biology

Michael Hargrave

Michael Hargrave is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Michael Hargrave rather than just read about it. In short: Michael John Hargrave (8 December 1923 – 25 July 1974) was a British general practitioner in Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, who in 1945 assisted British Army occupation forces at the recently liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp when he volunteered as a medical student from Westminster Hospital at the age of 21. After graduating in medicine in 1947, Hargrave took a house job at Westminster Hospital after which he…

Key takeaways

Michael Hargrave belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Michael Hargrave to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Michael Hargrave from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Michael John Hargrave (8 December 1923 – 25 July 1974) was a British general practitioner in Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, who in 1945 assisted British Army occupation forces at the recently liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp when he volunteered as a medical student from Westminster Hospital at the age of 21. After graduating in medicine in 1947, Hargrave took a house job at Westminster Hospital after which he completed his national service with the Royal Air Force in Egypt and Kenya. Upon returning to Wootton Bassett in 1950, he became a general practitioner and a clinical assistant to the ear, nose and throat clinic at the Princess Margaret Hospital, Swindon. By 1956, he had a purpose-built surgery with an appointment system and radiotelephone. His memoirs, written for his mother, were used by historian Ben Shephard in his 2005 book After Daybreak: The Liberation of Belsen, 1945, and were published by Imperial College Press in 2014, in a book titled Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student's Journal.

Early life Michael Hargrave was born on 8 December 1923, in Simla, British India, the elder of two sons of a decorated First World War pilot who was posted there by the Royal Air Force. Hargrave was sent to England to attend Harcourt Preparatory School at Weyhill, following which he attended St Edward's School, Oxford. In 1942, he gained admission to King's College London and then to Westminster Hospital for his clinical education in medicine.

Belsen

Hargrave had, until May 1945, spent the Second World War at school and studying medicine. In April 1945, he was among eleven medical students from Westminster who volunteered to help relieve a famine in Holland, a part of the Netherlands still occupied by the Germans but awaiting liberation. On the day of departure, the students were informed that they were instead being sent to help at the recently liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. At Belsen, army medics were trying to prevent the spread of disease and save those they could. Hargrave described in his daily journal the process by which the huts in Camp One were cleaned, disinfected and turned into basic temporary hospitals, after which its inmates were cleaned, disinfected and then moved out. He led this process in hut 210 and performed treatments including the excision of eyelid cysts and tuberculous glands in the neck. He became accustomed to seeing boils, gangrene, diarrhoea, typhus and severe malnutrition. Supervision and briefings were given by nutritionist Arnold Peter Meiklejohn, Brigadier Hugh Glyn-Hughes and Colonel James Johnston. Hargrave also taught a Polish girl, Zosia Wiśniowska, how to speak English.

Career In 1947, Hargrave graduated in medicine and took up his first house job at Westminster Hospital. He completed his national service with the Royal Air Force in Egypt and Kenya, returning to Wootton Bassett in 1950 to become a general practitioner. By 1956, he had a purpose-built surgery with an appointment system and radiotelephone. He also helped at the ear, nose and throat clinic at the Princess Margaret Hospital, Swindon. In 1957, he became a member of the Royal College of General Practitioners.

Family Hargrave married nurse Joy Thompson in 1948, a year after qualifying as a doctor. They had a daughter, Sally, and a son, David. Both developed polio in 1953, two years before the first injectable Salk vaccine. David made a full recovery, but Sally, who was nine months old at the time, was left with a paralysed leg. She became a secretary and David a GP in Portland, Dorset.

Death and legacy Hargrave was diagnosed with a brain tumour, and died on 25 July 1974. His papers are held at the Imperial War Museum in London. His memoirs were used by historian Ben Shephard in his 2005 book After Daybreak: The Liberation of Belsen, 1945. The story of the London students was portrayed in the 2007 feature film The Relief of Belsen. His diary, written for his mother, was published by Imperial College Press in 2014, with all royalties donated to Amnesty International and the polio charity Rotary Club PolioPlus.

Selected publications "A New Surgery for a Group Practice of Three Doctors". Journal of the College of General Practitioners and Research Newsletter, Vol. 1, Issue 4 (1958), pp. 356–359. (With J. N. Watson and R. D. C. Hart) "The Radiotelephone". Journal of the College of General Practitioners, (1961) Vol. 4, p. 446. (With R. D. C. Hart and P. S. Mitchell) "Acute otitis media; A survey of 400 cases". Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, Vol. 16, Issue 1 (1968), pp. 78–80.

References

External links Joy Rodger: Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student's Journal. YouTube video

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Michael Hargrave

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Michael Hargrave claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Michael Hargrave before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Michael Hargrave ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Michael Hargrave

In research: Michael Hargrave appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Michael Hargrave in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Michael Hargrave is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1923 births, 1945 in medicine, 1974 deaths, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Michael Hargrave outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Michael Hargrave in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Michael Hargrave means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Michael Hargrave out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Michael Hargrave in simple terms?

Why does Michael Hargrave matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Michael Hargrave?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Michael Hargrave.