Dorothy Elliott: born 1895; educated at Reading University College (BA Modern Languages); munitions work at Kynoch's Aston, Birmingham, 1916-1917; Organiser, National Federation of Women Workers, Woolwich Arsenal, 1918-1921; Organiser, General and Municipal Workers Union, Lancashire, 1921-1924; London, 1924-1938; Chief Women's Officer, GMWU, 1938-1945; Chairman, National Institute of Home Workers, 1945-1959.
The TUC Library was established in 1922 and was based on the integrated collections of the TUC Parliamentary Committee, the Labour Party Information Bureau, and the Womens Trade Union League. It was run as a joint library with the Labour Party until the TUC moved to Congress House in 1956. The collection was developed for the use of the TUC and affiliated unions, but its specialisation has led to its parallel development as a major research library in the social sciences. In September 1996, the Collections moved to their new home in the London Metropolitan University. The Library includes several archives. The majority of these were held in the TUC Museum Collection and transferred to the University in 1998.
The Greater London Council (GLC) was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council (LCC) which had covered a much smaller area.It had a number of sub-committees. The Women's Committee was set up in 1982 under Ken Livingston's administration. The first Chair was Valerie Wise appointed 11 May 1982.
Marjorie Nicholson was born in 1914. She attended Oxford University in the 1930s and, after graduating, taught before becoming an extra-mural organising tutor with Ruskin College. Whilst on a working trip to Nigeria in 1949 she became convinced that to help develop democratic self governing institutions she had to work full time from within the labour movement. Firstly, she worked as secretary at the Fabian Colonial Bureau. Here she was involved in producing pamphlets and memoranda and editing its monthly journal Venture. The Fabian Society took a special interest in the Colonies, founding its Colonial Bureau in 1940, thanks to the knowledge and enthusiasm of Nicholson and Rita Hinden. They not only provided expert advice to members of both Houses of Parliament, but befriended many young colonials, mainly students, on their first visits to London. Through her work at the Bureau Nicholson met and assisted India's Jawaharlal Nehru and Krishna Menon, Eric Williams from Trinidad, Hugh Springer from Barbados, Siaka Stevens from Sierra Leone, Tom Mboya from Kenya, Lee Kuan Yew from Singapore and Kwame Nkrumah from Ghana, who were to become leaders of the National movements in their own countries. During this period she also stood three times, unsuccessfully, as the Labour candidate for Windsor. From 1955 she worked in the International Department of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), one of the few women working in policy development employed by the trade union movement. After her retirement in 1972, she began writing up the history of the TUC's involvement overseas from her own papers and cuttings collection. The first volume, The TUC overseas: the roots of policy, was published in 1986 and she was still working on a second volume at the time of her death in July 1997. Publications: The TUC overseas: the roots of policy, London (1986).
The National Society of Plate Glass Silverers, Siders, Cutters and Fitters was established in 1891, and had 236 members by 1892. In 1893 it amalgamated with the National Plate Glass Bevellers Trade Union to form the Amalgamated Plate Glass Workers' Trade Union. The partnership between the two organisations lasted only until 1895 when they agreed to separate and resume their former independent existence. The Union resumed with 313 members in 1895, numbers fell to 201 by 1902. The organisation was dissolved in 1903.
The Post Office Engineering Department was created in 1870. As a consequence, many local linesmen's associations developed. In 1886 a number of the associations merged to form the Postal Telegraphs Linesmen's Movement. In 1896 the name was changed to the Amalgamated Association of Postal Telegraphs, and the union opened its ranks to unskilled workers, construction hands and storemen. In 1901 it changes its title again, to the Post Office Engineering and Stores Association. In 1915 the Association merged with the Amalgamated Society of Telephone Employees to form the Amalgamated Engineering and Stores Association. The title of Post Office Engineering Union (POEU) was adopted in 1919. In 1985 the Union amalgamated with the Post and Telecommunications Group of the Civil and Public Servants Association fo them the National Communications Union (now the Communication Workers Union).
Robert Tressell: born 18 Apr 1870, Dublin; son of Mary Noonan and Samuel Croker; emigrated to South Africa, 1890; married Elizabeth Hartel, Cape Town, South Africa, 1891; daughter Kathleen, born 1892; his wife died c 1895, and he and his daughter moved to Johannesbug, where he worked as a signwriter, and was also involved in pro-Irish groups; moved to Hastings, Sussex, 1901, where he worked as a house painter and interior decorator; he wrote The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, a novel about the destitute and poor of 'Mugsborough', in his spare time.
After completing the manuscript, in about 1910, he gave it to his daughter, Kathleen, and left Hastings for Liverpool, possibly in an attempt to emigrate to Canada. Tressell died of tuberculosis in Liverpool on 3 February 1911, aged 40.
