Dr Wilfred Maurice Brown

Education and qualifications

Professional life and career

Postgraduate career

Wilfred Maurice Brown was born in Belfast in 1912; little information is currently available about his parents and childhood. He was the middle child of three children. A large proportion of this account  is sourced from his self submitted college biographical form and self published autobiography.

He attended the Royal Belfast Academical Institute from 1927-32  before entering Queens University, Belfast in 1932 to study medicine. Graduation in 1936 was followed by an initial  year as a House Surgeon at the Belfast City Hospital until October 1937. Following this he initially embarked on a career in General Practice with posts at Coseley in Staffordshire, the Craigavon Pensioner Hospital and a year as an assistant GP in Belfast, until September 1941. Whereupon with WWII, he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, as a Surgeon Lieutenant. In 1942 as a consequence of his ship being torpedoed, he sustained significant burn injuries to face and hands requiring many skin grafts and other surgery. Due to these circumstances, his career pathway changed towards anaesthesia. This period of his life is further summarised in the section below.  

Upon his return to naval duties he was posted to “home shore-based duties” at the Royal Naval Hospital in Portland where, as no one else was particularly inclined, he started administering anaesthesia for surgical procedures, having undertaken some training at medical school. After a year he was transferred to the Naval Motor Training Establishment at Rosyth. As most of the naval ratings were healthy his medical duties were minimal and he was able to spend most afternoons  at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, where the senior anaesthetist Dr John Gillies took him under his wing. Towards the end of 1944, Maurice was becoming frustrated with his light naval duties and a colleague agreed to support his naval discharge on medical grounds.

During this period Dr Gilllies  put him  in touch with Ivan Magill at Westminster Hospital where he commenced his further training as a Senior House Officer in anaesthesia in  1945, and obtained his Diploma in Anaesthetics later that year.  

Following completion of his year of anaesthetic training he returned in 1946 to Northern Ireland, where he started work as an unpaid clinical assistant. Eventually, with the inception of the NHS in 1948, he was appointed as a Consultant at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, where he remained until his retirement in 1976. He also held appointments at the Samaritans Hospital and Musgrave Park Hospitals in Belfast; additionally he was Lecturer in Dental Anaesthesia at the university. Early in his career he obtained his MD with a thesis on tubocurarine and was closely associated with the post-war development of cardiothoracic anaesthesia and surgery in Belfast during the 1950’s, eventually becoming the senior anaesthetist within the department. In 1959 he undertook a visit to the Mayo Clinic, Minnesota  and Boston, Massachusetts Hospitals for 6 weeks to observe “Heart/Lung Bypass Anaesthesia”, returning to Southampton on the SS Queen Elizabeth according to the ship’s manifest.  During his career he published several academic papers and held other professional roles.

Answering the question of why he took up anaesthesia in his biographical form he answers:-   “probably accidentally – well explained in the autobiography”. According to his family he had considered obstetrics as an option.

Professional interests and activities

During his career he published  papers on topics ranging from tubocurarine to anaesthesia for mitral valvotomy. He was an examiner for the Fellowship of the Irish Faculty of Anaesthetists and an examiner at  the Queens University Medical School where he was also Lecturer in Dental Anaesthesia.

He was a Member of Council of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland for 1965-1968.  

In 1985 he was awarded the Pask Certificate of Honour by the Association of Anaesthetists in recognition of his contribution to anaesthesia in Northern Ireland. His obituary describes him as “the father figure of anaesthesia in Belfast”.

Other biographical information

During his naval wartime career Dr Brown was a Surgeon Lieutenant on board HMS Ghurka when she was torpedoed on 17th January 1942  off Sidi Barrani, Egypt whilst involved with convoy duties. This event changed the course of his life. His  self-published autobiographical account gives several insights – recalling  the experiences of his escape from below decks, being rescued whilst floating in the Mediterranean Sea amidst burning oil, injuries involving temporary blindness and burns requiring many skin grafting and other operations, and a long rehabilitation. On transfer back to the UK, he underwent further burns plastic surgery at the Basingstoke War Service Hospital as a patient of Sir  Harold Gillies. Upon his recovery, becoming tiresome of the monotony of hospital and repeated operations, he asked to be considered by a Medical Board,  who agreed to send him back to “light home shore duties” commencing as a medical officer in Portland. During his time at Portland he had a second close encounter with death when he devolped septicaemia following an injury to one of his graft sites.
Reading Dr Brown’s autobiographical account gives an enlightening account of the traumatic experiences of his own and other wartime burns patients and the challenges faced about how other people  react to the inevitable scarring. In a further chapter he describes first meeting with Sir Ivan Magill, by coincidence in a lift at the Brompton Hospital and the consequent interview during an ongoing surgical operation and how he was then left to finish the anaesthesia and successfully recover the patient whilst unbeknownst Magill was organising for him to be taken directly in Magill’s  own car for a further  interview with the Governor of Westminster Hospital.

Further insights are given into the financial challenges with a growing young family of embarking on a career in the early days of anaesthesia prior to the advent of the NHS, as the clinical assistants were unrenumerated and reliant on establishing earnings from private practice. However Dr Brown realised that by the end of his first year he had earned £1000 (being ‘untold wealth’) and that he felt that he had arrived. Another interesting vignette from his autobiography involves the experiments with tubocurarine as part of his MD thesis when he inadvertently caused his co-worker Dr Hamilton to become respiratorily paralysed and require positive pressure ventilation with a mask until the drug wore off !

According to an obituary written by RSJ Clarke, two events helped him reconstruct his shattered life and medical career: the marriage to  Nancy at the end of 1942 and being placed  in contact with the fellow Ulsterman and anaesthetist Dr Ivan Magill.  Dr Brown’s  personal account gives many insights into these  personal experiences and the parallel history of wartime developments in burns surgery and the postwar developments in anaesthesia. For those who are interested a few copies of Maurice Brown’s  self published autobiography are still available and interested parties are  recommended  to read a copy to gain further insight into an eventful life.

In retirement Maurice loved the sea and sailing and derived great pleasure from returning after  various overseas travels to his cottage overlooking Strangford Lough. He was survived by his wife Nancy and their three children, Peter, Patrick and Susan.  Died 14 September 1993.    

Author and sources

The above biography is presented on the basis of information provided by the subject or collected by a third party. Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, but the College does not accept responsibility for any errors. Please contact the Archivist (archives@rcoa.ac.uk) if you feel that changes or additions are required.

Author:
Innes Simon Chadwick

Sources and any other comments:
Information obtained from William Maurice Brown’s self submitted biographical college “Boulton Form” dated 1988.
Bibliographic information accessed online at Ancestry.com,  August 2022.
General Medical Register 1942 accessed on line Ancestry.com
Naval List accessed on line 1944 via Ancestry.com
Obituary for WMB  written by RSJ Clarke,  BMJ 1993 vol 307 p1490 
Self published autobiography “Whilst there is life. Dr Maurice Brown’s Story. Formerly Surgeon-Lieutenant HMS Ghurka” .
Personal email communications with daughter-in-law J. Brown :  2022.