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 Oxford, 1831; educated at private school, Aynho, Northamptonshire; apprentice to the architect John Billing, Reading, 1849-1852; joined architect's office, Wolverhampton, 1852; assistant to the architect George Edmund Street, Oxford, [1852-1858]; became a close friend of William Morris, also an assistant to Street, Edward Burne-Jones and Charles Faulkner, 1856; moved to London with Street's office, 1856; established independent practice at Great Ormond Street, [1858]; with Morris designed the Red House, Bexley Heath, Kent; founder member of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co, 1861 (later Morris and Co); specialised in the design of animals, metal work and furniture; work included St Martin's Church, Scarborough, the Victoria and Albert Museum, house at Arisaig, Inverness; with Morris and Faulkner founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), 1877; wintered in Italy, 1884-1885, involved with the restoration and excavation of buildings in Italy, became a close friend of Giacomo Boni; retired to Worth, Sussex, 1901; died, 1915.
George Wardle was a member of the Committee of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.
Commendatore Giacomo Boni (1859-1925) was an Italian architect and archaeologist. He was Director of the excavations in the Roman Forum and on the Palatine, Member of the Superior Council of Antiquities and Fine Arts, Minister of Public Instruction and Royal Commissioner for the Monuments of Rome.
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.
Born in Dundee, 1898; educated at a local preparatory school, and at Rugby, 1912-[1917]; Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, 1917-1919; served on the Western Front and was awarded the MC, World War One, 1918; read modern history at Magdalen College, Oxford, 1919-1921; Fellow and Tutor of Hertford College, Oxford, 1922-1937; Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art and Professor of History of Art, University of London, 1937-1947; served with the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park, and then with the RAF at Cairo, Egypt, 1939-1941; head of British Council activities in the Middle East as Chief Representative, based at Cairo, 1943-1945; President of Magdalen College, Oxford, 1947-1968; Vice-Chancellor, Oxford University, 1958-1960; Fellow of the British Academy, 1961; Trustee of the National Gallery, 1947-1953, and British Museum, 1950-1969; member of the Advisory Council of the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1947-1970; collected material for various publications, and edited Hanns Hammelmann's notes, which led to the publication of Book Illustrators in Eighteenth-century England (details below), 1971-1974; died 1974.
Publications: Boniface VIII (Constable and Co, London, 1933); St Francis of Assisi (Duckworth, London, 1936); Bodleian picture book no. 1: English Romanesque Illumination (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 1951); general editor of the Oxford History of English Art, also writing two out of eleven volumes (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1949-); English Art, 1100-1216 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1953); Bodleian picture book no. 10: English Illumination of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (Bodleian Library, Oxford, 1954); Christ bearing the Cross. A study in taste (Oxford University Press, London, 1955); English Art 1800-1870 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1959); The York Psalter (Faber and Faber, London, 1962); Castles and Churches of the Crusading Kingdom (Oxford University Press, London, 1967); Kingdoms and Strongholds of the Crusaders (Thames and Hudson, London, 1971); Death in the Middle Ages; mortality, judgement and remembrance (Thames and Hudson, London, 1972);Georgio Vasari: the man and the book (Princeton University Press, 1979); Nebuchadnezzar (with Arthur Boyd) (Thames and Hudson, London, 1972); Book Illustrators in Eighteenth-century England (with H.A.Hammelmann) (Yale University Press, 1975); The Cilian Kingdom of Armenia Editor (Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh, 1978); A History of the Crusades: Volume IV - The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States (mainly consists of essays by Boase) edited by H W Hazard (University of Wisconsin Press, 1977).
