Dudley William Carmalt-Jones

Dudley William Carmalt-Jones (Avatar)

1874-1957

Vol V

Pg 67

Dudley William Carmalt-Jones

1874-1957

Vol V

Pg 67

b.30 August 1874 d.5 March 1957

BA Oxon(1896) MA Oxon(1903) BM BCh Oxon(1903) DM Oxon(1911) MRCS LRCP(1903) MRCP(1907) FRCP(1914) FRACP(1938)

Dudley William Carmalt-Jones was born in London, the son of Thomas William Carmalt-Jones, a barrister-at-law, and his wife, the former Evelyn Danvers Thornton. He was educated at Uppingham and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1896. Electing to study medicine he went to St. Mary’s Hospital, London, from which he graduated B.M., B.Ch, in 1903. He held junior medical appointments at St. Mary’s, at Queen Square, at the Seamen’s Hospital, Greenwich, and at the Westminster Hospital, and was later an assistant in Sir Almroth Wright’s department of therapeutic inoculation. In 1912 he was appointed dean of the Westminster Hospital Medical School, and from 1914 to 1918 served in the First World War, in the latter phases as a consulting physician to the Egyptian Expeditionary Force.

In 1919 he was appointed professor of systematic medicine (part-time) at the University of Otago. Though permitted private practice, Carmalt-Jones was essentially an academic man and he soon concentrated on his great work of turning the thoughts of his students towards a career in medicine rather than surgery, which was then the prevailing tendency. He brought to Dunedin the traditions of Oxford, and with his intimate knowledge of the classics and of literature he created an atmosphere of humane medicine which has persisted in its medical school. He took an active interest in the whole life of the University and was a member of many of its sporting and cultural clubs and societies. He wrote sonnets and was an artist of ability. He retired from his chair in 1939 and continued to work for the University and medical school, publishing the Annals of the University of Otago Medical School in 1945. He retired to England in 1946.

In 1907 he married Mabel, daughter of Captain F. L. Tottenham. She died in 1955, leaving him with a son and a daughter.

Richard R Trail

[Brit.med.J., 1957, 1, 649-50 (p); Lancet, 1957, 1, 591 (p); Otago Daily Times, N.Z., 17 Mar. 1957 (p); Times, 6 Mar. 1957.]