Catalogue of papers and correspondence of EDWARD GEORGE TANDY LIDDELL FRS (1895-1981);...

SECTION A TEACHING AND RESEARCH A.1 - A.7

SECTION B WRITINGS AND LECTURES ON SHERRINGTON B.1 - B.36

SECTION C CORRESPONDENCE C.1

Compiled by Jeannine Alton and Peter Harper

The work of the Contemporary Scientific Archives Centre, and the production of this catalogue, are made possible by the support of the following societies and institutions:

The Biochemical Society

The Charles Babbage Foundation for the History of Information Processing

The Institute of Physics

The Institution of Electrical Engineers

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers

The Nuffield Foundation

The Rhodes Trustees

The Royal Society of London

The Wolfson Foundation

We are grateful to Professor C.G. Phillips for making the material available, and for information and help in identifying some of the documents and correspondence.

<p>For a detailed biographical account see the memoir by C.G. Phillips (Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 29, 1983).</p>

This small collection of material was received from Professor C.G. Phillips, FRS, author of the Memoir of Liddell (Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 29, 1983).

As an undergraduate at Oxford during the First World War, Liddell fell under the spell of C.S. Sherrington, then Waynflete Professor of Physiology, and later began his research career as Sherrington's assistant. It is material reflecting the connection with Sherrington and the great admiration which Liddell had for Sherrington's contribution to Physiology that predominates in the collection. The most substantial body of material relates to writings and lectures on Sherrington and his place in the history of physiology, which occupied Liddell in the years following Sherrington's death in 1952 and which culminated in the publication of The Discovery of Reflexes in 1960. There is correspondence requesting information from colleagues and others, manuscript and typescript drafts, often very heavily corrected, and Liddell's background notes drawn from classic nineteenth-century physiology texts.

There are two further groups of material of considerable interest: teaching material used in the Physiology Department at Oxford in the 1920s (lesson plans and instructions for practical classes, some of which are in Sherrington's hand) and a detailed record of the 1929-30 'knee-jerk' series of experiments on which Liddell collaborated with J.F. Fulton and D. Rioch.

The very small correspondence section includes one late (1946) letter from Sherrington.

SUMMARY OF CAREER OF E.G.T. LIDDELL

b.1895 Harrogate

1914-18 Trinity College, Oxford

1918 Assistant, Serum Department, Lister Institute

1918 Senior Demyship, Magdalen College, Oxford

1921 B.M. Oxford

1921-40 Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford and University Lecturer in Physiology

1939 FRS

1940-60 Waynflete Professor of Physiology and Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford

1960 Professor Emeritus