Woodall family

The two sons of the Rev. Samuel Russell Woodall (1859-1920; e.m. 1878), Primitive Methodist minister, both had a medical career.

Ambrose Edgar Woodall (1885-1974), born in Eccles and educated at Manchester Central High School and Manchester University, was from 1921 to 1958 the resident surgeon at Manor House Hospital, Golders Green. This independent hospital, run as a non-profit making organisation, was never part of the National Health Service and had much trade union support. He was also from 1922 to 1958 the medical advisor to the National Union of Railwaymen. Knighted in 1931, he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Uvedale of North End in 1946. He died on 28 February 1974 without issue.

Samuel James Woodall (1883-1965) graduated in English Language and Literature at Manchester and qualified as a teacher in 1907. Accepting the post of English lecturer at Strasbourg, in 1914 he was one of the last English people to leave on the outbreak of war, and narrowly avoided being interned. As an asthmatic, he was not considered suitable for war service and so joined his brother at Manor House Hospital in 1924, having qualified as a surgeon in 1921, first in Manchester and then at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. He retired in1958.

Sources
  • Obituary in British Medical Journal, 17 July 1965, page 175.
  • Samuel James Woodall, The Manor House Hospital. A Personal Record (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966).

Entry written by: DCD
Category: Person
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