Sir Geoffrey Jefferson FRS (1886–1961) was a British neurologist and pioneering neurosurgeon. He was educated in Manchester, England, obtaining his medical degree in 1909. He became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons two years later. He married in 1914, and moved to Canada. On the outbreak of World War I, he returned to Europe and worked at the Anglo-Russian Hospital in Petrograd, Russia, and then with the Royal Army Medical Corps in France.

After the war, he returned to Manchester, working at the Salford Royal Hospital. It was here, in 1925 that Jefferson performed the first successful embolectomy in England. By 1934, he was a neurosurgeon at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, becoming the UK's first professor of neurosurgery at the University of Manchester five years later.

The Committee of the First International Congress of Neurological Surgery was presided by Sir Geoffrey Jefferson with Marcel David as secretary. At the opening of the Executive Committee meeting on July 20, 1957, the president welcomed 99 officers and delegates.

The Jefferson fracture, which he was the first to describe, was named after him. Two classic works on atlas fractures by Sir Geoffrey Jefferson, published in 1920 and 1927 proposed his classification of 5 different anatomopathological classes; this work is widely cited in the literature and should be considered a classic. The patterns and deductions that Jefferson reported on these fractures appeared to draw upon the scientific experience of Vincenzo Quercioli and his description of the quadripartite atlas fracture, which appeared to be unique, even in Jefferson's review. Therefore, Domenicucci et al. believe that they have identified another scientist and pioneer of the atlas fracture in Professor Vincenzo Quercioli. With his brilliant insights, which remain useful and valid, Quercioli led the way to further research on the subject. ¹⁾

Manchester Royal Infirmary also honours Jefferson with the Jefferson Suite, a training area in their Medical Education Campus.

Jefferson was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1947.

He was awarded the Lister Medal in 1948 for his contributions to surgical science.[4] The corresponding Lister Oration, given at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, was not delivered until 1949, and was titled 'The Mind of Mechanical Man'.

The subject of this lecture was the Manchester Mark 1, one of the earliest electronic computers, and Jefferson's lecture formed part of the early debate over the possibility of artificial intelligence.

In 1956 he presented the Sir Hugh Cairns Memorial Lecture at the Society of British Neurological Surgeons.

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7: Jefferson A. Geoffrey Jefferson 1886-1961. Surg Neurol. 1984 Jul;22(1):1-4. PubMed PMID: 6374950.

8: Horwitz NH. Letter: Sir Geoffrey Jefferson on invasive pituitary neuroendocrine tumors. J Neurosurg. 1975 Feb;42(2):244. PubMed PMID: 1089768.

9: Memorial to Sir Geoffrey Jefferson. Br Med J. 1963 Jul 13;2(5349):72. PubMed PMID: 20789905; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC1872158.

10: Geoffrey JEFFERSON. Lancet. 1961 Feb 4;1(7171):288-9. PubMed PMID: 14447862.

11: THE NEUROSURGICAL clinic and the neurological laboratories at the Royal Infirmary, Manchester until 1951 under the direction of Sir Geoffrey Jefferson. Br J Surg. 1955 Nov;43(179):317-23. PubMed PMID: 13284272.