19 Facts About Archibald McIndoe

Archibald McIndoe improved the treatment and rehabilitation of badly burned aircrew.

Archibald McIndoe was born 4 May 1900 in Forbury, in Dunedin, New Zealand, into a family of four.

Archibald McIndoe's father was John McIndoe, a printer and his mother was the artist Mabel McIndoe nee Hill.

In 1924, Archibald McIndoe was awarded the first New Zealand Fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in the United States to study pathological anatomy.

The fellowship was for an unmarried doctor and as Archibald McIndoe had recently married Adonia Aitkin they had to keep their marriage secret and he sailed without her.

In 1932, Archibald 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, Archibald McIndoe received a Fellowship of the American College of Surgeons, where he worked until 1939.

Archibald McIndoe moved to the recently rebuilt Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, Sussex, and founded a Centre for Plastic and Jaw Surgery.

Archibald McIndoe disposed of the "convalescent uniforms" and let the patients use their service uniforms instead.

Archibald McIndoe was created CBE in 1944 and after the war he received a number of British and foreign honours, including a Commandeur de la Legion d'honneur and was knighted in 1947 for his remarkable work on restoring the minds and bodies of the burnt young pilots of the Second World War through his innovative reconstructive surgery techniques.

Archibald McIndoe became a member of a council of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1946 and its vice-president in 1958.

In 1958, Archibald McIndoe delivered the Bradshaw Lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons on the topic of the reconstruction of the burned face.

Archibald McIndoe took part in the founding of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons and later served as its third President.

The Guinea Pig Club continued to meet after the war, and Archibald McIndoe remained its President until his death.

Archibald McIndoe died in his sleep of a heart attack on 11 April 1960, aged 59, in his house at 84 Albion Gate, London.

Archibald McIndoe was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, and his ashes were given the unique honour for a civilian of being buried at the Royal Air Force church of St Clement Danes in London.

Archibald McIndoe married Adonia Aitkin of Dunedin on 31 July 1924.

On 22 March 1961, the British Minister of Health opened the Blond Archibald McIndoe Centre named in his honour at the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead.

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