William Prosser was born in c 1776. He was on the staff at the Monmouth Hospital in the early nineteenth century. He died in 1845. His grandson was Thomas Prosser FRCS (1820-1870), and his great grandson was Thomas Gilbert Prosser MRCS, from whom the papers came.
The title of this volume can be translated as Pharmacopoeia in use at Chester Hospital. Chester Hospital probably refers to Chester Royal Infirmary, founded in 1755, and known as Chester Infirmary until 1914.
'Archibald John Richardson, Draper, Hotiern, Doncaster.' is written at the front if the volume, in the same hand as the prescriptions. It may be the name of the author, or a note written by the author. No further biographical information is available.
A card is pasted inside the back cover, which reads 'In affectioniate rememberance of Henry Motherby of Henshall, who died on the 26th December 1870, aged 41 years.' No further biographical information is available.
The name 'Pitt' is written on the inside of the front cover. No further biographical information is available.
William Robert Gibson was born in 1872. He received his medical education at St Bartholomew's Hospital, and was at one time assistant medical superintendent at St Saviour's Hospital, Dulwich. He practised for many years in Madras, India, where he was Chief Medical Officer to the Madras and South Mahratta Railway. He was a generous benefactor to the College and donated £38, 803 during 1954-1955. the Fellows Common Room was named the "John Cherry Gibson Room" on 14 Jul 1955, and on the same day the gift of his house in Ealing with its contents was reported to Council. He was awarded the Honorary Medal as an out-standing benefactor in 1956. He died in St Bartholomew's in 1959.
Ronald Francis Woolmer was born in 1908. He was educated at Rugby School; University College, Oxford; and St Thomas's Hospital where he attained B M, B Ch in 1932. He took up anaesthetics and became Senior Resident Anaesthetist at St Thomas's in 1934. He then became Resident Medical Officer and St Thomas's Home from 1936-1938 and then became Anaesthetic Registrar at Westminster Hospital in 1939. During World War Two, he served in the Royal Navy, attaining the rank of Surgeon Commander. After the War, Woolmer obtained an appointment as Senior Lecturer and then Reader in Anaesthetics in Bristol University. During this time he helped with the foundation of the South Western Society of Anaesthetics. He took over the Research Department of the Faculty of Anaesthetists in the Royal College of Surgeons in 1957, becoming Professor in 1959. He was founder and first President of the Biological Engineering Society, a Vice-President of the International Federation for Medical Electronics, and a founder member of the Anaesthetic Research group. He became the first medical man to deliver the Kelvin lecture to the Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1961. He published a book, The Conquest of Pain (1961), which was aimed at lay audiences, and was also awarded the Henry Hill Hickman medal of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1962. He died in 1962.
John Kenworthy Walker, son of Sir William Walker (1753-1825) and Martha Kenworthy, obtained his MB (Edinburgh and London) in 1811, and his MD (Cantab) in 1820. He practised at Deanhead, near Huddersfield, and was Consulting Physician to the Huddersfield Infirmary. He published two articles in the Gentleman's Magazine, 'On the Primitive Language' in Volume 26, 1846, and 'On Roman Inscriptions in Britain' in Volume 37, 1852. Walker's last entry in the Medical Directory (provincial) was in 1873.
George Kerr Grimmer studied his BA in New Brunswick, Canada in 1887, and his MB, CM at Edinburgh in 1892. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh in 1900. He was a Junior Demonstrator of Anatomy and an Assistant Demonstrator of Practical Physiology, at Edinburgh University. He was a member of the Edinburgh Medical and Chirurgical Society. He was Clinical Assistant in the Ear and Throat department of the Royal Infirmary Edinburgh, and the Medical Officer for the Health Service at Queensferry. He died in 1942.
Richard Wheeler Haines obtained his MB BS in 1929, and also became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in the same year. During his career Haines was Assistant Anatomist at the University of Cape Town; a lecturer in Anatomy at University College, Cardiff; a Fellow of the Zoological Society; a member of the Anatomical Society; a lecturer and Department Director at the Anatomy Department of St Thomas' Hospital; Professor of Anatomy at the University of Baghdad; Professor of Anatomy at the University of Lagos Medical College in Nigeria; and Professor of Anatomy at the University of Makerere, Kampala, Uganda.
