Dr Anthony Laurence Reynard
Personal Details
Dr Anthony Laurence Reynard MRCS LRCP FFARCS DA
11/07/1914 to 30/09/2002
Place of birth: Richmond, Surrey, UK
Nationality: British
CRN: 515416
Education and qualifications
| General education | Diss Grammar School, Norfolk. Medical School at King’s College, University of London and Westminster Hospital |
|---|---|
| Primary medical qualification(s) | MRCS Eng., LRCP Lond., 1939 |
| Initial Fellowship and type | FFARCS by Election |
| Year of Fellowship | 1953 |
| Other qualification(s) | DA (RCP&S), 1949. Certificate of Aviation Medicine, Institute of Aviation Medicine RAF, 1974 |
Professional life and career
Postgraduate career
Following qualification from Westminster Hospital Medical School Dr Reynard undertook initial casualty officer, physician house officer and resident medical officer posts at Westminster Hospital in the first three years of his career. Next in 1941 he was a senior resident medical officer at the Seamen’s Hospital at Tilbury.
With the advent of World War II he was appointed in November 1941 to the Royal Army Medical Corps with a commission as Lieutenant and rising to the rank of Major specialising in anaesthesia. After a year of general duties at the Military Hospital at Davyhulme, Manchester, he sailed in 1943 in convoy via South Africa to Bombay in India and then on to Iraq. He further served in Palestine and Lebanon, then sailed to southern Italy and the Italian war campaign, finishing the war in Europe. He wryly mentioned that whilst in Iraq, afternoon temperatures often exceeded 40 degrees C and ether boils at 36 degrees C. His attachments included 104 British General Hospital, 35 Field Surgical Unit and 48 British General Hospital. He was demobilised at the end of 1946.
Following his return to civilian life he undertook postgraduate anaesthesia courses at the Middlesex Hospital during 1947, following which he became a registrar in anaesthesia at the Jenny Lind Children’s Hospital in Norwich 1948-49. He continued with his training becoming a Senior Registrar in Anaesthesia at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital 1949-51 including attachments for thoracic anaesthesia at the Kelling Sanatorium, Holt. In 1951 he was appointed as a Consultant Anaesthetist at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, where he stayed until retirement in 1975. Alongside his consultant post he developed quite an extensive anaesthesia private practice.
Additionally he was appointed to the UK Civil Aviation Authority as a medical examiner. He continued as a CAA medical examiner until 1990.
Professional interests and activities
Dr Reynard listed his clinical special interests as Paediatric and Cardiac anaesthesia. This was in the early days of cardiac surgery with hypothermic anaesthesia. His daughter recollects him making all the calculations for the following day’s patient hypothermia in the evenings at their house. Other areas of anaesthesia expertise were the early days of orthopaedic joint replacement surgery and the local psychiatric institutions. He also had an interest in Aviation Medicine flying his own light aircraft. He was a member of the Norwich Medico-Chirurgical Society and of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain & Ireland.
Answering the question “why did you take up anaesthetics“ he answered “Force Majeurs” as had to give all the anaesthetics when serving with the army unit in Iraq. According to his wartime memoirs, whilst in Iraq with the RAMC he was asked if he could administer anaesthetics by another officer to which he replied yes, because as a student at Westminster he had administered more than the requisite 30 major cases under the tutelage of Ivan Magill and other anaesthetists even learning intubation. Consequentially he began administering anaesthetics for the medical unit, his expertise developed and he was later recognised as a specialist anaesthetist whilst in the RAMC.
Other biographical information
His interests outside of his clinical career were hockey, flying and bee-keeping. He was also reasonably fluent in German. Deteriorating knees curtailed his hockey.
The only child of Carl Reinhard and mother Bessie Copping, he was baptised Anthony Laurence Reinhard. Carl his father was born in Germany from an upper class family. Carl along with a brother Joseph arrived in England about 1910; both were initially involved in rubber manufacturing and chemical trades setting up the West London Rubber Company, which according to family legend was sold to Durex. Carl later became involved in agriculture in East Anglia. Anthony’s mother Bessie was a daughter of a wealthy Norfolk businessman. Anthony therefore was born into quite comfortable circumstances. With the commencement of WW1 Anthony’s father Carl moved to the Netherlands and Bessie would apparently travel back and forth. Anthony meanwhile would spend time lodged with some maiden aunts in Diss. After the cessation of the war his early schooling was in the Netherlands aged about 6 years. The family later moved back to Diss, to a property which Bessie had inherited upon her father’s death.
When he was older Anthony was educated in Norfolk at Diss Secondary School, then on to the Grammar School until 1931. Aged 17 years he took a year out spending time with his German relatives in Bavaria where he learnt to speak German. He sat his school certificate in 1932 and initially went to Queen Mary’s College, London University to read engineering, but decided after a year that he wanted to study medicine. However he lacked the required biology and chemistry; therefore after some self study he sat a matriculation exemption exam and gained entry to King’s College, London in 1934 to study medicine, later entering Westminster Medical School.
He married Evelyn Drought in 1942. Two daughters followed upon his return to civilian life: Elizabeth b.1947 and Penelope b.1949. Anthony lived on his own for twenty two years after Evelyn’s death in 1980, continuing his interest in bee-keeping. His daughter describes him as a quiet private man who could be occasionally austere but mellowed with age. He enjoyed entertaining his grandchildren and was described as a gentleman by those who knew him.
In his last year he moved into a care home for six months, near to one of his daughters. Dr Reynard passed away aged 88 years near Eastbourne, survived by both his daughters and several grandchildren. Poignantly his daughter mentions that as he had outlived all his colleagues there was no one to remember him apart from his family and there was no obituary published.
Author and sources
Author:
Dr Innes Simon Chadwick
Sources and comments:
Family and bibliographical information accessed online: ancestry.co.uk
Newspaper Archives accessed online: FindmyPast.com.
Dr Reynard’s self submitted autobiographical College “Boulton form” dated 1988.
GMC UK Medical Registers 1940, 1941, 1943, 1959 accessed online ancestry.co.uk
Medical Directories 1940-50, 1954, 1968 and 1976.
Penelope Gostelow (daughter) kindly provided extensive personal family information including, papers, certificates, application CV for consultant post, and a copy of Dr Reynard’s 139-page personal wartime memoirs.