Born: 
18/11/1920
Died: 
14/08/2006
Specialty: 
Paediatrics/Community Child Health
Designatory Letters: 
MBChB Edin 1944, MRCP Edin 1949, DCH Lond 1948, MD Edin 1954, Fellowship 1956

(Compiled with information kindly supplied by his family)

Having qualified in 1944 he served in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve 1944-47, with the Royal Marines in Burma, and on an infantry landing ship in the 1945-6 Indonesian War.

In 1948 he embarked on what was to be a distinguished career in paediatrics, training in Liverpool, Edinburgh and London before being appointed consultant in Dundee in 1955. In 1952, encouraged in research by Professor Gaddum (Dept. of Pharmacology, Edinburgh) he was a Rockefeller Research Fellow in Physiology in the Mayo Clinic, USA and later continued his interest in the metabolism of histamine and other amines.

In 1961 he was appointed first consultant in the UK in child neurology, especially in the newborn, and in 1963 was appointed to the Chair of Child Health in Aberdeen, a post he held for 10 years before being invited back to Dundee to the Chair of Child Health there.

His interest in paediatric neurology led to membership of the American Academy for cerebral Palsy and developmental Medicine, and a long association with the Mac Keith Press, London as an editor and ultimately Chairman of the editorial Board.

In later years he became increasingly involved in social and community paediatrics, edited the first definitive textbook on that subject and helped to establish the British Association of Community Child Health. As well as being a member of the GMC and many other professional bodies he lectured and examined in Asia, Africa and America. In 1979 he was Visiting Research Professor in New Zealand and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry in Dundee, later serving on the University Court.

He was proud of his family connections with Skye where he spent much leisure time during his long retirement, fishing for salmon and pursuing his lifetime interest in Celtic languages. He was fluent in both Scottish Gaelic and Welsh. He died on 14th August 2006,aged 85, leaving his wife, June, a son, three daughters and six grandchildren.