# Alfred White Franklin

Alfred White Franklin FRCP (2 June 1905 – 20 September 1984) was an English neonatologist and paediatrician who edited numerous books on child abuse, founded the British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, kept an interest in medical history and wrote on child matters. He was a prominent figure in the field of child abuse prevention.
He co-founded the Osler Club of London while he was a medical student at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London and later wrote a biography of Sir William Osler.
After qualifying from St Bartholomew's, he became a paediatrician with the Emergency Medical Service during the Second World War. He became one of England's early neonatologists at the Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital, after which he held a position as senior physician in the children's department at St Bartholomew's and eventually head of its department, remaining there until retirement.
Franklin was a member of Council of the Royal College of Physicians, president of the British Paediatric Association and president of the British Society for Medical History. Subsequently, he became president of the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (now the Association of Child Protection Professionals).

## Early life and family

Alfred White Franklin, also known as "the bishop", was born in London on 2 June 1905, to Philip Franklin, an Ear, Nose and Throat surgeon in Wimpole Street, and Ethel Julia.
At 6.30am on 10 November 1935 there was a fire at number 27, where his parents lived. Five people died, including his mother. From a letter in The Times newspaper, this incident led to the 999 emergency number being implemented on 30 July 1937.
After completing his early schooling at The Hall School, Hampstead, he attended Epsom College, where he was a prefect, studied the classics and won numerous prizes including the Engledue Essay and Rosebery English Literature Prize.
In 1943, Franklin married Ann Grizel Vaisey of Twickenham, daughter of Francis Vaisey, a clerk in holy orders. The wedding was at 2.30pm on 30 January 1943 at St Martin in the Fields.
Ann was born 28 February 1920 in Brereton, Cheshire, where her father was the vicar. Her parents, Rev Francis Dent Vaisey and Dorothy May Whatmore, had married on 16 January 1917 at St Martin in the Fields. Dorothy was the daughter of Charles Arthur Whatmore, of Hinckley in Leicestershire, who had died on 15 September 1924 aged 58. He had heart disease for many years.
Ann's mother was the headmistress of Hinckley High School for Girls (became Mount Grace High School in 1959). Ann's father taught science at Hinckley Grammar from 1896. The father of Francis Vaisey was Ernest Dent Vaisey, who was joint general manager of the Capital and Counties Bank, before it was taken over in 1918.
Dorothy's brother, Walter Roland Tracy Whatmore, who attended the Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys, married in Beckenham on 19 August 1933. Another brother, of Dorothy, was the actor and playwright Arthur Reginald Whatmore. Rev Francis Dent died aged 48 on 30 December 1933 from pneumonia.
Dorothy May Vaisey was awarded the DCVO in the 1962 Birthday Honours. Dorothy died suddenly on 19 November 1969, at the annual general meeting of the national charity that she operated.
Ann's sister Barbara married Ian Gurney Macintyre in 1945, then Arthur Mudge Cardale, of Stratton, Cornwall on 7 December at St Michael's Church, Chester Square by the Bishop of Leicester. Barbara had a son on 5 May 1950 Arthur became vicar of Abinger in Surrey Barbara died aged 78 on 10 November 1999, when living in Wareham, Dorset. Her husband Arthur had died on 27 August 1990.
They had four children. Victoria was born on 24 March. Their son Andrew was born on 7 May 1948. From the 1940s they lived at 'The Cottage' at Northaw in Hertfordshire. Their son Philip married in 1977.
Ann died on 31 May 1990.
Alfred's sister Betty married Edward Leyland Pemberton (1904-74), of Bedford Gardens House, in May 1938. Betty died on 29 January 2009 aged 100, living at West Runton in Norfolk.
Franklin's work on child abuse and neglect was most likely encouraged by his wife, who was a social worker and magistrate.

