Walter S. Colman

Born in 1864, Walter Stacy Colman was educated at Bishop's Stortford and then trained in medicine at Peterborough Infirmary, the University of Edinburgh, and University College London. Early in his career he held appointments at the West London Hospital, the National Hospital, the North West London Hospital, and Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Colman is remembered in print for Section Cutting and Staining: A Practical Guide to the Preparation of Normal and Morbid Histological Specimens, published in 1888. The book reflects his gift for making technical work usable and exact, offering hands-on instruction in histological methods for medical readers.

His later work centered on the National Hospital at Queen Square and Great Ormond Street, and in 1898 he became assistant physician at St Thomas's Hospital with responsibility for the children's department. He served in France during the First World War, but poor health forced him to retire from full-time medicine in 1918. From 1922 to 1931 he also served on the Surrey County Council, where he campaigned for improvements to the county's mental hospitals.