This bronze bust was made by Elsie McPhie circa 1980. McPhie was the wife of Richmond’s Church Elder in Sheffield. The piece is sculpted from bronze and is mounted on a marble base. Richmond is depicted from the neck up, in contrast to the majority of busts in the collection which usually contain a section of the shoulders. McPhie appears, in this work at least, to be influenced by realism and her work offers the opportunity to compare the nineteenth century busts which dominate the College’s collection, with a more modern, twentieth century bust.
John Richmond (1926 - 2008)
Richmond studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, qualifying with a distinction in July 1948. During the Second World War he was called up and spent the majority of his National Service as Medical Offer to the 1st Nyasaland Battalion of the King’s African Rifles based in Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia.
In 1953 he was working at the Royal Infirmary and was encouraged to develop his interest in haematology and oncology, spending a year as a Fulbright Scholar in New York at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, becoming a Senior Lecturer in Medicine and Honorary Consultant Physician in 1693. His research focussed principally on the disorders of the spleen although he was also acknowledged for his all-round excellence in clinical practice
Richmond also became a Professor and Dean of the medical school at the University of Sheffield as well as Senior Censor and Vice-President at the Royal College of Physicians of London. From 1988-1991 he was also president of the RCPE.