Reginald Cheyne Elmslie (my father) was born on 28 April 1878 at Croxall Lodge, Bromham Road, Bedford. Hi birth was not registered until 17 June, by his father, who may have been still at sea at the time of his birth.
He was educated at Brighton College and St Bartholomew’s Hospital (Barts). Barts is the oldest hospital in the country and was one of the leading teaching hospitals. He qualified MRCS in 1901 and MS and FRCS in 1904. In 1912 he was appointed to the staff as a specialist orthopaedic surgeon. He was the first person to be so appointed Until then, orthopaedic surgery was done by a general surgeon. He remained at the hospital throughout his working life and was therefore always the senior orthopaedic consultant. Until the NHS was set up in 1948, consultants carried out private work for three days a week and worked at the hospital for three days without payment, caring for local people. Barts Hospital is in the City and patients came from the East End and North London and particularly from Smithfield Market (the main meat market for London), which is nearby,
As well as Barts, he worked at other hospitals, including the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Sister Agnes’ (King Edward VII Hospital for Officers) and Chailey Children’s Hospital. He specialised particularly in the aftercare of children who got polio. Among the various offices that he held were Chairman of the Chartered Society of Masseuses and Me3dical. Gymnasts (now the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists), President of the British Orthopaedic Association.
During the 1914-18 War he worked at the Military Orthopardic Hospital at Shepherds Bush. I think he was also in France for a time but I am not sure. He received the OBE in respect of his service.
1He married my mother (Lottie Louise Carrington) in 1916 at Hurstbourne Tarrant, Hampshire, where her parents were living at the time. She worked as a nurse at Barts Hospital and became his practice nurse. Before the marriage he was living with his mother and sisters at 15 Devonshire Street in London. This is in the West End, near Harley Street, in the area where medical consultants have their consulting rooms. At that time it was quite usual to have the consulting room and waiting room on the ground floor and to live upstairs. At some point between 1916 and 1923, he moved his consulting rooms to 1A Portland Place, on the corner at the south end of the street. The opposite corner is now occupied by the BBC. in the early 1920s, we moved to the top flat at 1, Portland Place, in the same building but with a separate entrance. The whole building has since been taken over by the BBC.
in 1931, we moved to the country to Old Quarry Cottage, Tuesley, Godalming, Surrey. Tuesley is a very small hamlet of half a dozen houses, about two miles from where we live now. In 1938, he retired from his hospital work but continued his private practice, moving to smaller consulting rooms in Park Crescent, a short way away. In 1939 he was asked to take on the job of co-ordinating orthopaedic surgery in the country but refused on the grounds of his poor health. On the outbreak of war, all the major London hospitals were evacuated for fear of bombing, leaving no-one to look after normal day-to-day work in London. He went back to full-time work to cope with the emergency but it was too much for him. He suffered a stroke in early 1940 and died as a result of a second stroke in July.