Articles:'Fontevrault and the Plantagenets' British Archaeological Journal Series III, Vol. XXXIV pp1-10 (1971); 'An extra-illustrated second folio of Shakespeare' British Museum Quarterly Vol. XX pp4-8 (March 1955); 'The Frescoes of Cremona Cathedral' Papers of the British School at Rome Vol XXIV pp206-215 (1956); 'Samuel Courtauld' Burlington Magazine Vol XC p29 (Jan 1948); 'Sir David Wilkie's Chair' Country Life Vol CXXV pp349 (1959); 'The Arts in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem' Journal of the Warburg Institute Vol II pp1-21 (1938); from the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes: 'A seventeenth-century Carmelite legend based on Tacitus' Vol III pp107-118 (1939); 'Illustrations of Shakespeare's plays in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries' Vol X pp83-108 (1947); 'A seventeenth-century typographical cycle of paintings in the Armenian cathedral of Julfa' Vol XIII pp323-327 (1950); 'An English copy of a Carracci altarpiece' Vol XV pp253-254 (1953); 'The decoration of the new Palace of Westminster, 1841 - 1863' Vol XVII pp319-358 (1954); 'English artists and the Val d'Aorta' Vol XIX pp283-293 (1956); 'Shipwrecks in English Romantic painting' Vol XXII pp332-346 (1959); 'John Graham Rough: a transitional sculptor' Vol XXIII pp277-290 (1960); 'Macklin and Bowyer' Vol XXVI pp148-77 (1963); 'Biblical Illustration in Nineteenth-century English Art' Vol XXIX pp349-67 (1966); 'The Medici in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama' Vol XXVII pp373-378 (1974).
David John Wallace, whose photographs form a large part of this collection, lived in Athens, and travelled through the Balkans, Greece and Turkey in the 1930s, photographing sites of archaeological interest to those engaged in studies of the Crusader period. These photographs are of inestimable value, particularly as many of the sites he photographed are probably no longer in existence today. Wallace was killed in action in Greece, August 1944, serving with the 10th Greek Division, and was awarded the George Cross.
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) was founded in 1929 following collaboration between William Blair-Bell, who became the first president, and William Fletcher Shaw, the first honorary secretary. Prior to 1929 England had two distinguished medical Royal colleges, the Royal College of Physicians of London (founded 1518) and the Royal College of Surgeons of England (founded 1800). The three Scottish medical royal colleges had all been founded by the end of the seventeenth century. The RCOG was the first to represent a speciality other than medicine and surgery. It was followed in due course by the establishment of the Royal Colleges of General Practitioners, Radiologists, Pathologists, Psychiatrists, Ophthalmologists, Anaesthetists and Paediatricians.
The College is a professional membership association with charitable status and is concerned with all matters relating to the science and practice of obstetrics and gynaecology. The main purpose is to act as the examination body for doctors wanting to specialise in obstetrics and gynaecology and then as a membership organisation to those who pass the examination. It is a self-funded and independent body. The College operates through a system of committees, serviced by the College departments.
Lists of Fellows and Members were kept from the founding of the College in 1929; the Annual Report was also produced from that date. Production of the Register of Fellows and Members, the Annual Report and programmes of admission ceremonies is currently the responsibility of the Deputy College Secretary's Office.
The position of Deputy College Secretary was established in the late 1970s. The Deputy College Secretary is the head of the College's Administration Department and also provides secretarial and administrative support for all the Honorary Officers. The Deputy College Secretary is responsible for: management and supervision of the department, editorial, production and circulation of all major printing requirements for the College, the RCOG website, public relations, the Fellows & Members database and Admission ceremonies, RCOG publications and the Bookshop, travel for College business, international meetings and congresses, representatives on outside bodies, attendance at Committee meetings, special projects given by Officers. The department services the Consumers' Forum, the Ethics Committee, the Services Board, Joint Standing Committees with other Medical Colleges and associations and related sub-committees, and working parties. The Annual Report, Register of Fellows and Members and The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist are compiled within this department, as are proceedings of study groups and reports of working parties. The department is additionally responsible for the issue of press releases, press conferences and all media contacts. The College has an appointed Honorary Public Relations Officer who is a Fellow of the College.
General meetings of College Fellows and Members were held annually from 1930 onwards.
In 1964 the Lord Chancellor's Law Reform Committee began a review of the law of evidence in civil cases, with particular reference to the law governing evidence which a medical practitioner might have to give in a court of law. It requested a response from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which forwarded its evidence in 1965.
In 1967 a bill to legalise the medical termination of pregnancy in certain circumstances was introduced to parliament by the MP David Steel. The College was closely involved with and monitored the provisions of the bill during its progress through Parliament until its enactment.
The Council was established by the Articles of Association of the British College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to manage the affairs of the College. The first Council was to consist of the signatories to the Memorandum of Association; the full Council was to comprise the President, Treasurer and Honorary Secretary of the College, plus 18 members made up of Fellows and Members. The first Council meeting was held on September 25 1929. Council's specific duties as set out in the 1927 Articles of Association were to be as follows: to elect Fellows and Members, to acquire property, to appoint and remove examiners, officers, clerks and agents, to nominate trustees, to give security by way of indemnity, to delegate power to committees, to make and repeal byelaws, to borrow money, to pay expenses, to act for the College, to publish literature.
