1.28 Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



SIR GEORGE HUMPHRY. 18201896. 



Sir George Murray Humphry was born at Sudbury, in 1820, of a 

 family of some distinction in Theology, Law and Medicine. He died 

 September 24, 1896. At the age of 16 he was apprenticed to 

 Mr. Crosse of Norwich. In 1839, he went to St. Bartholomew's, 

 where he won the gold medal in Anatomy. In 1840, he won the 

 gold medal of the London University for Anatomy and Physiology ; 

 arid honours in Chemistry. At the age of 22 he was recommended 

 by James Paget to George Paget for a vacancy on the Honorary 

 Staff of the Addenbrooke's Hospital, and in due course he became a 

 graduate of the University in which he was afterwards to play a 

 considerable part. One of his first steps was, in conjunction with 

 George Paget, to obtain leave to give clinical lectures at the 

 Hospital. In 1847, Professor Clark deputed to Humphry the part 

 of Human Anatomy in his course, and from the beginning his 

 lectures attracted attention for their breadth and lucidity. In 1866, 

 sixteen years after Humphry's arrival at Cambridge, Clark resigned 

 the Chair of Anatomy, and a Chair of Human Anatomy was 

 founded separately ; to this chair Humphry was elected, and for 

 seventeen years he held it with great distinction. Being then 

 desirous of resigning the teaching of anatomy, which under his , 

 hands had grown into a very large department, a Chair of Surgery 

 was founded, without stipend and terminable at his death, in order 

 to do him honour as one of the leaders in the reform of the Faculty 

 of Medicine in Cambridge; and in recognition of his remarkable 

 powers, both as a teacher in the School of Anatomy and as a skilful 

 and enthusiastic clinical surgeon. In 1891 he received the honour of 

 knighthood. 



As an anatomist, and especially as a surgical anatomist, his 

 perseverance and devotion were such as distinguish only the greatest 

 men of his calling. This is not the place to tell any of the stories 

 current among his old pupils of the keenness, resourcefulness and 

 indefatigable tenacity with which he would follow up a case which 

 had interested him; and he rarely missed his reward, and the 

 enrichment of science, in the addition of some material record of it 

 to the Museum of Surgical Anatomy, which henceforth will be 

 known by his name. Thus it was that perhaps no surgeon of his 

 time, unless it were James Paget, had so great a wealth of experience 

 on which to draw for the illustration of surgery. Yet by this wealth 

 he was never embarrassed in his teaching; dogmatic enough to fix 

 tho attention of the student, he was yet so full of life and play of 

 thought that the student was as much interested in the processes 





