Macdonald, Greville, 1856-1944

British throat surgeon and author, son of author George MacDonald.

Greville MacDonald was born in Manchester, England, on January 20, 1856. He was the eldest son of the notable Scottish poet and novelist, George MacDonald. His interest in literature is traced to his early childhood when his mother read him the finished manuscripts of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, and the newly written fairy-tales of his father. His father invited some of the most notable British authors to his home including Matthew Arnold, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Lewis Carroll, and John Ruskin. Greville accompanied his father to the United States in 1872, and met such luminaries as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Mark Twain, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and John Greenleaf Whittier.

Instead of following his father's path as a writer, Greville MacDonald decided to pursue a career in the medical profession. He enrolled in King's College School and Hospital as a medical student in 1876. He received his Bachelor of Medicine degree in 1877 from the University of London with honors in materia medica and pharmaceutical chemistry. He briefly served as an assistant to Joseph Lister where his main responsibilities were to clean and sterilize surgical instruments.

Greville MacDonald had a distinguished career as a throat specialist (1877-1904) and held positions such as Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy at King's College (1885), Resident Medical Officer to the Hospital for Diseases of the Throat (1886-87), and Professor of Laryncology at King's College (1898-1904). He wrote numerous treatises on laryncology and drew large classes to his lectures. He belonged to numerous medical associations including Member of the Royal College of Physicians (1877), president of the throat section of the British Medical Association (1897), and a Corresponding Fellow of the American Laryngological Association. Lingering deafness prompted him to resign his offices in 1904 and retire to Haslemere, England.

Greville MacDonald spent the remaining forty years of his life writing novels for children and delving into biographical and autobiographical genres. He produced new editions of his father's compositions, including his fairy-tale Phantastes. Greville MacDonald was also an accomplished critic, which is evident in his analysis of his father's novels and poems in The Life of George MacDonald and his Wife (1924). Greville MacDonald died at his home in Halsmere on November 3, 1944.