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University College London

Cameron Papers


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 0103 MS ADD 253

Held at: University College London

Title: Cameron Papers

Date(s): 1856-1968

Level of description: Collection (fonds)

Extent: 5 boxes, 1 roll

Name of creator(s): Cameron | Sir (Gordon) Roy | 1899-1966 | Knight | pathologist

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

Born at Echuca, Victoria, Australia, 1899; educated at Kyneton High School; joined Melbourne University, Queen's College, where he read medicine, 1916; appointed Tutor in Physiology, Histology and Pathology at Queen's College, 1923; invited by C H Kellaway to succeed F M Burnet as his first assistant and Deputy Director, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Melbourne, 1925; went to Europe, 1927; worked first under Ludwig Aschoff at the Pathological Institute at the University in Freiburg im Breslau, Germany, and later under A E Boycott at University College Hospital Medical School (UCHMS), London; at UCHMS, Graham Scholar in Pathology, 1928-1930; Beit Fellow, 1930-1933; spent a year as a pathologist at Queen Mary's Hospital, Stratford, London, 1933-1934; Reader in Pathology at UCHMS, 1934-1937; Assistant Editor of the Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology, 1935-1955; Professor of Morbid Anatomy at UCHMS, 1937-1964; seconded to the Chemical Defence Experimental Station, Porton Down, Wiltshire, 1939-1945; at UCHMS, Director of the Graham Department of Pathology, 1946-1964; elected Fellow of the Royal Society, 1946; member of the Agricultural Research Council, 1947-1956; member of Council, Imperial Cancer Research Fund, from 1948; a member of the Medical Research Council, 1952-1956; knighted, 1957; Secretary of Advisory Council, Beit Memorial Fellowship for Medical Research, 1959-1964; received the Royal Medal of the Royal Society, 1960; Foundation President of the College of Pathologists, 1962; Cameron's research topics included the pathology of liver disease and of oedema of the lung, and he approved of bringing biochemical concepts into pathology; retired, 1964; Honorary Consulting Pathologist to University College Hospital, London, and Emeritus Professor of Morbid Anatomy, University of London, 1964; Honorary Fellow, University College London, 1965; died, 1966. See also C L Oakley's memoir in Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, vol xiv (1968), pp 83-117. Publications include: Pathology of the Cell (Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh and London, 1952); with W G Spector, The Chemistry of the Injured Cell (Charles C Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 1961); with Hou Pao-Chang, Biliary Cirrhosis (Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh and London, 1962); various papers in Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology.

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers and correspondence, 1856-1968 (predominantly 1925-1966), of Sir (Gordon) Roy Cameron, comprising notebooks of lecture courses, 1925-1926, given by Cameron at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Melbourne; matriculation certificate at University of Freiburg im Breslau, 1927; other biographical and personal material, including printed matter and photographs; 14 letters and cards from Ludwig Aschoff, 1928-1937; scientific and personal correspondence, 1959-1965, with Professor Hou Pao-Chang, Cameron's collaborator on various scientific publications; correspondence on Linacre Lectures given by Cameron, 1964; research notebooks, annotated offprints and other working papers, 1961 and undated, and related correspondence, 1951, 1957-1958, 1961, the subjects including the liver, pulmonary oedema, and the spleen; notes and drafts for invitation lectures and articles, 1962-1966; draft report of the College of Pathologists to the Royal Commission on Medical Education, 1966; obituaries of Cameron and related correspondence with his friends and colleagues, 1966, 1968; material assembled for Cameron's proposed history of pathology, which he did not live to complete, including obituaries, notes and correspondence, 1965-1966, on Ludwig Aschoff, papers and correspondence, 1954-1965, on Julius Cohnheim, papers on Rudolf Virchow, including three letters of Virchow, 1891-1894, and other letters collected by Cameron, among them a letter from W L Begley to William Jenner to accompany a specimen sent to Jenner and William Sharpey, 1856, letters from Jenner to Thomas Barlow, 1891, and from Barlow to Cameron, 1935, concerning the specimen, four letters of R A Kolliker, 1862, three letters from Walter Pagel, 1954, 1961, and a letter from Peyton Rous, 1959.

