The following tribute has been written by Professor D. Ceri Davies

In Memoriam, Professor Harold Ellis

Professor Harold Ellis died on 25th March 2026 in his 101st year. He was probably the most influential anatomy educator of the last 70 years and influenced literally tens if not hundreds of thousands of medical students and trainee surgeons throughout the world, as well as medical education policy.

Henry Ellis (later renamed Harold) was born in Stepney Green in the East End of London in 1926 to Jewish Emigres from what was Russia and is now Poland. His father was a barber and his mother ran a successful dress-making business although she never learnt to read or write. The youngest of four children, he won a scholarship to St Olave’s Grammar School Southwark, which was re-located to Torquay after the outbreak of the Second World War. He subsequently won a government scholarship to study medicine at the Queen’s College Oxford, where Wilfred Le Gros Clark was Dr Lee’s Professor of Anatomy and Solly Zuckerman was a lecturer in Anatomy. It is inconceivable that these great anatomists did not inspire and influence him.

Harold Ellis qualified as a doctor at the age of 22 years in July 1948, the same month that the National Health Service was established. He spent two years as a House Surgeon in Oxford and for his performance in the old Primary FRCS England examination he was awarded the Hallett prize for the best performance in the examination. I am not sure what the requirements for the prize were then, but the Hallett prize still exists and is awarded for the best performance in the year throughout the world in the MRCS England part A exam and the awardee must score over 90%, otherwise the prize is not awarded. In 1950 he was called up for National Service as a Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps, spending much of his time treating casualties with severe spinal and cranial injuries suffered in the Korean war.

After National Service Professor Ellis was appointed Resident Surgical Officer at Sheffield Royal infirmary and that is where he started teaching medical students on his firm. In 1955 he took up the post of Surgical Registrar at the Westminster Hospital and then spent four years as Senior Registrar and Surgical Tutor at the old Radcliffe infirmary in Oxford. He returned to the Westminster Hospital as Consultant Surgeon and Senior Lecturer and two years later in 1960 he was appointed Professor of Surgery in the University of London (at that time all academic appointments in London Medical Schools were University of London appointments). The Westminster Hospital Medical School did not have preclinical students, recruiting clinical students mainly from Oxbridge and other preclinical Schools, but of course he continued teaching clinical anatomy as part of his role albeit in theatre and clinics. The Westminster Hospital then in Horseferry Road, was involved in a number of major incidents in Central London. In 1974 Professor Ellis as lead surgeon at the Westminster operated on Princess Anne’s bodyguard to remove shrapnel and repair a perforated bowel after her attempted kidnap. He also treated casualties from the IRA bombings in Hyde Park and Regents Park in 1982 and the Libyan Embassy siege in 1984.

After Professor Ellis retired from surgery in 1989 he began a second career (officially this time) as Clinical Anatomist first at the University of Cambridge and then at Guy’s Hospital Medical School (now Kings College London), where he continued working until 2020 in his 95th year, when he was persuaded to stop taking the tube into central London because of the COVID pandemic. Throughout his second career he eschewed computers, Powerpoint presentations and the like because he considered them to be distractions from the material at hand. He preferred blackboard and chalk, because their effective use required simplicity and clarity and therefore a greater understanding of anatomy. Perhaps there is lesson for us all in that view.

Professor Ellis’ appointment as Clinical Anatomist was hardly his first foray into teaching anatomy. The first edition of his popular textbook (Clinical Anatomy) was published in 1960. It is now in its 14th Edition and has been continuously in print for 66 years. It has sold hundreds and thousands of copies in 190 countries throughout the world. At the last count Professor Ellis published 27 books and more than 400 papers reflecting his interest in clinical anatomy, education and medical history. He was still working at home until shortly before his death. He saw the print copy of the 5th Edition of Human Cross-Sectional Anatomy before it was published in April 2026 and although he will not see it in print, he finished working on the 15th revision of Clinical Anatomy shortly before his death. Although he would not have allowed it in his lifetime, his co-author of the 15th edition, Vishy Mahadevan, informed me that in future it will be entitled Ellis’ Clinical Anatomy. It is a sobering thought that Professor Ellis taught anatomy as a retirement career for longer than most people teach anatomy as their primary occupation, he leaves a considerable legacy.

Professor Ellis was elected Vice President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1986 and also served in a similar role in the Royal Society of Medicine. In 1987 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire for Services to Surgery. In 2011 he was awarded the Anatomical Society Prize and in 2013 awarded Honorary Fellowship of the Society in recognition of his services to Anatomy Education. 

The image above shows past president of the Anatomical Society Professor D. Ceri Davies awarding Emeritus Professor Harold Ellis the Anatomical Society Medal in recognition of his teaching excellence at the Joint Meeting of the Anatomical Society with the British Association of Clinical Anatomists and the Institute of Anatomical Sciences at Cardiff University (December 19-21, 2011).

The collage above shows pictures and a painting of Professor Harold Ellis. The picture on the left shows Professor Ellis receiving the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) award in 1987.