, London, 1890); In the National Gallery (A.D. Innes and Co, London, 1895); Joseph Mallord William Taylor (Sampson Low and Co, London, 1929); Life of Leigh-Hunt (London, 1893); Masterpieces of English art (London, 1869); Nonsense rhymes (R Brimley Johnson, London, [1902]); Pasiteles the Elder, and other poems (R. Brimley Johnson, London, 1901); Pictures by Sir C Eastlake (London, [1875]); Pictures by W Etty (London, [1874]); Pictures of Sir Edwin Landseer (London, [1877]); Sir Edward J Poynter, President of the Royal Academy, his life and work (J.S. Virtue and Co, London, [1897]); The Christ upon the hill: a ballad (Smith, Elder and Co, London, 1895); The earlier English water colour painters (Seeley and Co, London, 1890); The life and works of Sir John Tenniel (1901); The National Gallery: the Italian Pre-raphaelites (Cassell and Co, London, 1887); The studies of Sir Edwin Landseer (London, 1877); The Turner Gallery (London, [1878]); The works of J.H. Foley (London, [1875]); The works of Sir Edwin Landseer (London, 1879); Turner: a sketch of his life and works (Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, London, 1882); Verses: to Our Sovereign Lady Queen Victoria, June 22, 1897 (London, 1897).
Born 1886; educated Newnham College, Cambridge; Employment Department of the Ministry of Labour, 1913-1917; Director of Studies and Lecturer on Economics at Newnham College, Cambridge, 1917-1919; Lecturer on Economics, Armstrong College, University of Durham, 1919-1929; Principal of Bedford College, University of London, 1930-1951; OBE, 1948; CBE, 1951; retired 1951; Fellow of Bedford College, 1952; Associate of Newnham College; died 1959.
Publications: On the life of Dame Margaret Tuke, D.B.E. The Fawcett Lecture, 1952-53 (Bedford College, London, [1953]).
Dorothy Reich (née Knight) was born on the 6th August 1921, the daughter of a civil servant. She entered Bedford College in 1941 to study German with French and graduated with a first class honours degree in German in 1944. She was awarded a University Scholarship to do postgraduate work in German but had to spend 2 years doing National Service with the ATS Intelligence. On her release she returned to Bedford College to undertake her MA thesis on 'Bodmer's contribution to the knowledge and appreciation of Medieval Literature'. Having completed her MA in 1949 Reich spent a year as a teaching assistant in the German Department at Glasgow University before returning to London to take up the position of Assistant Lecturer at King's College in October 1950. While working Reich began to study part time for a PhD under the supervision of Professor Edna Purdie (PP/4). In 1953 she became an Assistant Lecturer at Bedford College and was promoted to the position of Lecturer in 1955. In 1959 she married Thomas Henry Reich. All that is known about her after this date is that she edited the 6th edition of 'A History of German Literature' in 1970. Publications: editor of 'Laokoon' by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (Oxford University Press, London, 1965); editor of sixth edition of 'A history of German literature' (Blackwood, London, 1970).
Studied Mathematics at Royal Holloway College, University of London, 1895-1899; Assistant Lecturer, 1899-1902, Staff Lecturer, 1902-1907, and Senior Staff Lecturer, 1907-1939, in Mathematics, Royal Holloway College; writer of essays, stories and poems, mainly published in the Hibbert Journal and Philosophy; died 1951.
Publications: Time and Time again: essays on various subjects (Allen and Unwin, London, 1941).
No information available at present.
Publications: As Jennie Melville - A different kind of summer (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1967); A new kind of killer, an old kind of death (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1970); Burning is a substitute for loving (Michael Joseph, London, 1963); Come home and be killed (Michael Joseph, London, 1962); Ironwood (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1972); Murderers' houses (Michael Joseph, London, 1964); Nell alone (Michael Joseph, London, 1966); Nun's Castle (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1974); Raven's Forge (Macmillan, London, 1975); The summer assassin (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1971); There lies your love (Michael Joseph, London, 1965); The hunter in the shadows (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1969); Dragon's eye (Macmillan, London, 1977); Axwater (Macmillian, London, 1978); Murder has a pretty face (Macmillan, London, 1981); The painted castle (Macmillan, London, 1982); The hand of glass (Macmillan, London, 1983); Listen to the children (Macmillan, London, 1986); Death in the garden (Macmillan, London, 1987); Windsor red (Macmillan, London, 1988); A cure for dying (Macmillan, London, 1989); Witching murder (Macmillan, London, 1990); Footsteps in the blood (Macmillan, London, 1990); Dead set (Macmillan, London, 1992); Whoever has the heart (Macmillan, London, 1993); Baby drop (Macmillan, London, 1994); The morbid kitchen (Macmillan, London, 1995); The woman who was not there (Macmillan, London, 1996); Revengeful death (Macmillan, London, 1997).
Born 1875; educated village school at Holme St Cuthbert, Cumberland, Agricultural College, Aspatria, West Cumberland, and Royal College of Science and King's College, University of London; Teacher at a school in Towcester, Northamptonshire, 1896-1898; Mathematics Master, Beccles College, Suffolk, and Craven College, Highgate, 1898-[1901]; taught in Berlitz School of Languages, Elberfeld, Germany, and at branches of the school in Dortmund, Münster, Barmen and Cologne, [1901-1902]; Student of Mathematics, University of Leipzig, Germany, 1902-1906; Assistant Lecturer, Wheatstone Laboratory, King's College, University of London, 1906-1920; Reader in Physics, King's College London, 1920-1921; Hildred Carlile Professor of Physics, Bedford College, University of London, 1921-1944; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1923; Fellow of King's College London; Professor Emeritus, [1944]; retired 1944; died 1965.
Publications: translated Nuclear Physics (Methuen and Co, London, 1953); A hundred years of physics (Gerald Duckworth and co, London, 1950); Theoretical Physics (Methuen and Co, London, 1931-1940); The microphysical world (Methuen and Co, London, 1951).
Born 1882; educated Manchester High School for Girls and Manchester University, where she was a Jones Fellow in History, 1904, and gained an MA in 1906; Assistant Lecturer in History, University of Manchester, 1906-1913; Editorial Section, War Trade Intelligence Department, 1916-1919; Reader in History, [King's College London], University of London, 1913-1922; Fellow of Royal Historical Society; Member of London University History Board and the Board of Examiners; Professor of History, Royal Holloway College, University of London, 1922-1942; retired 1942; Honorary Archivist to the Bishop of Chichester, 1942-1951; Emeritus Professor of History in University of London, 1948-1961; Honorary Consultant on Ecclesiastical Archives to Records Committee, West Sussex County Council, 1951; died 1961.
Publications: The wardrobe and household of Henry, son of Edward I (University Press, Manchester, 1923); Annals of Ghent (Thomas Nelson and Sons, London, 1951); A hundred years of history from record and chronicle, 1216-1327 (Longmans and Co, London, 1912); A short history of England (P. Varadachary and Co, Madras, 1934); English history for beginners (P. Varadachary and Co, Madras, 1934); France: the last Capetians (1932); Oliver Cromwell and his times ([1912]); Stories of Greece and Rome (Longmans and Co, London, 1914); Alexander Hay: historian of Chichester (Chichester, 1961); editor of Churchwardens presentments, 17th century (Lewes, 1948); editor of Letters of Edward, Prince of Wales, 1304-1305 (Cambridge, 1931); Happy days in healthy ways (Macmillan and Co, London, 1923); The place of the reign of Edward II in English history (Manchester, 1936); editor of State trials of the reign of Edward the First, 1289-1293 (London, 1906).
Born 1864; educated in Dresden, Germany, Cheltenham Ladies College, Gloucestershire, and Queen's College and Bedford College, London; travelled extensively on the continent and in the USA; member of London literary circles; actively interested in the women's' rights movement; received a civil list pension in recognition of her literary work, 1930; died 1936.
Publications: Two health-seekers in Southern California (Lippincott Co, Philadelphia, 1897) with W A Edwards; preface to Nature rambles in London (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1908); A new book of the fairies (Griffith and Farran, London, [1891]); Concerning 'Ships that pass in the night' (S.S. McClure, London, [1894]); Hilda Stafford and the Remittance Man (Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh, 1897); In varying moods (Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh, 1894); Interplay (Methuen and Co, London, 1908); Katherine Frensham: a novel (Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, 1903); Master Roley (F. Warne and Co, London and New York, 1889); Our warrior women (Witherby and Co, London, 1916); Out of the wreck I rise (Thomas Nelson and Sons, London, 1912); Patuffa (Hodder and Stoughton, London, [1923]); Rachel (Hodder and Stoughton, London, [1926]); Search will find it out (Mills and Boon, London, 1928); Ships that pass in the night (Lawrence and Bullen, London, 1893); Spring shall plant (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1920); The fowler (Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh, 1899); The guiding thread (Methuen and Co, London, 1916); The scholar's daughter (Methuen and Co, London, 1906); Things will take a turn (Blackie and Son, London, [1889]); Thirteen all told (Methuen and Co, London, 1921); Untold tales of the past (Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, 1897); Where your treasure is (Hutchinson and Co, London, 1918); Youth calling (Hodder and Stoughton, London, [1924]).
Born 1879; educated Wallasey Grammar School, the Wirral, University College, Liverpool, Victoria University, Manchester, and Balliol College, Oxford University; Assistant Lecturer in Latin and Classics, Liverpool University, 1903-1908; Reader in Greek, 1908-1928, and Professor of Greek, 1928-1936, Bedford College, University of London; Head of Greek Department, Bedford College, 1908-1936; died 1936.
Publications: translation of The birds and the frogs by Aristophanes (E. Arnold and Co, London, 1927); editor of The olynthiac speeches of Demosthenes (University Press, Cambridge, 1915); Leaves of Hellas: essays on some aspects of Greek literature (E. Arnold and Co, London, 1926); Studies and diversions in Greek literature (E. Arnold and Co, London, 1937); introduction and notes for an edition of Ion by Plato (1912).
