James Thomas Wilson becomes third Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in 1920
From Faculty of Medicine Online Museum and Archive
Following Anderson Stuart's death, Professor James Thomas Wilson became the third Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. Wilson had been one of Anderson Stuart's early appointments, arriving in Sydney from Edinburgh in 1887. Another graduate of the Edinburgh Medical School, Wilson had been Resident House Surgeon at the Royal Infirmary and a ships surgeon before coming to the Faculty as Demonstrator in Anatomy. By 1890 Anderson Stuart had appointed Wilson to the foundation Challis Chair of Anatomy. Wilson began an enormous accumulation of specimens for the Museum of Human and Morbid Anatomy, as it was first named, amassing over 24,000 specimens by 1902. Wilson's greatest contribution to the collection was the appointment of Prosectors to provide high quality specimens for the Museum and to act as Demonstrators. The earliest photograph of Prosectors is dated 1903. Approximately 700 specimens were derived in this manner. The oldest remaining specimen in the Museum is a dissection of the heart by Dr G.H.S. Lightoller in 1908. Wilson's research centred on the anatomy of marsupials and monotremes, which was then of topical interest in the great debate about evolution. He gathered a coterie of anatomical researchers around him, including Grafton Eliot Smith and Raymond Dart whose originality in applying anatomical methods to anthropology and archaeology owed much to their contact with Wilson.
Wilson was made Dean in 1920 but in the same year successfully applied for the Chair of Anatomy in Cambridge.[1],[1]
- Next article in timeline: Arthur Edward Mills became the fourth Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in 1920