George Pilcher (1801–1855) was an English aural surgeon and medical reformer.

Life

Winkfield Winkfield is a village and civil parish in the Bracknell Forest unitary authority of Berkshire, England. Geography According to the 2011 Census, the parish had a population of 14,998. The parish includes the hamlets of Winkfield, Maidens ...

, Berkshire, George Pilcher was born on 30 April 1801. George was brother to William Humphrey Pilcher and John Giles Pilcher.The Law Reports

f the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting F, or f, is the sixth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphabet#Let ...

Equity Cases, Including Bankruptcy Cases, Before the Master of the Rolls, the Vice-chancellors, and the Chief Judge in Bankruptcy, Volume 11, 1870-71, 34 Vic, p.52 Pilcher was admitted a member of the

Royal College of Surgeons of England The Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS England) is an independent professional body and registered charity that promotes and advances standards of surgical care for patients, and regulates surgery and dentistry in England and Wales. T ...

on 2 April 1824. Immediately afterwards he began to practise as a surgeon in Dean Street, Soho, London, and was soon appointed lecturer on anatomy, physiology, and surgery at the Webb Street school of medicine, Snow's Fields, then belonging to his brother-in-law,

Richard Dugard Grainger Richard Dugard Grainger FRCS FRS (1801 – 1 February 1865) was an English surgeon, anatomist and physiologist. Grainger was born in Birmingham, the son of a surgeon, and educated at a grammar school. He was the brother of Edward Grainger, ...

. His lectures on comparative anatomy drew on

Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville (; 12 September 1777 – 1 May 1850) was a French zoologist and anatomist. Life Blainville was born at Arques, near Dieppe. As a young man he went to Paris to study art, but ultimately devoted himself to natur ...

. Desmond associates Pilcher at Webb Street with Benthamite views, shared with

Thomas Southwood Smith Thomas Southwood Smith (17881861) was an English physician and sanitary reformer. Early life Smith was born at Martock, Somerset, into a strict Baptist family, his parents being William Smith and Caroline Southwood. In 1802 he won a scholarshi ...

. Pilcher was for many years consulting surgeon to the Surrey Dispensary. As a professional he had to contend in his field with the

quackery Quackery, often synonymous with health fraud, is the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. A quack is a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, ...

of John Harrison Curtis, as did

James Yearsley James Yearsley (1805–1869), aural surgeon, was born in 1805 to a north-country family settled in Cheltenham. Medical career Adopting a medical career, he became a pupil of Ralph Fletcher of Gloucester, (a surgeon of considerable eminence in ...

and

Joseph Toynbee Joseph Toynbee FRS (30 December 1815 Another son, Harry Valpy Toynbee (1861–1941), was the father of universal historian Arnold J. Toynbee, and archaeologist and art historian Jocelyn Toynbee. He died on 7 July 1866, at 18, Saville Row, M ...

. In 1838 Pilcher was awarded the

Fothergillian prize The Medical Society of London is one of the oldest surviving medical societies (being organisations of voluntary association, rather than regulation or training) in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1773 by the Quaker physician and philanthro ...

for his treatise ''On the Structure and Pathology of the Ear'', and in 1842 he was elected president of the

Medical Society of London The Medical Society of London is one of the oldest surviving medical societies (being organisations of voluntary association, rather than regulation or training) in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1773 by the Quaker physician and philanthro ...

. When the Webb Street school was reabsorbed into the Borough hospitals from which it had originally sprung, Pilcher became attached to Lane's school, which was affiliated to St George's Hospital. At that hospital he became lecturer on surgery on 6 July 1843, and in the same year he was made an honorary fellow of the

. In 1849 he was admitted a member of its council. Pilcher died suddenly on 7 November 1855,Court of Chancery records alternately have this date as 7 Nov 1853 and was buried in

Kensal Green cemetery Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in the Kensal Green area of Queens Park in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. Inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, it was founded by the barrister George Frederick ...

''Pilcher v Rawlins''

Pilcher would have become embroiled in the notable opposition referenced as '' Pilcher v Rawlins'' in the

Court of Chancery The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid a slow pace of change and possible harshness (or "inequity") of the common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over all matters of equ ...

had he lived as long as 1872. This case, which is complex and often employed as a justification of the

Torrens title Torrens title is a land registration and land transfer system, in which a state creates and maintains a register of land holdings, which serves as the conclusive evidence (termed " indefeasibility") of title of the person recorded on the regist ...

system, stemmed from a trust executed by his father, Jeremiah, on 23 August 1830, involved a mortgage transaction entered into by his brother William Humphrey Pilcher, and was only resolved by judgment of Lord Hatherley:COURT OF APPEAL IN CHANCERY - PILCHER v. RAWLINS
1872

Summary of Hatherley judgment

The defence of purchase for value without notice may be sustained, although the Defendant, in order to make out his title to the legal estate, must rely on an instrument which discloses the title of the Plaintiff, the Defendant not having had notice of such instrument at the time of his purchase. The trustees of a settlement advanced the trust money on the security of real property which was conveyed to them by the mortgagor, the mortgage deed noticing the trust. The surviving trustee of the settlement afterwards reconveyed part of the property to the mortgagor on payment of part of the mortgage money, which he appropriated. The mortgagor then conveyed that part of the property to new mortgagees, concealing, with the connivance of the trustee, both the prior mortgage and the reconveyance. When the fraud was discovered, the cestuis que trust under the settlement filed a bill against the new mortgagees claiming priority: Held, that the Court would not interfere to take away the legal estate which passed to the new mortgagees under the reconveyance. The trustees of a settlement advanced the trust money on the security of real property which was conveyed to them by the mortgagor, the mortgage deed noticing the trust. The surviving trustee afterwards induced the mortgagor to execute a deed by which the mortgaged property purported to be conveyed to the trustee as on a purchase by him, though no money in fact passed. The trustee then, concealing the prior mortgage, and shewing title under the pretended purchase deed, conveyed the property to a mortgagee without notice: *Held, that the Court would not interfere to take away the legal estate from the mortgagee. *Decree of the Master of the Rolls reversed. * Carter v. Carter disapproved of.

Works

Pilcher published: * ''Essay on the Physiology of the Excito-motory System'', read before the Medical Society, 1835. * ''The Structure, Economy, and Diseases of the Ear'', with plates, London, 1838; 2nd edit. 1842. * ''Some Points in the Physiology of the Tympanum'', read before the physiological section of the Medical Society of London, 23 February 1854.

References

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Pilcher, George 1801 births 1855 deaths English surgeons