Born 1886; educated Notting Hill High School, London; won Entrance Scholarship to Royal Holloway College, 1906, where she gained a BSc Hons in Mathematics in 1909; Mistress, Wimbledon High School, London, 1909-1910; Mistress, Maida Vale School, London, 1910-[1914]; Private Mistress in Sedburgh, Yorkshire, [1914-1917]; Assistant Mistress, St Sampsons Elementary School, Guernsey, 1918; Assistant Mistress, Twickenham Girls' School, 1918-[1927]; died, 1929.
The Secretary acted as the administrative officer of the Governors. Responsibilities of the post included dealing with the College accounts, the ordering of supplies and the maintenance of College buildings and property, as well as taking minutes of meetings and preparing official correspondence. On the death of the first Secretary of the Governors, Mr J L Clifford-Smith, in 1898, the decision was taken that in future a woman should fill the post. The appointment of Dorothy Hustler in 1948 led to the reorganisation of the College accounts, and she was also responsible for ongoing negotiations for the purchase of surrounding properties, in order to facilitate the expansion of the College in the 1950s. 1969 saw the establishment of a separate Accounts Department. Titled the Secretary to the Governors until 1949, the postholder then became known as the College Secretary.
The College Letter was founded in 1890 for circulation to members of the Royal Holloway College Association. It reported on the activities of the clubs and societies of the College. Alongside this ran Erinna, an annual literary magazine, which included contributions from staff and students alike. The Letter was replaced in 1957 by Caviare.
A weekly College newspaper called Château was founded in 1968. This replaced Mr Gillie (also known as the Wall Newspaper) which had begun life as a sheet on the College noticeboard reporting on sporting and social events, and had circulated briefly as a news sheet from 1966-1967.
The number of student societies and clubs increased rapidly as student numbers rose during the 1890s. These groups, each with their own President and Committee, had high staff participation, mainly due to the residential nature of the teaching posts. Examples of the earliest societies are CHARD, the Royal Holloway College Dramatic Association (founded 1887); musical groups, including the Choir, the Band, and the Choral Society; departmental societies such as the Art History Society, at which various staff gave lectures; political and debating clubs; religious societies; and charitable organisations. Sports societies organised matches and other activities in the afternoons.
The societies and clubs were organised firstly by the College Meeting (1890-1925), which controlled the Theoric Fund from which allocations were made for Chard, the various sports clubs, and other purposes such as the College Albums Committee. The role of the College Meeting was superseded on the creation of the Royal Holloway College Union Society in 1923, which took over its responsibilities in 1925. Each Society seems to have kept its own minutes and financial records.
The Royal Holloway College Association was formed as a result of the first College Meeting (held in July 1890). The purpose of the Association was to enable former students and staff to keep in touch with the activities of the College and its present students. Current students and staff at the College were automatically made honorary members of the Association, which met once a year.
A Committee, consisting of the Principal and a number of members and representatives of honorary members of the RHCA, met al least once a term to discuss matters relating to the RHCA.
The College Letter, founded in 1890, contained news about the College and was issued twice a year to all members of the RHCA. A separate College Letter Committee was formed to deal with this. In 1970, a new body known as RHESUS (Royal Holloway Ex-Students Union Society) was formed as an alternative alumni association to counter the elderly membership of the RHCA. The two groups merged in 1984, retaining the original name.
The Deed of Foundation for the College (October 1883) assigned the management and government of the College to twelve Governors, including the three Trustees of the College Estate appointed by the Founder, Thomas Holloway. The Board of Governors was to contain five Representative Governors, one appointed by the Lord President of the Council (or Head of the Education Department of the Government), one by the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor and Senate of the University of London, one by the Court of Aldermen of the City of London, one by the Corporation of Windsor, and one by the Corporation of Reading. The remaining four Governors were to be co-optative and elected by the rest of the Governors. Each Governor was appointed for the term of seven years and was then eligible for re-election. The Governors were given the power to elect all future Trustees of the College and to remove Trustees from office. Governors could resign at any time and would cease to hold the office in cases of bankruptcy, insolvency, or absence from meetings for a stated amount of time. They could be removed from office by the votes of a majority of the Governors. Each vacancy was to be filled by the body which had nominated the retiring or deceased Governor.
The Governors held monthly meetings at the College during the academic terms. A Chairman was to be elected by a majority. The Board of Governors was given responsibility for the entire management of the College. As stated in the Deed of Foundation, this included the appointment and remuneration of the Principal and Professors, and all the teachers, officers and servants; the overseeing of the purchase of all food and other articles and things requisite in the conduct and management of the College; the framing of the curriculum and general regulations of the College, the College terms, the fees payable by students, the mode and system of examinations and of registering and awarding results; and the distribution of the Founders Scholarships and other prizes and awards. They also had the power to make and publish bylaws for the general management of the College and the terms of service of staff members. The Secretary to the Governors carried out the day-to-day administrative responsibilities of the Governors.
The Foundation Deed stated that women could not be Governors, and this was not changed until the Governors executed a Deed Poll in 1912. This provided that two of the co-optative Governors should be women, and at the same time extended the number of Governors to 19. The Principal and two other staff members were also invited to attend Governors Meetings after this point. In 1920 the Foundation Deed was amended to provide for the appointment of the Principal as an ex-officio Governor, and for two other staff Governors (who should be members of the Academic Board).
In 1949, the College Council replaced the Board of Governors as a result of the Royal Holloway College Act. The Council was to consist of 22 members, namely a Chairman, the Principal, six Co-Opted Members, and fourteen Representative Members elected by the Lord President of the Privy Council (1), the Senate of the University of London (2), the Court of Aldermen of the City of London (1), the Minister of Education (2), the Hebdomadal Council of the University of Oxford (1), the Council of the Senate of the University of Cambridge (1), the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the borough of Windsor (1), the Academic Board (4), and the Royal Holloway College Association (RHCA) (1). Women were appointed on the same condition as men. All representative or co-opted members were to hold office for five years at the end of which they were to be eligible for re-appointment. The representatives of the Academic Board, however, were to be appointed annually but were also eligible for re-appointment.
The Council was responsible for the management, control and administration of all property and income of the College, and for the government of the affairs of the College. Subject to various legal safeguards and the approval of the University, the Council was empowered to make new Statutes for the College. Among its specified powers were the rights to admit men as non-resident postgraduate students and to change or add to the curriculum. From 1949, the Secretary to the Governors became the College Secretary. In 1970, student representatives, one being the President of the Union, were allowed to sit on the Council.
William Macmichael was born in Bridgnorth, Shropshire on 30 November 1783, the son of William Macmichael, a banker of Bridgnorth. He was educated at Bridgnorth Grammar School and then entered Christchurch, Oxford, in 1800 on a scholarship. He proceeded BA in 1805, MA in 1807, and MB in 1808. He spent the next three years continuing his medical studies in Edinburgh and then at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. In 1811 he was elected to one of the Radcliffe traveling fellowships, and traveled for several years, visiting Greece, Russia, the Danubian principalities (now Romania), Bulgaria, Turkey and Palestine. In 1812 whilst in Thermopylae, Greece, he contracted malaria. He suffered intermittently from fevers for the next two years. In 1814, less than two years after Napolean Bonaparte's defeat, Macmichael visited Moscow, which he found to be in ruins. He was employed for a short time as physician to the Marquis of Londonderry, Charles William Vane, whilst he was ambassador at Vienna. Macmichael returned from his travels, having received the news that his bankers had failed and that most of his money was lost. He graduated MD at Oxford in 1816.
He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1817, and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians the following year. He returned to Europe in 1817-18 before settling to practice in London. In 1819 he published an account of his travels illustrated by his own drawings, A Journey from Moscow to Constantinople in the Years 1817, 1818. He became closely involved with the Royal College of Physicians, where he was appointed censor in 1820. In 1822 he was elected physician to the Middlesex Hospital. In the same year he published his first medical work, A New View of the Infection of Scarlet Fever: Illustrated by Remarks on other Contagious Disorders. Having realised that second attacks of the scarlet fever were rare, he advocated if one child in a family developed the disease it was wise to let the other children contract it.
From 1824-29 he was registrar at the College, serving during the College's move from its premises in Warwick Lane, to Pall Mall East, in 1825. During this time Macmichael anonymously published the biographical work The Gold-Headed Cane (1827), which tells of the adventures of the physician's cane carried by John Radcliffe, Richard Mead, Anthony Askew, William Pitcairn and Matthew Baillie in turn. It gives both good biographies of the owners and information on the condition of medicine in 18th century England.
In 1829 Macmichael was appointed physician extraordinary to the King, George IV. The following year he published a small volume entitled The Lives of British Physicians (1830), again anonymously. This work consisted of eighteen biographies by himself and others, of such eminent physicians as Thomas Linacre, John Caius, and William Harvey. It has been said that the work was of `the same merit of style as the Gold-Headed Cane; they contain much information, and are never dry' (DNB, 1893, p.230). It was also in 1830 that Macmichael became librarian to the King, and in 1831 physician in ordinary to the new King, William IV. He had treated the King for gout before he succeeded to the throne, and the King gave Macmichael his own gold-headed cane, as free from gout he no longer needed it. He was indebted to his patron Sir Henry Halford for these appointments, but despite this powerful patronage Macmichael never acquired a large practice.
In 1831 he resigned from the Middlesex Hospital. He was censor again for the Royal College of Physicians in 1832. The following year Macmichael was appointed as Inspector General of Lunatic Asylums, one of four commissioners whose job it was to license and inspect London's madhouses. Macmichael carried out this duty until 1835. The following year, at the College, he was made Consiliarius (adviser or counsellor to the President).
In 1837 he suffered an attack of paralysis. Compelled to withdraw from professional life, he retired to Maida Hill. He had married Mary Jane Freer in 1827 and they had one daughter. Macmichael died on 10 January 1839 at the age of 55.