An Executive Committee was established as a standing committee of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1926. By June 1930 it had combined with another standing committee, the Finance and Establishment Committee, to form the Finance and Executive Committee (F & E). Renamed the Finance and Executive Group in 2002, it is serviced by the College Secretary's Office.
The President is one of the honorary officers of the College and is elected by Council for a maximum of three years from amongst the College Fellows. The president is ex officio chairman of all College committees and is empowered under the bye-laws to undertake emergency action where it is impossible to summon a meeting of Council or the appropriate committee to deal with such an emergency. Biographical details of the Presidents can be found by consulting Sir John Peel's book The Lives of the Fellows of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists 1929-1969, Whitefriars Press Ltd, 1975.
Under the By-laws of the College drawn up in 1929, two Vice Presidents were to be chosen from among the Fellows of the College. The Senior Vice President, or in his absence, the Junior Vice President, was to undertake the President's duties in the case of the latter's inability or unwillingness to undertake his duties. The Senior Vice President was to be the Vice President who had held office for a longer period. The Vice President assumed primary responsibility for overseas affairs in the early 1980s; prior to this time the College Secretary was responsible for overseas affairs.
Joint committees and working groups were set up frequently at the behest of one or other of the medical colleges or bodies to discuss matters of mutual concern. Minutes were usually kept and distributed to all participants, and published reports frequently produced. Servicing the College's contribution to these joint committees and working groups and maintenance of the College's own records of proceedings are currently the responsibility of the Committee Secretary, Administration Department.
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 joint working party to consider a proposed Faculty of Family Planning arose out of discussions between the National Association of Family Planning Doctors and the Joint Committee on Contraception of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) and the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP)(normally referred to as the Joint Committee on Contraception). The first meeting was held in November 1987. Initially it was expected that a joint RCOG/RCGP Faculty would be established; in 1991, however, the RCGP withdrew and the RCOG finally set up a Faculty of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care (FFPRHC) within the College in 1993. In 1998 the FFPRHC withdrew from the College to its own premises.
The Committee was established in 1987. It consisted of representatives from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and one representative from each of the three Defence Societies; the Medical Protection Society, the Medical Defence Union and the Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland, plus a senior solicitor and an observer from the DHSS. Its remit was to advise the RCOG Council of the RCOG and the Defence Societies on medico-legal matters as they related to obstetrics and gynaecology. The Committee's secretariat was based at the RCOG. The Committee was disbanded in 1998.
In 1991 the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) instituted a series of joint meetings to consider maternity services in the light of changes in the organisation of the National Health Service, advances in clinical knowledge, and changes in the social framework in which general practitioners, midwives and obstetricians operated. The result was the production of a joint document on maternity care. A draft version of this document was also submitted to the House of Commons Health Committee Enquiry into Maternity Services.
In November 1981 a meeting was set up at the instigation of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists between representatives of the Department of Health and Social Security, Royal College of General Practitioners, British Paediatric Association, Royal College of Midwives and the RCOG to discuss the implications of establishing a system of confidential inquiry into perinatal mortality throughout England and Wales. After further discussions the committee was reconvened in 1984 as an interdisciplinary working party, with the objective of producing a document on guidelines.
In 1973 the Board of Science and Education of the British Medical Association set up a series of exploratory meetings, it was from these meetings that the Committee of Enquiry into Competence to Practise evolved. The Committee comprised representatives from all Royal Colleges and their faculties, the Joint Consultants Committee and the BMA. The Chairman of the Committee was E A J Alment (later President of the RCOG). The terms of reference were: `To review the present methods of ensuring the maintenance of standards of continuing competence to practise and of the clinical care of patients, and to make recommendations.'
This inquiry was set up by a committee of the Joint Council of Midwifery in 1936, with the College President, Sir Ewen Maclean, as the College's representative. In 1937 an interim report, including comments from the constituent bodies with representatives on the Midwifery committee, was forwarded to the Inter-departmental Committee on Abortion which had been set up by the Ministry of Health.
In July 1975 it was agreed that a Conference of Royal Colleges and their Faculties of Medicine in the UK should be formed. Sir Rodney Smith was proposed as the first chairman. Membership was to include one representative from each constituent member. It was envisaged that, in addition to the UK Conference, the Scottish Colleges and perhaps those in England and Wales would need to meet separately from time to time. In October 1976 the name was changed to the Conference of Medical Royal Colleges.
