Frederick Treves was born on 15 February 1853 in
Dorchester, Dorset, the son of William Treves, an
upholsterer, of a family of Dorset
yeomen, and his wife, Jane (
née Knight). As a small boy, he attended the school run by the Dorset dialect poet
William Barnes, and later the
Merchant Taylors' School and
London Hospital Medical College. He passed the membership examinations for the
Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1875, and in 1878 those for the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS). He was a
Knight of Grace of the Order of St John.
Eminent surgeon in 1896 Treves began his medical career as a
general practitioner, becoming a partner in a medical practice in
Wirksworth, Derbyshire. His daughter was born in Wirksworth in 1878. The house he lived in on Coldwell Street is called Treves House. He moved to London where he became a surgeon, specialising in abdominal surgery, at the
London Hospital in the late 19th and early 20th century. On 29 June 1888, he performed the first
appendicectomy in England. In 1884, Treves first saw
Joseph Merrick, known as the Elephant Man, being exhibited by showman
Tom Norman in a shop across the road from the London Hospital. Treves brought Merrick to the London Hospital in about 1886, having him live there until his death in April 1890. Treves' reminiscences mistakenly name Joseph Merrick as "John Merrick", an error widely recirculated by biographers of Merrick including the account rendered in the 1980 film. In 1885, Treves was awarded the
Hunterian Professorship. Treves was also Medical Officer to the
Suffolk Yeomanry until he resigned in May 1902, and he accepted the appointment as
Honorary Colonel of the
Royal Army Medical Corps (
Militia) on 30 August 1902. '' caricature of Treves by
"Spy" (1900) In March 1900, Treves was appointed one of the Surgeons Extraordinary to
Queen Victoria, and after her death the following year, he was appointed one of several
Honorary Serjeants Surgeon to her successor, Edward VII. In May 1901 he was knighted as a
Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO). The King's Achilles tendon was treated in January 1902, and then in June he found a "hard swelling in the abdomen". Treves did not remove the abscess, which was
perityphlitis, an inflammation around the appendix which required draining. The
coronation of the new king was scheduled for 26 June 1902, but on 24 June, Edward was diagnosed with
appendicitis. Treves, with the support of the leading surgical authority,
Lord Lister, performed a then-radical operation of draining the infected appendiceal
abscess through a small incision and leaving the appendix intact. Treves requested that London Hospital nurses
Georgina Haines and Nurse Tarr should assist him; Haines nursed the King after his operation. The King had opposed surgery because of the upcoming coronation, but Treves insisted, stating that if he was not permitted to operate, there would instead be a funeral. The next day, Edward was sitting up in bed, smoking a cigar. Treves was honoured with a
baronetcy on 24 July 1902 (which Edward had arranged before the operation), and appendix surgery entered the medical mainstream in the UK. He was granted the use of
Thatched House Lodge in
Richmond Park and was subsequently able to take early retirement. He published a book about his experiences of the king's illnesses shortly after the coronation. Treves continued to serve the royal family as Serjeant Surgeon to the King and to the Royal Household from July 1902
Author and legacy at 6,
Wimpole Street, Marylebone, London Treves' ability as an author was discovered by
Malcolm Morris of
Cassell & Co. He wrote many books, including
The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences (1923),
Surgically Applied Anatomy (1883),
Highways and Byways in Dorset (the county in which he was born) (1906), ''A Student's Handbook of Surgical Operations
(1892), Uganda for a Holiday
, The Land That is Desolate
, and The Cradle of the Deep'' (1908). This last volume is an account of his travels in the
West Indies, interspersed with portions of their histories; describing (among other things) the death of
Blackbeard the pirate, the
1902 eruption of Mount Pelée (which destroyed the city of
Saint-Pierre, Martinique), and a powerful
earthquake at Kingston, Jamaica, shortly before he landed there. He was also chairman of the Executive Committee from 1905 to 1912 of the
British Red Cross, and was the first president of the Society of Dorset Men. From 1905 to 1908, he was
Rector of the University of Aberdeen. Early in the First World War, drawing on his Boer War experience, he travelled to France as an advisor to the War Office and to report on medical care for the British Red Cross. Around 1920, Sir Frederick went to live in
Switzerland, where he died in
Lausanne on 7 December 1923 at the age of 70. He died from
peritonitis, which in the days before
antibiotics commonly resulted from a ruptured
appendix. His funeral took place at
St Peter's Church,
Dorchester, on 2 January 1924;
King George V and
Queen Mary were represented by the Physician-in-Ordinary,
Lord Dawson. His lifelong friend
Thomas Hardy attended and chose the hymns. Hardy also wrote a poem for the occasion which was published in
The Times; it begins: "In the evening, when the world knew he was dead". His ashes were buried in Dorchester (Weymouth Avenue) cemetery. ==Family==