Walton , Sir , Albert James , 1881-1955 , Knight , surgeon

Sir Albert James Walton was born in 1881. He was educated at Framlingham College and the London Hospital, where he gained many scholarships and prizes, qualifying in 1905. In the BSc examination in 1906, he obtained honours in anatomy and morphology, and on taking the MB, BS degrees he secured honours in midwifery, gynaecology and pathology. At the London Hospital he held appointments as emergency officer, house physician, receiving room officer, resident anaesthetist, house surgeon, assistant director of the Institute of Pathology, surgical registrar and demonstrator of anatomy, before being elected to the honorary staff in 1913. Other hospitals to which he was attached were the Poplar Hospital for Accidents; the Evelina Hospital for Children; the Seamen's Hospital, Greenwich; and the Victoria Hospital, Kingston. During the World War One he served as Captain RAMC(T) attached to the 2nd London General Hospital and also at the Endsleigh Hospital for Officers, the Palace Green Hospital for Officers and the Empire Hospital for Diseases of the Brain and Spinal Cord. In World War Two he was a temporary Brigadier attached to the Army Medical Service. At the College he was a Hunterian Professor, 1919; a member of Council, 1931-1947; and Vice-President, 1939-1941. He was an extra surgeon to the Queen, having been surgeon to King George V, King George VI and to the Royal Household. An honorary member of the Academie de Chirurgie of Paris, he was a past President of the Association of Surgeons, the Medical Society of London, and the surgical section of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was awarded the diploma with distinction of the Gemmological Association of which he became President, and he was chairman of the National Association of Goldsmiths. These two bodies established at their headquarters in the city the Sir James Walton Memorial Library, containing models of minerals made by Sir James himself. He was the first medical man to appreciate the importance of the atomic structure of minerals in the causation of chest diseases. He died in 1955.