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and British Paediatric Association (BPA) Standing Joint Committee evolved out of various ad hoc committees of the two bodies set up in the 1940s to discuss issues of mutual concern. The committee lapsed for some time during the 1950s but was officially reconstituted in January 1965 to discuss in particular the staffing structure of maternity units for the care of the newborn (ref: C4/3/1). The joint committee is made up of equal numbers of members of the two organisations. Its remit is to consider matters of common interest to members of both specialities. In 1998 the BPA was reconstituted as the Royal College of Paediatric and Child Health (RCPCH). Servicing the RCOG's contribution to this committee is the responsibility of the Committee Secretary, Administration Department.
The College's first scientific meeting was organised as part of the programme to mark the opening of its new building in Sussex Place in 1960. The Scientific Advisory Committee was appointed to organise future meetings and courses. Museum demonstrations were the responsibility of the Pathology Committee. The Scientific Advisory Committee and the Pathology Committee merged in 1966. In 1968 responsibility for postgraduate symposia and museum demonstrations passed to the newly created Postgraduate Medical Education Committee, and responsibility for scientific meetings passed to the newly created Scientific Programme and Central Congress Committee. In 1973 the Postgraduate Medical Education Committee was renamed the Postgraduate Committee, and became responsible for all meetings and scientific programmes. From October 1974, however, the Scientific Advisory and Pathology Committee acquired some responsibility for the initiation of scientific meetings, and became responsible for the revived programme of study groups. From 1981 the Scientific Advisory Committee became primarily responsible for all scientific and educational meetings, but the Postgraduate Committee continued to advise on their organisation.
The Postgraduate Committee was disbanded in 1992. Arrangements for postgraduate education meetings, courses and seminars and for meetings of study groups are now the responsibility of the Postgraduate Medical Education Department of the College. Production of printed proceedings of study groups is the responsibility of the Publications Editor, Administration Department.
The Blair-Bell Research Society was initially established as a research club to informally discuss obstetrical and gynaecological issues at meetings held approximately every three months. In 1961 the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists agreed that the society could use College premises as a regular venue for the club's meetings. From 1962 the club is referred to in College correspondence as "the Blair-Bell Research Society", and the College President has usually been the Society's president.
An Executive Committee was established as a standing committee of the RCOG in 1926. By June 1930 it had combined with another standing committee, the Finance and Establishment Committee, to form the Finance and Executive Committee (F & E). The office of Honorary Treasurer was created by Council under the 1929 bye-laws of the College (ref: A1/9/1 p. 48), which state that the Honorary Treasurer's duties were to be as follows:- to pay all monies received by him on behalf of the College into a College account; to keep accounts of all monies received and expended and report monthly to the Finance and Executive Committee; to prepare quarterly reports to Council; to maintain an Income and Expenditure account and balance sheet. At an Executive Committee meeting in October 1929 it was decided that the Treasurer be given authority to arrange with the Auditors for one of their clerks to keep the necessary financial books of the College for £50 per annum. The President and Honorary secretary were also authorised to obtain any clerical assistance found necessary (Executive Committee meeting B1, 10 Oct 1929; Archives reference: A3M/1 p. 2). From this beginning the Accounts Department, renamed the Finance Department in 1999, developed. The Department, now headed by a Chief Accountant, offers financial support for the activities of the Honorary Treasurer and is responsible for the following functions:- banking all income which includes subscriptions, examination and course fees and sales from publications; paying all the College's purchase invoices; co-ordinating the budgeting process; preparing the annual statutory accounts.
On 26 April 1973, at a meeting of the RCOG Committee on Contraception and Family Planning, it was decided that the committee should be renamed the Joint Committee on Contraception of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of General Practitioners, normally abbreviated as the Joint Committee on Contraception (JCC). In December 1974 the RCOG agreed to take over the secretarial and accounts work for the JCC. In 1993 the JCC was superseded by the Faculty of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care (FFPRHC); from this time the Faculty began to operate independently of the College. In 1998 the FFPRHC quitted its premises in the College.
The first official residence of the College was at 58 Queen Anne Street, London, W1; it was purchased with funds donated anonymously by William Blair-Bell, who also set up an endowment fund and a purchasing fund for the house. The building was officially opened by the Duchess of York (H M the Queen Mother) on December 5, 1932. The house gradually became too small for the College's needs and was sold and replaced in 1955 by the present site at 27 Sussex Place, NW1. The College additionally maintains a house for the President at 8 Kent Terrace, NW1; the house is also used for functions and for accommodating visitors.