The Workers' Educational Association (WEA) was founded in 1903 under the title Association to Promote the Higher Education of Working Men following a scheme proposed by Albert Mansbridge (1876-1952). He became its general secretary in 1905 when the name was changed to The Workers' Educational Association and the first constitution was established in the following year. After a conference on the WEA and Oxford University in 1907, the WEA Central Joint Advisory Committee was established and three year university tutorial classes were started with the close involvement of R H Tawney (1880-1962). The WEA was also linked to the trade union movement and formed the Workers' Education Trade Union Committee in 1919 to strengthen and give cohesion to the educational work with trade unions. The WEA was closely involved in campaigns for better state education and in particular the campaign preceding the 1944 Education Act. The WEA is now a national voluntary organisation existing primarily to provide adults with access to organised learning. It is a registered charity and is non-party in politics and non-sectarian in religion. The WEA is one national organisation in England and Scotland, organised into 13 districts in England and a Scottish Association. It has over 650 local branches and 28 local organisations including 23 national trade unions are affiliated at national level.
Workers' Educational Association , Workers' Educational Association Central Joint Advisory Committee
The Central Joint Committee was formed after a Conference held by the Workers' Educational Association and Oxford University in1907 which produced a report Oxford and Working Class Education in the following year. The Joint Committee comprised 7 people nominated by the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University and 7 by the WEA Executive Committee. It was dissolved in 1957.
The Workers' Educational Association (WEA) was founded in 1903 under the title Association to Promote the Higher Education of Working Men and in 1905 the name was changed to the Workers' Educational Association. Although the WEA is a single national organisation, locally it is organised into 13 English Districts and a Scottish Association.
R H Tawney was born in Calcutta in 1880 but educated at Rugby School and then Balliol College, Oxford, where he was elected a Fellow in 1918. After working at Toynbee Hall in London he joined the Workers' Education Association (WEA) in 1905 and took the first tutorial classes in Longton and Rochdale. The success of these helped to establish the 3 year tutorial classes which were the backbone of the WEA in its early years. Tawney was President of the WEA between 1928 and 1944 during which time he became Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics.
The Workers' Education Trade Union Committee (WETUC) was founded in 1919 by the Workers' Educational Association (WEA) and the Iron and Steel Trade Union Confederation to strengthen and give cohesion to the WEA's education work with the trade unions. WEA provided the secretariat at district and national level whilst trade union representatives formed the majority of the Committee.
The Women's Trade Union League was established by Mrs Emma Patterson in 1874, as the Women's Protective and Provident League. By the 1890s ten London Unions, and over thirty provincial unions were affiliated, from Bookbinding, Shirt and Collar Making, Tailoring, Dressmaking and Milinery, Cigar Making, Match and Matchbox Making, Ropemaking, Weaving, Laundry, Boot and Shoe Making, Silk Working, Upholstery, Lace Making, Pottery, Paper Making and Shop Working. The League was absorbed into the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in 1921.
The National Radium Trust and Radium Commission was established by Charter, 20 July 1929, to augment the supply of radium for use in the treatments of the sick, and to advance knowledge of the methods for rendering treatment. It was not a government department, most of the Trust's funds having been subscribed on the basis of its independence.
Its first meeting was held at the Ministry of Health on the 31 July, chaired by Lord Parmoor. Its initial duty was to make arrangements for the purchase of radium, and secure premises in London to house the administration of the Commission. Its initial purchase amounted to about 13 grams of radium. The trust occupied premises at 5 Adelphi Terrace, from 1929-1936, and when this building was demolished, moved to 18 Park Crescent, Portland Place until 1940.
Viscount Lee of Fareham, was the first chairman of the Commission, which worked independently from the Trust, but presented to it an annual report. Professor Russ was appointed Scientific Secretary. The Commission endeavoured to keep in touch with other bodies concerned with the radiation treatment of cancer., including the Ministry of Health, the Dept of Health for Scotland, the Radiology Committee of the Medical Research Council, the British Empire Cancer campaign and the National Physical Laboratory. It generally met at monthly intervals.
The Commission was operating in a context of little co-ordination between radium and X-ray departments of hospitals. The Commission decide not to undertake direct responsibility for experimental research with radium, but recognising the need for such work, allowed the Medical Research Council to make use of its radium for research, while maintaining its focus on the treatment of the sick and the evaluation of the results radium treatment of cancer. It established the designation 'national radium centres, in order to retain effective control over the distribution and use of the radium committed to its charge.
Radium insurance was also an issue addressed by the Commission, while the National Physical Laboratory took over responsibility of measuring, testing and issuing the national radium. The Commission established a National Postgraduate School of Radiotherapy in 1930, in cooperation with the Mount Vernon Hospital at Northwood, Middlesex, where the clinical and pathological work was carried out, and the Radium Institute, where the diagnostic and out-patient departments were located.
The Commission also undertook statistical research in order to establish the extent of the use of radium for treating disease, especially cancer, and ensure that adequate clinical records were kept. In 1932, a Registrar was appointed to the direct the compilation of annual statistics.
In 1938, the Cancer Bill was passed with the object of securing extended and improved provision for the treatment of cancer in Britain. It gave local authorities responsibility for making arrangements to secure facilities for treatment for persons suffering from cancer in their areas. The Radium Trust was granted a supplementary charter in 1939, granting it power to purchase in addition to radium, other radioactive substances and apparatus and appliances required for radiotherapeutic treatment, and the Radium Commission was instructed to make arrangements for the custody, distribution and use of radioactive substances and apparatus and appliances purchased by the Trust.
