Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (1977) vol 59

Sir Geoffrey Keynes Tributes on his goth birthday

SIR GEOFFREY KEYNES AT NINETY If anyone had said to me that Sir Geoffrey ence was held in London in I960 he was the was go years old I should have laughed out- natural choice for the first Dunhill Orator right. Only last month in the College I saw and he very kindly asked me and my wife his sparse figure with that soldierly gait walk- to spend the weekend with him so that we ing briskly out of the Council Room, where could help, perhaps, with the preparation of he had been attending a meeting of the his speech. It was a great privilege staying Hunterian Trustees. We had a talk about the in his home, which had books in every room, pictures for which he has cared so lovingly especially the bedrooms where there were large for so long and it would have been impossible white bookcases with marvellous contents. He to realize that he was just about to attain had a unique collection of Blake's works and three score and thirty years. a story to tell about each of them. There were When I thought about it I realized it was drawers full of pictures of all kinds, especially in I 934 that I had first seen Sir Geoffrey etchings. His home was a veritable Aladdin's at St Bartholomew's. I had slipped out of Cave. At intervals one of his sons would the dissecting room and gone up to the gallery arrive and he would discuss such subjects as of the operating theatre and he was removing exploration in Africa and then merchant a thyroid gland. He was beautifully neat and banking, followed by physiology and finally precise in his movements and there was no surgery-what a remarkable family he pro- nonsense about his surgery. If I had ever had duced! The meal times with Lady Keynes to have an operation on the thyroid I would presiding were absolute joy and might have have wished him to have been the surgeon. been taken from the pages of her sister Gwen His name will always be associated with the Raverat's book Period Piece. Needless to say thyroid and the thymus, in both of which fields we were all so busy and so splendidly enter- he was supreme. tained that we never did get down even to But it was not only as a surgeon that he mentioning the subject of the Dunhill Oration. attained international fame. From his earliest I need hardly add that Sir Geoffrey gave a davs he was a great scholar and became the superb talk on the appointed day. accepted authority upon William Blake and Remembering how much we owe to Geoffrey John Donne, not forgetting William Harvey. Keynes for all he has done for our College His versatility was a legend; he really en- Library and the great love and care which he compassed an extraordinarily wide field and, has expended on the pictures, let us give thanks amongst other things, created the ballet 'Job'. and send our warmest birthday greetings to a If ever there was justification for the use of wonderful go-year-old. the word 'polymath', then surely Sir Geoffrey is just that. SELWYN TAYLOR When the International Thyroid Confer- Surgeon 30-8 Si'r Geoffrey Keynes

Head in bronze of Sir *Geoffrey Keynes in his nine- tieth year by Mr Nigel ~~ ~ Boonham. Presented to the College by Professor P M Daiel in memory of his father, Peter Daniel FRCS.

SIR GEOFFREY KEYNES, HONORARY LIBRARIAN, HONORARY CURATOR OF PORTRAITS AND PAINTINGS, AND A TRUSTEE OF THE HUNTERIAN MUSEUM, ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND

Throughout the history of the College many First World War, and was appointed a Fellows have given generously of time and Hunterian Professor in I923 and I1930. Closer knowledge, over and above their work in the connection with College affairs began when Council or the Court of Examiners, to en- he was elected to the Council in I 944. During hance its life and to increase and care for the his eight years as a Council Member he- treasures in its buildings, Museum, and Li- served as Chairman of the Library Committee, brary. Sir Geoffrey Keynes, whose ninetieth was appointed a Hunterian Professor for the birthday is acclaimed by all his friends and third time, and gave a fascinating description admirers, has been preeminently active in of the portraits of William Harvey in the detailed and productive support for many of Vicary Lecture for I948-this was published the College's domestic affairs. as a monograph by the College in I949. Sir Geoffrey obtained the FRCS in 1920 Sir Geoffrey acted as the College's Visitor after active service in France through the to the Council of the Royal College of Sir Geoffrey Keynes 309 Obstetricians and Gynaecologists from I950 to seventeenth century. I953, went as official Visitor from the Conjoint Board to the Faculty of Medicine at Khartoum In parallel with his care for the Library in I952, and during I956 and I957 toured Sir Geoffrey was also Curator of Portraits East and West Africa and also Canada as Sir and Paintings from I952 to I972. He gave Arthur Sims Commonwealth Surgical Pro- detailed attention to the restoration of the fessor. He delivered a vivid and memorable portraits of famous surgeons-Hunter, Pott, lecture 'Moynihan of Leeds', which was Astley Cooper, and many others-by such printed in the Annals in January I966, when famous artists as Hogarth, Reynolds, Romney, the College celebrated the centenary of that and Lawrence which adorn the College and great surgeon and former President whose equally to the remarkable series of paintings personal assistant he had been. of human racial types and exotic animals commissioned by John Hunter from leading Sir Geoffrey did not seek re-election when artists of his day, including George Stubbs. As his term on the Council ended in I952, but Chairman of the Trustees of the National the Council, eager to retain his interest and Portrait Gallery Sir Geoffrey enlisted the help support, appointed him Honorary Librarian, and advice of experts when at his suggestion a personal office previously created only for I compiled a catalogue of the paintings and Sir D'Arcy Power, one of his predecessors also sculpture in the College. It is needless to say as a consulting surgeon to St Bartholomew's. that his own knowledge and encouragement As Librarian till I968 I look back with warm- were invaluable too, and he steered the cata- est gratitude on the years in which he gave logue to publication with full illustration in me unfailing inspiration and friendly encour- I960. The finest achievement of his curator- agement, and I know that this support is still ship was in vindicating the authenticity of extended to my successor Eustace Cornelius Holbein's group portrait of King Henry VIII and his staff. Sir Geoffrey's knowledge and presenting the charter of union to the Barbers expertise as a book collector and literary and Surgeons of London. This had been con- scholar, combining with his alert watch on the sidered a late and imprecise version of the rare-book market, have always been readily great panel painting which has belonged to available to the College Library. In addition the Worshipful Company of Barbers since to his personal gifts to the College, he has Holbein painted it in the I540s. Thorough opened opportunities for the Library to acquire exploration and reconditioning, undertaken at many additions for its historical collection. Sir Geoffrey's instigation by the Courtauld Through his good offices, for instance, the Institute of Art, proved that the College's ver- College, acting on his advice to 'collect from sion is painted over Holbein's original basic strength', added outstanding rarities to its cartoon-drawing of his design. series of editions of Andreas Vesalius's famous Fabric of the Human Body. The College's Sir Geoffrey has filled a third role in the early medical books, which include the best affairs of the College as a Hunterian Trustee collection of anatomy books in the country, since I957. During the restoration of John were sadly neglected in the first half of the Hunter's Museum after the disasters of the century. Thanks to Sir Geoffrey's persuasive last war the Trustees have assumed most active advocacy and informed advice they have been interest in directing and improving the repaired and rehoused and now form one of Museum as a stimulating educational display, the College's prime treasures, accessible and not a mere monument to Hunter's genius. In useful to medical historians. His constant this department too Sir Geoffrey has been an care to enhance the value and usefulness of inspiring encourager of the curators and the Library culminated last year in the munifi- shared in promoting the publication of the new cent gift of his entire collection of books on catalogues which make the Museum widely blood transfusion, a unique collection which known. He has always enjoyed bringing inter- he alone has had the skill and knowledge to esting and interested visitors to admire or gather over many years, recording in original examine Hunter's specimens and works of art. editions the long story of tranfusion since the The College awarded him its Honorary Gold 3IO Sir Geoffrey Keynes

Medal in I 969 for his outstanding achieve- him here greets him on his ninetieth birthday ments in many fields of surgery and literature, with affectionate gratitude and heartfelt with grateful recognition of his long-main- congratulations. tained work for the College itself. Now every- WILLIAM LEFANU one who has had the privilege of working with Librarian I930-68