Publications:
A Journey from Moscow to Constantinople in the Years 1817, 1818 (London, 1819)
A New View of the Infection of Scarlet Fever: Illustrated by Remarks on other Contagious Disorders (London, 1822)
A Brief Sketch of the Progress of Opinion upon the Subject of Contagion, with some Remarks on Quarantine (London, 1825)
The Gold-Headed Cane (London, 1827; 2nd ed. 1828; 3rd ed. by Munk with additions, 1884)
Lives of British Physicians (London, 1830)
Is the Cholera Spasmodica of India a Contagious Disease? The Question Considered in a Letter to Sir Henry Halford, Bart, MD (London, 1831)
Some Remarks on Dropsy, with a Narrative of the Last Illness of the Duke of York, read at the Royal College of Physicians, May 25, 1835 (London, 1835)
Various
Sir Theodore Turquet de Mayerne was born on 28 September 1573 in Geneva, the son of Louis Turquet de Mayerne, a protestant French historian. Theodore Beza, John Calvin's successor, was Mayerne's godfather and namesake. After being educated in Geneva Mayerne went to the University of Heidelberg, where he studied for several years. Physic was his chosen profession and he went to Montpelier to pursue his medical studies. He proceeded MB in 1596, and MD in 1597.
Mayerne then moved to Paris where he lectured on anatomy and pharmacy. He had become greatly interested in chemistry, and in his medical practice made considerable use of chemical remedies. His support of this then recent innovation brought him into favour with Lazarus Riverius, first physician to Henry IV of France, who then procured Mayerne an appointment as one of the King's physicians in 1600. However Mayerne's support equally antagonised the Faculty of Paris, who would accept no dissent from Galen. In 1603 Mayerne, in conjunction with Quercetanus, was attacked by the Faculty in print, in Apologia pro Medicina Hippocratis et Galeni, contra Mayernium et Quercetanum. Mayerne responded with an apologetic answer, and his only medical publication, Apologia in qua videre est, inviolatis Hippocratis et Galeni legibus, Remedia Chemice praeparata tuto usurpari posse. Rupel. 1603. In this he demonstrated that chemical remedies were not only in accordance with the principles but also with the practice of Hippocrates and Galen.
Despite another interdict from the Galenists Mayerne remained in favour with the King, who appointed him to attend the Duke de Rohan in his embassies to the courts of Germany and Italy. Although he continued to rise in the King's esteem, Mayerne failed to secure the advantages the King offered because he refused to renounce his protestant beliefs and conform to the Church of Rome. Whilst the King would still have appointed him first physician, the Queen intervened to prevent it. Mayerne continued as physician in ordinary to the King until 1606, when he sold his place to a French physician.
It is thought that it was in the early part of 1606 that Mayerne came to England, on the invitation of an English nobleman he had treated in Paris. He was appointed physician to James I's Queen, Anne of Denmark, and was incorporated at Oxford on his Montpelier degree on 8 April 1606. It is thought that he spent the next few years in France, until the assassination of Henry IV on 14 May 1610 when he returned again to England. This was upon the request of James I, made via letters patent under the Great Seal. On his arrival the King appointed him first physician to himself and the Queen, and from this point until his death Dr Mayerne appears to have been considered one of the first physicians in the kingdom' (Munk's Roll, 1878, p.165). His practice soon thrived; he even had French patients cross the Channel to consult him. His patients included Sir Robert Cecil and Prince Henry, about whose demise by typhoid fever he wrote a detailed state paper. This document remainsa valuable monument of the medicine of the time' (DNB, 1894, p.151).
In 1616 Mayerne was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. The following year he was influential in obtaining a charter for the Society of Apothecaries, separating them from the Grocers, and was later the chief founder of the Company of Distillers. In 1618 he wrote the dedication of the first Pharmacopoeia Londinensis to the King. At about this time Mayerne revisited France. He was however in England again in 1624 when he was knighted at Theobalds. In the same year he wrote a collection of prescriptions and methods of practice for his colleagues, explaining that he would again be absent from his duties for a time. It has been said about this undertaking that
`certain prudential rules for their conduct are prefixed, which show the man of sense and liberal sentiments, but might, perhaps, be thought somewhat assuming and officious, considering the persons to whom they were addressed' (Munk's Roll, p.166).
In 1625 Mayerne returned for a short time to Switzerland, to his house in Aubonne, where a few years earlier he had taken the title Baron Aubonne.
On the accession of Charles I in 1625, Mayerne was appointed first physician to the King and Queen. During his reign Mayerne rose still higher in reputation and authority. His leisure time was spent conducting chemical and physical experiments, which he had begun in Paris. He introduced calomel into medical practice and invented the mercurial lotion known as the black-wash (lotio nigra). He experimented on pigments, and consequently did much to advance the art of enameling. He mixed paints and varnishes for artists, and cosmetics for the ladies at Court. It has been said of him that he was
`an innovator and a man of new ideas, and for that reason was perhaps over-anxious to prove his respect for what had long been generally received' (DNB, p.152).
Mayerne is ultimately famous for his copious case notes, the detail of which was extraordinary for his time.
It is thought that he remained in London, at his house in St Martin's Lane, during the Civil War, attending patients. On Charles I's execution in 1649, he was made nominal first physician to Charles II. In the same year he retired to Chelsea.
Mayerne was twice married, first to Marguerite de Boetslaer, by whom he had three children. His wife died in 1628. In 1630 he married Elizabeth Joachimi, by whom he had five children, of whom just one daughter survived him. Mayerne died at Chelsea on 22 March 1654/5. His body was interred in the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, with the bodies of his mother, first wife, and five of his children. A monument was erected in his memory, with an inscription written by his godson, Sir Theodore des Vaux.
In 1690 Vaux published Praxis Medica, which contained a series of Mayerne's medical notes. In 1701 Joseph Browne published Mayernii Opera Medica, complectantia Consilia, Epistolas et Observationes, Pharmacopoeiam, variasque Medicamentorum formulas. Lond., which contains Mayerne's long counsels written in reply to letters. These offer some illumination of the duties of a fashionable physician in the early 17th century.
Publications:
Sommaire Description de la France, Allemange, Italie et Espagne (1592)
Apologia in qua videre est, inviolatis Hippocratis et Galeni legibus, Remedia Chemice praeparata tuto usurpari posse. Rupel. 1603
Publications by others about Mayerne:
Praxis Medica, Sir Theodore des Vaux (ed) (London, 1690)
Mayernii Opera Medica, complectantia Consilia, Epistolas et Observationes, Pharmacopoeiam, variasque Medicamentorum formulas. Lond. 1701 Joseph Browne (ed.)
`Rubens and Mayerne', Charles Davis (MA Thesis) (North Carolina, 1967)
Turquet de Mayerne as Baroque Physician: The Art of Medical Portraiture, Brian Nance (Amsterdam, 2001)
Born, 1771; education, the free grammar school, Marlborough and a school in Old Burlington Street, London; medical education mainly under his paternal uncle, also Samuel Merriman, a distinguished obstetrician; qualified, 1800; member of the Society of Apothecaries, 1800; initially practised as an apothecary but began to specialise in midwifery; from 1808 he was physician accoucheur, consulting physician accoucheur, and vice-president at the Westminster Dispensary; employed by the board of St George's, Hanover Square, to attend all difficult births in the parish, 1808; physician accoucheur to the Middlesex and Westminster lying-in hospitals, 1809; lectured on obstetrics at the Middlesex Hospital, 1810-; taught at St Bartholomew's Hospital, 1820-1821; died, 1852.
Publications: Synopsis of the Various Kinds of Difficult Parturition (1814)
Charles Murchison was born on 26 July 1830 in Jamaica, the son of the Hon. Alexander Murchison, physician. At the age of three Murchison returned with his family to Scotland and settled in Elgin, where he was educated. He entered the University of Aberdeen in 1845 as a student of arts, and two years later began to study medicine at Edinburgh University. He distinguished himself in surgery, botany, and midwifery, gaining a large number of prizes. In 1850 he passed the examination for membership of the Royal College of Surgeons, at little over twenty years old. In the same year he became house surgeon to James Syme, professor of surgery at Edinburgh University. In 1851 Murchison graduated MD, with his thesis on the structure of tumours, which won him a gold medal.
Murchison became physician to the British embassy at Turin, Italy, before returning to Edinburgh in 1852, where he served for a short time as resident physician in the city's Royal Infirmary. He continued his medical studies at Dublin and Paris before, in 1853, entering the Bengal Medical Service of the East India Company. Shortly after reaching India he was made professor of chemistry at the Medical College of Calcutta. In 1854 he served on an expedition to Burma, and the following year his two papers on the `Climate and Diseases of Burmah' were published in the Edinburgh Medical Journal (January and April 1855). In the autumn of 1855 Murchison left the service and moved to London.
Settling in London he became physician to the Westminster General Dispensary, and shortly afterwards lecturer on botany and curator of the museum at St Mary's Hospital. He also became a member of the Royal College of Physicians, and of the Pathological Society, in 1855. Throughout his career he contributed 143 papers and reports to the Transactions of the society. In 1856 he was appointed assistant physician to both the London Fever Hospital and King's College Hospital. In 1859 he was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
He resigned from King's College Hospital in 1860 and was appointed assistant physician and lecturer on pathology at the Middlesex Hospital. In 1861 he was made full physician at the London Fever Hospital, and became a specialist on fevers. From 1861-69 he edited the hospital's Annual Reports. Murchison's most important contribution to medical science was A Treatise on the Continued Fevers of Great Britain (1862). The work was subsequently translated into German and French, and came to be regarded as the leading authority on the subject. In 1866 he was promoted to the position of full physician at the Middlesex Hospital, and in the same year became a fellow of the Royal Society. Another area of interest to Murchison was liver disease, and in 1868 he published his Clinical Lectures on Diseases of the Liver, Jaundice and Abdominal Dropsy.
