Claude Gordon Douglas, 1882-1963

Abstract

Claude Gordon Douglas was born in Leicester on 26 February 1882, the son of Claude Douglas, F.R.C.S., Honorary Surgeon to the Leicester Royal Infirmary, and Louisa Bolitho Peregrine of London. His elder brother, J. S. G. Douglas, D.M., was Professor of Pathology at the University of Sheffield. Douglas was unmarried and for the last part of his life he lived with his younger sister, Miss Margaret Douglas, who died in 1960. Besides his father, both grandfathers and one great-grandfather were in medical practice and another great-grandfather was a keen student of natural history. From Arlington House, his preparatory school in Brighton, he won open scholarships in classics to Radley College, which he did not accept, and to Wellington College, which he accepted. He left Wellington College at the age of sixteen in order to study science at Wyggeston Grammar School, Leicester. In 1900 he went up to New College, Oxford, with an open exhibition in Natural Science (Biology) but in his first term won an open demyship in the same subject at Magdalen College, whither he migrated for the remainder of his time as an undergraduate. As an undergraduate he owed much to the personal friendship and encouragement of Professor Francis Gotch, F.R.S., and from an early stage he was especially influenced by the teaching of Dr J. S. Haldane, F.R.S. His undergraduate friendships with G. R. Girdlestone, later the eminent orthopaedic surgeon, and with A. S. (later Sir Arthur) MacNalty, were maintained throughout his life. MacNalty recounts how he provided notes on the professor’s five o’clock lectures for Douglas and Girdlestone when they were delayed on the golf course.