{{Short description|Irish doctor and writer (1900–1975)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = | image = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = William Robert Fitzgerald Collis | birth_date = {{Birth date|1900|02|16|df=y}} | birth_place = Killiney, County Dublin, Ireland | death_date = {{Death date and age|1975|05|27|1900|02|16|df=y}} | death_place = | other_names = | occupation = Doctor and writer | years_active = | education = Rugby School | alma_mater = Trinity College, Cambridge; Yale University | spouse = | relatives = Maurice Collis (elder brother), John Stewart Collis (twin brother) | known_for = | notable_works = | awards = }} '''William Robert Fitzgerald Collis''' (16 February 1900 – 27 May 1975), was an Irish doctor specialising in paediatrics, a rugby international, and a writer.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |date=14 June 1975 |title=OBITUARY NOTICES: W.R.F. Collis M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.C.P.I., D.P.H. |journal=British Medical Journal |volume=2 |issue=5971 |pages=621–622 |doi=10.1136/bmj.2.5971.621 |pmc=1673471 |pmid=1093628 }}</ref> He was known as '''Robert Collis''' or '''W.R.F. Collis'''. As a doctor, he was commonly known as '''Dr. Bob Collis'''.
==Biography== ===Early life and education=== Collis was born in Killiney, County Dublin, Ireland. His formal education began at Aravon School in Bray, County Wicklow, and continued in England, at Rugby School. After completing his secondary studies at Rugby, in 1918, Collis obtained a commission in the Irish Guards regiment of the British Army, but was demobilised after several months of training as Armistice brought the hostilities of the First World War to a close.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last1=Breathnach |first1=Caoimhghin S |last2=Moynihan |first2=John B |date=January 2017 |title=Robert Collis (1900-1975), early champion of paediatrics |journal=Ulster Medical Journal |volume=86 |issue=1 |pages=31–35 |pmc=5324178 |pmid=28298711 }}</ref>
Collis matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1919 to study medicine, spending 1921–1922 on an exchange scholarship at Yale University. He graduated BA (Cantab) in 1922 and continued clinical training at King's College Hospital Medical School, receiving his MB BChir in 1925 and MD in 1929.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Mitchell |first=DM |date=2019 |title=William Robert Fitzgerald Collis [Brit.med.J., 1975, 2, 621; Times, 31 May 1975] |url=https://history.rcp.ac.uk/inspiring-physicians/william-robert-fitzgerald-collis |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250716205044/https://history.rcp.ac.uk/inspiring-physicians/william-robert-fitzgerald-collis |archive-date=2025-07-16 |access-date=2025-07-18 |website=history.rcp.ac.uk |publisher=Royal College of Physicians}}</ref>
He played rugby for Cambridge University R.U.F.C., including Blues in 1919 and 1920, and continued with King's College Hospital RFC. Collis won seven caps for Ireland in 1924, 1925, and 1926.
===Medical career=== After qualifying in medicine, Collis began his clinical career as a house physician at King's College Hospital, London, where he trained in general medicine, neurology, and children's medicine, before moving to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children in Bloomsbury, where he worked under Sir George Frederic Still, the "father of British paediatrics", serving as Still's last house physician prior to retirement.<ref name=":0" /> He qualified MCRP and in 1925, was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship to undertake research in paediatrics at the Harriet Lane Children's Department of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Upon return to Britain, Collis was appointed a research fellow at Great Ormond Street Hospital, where he carried out influential investigations into the aetiology of erythema nodosum.