In 1870 he retired from the London Fever Hospital, and was presented with a testimonial by public subscription. In the same year he received an honorary degree from the University of Edinburgh. The following year he resigned from the Middlesex Hospital in order to become physician and lecturer on medicine at St Thomas's Hospital, both of these appointments he held until his death. He gained a high reputation as a clinical teacher. He was considered brilliant, although dogmatic in his approach, and was a keen controversialist. His consulting practice grew, and he became known for his `accuracy and prompt decision' (DNB, 1894, p.317). He was also an extremely prolific writer, submitting over 300 papers to various medical journals.
In 1873 he traced the origin of an epidemic of typhoid fever to a polluted supply of milk. Afterwards grateful residents of West London presented him with a testimonial. He gave the Croonian Lectures to the Royal College of Physicians in the same year, on the subject of liver disease. In 1875 he was an examiner in medicine to the University of London. For two years, from 1877 to his death, Murchison was president of the Pathological Society. He was appointed physician-in-ordinary to the Duke and Duchess of Connaught at the beginning of 1879.
Murchison died suddenly of heart disease at the age of 48, on 23 April 1879, whilst seeing patients in his consulting room. He was buried at Norwood cemetery. Murchison had married Clara Elizabeth Bickersteth in 1859, and they had had nine children, his wife and six of his children survived him. In his memory was founded the Murchison Scholarship, awarded in alternate years by the Royal College of Physicians and Edinburgh University. A marble portrait bust of Murchison was also placed in St Thomas's Hospital.
Publications:
A Clinical Treatise on Diseases of the Liver, Friedrich Theodor Frerichs, translated by Charles Murchison (London, 1860-61)
A Treatise on the Continued Fevers of Great Britain (London, 1862; 2nd ed. 1873; 3rd ed. 1884) (German translation, 1867; French translation of part, 1878)
Clinical Lectures on Diseases of the Liver, Jaundice, and Abdominal Dropsy (London, 1868; 2nd ed. incl. Functional Derangements of the Liver, 1877; 3rd ed. 1885) (French translation, 1878)
Paleontological Memoirs and Notes; with a Biographical Sketch, compiled and edited by Charles Murchison, Hugh Falconer (ed. Charles Murchison) (London, 1868)
Three Rare Forms of Disease of the Liver, Characterised by the Deposit of Nuclear Tissue (London, 1869)
On Functional Derangements of the Liver (London, 1874)
Born, 1824; educated at Wakefield School; Trinity College, Oxford, 1844; medical school in Kinnerton Street attached to St George's Hospital, London; licentiate, 1850, and Fellow, 1855, of the Royal College of Physicians; MA and MB, 1851; MD, 1857; worked at morbid anatomy and was Curator of the Museum, St George's Hospital; assistant physician, 1857; full physician, 1866; resigned from St George's, 1876; returned to active practice and Consulting Physician for St George's Hospital, 1877; died, 1905.
Born, 1869; educated at Marlborough School; studied medicine at University College, Bristol and St Mary's Hospital; qualified, 1893; Assistant Physician at Great Ormond Street, 1900; Assistant Physician, in charge of the children's wards, at University College Hospital, 1903; full Physician at UCH, 1910; full Physician at Great Ormond Street, 1919; First World War captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps; Bradshaw lecturer at the Royal College of Physicians, 1924; Lettsomian lecturer at the Medical Society of London, 1927; President of the British Paediatric Association, 1931; Long Fox Lecturer at Bristol, 1934; retired from his hospital appointments, 1934; died, 1943.
Born, 1745; education: Beverley Grammar School; Lincoln College, Oxford, 1763-; Trinity College, Cambridge; further study at Edinburgh, graduated MB at Cambridge, 1768; MD, 1773; practised at Guildford, Surrey; moved to London, 1772; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), 1774; RCP censor, 1774, 1778, 1782, 1784, 1787, and 1792; RCP registrar, 1781-1783; Goulstonian Lecturer, 1775; Harveian Orator, 1776; Physician to the Middlesex Hospital, 1773-1777; Physician to St Thomas's Hospital, 1777-1783; Physician-Extraordinary to King George III, 1788; Physician-in-Ordinary, 1806; died, 1811.
George Fordyce was born, 1736; educated, University of Aberdeen; apprenticed to study medicine under his uncle, Dr John Fordyce; Edinburgh University, 1754-1758; MD, 1758; studied anatomy under the famous anatomist Bernhard Siegfried Albinus in Leiden, 1759; returned to England, 1759; lectured on chemistry in London, 1759-; lectured on materia medica and the practice of physic, 1764-; licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, 1765; Physician to St Thomas' Hospital, 1770; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1778; died, 1802.
Alexander Stuart (1673-1742) MD of Leyden and Cambridge, was a Fellow of the College of Physicians and of the Royal Society. He was Physician to the Westminster Hospital during the same period as Dr Wasey.
William Wasey (1691-1757) MD Cambridge and President of the College of Physicians in 1750, 1751, 1752 and 1753, was Physician to the Westminster Hospital, 1719-1733.
Frederick Treves was born on 15 February 1853, in Dorchester, Dorset, the youngest son of William Treves, upholsterer and furniture maker in Dorchester, and his wife Jane, daughter of John Knight of Honiton. In 1860, at the age of seven, Treves attended the school in Dorchester run by the Rev. William Barnes, poet. From 1867, until the age of eighteen, he was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School in the City of London. Treves left in 1871 to begin his study of medicine at University College London, and then at the Medical School of the London Hospital. In 1874 he became a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries. He passed the membership examinations for the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1875 after four years of study, during which time he proved his `excellent manipulative ability' (DNB, 1937, p.856).
Treves held a house-surgeonship at the London Hospital in the early summer of 1876. In August of that year he became resident medical officer at the Royal National Hospital for Scrofula (later the Royal Sea-Bathing Hospital) at Margate, Kent, where his elder brother, William, was honorary surgeon. Treves soon left to take up practice, in order to provide a home for his fiancé Anne Elizabeth Mason, in Wirksworth, Derbyshire. He and Anne married in 1877. Treves continued to study for the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1878. In 1879, after two years, he gave up his practice in Derbyshire and returned to London, to become surgical registrar at the London Hospital. Almost immediately a vacancy on the surgical staff became available, and Treves was appointed assistant surgeon.
Meanwhile in order to ensure a livelihood, which was essential until he had built up a consulting practice, Treves became a demonstrator of anatomy to the Medical School of the Hospital. His reputation soon spread, it has been said that
`his clear, incisive style, his power of happy description, his racy humour, and the applicability of his teaching brought crowds of students to his daily demonstrations' (ibid, p.857).
He was also at this time clinical assistant to the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital.
Treves was in charge of the practical teaching of anatomy from 1881-1884. During this period he produced one of many successful textbooks, Surgical Applied Anatomy (1883). In 1884 Treves, at the age of thirty-one, became full surgeon at the London Hospital. Later in this year he met Joseph Merrick, known as the 'Elephant Man', who became Treves' greatest pathologicalsuccess'', despite his inability to diagnose his condition (Trombley, 1989, p.36). Treves ultimately `rescued' Merrick from destitution, creating a home for him the attic of the London Hospital, until his death in 1890. Also in 1884, and for almost the next ten years, he became lecturer on anatomy, during which period he edited A Manual of Surgery (3 vols, 1886), A Manual of Operative Surgery (1891), and The Student's Handbook of Surgical Operations (1892). He gave this post up in 1893 to teach operative surgery, which he did for one year until he was appointed lecturer in surgery, 1894-1897. He edited A System of Surgery (2 vols, 1895), which, as with all his publications, offered a lively, clear style supported by many practical observations.
Treves also acquired renown as an investigator. His research into scrofula, instigated during his early experience in Margate, led to the publication of his research, Scrofula and its Gland Diseases (1882). He also became interested in the abdomen, at that time a field of advance in surgery. He made a survey of the anatomy of the abdomen, and in 1883 the Royal College of Surgeons awarded him the Jacksonian prize for his dissertation, Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment of Obstruction of the Intestine (1884). (This was later revised as Intestinal Obstruction, its Varieties with their Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment (1899).) His best original work however is considered to be his Hunterian lectures, delivered to the Royal College of Surgeons, on The Anatomy of the Intestinal Canal and Peritoneum (1885). Treves was one of the first surgeons to devote special attention to diseases of the appendix. With regard to appendicitis (then known as perityphlitis), he became convinced that it was the appendix and not the caecum, as had originally been believed, that was the site of the disease. He did great service to the advance of English surgery by advocating operative treatment for appendicitis, and was the first to advise that in chronic cases operating should be delayed until a quiescent interval had passed.
During these years Treves built up a reputation as a leading surgeon. It has been said that he was a man of many-sided genius and widely varied achievement' (JRSM, 1992, p.565). His consulting room at No. 6 Wimpole Street becameone of the best known in England' (DNB, 1937, p.857). Indeed so extensive had it become by 1898 that he resigned his post as surgeon at the London Hospital, where for twenty years he had played an important role in the management of the medical school, and had been, for most of that time, a member of the College Board.
In 1899, on the outbreak of the Boer War, he was called to serve as consulting surgeon to the field forces. The following year he published an account of his experiences, in charge of No. 4 Field Hospital and being present at the relief of Ladysmith, in his Tale of a Field Hospital (1900). He was subsequently a member of the committee established to report on the re-organsiation of the Army Medical Service, after charges had been made in the public arena about the inadequate care of the sick and wounded during the early months of the War. His personal experiences contributed greatly to the recommendations made and accepted.
Upon his return to England from South Africa in 1900 he was appointed surgeon extraordinary to Queen Victoria. He was made CB and KCVO in 1901, and was subsequently awarded the GCVO in 1905. The summer of 1902 saw Treves' fame spread suddenly across the world when, on 24 June 1902, two days before his coronation, King Edward VII became acutely ill with perityphlitis. After consultation with Lord Lister and Sir Thomas Smith, Treves operated on the King, who made a good recovery and was crowned on 9 August. Treves was created a baronet in the same year. He was later made sergeant-surgeon to King George V in 1910, as he had been to King Edward VII.