During the World War 2, the Commission was concerned about the protection of radium from loss due to enemy action. No radium was lost during the War however, the Commission's headquarters was demolished, though most of the collection of patient records were able to be retrieved. From 1941, the Commission was temporarily based at Westminster Hospital, moving to Manchester Square in 1943 where it remained until it was wound up in 1948.
The Commission had a number of committees. The Statistical Committee was established to assist the Commission's Registrar in the work of keeping accurate records of patients treated by national radium. The Technical Committee dealt with the distribution of radium in appropriate containers among a number of institutions where it was used for radiotherapy, while the Radon Committee was established to assess applications from hospitals for radon, and to bring uniformity to the use to which it was put. The Pathological Advisory Committee was appointed as an advisory body to which hospitals might submit material of particular difficulty or interest. An Executive Committee, and an informal Secretary's committee also met at various times.
The National Radium Trust was wound up in 1948, and the Commission abolished.
X-rays were discovered on 8 Nov 1895, by Professor Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, of the Institute of Physics of the University of Wurzburg, Bavaria. The first radiological society - the X-ray Society - was formed in London in March 1897, by a group of medical men interested in Röntgen's discoveries. They drew up a code of rules for consideration by a larger committee meeting, and in June the same year, the name was altered changed to the Röntgen Society. The first General meeting of the Society was held in June 1897, and Professor Silvanus Thompson, was elected its first president. Members of the Society were more strongly representative of the field of physics than of medicine. In 1917 when the medical members of the Society, joined with the Electro-therapeutic Section of the Royal Society of Medicine to form the British Association for the Advancement of Radiology and Physiotherapy (BARP).
The Röntgen Society worked in collaboration with BARP and its successor the British Institute of Radiology (BIR). In 1927 it amalgamated with the BIR.
The Transport History Collection consists largely of two substantial bequests relating to British railway history, namely the Clinker collection and the Garnett collection. Charles Ralph Clinker was born at Rugby in 1906 and joined the Great Western Railway from school in 1923 as a passenger train runner. By the time of the outbreak of World War Two he had risen to become liaison officer for the four major railway companies with Southern Command HQ, and as such was involved in the planning and execution of the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940 and the D-Day Landings in 1944. He left railway service in 1946 and devoted the rest of his life to research and lecturing on railway history, a taste for which he had acquired when seconded to assist E T MacDermot in the preparation of his History of the Great Western Railway (London, 1964), and which Clinker subsequently revised for publication in 1982. Clinker wrote numerous books and pamphlets on railway history; his Clinker's Register of closed passenger stations and goods depots in England, Scotland and Wales, 1830-1977 (1963, revised 1978) is widely regarded as his magnum opus. He died in 1983.
David Garnett was born near Warrington in 1909 and as young man qualified as a chartered electrical engineer, soon afterwards completing his training at the Brush works in Loughborough. He then worked at the lift manufacturer Waygood-Otis, and during World War Two served with the National Fire Service, then at the Admiralty. In the 1950s he began to build a collection of railway and other maps which at the time of his death in 1984 was one of the finest such collections in the country.
Chris Wookey was born on 2 Aug 1957 and was a student at Brunel University, 1975-1979, obtaining an honours degree in Applied Biochemistry. He was a keen railway photographer and Chairman of the Brunel University Railway Society for two years. After leaving Brunel he taught Chemistry for almost ten years at Ryden's School in Walton-on-Thames. He died in 1989.
The archive of working class autobiographies at Brunel University Library was gathered together by John Burnett, David Mayall and David Vincent during their compilation of their three volume annotated bibliography The autobiography of the working class (Harvester Press, Brighton, 1984-1989). The authors "sought to identify not only the large numbers of printed works scattered in various Local History Libraries and Record Offices, but also extant private memoirs, many of which remain hidden in family attics, known only to the author and a handful of relatives" (introduction to volume 1, p29). The criteria for inclusion in the autobiography were that the writers were "working class" for at least part of their lives, that they wrote in English and that they lived for some time in England, Scotland or Wales between 1790 and 1945. The autobiography indicates the location of unpublished items (over 230), which comprise the archive kept at Brunel. A few others of more marginal relevance are also available upon request.
Entidad colectiva
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Since 1611 (traditionally since 1537)
The Honourable Artillery Company is the oldest regiment in the British Army, traditionally dating back to 1537 during the reign of Henry VIII. Throughout our history we have had strong connections with the City of London and have also played our part in the South African War (1899-1902) and the two World Wars, as well as more recent conflicts. We have an interesting history and a range of traditions, as well as important collections of archives and artefacts.
The Independent Force was established by the Royal Air Force on 6 June 1918 to conduct a strategic bombing campaign against Germany, concentrating on strategic industries, communications and the morale of the civilian population. The Independent Force was formed out of the Royal Flying Corp's Forty-First Wing which commenced operations in October 1917. This initiative was partly in response to German airship and aeroplane raids on England but it also built upon earlier, small scale attempts at strategic bombing by the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps. As its name implied, it operated independently from the land battle and struck at targets in central Germany including Cologne, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Bonn, and Mannheim. It was also intended to operate independently of the control of the Allied Supreme Commander, Marshal Foch, although this was later changed.
