Richard James Arthur Berry

Prof Richard James Arthur Berry FRSE FRCSE (1867–1962) was a British-born surgeon and anatomist who rose to fame in Australia. He was author of several internationally recognised books in his field.

He was born on 30 May 1867, in Upholland in Lancashire, the son of James Berry a coal-merchant, and his wife Jane Barlow. His father died before he was born and he was largely raised by his grandfather. He was educated at small private schools in Southport, before winning a place at Cambridge University. However, he did not attend Cambridge and instead began an apprenticeship with a firm of shipbrokers in Liverpool. He then gained a place at Edinburgh University, and this he did take up, and went to Edinburgh to study medicine in May 1886. He graduated MB ChM in 1891.

He then took up a role of House Surgeon under Thomas Annandale at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary on Lauriston Place. In the same year Berry was elected President of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh. On receipt of his MD in 1894 he had written a prize-winning thesis on the Vermiform appendix.

In 1895 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the following year began to lecture in Anatomy at Edinburgh University.

In 1897 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

In December 1905 he was accepted for a role as Professor of Anatomy at Melbourne University and travelled over with his wife in February 1906 to replace Sir Harry Brookes Allen in his role of Head of Anatomy. The style of teaching was revolutionised by Berry. He taught until 1929. He also served as Honorary Psychiatrist at Melbourne Children’s Hospital. After settling into his new role he became interested in studies of the skulls of the aboriginals. His collection of skulls and bones was rediscovered in 2003. From this he developed a further interest in the skulls of mentally deficient children. He was a proponent of eugenics, supporting the killing of "the grosser types of our mental defectives".

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