Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Carpenter, George Alfred
CARPENTER, GEORGE ALFRED (1859–1910), physician, born at Lambeth, Surrey, on 25 Dec. 1859, was son of John William Carpenter, M.D. (d. 1903), by his wife Mary, daughter of George Butler, of New Shoreham, Sussex, of Kilkenny descent. His father was son of John William Carpenter, surgeon, of Rothwell, Northamptonshire, and was brother of Dr. Alfred Carpenter [q. v.] of Croydon.
George received his early education at King's College School and at Epsom College, and pursued medical study at St. Thomas's Hospital and at Guy's Hospital. At St. Thomas's Hospital he won the third college prize for 1880-1, and the first college prize for 1881. As second year's student he gained the third college prize and the prosector's prize. He was prosector to the Royal College of Surgeons, and in 1885 became M.R.C.S. and L.S.A. In 1886 he graduated M.B. and in 1890 M.D. at London, having become M.R.C.P., London, in 1889.
He at first engaged in lunacy work, and after holding a residential appointment at The Coppice, Nottingham, a private asylum, he returned to London in 1885, and began a close study of children's diseases, to which his professional energies were afterwards almost entirely devoted. Having served as house surgeon, registrar and chloroformist, he was elected physician to the Evelina Hospital, Southwark, and at the time of his death he was physician to the Queen's Hospital for Children, Hackney. He died suddenly at Coldharbour, Waddon, Surrey, on 27 March 1910, and was buried in Old Sanderstead churchyard. He married on 21 April 1908 Hélène Jeanne, daughter of Henry, Baron d'Este.
Carpenter's work in connection with diseases of children was voluminous and valuable. In 1896 he acted as English editor to an Anglo-American journal entitled 'Pediatrics,' which soon succumbed so far as the English edition was concerned. But in 1904 he founded, and edited with conspicuous ability until he died, the 'British Journal of Children's Diseases.'
In 1900 he took an active part with Dr. A. Ernest Sansom, Dr. Henry Ashby [q. v. Suppl. II], and others in founding the 'Society for the Study of Disease in Children,' the first of its kind in this, though not in other countries. The society was a success from the first, and Carpenter's interest in its welfare never flagged. He acted as one of its secretaries for three years, as editor of its 'Transactions' for eight years, and when the society was incorporated in the Royal Society of Medicine in 1908, and became the section for the study of disease in children, he was elected its president. The eight volumes of 'Reports' of the original society which he edited are admirably compiled and illustrate the current progress in the study of children's diseases. He contributed many papers to various medical journals in this country and in France; he was a Membre Correspondant de la Société de Pédiatrie de Paris, and also a member and contributor to La Société Française d'Ophtalmologie. His most noteworthy publications were on congenital malformations of the heart, which was also the subject of his Wightman lecture delivered in 1909 before the section for the study of disease in children, Royal Society of Medicine, and published in the 'British Journal of Children's Diseases,' Aug:, Sept., Oct. 1909.
In 1901 he published an instructive and well-written book on 'The Syphilis of Children in Every-day Practice.' A small work, 'Golden Rules for Diseases of Infants and Children,' published in 1901, reached a fourth and revised edition in 1911.
Two portraits in oils, one by William Nicholson, are in the possession of his family. [Lancet, 9 April 1910; Brit. Med. Journal, 9 April 1910; British Journal of Children's Diseases, April 1910.]