After his retirement from professional work in 1908, Treves occupied himself as a member of the Territorial Forces Advisory Council, as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the British Red Cross Society, and as a member of the London Territorial Forces Association. He was an honorary colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps Wessex Division and an honorary staff surgeon to the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. He also served as an examiner in anatomy or surgery for several years at the Royal College of Surgeons, and at the universities of Cambridge, Aberdeen and Durham. He received several honorary degrees, and was elected to the Rectorship of Aberdeen University, 1905-1908. He was also, throughout his life, a keen athlete and an accomplished sailor, holding his Master Mariner's ticket.
Treves was furthermore a successful travel writer, and wrote a series of books based on his travels and adventures. The Other Side of the Lantern (1905) was based on a tour around the world during 1903-4, undertaken with his wife. He wrote a guide to his native county, Highways and Byways of Dorset (1906). A voyage to the West Indies supplied the material for The Cradle of the Deep (1908), as did a trip to Uganda for Uganda for a Holiday (1910). He wrote about his experiences of Palestine in The Land that is Desolate (1912). He also went to Italy to investigate the topography of Robert Browning's The Ring and the Book, which provided the basis for The Country of `The Ring and the Book' (1913).
During the First World War Treves served at the War Office as President of the Headquarters Medical Board. At the end of the War his health made it advisable for him to live abroad. Upon his retirement Treves had been granted by King Edward VII the use of Thatched House Lodge, Richmond Park. In 1920 however he moved first to the South of France, and then to Vevey, on Lake Geneva. His experiences of this period were expressed in his publications, The Riviera of the Corniche Road (1921) and the Lake of Geneva (1922). Treves' last book was devoted to recollections of his medical experiences and was entitled The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences (1923). He had written a manuscript of his autobiography, however, having had second thoughts about its publication, ensured that it was eventually destroyed.
Treves died on 7 December 1923 at his home in Vevey, Switzerland, after a few days illness. He died of peritonitis, ironically the disease in which he was the expert. His ashes were buried in Dorchester Cemetery, at a service arranged by his lifelong friend Thomas Hardy, author and poet. He had had two daughters; the elder survived him, the younger having died of acute appendicitis in 1900.
Publications:
Scrofula and its Gland Diseases (London, 1882)
Surgical Applied Anatomy (London, 1883)
Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment of Obstruction of the Intestine (London, 1884) (later revised and published as Intestinal Obstruction, its Varieties with their Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment (1899).)
The Anatomy of the Intestinal Canal and Peritoneum (London, 1885)
A Manual of Surgery (3 vols, 1886)
A Manual of Operative Surgery (1891)
The Student's Handbook of Surgical Operations (London, 1892)
A System of Surgery (edited by Treves) (2 vols, 1895)
Tale of a Field Hospital (London, 1900)
Highways and Byways of Dorset (1906)
The Cradle of the Deep (1908)
Uganda for a Holiday (1910)
The Land that is Desolate (1912)
The Country of `The Ring and the Book' (1913)
The Riviera of the Corniche Road (1921)
Lake of Geneva (1922)
The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences (1923)
Publications by others about Treves:
Sir Frederick Treves: The Extra-Ordinary Edwardian, Stephen Trombley (London, 1989)
Wilfrid Bernard Vaillant was born at Meadowleigh, Weybridge, on 23 September 1864, son of Major Albert Vaillant. He was educated at Clewer Hill School from 1874-78, and then Radley College from 1878-83, where he won several sports prizes. He entered Christ Church College, Oxford, in 1883 and graduated BA in 1890 and MA in 1891.
Between 1885-90 he worked at the recently established Oxford House, Bethnal Green, East London. Oxford House was built to be a home to graduates, tutors and those intending to enter the church so that they might learn at first hand the problems of the city poor, through social, educational and religious work with them.
Vaillant attended Ely Theological College between 1890 and 1891. He was ordained Deacon on 20 September 1891 in Ely Cathedral, and Priest in St Paul's Cathedral on 18 February 1894. He became Curate at the Christ Church Oxford Mission, St Frideswide's, East London.
Born, 1885; educated: Prior Park College, near Bath, 1898-1901; University College School, London, 1901-1903; University College Hospital; National Hospital, Queen Square. Royal Army Medical Corps, consulting neurologist to the British forces in Egypt and the Middle East, 1915-; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1920; staff of the National Hospital, 1921; the Department of Neurology was founded for him at University College Hospital, 1924; died, 1973.
Born 1841, Hafod, Wales, and brought up on the family farm in Pembrokeshire; apprenticed to a local apothecary; aged nineteen moved to London, worked at a chemist in Streatham and then as dispenser to the German Hospital; attended German lectures at University College London; moved to Aberdeen where he qualified in 1867; Army Medical School at Netley, Hampshire, 1868, where at the end of the four-month course passed out first on the list; posted to India in 1869, where he investigated cholera; while studying chyluria (the presence of lymphatic fluid in urine), he discovered minute worms in the urine of one particular patient - subsequently they were identified as Filariidae; in 1872 Lewis found similar worms in a blood sample and when this work was written up Lewis was amazed to discover the original patient setting up the type for its publication by the Government Printing Office in Calcutta. Later he found the mature worm but it had already been discovered independently of him by Joseph Bancroft in Australia. However he discovered and described the first trypanosome, which was named Trypanosoma lewisei after him, in the blood of a mammal; appointed, 1883, Assistant Professor of Pathology at Netley where he introduced practical bacteriology to the curriculum; died of pneumonia, 1886, allegedly as a consequence of a laboratory accident.
Lionel Everard Napier was born in 1888 and educated at St John's School, Leatherhead and St Bartholomew's Hospital. Napier became a member and licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1914 and served in World War One, 1915-1918.
Napier worked as consultant on Tropical Diseases, Ministry of Pensions; Medical Editor, Caxton Publishing Company; editor of the Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and Professor of Tropical Medicine and Director of School of Tropical Medicine, Calcutta. Napier's work was recognised when he was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1940 and when he was appointed Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire, 1942. Napier died in 1957.
Max Joseph von Pettenkofer was born in southern Germany in 1818; attended high school in Munich and then studied pharmacy, natural science and medicine, qualifying with a Phd in medicine, surgery and midwifery, 1843. Pettenkofer then applied to join Liebig's laboratory at Giessen, having to wait two years to enter. During these two years he studied at Würzberg, devising the test for bile acid that bears his name and started research into meat juices which inspired Liebig to investigate them.
Pettenkofer left Giessen to seek better-paid employment in Munich; was appointed Extraordinary Professor of Pathological Chemistry at the University of Munich, 1847 and was promoted to Ordinary Professor 8 years later. Pettenkofer became Chief of the Court Pharmacy and Apothecary to the Court, 1850 and began investigating John Snow's thesis that cholera and typhoid were water-borne, following epidemics in Munich. Results of his investigation convinced him that the cause lay in the moisture content of the soil which varied with the rise and fall of ground water. Despite his fallacious theories Pettenkofer's sanitary work improved the health of Munich. Pettenkofer refused to believe in the germ theory and is said to have drunk a vial of water contaminated by Vibrio cholerae which was sent to him by Robert Koch, assuring Koch that he remained in his usual good health. There is a theory that this was a death wish in disguise as he later committed suicide in 1901.
Publications: Cholera: how to prevent and resist it (Baillière Tindall, & Cox, London, 1883); Outbreak of cholera among convicts : an etiological study of the influence of dwelling, food, drinking-water, occupation, age, state of health, and intercourse upon the course of cholera in a community living in precisely the same circumstances (Asher, London, 1876) and The value of health to a city: two lectures delivered in 1873 (Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1941).
Born 18 Jan 1868; educated Tavistock Grammar School, Devon County School, and Plymouth College; entered St Mary's Hospital Medical School, London, 1886; FRCS and MB, BS (London), 1892; entered Indian Medical Service, 1893; MD (London), 1897; MRCP, 1898; on return to India, lent to the veterinary department for research, Múktesar, where he made important discoveries on the control of rinderpest in cattle by inoculation and on transmission of equine trypanosomiasis (surra) in horses and camels; posted to the Bengal civil medical department, Calcutta, 1900; Professor of Pathology, Medical College Calcutta, 1906; undertook research on the effects of antimony on the parasite of kala-azar, sea snake venom, and the effects of emetine on amoebic dysentery; also introduced major improvements in treatment of amoebic abscess of the liver by aseptic aspiration, and in cholera by the intravenous infusion of sterile solution of blood salts (known as 'Rogers Fluid'); investigated efficacy of chaulmoogra oil on leprosy and encouraged research into a cure for leprosy; instrumental in foundation of the Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine, and in foundation of the British Empire Leprosy Relief Association, 1923; knighted, 1914; elected Fellow of the Royal Society, 1916; left India, 1920; retired from Indian Medical Service, 1921; appointed lecturer at the London School of Tropical Medicine; appointed member of the India Office Medical Board, 1922, and its President, 1928; Secretary of the Research Defence Society; retired and given honorary rank of Major General, 1933; President Royal Society of Tropical Medicine, 1933-1935. Selected publications: Fevers in the Tropics (1907); Cholera and its treatment (1911); Bowel diseases in the Tropics (1921); Leprosy with Ernest Muir (1925); Recent Advances in Tropical Medicine (1928); Tropical Medicine with JWD Megaw (1930); Happy Toil (1950), numerous scientific papers in medical journals and Royal Society publications on fevers, snake venoms, liver abscesses, tuberculosis, leprosy; kala-azar, cholera and dysenteries.
Prior to the introduction of the GPO's mail coach service in 1784, the mail was conveyed by horse riders or mail cart on the longer routes out of London and on foot on some country services. The service was slow and vulnerable to attacks by armed robbers. In 1782 John Palmer of Bath put forward his scheme for conveying the mail by stage coach. Rejected in 1783 by the Postmasters General, a trial was finally approved in June 1784, with the support of William Pitt, Chancellor of the Exchequer. The experiment on the Bristol-Bath-London road in August 1784 was a success and Palmer began to organise further mail coach services in 1785. He was appointed Surveyor and Comptroller General of the Post Office in 1786 and presided over the expansion of the service throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. By 1790 all the most important routes had been covered and many towns had a daily delivery and collection of mail by coach. The full scheme involved 42 mail coach routes.
