Alan Browne:ALAN BROWNE, who died last summer aged 87, was one of the most prominent and respected obstetricians of his generation. He was appointed master of the Rotunda Hospital and was professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Royal College of Surgeons, and was a tireless campaigner for improvements in maternity services both in this country and abroad.
Alan Drury Harling Browne was born in Dublin in 1923, the only child of Percy and Gladys Browne. His father was a partner in the solicitors’ firm of Whitney Moore Keller and served in the first World War (Royal Army Cyclist Observer Corps) and was awarded the Military Cross. An earlier generation of the family was responsible for setting up the Brown Thomas department store, and lived in Rathgar in a house called Oaklands – which is now St Luke’s Hospital.
Alan Browne was educated at Baymount Preparatory School in Dollymount – now the Jesuit Manresa retreat house. He went to Shrewsbury School in Shropshire, alma mater of Charles Darwin, because a relative had been there and enjoyed it.
He too enjoyed Shrewsbury and found time outside of the classroom for rowing and cross country running. He was appointed praeposter and head of house in 1941. He returned prematurely to Dublin because of the threat that German submarines in the Irish Sea posed to coming home on holidays. Memories were still strong of the sinking of the mailboat RMS Leinster, with the loss of 501 lives.
He entered the faculty of medicine at Trinity College. He joined the college boat club and was a member of the winning crew in the Irish National Senior VIII championships in three successive years. In 1946 he rowed in the first post-war Henley Royal Regatta where Trinity came a close second to Jesus College Cambridge in the final of the Ladies Challenge Plate. Later in life he followed with pleasure the rowing careers of his sons David and Philip, and more recently his grandson Jack.
He qualified in 1947 and entered Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital as house surgeon. Then he moved to the Rotunda Hospital, which gave him first-hand experience of domiciliary obstetrics in the Dublin slums, and this determined him to specialise in obstetrics and gynaecology. After training in Crumpsall Hospital in Manchester he obtained his MRCOG in 1950 and became assistant master at the Rotunda. As was the practice at the time, he took consulting rooms in Fitzwilliam Square which he shared with his Rotunda colleague, Sandy McVey.
In 1952 he married Pamela Sockett from Sligo and they had four sons, Ian, David, Philip and Roy. In 1960 he was appointed master of the Rotunda, and to his and Pam’s probable relief, they were not obliged to move into the somewhat-cramped master’s quarters in the hospital. Instead, a house was built in the grounds and masters continued to live there until 1988.
Money for hospitals was scarce and the Rotunda was showing its age. One improvement that could be afforded was a coat of paint, and he ordered that the entire hospital be so treated. For years afterwards he was affectionately referred to as Painter Browne, which was in a sense apt because painting (mainly oils, some watercolours) was a hobby of his.
Perinatal mortality was, perhaps, the greatest concern for maternity hospitals at the time. During his mastership it was reduced by almost one-third. In 1995, to mark the 250th anniversary of the Rotunda, he edited a book, Masters, Midwives and Ladies in Waiting, a detailed account of developments in the Rotunda between 1945 and 1995 – a period which saw the greatest changes in obstetrical care. He also organised an international congress to mark the anniversary.
In 1968 he was appointed professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Royal College of Surgeons, of which the Rotunda is a teaching hospital. He held this post until his retirement in 1988. In this capacity he was a frequent visitor to Libya and Saudi Arabia, where the college played a significant role in developing maternity services. He was a fellow of the RCOG, the RCPI and the RCSI.
In the 1970s he set up one of the earliest sex education programmes for secondary schools, incurring the wrath of some conservative groups. He was a person for whom retirement had no meaning. He produced a computerised catalogue of the huge number of obstetric and gynaecological books published prior to 1900 – some dating back to the 16th century, which were uncatalogued and unknowingly held – in Mercer’s Hospital collections in the College of Surgeons. He then moved on to the collection of the College of Physicians. The Mercer’s collection was discovered to be of great international importance.
What he had of free time he liked to spend at his holiday home in Sligo, where sailing was a particular passion. A polymath, most years he and Pam went on a “classics” holiday, visiting Roman, Greek and Arabic sites.
He was a strong supporter of the Church of Ireland, serving on the Select Vestry of Zion Parish in Rathgar for many years – a church his grandfather had been instrumental in building as a Chapel of Ease for Rathfarnham Parish. He also served on the Representative Church Body of the Church of Ireland, and advised the church on medical ethical issues such as contraception. He was also a keen supporter of the Ministry of Healing, which necessitated travel throughout the country.
He was an active member of the Ancient and Benevolent Order of the Friendly Brothers of St Patrick, a society originally formed in the 18th century with the principal object of abolishing the “barbarous practice of duelling”. The society’s branches were known as knots which symbolised the “knot of friendship that joins its brethren together”. Today, the knots promote friendship and good works.
His funeral service was led by Rev John Marchant and the address was by the Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Very Rev Dr Robert McCarthy, in Zion Church where he had been baptised 87 years earlier. A memorial service will be held at 5pm on Friday, December 10th, in the chapel of the Rotunda Hospital.
Alan DH Browne: born August 5th, 1923; died August 30th, 2010