Professor John Martin Munro Kerr (1868-1960) was an obstetrician and gynaecologist, and Regius Professor of Midwifery at the University of Glasgow (1927-1934). Munro Kerr was also a prominent figure in the foundation of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists: one of the signatories of the Articles of Association which established the College in 1929, he became the first Vice President in 1930, and was instrumental in attracting the attention of the newspaper proprietor, Lord Riddell, by whose generosity the first College House in Queen Anne Street was maintained.
Professor Munro Kerr was born in Glasgow, the son of a ship and insurance broker, and was educated at Glasgow Academy and Glasgow University, graduating in medicine in 1890. He held resident hospital posts in Scotland, and studied overseas in Berlin, Dublin and Vienna. On his return to Glasgow, he occupied a number of staff positions, including the Muirhead Chair of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, until his appointment as Regius Professor at Glasgow University in 1927.
Fluent in many languages with a flair for teaching, Munro Kerr was described as 'often informal, sometimes a little dramatic, but always fascinating', and his many testimonies support the image of a dapper, courteous and charming man, famed for his smart dress, elegance and the sporting of a monocle! Glasgow in the inter-war years provided an eager and talented doctor with food for experience in the form of a large volume of abnormal obstetrics, and Munro Kerr gained enormous experience as an obstetrician. He used this background to publish his widely influential textbook Operative Obstetrics in 1908, followed by Maternal Mortality & Morbidity in 1933, which earned him the award of the Katharine Bishop Harman Prize by the British Medical Association in recognition of his contribution toward the prevention of the risks of child-birth. From the 1920s, Professor Munro Kerr championed the case for the lower segment caesarean section as opposed to the classical vertical incision. He showcased this at the American Gynaecological Society meeting in Massachusetts in 1926, and his name is still linked with the procedure in the US today. Recognition of the superiority of the procedure came at the 1949 British Congress of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, at which event Munro Kerr is reported to have excitedly proclaimed from the podium: "Hallelujah! The battle's o'er; the victory's won".
Retiring to Canterbury, Kent in 1934, Professor Munro Kerr continued to write and keep his prominent place in the specialty: together with Professors Robert Johnstone and Miles Harris Phillips, he edited a Historical Review of British Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 1800-1950 (1954) which brought together the combined expertise of many of the Fellows of the College.
From the guide to the Papers of Professor John Munro Kerr, 1868-1947, (Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists)
