Geoffrey Gillam

Geoffrey Gerard Gillam FRCP (28 January 1905 – 15 February 1970) was a British medical doctor and consultant cardiologist who became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.

During the Second World War he was commissioned into the Royal Army Medical Corps and served in Normandy and British India, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

Early life

Born in Holt, Norfolk, Gillam was a son of Dr Joseph Beckett Gillam by his marriage to Dorothy Jane Skrimshire, whose family had practised medicine since the eighteenth century. His father, a local GP who was also school doctor at Gresham's School, was a close friend of the school's music master Geoffrey Shaw, who was Gillam's godfather, after whom he was named.

Educated at Epsom College between 1913 and 1923, Gillam played for the cricket First XI, was head prefect and school captain, and was offered both a scholarship in Classics at Clare College, Cambridge, and a closed scholarship to read medicine at University College Hospital (UCH) which was reserved for boys from Epsom College. His father had died young, before he entered the school, and financial considerations caused him to choose UCH. While there, he took a prize called the Lister Gold Medal, and in the final stages of his training was house physician to the cardiologist Sir Thomas Lewis, then migrated to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital as house surgeon to Athelstan Jasper Blaxland. After his Conjoint diploma in 1927, he gained the degrees of MB and BS (London) in 1928.

On returning to civilian life, Gillam joined the National Heart Hospital to return to his career in cardiology and became a close friend of Paul Hamilton Wood. Two years later, in 1947, he was offered and accepted the position of consultant cardiologist at Selly Oak Hospital, and from there he was also seconded to Solihull Hospital, where resources did not run to modern cardiology equipment. In the year 1966–1967 he was President of the West Midlands Physicians' Association and in 1967 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. Dogged by ill health, he retired in 1969. recalled that Quote|"Gillam was tall and distinguished in appearance, and his penetrating intellect was clearly the basis of an almost uncanny diagnostic acumen. Some may have been deceived by the apparently puzzled simplicity with which he formulated his questions at medical gatherings, but, in effect, these usually served to focus attention on vital points and carried the discussion to the right conclusions..." They went on to have three sons, one of whom, P. M. S. Gillam, became a consultant and in due course followed his father as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.

In 1962, the family was living at 52, Augustus Road, Edgbaston.

Gillam had many interests outside his work, including the works of William Shakespeare, poetry, music, fishing, and bird-watching. In retirement, he returned to live in his native Holt, but died soon afterwards,

Degrees MRCS & LRCP (1927) MB & BS, London (1928) Doctor of Medicine, London (1938) Member of the Royal College of Physicians (1938) Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (1967)