In 1913, Robert Lovett (Boston, USA), Robert Jones (UK), and Vittorio Putti (Italy) discussed establishing an International Orthopaedic Society. The war intervened. In 1923, the same three surgeons revisited the topic; however, Robert Lovett died suddenly at Robert Jones’s home on July 2, 1924. Plans were once again delayed. In July 1929, during a meeting of the American and British Orthopaedic Associations in London, the plans came to fruition, with Robert Jones playing a key role. Although Robert Jones did not attend the inaugural meeting in Paris, Sir Thomas Fairbank represented his views.

Sir Robert became the first President (Fig. 1), and in his address, he said: “It is quite impossible for me to express the pride I feel in being selected as your first president. I have received many and distinguished honours at the hands of my professional brethren, for which I am profoundly grateful. None has touched me more deeply than your election of me to the exalted position of first President of the International Congress of Orthopaedic Surgery, where I see before me so many surgeons from all countries;”

Sir Robert Jones was born on June 28, 1858, in Rhyl, a town on the north coast of Wales. Sir Robert Jones Jr. was the son of Robert Jones Sr., who was born in 1836 in Rhyl, North Wales. His father was an architect in Rhyl. Robert Sr. had a sister named Elizabeth, who married Hugh Owen Thomas in 1864. Robert Sr. studied architecture in Manchester but gave up his studies at age 19 to marry Mary Hughes of Rhuddlan, Flintshire, on September 26, 1856. Robert Jr. was born in 1858. In 1862, when Robert Jr. was five, the family moved to London, where Robert Sr. worked as a journalist and was the editor of the Heraldic Register of the House of Commons. They initially lived in Nelson Square before moving to Walworth near Ludgate Hill Station.

In 1869, Robert (Jnr) attended Sydenham College in Southeast London for three years and was awarded a silver shield for cricket. His time there was described as happy. He and his brother John went to sea on “The Whimpel,” sailing from London to Newport, but they decided to leave the ship at Deal. Robert (Jnr)’s uncle, Hugh Owen Thomas (H.O.T.), was part of a long line of Welshmen who combined farming with bone-setting. Hugh was the first bone-setter to earn a medical degree, obtaining his MRCS in 1857. In 1870, after a period in Paris, Hugh settled at 11 Nelson Street, Liverpool, and practiced as an orthopedic surgeon with his father, Evan Thomas, who was a “Bone Setter.” In 1859, H.O.T. left his father’s practice “on grounds of incompatibility and temperament.” His father retired in 1863. Hugh moved back to 11 Nelson Street in 1870. He had no children.

Robert (Jnr) met his uncle when he was a small boy during a family trip back to Liverpool for holidays. Hugh Owen Thomas had no children and offered his nephew, Robert, a home in Liverpool to study medicine. In 1873, Robert (Jnr) went to live with H.O.T., who had the reputation of being “original to the point of eccentricity, autocratic, solitary, and indifferent to public opinion.” Robert (Jnr) attended Myrtle Street Church every Sunday with Hugh’s wife while Hugh conducted clinics at his house. Robert’s father died in London in 1875 at the age of 39 from typhoid, when Robert (Jnr) was 18 years old.

On March 16, 1887, Robert (Jnr) married Susannah (Susie) Evans (d.1918), the daughter of William Evans, a prominent Liverpool merchant. They had two children: Arthur Probyn Jones, LLB, a barrister (d.1951), and Hilda, who married Frederick Watson. The family home was where Robert conducted his private practice until 1905, when the family moved to 11 Belvidere Road, just across from Princes Park, Liverpool. Nelson Street was then dedicated to his professional work.

Robert Jones entered Medical School at Liverpool in 1873. He failed his Primary Fellowship Examination in anatomy and physiology in London on 2nd April 1875 but passed it on 13th July 1875 at age 17. He commenced his apprenticeship, passed onto Assistantship and gained a Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons, graduating in 1878 and joined his uncle’s practice at age 21. In 1881 he became Honorary Assistant Surgeon at the Stanley Hospital and was appointed Surgeon in 1886. In 1885, he moved from 11Nelson Street and set up practice by himself at 22 Great George Square. In 1889, having become a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh he was appointed Honorary Surgeon at the Royal Southern Hospital, Liverpool and Dean of the Clinical School, University of Liverpool. He continued his practice, not especially as an orthopaedic surgeon but as a General Surgeon until 1905 when he abandoned all general surgery. When H.O.T died on 6th January 1891, Robert and “Susie” moved into 11 Nelson Street to live and undertake private practice. He continued the free Sunday clinic that his uncle had pioneered.

On November 11, 1887, the first sod was cut for the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal, which would employ 20,000 men. Robert Jones was offered the job as surgeon to the company for $3,000 a year but he declined. The next year, he was appointed Medical Superintendent and Consulting Surgeon for the project. There were 3,000 casualties over five years, and Jones established three hospitals along the canal to serve various casualty clearing stations. He performed over 300 surgeries at these hospitals. The canal was officially opened by Queen Victoria on November 20, 1893.

On hearing of the news of the invention of X-Rays, Robert Jones immediately travelled to Germany and brought back the equipment and he and Dr Thurston Holland, an assistant at Nelson Street, took the first X-ray in UK. It was of a boy’s wrist with a bullet lodged in it. Jones was an early member of the Roentgen Society.