The second accession comprises further papers of and relating to Cameron, 1917-1968, including various professional and personal certificates, 1917-1966, among them copies of Cameron's birth certificate, various medical registration certificates, and the certificate of his cremation; various photographs, 1920-1962 and undated, some unlabelled, including family photographs, holiday photographs, and formal occasions; correspondence between Cameron and Professor Cyril L Oakley, 1945-1965, on scientific, professional, personal and social matters; typescripts, 1951-1952, for an unpublished book by Cameron on immunology; two official letters to Cameron concerning his knighthood, 1957; Cameron's personal diaries, 1961-1963, including a trip to Italy and a trip to Australia and around the world; proofs of Cameron's Who's Who entries; press cuttings, 1954-1966, including various obituaries of Cameron, 1966; offprints of Cameron's obituaries from the Journal of Clinical Pathology, vol xx (1967), and Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, vol xiv (1968), and typescript of obituary from The Lancet, 10 Oct 1966; photostat of typescript address at Cameron's memorial service and printed order of service, 1966; letters of condolence on Cameron's death, 1966; miscellaneous printed and typescript material, including articles on scientific subjects and on the history of medicine by Cameron, and obituaries by Cameron of other scientists; various obituaries of scientists other than Cameron, including an offprint of Oakley's obituary of Alexander Thomas Glenny for Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, vol xii (1966), related correspondence, 1966, and other papers on Glenny including photographs and a typescript bibliography.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: English

System of arrangement:

Catalogued material is arranged by section as follows: Biographical and personal (Ref: A); Notebooks and working papers (Ref: B); Lectures and publications (Ref: C); Work on pathologists and history of pathology (Ref: D).

Conditions governing access:

Certain restrictions apply. Some sections may be restricted under data protection legislation. Please contact Special Collections for further information. Please note: we may require up to four weeks notice to assess parts of this collection for access.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Photocopies/photographs/microfilm are supplied for private research only at the Archivist's discretion. Please note that material may be unsuitable for copying on conservation grounds, and that photographs cannot be photocopied in any circumstances. Researchers who wish to publish material must seek copyright permission from the copyright owner.

Physical characteristics:

Finding aids:

Detailed list available on online catalogue.

Detailed catalogue

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:

Accruals:

Archival history:

Some material was received for cataloguing by the Contemporary Scientific Archives Centre (CSAC) in 1975 from Professor Cyril L Oakley, author of the Royal Society memoir of Cameron.

Immediate source of acquisition:

First accession transferred to University College London from the CSAC in 1975. Further papers were given in 1997 by the Royal College of Pathologists.

ALLIED MATERIALS

Existence and location of originals:

Existence and location of copies:

Related material:

University College London Records Office holds a file on Cameron (administration archive files, ref: 37/19; Box 14).

The Royal College of Pathologists, London, Archives, hold further material relating to Cameron, including family letters dating from the eighteenth century. Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, London, holds papers of Cameron. Printed material on the history of medicine, relating to Cameron's proposed history of pathology, was accepted by the library of the Wellcome Unit of the History of Medicine, Oxford.

Publication note:

DESCRIPTION NOTES

Note:

Archivist's note: Sources: Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Sir Gordon Roy Cameron (CSAC catalogue no 32/9/75, 1975); Dictionary of National Biography; Who's Who; National Register of Archives; British Library OPAC. Compiled by Rachel Kemsley as part of the RSLP AIM25 project.

Rules or conventions: Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: Apr 2001


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
Anatomy | Biology
Bibliographies | Secondary documents
Diaries | Nonfiction | Prose | Literary forms and genres | Literature
Photographs | Visual materials
Press cuttings | Newspaper press | Press
Scientists | Scientific personnel | Personnel | People by occupation | People
Higher science education
Immunology
Pathology
Primary documents
Research

Personal names
Aschoff | Ludwig | 1866-1942 | pathologist
Barlow | Sir | Thomas | 1845-1945 | 1st Baronet | physician
Begley | W L | fl 1856
Cameron | Sir | Gordon Roy | 1899-1966 | Knight | pathologist
Cohnheim | Julius Friedrich | 1839-1884 | pathologist
Glenny | Alexander Thomas | 1882-1965 | immunologist
Hou Pao-Chang | fl 1959-1965
Jenner | Sir | William | 1815-1898 | 1st Baronet | physician
Kolliker | Rudolf Albert | Von | 1817-1905 | embryologist and histologist x Von Kolliker | Rudolf Albert
Oakley | Cyril Leslie | 1907-1975 | pathologist
Pagel | Walter | 1898-1983 | pathologist and medical historian
Rous | Francis Peyton | 1879-1970 | pathologist
Sharpey | William | 1802-1880 | physiologist
Virchow | Rudolf | 1821-1902 | pathologist

Corporate names
College of Pathologists
Royal Commission on Medical Education
University of Freiburg im Breslau
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute | Melbourne

Places
Australia | Oceania
Italy | Western Europe | Europe
Asia and the Pacific