The Independent Force was commanded, reluctantly at first, by Major-General Hugh Trenchard who was gradually converted to the idea of strategic bombing by the operations of the Independent Force. The squadrons were based on airfields in the Nancy region, well to the south of the British sector of the Front Line. Although the effort appears miniscule compared to later bombing campaigns, four day and five night bomber squadrons dropped just 550 tons of bombs during 239 raids between 6 June and 10 November 1918, the effect on the German war effort was remarkable. The main targets were railways, blast furnaces, chemical factories that produced poison gas, other factories, and barracks to which had to be added airfields in an effort to reduce attrition from enemy fighter aircraft.
The effect on morale was out of all proportion to the size of the bomber force or the material damage caused and the air raids resulted in the movement of German air defence units away from the Front Line. Trenchard ordered statistics and records to be kept to demonstrate the work of the Independent Force and the role of strategic bombing in modern war.
The Independent Force was established by the Royal Air Force on 6 June 1918 to conduct a strategic bombing campaign against Germany, concentrating on strategic industries, communications and the morale of the civilian population. The Independent Force was formed out of the Royal Flying Corp’s Forty-First Wing which commenced operations in October 1917. This initiative was partly in response to German airship and aeroplane raids on England but it also built upon earlier, small scale attempts at strategic bombing by the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps. As its name implied, it operated independently from the land battle and struck at targets in central Germany including Cologne, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Bonn, and Mannheim. It was also intended to operate independently of the control of the Allied Supreme Commander, Marshal Foch, although this was later changed.
The Independent Force was commanded, reluctantly at first, by Major-General Hugh Trenchard who was gradually converted to the idea of strategic bombing by the operations of the Independent Force. The squadrons were based on airfields in the Nancy region, well to the south of the British sector of the Front Line. Although the effort appears miniscule compared to later bombing campaigns, four day and five night bomber squadrons dropped just 550 tons of bombs during 239 raids between 6 June and 10 November 1918, the effect on the German war effort was remarkable. The main targets were railways, blast furnaces, chemical factories that produced poison gas, other factories, and barracks to which had to be added airfields in an effort to reduce attrition from enemy fighter aircraft.
The effect on morale was out of all proportion to the size of the bomber force or the material damage caused and the air raids resulted in the movement of German air defence units away from the Front Line. Trenchard ordered statistics and records to be kept to demonstrate the work of the Independent Force and the role of strategic bombing in modern war.
Robert Birley began his career as a history teacher at Eton in 1926 and was then appointed headmaster of Charterhouse in 1935. During this time, he authored the Fleming Report, 1944, on the relationship between public schools and mainstream education. After World War Two, he became, in 1947, Educational Advisor for the Control Commission in the British Zone in Germany responsible for educational reconstruction. On his return to the UK in 1949 he was appointed headmaster of Eton, where he remained until 1963. He subsequently became a visiting Professor at Witwatersrand University, South Africa from 1964-1967, and was Professor and Head of Department of Social Science and Humanities at City University from 1967-1971. He wrote and lectured extensively on education, apartheid and human rights issues.
Dr Robert Mullineux Walmsley, the first Principal of the Northampton Institute, was appointed in Sep 1895 at the age of 41, from some 94 applicants, and commenced work in Jan 1896. He had previously been First Senior Demonstrator at Finsbury Technical College, 1883-1887; Principal of the Sindh Arts College in Bombay, India, 1887-1888; on the staff of the City and Guilds (Engineering) College, 1888-1890; First Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics, Heriot-Watt University, 1890-1895.
At a meeting of academic staff in Nov 1922 it was proposed that `a committee be appointed to represent the staff'. Draft rules were drawn up in Jan 1923 for the organisation, which determined that it be called the Northampton Polytechnic Staff Association (subsequently known as the Academic Staff Association or ASA). The business of its early years was concerned with social activities, redundancies, workload and leave allowance for summer holidays. A Staff Social Committee was formed from the main committee in 1930 to supervise social activities. In 1962 the ASA became involved in the actual administration of the institution, and were closely involved in the change to university status. The ASA has its place in the university charter as the forum from which academic staff are elected to Senate.
A Social Committee was formed by students to improve the social life of the Northampton Institute in 1910, and the Union Society was instituted in Mar 1912. A number of Northampton students were also instrumental in the foundation of the University of London Union in the 1920s. The Northampton Polytechnic Institute Day Students Magazine commenced in Dec 1912 but ceased publication in 1915 due to wartime restrictions. Its successor (the newspaper of both the union and past students' society), the Northampton Gazette, commenced publication in Jul 1919. The Students' Union started its own newspaper, the Beacon, in 1948. The Union was appointed its first sabbatical president in 1968, and moved into new purpose built premises in 1970. The Engineering Society was formed in 1905, and the energy of its own social activities served to promote the foundation of the Students' Union Society in 1912. The name of the society was changed to the Northampton Engineering College Engineering Society in 1913. The Principal, Dr Robert Mullineux Walmsley, was first President, and after his death, the `Mullineux Walmsley' lectures on engineering were instituted by the Society. Two prizes were available from the foundation of the Society in 1905, namely for the best papers read by a current and a past student.
