Dr. Malvern Bryan Clopton of Missouri

Dr. Malvern Bryan Clopton, the son of William Hickman Clopton, Esq. and Belle Bryan Clopton, was born in St. Louis, Missouri on October 8, 1875. A direct descendant of William Clopton, Gentleman and Ann (Booth) Dennett Clopton, his first wife was Lily (Lambert) Walker, the widow of James T. Walker. She was born January 9, 1884, and she died November 19, 1911. Dr. Clopton next married Rachel (Lowe) Lambert, the daughter of Arthur H. Lowe, and the former wife of Gerald B. Lambert, on July 14, 1934. There were no children from either marriage.

A member of Kappa Sigma, Dr. Clopton graduated from the University of Virginia, his father's alma mater, in 1897. When he first began to practice medicine, he would drive a horse and buggy and took vegetables, chickens, and sometimes a fruit jar of whiskey in payment for his services. He was a surgeon in St. Louis and was for many years professor of clinical surgery at Washington University School of Medicine and Chief of Staff at St. Luke's Hospital.

As Lieutenant-Colonel Medical Corps, N.S.A., during World War I, he was Chief Surgeon of Base Hospital 21, the medical unit sponsored by WUSM and Barnes Hospital. From 1932 to 1942 he was the President of the Corporation of Washington University.

A highly cultured and most generous individual, his benefactions to the Medical Center included funds to equip the operating floor of the Rand-Johnson Surgical Wing of Barnes Hospital in 1930 and to create the Clopton Auditorium in the Wohl Clinics Building, which opened after his death in 1947. He also donated a rural property near Clarksville, Missouri, which is located north of St. Louis, and known as Brookhill Farm, to be used for research in nutrition, and various gifts to the St. Louis Art Museum, the university art department, and to the hospitals where he served..

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Contributed by :

Paul G. Anderson, andersop@msnotes.wustl.edu
Suellen Clopton Blanton, bblanton@fast.net
and Dr. James Malvern