MEDICAL OFFICERS OF THE BRITISH ARMY 1660-1960
Vol 2 1898-1960

PREFACE

I HAVE long been aware of the great value to medical historians throughout the English speaking world of the books commonly referred to as "Peterkin's Roll" and "Johnston's Roll". These two volumes, of which only limited editions were published, give biographical details of officers of the Army Medical Service for the periods 1660-1727 and 1727-1898 respectively. They have both been unobtainable for many years and it gives me great pleasure to record that the Wellcome Trust has made arrangements to republish them both in a single volume. I am also indebted to the Aberdeen University Press, the original publisher, for granting permission for their reprinting. The biographical details of "Johnston's Roll" ended with the last officer to join the Army Medical Service before the formation of the Royal Army Medical Corps on 23 June 1898. There was clearly a need for a new roll from that date onwards, and the second volume, 1898-1960, completes a period of three hundred years from 1660. The foundations of such a work had already been laid due to the untiring efforts of the late LieutenantColonel J. G. Foster, O.B.E., M.B.
I am particularly indebted to two members of my staff for the parts they have played in the production of this volume. The late Colonel A. D. Young, D.S.O., M.B, late R.A.M.C., wrote the Introduction, which is based largely on conditions of service throughout the period, and Major L. C. W. Baker, R.A.M.C., has had the most onerous task of preparing the biographical details.
Our efforts would, however, have come to nothing without the generous help of the Wellcome Trust which has undertaken the publication and whose staff, throughout the period of production, have been so understanding and so helpful. My present thanks to the Trust will surely be echoed by medical historians in future years.

ROBERT DREW

INTRODUCTION

"Army doctors are members of two professions, and unless they have mastered them both they fail in their duty. They must be soldiers knowing something of the structure of armies and of their ways in peace and war; lacking that essential knowledge they cannot give their full service in keeping troops healthy at all times and in saving life under fire."
("The Times"-10th August, 1951)

