Richard White Bernhard Ellis

Richard White Bernhard Ellis was educated at Leighton Park School and King’s College, Cambridge. He qualified in medicine at St. Thomas’s Hospital, London, in 1926. He subsequently trained in paediatrics and worked with Kenneth Daniel Blackfan (1883-1941) at the Boston Children’s Hospital, USA. He then became a member of the staff at Guy’s Hospital, London.

During the Spanish Civil War Ellis in 1937 helped evacuate 4000 Basque children who had become refugees. He also worked for refugees in Hungary and Romania. During World War II he served as wing commander in North Africa, Italy, and Belgium.

Soon after the war he became professor of child health at Edinburgh, where he spent the rest of his career. He was described as a man of great intellectual honesty and a sense of humour. In 1964 he retired for reasons failing health. He died in London two years later.