Gillies and his team

Whilst at Sidcup, Henry Tonks did not confine himself to illustrating the innovative plastic surgery procedures being undertaken on the servicemen admitted there. 

Tonks was also in the right place at the right time to capture the birth of plastic surgery as a specialty, and which took place at the Queen Mary’s Hospital Sidcup. The drawings in this gallery by Henry Tonks are all ink and watercolour works depicting Harold Gillies and his team operating at Sidcup in 1917 together with injured servicemen he encountered. 

The sketches illustrate both the unique situation and human costs on both sides of the clinician/patient divide and appear in part to have been created for the surgeons involved. The image to the far right bears the signed inscription “this scrap will just remind you of other days - Henry Tonks”.

These images are now owned and reproduced by courtesy of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.