Antonio Scarpa was born in Lorenzaga di Motta di Livenza, in 1752. He studied medicine at Padua, obtaining his doctorate in 1770. He was offered a chair in anatomy and theoretical surgery at the University of Modena, in 1772. He was appointed Professor of Human Anatomy at the University of Pavia, in 1783. He was also appointed director of the surgical clinic, in 1787. He held both chairs until 1804. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) invited Scarpa to return to teaching surgery, in 1805, giving him a present of a box of silver and ivory surgical instruments. He eventually resigned from the teaching of surgery in 1813, but continued as dean of the faculty and director of medical studies and the anatomical laboratories. Scarpa founded the subject of orthopaedic surgery, first described the anatomy of the clubbed foot accurately and wrote a classic account of hernia. He recognised that atherosclerosis was a disease of the arteries and reported causalgia in 1832. He was also one of the first to give an accurate account of the nerve supply to the heart as well as the anatomy of the membranous labyrinth with its afferent nerves. He also introduced the concept of arteriosclerosis. He died in 1832 and his head was preserved. It is still in the museum of the History of the University [of Pavia?], but it is not known where Scarpa's body was buried.
It was previously thought that the volumes were written by Christopher Lloyd, Professor of History at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. This was due to letters inserted into the volumes from Christopher Lloyd to Jessie Dobson (Curator of the Hunterian Museum), in approximately 1960. However, Christopher Lloyd appears to be an academic rather than a medically qualified surgeon, and therefore was unlikely to be Sugeon Captain at Haslar Royal Naval Hospital in 1932.
It is possible that the volume is the work of Jack Leonard Sagar Coulter, Lloyd's co-editor on the Medicine and the Navy 1200-1900 series. Coulter was a Surgeon Captain and Surgeon Commander in the Royal Navy. However, according to the Medical Directories, Coulter was still at Bristol General Hospital in 1932. It is also possible that John Joyce Keevil, editor of earlier volumes in the Medicine and the Navy series, was the author of the volumes.
Joseph Henry Green was born in London, in 1791. He was educated at Ramsgate, at Hammersmith, and then for three years in Berlin and Hanover. He was apprenticed to his uncle, the surgeon Henry Cline, in 1800 and acted as Cline's anatomical prosector and gave regular demonstrations on practical anatomy. He began to practise in 1816, when he was formally appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy at St Thomas's Hospital. He was elected Lecturer on Anatomy and Physiology jointly with Astley Cooper in 1818, and became Surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital in 1820. He then undertook the Lectureship on Surgery and Pathology in the United Schools of St Thomas's and Guy's Hospitals, again conjointly with Astley Cooper. He gave a series of lectures on comparative anatomy as Hunterian Professor at the College of Surgeons, in which he dealt for the first time in England with the whole of the animal sub-kingdoms, from 1824-1828. He was elected FRS in 1825, and was appointed Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy, a position he held until 1852. When King's College (London) was founded in 1830 Green was nominated Professor of Surgery and held the post until 1886. He continued in office as Surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital, resigning in 1853. He became a Member of the Court of Examiners in 1840. He was elected President in 1849 and again in 1858, having given the Hunterian Oration in 1840 and 1847. He became President of the General Medical Council in 1860. He died in 1863.
William Clift was born in 1775. He was apprenticed to John Hunter in 1792 and had sole charge of his museum after his death. He made copies of many of Hunter's manuscripts before the destruction of the originals by his brother-in-law Sir Everard Home. Clift was then conservator of the Hunterian Museum after the collection was transferred to the Royal College of Surgeons in 1800. He continued in this role for nearly 50 years compiling an osteological catalogue of the museum and researching the collections.
Richard Owen was born in 1804. He studied at the University of Edinburgh Medical School from 1824. He moved to London and became apprenticed to John Abernethy, in 1825. He was made Assistant Curator to the Hunterian Museum, in 1826. Owen engaged in private practice; lectured in comparative anatomy; worked with the collections in the museum; founded various societies; and made discoveries such as the identification of a sub-order of Saurian reptiles which he named Dinosauria. He became Joint Conservator of the Hunterian Museum with William Clift in 1842. Owen worked on the natural history collections of the British Museum, and campaigned for them to form a separate museum, which was opened in 1881 (now the Natural History Museum). He was knighted in 1884, and died in 1892.
