In 1540 Henry VIII granted a charter that joined the Surgeons’ Guild and the Company of Barbers. William Clowes (1543/4–1604) – one of the most eminent, innovative and controversial members of this amalgamated Barber-Surgeons Company – served as a military and naval surgeon from 1563to 1588, and he constantly strove to improve the low standards of surgical treatment that he observed in the services. But over two hundred years later, there still remained concerns over the standard of surgery in Britain's armed forces. Three months after the Battle of Camperdown in October 1797, John Bell, a master Edinburgh surgeon serving at the naval hospital at Yarmouth, composed a ‘memorial’ to the Right Honourable Earl Spencer, First Lord of the Admiralty, in which he expressed his concern at the low state of surgical practice and the poor training of many naval surgeons. A large part of the document was a plea for a military school of surgery; just as important, however, was a commentary on the plight of contemporary naval surgeons. ‘To the life of a navy surgeon there are, God knows, no seductions’, Bell wrote. ‘Nor will men ever delight in a profession which is not made respectable, honourable, and useful.’ Reflecting on the under-provision of surgeons, he continued: