Robert Campbell in Queen Street, 1897-1920. Day surgery in the Belfast Hospital for Sick Children.

In a manuscript found among the papers of Robert Campbell by the late William S Campbell we find the words, "1898 I joined the staff of the Belfast Hospital for Sick Children". This is an error, for it was on 22 September 1897 that Robert Campbell was appointed honorary assistant surgeon on the occasion of the promotion of J S Morrow to be an honorary attending surgeon. This appearance of "Johnny" Morrow as a full surgeon on the staff of the Children's Hospital may surprise those who remember him only as physician (and finally the senior physician) in the Royal Victoria Hospital. In fact Morrow was a surgeon in the Children's Hospital from 1893 until 1898 when he resigned his appointment there, at least partly because of a finger injury, and the vacancy thus created was filled by Robert Campbell's promotion. Campbell thus found himself a full surgeon one year and two weeks after he first joined the staff a much shorter interval than that suffered by some of his successors.