Dr Gwenda D. Leedham (1959)

Provided by Michael Larkin

Dr Gwenda Dorothy Leedham M.B., B.S., M.R.C.O.G., M.M.S.A.

Gwenda Dorothy Leedham (née Larkin) was born in London in December 1935. After attending Blackheath High School, she entered Charing Cross Hospital Medical School with an entrance scholarship in 1954. While in the Medical School, she was awarded a number of prizes, including, in 1959, winning the Governors’ clinical gold medal and sharing the Llewellyn Prize.

After pre-registration posts as House Physician at the Charing Cross Unit, Mount Vernon Hospital and as House Surgeon at Charing Cross hospital, in 1960 she took posts as house surgeon and senior house surgeon in obstetrics and gynaecology at the British Hospital for Mothers and Babies, Woolwich, Mount Vernon Hospital and Pembury Hospital.

In 1963 she was admitted to the Society of Apothecaries of London as a Master of Midwifery (M.M.S.A.), and she was also admitted as a Freeman of the City of London. In 1964 she attained Membership of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (M.R.C.O.G.)

From 1963 to 1965 she was registrar in gynaecology and obstetrics at St. Mary Abbot’s Hospital, and she then took a post as SHO general surgery at Cuckfield Hospital to obtain more experience in general surgery. This was followed by two years (1966 – 1968) as registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology at the South London Hospital for Women and Children.

Due to the deteriorating health of her parents, she gave up full-time work and worked part-time, first as a Research Registrar at the South London Hospital for Women and Children, and then as a long-term locum Consultant Obstetrician at the Mothers’ Hospital (S.A.) for two years, followed by acting as clinical assistant in setting up the Family Planning Clinic there.

In 1971, she married Dr Thomas Leedham, Consultant Radiologist at Pembury Hospital, and moved to Crowborough. She took a part-time post as Clinical Assistant in Opthalmology, attached to the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, Eye Bank, where she was engaged in recovering eye tissue for therapeutic purposes.

During 1975 – 1976 she looked after first her mother and then her husband in their terminal illnesses, and had a spell of illness herself. In 1978 she returned to full-time work, and for her last four years in practice worked for the Tunbridge Wells District Hospice at Home Service, providing domiciliary palliative care using the then new continuous subcutaneous infusion method1.

She retired from active practice in 1984, and developed her interest in breeding Cornish Rex, Burmese and Bengal cats. She was a founder member of the Bengal Cat Society in 1993, and was particularly interested in following the genetic characteristics of the Bengal breed, a cross between the Asian Leopard Cat (Felis Bengalensis) and a domestic cat, first bred in the U.S.A.

She had no children, but was devoted to her brother and sister, her three nephews and her niece, and her eight great nephews and nieces. She died suddenly on 9 February 2008 at the age of 72.

1Hutchinson, H. T., Leedham, G. D. & Knight, A. M.(1981). Continuous subcutaneous analgesics and anti-emetics in domiciliary terminal care. Lancet, ii, 1279.