In 1932, Collis moved back to Dublin to take over the practice and the Fitzwilliam Square residence of retiring paediatrician Dr. Brian Crichton. He was soon appointed director of the Department of Paediatrics at the Rotunda Hospital and physician to the National Children's Hospital, Harcourt Street. He was instrumental in the development of enhanced neonatal services at the Rotunda, particularly for premature babies.<ref>{{cite book |title=Christy Brown's Women: a Biography Drawing on his Letters, includes the founding of Cerebral Palsy Ireland by Robert Collis |last=Jordan |first=Anthony J. |year=1998 |location=Dublin |publisher=Westport Books |pages=[https://archive.org/details/christybrownswom00jord/page/26 26–7] |isbn=0-9524447-3-9 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/christybrownswom00jord/page/26}}</ref>
Collis volunteered with the British Red Cross at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after its liberation by Allied troops in 1945.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bob Collis |url=https://www.holocausteducationireland.org/bob-collis |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250715214831/https://www.holocausteducationireland.org/bob-collis |archive-date=2025-07-15 |access-date=2025-07-18 |website=Holocaust Education Ireland |language=en-GB}}</ref> He facilitated the transport of five orphaned child survivors from Bergen-Belsen to Ireland in 1946, organising their placement and personally overseeing their ongoing convalescent care at Fairy Hill Hospital in Howth. Collis adopted two of the children, siblings Edit and Zoltan Zinn. While at Bergen-Belsen, he met Johanna "Han" Hogerzeil, a Dutch Red Cross volunteer, whom he later married after a divorce from his first wife, Phyllis Heron.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Good Samaritans: Memoir of a Biographer|last=Jordan|first=Anthony J.|year=2008|location=Dublin|publisher=Westport Books|page= 42|isbn=978-0-9524447-5-6}}</ref>
In 1948, Collis established the first dedicated Cerebral Palsy clinic in Dublin, and founded the charity organisation Cerebral Palsy Ireland, which is now Enable Ireland.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |title=REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE CEREBRAL PALSY IRELAND 50TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION |url=https://president.ie/index.php/en/media-library/speeches/remarks-by-president-mcaleese-at-the-cerebral-palsy-ireland-50th-anniversar |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250718044751/https://president.ie/en/media-library/speeches/remarks-by-president-mcaleese-at-the-cerebral-palsy-ireland-50th-anniversar |archive-date=2025-07-18 |access-date=2025-07-18 |website=president.ie |publisher=Office of the President of Ireland Mary McAleese |language=en}}</ref> One of Collis's influential paediatric patients was Christy Brown, a Dublin cerebral palsy patient referred to him for physiotherapy-oriented rehabilitative treatment by his sister-in-law, Dr. Eirene Collis, a London-based specialist in cerebral palsy. Brown became a notable author and artist. Collis proofread drafts of Brown's autobiography, ''My Left Foot'', for which he wrote a foreword.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Clarke |first=Francis |date=October 2009 |title=Collis, (William) Robert Fitzgerald ('Bob') |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/collis-william-robert-fitzgerald-bob-a1867 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250718055310/https://www.dib.ie/biography/collis-william-robert-fitzgerald-bob-a1867 |archive-date=2025-07-18 |access-date=2025-07-18 |website=Dictionary of Irish Biography |doi=10.3318/dib.001867.v1|doi-access=free }}</ref> Published in 1954, the book was later adapted into the widely acclaimed 1989 film, ''My Left Foot''.
===Family and personal life=== Collis was born into a prominent Anglo-Irish family. The writer John Stewart Collis was his twin and Maurice Collis, writer and biographer, was his elder brother.<ref>{{cite book|last=Boylan|first= Henry |year=1998|title=A Dictionary of Irish Biography, 3rd Edition|pages=74|location=Dublin|publisher= Gill and MacMillan|isbn= 0-7171-2945-4}}</ref><ref>[http://archives.tcm.ie/kildarenationalist/2006/11/02/story24207.asp Other News ... Zoltan Zinn Collis] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629115042/http://archives.tcm.ie/kildarenationalist/2006/11/02/story24207.asp |date=2011-06-29 }}, ''The Kildare Nationalist'', 2 November 2006.</ref> He married Phyllis Heron, a native of Cornwall, in 1927.<ref name=":2" /> They had two sons and adopted and raised the Holocaust survivor siblings Edit and Zoltan Zinn together. After their divorce, Collis remarried in 1957, to Han Hogerzeil.<ref name=":1" /> He and Han moved to Ibadan, Nigeria; they also had two sons, one of whom died young.
==Works== He wrote the play ''Marrowbone Lane''<ref>{{cite book|first=Clair|last=Wills|title=That Neutral Island|location=London|publisher=Faber|year=2007|isbn=9780571221059}}</ref> and an autobiography titled ''The Silver Fleece'', both in 1939. The book ''Straight On'' (1947), with Han Hogerzeil, whom he later married, recounts the liberation of Belsen. Other books included ''The Ultimate Value'' (1951) about the refugee children, ''A Doctor's Nigeria'' (1960), ''Nigeria In Conflict'' (1970) and ''To Be a Pilgrim'' (1975).<ref name=":0" />
==References== <references/>
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Collis, Robert}} Category:1900 births Category:1975 deaths Category:20th-century Anglo-Irish people Category:20th-century philanthropists Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Category:Anglo-Irish writers Category:Cambridge University R.U.F.C. players Category:Ireland international rugby union players Category:Irish Guards officers Category:Irish paediatricians Category:Irish philanthropists Category:Irish rugby union players Category:Irish writers Category:Medical doctors from County Dublin Category:People educated at Rugby School Category:People from Killiney Category:Red Cross personnel Category:Rugby union players from County Dublin Category:Writers from County Dublin