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Sir Hedley John Barnard Atkins (30 December 1905 – 26 November 1983) was the first professor of surgery at Guy's Hospital and President of the Royal College of Surgeons. He was the son of Guy's Hospital physician Sir John Atkins and Elizabeth May (née Smith) and was educated at Rugby School and Trinity College, Oxford. He gained a physiology degree at Oxford and in 1937 was appointed to the staff of Guy's as assistant surgeon, spending all his professional life in that institution. In 1942, during World War II, he went to North Africa with the
Royal Army Medical Corps The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. The RAMC, the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the Royal Army Dental Corps a ...
, subsequently served in Italy and the UK, was mentioned in despatches and demobilised with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He specialised in the scientific treatment of breast cancer and the Hedley Atkins Breast Unit at New Cross Hospital acknowledges his contribution in the field. He was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1934, and became vice-president from 1964 to 1966 and President from 1966 to 1969. He was Bradshaw Lecturer in 1965 and delivered their Hunterian oration in 1971. From 1971 to 1973 he was President of the Royal Society of Medicine. In 1959 he edited ''Tools of Biological Research'' and in 1977, wrote ''Memoirs of a Surgeon'' He and his wife moved into
Down House Down House is the former home of the English naturalist Charles Darwin and his family. It was in this house and garden that Darwin worked on his theory of evolution by natural selection, which he had conceived in London before moving to Down ...
in Downe, Kent in 1962 to be honorary curator of the Charles Darwin museum there. He had married in 1933 Gladys Gwendoline Jones, the daughter of a civil engineer. They had two sons. He died in 1983.


References

1905 births 1983 deaths People educated at Rugby School Alumni of Trinity College, Oxford British surgeons 20th-century English medical doctors Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Royal Army Medical Corps officers Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons of England Presidents of the Royal Society of Medicine 20th-century surgeons {{UK-med-bio-stub