Sir William MacCormac was born in Belfast in 1836. He was educated at the Belfast Royal Academical Institution and afterwards studied at Dublin and Paris. He entered Queen's College, Belfast, in 1851, as a student of engineering, and gained scholarships in engineering during his first and second years. He then studied the arts and graduated B.A. at the Queen's University in 1855, and M.A. in 1858. He won the senior scholarship in natural philosophy in 1856 and was admitted M.D. in the following year. The honorary degree of M.Ch. was conferred upon him in 1879, and the D.Sc. in 1882 with the Gold Medal of the University. The honorary degrees of M.D. and M.Ch. were also bestowed upon him by the University of Dublin in 1900. After graduation he studied surgery in Berlin, where he made lasting friendships with Langenbeck, Billroth, and von Esmarch. He practised in Belfast from 1864-1870 becoming successively Surgeon, Lecturer on Clinical Surgery, and Consulting Surgeon to the Belfast General Hospital. In the Franco-German War in 1870 he undertook hospital duties at Metz. He was given the rare distinction of an ad eundem Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, in 1871 and was elected Assistant Surgeon to St. Thomas's Hospital, which had just moved to the new buildings on the Albert Embankment. He became full Surgeon in 1873 and lectured on surgery for twenty years. He was elected Consulting Surgeon to the hospital and Emeritus Lecturer on Clinical Surgery after resigning his active posts in 1893. He was knioghted in 1881. He was President of the Medical Society of London in 1880, and of the Metropolitan Branch of the British Medical Association in 1890. He was Surgeon to the French, Italian, Queen Charlotte's, and the British Lying-in Hospitals, and was an Examiner in Surgery at the University of London and for Her Majesty's Naval, Military, and Indian Medical Services. He was created a baronet in 1897, was appointed Surgeon-in-Ordinary to the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII, and was decorated K.C.V.O. in 1898, in recognition of services rendered to the Prince when he injured his knee. At the Royal College of Surgeons MacCormac was elected a Member of the Council in 1883, and of the Court of Examiners in 1887. He served as President from 1896-1900, being specially re-elected on the last occasion that he might occupy the Chair at the centenary of the College. He delivered the Bradshaw Lecture in 1893, and was Hunterian Orator in 1899. He was created K.C.B. in 1901, and was gazetted Hon. Serjeant Surgeon to King Edward VII. He died in 1901. MacCormac was the best decorated practising surgeon of his generation. He was, in addition to the honours already mentioned, an Hon. Member of the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg ; an Hon. Fellow or Member of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland, Paris, Brussels, Munich, and Rome; a Commander of the Legion of Honour; of the Orders of Dannebrog of Denmark, of the Crown of Italy, and of Takovo of Serbia; of the Crown of Prussia, St. Iago of Portugal, North Star of Sweden, Ritter-Kreuz of Bavaria, Merit of Spain, and the Medjidie.
No biographical material was available at the time of compilation.
William Maiden was born in Strood, Kent in 1768. He was apprenticed to Joseph Coventry Lowdell for £100 in 1783. He received his medical education at St Thomas's Hospital and qualified as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1790. At St Thomas's he was a pupil of Sir Astley Cooper. Maiden travelled to Paris where he continued his medical studies in c 1790. He returned in 1792 and succeeded the practice of Mr English at Stratford in Essex. Maiden was the surgeon who treated Mr Thomas Tipple, a gentleman who had received a severe chest injury through being impaled by the shaft of a chaise, in 1812. Mr Tipple recovered and lived for a further 10 years. Maiden published the details of the case due to the disbelief from the medical profession that a patient could survive such an injury. After Mr Tipple's death, his widow requested the body to be examined. The post-mortem was carried out by Sir William Blizard, William Clift, Harkness, and J W K Parkinson. The anterior wall of the chest of Mr Tipple and the shaft itself were presented to the Royal College of Surgeons Museum by William Maiden in 1823. They were destroyed by enemy action in May 1941. He died in 1845.
Alexander John Gaspard Marcet was born in Geneva in 1770. He attended Edinburgh University in 1794 and graduated Doctor of Medicine in 1797. He settled in London, and was admitted a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1799. He was also appointed Physician to the City dispensary in 1799. He was appointed Physician to Guy's Hospital in 1804. He was placed in charge of a temporary military hospital at Portsmouth in 1809, after which he returned to London and Guy's Hospital. Upon the death of his father-in-law he came into an ample fortune and began to withdraw from practice and devote himself to science and literature. He resigned his post at Guy's in 1819, and returned to Geneva, being appointed a member of the Representative Council, and an honorary Professor of Chemistry. He gave a course of lectures on Chemistry with Dr de la Rive, in 1820. He returned to England in 1821, and died in 1822. He was a fellow of the Royal and Geographical Societies, and an original promoter of the Medico-Chirurgical Society.
Douglas Wilson, of Bearsden, Glasgow, studied medicine at Glasgow University, finishing MB ChB in 1911. In this year he also registered with the General Medical Council. While living in Glasgow, Wilson was Honorary Surgeon at the Surgical Wards and Throat and Nose Department at the West Infirmary, Glasgow; Honorary Surgeon of the Gynaecological Wards at the Royal Infirmary, Glasgow; and Honorary Surgeon of the Indoor Department at the Glasgow Royal Maternity and Women's Hospital. At some point before 1921 Wilson relocated to Wanganui, New Zealand, where he worked in Wanganui Hospital.
