Dr. Hadley T. Brinsmead Williams
HADLEY WILLIAMS, who would
one day become a prominent figure in the medical community of London,
Ont., was born in Torrington, Devon, on Feb. 14, 1868.
The young Hadley attended West Buckland school and in his teens his
family emigrated to Canada to settle in Clandeboye
in southwestern Ontario.
At the time Williams attended the University
of Western Ontario's medical school in the early 1880s, the annual
tuition fee was $75. The school was privately owned by the teaching
staff. The teaching professors bought stock or shares. Most of the stock
was held by newly appointed professors who could, when they resigned,
sell their shares. Similarly, when they died, their heirs could sell the
shares to other teaching staff. In 1909, one share was worth $100.
Before Dr. Williams graduated, he became a lecturer /
demonstrator in the department of anatomy. The medical students had four
lectures per week and spent several hours each day in the dissecting
room working on unclaimed bodies made available for teaching purposes.
In 1889, Dr. Williams was one of 62 medical students to graduate from
Western. He went to London, England, to obtain his certification from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, the
first Ontario Londoner to do so.
Returning home, Dr. Williams rejoined the department of anatomy, with Dr. Edwin Seaborn as assistant demonstrator. In 1903, Dr. Williams was appointed associate professor.
Also in 1903, Dr. Williams married heiress Elsie Perrin, the only child of Daniel S. Perrin of the Perrin Biscuit Co. (now the McCormack Biscuit Factory on London's outskirts). His father-in-law
presented them with Windermere, a 68-acre estate north of London.
The biggest changes at Western's medical school occurred after the
Flexner Report of 1909-10, which affected funding, curriculum and
teaching staff. To raise the standards of medical education in North
America, the American Medical Association commissioned American Abraham
Flexner to tour and inspect 147 medical schools in the U.S. and eight in
Canada.
At the time the report was published, there were 104 students attending
Western's medical school. There were 20 teaching staff, eight of whom
were professors.
The relationship between the medical school and the University of
Western Ontario was "imperium in imperio",an arm's length
relationship with the medical school having total responsibility for
funding and standards. But standards weren't what they should have been.
Some students were allowed to enrol while lacking full junior
matriculation. The laboratory facilities, in comparison to today's
standards, seemed appalling, and the clinical facilities were also found
to be entirely inadequate.
On a humorous note, the medical school's only library had fewer than 100
books; locked in cases to which the janitor carried the key.
Critics of the Flexner report said there was no documentation to show
Flexner spent any time in London. Nevertheless, changes were made.
Notably, the medical program was lengthened, for students entering in
the fall of 1911, from four to five years.
The number of teaching programs was increased and new appointments made.
Dr. Hadley Williams was appointed to full professor of surgery in 1910.
In July 1913, after 33 years, the era of private ownership ended at the
medical school. With a newly elected dean, Dr. Hugh A. McCallum, an
executive committee was elected to give input to the management of the
medical facility. On the committee were Drs. Waugh, Meek, Drake and Dr.
Williams.
During the First World War, Dr. Williams served in the Canadian Army Medical Corps as a lieutenant-colonel in
charge of the Ontario Military Hospital in Orpington, Kent.
Appointed consulting surgeon
Returning after two year's service, he was appointed consulting surgeon
for UWO in the department of soldiers' civil re-establishment. He also
continued as professor and chief of surgery at the medical school. In
1922, the medical school decided to give a course in medical ethics, and
Dr. Williams was one of three doctors asked to give talks to final-year
students.
Dr. Williams received an honorary law degree from the UWO in 1928. He
continued as professor of surgery until his retirement in 1931.
Dr. Williams was an enthusiastic golfer and took in many tournaments
throughout Ontario. He built a nine-hole golf course on the Windermere estate and took an active interest in the
development of amateur golfers on the Thames Valley Golf Course and
offered a cup for yearly amateur competitions.
In 1932, when Dr. Williams died of heart problems after a week at St.
Joseph's hospital, his widow Elsie was disconsolate. Various rumors
circulated around London as to the widow's eccentric behavior.
When mourners arrived at Windermere to pay their respects, Elsie was
nowhere to be found. Instead, in the front hall, standing at the entrance to the main lounge were Dr. Williams' two
nurses. Some mourners claimed they found the deceased Dr. Williams
dressed in his favorite golf attire, sitting in a chair with a glass of scotch in one hand and his golf club in the other. A
local historian said he saw Dr. Williams dressed in his favorite golf attire
lying stretched out on the chaise lounge.
There was a private funeral service and Elsie insisted her husband be
buried on the grounds not far from the front door. Two years later, in 1934, Elsie also passed away and was buried
beside him.
Several public buildings in London −a wing of Victoria Hospital, the Meek Laboratory and central London's Public
Library on Queen Street- owe their existence to the generosity of the will of Dr. Williams wife.
Dr. Lewis R. Yealland, a former student of Dr. Williams, wrote this tribute to the doctor: "In undergraduate days he became
transformed into a captivating magician who could transfer a piece of color crayon,held in either hand, into a femur, radius or some other anatomical structure; in
postgraduate days he played the part of a decoy to his assistants by
virtue of his facility for making complicated operations look so simple that the
unwary were in danger of being lured away into paths for which nature had not
adopted them. His operations were
illustrations of what surgery ought to be, his courtesy to his assistants was the perfection
of ethics and kindness and his demonstrations models of the art of delineation and surgical teaching. Combined with these his boyish good humor, a lack of
sense of his own importance and an easy means of approach to his engaging
personality, made it a sheer delight to assist him, to be instructed by him and to be
honored by the charm of his companionship.
The author is indebted in the preparation of this article to Dr. Murray
L. Barr's book, A Century of Medicine at
Western.
From an article by Penelope Johnston, a freelance writer in Toronto
first published in the Medical Post on Feb
17th, 1998.