The N'Ions is the association of past students of the Northampton Institute and City University, founded in 1909 as the Northampton Past Day Students' Association, and serving to promote the interests of the City University and its past students. The first annual dinner of the N'Ions was held in 1922, and branches were organised in the midlands and north west of England. Its magazine, the Northampton Gazette commenced publication in 1910, and following a temporary cessation during World War One, resumed joint publication with the Union Society in 1919. Its title was changed to The N'Ion in 1935. Following World War Two, two means of commemorating those former students killed during the war were instituted. A plaque was erected and a fund was established to enable undergraduates and graduates to visit other countries to enable them to gain experience in their chosen field by the observation of other nationals engaged in the same sphere of industry or research. The first award was made in 1951.
This joint working party was established to explore key issues affecting students' clinical learning experiences and to identify strategies to address them. Their remit was to:
- Review the clinical learning environment in maternity services with particular respect to the recruitment of doctors and midwives.
- Gather national and international research and evidence pertaining to the development and support of a good clinical learning environment.
- Identify and propagate examples of good practice relating to the clinical learning environment and recruitment.
- Develop a collaborative strategy for the development of professional support within the clinical learning environment and enhanced recruitment.
The working party comprised a group of professionals with relevant expertise and experiences encompassing the academic, clinical, practical and organisational aspects of learning environments. The group met on five occasions, from January to September 2006.
This working party was established by the Councils of the two Colleges in July 1980 'to consider training in obstetrics and gynaecology for general practice, having regard to undergraduate education and training'. It met 14 times and published a report in November 1981 recommending realistic and satisfactory education for general practitioners so there can be a closer integration in maternal care between the general the doctor and the hospital maternity units.
By the early 1980s improvements in the management of very small babies meant that many were surviving below the 28 week gestation period on which abortion legislation was based. A joint committee representing the RCOG, British Paediatric Association, Royal College of General Practitioners, Royal College of Midwives and the British Medical Assocociation was formed to consider the subject and formulate a joint statement on the issue. The Department of Health and Social Security sent observers. The statement was issued in 1985.
The National Birthday Fund for Maternity Services (later National Birthday Trust Fund) was founded in 1928. In the inter-war period it campaigned for the provision of analgesia in childbirth and improvements in midwifery services and also conducted research into nutrition. Following the Second World War, its primary activity became sponsoring research, particularly into perinatal mortality. It conducted nationwide surveys in 1946, 1958, 1970, 1984, 1990 and 1994 and also supported on-going cohort studies of the development of children. At the end of the 1960s there had been proposals that the Fund be merged with the RCOG, although this never came to fruition, although in subsequent years the Fund developed a close relationship with the RCOG, which became involved in a number of its research projects. Ties between the two organisations were enhanced by the involvement of Professor Geoffrey Chamberlain, later President of the RCOG, in several Fund projects. The second perinatal survey in 1970 focused on the care of mother and baby for the first week after birth. The RCOG offered specialist advice and underwrote some of the salary costs for the survey. The survey was published as 'British Births 1970: A survey under the joint auspices of the National Birthday Trust Fund and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists' edited by Dr Roma Chamberlain and others (London, 1975-78). Following the establishment of the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit in 1978, the Fund decided to focus instead on single-subject surveys. One such was a 1984 confidential enquiry into place of birth, the results of which were published as 'Birthplace: Report of the confidential enquiry into facilities available at the place of birth conducted by the National Birthday Trust Fund' edited by Geoffrey Chamberlain and Philippa Gunn (Chichester, 1989). In 1993 the Fund joined forces with Birthright, a charitable branch of the RCOG which had been founded in 1963 and funded medical and scientific research into women's health. Birthright became the corporate Trustee of the Birthday Trust and the official merger of the two organisations accompanied its renaming as Wellbeing.
In 1964, obstetrician Professor Will Nixon set up the 'Childbirth Research Centre', after witnessing the grief of a young man whose wife had died during childbirth. Professor Nixon was director of the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at University College Hospital, London for over twenty years. Leading members of the medical profession including Lord Brain, Sir John Peel, Professor Dugald Baird and Sir George Pinker founded CRC as a registered charity in October 1964. They were very disturbed by the lack of scientific and medical research into the causes and prevention of abnormalities in pregnancy, childbirth and infancy. In 1972, the name was changed to 'Birthright' 'The National Fund for Childbirth Research' in order to reflect the national activities of the charity both in terms of fundraising and research. In April 1975 Birthright agreed to work with The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) to improve women's health. Birthright worked in partnership with the RCOG as a fundraising and research organisation to promote research in obstetrics and gynaecology and related subjects, particularly research into the prevention of birth defects.
