Sir Archibald McIndoe - The Early Years
Sir Archibald McIndoe was born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1900. His father, John, was a printer and his mother, Mabel, an artist. He was the second eldest of three brothers and one sister.
When his father died when he was 15, his strong-minded mother took it upon herself to guide her children’s lives with determination and discipline. She told him:
“You can make whatever you like of your life when the time comes, but the preparations for it you must make now.”
He took this to heart — though he later teased her by asking:
“What if I had wanted to be a cat burglar? Would the family advisors have bought me a ladder and jemmy?”
Education and Early Ambition
Sir Archibald attended Otago Boys’ High School and later won a scholarship to the University of Otago to study medicine. During this time, he developed a strong interest in surgery.
After graduating, he became a house surgeon at Waikato Hospital, but was already thinking about travelling to England for further training.
But opportunity came from a different direction.
The Mayo Clinic Years
A New Opportunity
Will Mayo, co-founder of the American Mayo Clinic, visited the Otago Medical School and offered a fellowship to a graduate — which McIndoe received.
Two weeks before departing by boat to San Francisco, he married Adonia Aitkin. The fellowship did not include provision for a wife.
Work and Life at the Mayo
McIndoe spent five years at the Clinic, beginning as First Assistant in Pathological Anatomy and publishing several papers on chronic liver disease.
He found a way to bring Adonia over, and she initially worked in the pathology department before later finding higher-paid work playing piano in a hotel opposite.
When his fellowship ended, he was offered a post as Assistant Surgeon. His research into liver function led to a new procedure for treating liver carcinomas. In 1930, he travelled to Chicago to demonstrate the technique.
The Al Capone Connection
Ten days after his Chicago demonstration, he received a call from a doctor who had been in the audience. A patient required discreet abdominal surgery and would pay handsomely.
The patient arrived with an entourage in a fleet of Cadillacs.
After the successful surgery, one of the men handed McIndoe an envelope containing $1,000 and said:
“Al told me to say thank you for all you did for his kid brother.”
McIndoe had unknowingly operated on the younger brother of gangster Al Capone.
Lord Moynihan’s Influence
Another spectator of the Chicago demonstration was Lord Moynihan, President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Impressed by McIndoe’s skill, he said:
“You have hands like a ploughboy, my boy, but they behave like an artist’s.”
He encouraged McIndoe to consider England as the place to further his career.
Donald Balfour, his mentor at the Mayo, loaned him the passage money and wrote:
“You turn your masters into pupils far too quickly and they resent it… You also part your hair in the middle and this drives your friends to distraction! No man should look the same on both sides of his face.”
Arrival in England
The McIndoe family arrived in Liverpool in winter 1931 and travelled to London, where job prospects proved grim.
After eventually securing a meeting, Lord Moynihan barely remembered him and, when reminded of the “job offer,” replied:
“Bless my soul, the hospital isn’t even built yet — I can hardly give you a job if the place doesn’t exist, can I?”
It was a devastating blow. McIndoe had left stability behind only to find uncertainty, a second child on the way, and the family living in a cold, damp basement flat.
Meeting Sir Harold Gillies
While working toward a UK fellowship, a letter from his mother revealed that McIndoe had a distant cousin in London — the renowned plastic surgeon Sir Harold Gillies.
It took a month to secure a meeting, but Gillies proved welcoming. He arranged work at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and allowed McIndoe to learn the techniques of plastic surgery.
A Demanding Apprenticeship
This period was intense. The family remained in the damp basement flat, where their daughter Vanora was born.
By 1932, work and accommodation improved, and McIndoe bought into Gillies’s practice.
Gillies was both a hard taskmaster and a practical joker. Early on, McIndoe struggled with skin graft suturing. Six weeks into his job, he received a letter addressed to “Mrs Archibald McIndoe” recommending him for the Royal School of Needlework — Gillies’s humour on full display.
A Rising Reputation
As McIndoe’s skills grew, so did his reputation. Eventually he felt the partnership with Gillies was limiting and bought himself out to begin his own practice.
He planned to work intensively for ten more years, then slow down and enjoy the rewards.
But events unfolding in Europe would change everything.