S2A3 Biographical Database of Southern African Science

Lefeuvre, Dr William Philip (medical sciences, insect collection)
Born: 1860, Folkstone, Kent, United Kingdom. Died: 16 October 1947, Cape Town, South Africa. Active in: SA Zim.

William Philip Lefeuvre (also LeFeuvre, Le Feuvre) qualified as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (MRCS) and a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of London (LRCP) in 1888, after training at Guy's Hospital, London. He spent some time as a clinical assistant at Evelina Hospital, and became a member of the British Medical Association. In 1889 he emigrated to the Cape Colony, where he was licensed to practice medicine on 5 October that year. He settled at Touwsrivier, along the railway line between Worcester and Laingsburg, as a medical officer of the Cape Government Railways. By 1895 he was a member of the Cape of Good Hope Branch of the British Medical Association. Two years later he had joined the (second) South African Medical Association.

In 1891 Lefeuvre presented reptiles and insects from the Worcester district to the South African Museum, Cape Town. These were followed by a few more specimens of Coleoptera and Orthoptera, as well as ants, from Touwsrivier in 1893.

During the entire Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) he served as a civil surgeon in the South African Field Force. After the war he moved to Bulawayo, in present Zimbabwe, where he worked as a Railway Medical Officer from 1903 to 1910. During this period he published a paper on "Infection in acute rheumatism" the British Medical Journal, 1904. He joined the Rhodesia Scientific Association in 1903 and was still a member in 1918. In 1912 he was honorary secretary of the Matabeleland Division of the British Medical Association. Later in his career he published two additional medical papers: "Plea for recognition of a common origin for Shingles and Chickenpox" (British Journal of Dermatology, 1917), in which he argued that shingles (or herpes) should be a notifiable disease, and "The aberrant vesicles of Herpes Zoster" (Medical Journal of South Africa, 1918). During 1919 he was a temporary captain in the South African Medical Corps. Thereafter he settled at Knysna as medical officer of health.

List of sources:
Cape of Good Hope. Report of the trustees of the South African Museum, 1891, 1893.

FamilySearch: William Philip Le Feuvre. https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/L4XR-M3P AND https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-G5N9-X1R?view=index&personArk=/ark:/61903/1:1:QPRB-FVRX&action=view&cc=1779109&lang=en

Google scholar. http://scholar.google.co.za Publications by W.P. LeFeuvre.

Medical and pharmacy register for the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, 1893, 1907.

Medical, dental and pharmacy directory of South Africa, 1926-1927.

Rhodesia Scientific Association. Proceedings, 1906, Vol. 6(1) and 1918, Vol. 16(2): Lists of members.

Robertson, H. Biodiversity explorers. http://www.biodiversityexplorer.org/people Retrieved on 2018-4-26.

South African medical directory for 1897. Cape Town: Cape Times, 1897.

South African Medical Journal, Series 2, December 1895, Vol. 3, p. 235: List of members of the Cape of Good Hope Branch of the BMA; May 1897, Vol. 5, pp. 20-21, and January 1898, Vol. 5, pp. 240-242: List of members of the South African Medical Association.

South African Medical Record, 12 August 1916, Vol. 14, p. 232: Matabeleland Division [of the BMA]

Compiled by: C. Plug

Last updated: 2025-02-24 11:35:11

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