Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark

Prof. Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark MA DSc FRCS FRS
Born	1895
Died	1971
Residence	Ingram House, Stockwell [1915] St Thomas's Hospital, Westminster Bridge Road, SE1 [1917] Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo [1923] St Bartholomew's Hospital and College, EC1 [1925] Prof. of Anatomy, St Thomas' Hospital, SE1 [1929] Prof. of Human Anatomy, University, Oxford [1933] Dept. of Human Anatomy, University Museum, Oxford [census]
Occupation	anatomist palaeoethnologist medical
Society Membership membership ordinary fellow left 1942 resigned 1965.06 resigned elected_AI 1914.12.17 societies Anatomical Society Royal Society Zoological Society Geologist's Association

Notes

Office Notes

RAI Council 1930-31 Member
RAI Council 1931-32 Member
RAI Council 1939-40 Vice President
RAI Council 1940-41 Vice President
RAI Council 1941-42 Vice President
RAI Council 1947-48 Member
RAI Council 1948-49 Member

House Notes

1914.11.13 proposed by F.G. Parsons, seconded by A. Keith
1942.06.16 Prof. W.E. le Gros Clerk, a retiring Vice President, had forwarded his resignation from the Institute, on the ground that, in his view, physical anthropology would become, in the future, less the concern of the Institute than of the appropriate specialist bodies. The Hon. Secretary was instructed to write to Prof. le Gros Clerk asking him to reconsider his decision and stressing that the Institute’s policy had been and would continue to be, to act as a central focus for all kinds of anthropology

1958 HML Bones of contention Delivered 28th Nov. at Royal Society

Notes From Elsewhere

Sir Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark (June 1895 – 28 June 1971)[2] was a British anatomist surgeon, primatologist and palaeoanthropologist, today best remembered for his contribution to the study of human evolution. He was Dr Lee's Professor of Anatomy at the University of Oxford
Le Gros Clark was educated at Blundell's School and subsequently admitted as a medical student to St Thomas' Hospital Medical School in Lambeth.
After qualification he immediately joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a medical officer and was sent to France early in 1918. He caught diphtheria and was sent back to England to recover, following which he spent the remainder of the war as a medical officer at '‘No. 8 Stationary Hospital'’ at Wimereux in northern France
Following a period in the Department of Anatomy at St Thomas' Hospital Medical School he was appointed as Principal Medical Officer to the Sarawak Government. He was subsequently appointed as Professor of Anatomy at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School, followed by a period as Professor of Anatomy at St Thomas' Hospital Medical School and finally, in 1934, he was invited to take over as the Dr. Lee's Professor of Anatomy (and effectively the Chair of the Anatomy Department) at the University of Oxford.[2] The following year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.[3]
In 1953, Le Gros Clark was one of three men (the others being Joseph Weiner and Kenneth Oakley) who proved that the Piltdown Man was a forgery.[4]
He was awarded the Royal Society's Royal Medal in 1961 and delivered their Ferrier Lecture in 1956. He was elected President of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland for 1951 to 1953.[5]
Papers relating to Le Gros Clark, his grandfather Dr. Frederick Le Gros Clark and his brother Cyril Le Gros Clark (former Chief Secretary of Sarawak, who was murdered by the Japanese in 1945 after a period of detention at Batu Lintang camp in Borneo) are held at the Bodleian Library (Special Collections and Western Manuscripts) at Oxford University.[6] During his career Le Gros Clark published numerous papers on human evolution and palaeontology

Publications

House Publications

Series of ancient Eskimo skulls from Greenland 1920
The endocranial cast of the chimpanzee [with D.M. Cooper and S. Zuckerman] 1936

Related Material Details

RAI Material

census

Other Material

Bodleian