Axham, Frederick William (1840-1926), medical practitioner and cause célébre

The material described below comprises correspondence, cuttings and other material relating to Axham's being struck off and his reinstatement, assembled by the electrical engineer Alfred William Beuttell (1880-1965), who played a major role in the campaign to reinstate Axham.

1911-1971

18 items

Purchased from David and Lynn Smith, Kenley, Surrey, November 2000.

Frederick William Axham trained at St. George's Hospital, London, and passed as M.R.C.S. (Eng.) in 1861 and L.R.C.P. (Edin.) in 1867. In the early part of his career he served as Surgeon in Chief to the Franco-Chinese forces and as Northern District Surgeon and Sub Immigration Agent in British Honduras. Latterly he practised in London, serving as Medical Officer to the Westminster Union's poor law workhouse. He was struck off the Medical Register in 1911 for acting as an anaesthetist to an unqualified medical practitioner, the manipulative surgeon or bone-setter Herbert Atkinson Barker (b.1869). Barker continued in practice and was knighted in 1922 as a result of his medical work. A campaign of public pressure resulted in Axham's rehabilitation of in 1926 by the time of his death his medical degrees had been returned but the General Medical Council had yet to confirm his reinstatement. The campaign was led by Alfred William Beuttell (1880-1965), electrical engineer and founder of the Linolite company.

Database description transcribed from Richard Aspin and Christopher Hilton's typescript supplement to S.A.J Moorat's Catalogue of Western Manuscripts