Drew, Arthur John (1863 - 1956)
MRCS 31 July 1884; FRCS 14 June 1888; LRCP 1884.
Born
1863
Died
22 May 1956
Jamaica
Occupation
General surgeon and Military surgeon
Details
Born in 1863 in a family of ten children, Drew studied at University College Hospital and qualified in 1884. After qualifying he held various posts including those of house surgeon and obstetric assistant at University College Hospital, clinical assistant at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, demonstrator of anatomy at University College, and prosector at the Royal College of Surgeons.
He began to practise at Oxford in 1889, first in Beaumont Street, and then in Broad Street, after his marriage in 1891 to Mary, daughter of Thomas Simpson of Ealing, and later he moved again to Water Hall, St Aldates. About 1900 he bought land on top of Shotover Hill, cleared it himself and built a country house there called The Oaks. For a short time he was a member of the Oxford City Council, and till 1906 he hunted regularly with four packs. Drew paid all his visits to patients in a carriage and pair, dressed in a frock-coat and top hat. In 1910 the horses were abandoned for a motor car.
In 1904 Drew was honorary local secretary of the Oxford Meeting of the BMA, and he served on the Council from 1907 to 1910. He was a vice president of the Section of Surgery at the Belfast Meeting in 1909. Throughout the first world war he served as a Captain in the RAMC first at Oxford, then in France and Germany, and finally at a military hospital in Calais where he remained until 1921. In 1915 the four elder of his six sons were also serving.
In 1921 Drew, who was then 59, was demobilised and, finding it difficult to re-establish himself in practice at Oxford, he settled in Jamaica in a bungalow beside a lonely and beautiful bay. His wife died on 29 November 1931 at the age of 65. Drew only left Jamaica once, when in 1951 he returned to England to visit his five surviving sons and one daughter, the wife of N A Miller FRCS. He objected to burial but, as cremation was forbidden in Jamaica, he had his coffin made and kept it in the hall of his house. He died in his sleep on 22 May 1956 at the age of 93 and was buried in his own garden. He had been a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons for 66 years and was the senior Fellow at the time of his death.