Henry Vandyke Carter was born in 1831. He studied medicine at St George's Hospital, and became a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and a Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries in 1853. He was a Student of Human and Comparative Anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons, working with Richard Owen and John Thomas Queckett, from 1853-1855. He was a Demonstrater in Anatomy at St George's Hospital until 1857. He worked for Henry Gray on the illustrations of Gray's Anatomy (London, 1858). Carter joined the Bombay Medical Service in 1858, where he served as Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Grant Medical College, and Assistant-Surgeon in the Jamsetjee Jheejeebhoy Hospital. He was Civil Surgeon at Satara from 1863-1872. He was sent to Kathiawar in 1875, to research leprosy. He was appointed in charge of the Goculdas Tejpal Hospital in Bombay in 1876. He was appointed acting principal of Grant Medical College, and Physician of the Jamsetjee Jheejeebhoy Hospital in 1877. During his time in India, Carter made a number of contributions to tropical pathology including studies in leprosy, mycetoma and relapsing fever. Carter retired in 1888, and was appointed Honorary Deputy Surgeon-General and Honorary Surgeon to the Queen. He died in 1897.
No biogrpahical information relating to Johannes Mulaimus was available at the time of compilation.
H Frantz made drawings of specimens of congenital dislocation of the hip, at the Musee Dupuytren, Paris. These were reproduced as illustrations in Sir Thomas Fairbank's article "Congenital Dislocation of the Hip", published in the British Journal of Surgery, volume 17, 1929-1930. No other biographical information about Frantz is available.
Sir (Harold Arthur) Thomas Fairbank was an Orthopaedic Surgeon at King's College Hospital. He was President of the British Orthopaedic Association in 1929 when he delivered the lecture on which the above mentioned article is based.
Walter Dickson was a student of medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1841. Currently no other biographical information is available.
Maurice Henry King was born in Hatton, Ceylon, in 1927. He was educated at Cambridge and St Thomas's Hospital, where he was a Bristowe Medalist in pathology in 1951, and a house physician in 1952. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London in 1971 and a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1993. He spent 20 years as a doctor in Africa, in Northern Rhodesia, Uganda, Zambia and Kenya, spending five years in each. He started in Africa as a pathologist in 1957, and then moved into public health in 1963. He then began to write books to be used by health workers in the developing world. One of these was Primary Surgery (two volumes) which has been widely acclaimed as a standard work. He was a Medical Officer with the World Health Organisation working in Indonesia, from 1972-1977. He worked for the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) on projects to assemple appropriate technologies in district hospitals, and was based in Kenya, from 1979-1984. King is currently an Honorary Research Fellow of the University of Leeds, and is concerned with demographic entrapment.
Homer Tyrrell Lane was born in America, in 1876. He had experience as an educator at the George Junior Republic. He became Superintendent of the Little Commonwealth, in Evershot, Dorset, England, from 1913-1918. It was a co-educational community run for children and young people, often categorised as delinquents. He was interested in offenders and expressive forms of education, and also worked as a psychotherapist. He pioneered what later became known as 'group therapy' and 'shared responsibility'. He died in 1925.
Henry Bird was educated at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He practised at Cinderford, East Dean, Gloucestershire; the Vicarage, Christow, Exeter; and at Wattisfield, Suffolk. He retired at Wattisfield, but later moved to Oldham. He died in 1892.
The West London Medico-Chirurgical Society was formed in 1882 on the proposal of Charles Robert Bell Keetley (FRCS). The Society was formed at the West London Hospital in 1882, attended by approximately 50 medical men. The first meeting of the society was on 6 Oct 1882, with the inaugural address given by Dr Hart Vinen, the first President. The purpose of the Society was the cultivation and promotion of the science and practice of medicine, for the use, advantage and association of medical men of the district of west London. The Society announced an annual lecture in 1884, to be called the Cavendish Lecture, after the natural philosopher, Henry Cavendish (1731-1810). Distinquished men of the day were invited to give the lecture, mostly on clinical subjects related to medicine and surgery, with occasional lectures on related subjects. Also in 1884 the Society resolved to publish their Proceedings. In 1896, this became the West London Medical Journal, edited by Mr Percy Dunn, and was published on a quarterly basis. The Society proposed the formation of a library in 1885, where the Proceedings of the Society could be accessed by all members. The Society contained Honorary members and Members. The affairs of the Society were carried out by a governing body of thirty three members, including a President, six honorary vice-Presidents, a Treasurer, two Secretaries, an editor of the Journal, an Editorial Secretary, a Librarian and twelve other Members.
Westminster Hospital was established in 1719 as an infirmary for the poor and sick, expanding in 1721 and 1735. It was named Westminster Hospital from 1760, and moved to a new site at Broad Sanctuary in 1834, where it remained until 1939. For the first hundred years, the physicians acted more as consultants, attending chiefly on Wednesdays when the admissions were made. The Resident Apothecary and his pupil had the most contact with patients. Surgical cases were generally bladder stones or bone diseases.
