Archibald McIndoe - Later Years

Later Years

McIndoe was created CBE in 1944 and after the war he received a number of British and foreign honours, including a Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur (Commander of the Legion of Honor) and a knighthood in 1947 for his remarkable work on restoring the minds and bodies of the burnt young pilots of World War II through his innovative reconstructive surgery techniques. That same year he visited East Africa for the first time, and took up farming on Kilimanjaro. It was here in 1956 with his two former pupils, Michael Wood and Tom Rees, that the dream of AMREF was born.

He became a member of a council of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1946 and its president in 1958. His marriage to Adonia ended in 1953, and he married Constance Belcham in 1954. In 1958 McIndoe was a Bradshaw lecturer about facial burns, a subject he knew well. He took part in the founding of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons (BAPS) and later served as its third President.

Archibald McIndoe died on 11 April 1960, aged 59, in his sleep. He was cremated, and his ashes were buried in the Royal Air Force church of St Clement Danes just after helping set up AMREF in the UK.

On 22 March 1961, the British Minister of Health opened the Blond McIndoe Centre named in his honour at the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead. The Blond McIndoe Centre, now named the Blond McIndoe Research Foundation, continues research into pioneering treatments to improve wound healing.The Blond McIndoe Research Foundation is a registered charity which recently celebrated its 50th Anniversary.