Sir Hedley John Barnard Atkins KBE (1905 – 26 Nov 1983) was the first professor of surgery at Guy's Hospital

Guy's Hospital

Guy's Hospital is a large NHS hospital in the borough of Southwark in south east London, England. It is administratively a part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. It is a large teaching hospital and is home to the King's College London School of Medicine...

 and President of the Royal College of Surgeons

Royal College of Surgeons of England

The Royal College of Surgeons of England is an independent professional body and registered charity committed to promoting and advancing the highest standards of surgical care for patients, regulating surgery, including dentistry, in England and Wales...

.

He was the son of Guy's Hospital physician Sir John Atkins and Elizabeth May (née Smith) Hedley. He gained a physiology degree at Oxford University and in 1937 was appointed to the staff of Guy’s as assistant surgeon, spending all his professional life in that institution. In 1942, during WWII, he went to North Africa with the Royal Army Medical Corps

Royal Army Medical Corps

The Royal Army Medical Corps is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all British Army personnel and their families in war and in peace...

, subsequently served in Italy and the UK, was mentioned in despatches and demobilised with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He specialised in the scientific treatment of breast cancer and the Hedley Atkins Breast Unit at New Cross Hospital

New Cross Hospital

New Cross Hospital is a hospital in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England. It is located to the east of the city centre in Wednesfield....

 acknowledges his contribution in the field.

He was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1934, and became Vice-President from 1964 to 1966 and President from 1966 to 1969. He was Bradshaw Lecture

Bradshaw Lecture

The Bradshaw Lectures are prestigious lectureships given at the invitation of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Surgeons of England....

r in 1965 and delivered their Hunterian oration in 1971.

In 1959 he edited Tools of Biological Research and in 1977, wrote Memoirs of a Surgeon

In 1953 he and his wife moved into Down House

Down House

Down House is the former home of the English naturalist Charles Darwin and his family. It was in this house and garden that Darwin worked on his theories of evolution by natural selection which he had conceived in London before moving to Downe....

 in Downe, Kent in 1962 to be honorary curator of the Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

museum there. He had married in 1933 Gladys Gwendoline Jones, the daughter of a civil engineer. They had two sons. He died in 1983.