Sir William Blizard was born at Barn Elms, Surrey in 1743. He was apprenticed to a surgeon at Mortlake, and studied at the London Hospital. He attended the lectures of Sir Percival Pott at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He was appointed surgeon to the London Hospital in 1780 and in 1785 founded the London Hospital Medical School together with Dr MacLaurin. Blizard lectured at the Medical School on Anatomy, Physiology and Surgery, and improved the London Hospital. He attached importance to the observance of ceremony, for which he was often mocked. Blizard was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1787, and was Master of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1814, and President in 1822. Blizard had a considerable practice, and attended Batson's Coffee House in Cornhill to await consultations. He died in 1836.
The name Samuel Helbert Israel [?] is inscribed at the top of the title page, possibly indicating the author of the lecture notes. P I and R V Wallis in Eighteenth Century Medics (1988), list a Samuel H Israel as a surgeon in London in the 18th and 19th centuries. He was apprenticed to Thomas Blizard (Sir William Blizard's nephew and also a surgeon at the London Hospital) in 1802.
Thomas Wallace (1680-1763) was a physician practising in Whatfield, Suffolk. He is listed as a medic in P J and R V Wallis, Eighteenth Century Medics (1988).
Ward names are indicated in the volume, and research conducted by E Muirhead Little in 1928, for an article in the British Medical Journal, shows that the wards are in St Thomas's Hospital, London.
"Mr Eyles" cannot be specifically identified, but he is possibly either Albert Eyles, born in 1740, and an apothecary in Cirencester, Gloucestershire; or John Eyles, an apprentice surgeon in 1769. Both these men are listed in Wallis and Wallis, Eighteenth Century Medics (1988).
Dr Joseph Adams, who wrote the original manuscript from which this version was copied, was a pupil of John Hunter. He lived at Hatton Garden, Holborn, and published Life of John Hunter in 1817. Joseph Adams was a corresponding member of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in London, and the author of Observations on Morbid Poisons. He died before 1823.
Thomas Keate was born in 1745. He studied as a pupil at St George's Hospital, London, and then became an assistant to John Gunning, surgeon to the Hospital. In 1792, the position of surgeon became available to succeed Charles Hawkins, which was sharply contested by Keate and Everard Home. Keate was elected as surgeon. In 1793 he succeeded John Hunter as surgeon-general to the Army, he was an examiner at the Royal College of Surgeons from 1800, and Master of the College in 1802, 1809, and 1818. As a surgeon he was the first to tie the subclavian artery for aneurysm. However, his reputation at St George's Hospital for not being punctual and being negligent in his duties, caused him to resign his post in 1813. Keate was surgeon to the Prince of Wales (later George IV), and also surgeon to the Chelsea Hospital, where he died in 1821. Keate published Cases of Hydrocele and Hernia (London, 1788), and several controversial papers such as Observations on the Fifth Report of the Commissioners of Medical Enquiry (London, 1808).
Charles Dagge Seager was born in 1779. He was educated at Warminster Grammar School. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1801, and was one of the 300 founding members. He practised for many years in Cheltenham, c 1810; he appears also to have practised or resided in Guernsey. He retired to Clifton, c 1840. He became a Fellow of the College in 1843. Seager made a careful transcript of John Hunter's Lectures on Surgery, c 1800, originally taken down and arranged into aphorisms by John Hunter's friend, Charles Brandon Trye.
No biographical information was available at the time of compilation.
William Hunter was born in Long Calderwood, Lanarkshire, Scotland, in 1718. Intended for the church, he attended the University of Glasgow from 1731-1736 where he was exposed to the philosophical teachings of Francis Hutcheson which turned him against the rigid dogmas of Presbyterian theology. An acquaintance with the physician William Cullen (1710-1790) interested him in the medical profession, and he studied with Cullen for three years. Eager to widen his experience, he went to London in 1741 where he worked as an assistant to William Smellie MD (1697-1763) and then from 1741-1742 with James Douglas, both of whom fostered his interest in obstetrics and gynaecology. Between 1741-1749 he was tutor to William George Douglas. In 1750 he was awarded an MD by the University of Glasgow. In 1749 he was appointed as a surgeon at Middlesex Hospital, England, before transferring for a brief time to the British Lying-in Hospital. He was particularly interested in obstetrics and in 1762 was called to attend Queen Charlotte on the birth of her first child. Two years later, he was appointed as Physician Extraordinary to Queen Charlotte and rapidly became the most sought after physician in London. His research, embodied in his Anatomical Description of the Human Gravid Uterus (1774) and his practical example, including the establishment of specialist training for both physicians and midwives, did much to establish obstetrics as a respectable branch of medicine for the first time, though he took a perverse pleasure in continuing to describe himself as a despised 'man-midwife'. He died in 1783.
William Cooke was born in Wem, near Shrewsbury, in c 1785. At age 13 he was apprenticed to Mr Gwynne, a general practitioner in Wem. He came to London in 1802 and studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital under John Abernethy. Cooke passed his MRCS Eng in 1806, settling to practice in Plaistow, and later moving to the City of London. He received his MD from St Andrews in 1822. Cooke was a founding member of the Hunterian Society, in 1818. He translated Morgagni's De Sedibus (1761), in 1822, which was re-titled On the Treatment and Causes of Diseases Investigated by Anatomy, Translated, Abridged and Elucidated by Copious Notes. He died in 1873.