## Medical training and the Osler Club

Franklin received a scholarship to study medicine at Clare College, Cambridge. In 1926, whilst at Cambridge, he went on a transatlantic trip to Canada and the US with the Cambridge University Medical Society and became enchanted by William Osler, the 'Oslerian legacy' and "the value" of maintaining "cooperation between the English speaking peoples". A year later, as a medical student at St Bartholomew's Hospital, Franklin was the Lawrence scholar and a gold medallist. Here, he became good friends with Walter Reginald Bett. In their plans to form a student club of medical history, Franklin had wished to name it after his hero, Sir Clifford Allbutt. However, Bett had his own ideas and took Franklin to visit Sir William's home in Oxford and spoke to his [Sir William's] nephew, Dr. Francis. Franklin noted in his diary that "during that morning I was infected, as Bett planned, with the virus of Oslerolatry". Franklin had co-founded this elite 'Osler Club', which then met and dined regularly at Franklin's home in Harley Street, where he lived with his father.
He graduated from St Bartholomew's in 1933.

## Career

Between 1934 and 1935, Franklin was Temple Cross research fellow at Johns Hopkins Hospital, returning to St Bartholomew's as assistant physician in the children's department.

### Neonatology

Franklin became one of the UK's earliest neonatologists, assisting under Alan Moncrieff at Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital. During the Second World War, he worked at Hill End and St Alban's Hospitals as a paediatrician for Sector 3 of the Emergency Medical Service.

### Appointments

He was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1942, followed three years later by his appointment as physician to the children's department at St Bartholomew's Hospital, of which he became head in 1965. Franklin held his teaching sessions in the hospital ward playrooms and was described in Munk's Roll as having an "intuitive understanding of the problems and distress, both emotional and practical, suffered by the family of a sick – perhaps mortally – or handicapped child".
Franklin was a member of the college council from 1966 to 1969, president of the British Paediatric Association from 1968 to 1969 and president of the British Society for Medical History from 1974 to 1976. Between 1970 and 1978, he was Deputy Chairman of the Attendance Allowance Board of the Department of Health and Social Security. Later, he became president of the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect from 1981 to 1982.
Franklin was Osler orator in 1971 and he remained in close contact with the Osler Library of the History of Medicine at the McGill University, Montreal. He later wrote a biography of William Osler.

### Child protection

Franklin was one of the first to recognise that child abuse was much more common and serious in the United Kingdom than the public realised and that the cooperation between the different professions involved was inadequate. Franklin argued that perpetrators of child abuse could only be stopped if, like sufferers from leprosy and venereal disease in the past, society allowed them to come into the open. His approach was instrumental in bringing together doctors, social workers and lawyers to coordinate investigations into child abuse. He established a working party that initiated the Tunbridge Wells Study Group in 1973, a small interdisciplinary group that sowed the seed of the now large British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. and the subsequent historical landmark book, Concerning Child Abuse.

## Later life

Franklin spent his later life deeply involved in child protection and working to prevent child abuse. He continued to edit numerous books on child abuse, kept his interest in medical history and carried on writing on child matters.
He died on 20 September 1984, while on holiday in Italy.

## Selected publications

His publications include;

### Authored

* Pastoral paediatrics (1976)
* Widening horizons of child health: a study of the medical health needs of children in England and Wales (1976)

### Edited

* The care of invalid and crippled children (Oxford University Press, London, 1960)
* World-blindness or specific developmental dyslexia (Pitman Medical Publishing Company, London, 1962)
* Cancer report 1948-1952 with M P Curwen (E & S Livingstone, Edinburgh & London, 1963)
* Children with communication problems (Pitman Medical Publishing Company, London, 1965)
* Selected writings of Lord Moynihan (Pitman Medical Publishing Company, London, 1967)
* Assessment and teaching of dyslexic children with Sandhya Naidoo (London, 1970)
* The Tunbridge Wells study group on non-accidental injury to children: report and resolutions (Tunbridge Wells, 1973) (compiler)
* Concerning child abuse: papers presented by the Tunbridge Wells study group on non-accidental injury to children (Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, 1975)
* The challenge of child abuse: proceedings of a conference sponsored by the Royal Society of Medicine, 2–4 June 1976 (1977)
* Child abuse: prediction, prevention and follow up (1977)
* The abused child in the family and in the community: selected papers from the second international congress on child abuse and neglect, London, 1978 with C Henry Kempe and Christine Cooper (1980)
* Family matters: perspectives on the family and social policy (1983)