Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Clutton, Henry Hugh
CLUTTON, HENRY HUGH (1850–1909), surgeon, born on 12 July 1850 at Saffron Walden, was third son of Ralph Clutton, B.D., vicar of that parish. He was educated at Marlborough college from 1864 to 1866, but left prematurely on account of ill-health. He entered Clare College, Cambridge, in 1869, and graduated B.A. in 1873, proceeding M.A. and M.B. in 1879 and M.C. in 1897. He entered St. Thomas's Hospital in 1872, and was appointed resident assistant surgeon in 1876, assistant surgeon in 1878, and full surgeon in 1891. Whilst assistant surgeon he had charge of the department for diseases of the ear. He was surgeon to the Victoria Hospital for Children at Chelsea from 1887 to 1893.
At the Royal College of Surgeons of England he was admitted a member in 1875 and a fellow in 1876; he served on the council from 1902 until his death, and sat on the senate of the University of London as representative of the college. He was also consulting surgeon at Osborne, and in 1905 was president of the Clinical Society.
Clutton died at his house, 2 Portland Place, after a long illness, on 9 Nov. 1909, and was buried in Brompton cemetery. He married in 1896 Margaret Alice, third daughter of Canon Young, rector of Whitnash, Warwickshire, and left one daughter.
Clutton was imbued with the modern spirit which bases surgery on pathology and not merely on anatomy. Diseases of the bones and joints more especially interested him, and he was one of the earliest surgeons to recognise the importance of the active treatment of middle-ear disease. His powers as a clinical teacher were of the highest order. Not only had he a wide knowledge of surgical literature but his practical and original mind lent to his teaching a rare vivacity. He disregarded tradition, unless it could justify itself on its merits. His health and his active devotion to St. Thomas's Hospital and medical school prevented him from writing much. But he published an important paper in the ‘Lancet’ (1886, i. 516), describing an affection of the knee occurring in children who are the subjects of congenital syphilis. His description was generally accepted, the condition becoming known as ‘Clutton's joints.’
He wrote on ‘Disease of Bones’ in Treves' ‘System of Surgery’ (1895), and he was co-editor of the St. Thomas's Hospital Reports, 1885.
[Lancet, 1909, ii. 1552 (with portrait); Brit. Med. Journal, 1909, ii. 1504; information kindly given by Mrs. H. H. Clutton and by Dr. H. G. Turney; personal knowledge.]