| Collection | Gerald Townsley Trust Archive |
| Description | The collection contains a photocopy of the first Gerald Townsley lecture delivered by Gerald Townsley – November 1972 – titled “The changing face of surgery over the past forty years”; photocopy from the Medway Bulletin for April 1973 “Divisional News”, with information about Gerald Townsley and his lecture; printed copy of a letter from Mrs Townsley to people offering condolences on the death of her husband dated May 1975; Press Cuttings from 1973 to 1981including articles about Townsley’s retirement in 1972, memorial service in 1975, and articles about memorial lectures taking place and travelling fellowships awarded by the trust. Lecturers mentioned include Professor Harold Ellis (1979), Mr David Miller-Bell (1980) and Mr Mitch Notaris (1981) and a Fellowship for Mr Saadon Quatan (1977); Lecture note cards for the ninth Gerald Townsley Lecture by David Miller-Bell; Photographs of the members of the Gerald Townsley Trust and photographs of Gerald Townsley lecturers and fellowships including those from 1979, 1990, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2015; Photobook of images and information about the history of the Gerald Townsley Trust. |
| Admin history | Gerald Townsley was born in Belfast in 27th December 1907. He was educated at Larne Grammar School, and then Queens University where he gained prizes in Chemistry and Anatomy graduating in 1928. While at University he was a talented athlete playing cricket, football and rugby. He went on to work at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast and was awarded prizes in surgery as part of his clinical training.
After qualifying in 1931 he went to Salford Royal Infirmary and was awarded the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS) in 1935. He was Registrar in the Radiotherapy Unit at Mount Vernon and then Resident Surgical Officer. In 1939 he was appointed as Radiotherapeutic Surgeon at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in Rochester.
Townsley had an extensive practice in gastric and breast surgery with a specific interest in the management of malignancy. It is estimated that he performed more than 70,000 operations during his career.
In 1972 he established the Gerald Townsley Trust to provide money for young surgeons in the Medway hospitals to travel to centres of excellence at home and abroad to help maintain the tradition of high quality surgical care that he had established in Kent. Since 1972 the trust sponsored an annual lecture held at Medway Hospital, and gives scholarships to surgical trainees enabling them to visit UK and overseas hospitals. The trust also ran a surgical competition.
Gerald Townsley gave the inaugural lecture in November 1972 shortly before his retirement in 1973. The lecture was titled “The changing face of surgery over the past forty years.”
He died on 9th April 1975. His funeral service was at Rochester Cathedral on 16th April 1975.
Other lecturers have included Sir Cecil Wakely, Ronald Raven, Norman Townsley, Sir Harold Ellis, Roy Calne, Professor Peter Morris, Professor Averil Mansfield, Professor John Blandy, and Professor Bernard Ribeiro.
In July 2023 the Townsley Lecture Theatre in the Pears Building on the University of Kent Canterbury Campus was officially named after Gerald Townsley. |