Charles Harry Catlin

Charles Harry Catlin (Avatar)

1910-1995

Vol X

Pg 61

Charles Harry Catlin

1910-1995

Vol X

Pg 61

b.30 October 1910 d.7 September 1995

MB ChB Birm(1934) MD(1939) MRCP(1940) FRCP(1967)

Charles Catlin’s life was centred on the Midlands; he was born in Coventry and went on to work as a physician in the North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary and City General Hospital, Stoke-on-Trent. His father was a mechanical engineer.

Charles was educated at Bablake School, Coventry, and studied medicine at Birmingham University, where he was awarded the Ingleby scholarship. After house appointments at Birmingham and Wolverhampton he became a medical registrar at Queen’s Hospital, Birmingham. In 1940, at the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined the EMS, working as a physician at Ronkswood Hospital, Worcester. In 1946 he joined the RAFVR as a medical specialist and was rapidly promoted to wing commander. He was posted to Karachi, where he remained until he returned to England and left the RAF in 1948.

In the same year he was appointed as a consultant physician in North Staffordshire where he worked until he retired 25 years later. Apart from running the diabetic clinic Charles was the quintessential general physician, and as such was much in demand, not only by general practitioners, but also by his consultant colleagues. He was very forward looking and contributed to the training scheme started in Stoke during the 1960s.

He married his first wife Katherine, who also qualified in medicine in Birmingham, in 1940, but she unfortunately died in a car accident in 1973. They had two daughters, one also medically qualified. Outside medicine his great loves were gardening and music, and these were also shared by his second wife, Margaret, whom he married in 1975 and who died in 1984. Charles Catlin battled bravely with Parkinson’s disease which had afflicted him for ten years before he died.

W van’t Hoff