The mail coach service was almost immediately affected by the arrival of the railways in the 1830s. The GPO quickly took advantage of this new and faster method of transport to replace the mail coaches. The last of the London based coaches ceased in 1846, although this method of conveyance continued for cross post services between some provincial towns until the 1850s. The last coach in the Midlands ran out of Manchester in 1858. Mail coaches lasted longest in those area which railways were slow to reach, such as Cornwall, Mid Wales, the Peak District and far North of Scotland. One of the last mail routes to be used, to Thurso in northern Scotland, ceased after the opening of the Highland Railway in 1874. In some remote parts of Scotland railways were never built and horse drawn carriage continued into the twentieth century, until replaced by motor vehicles.
Post Office experiments with motor transport began in the 1890s. Until the end of the First World War services were provided mainly by private contractors. In 1919 the Post Office introduced its own fleet of motor vehicles.
Rowland Hill is remembered today as a key reformer of the British Postal Service. In 1840, he introduced the Universal Penny Postage which decreed that letters of a given weight should all cost the same to send, regardless of the distance. For example, letters up to ½ ounce cost 1d (14gms/0.5p) to send and postage was prepaid, using the world's first adhesive stamp.
He first advocated his plan in a pamphlet published in 1837 and the system was recommended for adoption by a Committee of the House of Commons the following year and put into effect in 1840. Hill was appointed as adviser to the Treasury to introduce the postal reforms. He strove to create a more efficient postal service that everyone could afford. His reforms ranged from encouraging people to insert letter boxes in their front doors to creating London's first postal districts. The appointment was terminated following a change of government in 1842. He was recalled to the Post Office in 1846 and appointed Secretary to the Postmaster General, and succeeded Colonel Maberly as Secretary to the Post Office in 1854. He retired from Office in 1864 and died in August, 1879.
Over the centuries there have been hundreds of different ways that messages have been carried and sent. By the early 1830s typeprinting of Telegraphs was happening in Europe, and in 1889 an English model of one of these machines was introduced to the Post Office by (Mr) Hughes.
By 1913 the Post Office was looking at ways of improving the speed of its operation and it was not long before the 'Teleprinter' was introduced by Creed. This machine possessed a typewriter keyboard and could be operated to approximately sixty five words a minute. This machine printed the Telegram ready for delivery. This was a great boost to the efficiency of the system. It was adopted by the Post Office and used by its telegraph services.
The Post Office wanted to encourage the use of the Telegraph and in the early days reduced rates and employed more operators in order to reduce delay. They improved the working areas, and introduced motor cycles to speed up delivery. By the 1930s they were introducing beautifully decorated Greeting cards for sending on special occasions. These continued until the late 1960s when the numbers being sent reduced.
In the early 1980s and through to the 1990s there was liaison with British Telecom in order to introduce a 'Telemessage Service'. This was similar to the Greetings Telegram and a variety of designs were produced for various events like 'Weddings', '21st Birthday' and 'New Arrival'.
The first ever main line railway opened in 1825 and ran between Stockton and Darlington. In 1827 the use of that railway, and future lines, for carriage of mails was suggested to Secretary Francis Freeling by Thomas Richardson (see POST 11/51). The first conveyance of mail by this method actually occurred on 11 November 1830 on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, less than two months after this second main line had opened (see POST 11/52). The Post Office was quick to take advantage of the new form of transport and in July 1837 mails were conveyed by train from Birmingham to Liverpool on the inaugural service of the Grand Junction Railway (see POST 11/57 and 58). In January 1838 the idea of having special mail carriages was experimented with; a horse box suitably fitted up started running between Birmingham and Liverpool on the Grand Junction in 1838. Proving a success, the first official 'travelling post office' set off from London to Preston on 1 October 1838.
In August 1838 an Act to provide for the conveyance of the mails by railways was passed by Parliament. This enabled the Postmaster General to compel railway companies to carry mails by ordinary or special trains, at such hours as the Postmaster General might direct, together with mail guards and other officers of the Post Office. Companies could also be required to provide carriages fitted up for sorting letters en route. In return, railway companies would receive a payment to be fixed, by arbitration if necessary, for any services and accommodation supplied. This Act provided the foundation for all future arrangements for carrying mails by rail.
Between 1838 and 1848 railways expanded rapidly in Britain and mails were quickly diverted to them from the roads. The London and Birmingham Railway, opened in September 1838, was the first important line to be completed in England and marked the end of the 'Golden Age' of coaching. From 1844, the year of 'railway mania', to 1848, 637 separate lines received their charters from Parliament. Mail coach contractors unable to get passengers essential to their operations where the railway ran a parallel route began giving notice to quit (see POST 11/60 and 61). The south western coaches ceased their runs when the Great Western Railway was completed to Bristol in June 1841. The last horse drawn mail from London, to Norwich via Newmarket, was withdrawn in January 1846. By this time the railway network was becoming moderately complete. However, up to the 1870s railway services in the provinces often operated in connection with mail coaches.
By the 1850s the railway posts were generally known as Travelling Post Offices or Sorting Carriages and a number of trains almost wholly devoted to carrying mail were in operation. (See also POST 18). Over the next seventy years railways contributed significantly to the vast improvement in quality, increase of volume and speed of postal communications within Britain. Serious competition was absent until the widespread use of motor vehicles from the second quarter of the twentieth century.
The Post Office began to consider the benefits of introducing automatic data processing (ADP) in the 1950s. The first large scale application of a computerised system to Post Office operations was the introduction of the LEAPS system (London Electronic Agency for Pay and Statistics) in 1958. Prior to this, computers had been used in remittance work and postmaster balancing work, as well as in the Post Office Savings Bank.
The LEAPS system was introduced to replace the manual preparation of pay. Two Elliot 405 computers were developed and used for payroll, pensions and statistical work; this meant that the Post Office was now one of the largest users of ADP equipment in the UK.
Gradually, computer applications and ADP systems were proposed and introduced throughout the organisation. In 1961, the Post Office looked at ten areas of Head Post Office work where ADP could be applied. The areas considered were: mail circulation; delivery and collection planning; motor transport scheduling; payroll and staff; postal staff planning and control; cash accounting by counter machine; broadcast receiving licences; postal costing; income and expenditure accounting. A review was undertaken and it was decided to proceed with computer application in all these areas. Eventually, ADP and the use of computer applications and systems were applied to all aspects of postal work.
Several factors had to be considered each time a new proposal for a computer application/system was thought up - the Post Office had to consider whether or not it was profitable to introduce the new system and if there was an urgent need for it, as well as the practicialities of implementation and optimum timing. They also had to think about the effect it would have on the public and on Post Office staff as, inevitably, the introduction of ADP and computer applications meant that fewer staff were needed.
Up until 1969, the Post Office was a government department. Its change of status brought in legislation, namely the Post Office Data Processing Act, 1967 (see related material) which enabled the establishment of the Data Processing Service. The Data Processing Service had two arms - the Post Office Data Processing Service (PODPS) which provided ADP services and support to the Post Office and the National Data Processing Service which worked for external customers.
While the 1960s saw the Post Office considering ways of introducing ADP, the following decades saw the increasing use of computers in Post Office work, particularly in the 1980s with various plans to implement and improve computer systems for data capture and streamlining data processing methods. The counter automation project in the 1980s (which looked at the possibility of introducing a computer system to record cash transactions at local offices) is just one example.
The 1980s also saw the Post Office's Information Technology Department informing people of their work and developing IT strategies; the work resulted in the introduction of several computer systems to assist with the day to day running of the Post Office.
Around 1990 the Information Technology Business of the Post Office became known as 'iT'.
In the following passage of writing, a selection of the major Acts of Parliament that have affected the Post Office over the centuries, and that can be found within this class of records, are described in a little more detail.
An Act for the Settling of the Postage of England, Scotland and Ireland 1657 (POST 114/1):
In 1635, Charles I made the Royal Posts officially available for public use for the first time. Unlike Charles, this service survived the Civil War and in 1657, Oliver Cromwell's parliament passed an Act that established a number of important principles that would guide the early Post Office during its subsequent expansion. On the second page of the Act is the following passage: 'Be it enacted by his highness the Lord Protector and the parliament… that from henceforth there be one general office to be called and known by the name of the Post Office of England'. And so the General Post Office (GPO) came into being. The Act established the position of Postmaster General (which remained the head Post Office position until the role was eventually abolished with the Post Office Act of 1969) and rates of postage were also set forth. To send one letter anywhere within 80 miles of London cost two pence; to Scotland, four pence; and to send a letter as far as towns in France, or even to Constantinople, cost one shilling. Finally, the Act claimed for the Crown the sole right to offer a postal service within the British Isles, establishing a state monopoly that would survive until the new millennium. Any person or organisation found to be offering postal services without the proper authority could be fined £1000 for each month the service was active (p.10). There have been numerous subsequent Acts of parliament that have modified the terms of this monopoly, such as the 1837 Post Office Management Act and Post Office Offences Act (POST 114/5).
Conveyance of Mail Acts: Mail Coaches (1790) and Railways (1838) (POST 114/52 and 53):
In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the Post Office introduced a new method of conveying letters and parcels across Britain that greatly contributed to a growth and improvement of postal services and an expansion of the organisation. A system of mail coaches was developed that became the principal method of conveyance of mails until trains came to dominate from the 1840s onwards. The Stage Coach Act of 1790 laid down rules for the new system. Turnpike charges, the number of horses per carriage, the number of passengers per carriage, fines for mail guards who unnecessarily fired their issued guns and other details were set forth. The champion of the new mail coaches was John Palmer who was the first to see that armed mail coaches travelling on improved roads according to a precise timetable could make postal communications more efficient. This it did, and it was the first of a number of significant transportation changes that would facilitate great leaps in the growth of mail volumes that could be effectively handled by the Post Office. The mail coach system eventually passed away as the trains of the industrial revolution became the prime method of transporting the mails over distance. The Conveyance of Mails by railways Act of 1838 gave the Postmaster General the authority to require railway companies to carry mails at the direction of the Post Office in return for suitable payment, with fines imposed upon companies who refused. The Royal Arms were to be painted on these carriages and from the early 1840s, Travelling Post Offices (TPO) - trains that would carry the mails and staff to sort them whilst in transit - began to run, with over 100 in operation by the end of the century. Further Railway Acts with various amendments were passed in 1844 and 1868.