He was a pioneer in treating musculoskeletal diseases using open air and sunshine. This approach was initiated by Miss Agnes Hunt in several sheds in the village of Baschurch near Oswestry. She was a qualified nurse who was also crippled herself. Periodically, she would take several children by train to the Royal Southern Hospital to see Robert Jones. He was very impressed by how the children’s health improved during their treatment at Baschurch. He believed that good health was crucial in modern orthopedic surgery. As a result, he visited Baschurch and began operating there. Jones would drive the sixty miles from Liverpool, arriving at 10:30 am, see forty to fifty outpatients, then start surgeries at 1pm, finishing around 7 pm, and drive back to Liverpool. Open air hospitals were a new concept, but this marked the beginning of the Oswestry Orthopedic Hospital, which is now world-famous. He later founded the Liverpool Children’s Hospital at Heswall in Cheshire based on the same principles.

Liverpool was the port at which all transatlantic ships from America would disembark, so any surgeon visiting the UK would take advantage of visiting the Liverpool hospitals. Robert Jones was always welcoming. His name became more famous abroad than it was in UK.

In 1909, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh awarded him the Liston Victoria Jubilee Prize for “the greatest benefit done in practical surgery by any Fellow or Licentiate of the College during the preceding quadrennial period”. He was described as one of the most excellent living surgeons.

He was recognised overseas by many national orthopaedic societies in: France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and United States. He received the Honorary Degree from the Universities of Harvard, Liverpool, Wales, the Smith College USA and was Deputy Lieutenant (DL), Lancaster. In 1913 he was President of the Orthopaedic Section of the 17th International Conference of Medicine. Many famous orthopaedic surgeons from the Continent attended including Max Bohn (Berlin), Calve (Paris), Depage (Brussels), Jansen (Leiden), Putti (Bologna), Spitzy (Vienna), Vulpius, (Heidelberg) Turner (St.Petersburg) and Robert Lovett (Boston, USA). This was the meeting when the idea of SICOT was formulated.

Within a year of that meeting, the world was at war. Jones was 57 years old. In 1908, Jones accepted a commission as Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps in the newly formed Territorial Force. By 1914, he was promoted to Major and briefly served as a Medical Officer in France. He also published a small booklet for military surgeons titled “Injuries to Joints”.

During 1914, the British Army was using the Liston splint, which was designed by Robert Liston in 1847, ten years before Jones was born. Some argued that a rifle made a better splint. Robert Jones advised the Army to adopt the Thomas Splint, developed by his uncle. Noel Chavasse VC and bar served as a House Surgeon to Robert Jones for a year at the Royal Southern Hospital and was instrumental in ensuring Jones’s recommendations were accepted by the British Army. The use of the Thomas Splint reduced the mortality rate from a compound femur fracture from 80% to 20%. Robert Jones convinced the government of the importance of rehabilitation for the injured, which led to his promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and appointment in charge of a 400-bed hospital at Alder Hey in Liverpool. Following the success at Alder Hey, 30,000 beds were established across the UK to care for the wounded, including the hospital at Shepherd’s Bush in London. He was subsequently appointed Director-General of Military Orthopaedics with the rank of Major-General, a member of the War Office Advisory Board, and later served as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Ministry of Pensions. He received the Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) on January 1, 1917, was knighted as a Knight Bachelor on June 13, 1917, named Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) on June 3, 1919, and was created a Baronet on January 28, 1926.

In October 1919, Jones and Gaythorne Girdlestone of Oxford published the proposed national scheme for the treatment of the crippled child. The plan was that England and Wales should be mapped out into districts about 100 miles across, with a fully equipped open-air orthopaedic hospital at the centre of each and a number of outpatient clinics scattered about it. The National Scheme had started in Shropshire in 1918 and by the time Robert Jones died in 1933, Scotland and Northern Ireland had adopted the scheme. By 1935 there were 6000 orthopaedic beds in 40 orthopaedic hospitals with 400 orthopaedic clinics.

Robert Jones was a driving force behind the foundation of the British Orthopaedic Association. At a Holborn restaurant on 3rd November 1894, Robert Jones and Alfred Tubby and others formed the British Orthopaedic Society which met for four years but was not heard of thereafter. On 28th November 1917, a dinner at the Café Royal in London led to the formation of the British Orthopaedic Association. Jones did not attend the dinner, but Robert Osgood (Boston Children’s Hospital), whom Jones met in 1903 and who served as Deputy to Major-General Sir Robert Jones persuaded Jones to invite a selected group of orthopaedic surgeons to the dinner to launch the British Orthopaedic Association. The inaugural meeting was held on 2nd February 1918, with Robert Jones as a Founding Member. He was President 1920-25. Sir Robert became the “Perpetual President” of the Association and his name is synonymous with the BOA. The BOA awards the Robert Jones Gold Medal for the best essay at every meeting and conference delegates compete for the Robert Jones Golf Cup. The prestigious Robert |Jones Lecture is sponsored by the Royal College of Surgeons of England at the yearly Conference and the deliverer is a guest at the Robert Jones Dining Club where a silent toast is always made in honour of Sir Robert at 21.00 h.

Sir Robert retired from the Royal Southern Hospital in 1921. He continued in his private practice in Liverpool until his death in 1933 at the age of 74. He had enjoyed good health until 1924 when he suffered from rheumatic gout which crippled him on occasions. As a result of this ailment, he gave up his practice in London in 1927.

He was an all-round athlete, excelling in shooting, boxing and horse riding. He had one of the finest collections of boxing books and prints and attended most great fights from the 1890’s onward. Cricket was his favourite sport. He was proud of the fact that, as a schoolboy, he bowled out the famous WG Grace. He loved large dogs and had an Irish wolfhound, an Alsatian, and a St Bernard at his house near Princes Park.

He died after a short cardiac illness on 14th January 1933 at his home in Liverpool [4]. His remains were cremated and the ashes interred in Liverpool Cathedral.