Head and shoulders image of Dr. John C. Brocklehurst, chairman, Department of Geriatric Medicine, seated at his desk.

Bio/Historical Note: Dr. John Charles Brocklehurst was born on 31 May 1924 in Liverpool, England. His family moved to Scotland and he was educated at Glasgow High School and Ayr Academy before graduating in medicine from University of Glasgow in 1947. Dr. Brocklehurst was awarded the Christine Hanson Research Fellowship and carried out research into bladder and bowel incontinence in old people using cystometry with smoked drums. This was carried out as a resident at Foresthall which at the time was the Glasgow Workhouse but became Foresthall Hospital with the arrival of the NHS. Dr. Brocklehurst was awarded the Bellahouston Gold Medal for his MD thesis and wrote the first of many books – ‘Incontinence in Old People’ in 1950. He then did his National Service in the RAMC during 1950-1951, mostly as the SMO on a troopship – the Empire Medway. Dr. Brocklehurst then returned to Glasgow as assistant lecturer in the Department of Materia Medica and Therapeutics at Stobhill Hospital. He held various junior posts between 1951 to 1955, and then joined the Grenfell Mission in Labrador as a medical officer. In 1957 he returned to the UK and, until 1960, he held trainee appointments in general practice and general medicine. From 1961-1969 he was a consultant geriatrician in Bromley, Cray Valley and Sevenoaks. From 1970 he was appointed as professor of geriatric medicine at the University of Manchester, where he established the unit for biological ageing research, and pioneered the teaching of geriatric medicine. In 1978-1979 Dr. Brocklehurst was professor and chairman of the division of geriatric medicine at the University of Saskatchewan. He retired from his Manchester professorship in 1990 and joined the Royal College of Physicians’ research unit. He finally retired in 1999, aged 75. Dr. Brocklehurst died on 27 June 2013.