Long-standing Medico Legal Society member, Professor Kevin Dalton, retired Obstetrician & Gynaecologist and Legal Medicine of St Catharine’s College Cambridge also quondam Visiting Professor to Northumbria University School of Law, has kindly given the Society a letter of historical interest.
He bought it many years ago from an antiquarian book dealer in London.
The original letter will now be kept with the President’s medallion of office.
The letter, dated 15 September 1904, is a reply from Charles Hopwood KC to the Council of the Society, who wished Charles Hopwood to become the next President.
I have transcribed the letter below as the original is quite difficult to read.
Dear Sir
I am very sensible of the compliment paid to me by the Council in nominating me to be President in succession to Sir WJ Collins were I younger and less employed in objects to which I feel bound, I should be happy to preside over so intellectual, and useful a Society, but my engagements & the sense of my unfitness make it imperative upon me to decline the honour with many thanks.
Believe me.
Truly yours,
Charles H Hopwood
Sir William Collins KCVO MD continued as President for another year, until he was succeeded by The Hon Mr Justice Walton in 1905. Charles Hopwood KC, unfortunately, died only a month after the letter was written.
Charles Hopwood served as a Liberal Member of Parliament from 1874 to 1895. He campaigned against compulsory smallpox vaccination under the Vaccination Act of 1853. He is referred to as an ‘’anti vaccinationist’’. However, further research reveals his concerns more to do with compulsory vaccination and the lack of consent (by the ‘’fathers’’).
On June 19 1883, He spoke in a parliamentary debate on Compulsory Vaccination.
The debate raised concepts of autonomy and individual liberty. Herd immunity, vaccine side-effects (cowpox vaccines), differences in society between the wealthy for whom a fine would be no matter and the poor who would be criminalised and sent to prison, coercion of women vaccinated against smallpox immediately after giving birth, and the efficacy of vaccination versus the natural history of the disease. Many of these topics remain of a pertinent medico legal interest today.
Sarah Galbraith
