Charles Scott Sherrington 1857-1952

Abstract

Charles Scott Sherrington was bom on 27 November 1857 in Islington, where his mother was on a visit, and died at Eastbourne on 4 March 1952. For fifty-six years he was a considerable and influential contributor to knowledge of nervous reflex action and muscle management. His father was James Norton Sherrington of Caister, Great Yarmouth, who died when his children were small, there being two younger sons, both destined for the Law. After her first husband’s death the widow married Dr Caleb Rose of Ipswich. His stepfather’s influence was to extend all through Charles Sherrington’s life, for he was a good classical scholar and an archaeologist of note. The home at Edgehill House was a rendezvous for artists, the rooms being crammed with the works of David Cox, Cotman and others of the Norwich School. Many of them now hang in the Norwich Gallery. In later life, Charles was deeply appreciative of Vermeer. His interest in medicine doubtless came from his stepfather, and his mother made the home a true home in every aspect. As a schoolboy and in early life, Sherrington was an athlete of no mean order, playing soccer for his school, Ipswich Grammar School, to which he went in 1871. He played soccer for Ipswich Town, and in due time rugger for St Thomas’s Hospital and for Caius, and also rowed for his college. His vigorous game in the Caius scrum was long remembered by his contemporaries and he was made to admit, in after years, that he ought to have played half-back if only his eyesight had been better. At St Thomas’s, ‘We used to play football, rugby it was, on the Archbishop’s ground near the hospital, but it was very wet and rather dangerous’. Later on and until his marriage he was a pioneer of winter sports at Grindelwald. At Ipswich School, Thomas Ashe was a great inspiration to Sherrington and gave him a love of classics and the urge to travel. The headmaster at the time was H. A. Holden, editor of Aristophanes . Sherrington passed his preliminary examination in General Education at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in June 1875.