Tracing Edinburgh University Medical Students from 1905

[JenB]

Michael, where have you found references to his education at Durham Uni

I was about to ask the same question?

[Millmoor]

Medical student register for 1897 has for preliminary examination in arts "Prel. Inst. Scot. April 1897" and for place and date of commencement of medical study " Univ. Durh. Oct 4".

Univ of Durham is also referenced in his entry in medical directories ( 1910, 1915 and 1920), on ancestry.

My limited understanding of medical degrees tells me that there would have to be a teaching hospital involved. Was Durham's not in Newcastle?

William

[JenB]

My limited understanding of medical degrees tells me that there would have to be a teaching hospital involved. Was Durham's not in Newcastle?

Yes! Hope this link works https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Newcastle_University_Medical_School

[JenB]

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the numbers of students in Durham itself remained small. The university's original endowment was insufficient to maintain the country's first university course for engineers instituted in 1837 and, with the exception of mathematics, science also declined. Student numbers in related institutions in Newcastle soon exceeded those in Durham. In 1852, the Medical School in Newcastle, established in 1834, became "the Newcastle upon Tyne College of Medicine in connection with the University of Durham" and the University began to award medical qualifications

https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/9dd651d5-d560-3196-8478-f661e85dedb6

[Shiny1]

Hi All,

Thank you all so much for the help with this, I've had an afternoon of zoom calls so couldn't reply sooner but I really appreciate the help.

I see William found the answer to the Durham reference, thank you.

The 1910 medical register shows him being an assistant surgeon at the Newcastle throat and ear hospital, I wonder if this had been the teaching hospital and he was then kept on.

I had thought he was working as a GP initially but now I'm thinking surgeon which presumably would also have been his war time role in Egypt.

DonnyM's find in the Scotsman presumably means his university training was from 1900 to 1905, I'm guessing that would have involved trips between Scotland and Newcastle rather than just being in one place.

Thanks again for all the information and links everyone.

Michael

[Forfarian]

I'm guessing that would have involved trips between Scotland and Newcastle rather than just being in one place.

Unlikely.

The three qualifications listed are licences of the Royal Colleges in Edinburgh and Glasgow, not degrees from either of these universities. It looks to me as if he took his medical degree at Durham, presumably with practical training in Newcastle, and then later sat the exams of the Royal Colleges. This might be - probably was - while he was working somewhere. He may never actually have attended any lectures or course of study in either Edinburgh or Glasgow.

You need to find a library with a full set of the Medical Directory and follow his career by looking him up in each successive year.

[Shiny1]

Thanks very much Forfarian, the world of universities are a mystery to me.

So he probably answered exam questions written by the Scottish universities but whilst he was studying in Durham university.

Thanks a lot,

Michael

[Forfarian]

So he probably answered exam questions written by the Scottish universities but whilst he was studying in Durham university.

Probably not. I think the professors at Durham would have been perfectly capable of writing their own exam questions for their own undergraduates.

There was always a lot of exchanging of ideas and new technologies among postgraduates and academics, but by and large, undergraduates didn't chop and change from one university to another, and there was nothing like the student exchanges that are on offer now.

Also I don't think there would have been much undergraduate mixing between the Scottish universities and Durham. Even when I was an undergraduate student at Edinburgh in the 1960s we didn't really have anything to do academically with any other Scottish universities, let alone Durham or anywhere else.

You signed up for your three-year ordinary or four-year honours or five-year dental or six-year medical degree, and you either stayed the course or dropped out altogether. Modern languages honours students went to spend a year at a university in a country where their principal language was spoken (unless it was Russian or Chinese and possibly some others where it wasn't possible, or a dead language like ancient Greek or Latin or Sanskrit) but everyone else stayed put for the duration until they got their first degree. Then they might go on to further study somewhere else, for example my uncle graduated in medicine at Edinburgh and went on to further study at Oxford.

[JenB]

Hi Michael 

Here is a link to the Durham University Calendar 1903/4 showing him as a student at their  College of Medicine which was situated in Northumberland Road, Newcastle (go back to p. 266 for more details on this). It doesn't say which year group he was in at the time.

http://reed.dur.ac.uk/xtf/view?query=Woodger&docId=bookreader%2FDU_Calendars%2F1903-4%2Fducal1903METS.xml&hit.rank=1#page/266/mode/2up

DonnyM's find in the Scotsman presumably means his university training was from 1900 to 1905, I'm guessing that would have involved trips between Scotland and Newcastle rather than just being in one place

No. As Forfarian has said it seems that his medical degree was from Durham University.

So he probably answered exam questions written by the Scottish universities but whilst he was studying in Durham university.

Rather unlikely I think. There would be interchange of ideas between universities, but I can't see anyone doing Edinburgh University medical exams while a medical student at an English University 

(Did my second degree at Durham University)