An international liaison committee of professional organisations and national associations of gynaecologists and obstetricians, UPIGO was formed in 1955. Its objectives were:
- to study, represent and defend the ethical, professional and material interests of obstetricians and gynaecologists before all international authorities,
- to study and to explain the ethical, legal, professional and social problems which occur in these disciplines, according to the particular interest they arouse,
- to establish relations with any appropriate national or international organisation,
- to provide exhaustive literature on the profession of gynaecologist-obstetrician to each member or delegation of members, in order to stimulate progress in the policy of each country in the fields of training of practitioners and the safety of women, as well as that of unborn children,
- to promote the harmonisation of qualifications and conditions of practice for specialists in obstetrics and gynaecology, in order to justify professional migration within the framework of international regulations,
- to promote products or services which will satisfy ethical considerations as well as the Association's expectations of quality.
RCOG Update was the College's monthly e-news bulletin distributed to Members and Fellows. Each email contained brief information about general issues in obstetrics and gynaecology and RCOG news items and events, with links to further information.
These books contain the minutes of more than one College committee, joint committee or working party. The practice of maintaining multi-purpose minute books was discontinued in 1987.
Bethel Solomons (1885-1965) MB, BCh, BAO (Dublin), MD, FRCP(I), FRCOG, Hon FACS was born in Dublin and spent most of his professional life there. He was master of the Rotunda Hospital and organised the first sterility clinic in Dublin. He was a founder fellow of this College and an honorary fellow of the American Association of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. He was elected President of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in 1946. He died in 1965 of heart failure. The papers relate to Bethel's survey of pathology treatments of the fallopian tube. He delivered his findings at the 10th British Congress of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Belfast, 1936, and published them in `The Conservative Treatment of Pathological Conditions of the Fallopian Tube', in Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the British Empire, 43 (1936), pp 619-633.
No information at present.
John Chassar Moir was the first Nuffield Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Oxford, a post he held from 1937 to 1967. At University College Hospital, London, he and Dr Harold Ward Dudley had isolated the new drug ergometrine, responsible for the traditional clinical effects of ergot, which was rapidly and universally adopted for the prevention of haemorrhage after childbirth, and he had written a thesis on rotation of the foetus in childbirth for which he gained his MD and a gold medal from Edinburgh University. At Oxford, he built up the Radcliffe Infirmary, studied the use of diagnostic x-rays in obstetrics, and made an outstanding contribution to gynaecological surgery, the repair of vesico-vaginal fistulae. He was for several years the co-editor and for the sixth edition sole editor, of Munro-Kerr's well-known textbook Operative Obstetrics. He became president of the obstetrics and gynaecology section of the Royal Society of Medicine, and in 1974 was made an honorary fellow.
No further information at present.
No further information at present.
Thomas Norman Arthur Jeffcoate (1907-1992) specialised in obstetrics and gynaecology after qualifying with First Class Honours from Liverpool University in 1929. from 1930 until his retirement in 1972 he served on the teaching staff of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. By 1933 he had been appointed Honorary Consultant at the Women's Hospital, Liverpool Maternity Hospital and the David Lewis Northern Hospital. In 1945 he became the University's first full-time Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. He was President of the RCOG from 1969-1972 and was knighted in 1970.
Kenneth Vernon Bailey (1898-1989), MC, MD, MRCP, FRCOG, was born in and studied medicine in Manchester, graduating MB ChB in 1922. He was a leading gynaecologist in Manchester holding several appointments in and around the city before concentrating his work in St Mary's Hospital, Manchester. He was a Foundation Member of the College and became a Fellow in 1938. He died on 16 February 1989 aged 91.
William Blair-Bell (1871-1936) was co-founder (with William Fletcher Shaw) of the College and its first President. The second son of William and Helen Bell, he was born in Wallasey in 1871 and educated at Rossall School, King's College London and King's College Hospital. In 1905 he left general practice in Wallasey and was appointed to the post of Assistant Consultant Gynaecologist to the Liverpool Royal Infirmary. In 1918 he became senior surgeon and in 1921 was appointed to the Chair of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Liverpool University, a position he held until 1931. In 1929 he married his cousin, Florence.
Blair-Bell was President of the Obstetric Section of the Royal Society of Medicine and of the North of England Gynaecological Society and the Liverpool Medical Institution. In 1911 he founded the Gynaecological Visiting Society (GVS). He was co-founder of the College in 1929 and presented the College with its first headquarters at 58 Queen Anne Street. He established the money for the William Blair-Bell memorial lectures and for other research projects. He was President of the College from its inception until 1935, the year before his death (bibliography: Sir John Peel, Lives of the Fellows, pp 73-77).
Background to The History of the Origin and Rise of the British College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists: Blair-Bell resigned from all committees of the College in April 1934, and it would appear that shortly afterwards he began to compose his history of the foundation and earliest years of the College. The prefatory explanation is dated 22 May 1934 and it was probably written before any other part of the text. It appears from a file of his correspondence with colleagues and others that he first began to seek information and papers to help him in late May 1934 (the file is A1/1 and covers May to June 1934. Fletcher Shaw's copies of his correspondence with Blair-Bell on the subject are in A4/4/23).
