Papers of John Dudley Buxton

The collection consists of St John Dudley Buxton's war diaries, photographs, manuscripts and collected surgical papers. It also includes a volume containing a collection of published articles by his father, Dudley Wilmot Buxton.

Born in 1891; educated at St Peter's College, Radley and University College Hospital; served with BEF in France, 1914-1915, and Salonika Expeditionary Force, 1915-1918; appointed to staff of King's College Hospital, 1922; served in BEF, 1940; Brig, 1941; Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, Middle East Force, 1941-1942 and later Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon to the Army; retired, 1952; died in 1981.

St John Dudley Buxton was born on 26 December 1891 in London, the son of Dr Dudley Wilmot Buxton, an anaesthetist, and his wife Louisa.

He was educated at Cothill Preparatory School, near Oxford, and St Peter's College, Radley. He entered University College Hospital and Medical School where he qualified with the Conjoint Diploma (MRCS LRCP) in 1913. He obtained the MB BS in 1919 and gained the FRCS in 1921.

Within a year of qualifying St John Buxton was serving with the British Expeditionary Forces on the outbreak of the First World War, in France and later Macedonia, where he remained until the end of hostilities and was awarded the Croix de Guerre with palms, the Order of the Phoenix. In the Second World War he was consulting orthopaedic surgeon to the Middle East Force with the rank of Brigadier having previously served with the British Expeditionary Force.

In 1918 he joined the staff of the Military Hospital at Sheperd's Bush. He was appointed to the staff of King's College Hospital in 1922 and helped to set up the orthopaedic unit. He was a lecturer in orthopaedics to King's College Hospital Medical School, in addition to being orthopaedic surgeon to the Royal Masonic Hospital and Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton. He also set up the orthopaedic departments at the Royal Surrey Hospital, Guildford, and at Hemel Hempstead Hospital, and was surgeon at both these hospitals.

St John Buxton was a Hunterian Professor, Robert Jones Lecturer and examiner for the Diploma in Physical Medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons. he was President of the British Orthopaedic Association, President of the Orthopaedic Section of the Royal Society of Medicine, President of the Medical Defence Union, and orthopaedic advisor to the British Council and the Greek Government.

He retired from King's College Hospital in 1952 to become a director at a firm in the Isle of Wight. He died on 6 February 1981 aged 89.

Buxton arranged and indexed the collection in 1971 prior to its transfer to The Royal College of Surgeons. At that time, he also annotated the photograph album and added various reminiscences and autobiographical summaries. Most of the material has been repackaged into archival standard folders and care has been taken to maintain Buxton's original order where ever possible.

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The cataloguing archivist endeavoured to expand Buxton's abbreviations but where this has not been possible the abbreviation used by Buxton has been left as is.

For a more detailed description of this collection, please see the RCS England Archives online catalogue.