Sir Archibald Edward Garrod (1857-1936)

Twelve letters to Cyril James Roy Hart from various individuals who knew Garrod, describing him after his death.

The letters fed into Hart's 1949 prize-winning essay on Garrod, a copy of which is held as MS.2783.

The correspondents include: Professor K.J. Franklin of St Bartholomew's Hospital (no.4), Sir Francis Fraser, Director of the British Postgraduate Medical Federation (no.5), his daughter Dorothy Garrod, Disney professor of archaeology at Cambridge University (no.6), and H.F. Rutherford of the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond St (no.7).

Note that letter no.1 was recorded as missing in October 2010.

Sir Archibald Edward Garrod (1857-1936), physician and biochemist, was the youngest son of Sir Alfred Baring Garrod FRCP. He was educated at Marlborough, Christ Church, Oxford, and St Bartholomew's Hospital.

He became casualty physician to St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1888, assistant physician in 1903 and full physician in 1912. He also worked at the West London Hospital, the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street (becoming full physician in 1899), and the Alexandra Hospital for Children with Hip Disease.

In the First World War he served at the 1st London General Hospital at Camberwell before being promoted (in 1915) to temporary colonel in the Army Medical Service and sent to Malta to serve as consulting physician to the Mediterranean forces until 1919. In recognition of his services he was appointed CMG in 1916 and KCMG in 1918. During the war two of his three sons were killed; the third died at Cologne in 1919 during the influenza epidemic. These losses coloured the remainder of Garrod's life.

Returning briefly to St Bartholomew's in 1919 Garrod became the first director of the new medical unit, before moving in 1920 to become Regius professor of medicine at Oxford. He held this post for seven years.

At Wellcome Collection:

Cyril James Roy Hart, "Sir Archibald Garrod: a Chronology of sources compiled for the Wix Essay, 1949" is held as MS.2783; the Library also holds as a pamphlet a copy of Hart's article "The life and works of Sir Archibald Garrod" (St Bartholomew's Hospital Journal, August, 1949, 160-5 and September, 1949, 186-90). An annotated copy of Garrod's book The Inborn Factors in Disease (Oxford, 1931) is held in the papers of Frederick Parkes Weber (PP/FPW/B.165). Material relating to Garrod's father Alfred Baring and brother Alfred Henry is held as MSS.8445-8446 respectively.