Stump, Claude Witherington
Stump was born in Adelaide where he was educated at Kyre College. Between 1910 and 1917, he studied at the University of Edinburgh Medical School from which he graduated as Bachelor of Medicine (MB) and Bachelor of Surgery (ChB);* in 1924, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science (DSc). For his work on the nature of osteogenesis, he was awarded the Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize. In 1930, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSEd). During World War I, he held commissions with the British Army in the King's Own Scottish Borders and the Australian Infantry Forces as Captain in the Medical Corps. He married Christina M Urquhart in 1920.
From 1924 to 1926, Stump was Professor of Anatomy and Histology at the Rockefeller Medical School of Chulankarana University in Bangkok. At the time of his appointment to the University of Sydney, he was acting as Rockefeller Foundation representative, Director of Studies and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. Previously, he held a lectureship in Anatomy at Edinburgh University.
The University of Sydney appointed Stump Associate Professor of Anatomy from the 12th April 1926. The position became vacant when its previous incumbent, ANSH Burkitt, was appointed to the Chair of Anatomy. In 1928, an endowment from merchant George Henry Bosch enabled the University to establish a Chair of Histology and Embryology within the Department of Anatomy. The Senate, at its meeting on 1st February 1928, resolved to invite Stump to take up this Chair. Stump retired in December 1956 and was appointed Emeritus Professor at the meeting of the Senate in February 1957.
At the University of Sydney, Stump was active in raising very substantial funds for the Faculty of Medicine. At the end of 1929, he travelled with G H Bosch to New York to visit the Rockefeller Foundation; they obtained a grant of 100,000 pounds - it was used for building the Blackburn Building (New Medical School) which was opened in 1933. No records have been sighted to clarify the nature of Stump's involvement with Bosch's Deed of Gift to the University in 1928 which funded Chairs of Medicine, Surgery and Bacteriology.
There is little mention of Stump's research in University records. No publications with Stump as author are cited in either the University's "Record of Publications 1930-1945" or the University's "Research and Scholarship" published as a Supplement to the University Calendars 1952-1956. "Research and Scholarship" 1954 (page 36) states "Professor Stump has commenced studies on the placentation and development of one of the whales". The obituary to Stump in the Year Book of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1975 says that Stump's collection of whale embryos and serial sections was "probably the most complete collection of such material". Correspondence in the archival records of the Department of Anatomy (Archives G63) shows that, in the early 1930s, Stump collected monotremes and marsupials for studies in comparative anatomy, neurology and embryology.
Sources of information for this administrative history other than those cited in the text and this collection of papers: are "Obituary to C W Stump" by B R A O'Brien in "The Royal Society of
Edinburgh Year Book" 1975 pages 50-51; "Whos Who in Australia" 1971; and University Archives G3/187.
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* This conflicts with a typed document in Archives G3/187 (Stump's personnel file) drawn up by the University in 1926 which states that Stump received the degrees MB ChB in 1917 from Adelaide. The documentary evidence to the contrary consists of a letter in series 2 of this collection, signed by the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh dated Feb 1922. The letter certifies that "Stump came to the University as a student of medicine in April 1910" and "graduated Bachelor of Surgery (M.B., Ch.B) on 5th April, 1917". Another letter in this series dated Feb 1922 signed by an academic in clinical surgery at Edinburgh University states that Stump "passed the Clinical examination for the degree of Doctor of Medicine". Stump's name was not found in lists of students or graduates in Calendars of the University Adelaide between 1910 and 1918.