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University of Edinburgh Collections

Sir John William Thomson-Walker (1871-1937), surgeon and print-collector, formed an outstanding collection of engraved portraits of European medical men dating from the 16th to the 20th centuries.

Born in Newport, Fife, Thomson-Walker was educated at the Edinburgh Institution and the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 1894, before undertaking postgraduate study in Vienna. He set up in Harley Street, London, as a consultant at King's College and St Peter's Hospitals, becoming one of the leading urologists of his day. In 1907 he was appointed a Hunterian Professor of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and was knighted in 1922. He held a number of visiting lectureships, and was elected President of the Medical Society of London in 1933.

Print collecting was his lifelong passion. In his will, Thomson-Walker bequeathed his collection to the University of Edinburgh, "in the hope of encouraging the study of the history of medicine on which this great medical school has had such a profound and lasting influence". The collection came to the University in 1939. Including subsequent accessions funded by his endowment, it now totals nearly 3,000 prints and a number of books on the art and technique of engraving. Digitisation of the prints is ongoing.

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