SIR GEOFFREY KEYNES AND WILLIAM HARVEY 'I can claim to have been familiar with lectures on different aspects of Harvey, his Harvey's name ever since I could distinguish works, and his friends led to the publication the spoken word, having been born and bred in I 966 of the Life of William Harvey, a in Harvey Road, Cambridge, and having biography which is not only far more complete spent most of my adult life in an environment and authoritative than any oif its predecessors acceptable enough to Harvey himself-St but which conveys a vivid impression of what Bartholomew's Hospital, London.' So wrote manner of man Harvey was. Sir Geoffrey Sir Geoffrey in 1949 in his Linacre Lecture moves with ease among Harvey's friends, on 'The personality of William Harvey'. All many of whom he has studied in detail, and is through his life Harvey has indeed been one familiar with the flavour of life in the of Sir Geoffrey's 'heroes'. His many writings seventeenth centurv. on Harvey are a sufficient witness to this long I do not think it is any exaggeration to say and continued devotion. that he looks on Harvey as a friend with whom As early as I928 Sir Geoffrey produced his he has long been familiar. I suspect them of first important work, the Bibliography of sharing the same puckish sense of humour and William Harvey. In the same year he edited of treating the pretentious and the second- the seventeenth-century English translations of rate with same quizzically raised eyebrow or De motu cordis and the Letters to Riolan and with silence. Those who only read De motu rescued them from almost total oblivion be- cordis can have nothing more than a partial cause their vigorous style and expressive view of Harvey. His real personality is far terminology produced 'the feeling that Harvey more clearly revealed in his De genera- himself is speaking', whereas the dull Victorian tione animalium and in his early anatomical text of Willis's translation failed completely to lectures, where the wide diversity of his create any such illusion. After the war, in interests, his clarity of thought, and rigorous I948, Sir Geoffrey gave us 'The portraiture of discipline of mind are all displayed. It is in William Harvey', a fascinating study of the these writings that Sir Geoffrey clearly takes authenticity of the many existing portraits and great delight. of their affiliation, coupled with a denunciation GWENETH WHITTERIDGE of the boggus. All these and a number of Historian

