| Authorised form of name | Parsons; Sir; John Herbert (1868 - 1957); ophthalmologist and physiologist |
| Dates | 1868 - 1957 |
| Place of birth | Bristol, South West, England |
| Date of birth | 03 September 1868 |
| Place of death | University College Hospital, Grafton Way, London, England
|
| Date of death | 07/10/1957 |
| Occupation | ophthalmologist and physiologist |
| Research field | Physiology |
| Ophthalmology |
| Activity | Education: Thomas Turner's private school; Bristol grammar school; University College, Bristol; Bristol Royal Infirmary; University College, London BSc with honours in physiology (1890); St Bartholomew's Hospital MB (1892); University College, London DSc (190)
Career:
Assistant and demonstrator in physiology to Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer (FRS 1878) at University College (1892); general practice in Finchley; clinical assistant at Moorfields Eye Hospital; elected pathological curator and librarian at Moorfields Hospital (1900); elected to the consulting surgical staff of that hospital and of University College Hospital (1904); surgeon to the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street; conducted a large ophthalmic practice at a house in Queen Anne Street; served on several government commissions, greatly contributing to the provision of adequate lighting of factories; one of the founding members of the Illuminating Engineering Society, of which he was the first chairman of council, president (1924), and honorary member (1943); helped with the creation of the International Council of Ophthalmology (1927); chairman of the editorial committee of the British Journal of Ophthalmology (1917-1948); founding member of the British Council of Ophthalmologists and was largely responsible for its substitution by the Faculty of Ophthalmologists to serve as the co-ordinating and academic custodian of the specialism; served on the Medical Research Council (1929-1932); ophthalmic surgeon to the 3rd London General Hospital (1916-1917); ophthalmic consultant to the home forces (1917-1918); served in advisory capacity to the army, navy, and the Royal Air Foce; left London and retired from practice and lent his house to the French Red Cross (1939); latterly lived in Leeds.
Honours:
CBE 1919; Kt 1922
Memberships:
FRCS (1900)
Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom (1900)
President of the Royal Society of Medicine (1936–1938)
Awards/Medals:
Nettleship Gold Medal (1907)
Doyne Medal (1919)
Bowman Lectureship (1925)
Howe Medal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology (1936) |
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 12/05/1921 |
| Age at election | 54 |
| Proposer | William McDougall; Charles Scott Sherrington; Ernest Henry Starling; Charles James Martin; William Maddock Bayliss; William Maddock Myers; William Halse Rivers Rivers |
| RSActivity | Royal Society roles:
VP 1941-1942
Council 1926–7 and 1941–3 |
| Relationships | Parents: Isaac Jabez Parsons, grocer, and Mary Goodhind Webb.
Spouse: Jane Roberta (d. 1911), daughter of John Hendrie of Uddingston, Lanarkshire (1894)
Children: One son and one daughter. |
| PublishedWorks | RCN 58346
RCN 58344
RCN 19831 |
| OtherInfo | Brought ophthalmology to prominence.
Published papers on ocular pathology and works on the control of intra-ocular pressure.