Born Harold Munro Fuchs in 1889; educated at Brighton College and Caius College, Cambridge University; worked at the Plymouth [Marine Biology] Laboratory, 1911-1912; Lecturer in Zoology, Imperial College, University of London, 1913-1914; served World War One, 1914-1918, with the Army Service Corps in Egypt, Salonika, Greece, the Balkan Peninsula and Palestine; changed name to Fox, 1914; Lecturer in Biology, Government School of Medicine, Cairo, Egypt, 1919-1923; Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University, 1920-1928; Balfour Student, Cambridge University, 1924-1927; leader of zoological expedition to study the fauna of the Suez Canal, Egypt, 1924; Editor of Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 1926-[1967]; Professor of Zoology, Birmingham University, 1927-1941; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1937; Professor of Zoology, Bedford College, University of London, 1941-1954; Honorary President, London Natural History Society, 1950-; President, International Union of Biological Sciences, 1950-1953; Fullarian Professor of Physiology, Royal Institution, 1953-1956; Emeritus Professor, 1954; Fellow and Research Associate, Queen Mary College, University of London; retired 1954; Président d'Honneur, Zoological Society of France, 1955; Gold Medallist, Linnean Society of London, 1959; Darwin Medallist of the Royal Society, 1966; died 1967.
Publications: Biology: an introduction to the study of life (University Press, Cambridge, 1932); Blue blood in animals, and other essays in biology (Routledge and Sons, London, 1928); Selene, or sex and the moon (Kegan Paul, London, 1928); The personality of animals (Penguin Books, Harmonsworth, New York, 1940); The nature of animal colours (Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1960); assisted with the biology sections of Elementary Science (University Press, Cambridge, 1935).
Born 1885; educated privately, Royal Holloway College, 1904, and University of London, graduating in 1907; Fellowship to Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, USA, 1908-1909; Assistant Mistress in History, Cheltenham Ladies College, Gloucestershire, 1909-1912; Assistant Lecturer, 1912-1919, and Staff Lecturer, 1919-1921, in History, Royal Holloway College, University of London; Pfeiffer Research Fellow, 1921-1926, and Lecturer in History, 1926-1929, Girton College, Cambridge University; Lecturer in History, Cambridge University, 1930-1948; Director of Studies in History and Law, and Vice-Mistress, Cambridge University, 1944-1948; elected to the British Academy, 1945; Zemurray Radcliffe Professor of History, Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA, 1948-1954; President, International Commission for the History of Assemblies of Estates, 1949-1960; CBE, 1947; retired 1954; Vice-President Selden Society, 1962-1965; Vice President, 1958, and Honorary Vice-President, 1963-1968, Royal Historical Society; Fellow of the Medieval Academy of Arts and Sciences; Honorary Fellow, Somerville College, Oxford University, 1964; active member of the Cambridge Labour Party and Trades Council; died 1968.
Publications: A guide for novel readers (Y.W.C.A., London, 1920); Album Helen Maud Cam (Publications universitaires de Louvain, Louvain, 1960); England before Elizabeth (Hutchinson's University Library, London, 1950); Historical novels (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1961); Law as it looks to a historian: Founders' Memorial Lecture, Girton College, 18 February, 1956 (W Heffer and Sons, Cambridge, 1956); Law-finders and law-makers in medieval England: collected studies in legal and constitutional history (Merlin Press, London, 1962); Liberties and communities in Medieval England: collected studies in local administration and topography (University Press, Cambridge, 1944); Local government in Francia and England: a comparison of the local administration and jurisdiction of the Carolingian Empire with that of the West Saxon Kingdom (University of London Press, London, 1912); Studies in the Hundred Rolls: some aspects of thirteenth century administration (Oxford, 1921); The Hundred and the Hundred Rolls: an outline of local government in Medieval England (Methuen and Co, London, 1930); The legislators of Medieval England (Geoffrey Cumberlege, London, [1946]); What of the Middle Ages is still alive in England today? (Athlone Press, London, [1961]); Zachary Nugent Brooke, 1883-1946 (Geoffrey Cumberlege, London, [1949]); Bibliography of English constitutional history (G. Bell and Sons, London, 1929); editor Crown, community and parliament in the later Middle Ages: studies in English constitutional history (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1951); editor Studies in manorial history (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1938); introduction to Selected historical essays of F. W. Maitland (University Press, Cambridge, 1957).
