Archive Biographies

Miss Catherine Norrie and Mrs Margaret Swanson were sisters who were founding members of the first Society of Chiropodists in this country. In 1924 the two sisters founded the Edinburgh Foot Clinic as a charitable institution for the free treatment of necessitous patients. The overwhelming demand for treatment uncovered by the new Clinic led shortly to its expansion into a School of Chiropody with the collaboration of prominent members of the University medical school and the Royal Colleges. Both sisters played dominant roles in the formulation and teaching of the curriculum, the first in the country to be planned over two academic years. 

For many years thereafter, Mrs Swanson took a leading part in the administration and teaching. On her retirement from active teaching in 1945, she devoted part of her inexhaustible energy to the preparation of a Textbook of Chiropody which was published in 1948 and was followed by a second edition in 1954.

For Miss Norrie, she probably did more than anyone over many years to rally medical opinion to recognise the profession and she won considerable respect from the Royal Colleges both north and south of the border and from the British Medical Association (BMA). The subsequent recognition of chiropody/podiatry by the BMA and the agreement of the English Royal Colleges to approve the medical examiners for examinations owed a great deal to her personal efforts.

Born in London, Ernest Runting was the son of William Runting (a dentist) and Fanny Maria Potter, a chiropodist who regularly treated the Royal Family.  At fifteen, Runting was apprenticed as a naval cadet, serving for five years. On the death of his father, in 1881, his mother bought him out of the service and trained him in chiropody.
In 1884, Runting set up his first practice in South Kensington but harboured ambitions to elevate chiropody into a respected profession in line with developments in the United States.

Together with a former patient (Dr Arnold Whitaker Oxford,) Runting formed the National Society of Chiropodists in 1912. Further plans saw the Silver Street Pedic Clinic opened in 1913 with clinical training established.  Ideas for a school of chiropody had to be shelved due to the advent of the First World War. However, Runting was instrumental in providing the War Office with advice on the treatment of soldiers’ feet and consequently wrote Battalion Chiropody: Training and Practice in 1918.Runting and Oxford were regarded as founders of the London Foot Hospital.

Runting published the classic chiropodial text Practical Chiropody in 1925 and wrote many papers and articles on the subject. Extracts from his regular column in the journal “The Chiropodist” were published in the 1932 book Chiropody Jottings.

Felix Wagner

Felix Wagner was a German-born chiropodist who was an enthusiastic promotor of the profession. He was Vice-President of the National Society. In 1913, in their first annual report  he was mentioned in the following paragraph “The hearty thanks of the Society are due to Mr EGV Runting and Mr Felix Wagner who have generously contributed a number of standard books appertaining to the treatment of the foot, forming the nucleus of a library…”  The archive still holds items donated by Wagner.

The 1914 edition of “The Chiropodist” said the following after Wagner’s passing “To the day of his death, he was enthusiastic and full of optimism regarding our future and his removal at a comparatively  early age leaves a blank that it will be difficult to fill.”

Wagner wrote the seminal text “A Handbook of Chiropody Giving the Causes and Treatments of Corns” published in 1903. It was the first such text to be illustrated with photographs