Wakeley , Sir , Cecil Pembrey Grey , 1892-1979 , Knight , surgeon

Sir Cecil Pembrey Grey Wakeley was born near Rainham, Kent, in 1892. He started attending King's School, Rochester in 1904, later attending Dulwich College, and King's College Hospital in 1910. He qualified in 1915 and joined the Royal Navy for the next four years as Surgeon-Lieutenant, spending most of his time aboard the hospital ship Garth Castle at Scapa Flow. His link with the Navy lasted all his life, first as a consultant and in World War Two as Surgeon Rear-Admiral when he worked at the Royal Naval Hospital, Haslar. He was appointed to the staff at King's in 1922, and was senior surgeon by the age of 41, remaining so for the next quarter of a century. He was consultant to the Belgrave Hospital for Children, the Royal Masonic and the Maida Vale Hospital for Nervous Diseases. In addition he was a member of Council of the College and eventually President from 1949-1954. This was a period of immense importance since it witnessed the completion of the College's very ambitious rebuilding programme, the establishment of the Faculties of Dental Surgery and Anaesthesia, and the setting up of the academic units and their laboratories. He was also President of the Association of Physiotherapy, Hunterian Society, Medical Society of London and the Royal Life Saving Society. He examined for both the Primary and Final Fellowship examinations as well as the medical degrees at many universities in the UK and overseas. He was also a Hunterian Orator, Hunterian Professor five times and Erasmus Wilson, Bradshaw, and Thomas Vicary Lecturer. He was Chairman of the Trustees of the Hunterian Collection and received the College's Gold Medal for his services. For twenty years he edited the British Journal of Surgery and in 1947 he founded the Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England which he continued to edit until 1969. He was for a long time editor of the now defunct Medical Press and Circular.