Archibald McIndoe

Archibald McIndoe was born 4 May 1900 in Dunedin, New Zealand, into a family of four. His father was John McIndoe, a printer and his mother was the artist Mabel McIndoe née Hill. McIndoe studied at Otago Boys' High School and later medicine at the University of Otago. After his graduation he became a house surgeon at Waikato Hospital. On 31 July 1924 he married Adonia Aitken; they later had two daughters.

In 1924 McIndoe was awarded a fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in the United States to study pathological anatomy. He worked in the clinic as First Assistant in Pathological Anatomy 1925-1927 and published several papers on chronic liver disease. Impressed with his skill, Lord Moynihan suggested a career in England, and in 1930 McIndoe moved to London.

When McIndoe could not find work, his cousin Sir Harold Gillies, a plastic surgeon, invited him to join the private practice he ran with Rainsford Mowlem and offered him a job at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he became a clinical assistant. In 1932 McIndoe received a permanent appointment as a General Surgeon and Lecturer at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

In 1934, McIndoe received a Fellowship of the American College of Surgeons, where he worked until 1939. That year he became a consulting plastic surgeon to the Royal North Stafford Infirmary and to Croydon General Hospital. In 1938 he was appointed consultant in plastic surgery to the Royal Air Force.

The McIndoe Burns Centre at his former base, Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, was dedicated in 1994, and there is a burns victim support group centred there which also bears his name.