George Newman (doctor)

Sir George Newman GBE, KCB (23 October 1870, Leominster, Herefordshire - 26 May 1948) was an English public health physician, Quaker, the first Chief Medical Officer to the Ministry of Health in England, and wrote a seminal treatise on the social problems causing infant mortality.

Introduction

George Newman was educated at Sidcot School in North Somerset (1881–1885) and then at the Quaker Bootham School in York (1885–1887). He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and then King's College London before gaining his MD (winning the gold medal) and then becoming a demonstrator in bacteriology and lecturer in infectious diseases at King's. In 1900 he became Medical Officer to the Borough of Finsbury in inner London and rural county of Bedfordshire in England. His experiences in these posts led him to publish Infant Mortality: a Social Problem in 1906. This has remained a medical classic, pointing out the unchanged infant mortality rate over the preceding 50 years, and identifying the causes and areas potentially open to intervention. In 1907 he became the Chief Medical Officer to the Board of Education, and in 1919 he also was appointed as Chief Medical Officer to the Ministry of Health. The annual reports he wrote for both these posts were widely acclaimed as important and influential

Biography

George Newman was the son of Henry Stanley Newman and Mary Ann Pumphrey. His father was a Quaker who...
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