Walter Mercer

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Sir Walter Mercer

Surgeon's Hall in Edinburgh
, and is now known as the Walter Mercer Collection.

Life

Edinburgh Royal Infirmary
Memorial plaque to Sir Walter Mercer, Warriston Crematorium
The grave of Sir Walter Mercer, Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh

Mercer was born on 19 March 1890 in

Carlisle Infirmary.[2]

In the

Bangour Military Hospital where he began to take an interest in orthopaedics.[2]

When he was demobilised in 1920 he went to work at Tynecastle Orthopaedic Clinic in Edinburgh. In 1925 he joined the staff of

Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. He concurrently took on the role of thoracic surgeon at the South Eastern Counties of Scotland Sanatorium at East Fortune.[3]

In 1929 he was elected a Fellow of the

Sir John Fraser, John Brown Clark, Arthur Logan Turner and George Fowlie Merson.[4]

In the World War II he was consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Department of Health.[5]

He became the first Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Edinburgh in 1948, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1956.[6] He was elected a member of the Aesculapian Club in 1953.[7] He retired in 1958. In 1959 he was elected President of the Harveian Society of Edinburgh.[8]

He died on 23 February 1971.

Memorials

Mercer's name is one of the many carved names taken from the old

Edinburgh Royal Infirmary
on Lauriston Place and now displayed at the new facility at Little France.

Publications

  • Orthopaedic Surgery (1932 reprinted 1964)

Artistic recognition

His portrait by Sir William Oliphant Hutchison is held by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.[9]

References

  1. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  2. ^ a b "Mercer, Sir Walter - Biographical entry - Plarr's Lives of the Fellows Online". livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk. Retrieved 11 February 2018.
  3. ^ "Mercer, Walter FRCSEd (1891-1971)" (PDF). 31 March 2009. Retrieved 11 February 2018.
  4. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X
    .
  5. ^ Who's Who in Orthopedic Surgery
  6. ^ "The New Years Honours, 1956". The Times. Retrieved 3 June 2020.
  7. ^ Minute Books of the Aesculapian Club. Library of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
  8. ^ Minute Books of the Harveian Society. Library of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
  9. ^ "Sir Walter Mercer, 1890 - 1971. Surgeon | National Galleries of Scotland". nationalgalleries.org. Retrieved 11 February 2018.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Walter_Mercer&oldid=1197886083"