Superannuation Act 1859 (Post 114/105)
State pensions could be claimed at the age of 70 from 1908 and this marked the beginning of improved welfare provisions in Britain aimed at tackling the poverty and hardships that had been perennially associated with old age. For much of the nineteenth century, those who became too old to work had to rely on the meagre provisions of family, charity and the Poor Law to survive and in this respect, the Superannuation Act of 19 April 1859 meant that working for the Post Office as an established employee became a vocation coveted for the financial securities it offered later in life. From this date, pensions were paid to employees after at least ten years service at one-sixtieth of retirement pay, rising to a maximum of four-sixths. Those who retired earlier than age 60 for health reasons could expect to receive one month's pay for each year of service. Further pensions acts were passed by parliament through the nineteenth century (also reproduced in this volume; see also POST 114/106), which expanded upon the provisions of the landmark 1859 act and added various adjustments to pension and gratuity entitlement. From 1909, standard pension entitlement was slightly reduced, but a lump sum to the value of one-thirtieth of retirement pay was added, in addition to other entitlements such as a gratuity worth one year's wages paid to the family of an employee who died in service.
Savings Bank Act 1861 (POST 114/89)
By the mid-nineteenth century the debate about the role the state should play in the country's personal banking had grown in importance. The old Trustee Savings Banks handed their takings to the government for investment and received a fixed yearly dividend in return. This system did not facilitate small savings and depositors often had to travel a great distance to use such services. Although Rowland Hill, who was still secretary of the Post Office at the end of the 1850s, opposed further state (Post Office) intervention into financial services, others such as Frank Scudamore and John Tilley favoured the introduction of a set of reforms that would see the department take primary responsibility in administrating a personal savings facility. In 1861, having been introduced by Chancellor of the Exchequer William Gladstone, the Savings Bank Act was passed by the Palmerston Government and business began on 16 September. What was new about the service was that it was state-run and therefore enjoyed high security; deposits and withdrawals could be made at different post offices for one account by using a 'depositor's book'; small sums under one pound could be deposited; and account holders received a dividend equivalent to the value of interest accrued by state investment of their money, rather than a fixed rate. This meant that poorer people could now more easily use such services and the Post Office Savings Bank grew rapidly. In 1862, 178,000 accounts held £1.7m and by the turn of the century these figures had risen to 8.5m accounts and £136m in deposits (note that many people, as well as clubs and societies, held numerous accounts). Banking services remained an important part of the Post Office. In 1969, the service became known as National Savings.
Post Office Act 1969 (POST 114/14)
The Post Office Act of 1969 is one of the landmark events in the history of the organisation during the twentieth century. By this time, the Post Office, still a department of government, had acquired full responsibility for running an array of national services including postal communications, the ever-growing telephone system, a national savings bank (including National GIRO, introduced in 1968), pensions and much else besides. When the 1969 legislation came into effect on 1 October, it made a number of significant changes. Firstly, the Post Office ceased to be a government department and became a public corporation with all of its shares owned by the government. Organisational changes to this effect had been underway since the beginning of the decade and by 1969 it had been generally accepted that the new corporate status was necessary for the organisation to become a profitable entity in the post-war economy. This meant that the historic position of Postmaster General was abolished and a new Post Office Board reported to the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, a newly established ministerial position. Secondly, this legislation effectively divided the organisation into two distinct businesses: posts and telecommunications. It was felt that this would ensure a more efficient service for both and facilitate the ongoing modernisation that it was hoped would improve the profit margins of the Post Office as a whole. In reality, the Post Office Act of 1969 paved the way for the telecommunications side of the business to be separated from Post Office management entirely and it was eventually privatised in the early 1980s. The Act itself is 264 pages long and addresses other issues such as finance, banking, pensions, stamps and the status of the Post Office's postal and telecommunications monopoly.
Not available.
The first Post Office packet station was established in the 16th century at Holyhead for the transport of mails to Dublin. Packet boats from Holyhead were soon supplemented by services from Milford Haven to Waterford and Portpatrick in Scotland to Donaghadee. Regular Irish services were established in the 17th and 18th centuries. By the end of the 19th century regular packet services between the mainland and many of the islands around Britain were in operation.
Although the Post Office owned some of the vessels, until the early 19th century the normal practice was to contract for the supply, maintenance and operation of packet boats, paying an allowance to the owner, often the captain, for their hire. The Post Office determined the schedules and rules for handling the mails. Owners made profits from carrying passengers, bullion and freight. The Post Office did not pay for loss or injury to vessels caused by storms but did compensate owners for damage inflicted by enemies of state during times of war and often had to pay ransom money for the return of boats seized by privateers or foreign foes.
In the early 19th century developments in industrialisation led to successful application of steam power to ships. In 1818 a private company, Holmes and Co, established steamboats between Holyhead and Dublin. As a result, the number of passengers on government packets decreased drastically. The Post Office decided to take action in response to protests by packet owners and to stop the illegal transmission of mails by the steam boats. Rather than use the Holyhead company's boats, the Post Office decided to build its own steam packets and the first two, Lightning and Meteor, were placed on the Holyhead station in 1821. Further Post Office steam boats were introduced at Dover in 1822, Milford Haven in 1824, Portpatrick in 1825, Liverpool in 1826 (packet station established there in that year for conveyance of mails to Dublin) and Weymouth in 1827. In 1836 the Post Office had 26 steam packets in operation.
The steam packets were very expensive to build and operate and nearly always made a financial loss, particularly the services from Holyhead and Milford Haven in the 1830s. In 1790 the entire packet fleet had been placed under the supervision of an Inspector of Packets, following severe criticism of their high cost by a government inquiry of 1788. However, by the early 19th century the office was not equipped to manage the expanding fleet. Inefficiency and poor management of both sail and steam packets, was largely due to the Post Office's lack of expertise in maritime affairs.
Post Office awareness of this failing was demonstrated in 1823 when 30 packets at Falmouth were taken over by the Admiralty. The carrying out of repairs to all packet boats at one central workshop in Holyhead was particularly uneconomical. Competition for passengers from private steam boat companies on the Irish routes, particularly from the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company on the Liverpool to Dublin route, turned initial profits into sustained losses. The Post Office soon realised that a system of private contracts may have been preferable to building and owning its own steam boats. Following three critical government inquiries, 1830-1836, an Act of Parliament turned over all packet operations to the Admiralty from 1 Jan 1837, although the Post Office still controlled the schedules.
The Admiralty, which at first intended to carry on the mail service in its own vessels preferred by the end of the 1830s to grant mail contracts to companies that could build large vessels and maintain adequate fleets. The Liverpool to Dublin route was the first to be put out to tender and was run by the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company from 1839. Although the Admiralty increasingly entered into contracts with private steam companies for mail services to Ireland, and the Scotch and English islands, government steam packets continued to sail during the 1840s. The Holyhead to Dublin service was not put out to tender until 1849. In 1850 a ten year contract was signed with the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company. In 1848 and 1849 services between Liverpool and Dublin, Milford Haven and Waterford and Portpatrick and Donaghadee were discontinued. Government packets had disappeared by the end of the 1850s and the policy of relying entirely upon the mercantile marine had been established.
In 1860 control of the packet services was returned to the Post Office and every endeavour was made to lower the high cost of the services run by various steamship companies. The struggle continued until the end of the century when the Post Office began using the services of commercial steamship companies for the conveyance of mails.
The system of 'minuting' papers submitted to the Postmaster General by the Secretary to the Post Office for a decision (i.e. numbering the papers, and separately copying a note of the paper as a 'minute' into volumes indexed by subject) was introduced in 1793. It remained in use by the Post Office Headquarters registry until 1973.
Until 1921, several different major minute series were in use: that concerned with the Packet Service and overseas mail (Pkt reference files held in POST 29), those concerned with England and Wales (E or Eng reference files held in POST 30), Ireland (Ire or I reference files held in POST 31) and Scotland (Scot or S reference files held in POST 32). From 1790 until 1841, parallel 'Report' series were in use by the Secretary (POST 39 & POST 40).
In 1921, the several different minute series were replaced by a single all-embracing series referenced M or Min (held in POST 33). This was suspended in 1941 as a wartime measure when a Decimal Filing (DF) system came into use (POST 102), but was resurrected in 1949.
In 1955 the registration of Headquarters files began to be decentralised under several local registries serving particular departments, although the 'minuting' of cases considered worthy of preservation, and the assimilation of later cases with earlier existing minuted bundles, continued until 1973. Files from this period either have a 'P' reference or an alphanumeric reference to indicate which department created them, i.e. MD (Mails Division).
History of Postal Drafts
With the passing of the National Insurance Act 1911, Approved Societies acting as agents of the Ministry of Health for the paying of National Insurance benefits approached the Post Office for a means of sending small remittances through the post, postal and money orders being unsuitable. An Interdepartmental Committee, including representatives of the Post Office and the National Health Insurance Joint Committee, was appointed by the Treasury in June 1913 to consider the matter and the postal draft was the outcome of the Committee's recommendations. The service was introduced at the end of 1914 with the approval of the Treasury and without specific statutory authority. Very few Approved Societies in fact made use of the system, preferring to pay benefits in person.
During the First World War the use of postal drafts was extended, by Treasury authority, to various Government departments and some quasi-Government departments, including departments established in the United Kingdom by Colonial Governments. The War Office and Admiralty were amongst the first departments granted permission to use the system for the payment of pensions and reserve pay. Postal drafts were a more economical method of sending remittances through the post and Government departments were encouraged to use them in place of money orders.
