PHILLIPS, Miles Harris (1875-1965)

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 1538 S97
Held at	: Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists   Click here to find out how to view this collection at https://www.rcog.org.uk/en/guidelines-research-services/library-services/archives-and-heritage/archives/ ›
Full title	: PHILLIPS, Miles Harris (1875-1965)
Date(s)	: [1888-1960]
Level of description	: Collection (fonds)
Extent	: 13 boxes; 8 box files; 1 parcel; 3 notebooks; 1 card index box
Name of creator(s)	: Phillips | Miles Harris | 1875-1965 | surgeon and historian of obstetrics

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Born, 1875; educated, Bristol Grammar School; medical education, University College Bristol, Bristol Royal Infirmary and King's College, London; graduated bachelor of medicine with honours in obstetrics, 1900; ship's surgeon; house surgeon, Leicester Royal Infirmary; Bachelor of Surgery, London, 1903; postgraduate attachment at the London Hospital; Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 1903; resident house surgeon, Jessop Hospital for Women (JHW), Sheffield, 1904, honorary medical staff, JHW, 1906; president of the North of England Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society, 1918-1920; senior surgeon, JHW, 1921-1935; part time Chair of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Sheffield, 1921-1935; member of the departmental committee on maternal mortality and morbidity, 1928; president of the obstetrics and gynaecology section of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1937; retired early to rural Carmarthenshire and studied the history of obstetrics, he was also instrumental in restoring the library of William Smellie; died, 1965.
Publications: Historical Review of British Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 1800-1950, with J M Munro Kerr and R W Johnstone (Livingstone, 1954)

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers of Miles Harris Phillips, [1888-1960], chiefly comprising reprints of articles by Phillips with accompanying research material, reprints of articles by others and correspondence. Includes reprints, correspondence, diagrams, case notes and other papers relating to articles and lectures by Phillips on topics including constriction rings, Sims' posture, puerperal fever, obstetric shock, caesarean section, the death of Princess Charlotte in childbirth, 1817, biographical histories of famous obstetricians including Thomas Denman, Percival Willughby and William Smellie and the history of obstetrics; drawings and photographs of gynaecological pathological specimens; records of the Gynaecological Visiting Society including reports of meetings and obituaries of members; papers relating to the Departmental Committee on Maternal Mortality and Morbidity, 1928-1932, including letters to Phillips from Neville Chamberlain; papers relating to Historical Review of British Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 1800-1950, by J M Munro Kerr, R W Johnstone and Phillips (Livingstone, 1954) including correspondence and publisher accounts; Phillips' letters to the Lancet, and the British Medical Journal, 1924-1938; photostats of illustrations in The Workes of that Famous Chirurgion Ambrole Parey (1634); papers relating to the court case Marshall vs Lindsay County Council: a claim for damages for negligence, 1933; papers relating to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists including a history, memoranda and annual reports; photostat copies of letters from William Smellie to Peter Camper, Dr Clephane and Dr Pitcairn, [1750-1759] compiled by Phillips; correspondence with American obstetricians, 1936-1938; reprints of obstetrical articles with accompanying card index, complied by Phillips; notebooks containing analysis of Percival Willughby's cases in his Observations in Midwifery; index complied by Phillips of the cases in Smellie's Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery and John Glaister's notes for his biography of William Smellie Dr. William Smellie and His Contemporaries, (Glasgow, 1894), including copies of legal documents relating to Smellie.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

Original order

Conditions governing access:

Conditions governing reproduction:

Finding aids:

No additional finding aids.

Archival Information

Archival history:

These papers were donated to the College Library along with several boxes of reprints, both of papers by Miles Phillips himself and those collected by him in connection with his research.

Immediate source of acquisition:

Transferred to the College Archives from the Library in September 2007.

Allied Materials

Related material:

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Compiled by Sarah Drewery.
Sources: The Lives of the Fellows of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, 1929-1969, compiled by Sir John Peel.

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:
Jul 2008