Bellingham-Smith, Eric

Person

Bellingham-Smith, Eric

1881-1970

Born at Lee, Kent, the son of Henry Bellingham-Smith, a broker, and Frances Machin. He received his medical education at Guy's Hospital where his elder brother was on the honorary staff as obstetrician and gynaecologist. He graduated MB BS in 1905. His first interest was gynaecology and he proceeded MD in 1907, but then turned to general practice and paediatrics. About this time he began his long association with the Queen's Hospital for Children (later Queen Elizabeth Hospital), serving as RMO there. He was chairman of the medical committee and a member of the management committee of the hospital for many years.

At the beginning of the first world war he went out to work in Serbia with a privately organised ambulance service and he later joined the RAMC, serving in Egypt and obtaining the rank of major. After demobilisation he became assistant physician to St George's Hospital in 1920, later consultant physician, and served there for twenty-five years.

He undertook research on many aspects of disease in children and his papers covered subjects such as enureris, mongolism, typhoid fever, meningitis and speech defects. He was also deeply interested in diseases of the heart and lungs. He became a Fellow of the College in 1924, serving as examiner for the Conjoint Board, and was a councillor and censor in 1946 and 1947.

While serving in Egypt and Palastine he met his first wife, Barbara Mary Kenny, daughter of a director of the Royal Mail Steamship Company. They married in 1918 and had two sons. Barbara developed tuberculosis and died in 1934. He later obtained a special dispensation from the Catholic Church to marry her sister, Dorothy.

Royal College of Physicians