This gallery celebrates the early years and development of British Plastic surgery, at The Queen’s Hospital, Sidcup, and the man who made it possible, Sir Harold Gillies.
Sidcup was the site of the first integrated multidisciplinary plastic surgery unit in the UK, and probably the world. Between 1917 and 1925 it performed reconstructive plastic surgery of the face, initiated and directed by Sir Harold Gillies. The Queens, later Queen Mary’s, became an internationally staffed military facility at the centre of the rapidly evolving “strange new art” of plastic surgery, pioneering many techniques which went on to be “standard”.
Following the Great War, the surgical teams were dispersed back to their homelands and the hospital itself became a more general care facility. Its unique collection of over 2,500 case records and images documented the development of plastic surgery both at Sidcup and in the UK between 1917 and 1925. These records were forgotten, until being rediscovered in the 1980s by staff at the Queebs. Dr Andrew Bamji, a Consultant Rheumatologist at the hospital became custodian of this material. He made his life’s passion the assembly and interpretation of the “Gillies Archive”, both in physical form at the hospital and online.
In 2011, due to a re-organisation of the hospital, the archives were decommissioned and dispersed. Much of this is held by the BAPRAS Collection. Dr Bamji remains the BAPRAS honorary Gillies Archivist and a world authority on Sir Harold, The Queen's, later Queen Mary’s, and the development of Plastic Surgery during World War 1. This gallery owes much to his work and input.