page_title: W. H. R. Rivers
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: W. H. R. Rivers / Biography / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: View of the front of Tonbridge School in 2008
context_page_description: William Halse Rivers Rivers was an English anthropologist, neurologist, ethnologist and psychiatrist, best known for his work treating First World War officers who were suffering from shell shock. Rivers' most famous patient was the poet Siegfried Sassoon, with whom he remained close friends until his own sudden death. Rivers was a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, and is also notable for his participation in the Torres Straits expedition of 1898 and his consequent seminal work on the subject of kinship.
context_section_description: William Halse Rivers Rivers was the oldest of four children, with his siblings being brother Charles Hay (29 August 1865 – 8 November 1939) and sisters Ethel Marian (30 October 1867 – 4 February 1943) and Katharine Elizabeth (1871–1939).
  William, known as "Willie" throughout his childhood, appears to have taken his Christian name from his famous uncle of Victory fame, as well as from a longstanding family tradition whereby the eldest son of every line would be baptised by that name. The origin of "Halse" is unclear, though it is possible that there is some naval connection as it has been suggested that it could have been the name of someone serving alongside his uncle. Slobodin states that it is probable that the second "Rivers" entered his name as a result of a clerical error on the baptismal certificate but since the register is filled in by his father's hand and he was to perform the ceremony, one would think it unlikely that a mistake would have been made in this case. Slobodin is correct to note that there is a mistake on the registry of his birth but since his name was changed from the mistaken "William False Rivers Rivers" to its later form, it seems probable that "Rivers" was intended to appear as a given name as well as a surname.
  Ironically, given family interest in the subject, Rivers suffered from a stammer that never truly left him, he also had no sensory memory although he was able to visualise to an extent if dreaming, in a half-waking, half-sleeping state or when feverish. This had not always been the case; Rivers notes that in his early life- specifically before the age of five- his visual imagery was far more definite than it became in later life and perhaps as good as that of the average child.
  At first, Rivers had concluded that his loss of visual imagery had come about as a result of his lack of attention and interest in it.  However, as he later came to realise, while images from his later life frequently faded into obscurity, those from his infancy still remained vivid.
  As Rivers notes in Instinct and the Unconscious, one manifestation of his lack of visual memory was his inability to visualise any part of the upper floor of the house he lived in until he was five. This visual blank is made even more significant by the fact that Rivers was able to describe the lower floors of that particular house with far more accuracy than he had been able to with any house since and, although images of later houses were faded and incomplete, no memory since had been as inaccessible as that of the upper floor of his early home.  With the evidence that he was presented with, Rivers was led to the conclusion that something had happened to him on the upper floor of that house, the memory of which was entirely suppressed because it "interfered with [his] comfort and happiness". Indeed, not only was that specific memory rendered inaccessible but his sensory memory in general appears to have been severely handicapped from that moment.
  If Rivers ever did come to access the veiled memory then he does not appear to make a note of it so the nature of the experience is open to conjecture. One such supposition was put forward by Pat Barker, in the second novel in her Regeneration Trilogy, The Eye in the Door. Whatever the case, in the words of Barker's character Billy Prior, Rivers's experience was traumatic enough to cause him to "put his mind's eye out".
  Whatever his disadvantages, Rivers was an unquestionably able child. Educated first at a Brighton preparatory school and then, from the age of thirteen, as a dayboy at the prestigious Tonbridge School, his academic abilities were noted from an early age. Young Rivers's talents led to him being placed a year above others of his age at school and even within this older group he was seen to excel, winning prizes for Classics and all around attainment. It is also worth noting that Rivers's younger brother Charles was also a high achiever at the school; he too was awarded with the Good Work prize and would go on to become a civil engineer until, after a bad bout of malaria cont
caption: Tonbridge School where Rivers and his brother Charles were day-boys
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