( ol7 ) 



CHARLES STONHAM, C.M.G., F.R.C.S., M.H.O.U. 



1859-1916. 



The ranks of Britisli ornithologists have been further 

 thinned by the death of Charles Stonham, which took 

 place at his residence, 4, Harley Street, W., on January 

 31st last. 



Charles Stonham was the eldest surviving son of 

 T. G. Stonham, of Maidstone, and came of a family long 

 connected with that town. He was educated at King's 

 School, Canterbury, and electing to follow the medical 

 profession, entered University College as a student and 

 became F.R.C.S. in 1884. In 1887 he was appointed 

 surgeon to the Westminster Hospital, and in 1899 became 

 senior surgeon of that institution, which appointment 

 he held till his death. Of his professional ability it is 

 here sufficient to say that he was one of the most brilliant 

 operators of his day and a surgeon of high and well- 

 merited reputation. 



In 1882 Stonham had been attached to the staff of 

 Cetewayo, the deposed King of Zululand, on his voyage 

 from South Africa to this country, and he was again 

 destined to visit that continent. In 1895 he had joined 

 the Middlesex Yeomanry as medical officer, and when 

 during the South African War the Imperial Yeomanry 

 Field Hospital was embodied, Stonham was appointed to 

 command it and received the C.M.G. and an honorary 

 majority for his services in the campaign. Some years 

 later, on the introduction of the Territorial system, he 

 was commissioned to raise a mounted field ambulance, 

 which was in due course attached to the London Mounted 

 Brigade. The brigade was duly mobilised at the out- 

 break of the present war, and in April, 1915, Stonham 

 proceeded to Egypt. 



There he was promoted to the rank of colonel, and 

 held the office of surgeon-consultant to the forces, and 

 there he contracted the illness from the effects of which 

 he came home to die 