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.
In 1971 the College established a Family Planning Sub-committee to discuss proposals for the RCOG, together with the Royal College of General Practitioners, to issue a joint certificate of training in family planning based on assessment in family planning clinics. It was agreed that those doctors already recognised by the Family Planning Association (FPA) should be accepted under the new scheme, and that the FPA should be represented on the committee. The committee was superseded in 1972 by the RCOG/RCGP Committee on Contraception and Family Planning.
On 26 April 1973 it was decided that the committee should be renamed the Joint Committee on Contraception of the RCOG and RCGP, normally abbreviated as the Joint Committee on Contraception (JCC). The personnel of the committee remained unchanged, being dominated by representatives of the two eponymous royal colleges, with representatives from the FPA and the Society of Community Medicine. In December 1974 the RCOG agreed to take over the secretarial work for the JCC and office space was allotted for this purpose. In 1993 the JCC was superseded by the Faculty of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care (FFPRHC).
Overseas doctors' training schemes (ODTS) were instituted by the Department of Health after the Second World War to arrange postgraduate training in the UK for overseas doctors. Under the schemes the Department arranged training posts for doctors from overseas, monitored training and negotiated with the Home Office over visas. During the 1970s the royal medical colleges were also developing their own procedures for assisting and advising overseas doctors wishing to train in the UK. In the late 1980s responsibility for developing their own training schemes, including sponsorship, was passed to the royal medical colleges.
In 1983 the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists decided to expand its existing arrangements, which had hitherto been confined to the placement of postgraduates financed by funds from overseas in unpaid supernumerary posts. Double sponsorship schemes were therefore initiated, the overseas sponsor normally being the national or regional representative committee of the College; in countries without such committees sponsorship by Fellows or Members, or, exceptionally, deans of medical schools was considered. Placement of sponsored trainees and their subsequent supervision was the responsibility of the College's Director of Postgraduate Studies. In 1986 a Sponsorship Officer (now the ODTF Officer) was appointed.
In 1994 the ODTS section within the College acquired a careers side, currently run by a Careers Officer, who produces careers advice and guidelines. ODTF (the section was renamed in 2001) also maintains records of overseas doctors who have passed the membership of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (MRCOG). The ODTF falls under the umbrella of the Postgraduate Training Department of the College.
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).
Special working groups or ad hoc committees and sub-committees were set up at various times, usually by Council or the Finance and Executive Committee, to investigate and report on particular issues of concern to the College. Servicing the working groups and committees is currently the responsibility of the College's Administration Department.
The committee was set up in 1962 by Council under the chairmanship of Professor C H G Macafee to examine and report on trends in the development of obstetrics and gynaecology as a speciality with particular reference to recruitment, teaching research and training in the United Kingdom. It obtained information from undergraduates through a questionnaire and a random sample of personal interviews by the chairman. The committee produced a report to the College in 1966, and the information it amassed was used in the College's submission to the Royal Commission on Medical Education in 1968.
The working group was set up in 1978 at the request of Sir Henry Yellowlees, Chief Medical Officer, in order to "advise on what guidance might be given to health authorities on the introduction into routine antenatal care of a service to detect neural tube defects". The group was chaired by the President of the Royal College of Physicians and the RCOG was represented by the College President. The final report was produced in July 1979.
In November 1994 the Council of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) set up a working party under the chairmanship of the Senior Vice President/Overseas Officer to examine the international affairs of the College and to make recommendations. The working party was particularly concerned with training for overseas postgraduates. The resulting report was circulated to all College members world wide.
The working party was established by the College in July 1980 in order "To consider developments in further specialisation within the field of obstetrics and gynaecology, including training implications, and to make recommendations" (minutes 6 Nov 1980: ref M12/1). The working party first met in November 1980. It presented its report to Council in 1982. The report was published as a discussion document in November 1982.
This working party was set up at the request of Council to prepare the report listed below. The report, chaired by David Painton FRCOG, set out the current legal position in England, Scotland and Wales regarding termination of pregnancy for fetal abnormality and made recommendations of relevance to obstetricians and gynaecologists who are prepared to carry out termination of pregnancy under these conditions.
