Armytage, Vivian Bartley Green-., 1882-1961

Vivian Bartley Green-Armytage was born in Clifton, Bristol in 1882, the son of a solicitor. He graduated from the University of Bristol in 1906, and was commissioned in the Indian Medical Service in 1907, having won the Montefiore Surgical Medal while at the Royal Army Medical College. As a resident doctor and surgeon at the Eden Hospital, Calcutta, he is said to have received ‘his gynaecological baptism’ in the ‘constant and ever-flowing stream of sick and diseased women’, and to the time he left India in 1933 as Professor of Midwifery and Gynaecology at the Calcutta University, he drew his clientele from all over the continent, such was his reputation.

Green-Armytage served with distinction during the First World War, being mentioned in despatches three times, and receiving the Mons Star, the Croix de Chevalier, and the French Legion of Honour, a high-ranking honour of which he was justly proud.

On returning to London in 1933, Green-Armytage joined the honorary staff of the West London Hospital and built up a successful consulting practice in Harley Street, becoming ‘an important part of the London scene in obstetrics and gynaecology’. Although he was absent in India during the foundation years of the British College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, he had however been a recipient of one of the original invitations to join as a Foundation Fellow in 1929, and he served the College with great vigour as Chairman of the Indian Reference Committee between 1931 and 1933, retaining the links between the College and its Fellows and Members in India. He later served as College Vice-President between 1949 and 1952, under the presidency of Dame Hilda Lloyd, and doubtless used his international sympathies to great effect as Overseas Officer.