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Sir John William Thomson-Walker
(1871-1937)
Surgeon and print-collector
Born in Newport, Fife, Thomson Walker was educated at the Edinburgh
Institution and the University of Edinburgh, graduating MB ChB in 1894
before going to postgraduate study in
Vienna. He set up in Harley Street as a consultant at King's College
and St Peter's Hospitals, becoming one of the leading urologists of
his day. In 1907 he was appointed a Hunterial Professor
of the Royal College of Surgeons, and was knighted in 1922. He held
a number of visitng Lectureships, including the Silvanus Thomson (The
Röntgen Society, 1926) and the Lettsomian
(The Medical Society, 1930), and was elected President of the Medical
Society of London in 1933.
Print collecting was a lifelong passion. In his will Thomson-Walker
bequeathed to the University,
'in the hope of encouraging the study of the history of medicine on
which this great medical school has had such a profound and lasting
influence', his collection of engraved portraits of medical men, numbering
ca 2,500 prints and a number of books on the art and technique of engraving,
together with a fund which continues to provide for further purchases
of engraved medical portraits. The collection came to the Library in
1939. An index is available for consultation in the Special Collections
Department.
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