Abstract
It is a privilege to have been asked to say a few words to mark the Society’s 120th birthday.
That’s quite a few years and I’ve been a member of this Society for over one third of that time. A daunting thought! Indeed, it is ironic to recall that I was recruited to the Council of the Society in the early eighties, with a view to bringing down the average age. Oddly, 35 years later, I performed exactly the same trick – but by retiring.
I suspect that proceedings were pretty formal in 1901. The learned gentlemen attending the meetings would have been decked out in their high hats and cravats – rather like the ones in the Spy cartoons that adorn the gentlemen’s toilets in this building. (I can’t speak for the ladies.)
The Society’s first annual report in 1903 records that after 18 months we had 65 members. Twelve months later this had risen to 83 of whom 54 were medical, 23 were barristers, 4 were solicitors and 2 were laymen. They held their meetings at 20 Hanover Square – about ¼ mile south of here with an average attendance of 21.
Proceedings were still quite formal when I joined the Society in 1977. In those days we met in the Royal Society of Medicine’s old building and not only the President and the speaker, but also the Honorary Secretary and Treasurer, remained on the stage throughout the session. The secretary at that time was Mr James Barnes. At every meeting he used to count how many members attended and formal minutes were read out and adopted. But mostly he is fondly remembered for devising a system of election that ensured no member of the Council need ever retire – affectionately labelled the “Barnes Rhythm Method”.
The president when I joined was Sir Norman Skelhorn who was also, at that time, the Director of Public Prosecutions. I’m afraid my wife and I, in our relative youth, regarded him as an old duffer – no-one could accuse Harry Zeitlin, our delightfully informal current President, of that!
Our clear recollection of Sir Norman was that he gave the same vote of thanks to every speaker, thanking them for “their interesting and instructive paper”. But was that fair? In the interests of historical accuracy, I trawled through past editions of our Journal: I found he thanked a succession of speakers: “for this exceedingly interesting paper” – that wasn’t quite it “for the most interesting and entertaining paper” – that wasn’t it either “for a really inspiring address” – quite different “for his instructive and lucid paper” – that’s getting a bit closer. But at last: “We all thank Mr. Knights for his interesting and instructive paper” – Bingo!
Over the years we had some household names as our President: Sir Bernard Spilsbury in 1933, Professor Keith Simpson in 1961 and very recently Sir Robert Francis QC. We elected the first of our several women presidents in 1949: Professor Dame Louise McIlroy. When she was appointed Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the London School of Medicine for Women in 1921 she was Britain’s first female medical professor.
Over the years, the Society’s preoccupations have changed. In 1904 the Society was addressed by a Dr Robert Reid Rentoul on “The Proposed Sterilisation of Certain Degenerates”. I quote: The law troubles itself more about the mere ceremony of marriage than with its products. Stock-breeders are more careful in mating animals.
And our interests have swung from purely forensic subjects to issues of negligence and consent. The Society has witnessed the establishment and growth of the National Health Service. And we have witnessed and earnestly discussed a whole series of seminal cases. Carlill and the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company was decided 8 years before we arrived on the scene but we were here for Donaghue and Stephenson in 1932 and Hedley Byrne and Heller in 1964, not to mention Bolam, Sidaway, Bolitho and Montgomery. And we’ve watched the radical change in financing of clinical negligence cases from legal aid to Conditional Fee Agreements.
I think my longest lasting contribution to this Society occurred at my very first Council meeting. The first item on the agenda was to find a new editor of our Journal and Alec Samuels said, “What about Diana Brahams?” (my wife, who was writing a regular Medicine and the Law column for the Lancet at the time). I missed almost the entire meeting trying to locate Diana – it was almost over when I finally tracked her down. She was in the bar on the top floor of the old RSM building, nursing her modest glass of wine. The rest is history. Diana has, over the years, transformed the Journal from a slim and parochial record of the Society’s talks plus a few book reviews to the glossy international Journal it is today.
Meanwhile our catering arrangements have swung wildly. Austerity under our former treasurer, Dr Stephen Chan – when you were lucky to get tea and biscuits – to the epicurean extravagance of the champagne era under Dr Daniel Haines – and everything in between.
At the very first meeting in 1901, the President, Sir William Collins, opened by saying, “It might, to the casual observer, seem that the science and art of medicine whose goal is health and the science and practice of law, whose end is justice, can have little territory in common.” We have spent the last 120 years disproving that.
So, it was a very different world in 1901. Or was it?
Our first president Sir William is described by Wikipedia as “an anti-vaccinationist” – no shortage of those in 2021 though hopefully none of them in the Presidential chair!
I drove here today in an electric car – but in 1901 there were quite a few electric cars venturing out on our roads: in the United States, of the 4000+ cars produced in 1900, 28% were electric.
Down the road, the Wigmore Hall (then called the “Bechstein Hall”) had just opened. Earlier this year, after closing for the Pandemic, the very same Wigmore Hall re-opened.
In 1901 there was no WhatsApp but, thanks to Signor Marconi, electronic messages were dispatched from Cornwall to Newfoundland at the speed of light.
And as 1901 dawned, an ageing Prince of Wales was wondering if his mother would ever give him a turn on the throne.
I rest my case …
At our annual dinner one of our distinguished guests proposes the health of “Medicine” and the other toasts “the Law”. I can’t propose a toast at this stage as the drinks only come later. But I do have the honour of wishing the Society and all its members every success for the next 120 years and many happy returns.
This address was given at a meeting of the Society held at the Medical Society of London and also remotely on 14 October 2021 Malcolm Brahams Solicitor Email: malcolmbrahams@gmail.com