A timeline of key events for Hammersmith Hospital (and the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, RPMS) Nephrology, linked to further info and references. The preceding page has an overview and illustrations.
Contents
| 1935 | Royal Postgraduate Medical School (RPMS) opened at Hammersmith Hospital (HH). Francis Fraser (head of medicine) appointed academic staff, with academic control of the hospital. |
| 1938 | John McMichael appointed – first liver biopsies with Sheila Sherlock |
| 1939 | HH becomes 400 bed casualty hospital for duration of war. Francis Fraser leaves to lead medical services in London; John McMichael head of Medicine. Eric Bywaters (rheumatologist) joins team interested in shock |
| 1940 | September 10th, bombing of London starts – first two admissions with what became Crush Syndrome (Bywaters and Beall 1941) |
| 1943 | Bywaters to Newcastle till end of 1944 |
| 1946 | Ian Aird appointed Prof Surgery – ‘lovable but wayward genius’. Keen to work on transplantation; appointed Jim Dempster to work on this (at Downe, Buckston Browne Farm). |
| 1946 | Jo Joekes joins. Kolff’s artificial kidney used – first dialysis in UK. ‘We dialysed 11 or 12 – we weren’t very good’ (Bywaters 1996). |
| 1947 | Bywaters and Joekes describe lecture tour to Netherlands, during which they met Kolff at Kampen. Bywaters leaves to MRC Taplow. Graham Bull to HH; work with Lowe and Joekes on conservative management of AKI. |
| 1952 | Malcolm Milne appointed head of Renal; ‘brilliant, good clinician, rightly esteemed’. |
| 1956 | Belding Scribner fellowship with Malcolm Milne at HH; physiology and ?gastrodialysis. |
| 1956 | Shackman purchases dialysis machine (Necker/ Usifroid modification of Boston rotating drum machine); 1957 Shackman-Milne publication on first 14 dialysis treatments for AKI with it. |
| 1961 | Milne to Westminster as head of Medicine; replaced by Oliver Wrong as head of Renal. |
| 1966 | Chris Booth appointed head of Medicine – employs Peter Lachman as first immunology professor in UK. |
| 1969 | Oliver Wrong moves to chair of medicine in Dundee, Peters heads Renal. Lewis Sevitt was Registrar, later Senior Registrar. From 1972 Sevitt was at Hillingdon Hospital, retaining one weekly session at HH. |
| 1970 | Keith Peters appointed lecturer/consultant. Initiates work on nephritis and complement. |
| 1972-5 | Michael Boulton Jones SR, Patrick Sissons Registrar. Dialysis still under supervision of Urology. First initiatives on plasma exchange for anti-GBM. |
| 1975 | Andy Rees SR (except 2 year gap in lab when Tony Pinching stood in) |
| 1976 | Publications on plasmapheresis for anti-GBM, and for myasthenia gravis with Tony Pinching. |
| 1977 | Keith Peters becomes head of Medicine (Booth to Northwick Park). |
| 1983 | David Kerr (from Newcastle) appointed Dean of RPMS (to 1991) |
| 1987 | Keith Peters moved to be Regius Professor of Medicine in Cambridge |
| 2007 | Hammersmith Hospital, Charing Cross and St Mary’s Hospitals amalgamated to form Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust |
(in progress) See Other Pages (above) for more.
First published June 2025
Last Updated on July 20, 2025 by neilturn