Gillies' Tankard

In April 1953 BAPS decided to honour its founding President, Sir Harold Gillies’ 70th Birthday by organising a banquet and presenting him with a commemorative tankard.

"As a mark of esteem"

The Silver George II beer tankard (pictured) has an ornate engraved shield inscribed “Presented by his friends and colleagues to Sir Harold Gillies CBE, FRCS, as a mark of esteem April, 1953”. The image shown below of Gillies with the other members of “The Big Four” British plastic surgeons, shows him holding the open tankard at that birthday celebration. He is presumably drinking from it. In the image below he appears to be conspiratorially confiding in Professor T.P. Kilner that this will be the last time that he does so!

Gillies reportedly did not appreciate the gift, possibly seen as a hint, that at over 70, he might consider retiring. He is said to have considered giving it to the Royal College of Surgeons. He must have sold it, because it subsequently came into the possession of a Consultant Pathologist in Oxford, keen on collecting tankards. It was then offered to, and purchased by the Gillies archive in Sidcup before being donated to BAPRAS when this closed down.

Gillies with his tankard and the other members of the"Big Four"
R-L, Archibald McIndoe, Prof. T.P. Kilner, Gillies and Rainsford Mowlem

The tankard went on to be a feature of many BAPS and BAPRAS annual dinners, being sometimes less than enthusiastically passed around as a communal drinking vessel, until falling from microbiological favour. The carousel of images below is from the President's Dinner in 2012.