Born 1891; educated Armstrong College, Durham University, gaining his BSc in 1912; 1851 Exhibitioner, Kristiania University, Norway, 1914-1915; gained MSc at Armstrong College, 1916; served World War One, 1914-1918, as Capt, Royal Army Medical Corps, 1917-1919; Lecturer in Geology, Armstrong College, 1919-1921; Head of Geology Department, 1921-1956, and Professor of Geology, 1928-1956, Bedford College, University of London; awarded the Lyell Fund by the Geological Society of London, 1927; Secretary, 1934-1942, and President, 1954-1957, Geological Society of London; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1952; President, Mineralogical Society, 1954-1957; Murchison Medallist, 1946; Wollaston Medallist, 1962, Geological Society of London; Emeritus Professor, 1956; retired, [1956]; Fellow of Bedford College, 1971; died 1981.
Publications: Geology and time (University of Nottingham, Nottingham, 1953); Iceland (Geographical Handbook Series, London, 1942).
Professor of Chemistry, Bedford College, University of London, 1949-1970; Emeritus Professor, 1970; retired 1970; died 1985.
Educated at Oxford University and Trinity College, Dublin; taught English and Germanic Philosophy at Royal Holloway College, University of London, 1899-1915, being a Senior Staff Lecturer from 1905; Secretary of the Staff, Royal Holloway College; Director of Studies of English and Philology, Girton College, Cambridge, 1915; died 1951.
Publications: Henryson: selected fables (Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1930); editor of The Middle English poem, Erthe upon Erthe, printed from twenty-four manuscripts (London, 1911).
Born London, 28 November 1926, but spent her earliest years in Russia where her father went to work; graduated in 1948 with an External London BSc in Zoology taken at University College, Leicester; studied marine worms in the Isle of Man and was awarded her PhD from the University of Liverpool; moved, in 1952, to Royal Holloway College as Assistant Lecturer in the newly opened Zoology Department; promoted to Lecturer in 1957 and retired in 1991 as Reader in Ecology, a University of London appointment which she had held since 1976; her research was concerned with plankton living in the reservoirs situated around Staines and she supervised investigations into the fauna of the slow sand filters through which London's drinking water is purified; her data has been incorporated into increasingly refined models of how reservoir ecosystems work; pioneer in the use of echo-sounding to measure fish populations, equipment now used routinely by the Environment Agency; with a botanical colleague, she started a BSc Ecology degree at a time when only three such degrees were taught in the UK. At the time of Dr Duncan's death, she was the initiator and principal coordinator of a complex project funded by the EU which embraced numerous colleagues from three European and three SE Asian countries; worked extensively in Europe, Africa and the USA; maintained a lifelong association with socialism and eastern Europe, maintaining communications across the Iron Curtain; after her formal retirement Duncan remained active in research as Emeritus Reader in Ecology and Leader of the Hydroacoustic Unit at the Royal Holloway Institute of Environmental Research; died 3 October 2000.
The Staff Meeting was established in 1889 in order to discuss matters relating to teaching in the College. It originally discussed and settled the work of each student individually but this became impossible as student numbers increased. It also considered examinations and scholarships but had no power in policy-making. Meetings were usually held at least once a term, although sometimes they met more than this and sometimes less. The meeting consisted of the Principal and between 8-12 members of the Academic staff. In 1912 the Governors constituted the Academic Board which took over the functions of the Staff Meeting. It was to be composed of the Principal and senior members of staff and was to meet at least once a term. The Academic Board had the power to make recommendations to the Governors on all academic matters but did not have any executive duties. The Royal Holloway College Act (1949) stated that the Board should contain the Principal (as Chairman), all Professors of the University of London who taught at the College, and Heads of Department. It was able to regulate its own procedures and the conduct of its business, and was (with the approval of the Council) able to make standing orders for that purpose.
The Trustees were three men who were given control of the College estate, property and picture collection. The first Trustees were appointed by Thomas Holloway in 1876 and were thereafter appointed by the Board of Governors as and when a new vacancy arose. The Trustees themselves also served as Governors.
In 1949, the Royal Holloway College Act altered the way in which the College was governed and as a result, responsibility for the estate and College property was transferred to the Council. The role of Trustee was thereafter terminated.
Various unofficial records collated by members of Royal Holloway College on an ad-hoc basis.
Egon Sharpe Pearson was born in Hampstead, London, in 1895, the middle child of Karl Pearson and his wife Maria Sharpe. He was educated at Winchester College and Cambridge University, graduating in 1920 and joined his father's Department of Applied Statistics at University College London in 1921 becoming assistant editor of Biometrika, the statistical journal co-founded by Karl Pearson, in 1924. In 1933 Pearson succeeded his father as Head of Department at UCL; three years later, when Karl Pearson died, he also became Managing Editor of Biometrika.
