What should we call it?

Following Harold Gillies suggestion at Hill End Hospital that a “plastic club” be formed, Archie McIndoe proposed that the first move was appointing a provisional committee from the younger generation to formally develop the idea.  

A group of young second-generation plastic surgeons was chosen. John Barron as secretary with Percy Jayes, Roland Osbourne, Peter Reidy, James Cuthbert and Emlyn Lewis were tasked with coming up with a plan for how such a body would work, and to develop its constitution. Crucially, they were also responsible for arriving at a name for this new entity.

The Provisional committee first met in Gloucester over two days in April 1944, and for a second time in May at Harley Street. John Barron was secretary with a rotating Chairman. The letter shown on this page comes from the family archive of Harold Gillies, and to whom this draft report was sent after three meetings.  As well as determining that: “this Association should be so constituted that it shall control and safeguard the interests of surgeons practising the specialty and direct the development of the specialty itself along sound and progressive lines.” they came up with two possibilities for a name. 

Having already managed to irritate Gillies by rejecting the idea of a more social grouping or “Club” in favour of something more professional. A “Society”, or “Association” were debated,  but they finally favoured “Association”, partly because there was perceived to be a subtle difference between the meaning of the two, and partly because it provided a vowel for any acronym. 

John Barron recalled, “we had a choice between ‘Association of Plastic Surgeons of Great Britain’ the ‘Association of British Plastic Surgeons’ the ‘Association of Plastic Surgeons of the United Kingdom’ and the ‘British Association of Plastic Surgeons’.” They further reduced this to one of two options: ‘The British Plastic Surgery Association’, or “The Association of British Plastic Surgeons”. 

The letter shown here, which came to the Collection from Gillies personal archive, demonstrates that the committee must have run their options past the “grandees” of the profession. The letter contains two or three proposed corrections in Gillies own hand. Crucially he adds the initials “B.A.P.S.” over the two suggestions for a name, attracted by the possibility of an easy acronym. This despite being aware that the acronym “BAPS” might at the time be associated with a Scottish bread bun,  but unaware that it might later develop more colloquial connotations. So, the “Plastic Club” at the nudging of Gillies, became the “British Association of Plastic Surgeons”.