Charles Morley Wenyon, 1878 - 1948

Abstract

The death of Charles Morley Wenyon on 24 October 1948, removed from the field of tropical medicine and protozoology one of its foremost exponents— a man whose work and personality have been familiar to fellow-workers throughout the world for nearly half a century. Wenyon was born at Liverpool on 24 March 1878. He was the eldest son of Charles Wenyon, M.D., and his wife Eliza Morley née Gittins, in a family of three sons and two daughters. His father came from Wednesbury, Staffordshire, and his mother—from whom he derived the name Morley—from Wrexham, Denbighshire. The medical profession was represented in the family also by a maternal great uncle, Dr George Morley Harrison, and a paternal uncle, Dr Edwin J. Wenyon. In early infancy (1880) he was taken with the rest of the family to China, where his father was a pioneer medical missionary in charge of a hospital which he established at Fatshan, near Canton. Till the age of fourteen Charles and the other children were educated by their father at home. Frequent visits to the hospital probably first turned his mind to medicine; and his father did much to stimulate interest in scientific pursuits by giving the elder children lessons in elementary biology, chemistry and astronomy, and by encouraging them to keep numerous animal pets. In 1892 the three elder children were sent home to England for their further education. Charles and one of his brothers went to Kingswood School, Bath, where he distinguished himself in sports and games, and was in the First XI at cricket and the First XV at Rugby. On leaving school he obtained a Yorkshire County Scholarship in arts, with which he entered Yorkshire College, Leeds—- at that time a constituent college of Victoria University, Manchester. Here he studied zoology under Professor L. C. Miall and physiology under Professor De Burgh Birch, and was awarded the University Prize in biology.