SIR GEOFFREY KEYNES AS BOOK COLLECTOR It seems incredible that Geoffrey Keynes has Yet this, he has said, is the case. Only once, been collecting books for less than three- when he was a mere 65, has Geoffrey been quarters of a century. For so many years the tempted into reminiscence. Never inclined to matchless collections, which reflect what one waste on words time better spent on deeds, can only call a series of friendships a travers and with a modest view of his own importance les siecles, have been such an inseparable part compared with that of his collections, it was of him that it is hard to believe that there only when he became President of the Biblio- was once a time when he was without them. graphical Society that he was tempted to look Sir Geoffrey Keynes 311 back at the path that had brought him his own collection to illuminate some of the less there. In his presidential address, entitled known paths of Blake's mind and work. (with singular appropriateness) 'Religio biblio- But Blake is only one of countless figures graphici', he revealed that it was his affection- from the past with whom Geoffrey has built ate zeal to preserve the works of his Rugby up, by biobibliographical methods (that is, by contemporary, Rupert Brooke, that set him the parallel study of their life and works), a off. This alone might not have made him the special understanding and insight. His two complete bibliophile he since became had it other early enthusiasms, Donne and Browne, not been for three almost simultaneous revela- have produced not only remarkable collections tions at Cambridge a year or two later. The (the Donne collection, in particular, is dis- first was his introduction, by Rupert Brooke tinguished by important manuscripts) but also again, to the poetry of John Donne; the the standard bibliographies, and for Browne second was his discovery of the immortal prose the standard edition of his works. Still in his of Thomas Browne; the third and most far- favourite seventeenth century, there are com- reaching was 'a chance encounter with re- parable collections of John Evelyn, Robert productions of William Blake's engravings for Hooke (both the subject of bibliographies), the Book of Job'. Bacon, and Robert Boyle, an interest shared It is the last of these enthusiasms by which with his friend John Fulton. Besides these Geoffrey is most widely known today. It is major figures are a host of lesser authors who hard to realize that when he started almost come to life on his shelves: Joseph Hall and seventy years ago Blake was still rather a Thomas Fuller, two of the most engaging of specialist interest. His work had attracted the the prose-writers of the century, Joseph Glan- enthusiasm of Rossetti and Yeats, but it was vill, John Ray and Thomas Willis, Martin not studied in universities; still less was it a Lister, Edward Tyson, that most original of mass-cult. The rediscovery in this century of anatomists, and the poet Henry King, second the full extent of Blake's genius and the growth onlv to Donne in Geoffrey's esteem and the of the passion for his work, which stretches far subject of a bibliography on which he is even beyond this country (and nowhere more than now at work. Japan), is in large part due to the energy, The seventeenth century, if the strongest, is devotion, and scholarship which Geoffrey has by no means the predominant interest in brought to bear on it. His apprenticeship Geoffrey's library. There are also a small but began with his first major work, the com- interesting collection of medieval manuscripts, pilation of his Bibliography of William Blake, some fifteenth-century books, including an which finally came out in I92I after twelve edition of the poet Lucretius (inherited from years' work. Since then he has prepared and his old friend Cosmo Gordon, the biblio- maintained the definitive text of Blake, grapher of Lucretius), and some remarkably written countless articles, and even the scenario fine sixteenth-century books, among them the of the marvellous ballet of 'Job'; above all, he great anatomical atlases of Vesalius and has edited and superintended the Blake Trust's Estienne. His collection of Brueghel prints series of facsimiles of the illuminated books, is also outstanding. In the eighteenth century, one of the finest printing achievements of our besides Blake, there are Christopher Smart, time. Besides all this he has put together a Hume, Berkeley, and Gibbon; Geoffrey's most collection of over 300 books, prints, and recently published bibliography was that on pictures connected with Blake. It is not the Berkeley, and his study of Gibbon's library is grandest collection of his work (the major illustrated by a sizable number of books from pieces have always lain outside Geoffrey's it (1940). In the nineteenth century William range), but every item has a special quality. Hazlitt and Jane Austen have both been the In the most recent of the Trust's publications, subject of his bibliographies, and his collections W'illiam Blake's Laocoon, a mixture of inter- include such unexpected (and rare) items as pretative insight and careful description which both printings of the contemporary report of would be astounding in any other nona- the trial of Jane Austen's aunt, Jane Leigh genarian, Geoffrey has been able to draw on Perrot, for shoplifting (she was acquitted). 312 Sir Geoffrey Keynes Although major writers, Keats and Shelley 40 of Harvey's books, but this is only one side among them, are well represented, it is the of the relationship that has been, as it were, lesser figures, John Hamilton Reynold and the accompaniment of Geoffrey's professional Thomas Love Peacock for example, who have life. It has included the beautiful Nonesuch a larger share of his attention. Later in the edition of the Anatomical Exercises which century there is a remarkable collection of the Geoffrey did for his friend Francis Meynell, a works, including some manuscript, of Charles bibliography, and a biography which won the Darwin, whose grand-daughter was Geoffrey's James Tait Black Prize. This year it was wife. triumphantly marked by the return to this His friendship with Rupert Brooke was only country, through the good offices of Jacob one of a series of productive links with his own Zeitlin, the Los Angeles bookseller, of the contemporaries. Edmund Blunden, Walter de Harvey portrait which was illegally exported la Mare, and T E Lawrence have been among from this country fifteen years ago, after his correspondents and subjects of his collect- Geoffrey had discovered and long watched ing interest. He has two manuscripts, including over it. Here determination was crowned by the moving essay on 'Dr Melchior', and most good luck, a combination which has so often of the printed work of his brother Maynard distinguished Geoffrey's long and successful (Lord) Keynes. Above all, he has the best col- bibliographical career. As he enters his tenth lection in existence of the most talented en- decade his energy seems undiminished and his graver of our time, Stephen Gooden, and of friends are wondering what new subject he the multifarious works of his old friend Sieg- will turn to next. Whatever it is, they all look fried Sassoon. forward to it. Finally there is Harvey, whose fame owes much, as Dr Whitteridge makes clear, to NICOLAS BARKER Geoffrey. The Keynes collection numbers some Editor, The Book Collector