In his capacity as consultant to the Board of Trade, the problems of colour vision and colour blindness assumed importance: incidentally, colourblindness had been the subject of his first scientific paper in 1900. |
| Royal Society Obituary or Memoir | Click to view (may be contained within a meeting notice, presidential address or list of death notices) |
| Source | Sources:
Bulloch's Roll
Obituaries:
Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 1958 vol 4 pp 205-214, plate, by Stewart Duke-Elder |
| Virtual International Authority File | http://viaf.org/viaf/52054185 |
| Code | NA694 |
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| EC/1921/19 | Parsons, Sir John Herbert: certificate of election to the Royal Society | |
| CMB/10/21 | Report on a visit to American Glass Works | November 1910 |
| CMB/10/12 | Report on the effects of light and ultra-violet rays | December 1909 |
| CMB/10/30 | Minutes, meeting of the Glassworkers' Cataract Committee | 11 February 1914 |
| CMB/10/25 | Minutes, meeting of the Glassworkers Cataract Committee | 9 April 1913 |
| NLB/67/550 | Copy letter from William Bate Hardy, Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir John Parsons, FRS | 22 January 1925 |
| RR/67/78 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'The effect of adaptation on subjective brightness' by K J W Craik | October 1939 |
| NLB/40/326 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison to J [John] H [Herbert] Parsons | 24 May 1909 |
| NLB/38/156 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to Dr Hugh Kerr Anderson, Fellow of the Royal Society, and others | 20 June 1908 |
| NLB/40/249 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison to J [John] H [Herbert] Parsons | 7 May 1909 |
| NLB/38/707 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to Dr [John] Herbert Parsons, [Fellow of the Royal Society] | 23 October 1908 |
| NLB/40/789 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison to J [John] Herbert Parsons | 20 August 1909 |
| NLB/41/769 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to [John Herbert] Parsons, [Fellow of the Royal Society] | 23 February 1910 |
| NLB/44/453 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison to J [John] H [Herbert] Parsons | 12 July 1911 |
| NLB/43/269 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to Honorable John Herbert Parsons, Fellow of the Royal Society | 2 December 1910 |
| NLB/45/63 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison to Dr J [John] H [Herbert] Parsons | 14 December 1911 |
| NLB/48/487 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to [John] Herbert Parsons, 54 Queen Anne Street, W. | 11 July 1913 |
| NLB/48/790 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to [John Herbert] Parsons | 14 October 1913 |
| NLB/50/387 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to [John Herbert] Parsons, 54 Queen Anne Street, W. | 1 July 1914 |
| NLB/50/39 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to [John Herbert] Parsons, 54 Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square, W. | 22 April 1914 |
| NLB/48/844 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to [John Herbert] Parsons, 54 Queen Anne Street, W. | 23 October 1913 |
| NLB/50/466 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to [John Herbert] Parsons | 14 July 1914 |
| NLB/50/1 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to [John Herbert] Parsons | 7 April 1914 |
| NLB/58/449 | Copy letter from Edwin Deller, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to [John Herbert] Parsons, FRS | 6 May 1920 |
| NLB/58/211 | Copy letter from Edwin Deller, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to [John Herbert] Parsons Esquire, FRS | 27 March 1920 |
| RR/46/64 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'On seeing with closed eyes' by A H Pirie | [October 1932] |
| NLB/58/94 | Copy letter from Edwin Deller, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to [John] Herbert Parsons Esquire, FRS | 13 March 1920 |
| NLB/67/750 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir John Parsons, CBE, FRS | 27 February 1925 |
| RR/40/79 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'The absorption of light by the coloured globules in the retina of the domestic hen' by H E Roaf | August 1929 |
| NLB/58/763 | Copy letter from Edwin Deller, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to [John Herbert] Parsons Esquire | 16 June 1920 |
| NLB/58/203 | Copy letter from William Bate Hardy, Secretary of the Royal Society; to [John Herbert] Parsons Esquire, FRS | 24 March 1920 |
| RR/44/98 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'On the return of sensitiveness in corneal grafts in rabbits' by J W Tudor Thomas | March 1931 |
| RR/49/60 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'The projection of the retina in the lateral geniculate body' by Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark and G G Penman | [November 1933] |
| RR/50/35 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'Problems of the visual pathway' by Frederick William Lanchester | November 1933 |
| RR/69/159 | Letter from John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'Cluster formation by the cones of the fovea' by Hamilton Hartridge | 1 April 1946 |