Blair Bell's will, which is dated 22 March 1935, contains the following clause: "I also direct that the historical composition concerning the origin and rise of the British College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists which I shall leave shall be kept sealed and unread and shall immediately be deposited in a bank until such time as it is published not sooner than fifteen years after my death and not until after the death of the last surviving member of the Finance and Executive Committees of the aforesaid College in existence between One thousand nine hundred and twenty nine and one thousand nine hundred and thirty four and I direct that the expenses of publication shall be defrayed by means of a grant from the final accumulated residue of my estate. The format printing and binding shall in accordance with a memorandum I shall leave with the typescript copies of the book and the copies printed shall be distributed in accordance with a further memorandum I shall leave. Should the history not be completed at the time of my death a fact which will be known by Miss Nockolds it is to be completed at once Arthur Capel Herbert Bell and Eleanor Nockolds from documents and letters in my possession and from extracts made from my diaries by Arthur Capel Herbert Bell. Editing of the whole or part completed by me is to be confined to typing and printing and verbal errors". In addition to instructions about format, binding, and printing, Blair Bell also left instructions with the typescript that one thousand were to be printed and distributed to various institutions and individuals, and to each fellow and member of the College. If the College wished to print copies it might do so, but at its own expense. In those circumstances the typescript was to pass to the College providing that College gave an undertaking not to alter the text in any way.
In a memorandum, the text of which may be seen in S33/3, it is stated that the text was completed by the trustees. It is unclear how much of the text was left unfinished by Blair-Bell.
William Blair-Bell (1871-1936) was co-founder (with William Fletcher Shaw) of the College and its first President. The second son of William and Helen Bell, he was born in Wallasey in 1871 and educated at Rossall School, King's College London and King's College Hospital. In 1905 he left general practice in Wallasey and was appointed to the post of Assistant Consultant Gynaecologist to the Liverpool Royal Infirmary. In 1918 he became senior surgeon and in 1921 was appointed to the Chair of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Liverpool University, a position he held until 1931. In 1929 he married his cousin, Florence.
Blair-Bell was President of the Obstetric Section of the Royal Society of Medicine and of the North of England Gynaecological Society and the Liverpool Medical Institution. In 1911 he founded the Gynaecological Visiting Society (GVS). He was co-founder of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1929 and presented the College with its first headquarters at 58 Queen Anne Street. He established the money for the William Blair-Bell memorial lectures and for other research projects. He was President of the College from its inception until 1935, the year before his death (bibliography: Sir John Peel, Lives of the Fellows, pp 73-77).
Gordon William Fitzgerald (1899-1944), OBE, TD, MB, CM (Edinburgh) 1898, LM (Dublin) 1899, MD (Edinburgh) 1901, FRCOG 1929, graduated in Edinburgh and Dublin. He spent most of his professional life in Manchester at the Municipal Hospital and as an active member of the North of England Obstetric and Gynaecological Society. He was a Founder Fellow of the College (bibliography: see Sir John Peel, Lives of the Fellows, pp.154-155).
Emil Novak (1844-1957), MD 1904, Hon FRCOG 1948, was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He qualified at and held internship and resident appointments at Baltimore Medical College, later becoming Associate Professor. In 1915 he joined Cullen's Department at Johns Hopkins where be studied and lectured in gynaecological pathology, which was to become his speciality. He was an active member of the American Gynaecological Society and became its president in 1948. he was made an Honorary Fellow of the RCOG in the same year (bibliography: : see Sir John Peel, Lives of the Fellows, pp.34-35). He presented a gavel to the College as a token of appreciation; the gavel was an exact replica of an original belonging to the American Gynaecological Society.
John Harold Peel KCVO, MA, BM BCh (Oxon), FRCP, FRCS, Hon FRCOG, Hon DSc (Birm), Hon FRCS(C.), Hon FCOG (SA), Hon FACS, Hon FACOG, Hon NMSA, Hon DM (Soton), Hon SCh (Newcastle) served as the College's Honorary Treasurer from 1959-1966 and as President from 1966-1969. He was elevated to the honorary fellowship of the College in 1989. On retiring as President of the College in 1969, John Peel was asked by Council to undertake the task of preparing a history of the lives of the Fellows, along the same lines as volumes published by the two older Royal Colleges (the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Surgeons of England). The completed work was published in 1976 as The Lives of the Fellows of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists 1929-1969 (Whitefriars Press Ltd, 1976).
Alexander Simpson was born in Bathgate, Scotland in 1835. He was the nephew of Sir James Young Simpson, Professor of Midwifery at the University of Edinburgh. Simpson studied at Bathgate Academy and later at the University of Edinburgh where in 1856 he received his M.D. He worked for seven years with his uncle in Edinburgh before moving to be a general practitioner in Glasgow. He succeeded to the Chair of Sir James Young Simpson following the latter's death in 1870. In 1872 he married a Miss Barbour. In 1905 he retired at the age of 70, and a year later he was knighted. He was killed in a road accident during a wartime blackout in 1916.
