Researching Charles Illingworth

Born in West Yorkshire, he served as a fighter pilot in the First World War before resuming medical studies in Edinburgh. After working and teaching in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh in the 1920s and 1930s, Illingworth was appointed Regius Professor of Surgery, Glasgow, in 1939. Over the next 25 years, he established the Glasgow School of surgery, with generations of his students influencing surgical research and teaching in Britain and abroad. His textbooks were also highly influential, including his co-authorship of Text Book of Surgical Pathology (1932). Illingworth travelled and lectured widely, and helped initiate and present a 1963 television series on postgraduate medical training. His research included early work in the 1960s on hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Illingworth's administrative and leadership roles included his Presidency of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (1962 to 1964) and Dean of Faculties at the University of Glasgow (1978 to 1981). His honours included a knighthood (1961), Honorary Surgeon to the Queen in Scotland (1961 to 1965), and a range of honorary degrees. Honorary fellowships included those conferred by the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. For his devotion to surgical science, Illingworth was awarded the 1964 Lister Medal.

In retirement, Illingworth wrote biographies of William Hunter and Hector Hetherington. He also helped establish the charity Tenovus-Scotland in 1967, and was awarded the Nuffield Trust's Rock Carling Fellowship for 1970. Portraits of Illingworth by Alberto Morrocco are held at the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, and the annual Illingworth Prize for medical students is administered by the University of Glasgow. Illingworth's autobiography, There is a History in All Men's Lives, was published in 1988.