The prime functions of the modern professor of surgery are to produce research of the highest standards and to provide undergraduate teaching of a similar quality. An important subsidiary function is to train, to stimulate and to inspire young surgeons to follow an academic path. Billroth famously achieved this in Vienna, but there is no better example in British surgery than Charles Illingworth. It was Sir David Wilkie(qv) who inspired him to an academic career and to develop the scientific basis of surgery. As Regius Professor of Surgery in Glasgow he established a Department of Surgery which was second to none in attracting, training, and producing academic surgeons. A further great legacy was his influence in the promotion of the Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow to Collegiate status.
Charles Illingworth was born the son of a Halifax businessman. He began medical studies in Edinburgh in October 1916 but the following year, on his 18th birthday, he joined the Royal Flying Corps. After flying training, which took a mere seven hours of flying time, was posted as a pilot to the War front in the Somme. Crash landing behind enemy lines he was taken prisoner, and spent the rest of the War incarcerated in Bavaria. At the end of the War he travelled across Europe, still wearing his oil stained flying jacket, by now ragged, arriving back in Halifax on Christmas morning.
He resumed his studies in Edinburgh and became House Surgeon to Sir Harold Stiles and then assistant to Professor David Wilkie. Wilkie had established the first surgical research department outside the United States and under Wilkie’s guidance he carried out the first clinical studies of cholecystography.
In 1939 he was appointed Regius Professor of Surgery in the University of Glasgow and with the support of the Principal, Sir Alistair Hetherington, developed his department as a world leader in research and training. He saw his task as “picking winners to infuse them with the spirit of enquiry and give them a diversity of training to enable them to meet the challenge of future developments in the surgical craft”. He had the happy knack of presenting complex matters in a simple often acerbic manner. The young surgeons whom he trained were berated if they failed to live up to the high standards which he set. With his friend Bruce Dick he wrote a textbook of surgical pathology in 1932 and this went on to become a classic, running to twelve editions. His “Short Textbook of Surgery”, first written in 1938, went on to nine editions and became a standard work.
Illingworth abhorred idleness. On weekends after an early morning ward round his staff were expected to join him hill climbing in Glencoe or the “Argyllshire Alps”. He had little time for pomposity and privilege, yet inevitably honours were heaped upon him. He was to a large extent responsible for the promotion of the Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow to Royal College status and he became its President. In 1963 he received the Lister medal in recognition of his work on peptic ulcer and biliary disease and was Surgeon to the Queen in Scotland.
His energy continued unabated in retirement but he went on to found Tenovus in Scotland raising significant funds for research.
Arguably his greatest legacy was the stream of Professors of Surgery appointed from his department to all parts of the United Kingdom and around the world. The pupils of Theodor Billroth had in the same way, a century before, became surgical leaders throughout Europe and compiled “The Billroth Tree”. This traced the origins of the greatest European surgical dynasty. An “Illingworth Tree” would be equally appropriate. Amongst those pupils whom he names in his biography are:
Sir Andrew Kay – Professor in Glasgow
David Johnstone – Professor in Leeds
Sir Robert Shields – Professor in Liverpool
Sir Robert Duthie – Professor in Sheffield
George Smith – Professor in Aberdeen
Sir Patrick Forrest - Professor in Edinburgh
Ron Clark – Professor in Sheffield
William Burnett – Professor in Brisbane
Adam Smith – Wade Professor RCS Edinburgh
W T Irvine – Professor in St Mary’s London
Iain Gillespie – Professor in Manchester
James Elder – Professor in Keel
Nelson Norman – Professor in Abu Dhabi
Iain Ledingham – Professor of Intensive Care Medicine in Glasgow
Jack Stevens – Professor of Orthopaedics in Newcastle
