Fagge , Charles Herbert , 1873-1939 , surgeon

Charles Herbert Fagge was born in Lutterworth, Leicestershire, in 1873. He was educated at Oundle School and entered Guy's Hospital Medical School in 1890. He won the gold medal and exhibition for anatomy at the London University intermediate examination in 1895, and the gold medal with a moiety of the exhibition in surgery at the final MB examination in 1897. Two years later he was appointed assistant demonstrator of anatomy in the Medical School at Guy's and was demonstrator and lecturer on the subject from 1906-1910. In 1902 he was made surgeon-in-charge of the aural department in the hospital, a position he held until 1908. He was elected assistant surgeon in 1905, he became surgeon in 1917, and resigned under the age limit in 1933, and was consulting surgeon from that date until his death. Amongst his minor hospital appointments he was surgeon to the Evelina Hospital for Children, and consulting surgeon to the Beckenham Hospital and to St John's Hospital at Blackheath. During the World War One, Fagge was gazetted major, RAMC(T), in 1915, and served at the Hampstead Military Hospital. He was also promoted temporary lieutenant-colonel in 1915, and was attached to the 2nd London General Hospital, acting at the same time as consulting surgeon to the Royal Red Cross Hospital for Officers at Fishmongers Hall, E.C., where he had Lieutenant-Colonel D'Arcy Power, FRCS, as his colleague. He was ordered to France in 1917, with the rank of brevet colonel, but he suffered from dysentery and was invalided home. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was elected an examiner in anatomy in 1909, served as a member of the Court of Examiners 1920-1930 and as a surgical examiner on the Dental Board in 1923. He was a Member of Council 1921-1938, being vice-president in 1929 and 1930. In 1928 he delivered the Bradshaw lecture on 'Axial rotation', and in 1936 he was Hunterian Orator, taking as his subject 'John Hunter to John Hilton'. When the Australasian College of Surgeons obtained a Royal Charter of incorporation the Council of the English College of Surgeons presented it with a great mace as a token of friendship. Fagge was deputed to present it formally and in person. This he did successfully and with much dignity at the inaugural meeting held in the Wilson Hall of Melbourne University on 17 Feb 1932. He also delivered the first Syme Oration at the College. For these services the University of Melbourne conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine and the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons elected him an Honorary Fellow. On his return to England he filled the offices of President of the Association of Surgeons of Britain and Ireland in 1933 and President of the surgical section of Royal Society of Medicine in 1932-1933; of the Royal Society of Medicine itself he had been the honorary treasurer from 1914-1920. He developed Parkinson's disease and died in 1939.