Arthur Webb-Jones


Arthur Webb-Jones was a prominent Welsh gynaecologist who served with the British Army in Egypt. He was the father of the distinguished surgeon Arthur Webb-Jones of the same name.

Family

Arthur, who was born in Glamorgan to an upper middle class family, was the younger son of Lieutenant-Colonel William Matthew Jones VD, of the 1st Swansea Corps of the 1st Glamorganshire Artillery Volunteers, who was a founder and owner of the trans-European chartered shipbrokerage M. Jones and Brothers. Arthur's mother was Agnes Ida Long.
Arthur's elder sibling Ernest William Jones inherited the trans-European chartered shipbrokerage M. Jones and Brothers and was a first-class cricketer. Arthur's nephew through his elder brother Ernest was the choral educator James William Webb-Jones.
Arthur's cousins included Edwin Price Jones, who was Vice-Consul for Chile, and Secretary to the Chamber of Commerce, and William (Bill) Wynn Jones was Anglican Bishop of Central Tanganyika from 1946 until his death by car accident in 1951.

Career

Arthur Webb-Jones was educated at Malvern College, and at St Thomas' Hospital, and at the University of London, where the subject of his M.D. thesis was Bilharziosis in Women.
His notable published works include Lumbar Hernia ) and Two Cases of Gynaecomastia. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England on 31 May 1900.
Webb-Jones from 1900 to 1904 served in the British Egyptian Army in the Sudan, where he subsequently settled and established a private practice at Rue Stamboul, Alexandria, and was appointed Surgeon and Gynaecologist to the Government Hospital and Medical Officer to the Egyptian State Railway, Alexandria District. He received the thanks of the Sirdar and Governor-General of the Sudan for his services. He resided in Egypt from 1913 to 1917.
Webb Jones during the Gallipoli Campaign served as a yeoman with the British Army from May 1915 to December 1916.
When, in spring 1917, there occurred epidemic of typhus in Alexandria, Webb-Jones gave an intravenous injection of saline solution to another practitioner, who was dying from typhus, by which he fatally infected himself, a consequence of which he died eleven days later on 30 April 1917. His death warranted a mention in a special intelligence report to the Houses of Parliament, which was published in The Lancet.

Marriage

Arthur Webb-Jones married Lillian Bell Long in 1906 and the couple had three children:
  1. Francis Arthur John Webb-Jones who changed his surname to Wakeman-Long for his marriage. Francis was a barrister who served as Chairman of M. Jones and Brothers until its dissolution in 1942.
  2. Marjorie Agnes Webb-Jones Married Lionel C. Lord Sept 1935 at Kensington.
  3. Arthur Junior . He received the degrees of M.B and B.S. at St Thomas' Hospital during 1940. He served with the Royal Air Force in West Africa during the Second World War, after which he received the F.R.C.S.Ed. and a Fellowship during 1948. He was a Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He worked at Manchester Royal Infirmary and Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne, before he moved to Hartlepools and Sedgefield General Hospital during 1950. He was a member of the Hand Club of Great Britain. He was a cricketer who Captained West Hartlepool's senior eleven for three seasons. He married Doreen Ariadne Elwood by whom he had three children.