In 1934 a Postal Draft Committee report recommended extension of the system, by statute, to Friendly Societies, Trades Unions, Local Authorities, Public Utility Corporations, charitable organisations of a permanent character and other similar bodies. Nothing emerged from those recommendations and the majority of non-Governmental applicants were denied access to the system by the Post Office, which cited practical difficulties and lack of statutory authority. No definite policy for granting or refusing permission to utilise the system was ever established.
The system of postal drafts ceased in 1969 with the introduction of Girobank services.
The postal draft system
The postal draft was a form of cheque for small sums drawn on the Postmaster General. It provided for the payment of money which had to be remitted by post. Printed forms of drafts were supplied by the Post Office to issuing authorities - Approved Societies or Government
departments - which entered amounts and transmitted them to payees. Most forms were printed on watermarked paper and further protected by a colour band. The maximum amount payable was printed on the draft. Drafts could be cashed at any Post Office in Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic or at a specified post office. For the payment of sums over £10 evidence of identity was normally required from the payee. Paid drafts were returned to the issuing authority by the GPO and the account rendered. Advances to cover estimated payments were sent by issuing authorities to GPO Headquarters.
The first ever main line railway came into operation between Stockton and Darlington in 1825. The first conveyance of mail by railway took place on 11 November 1830, on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, less than two months after the opening of this second main line (see POST 11/52). The Post Office soon realised the potential for major improvements in mail distribution offered by this new form of transport. The first experimental Travelling Post Office, then known as 'the railway post office', ran between Birmingham and Warrington in January 1838 on the Grand Junction Railway. It consisted of a horse box converted into a primitive sorting carriage, coupled to a train. The experiment proved that mail sorting could be carried out efficiently on board trains, saving both time and money. In April 1838 a regular service started on the newly opened London and Birmingham Railway, with purpose built sorting carriages. By the end of the year through services had been established between London and Preston. Thereafter the TPO network grew rapidly, accelerated by introduction of the Penny Post in 1840, proliferation of new rail routes and railway companies in the 1840s, the increased volume of mail in circulation and general economic expansion. Railway mail services quickly swallowed up the role of the mail coaches. Previously, some sorting of mail was done by mail coach staff and postmasters at coaching inns. However, TPOs enabled large quantities of mail to be sorted and processed on the move.
Despite the rapid expansion of TPOs, the department in charge was known as the Mail Coach Office until 1854. The 1850s and 1860s saw further expansion and by 1867 the TPOs had their own Department at GPO Headquarters in London, headed by a Surveyor of Travelling Post Offices. Overall management of railway services resided in the Inspector General of Mails. Control of TPOs remained based in London which was the focal point of much postal traffic. In 1882 the London Postal Service was created. The post of Chief Superintendent, TPO Section, was established one year later. During the 19th century the Post Office developed an intricate and comprehensive network of Day and Night services covering England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The Act to Provide for the Conveyance of Mails by Railways, 1838, allowed the Postmaster General to compel railway companies, for reasonable remuneration, to carry mails by ordinary or special trains, at such hours as the Postmaster General might direct, together with mail guards and other officers of the Post Office. Companies could also be required to provide carriages fitted up for sorting letters en route. This Act provided the foundation for all future arrangements with private railway companies and British Rail for carrying mails by rail. The first railway mail services were normally carriages attached to passenger services, which provided accommodation for sorting and / or conveying mails. By the mid-1860s a number of special trains run purely for postal requirements with very little or no passenger accommodation, were in operation as part of mail carrying contracts agreed between railway companies and the Post Office. In 1885 special mails, exclusively for Post Office use, were introduced between London Euston and Aberdeen. Known as the Up Special TPO and Down Special, they constituted a major reorganisation of the West Coast route, greatly accelerated TPO services to Scotland and formed the biggest and busiest of the TPOs.
In the years leading up to World War One there were over 130 TPOs in operation throughout the United Kingdom, ranging from the large and prestigious London based services, such as the North Western TPO and Great Western TPO, to small local links, such as the Grimsby and Lincoln Sorting Tender and Brighton and Hastings Sorting Carriage (see POST 18/11-12). After the First World War, 1914-1918, many TPOs and Sorting Carriages which had ceased operating during conflict were not restored (see POST 18/38 for comparison of 1914 and 1922 service lists). Day TPOs and parcel sorting on TPOs were particularly reduced. The slow economic recovery during the 1920s delayed substantial re-investment in TPO rolling stock until the 1930s. During the Second World War all letter sorting on trains ceased and only a few key bag tenders ran. Parcel sorting and day-time TPOs were radically reduced after the War, mainly because the number and frequency of collections and deliveries had been reduced by concentration of processing services. A phased reinstatement began in 1945, but only about 46 services were restored. In 1948 the railways were nationalised and the British Transport Commission, (replaced by the British Railways Board in 1962), took over the TPO contract with Post Office. There was little change to the system from 1950 until 1968, when the Two-Tier letter service was introduced and TPOs began to carry and sort only First Class mails for next day delivery. The resultant drop in overnight business led to the disappearance of some services during the 1970s, including the Plymouth-Bristol and Crewe-Bangor TPOs. The overall size and shape of the network remained largely unchanged until the mid-1980s. Concentration and mechanisation of letter mail handling in addition to faster British Rail services and greater use of road and air facilities, led to a review of East Coast services in 1985, and in 1988 the first major revision since the Second World War occurred. A new timetable was issued for a system of 37 TPOs, some services were combined, others extended and new ones added including services such as the Manchester-Dover TPO, which by-passed London (see POST 18/68). Further large scale revisions and alterations took place in the 1990s to fit in with Royal Mail policies (see POST 18/66-67). By 1994 there was a limited provision of 24 TPOs. However, these were larger and faster trains, operating only at night and using specialised railway rolling stock.
Post Office Limited (named Post Office Counters Ltd 1987-2001) was established as a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Mail Group plc on 1st September 1987. It inherited functions and services from Royal Mail relating to the management of post office branches in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales and the provision of financial, information and other relevant services through this network.
Thomas Witherings opened the first post office, where members of the public could take mail for posting and collect mail sent to them, in October 1635 in Bishopsgate Street, London. He was acting under a proclamation from King Charles I 'for the settling of the letter office of England and Scotland', authorising him to open the royal domestic mail service to the public to generate revenue for the King. Witherings lost control of the service in 1637, leading to a spirited struggle by several claimants for the right to manage the monopoly (see Robinson, Britain's Post Office, Ch.3). This ended in 1653 when the Government farmed out services to the highest bidder, and the Post Office Acts 1657 and 1660 fixed rates for sending letters and established the legal foundation of the service for the first time. The duties and remuneration of postmasters were confirmed in the Post Office Act 1660, which designated responsibility for postmasters staged throughout England and Scotland to accept and hand-over letters, and provide fresh horses for post-boys on payment of a set fee.
The network of post office branches expanded considerably during the 18th century. Post offices were known as Letter Receiving Houses and were usually housed at inns and run by the innkeeper acting as the postmaster. Postmasters were self-employed and received payments according to the quantity of mail handled. The system was centrally administered through an Inland Office based in Lombard Street, London.
In 1715 six 'Surveyors' were appointed by the Postmaster General to manage postal operations outside of London, and in 1720 Ralph Allen established a business under contract to the Postmaster General to manage and develop the postal network for letters not passing through the London office. Allen managed this until his death in 1764, at which point his business became part of the Inland Office department and was transferred from Bath to London.
In 1854, as services expanded and the need for greater facilities at post office branches increased, the first post offices owned and run by Royal Mail (then named the General Post Office) were opened. These were called crown offices, as opposed to sub-offices run by agents (sub-postmasters). Crown offices were managed by paid employees of the General Post Office and administered with sub-offices through the Inland Office Department (renamed the Circulation Department from 1854-1934). A system of salaried and scale-payment sub-offices, head post offices and regional branch offices was established to provide a range of facilities managed through a network of head postmasters, postmasters and sub-postmasters.
In 1934 the system of district Surveyors and central administration of post office branches through the Circulation Department was replaced by eight regional divisions with devolved powers and a central headquarters function. Crown and sub-post offices were now managed through a series of general postal regions, though paid postmaster and head postmaster in each region still managed all functions (collecting, processing and delivery of mail as well as counter operations).
A 'Counters Services' department was first established in Postal Headquarters in 1981. In 1986 postal operations were organised into three separate businesses - Royal Mail Letters, Royal Mail Parcels and Post Office Counters (in addition to National Girobank which remained a separate business unit until it was sold to the Alliance and Leicester Building Society in 1990). In the Post Office Counters division, 32 district offices reported to four headquarters units: the "territories". Counters managers, each responsible for five to ten main post office branches and a number of sub-offices, supported each district manager. Sub-post offices and sub-postmasters, who were contractors to Royal Mail, were unaffected by this reorganisation.
In 1987 Post Office Counters became a limited company - Post Office Counters Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Mail but with separate audited accounts. This was reorganised in 1993 with seven regions replacing 30 districts and three territories, and three business centres focusing on particular markets: financial, branded and agency development. In 1998 the strategic, policy and administrative functions of Royal Mail were reorganised further with the establishment of 17 different business units operating across all three businesses (counters, mail and parcels). Counter operations and services were focused in four main functions: Post Office Network, Network Banking, Cash Handling and Distribution and Customer Management (Government Unit).
Post Office Ltd was established on 1st October 2001, under new powers granted to Royal Mail by the Post Office Act 2001. Post Office Ltd absorbed Post Office Network, Network Banking, Cash Handling and Distribution, Customer Management (Government Unit) business units in Royal Mail and all of their functions, in addition to the brands, network and functions of Post Office Counters Ltd. Post Office Ltd remains an integral part of Royal Mail Group plc, but stands alone financially and is profit-accountable in its own right. It now contains seven administrative divisions, including Service Delivery, Customer Services and Strategic Alliances responsible respectively for Post Office branches, sales and marketing and key commercial services.