In 1930, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS). During a visit to the USA in 1931, Pearson met Walter Shewart of the Bell Telephone Laboratory with whom he discussed quality control in industry. The following year he presented a paper to the RSS on industrial applications of statistics which led directly to the formation of the Industrial and Agricultural Research Section (IARS) of the Society. He was on the Council of the RSS from 1934 to 1951, serving as Vice-President in 1945/6 and again in 1947/8 and was elected President for 1955-1957.
He married in 1934 and had two children; his wife died in 1949. Pearson died in 1980.
George Field: born, Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire in about 1777; educated at St Peter's School, Berkhampstead; experimented with the application of chemistry to pigments and dyes; successfully cultivated madder, (a plant cultivated for dye); invented a 'physeter' or percolator acting by air pressure to produce coloured lakes or pigments; awarded the Society of Arts' gold Isis medal for the percolator, 1816, (the apparatus is described by in Society of Arts Transactions, xxxiv pp 87-94); continued to work on preparing colours for use by artists; other inventions included a metrochrome and conical lenses; died, Isleworth, Middlesex, 1854.
Publications: Chromatics; or, an Essay on the analogy and harmony of colours (Newman, London, 1817); Chromatography, or, A treatise on colours and pigments, and of their powers in painting (London, 1835); Ethics; or, the analogy of the Moral Sciences indicated; Outlines of Analogical Philosophy, being a primary view of the principles, relations and purposes of Nature, Science, and Art 2 vols (London, 1839); Rudiments of the Painter's Art: or, a Grammar of Colouring (London, 1850); Tritogenea, or, A brief outline of the universal system; Dianoia. The third Organon attempted, or, Elements of Logic and subjective philosophy; Aesthetics, or, the analogy of the sensible sciences indicated: with an appendix on light and colors; The analogy of the physical sciences indicated; Society of Arts Transactions, xxxiv pp 87-94.
Dealer of the Independent Gallery; Samuel Courtauld's principal adviser, and central in the acquisition of many of his paintings; died c1950. Publications: Millet ... Illustrated with eight reproductions in colour ([1910]); Van Dyck ... Illustrated with eight reproductions in colour ([1908]); Stories of the French Artists from Clouet to Delacroix collected and arranged by P M Turner [chapters 1-17] and Charles Henry Collins Baker [chapters 18-30] (Chatto & Windus, London, 1909); The Appreciation of Painting ... With illustrations (Selwyn & Blount, London,1921).
Born in Birkenhead, 1860; moved to Whitchurch near Ross-on-Wye, 1864; educated at home by a governess; preparatory school at Whitchurch, 1871-1875; Hereford Cathedral School, 1875-1877; Gloucester School of Art; Académie Julian in Paris, 1882; École des Beaux-Arts, 1883; pictures hung at the Royal Academy, 1883-1885; returned to England and worked on a series of paintings beginning at Walberswick, Suffolk; supporter and constant exhibitor at the New English Art Club; taught at the Slade School of Fine Art [1895]-1930; began to work increasingly with water-colours from about 1900; honorary member of the Liverpool Academy of Arts, 1906; Order of Merit, 1931; died in Chelsea, 1931; his work is found, amongst others, in the British Museum, the Tate Gallery, the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, the Metropolitan Museum, New York, the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, the Welsh National Museum, Cardiff.
In 1942 the Royal College of Physicians of London (RCP) and the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCSENG) met together and agreed to ask the RCOG to co-operate to form a Standing Joint Committee of the three Royal Colleges. The Committee initially met each month to discuss matters of mutual interest, particularly the training of consultants; the three College presidents alternated as chairman.
The first Memorandum and Articles of Association of the College were approved on 13 September 1929. The first royal charter was granted in 1947, with a supplemental charter in 1948. Further amendments were made to the charter, articles of association, ordinances and by-laws in 1963, 1971, 1979, 1984 and 1999.
A Clinical Effectiveness Support Unit (CESU) was set up as a new department of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in June 1999 to co-ordinate the College's many existing clinical governance and educational activities. It was renamed the National Collaborating Centre for Women's Health and Children's Health (NCC-WCH) in 2001. The NCC-WHC's main functions are as follows: production of at least two evidence-based guidelines per year, completion of two national audits in obstetrics and gynaecology per year, co-ordination and support of the clinical effectiveness programme within the College, liaison with relevant related activities, including the confidential enquiries into infant and maternal deaths (CESDI and CEMD), consideration of further developments, particularly accreditation of services and consumer issues. The NCC-WHC produces two types of Guidelines: National Evidence-based Guidelines, funded by the National Institute for Clinical Evidence (NICE) covering all aspects of a particular area of clinical practice e.g. infertility, electronic fetal monitoring, induction of labour, and Green-Top Guidelines, funded by the College and comprising brief evidence-based statements on topical and controversial issues to assist clinicians in their decision making about appropriate health care. The NCC-WHC services three College committees: Clinical Effectiveness Standards Board (CESB), Guideline and Audit Sub-committee (GASC), a sub-committee of CESB and Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC).