IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 1538 S56
Held at: Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
Title: 'Sandbostel horror camp, Germany 1945', memoir of Major H C McLaren RAMC
Date(s): May 1945
Level of description: Collection (fonds)
Extent: 1 volume
Name of creator(s): McLaren | Hugh Cameron McLaren | 1913-1986 | obstetrician
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
Hugh Cameron McLaren (1913-1986) MD, FRCPGLAS, FRCSED, FRCOG graduated from Glasgow University in 1936. He specialized in obstetrics and gynaecology early in his career and in the years before the war he worked in Glasgow, Aberdeen and, for a short spell, Berlin. During his service with the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War Two, his surgical experience fitted him to work in an army field surgical unit, While campaigning in Germany he came upon the horrors of the concentration camps, including Sandbostel, which he entered in May 1945 as a surgical specialist, 10th (British) Casualty Clearing Station, British Liberation Army. After the war he became first assistant to Hilda Lloyd in Birmingham, succeeding her as Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 1952. He also served the RCOG as a member of the Scientific Advisory and Pathology Committee from 1950-1967, the Examination Committee from 1951-1955 and as a Fellows' representative on Council from 1969-1975. An inveterate traveller, he helped to found the gynaecological club The Travellors.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
The item consists of a typed memoir describing Major McLaren's arrival at Sandbostel concentration camp with other medical staff, his impressions of the medical work carried out and of the further work needed, and physical descriptions of the camp and the condition of the inmates. It is dated May 1945.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English.
System of arrangement:
One item only.
Conditions governing access:
Open.
Conditions governing reproduction:
Copyright: estate of Hugh Cameron McLaren.
Physical characteristics:
Finding aids:
A general index to the files listed in the catalogue of the Archives of the RCOG is maintained in the College Archives; refer to the College Archivist.
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:
Accruals:
No further accruals are expected.
Archival history:
This memoir was transferred to the Archives by the College Library in 2001, following the item's withdrawal from the book catalogue. There is no documentation extant as to how it came into the Library's possession.
Immediate source of acquisition:
ALLIED MATERIALS
Existence and location of originals:
Existence and location of copies:
Related material:
RCOG Archives holds contemporary notes from Major Hugh Mclaren RAMC, concerning the conditions for patients in Sandbostel camp hospital (ref: A4/5/4); correspondence of the President with Professor Hugh McLaren and others, concerning the abortion bill, 1966-1971 (Ref: A16/6 and A16/9); Professor McLaren delivered the J Y Simpson Oration "Lawson Tait: a mirror image of James Y Simpson" in 1983 (Ref: E10/12); a copy of John Lawson's "The export of British obstetric traditions", the Hugh McLaren Lecture delivered to the Birmingham and Midland Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society in 1991 (Ref; S29).
Publication note:
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Note:
Archivist's note: Compiled by Clare Cowling, Archivist, RCOG. Source: obituary for H C McLaren in the British Medical Journal vol 293 9 August 1986 p.396.
Date(s) of descriptions: Apr 2002