THE aim of this volume is to record biographical details of all permanent Regular officers who were commissioned in the Royal Army Medical Corps between 23 June 1898 the date of its formation, and the year 1960 It is thus a continuation of the two volumes commonly known as "Peterkin's Roll" and "Johnson's Roll" and, with them, provides an unbroken record for 300 years. As far as possible the format of "Johnston's Roll" has been followed, but it has been possible, certainly since the 1914-18 War period, to give more details about specific appointments, particularly with regard to specialist officers. This, in itself, illustrates one of the advances made during the period under review.The criterion for inclusion in "Johnston's Roll" was service on full pay. Such a principle could not be followed in the present work because of the huge numbers involved, and the decision was made to include only officers who held permanent Regular commissions. There is thus no mention of many officers who served with distinction during the major wars of the period or of the peacetime officers, from 1934 onwards, who held Short Service commissions.
This criterion has also affected the inclusion of many non-medical officers. Before the r939-qj War the only nonmedical officers in the R.A.M.C. were 52 Regular quartermasters employed solely on quartermaster duties. During that war it became necessary to employ non-medical officers in a wide variety of administrative appointments previously held by medical officers. Direct emergency commissions as nonmedical officers were introduced in 1942. After the War, in 1946, a Short Service commission for administration and technical officers ryas introduced. In 1954 there was a reversion to one class of non-medical officers only, and officers in it were on quartermaster rates of pay, although used for both quartermaster and administrative duties. In 1963 the non-medical officer cadre was reorganised into Quartermasters, Administrative Officers, and Technical Officers, the latter including specially selected state registered nurses and mental nurses, radiographers, laboratory technicians, public health inspectors, and dispensers/ technical storemen As many of the administrative officers only held Limited Service commissions, and the technical officers all had Short Service commissions, these officers are not included in this book.
In addition, as the Regimental System, i.e. the system in which doctors belonged to the regiment in which they served, had only been abolished 25 years before the last entries in "Johnston's Roll", the close association of doctors and combatant units was a noted feature of that work. In order to show that, although the system has changed, the association still exists, every effort has been made in the present volume to record appointments as Regimental Medical Officers. This has, however, only been done where an officer has clearly been on the posted strength of a regiment or battalion for a reasonable period of time, usually not less than 9 months. Finally, as the present volume only treats of permanent Regular officers, this introduction is concerned with their conditions of service. No attempt is made to deal with the part played by the Corps in the major and minor wars which occurred during the period. For such historical details the reader is referred to the official medical histories of the 1914 and 1939-45 Wars, as well as to Colonel Fred Smith's "A Short History of the Royal Army Medical Corps", and to Mr. Peter Lovegrove's "Not Least in the Crusade". Factors Leading to the Formation of the Royal Army Medical Corps In order to understand the development of the Corps it is necessary to appreciate the factors which led to its creation, and it would be wrong merely to assume that the Army Medical Service before 1898 was unsatisfactory. It had not always been so, and it was not until the Crimean War, 1854-56 that grave deficiencies began to become apparent in it. In spite of a public outcry at that time the Medical Service scarcely improved and there followed a series of inquiries into its defects: Lord Herbert of Lea's Commission in 1858, Sir Ralph Thompson's Committee in 1878, Lord Morley's Committee in 1883, and Lord Camperdown's Committee in 1889. The key to the problem was the status of medical officers: to improve this meant overcoming considerable prejudice within the Army, and this, in turn, took many years. The status of medical officers embraced many matters. From the point of view of rank they were not treated as the equals of other Army officers. They had, for a time, what was known as "relative rank" but even this was abolished in 1887 They had little control over medical matters affecting the Army or over the routine administratim of their own affairs. Finally, and this rankled considerably, they were all too often treated as the social inferiors of other officers. The plight of the Army doctor was frequently the subject of bitter and satirical cartoons and articles to "Punch". It is all but unbelievable to read in an 1866 issue, under the heading-"Sad Want of Surgeons in the Army"-of the indignities Army donors might be expected to suffer. After alluding to cleaning boots and sitting at side tables in Mess, the article goes on:"It will be requisite for them [i.e. surgeons] to acquiesce in the Regulations which denies those of them who chance to die the usual military honours at their interment. For further particulars enquire at The Tatters and Starvation Club, The Horse Guards." Parliamentary Reports in the years immediately prior to the formation of the Corps give a clear picture of the unsatisfactory position of doctors in the Army, and of the valiant efforts of medical members of Parliament, and laser of the British Medical Association, to right it. In 1883 attention was drawn to Lord Wolseley's neglect to inform the Medical Service of his operational intentions in the Egyptian campaign and the inevitable result of such an omission. In 1884 the doctor-patient relationship was touched upon with reference to the abolition of the Regimental System in 1873 "The women of the Regiment do not think that the present system is anything to compare with the old one: they look at the doctor now as their enemy, not as their friend. In olden times he was quite their friend." There was frequent reference to rank in 1887. The Secretary of State for War said: "I have no reason to suppose chat these officers [i.e. medical are desirous of being called by titles so dissociated from the duties of their honourable profession as those of Colonel Major and Captain." The supply of candidates for the Army Medical Service was said to have almost ceased about 1870 because of "the refusal to recognise medical men in the Army as on an equality with combatant and other officers", and, again, "The medical officers feel that they are not treated with respect to rank and position." In 1888, following upon the British Medical Associations analysis of the opinions of some 1,200 medical officers in the Royal Navy and the Army, the Secretary of State was asked what action he proposed to take. His reply was: "These opinions must have been obtained and expressed in a manner altogether in contravention of military discipline. Medical officers, like other officers, have a proper channel through which they can be heard, and I am not prepared to accept any Civilian Association as their mouthpiece. "In 1893 there was reference to the inadequate training of Army surgeons to enable them to carry out their duties to the sick and wounded in the field. There was also a complaint that medical officers did not receive the necessary assistance and protection in peacetime in carrying out their sanitary duties towards the rank and file of the Army. Questions were asked, too, about the availability of field hospital equipment for training and, rather strangely and prematurely, there is reference to 14 days' training in "field ambulance" work. A new subject was raised in 1897, and this was the need for study leave, as well as a plea that medical officers might continue to serve beyond the age of 45 years. Finally, at least in the concert of Parliamentary Reports, all the problems of the Army Medical Service were reviewed in the debate on Army Estimates on 25 March 1898 and on 12 May of the same year it was announced: "The Royal Warrant relating to the Army -Medical Service will be issued as soon as certain minor details which involve India can be settled. It will provide for the creation of a Royal Army Medical Corps, the members of which, up to the rank of colonel, will bear military titles. Above the rank of colonel the members of the Corps will bear the titles of surgeongeneral, with the precedence and privileges of major-generals of the Army such as they now enjoy. It is now necessary to consider the very important report of a British Medical Association Sub-Committee appointed to examine the question of advancing Army Medical Reform and which is dated it May 1897, After examining the available evidence, which included the findings of the various Committees referred to earlier, the strong impression felt by the Sub-Committee was: "The apparent indifference manifested through a long series of years by the War Office, not merely to the claims of admitted justice, but even to the serious necessities of the Medical Service:" The Sub-Committee then set out to examine the conditions essential for the success of any establishment and how the Army Medical Service satisfied these conditions. The examination was conducted under four headings:

(1) The establishment must be sufficient.
(2) The individual standard must be sufficiently high.
(3) The organisation and working must be as perfect as possible.
(4) The conditions of service must be such as at least to preclude serious discontent.

Its general conclusions were: "We have thus considered how the Army Medical Service satisfies the four essential conditions we laid down at the offset. It satisfies none of them. In other words, it is at present in the most unsatisfactory possible condition. Justly discontented, with duties and responsibilities second to none in importance, but without the Army status necessary for their 1 roper fulfilment, exposed to hardships and dangers in excess of those in any branch of the Army, yet without the military recognition which others receive; with an undue amount of foreign service, with no opportunity of advancing their professional knowledge, or the slightest encouragement to do so; with an anomalous and disjointed organisation between men and officers, and in face of indefinite postponement of reform, it is no wonder that the British Army Medical Service is on its way to extinction. It is impossible for anyone acquainted with this state of things to regard with equanimity the prospects of a great war. If such a calamity were to overtake us, it is difficult to see how we could avoid the utter collapse of the medical arrangements. A spectacle of misery and mortality to equal which we must look back to the horrors of the Crimea would not be a matter for astonishment. "The Sub-Committee then went on to consider the necessary reforms: "The reforms which seem to be required to restore contentment within the Army Medical Service, and confidence in it in the outside medical profession, are these:

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