The establishment of the Royal Commission on the National Health Service (NHS) was announced by the government in 1975. It was to consider the "best use and management of the financial and manpower resources of the NHS" (see the introduction to the minute book of the working party at M15M/1). The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) working party on evidence to the Royal Commission was set up on 16 June 1976, under the chairmanship of T L T Lewis, by the Finance and Executive Committee in order to submit evidence to the Commission on behalf of the College.
The working party was set up by the College President in 1984 to "look into ways of improving the management of parents who had had a stillbirth or neonatal death" (Guidance notes in the minute book of the working party; see M16M/1). This body was also known as the working party on the management of perinatal deaths. Its Chairman was R D Atlay FRCOG.
The sub-specialisation advisory group was established in 1983 by Council to advise it "on practical ways of implementing the recommendations of the working party on further specialisation with particular regard to training and the recognition of training [and] to consider the need for an advisory board or boards to control sub-specialisation and to maintain high standards" (meeting SSG 1, 4 Jan 1983: reference M17/1). The group first met in January 1983, under the chairmanship of T L T Lewis, with instructions to report back to Council within one year, initially on gynaecological oncology. The final report was produced in 1984. In July 1983 Rustum Feroze, PRCOG, and Professor R W Beard, chairman of the Scientific Advisory and Pathology Committee (SAPC), decided that the SAPC should make proposals on the training programme of individuals undertaking two-year sub-specialisation training in reproductive endocrinology, gynaecological oncology and fetal medicine. Three groups of specialists were formed, as sub-units of the sub-specialisation advisory group, to make proposals on each of these sub-specialities. These proposals were then to go to the SAPC for discussion, with final proposals to go to Council for ratification.
The working party first met on 16 July 1993; the Chairman was Professor M J Whittle, Professor of Fetal Medicine at the University of Birmingham. Representatives from the General Practitioners and Midwifery Service were present, also other Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologists. The terms of reference were: a) To consider and develop suggestions made by the British Paediatric Association (BPA)/RCOG Joint Standing Committee regarding facilities required for childbirth in different settings. b) To define minimum standards of staffing, facilities and organisation in each setting for the guidance of managers, clinical directors and health professionals.
The working party was established by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) Council following a request from the General Medical Council's Standards Committee for guidance on the clinical aspects of conducting intimate examinations with a view to establishing recognisable standards of good practice. The working party's terms of reference were:- 1:to review the draft guidance issued by the GMC; 2:to prepare guidance in relation to obstetrics and gynaecology; 3: to consider the implications of the guidance for future training and research in obstetrics and gynaecology; 4: to make recommendations to the Council within six months. A draft report was produced in 1997.
The RCOG working party and confidential enquiry into laparoscopy was formed under the chairmanship of G V P Chamberlain in order to conduct an investigation into the use of laparoscopy within the United Kingdom. The College was to be assisted by the DHSS, which agreed to handle all data processing and analysis, and by the Defence Societies, which were to help finance printing and postage (see first meeting, 10 June 1975, in minute book: Archives reference M21M/1 p. 1). Although the working party produced its final report in 1978, and no minutes appear to have survived after 1977, it continued to carry out its investigations until 1982.
The Institutional versus Domiciliary Midwifery Committee was established by the RCOG Council under the chairmanship of R C Thomas in 1951 to assess National Health Service obstetric services, to study trends in places of birth, and to define objectives for the next two decades. It changed its title to the Maternity' Services Committee later in 1951 and to the Obstetric Services Committee in 1954. It published its report in the same year; a revised version was published by the College in November 1956. The committee does not appear to have met after 1954. According to a note in T5, p. 17, this committee continued the work of an earlier RCOG committee, the Maternity Committee, 1929-1939.
This committee was established in 1959 under the chairmanship of H J Malkin to define the general principles to be followed in the building of maternity units. It reported in May 1960.
This committee was set up by the Finance and Executive Committee in 1962 under the chairmanship of H J Malkin to consider the government white paper A Hospital Plan for England and Wales. It reported to Council later that same year.
This committee was set up by Council in January 1961 under the chairmanship of H R MacLennan. Its report, Recommendations on the Principles and Organisation of General Practitioner Maternity Units and their relation to specialist Maternity Units, was published in January 1962.
This committee was set up in 1969, under the chairmanship of E A J Alment, then Honorary Secretary of the College, to consider DHSS plans for maternity accommodation and to provide advice on the planning and design of maternity units and gynaecological departments.