The History of the Carlile Prize

Dr James Patton Carlile (Pictured above) ran a single-handed practice on Earlham Road for many years and after his death in 1976 his widow June bequeathed £100 to the Society to establish an essay prize for GPs.

 James was born in 1911 and served as a colonial medical officer in Iraq and Palestine in 1936 and Borneo in 1939 where he was captured by the Japanese and interned for the duration. He had also acted in 1939 as MO to the Public Schools’ Expedition to Newfoundland.

In 1949 he married June, the sister of Sir Edmund Hilary who, with the Nepalese climber Tensing, made the first successful ascent of the summit of Everest in 1953: in fact, it was from his brother-in-law’s house in Earlham Road that Hilary made his first broadcast following his return from the Himalayas. June later returned to her native New Zealand and passed away in 2016.

The Prize fell out of favour for a while but was re-endowed under the presidency of David Ralph in 1989, as a prize for research papers from Junior trainees and medical students. A brief that holds to this current day.

Download the Application Form (Word Document – 41KB).