| NLB/57/537 | Copy letter from Sir William Bate Hardy, Secretary of the Royal Society; to JH [Sir John Herbert] Parsons, ESq., FRS | 28 November 1919 |
| RR/51/3 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'On directional fixity and the transitory visual image' by Frederick William Lanchester | [March 1934] |
| NLB/57/533 | Copy letter from Sir William Bate Hardy, Secretary of the Royal Society; to Mr [Sir John Herbert] Parsons, FRS | 27 November 1919 |
| RR/50/32 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'Investigations concerning the blind spot of the retina' by Frederick William Lanchester | 10 April 1933 |
| RR/51/103 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'Factors affecting the development and regeneration of visual purple in the mammalian retina' by Katharine Tansley | [September 1933] |
| RR/69/149 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'The anti-chromatic response, part I' by Hamilton Hartridge | 1945 |
| NLB/65/318 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir John [Herbert] Parsons, CBE, FRS | 11 October 1923 |
| NLB/57/622 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to J [ Sir John] Herbert Parsons Esq, FRS, MB, FRS; 54 Queen Anne Street, W | 16 December 1919 |
| RR/69/160 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'The visual acuity of the human eye for lights of different colour. III.' by Hamilton Hartridge | 1946 |
| RR/69/158 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'Cluster formation by the cones of the fovea' by Hamilton Hartridge | 1946 |
| RR/69/87 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'X -ray measurement of the diameters of the living eye' by J F P Deller, A D O'Connor and A Sorsby | 1946 |
| RR/69/151 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'The anti-chromatic response, part II' by Hamilton Hartridge | 1945 |
| RR/69/75 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'Visual adaptation in relation to brief conditioning stimuli' by B H Crawford | 1946 |
| RR/69/154 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'The anti-chromatic response, part III' by Hamilton Hartridge | 1946 |
| NLB/65/417 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir John [Herbert] Parsons, CBE, FRS | 27 October 1923 |
| NLB/67/609 | Copy letter from William Bate Hardy, Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir John Parsons, FRS | 29 January 1925 |
| RR/67/82 | Letter from John Herbert Parsons on a paper 'Photochemical laws and visual phenomena' by B H Crawford to Archibald Vivian Hill | 6 August 1940 |
| RR/68/260 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'Some experiments on the trichromatic theory of vision' by H V Walters | [1942] |
| RR/68/261 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'The spectral sensitivity of the fovea and extrafovea in the Purkinje range' by H V Walters and W D Wright | [1942] |
| RR/69/150 | Letter from John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'The anti-chromatic response, part I' by Hamilton Hartridge to u known recipient | 14 October 1946 |
| NLB/64/857 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir John [Herrbert] Parsosn, C.B.M, FRS | 2 July 1923 |
| NLB/65/342 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir John [Rose] Bradford, KCMG, FRS | 17 October 1923 |
| NLB/65/194 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir John [Herbert] Parsons, CBE, FRS | 17 September 1923 |
| NLB/64/752 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir [John] Herbert Parsons FRS | 14 June 1923 |
| NLB/64/738 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to [John] Rose Bradford FRS | 12 June 1923 |
| NLB/66/124 | Copy letter from William Bate Hardy, Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir John Parsons, C.B.E, FRS | 25 February 1924 |
| NLB/71/333 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir John [Herbert] Parsons, C.B.E., FRS | 3 April 1928 |
| NLB/67/803 | Copy letter from William Bate Hardy, Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir John Parsons, CBE, FRS | 12 March 1925 |
| NLB/41/372 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to [John Herbert] Parsons, [Fellow of the Royal Society], 54 Queen Anne Street, W. | 2 December 1909 |
| NLB/51/569 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society to John Herbert Parsons FRCS | 27 April 1915 |
| RR/46/125 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'Comparative studies on the physiology of the iris.-II. Uranoscopus and Lophius' by John Zachary Young | [November 1932] |
| NLB/57 | New Letter Book volume 57, copy letters sent from Royal Society administration | 27 June 1919-27 February 1920 |
| NLB/40/25 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison to J [John] H [Herbert] Parsons FRCS | 25 March 1909 |
| RR/46/124 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'Comparative studies on the physiology of the iris. -I. Selachians' by John Zachary Young | [November 1932] |
| RR/59/101 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'Relative luminosity in the extreme red' by Charles Frederick Goodeve | [January 1936] |
| RR/68/72 | Referee's report by John Herbert Parsons, on a paper 'The photosensitivity of visual purple solutions and the scotopic sensitivity of the eye in the ultra-violet' by Charles Frederick Goodeve, Richard James Lythgoe and E E Schneider | [1941] |