Richard Ellis (paediatrician)
Professor Richard White Bernard Ellis FRSE OBE MID (1902-1966) was a British paediatrician.
He was made President of the British Paediatric Association in 1965.
Life
He was born on 25 August 1902 the son of Bernard Ellis, a prominent Quaker in Leicester. He studied at Downs and Leighton Park School: then a Quaker school. In 1920 he joined his elder brother at King’s College, Cambridge. He graduated Master of Arts in Natural Sciences in 1923 then went to St. Thomas Hospital in London for professional training as a doctor, receiving an MB from the University of London in 1926.
His career experience included working at Great Ormond Street Hospital and working under Kenneth Blackfan at the Boston Children's Hospital in the USA. In 1936, he was appointed Physician for children’s diseases at Guy’s Hospital in London. During this period he campaigned to obtain part of the £200,000 endowment left by Caleb Diplock to “the children of Sussex” and succeeded in gaining 10% of this sum for Guy’s. The two children’s wards were updated using this money and thereafter were known as Caleb Ward and Diplock Ward.[1]
In 1937 he travelled to Spain to aid Basque refugees in the Spanish Civil War. He was a member of the National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief 1937-39. During this period he adopted two Spanish children and sent them to his home in Britain.
In the Second World War he initially involved himself in the plight of Polish refugees in Romania and Hungary. From 1940 he served in the RAF Medical Service, at the rank of Wing Commander (but is not thought to have had any pilot training). He served in North Africa, Italy and Belgium. For his role as Medical Adviser to the Mediterranean Allied Air Force he was given the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1945. He continued to travel after the war, giving educational programmes on child-health in Africa, India and Indonesia.[2]
From 1946, he became Professor of Childlife and Health at Edinburgh University retiring from this in 1964.
In 1952, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Douglas Guthrie, Sir Godfrey Thomson, Norman Feather, Alexander Murray Drennan, and John Gaddum.[3]
In 1960, he became Chairman of the Remand Homes Committee.
From 1958, he begun to suffer from cancer and had a carcinoma removed. Cancer persisted infecting his bones, and his final years were bed-ridden. He died at the Glebe House, Hawridge, Berkhamsted on 15 September 1966.
Family
In 1941, he was married to Dr. Audrey Davis, whom he had met in a strip club. They had two adopted Spanish children, rescued from the Spanish Civil War.
Publications
- Child Health and Development (1949)
- Diseases of Infancy and Childhood (1951)
- Health in Childhood (1961)
References.
- ↑ http://munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk/Biography/Details/1440
- ↑ http://munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk/Biography/Details/1440
- ↑ BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF FORMER FELLOWS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 1783 – 2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0 902 198 84 X.