Lady Gillies

Marjorie Clayton had been Harold Gillies long-time theatre sister. 

She met him when in charge of theatre E at Saint Bartholomews Hospital, London. Nicknamed Sam, she would later recall Sir Harold habitually turning up late for his theatre lists there, arriving at 4:30 for a 2:30 start. Nevertheless, they got on extremely well, and over time he came to rely more and more upon her. 

Indeed she later joined his staff at his private London Clinic practice as his theatre sister. Initially, however, he did not make her life easy, preventing her undertaking her proper role cleaning wounds, helping to control bleeding or dealing with post-operative dressings. Her first year with him in private practice was very difficult and even took Rainsford Mowlem, then in practice with Gillies, to stick up for her. Nevertheless it was to her that he turned to organize the evacuation of his patients down to Rooksdown house in Basingstoke after a particularly heavy night of bombing in London. 

Sam would often be there, either at station or airport, to see him off or greet him from lecture tours. Over time it is said that their professional relationship became “almost a mind reading partnership and had given each other an instinctive appreciation of the other’s true worth”.

Gillies first wife, Lady Kathleen had also been a sister at St Bartholemew's, in the newly opened ENT outpatients. When she died from leukaemia in 1957, Gillies and Sam became even closer companions. In a letter to a previous trainee he described her as his “friend and counsellor for nearly 20 years”. In fact, she soon made a very unusual proposal to the 75-year-old Gillies, offering to marry and look after him thereafter. Having once vowed never to marry a nurse, Gillies and Sam were betrothed at Marylebone register office on November 5th 1957. Later the same month they both set off on his first lecture and operating

tour to India. In India, he said, she was not his wife, but “Miss Clayton, my surgical assistant, lecturer to nurses and secretary.” Indeed, she made the essential preparations for many of his lectures and operative demonstrations there, ensuring that the instruments and glass slides were to hand. Sam was faithful to Gillies until the end, officiating in theatre the day he died. She truly was the “power behind the throne”.

Following Gillies death in 1960 the second Lady Gillies remained active in the plastic surgery community. She was made President of the British Association of Plastic Surgery Nurses in late 1963 and remained a stalwart of both the committee and the BAPSN meetings. She presented the “F.I. Herbert Rose Bowl” annually to the presenter of the meeting’s best paper. Even following her own death in 1991, she endowed £50 for a further prize, paid for by the sale of her engagement ring.