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Obituary of Sir William Wenmoth PRYN, 1859-1942DEATH IN THE SERVICES
Surgeon Rear-Admiral Sir WILLIAM WENMOTH PRYN, K.B.E.,
C.B., R.N. (ret.), has died at Stoke Gabriel, Devonshire. He
was born at Saltash on October 21, 1859, the son of W. Pryn,
and was educated at Blundell's School, Tiverton, and at Guy's
Hospital, where he took the gold medal for surgery in 1880. He
qualified M.R.C.S. and L.S.A. in the same year, and took the
D.P.H. in 1895. After filling the posts of house-surgeon and
resident obstetrical officer at Guy's Hospital and assistant
surgeon at the Royal Albert Hospital, Devonport, he entered
the Royal Navy as surgeon in 1886, became staff surgeon in
1898, fleet surgeon in 1902, deputy surgeon general (now
surgeon captain) in 1911, surgeon general (now surgeon rearadmiral)
in 1916, and retired under the age limit in 1919.
During his thirty-four years of service he had been a surgeon
in H.M.S. Orlando in the Australian Station; staff surgeon in
H.M.S. Minerva in the Training Squadron ; medical officer at the
R.N. College, Greenwich; assistant to the Medical Director-General, R.N., from 1906 to 1910; in charge of the naval
hospital at Gibraltar from 1912 to 1916 ; and surgeon general in
charge of the Royal Naval Hospital, Plymouth. He received the C.B. in
1918 and the K.B.E. in 1919. In 1891 he married
Isabella Kate, daughter of Major J. Cotter of The Buffs, and
had two sons, the elder of whom entered the R.A.M.C., and two
Researcher's Note: One of his sons William Reginald PRYN who was
born in 1893 at Ascension Island, served as a Lieutenant in the RAMC
during WW1. He died aged 22 on the 27th of June 1915. He is buried at
Lijssenthoek Military Cemetry, Belgium and is remembered on the Saltash
St. Nicholas & St. Faith war memorial. |
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Contributed by Bill Norton.
Source: The British Medical Journal, 4 April 1942 |