Papers of Dr. Rex Leslie Cheverton

Typescript work entitled A History of Community Medicine and Health in British West Africa from the Fifteenth Century to Nineteen Thirty Nine, 1983.

Dr. Rex Leslie Cheverton (1901-1989) worked as a surgeon and physician in Birmingham, 1927-1928 before joining the Colonial Medical Service. He held the post of Director of Medical Services, Cyprus, 1942-1946. He then moved to Nigeria where he served as Assistant Director of Medical Services, 1946-1947 and Deputy Director of Medical Services, 1947-1949. He was Director of Medical Services, Gold Coast, 1949-1952. From 1953 to his retirement in 1966 he worked for the South West Regional Hospital Board as Assistant Senior Medical Officer. He was External Examiner in Surgery, University of Cairo, 1932, and Reporter to the Foreign Office on the medical services in Buenos Aires, 1943. He instituted the Anopheles eradication scheme, Cyprus, 1944. He was Vice-President of the World Health Organisation during the First Conference on Malaria, Uganda and part-time Chairman of the International Conference on Medical Education in Africa, Dakar, Senegal, 1951. He was associated with the setting up of the Medical Research Committee for West Africa, 1952, was Vice-Chairman of the Conference on Health and Tuberculosis at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, 1962, and the head of an enquiry into the Medical Services of Eastern Nigeria, 1963. The author of a number of medical papers, he was made a Knight of the Order of St. John in 1982. He was married in 1933 and had two daughters.

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Collection level description created by Paul Davidson, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House.

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Engagement diaries, 1945-1952, tour diaries and notebooks, 1944, 1946-1963 covering work for the Colonial Medical Service in Nigeria and Ghana, photograph albums, 1928-1947 covering service in Cyprus, British Honduras and West Africa (ref. MSS. Brit. Emp. s. 532); memorandum of experiences in the Colonial Medical Service in West Africa, 1946-1953, with related reports and articles (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 1872 (28)). The library also holds a photograph of Cheverton in Kampala, donated by his widow, Joan L. Cheverton in [May] 1996.