Hugh Cameron McLaren (1913-1986) MD, FRCPGLAS, FRCSED, FRCOG graduated from Glasgow University in 1936. He specialized in obstetrics and gynaecology early in his career and in the years before the war he worked in Glasgow, Aberdeen and, for a short spell, Berlin. During his service with the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War Two, his surgical experience fitted him to work in an army field surgical unit, While campaigning in Germany he came upon the horrors of the concentration camps, including Sandbostel, which he entered in May 1945 as a surgical specialist, 10th (British) Casualty Clearing Station, British Liberation Army. After the war he became first assistant to Hilda Lloyd in Birmingham, succeeding her as Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 1952. He also served the RCOG as a member of the Scientific Advisory and Pathology Committee from 1950-1967, the Examination Committee from 1951-1955 and as a Fellows' representative on Council from 1969-1975. An inveterate traveller, he helped to found the gynaecological club The Travellors.
Robert Barnes was born, 1817; apprentice to Dr Richard Griffin, Norwich, 1832; studied at University College London, and St George's Hospital; member of the Royal College of Surgeons; year in Paris; taught at the Hunterian School of Medicine and in the discipline of forensic medicine at the Dermott's School on Windmill Street; obstetrician at the Western General Dispensary; Doctor of Medicine, 1848; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1848; obstetrical assistant, 1859; obstetrician in chief, (Royal) London Hospital, 1863; obstetrician in chief, St Thomas' Hospital, 1865; obstetrician in chief, St George's Hospital, 1875; consulting obstetrician, St George's Hospital, 1885; actively involved at The Seamen's Hospital, the East London Hospital for Children and the Royal Maternity Charity; one of the founding members of the Obstetrical Society of London, 1858; President of the Obstetrical Society of London, 1865-1866; founded the British Gynaecological Society, 1884, of which he was Honorary Chairman until his death; died, 1907.
Edward Anthony John Alment, known as Tony, was born in 1922, the son of a Watford GP. He was educated at Marlborough College and trained at St Bartholomew's Hospital, qualifying in 1945. After posts in London, at St Bartholomew's and Queen Charlotte's Hospitals, and a spell of National Service in the RAF, he was appointed to Northampton and Kettering General Hospitals in 1960, where he remained as consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist until 1985. In the 1970s he was known for his recognition of the importance of feminist ideas about women's health, and was an advocate of the establishment of special abortion clinics. He was also interested and involved in healthcare organisation and management. He joined the Oxford Regional Health Authority in 1969, serving until 1976. In 1976 he chaired the Inquiry into Competence to Practice and also served as a member of the Maternity Services Advisory Committee and the CASPE research project into clinical budgeting. He was knighted in 1980. Sir Anthony served as Honorary Secretary of the RCOG from 1968-1973, as President from 1978-1981 and as Honorary Cellarer from 1983-1990. He died in March 2002.
The Fothergill Club was named after the eminent gynaecologist, William Edward Fothergill (1865-1926). WE Fothergill himself had been a teacher and Professor of Obstetrics at St Mary's Hospital, Manchester, after completing his medical degree at Edinburgh in 1893. He modified Archibald Donald's operation for uterine prolapse, which became known as the Fothergill operation.
Fothergill firmly believed that gynaecologists should have some obstetrical training and tried to bring greater logic into the classifications used in gynaecology. He was against the anatomical classification of diseases used in books and lectures, as the same disease process could occur anywhere in the body, and the fact that symptoms were often made into diseases. He recommended an alternative pathological classification instead and promoted his own classification in his book Manual of Diseases of Women, in 1920. In the introduction to this book, he wrote his opinion that 'no one who has not in one way or another become a good obstetrician can ever hope to understand the diseases of women'.
The Fothergill Club, inspired to some extent by this reputation, was founded by Theodore Redman (1916-2004), former Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at St James's Hospital, Leeds, with two of his colleagues. The idea for such a society arose at a meeting of the North of England Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society in 1957, when a group of members who had also been together at St Mary's, Manchester, like WE Fothergill, felt that there was a place for a new gynaecological club which would exist mainly to visit other centres of excellence in Britain and overseas, and to combine study of the specialty with what the club termed the 'Art of Living'. It was also recognised by Theodore Redman that other similar societies were very full at that time.
The inaugural meetings were held on the 8th and 9th May 1958 in Plymouth, after initial discussions on the 26th July 1957, in Manchester. The Club's founding members, apart from Theodore Redman, were Sir John (Jack) Dewhurst, later President of the RCOG from 1975-1978 ,Tiger Bevis, Howard Rowley, Frank Da Cunha, Tom Fitzgerald, Tubby Lawton, Gordon Napier and Alan Robson. At the club meetings in May and November 1958, it was decided that membership should be restricted to twenty people at any one time, (although this was later increased and allowed for the inclusion of inactive and honorary members) and that nominations should only be put forward at the next meeting after the one at which first contact with a potential member had been made. It was also agreed that prospective members' Cvs should be circulated to all current members, so that any reservations about a nomination could be expressed.
The Fothergill club had a varied annual programme of academic and cultural activities, combining business and scientific meetings with visits to places of interest, which allowed members' spouses and partners to travel with the club on most occasions and participate in these cultural aspects. From 1958 onwards, the Club became a successful travelling group that visited specialists in many European cities and in the United States. Visits were made in the UK and abroad in alternate years amd meetings were usually held twice a year in May/June and October/November. Theodore Redman produced a history of the Club for circulation to all members, in 2000.