Sir Wilfrid Percy Henry Sheldon (1901-1983), KCVO, MD, FRCP, FRCOG, was a prominent English consulting physician. He wrote one of the first major textbooks of paediatric medicine and was physician-paediatrician to the household of Queen Elizabeth II for nearly 20 years. Together with researchers in Holland, Sheldon was responsible for the discovery that coeliac disease is related to wheat products in the diet. [1] [2]
Wilfrid Percy Henry Sheldon was born on 23 November 1901 at Woodford, Essex. He attended Bancroft's School in Woodford, [3] King's College, London, and King's College Hospital, London, graduating from the latter in 1923. In 1926, he was appointed consulting paediatrician at King's College Hospital and became consultant physician to the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street several years later. [4] He was one of the few full-time early practitioners of paediatric medicine in Britain during this era, when volunteer hospital consultants were not paid for their services. [5] [6]
During the Second World War, Sheldon organized hospitals for children evacuated from London. In 1947 he became director of the department of child health at King's College Hospital.
Sheldon was physician-paediatrician to the household of Queen Elizabeth II from 1952 to 1971, [7] a period covering the childhoods of the royal siblings Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward. He also maintained a private practice in Harley Street, London.
As an advisor in child health to the Department of Health (United Kingdom) from 1952 to 1961, [8] Sheldon was closely involved in establishing paediatric medical programmes under the National Health Service.
Sheldon was made Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1954, and Knight Commander in 1959. During the later years of his life, he lived in the Coombe neighborhood of Kingston upon Thames.
June Kathleen Lloyd, Baroness Lloyd of Highbury, DBE, FRCP, FRCP Edin, FRCGP was a British paediatrician and, in retirement, a cross bench member of the House of Lords. June Lloyd was a determined advocate for children's health and was instrumental in the establishment of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. In 1996, the college gained its royal status. She was also known for discovering that the damage caused to patients by the rare metabolic disease oQ-betalipoproteinaemia, that could be avoided by the use of Vitamin E. She was also known for discovering the role of lipid metabolism in health and disease in childhood, which was original and difficult to investigate at that time.
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, often referred to as the RCPCH, is the professional body for paediatricians in the United Kingdom. It is responsible for the postgraduate training of paediatricians and conducts the Membership of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (MRCPCH) exams. It also awards the Diploma in Child Health (DCH), which is taken by many doctors who plan a career in general practice. Members of the college use the postnominal initials 'MRCPCH' while Fellows use 'FRCPCH'.
Sir John Peter Mills Tizard was a British paediatrician and professor at the University of Oxford. Tizard was principally notable for important research into neonatology and paediatric neurology and being a founder member of the Neonatal Society in 1959. Tizard was considered the most distinguished academic children's physician of his generation.
Victor Dubowitz, FRCP, Hon FRCPCH is a British neurologist and professor emeritus at Imperial College London. He is principally known along with his wife Lilly Dubowitz for developing two clinical tests, the Dubowitz Score to estimate gestational age and the other for the systematic neurological examination of the newborn.
Douglas Montagu Temple Gairdner FRCP was a Scottish paediatrician, research scientist, academic and author. Gairdner was principally known for a number of research studies in neonatology at a time when that subject was being developed as perhaps the most rewarding application of basic physiology to patient care, and later his most important contributions as editor, firstly editing Recent Advances in Paediatrics, and then of Archives of Disease in Childhood for 15 years, turning the latter into an international journal of repute with its exemplary standards of content and presentation.
Sir Robert Hutchison, 1st Baronet, FRCP was a Scottish physician and paediatrician, and the original editor of the medical books, Clinical Methods and Food and the Principles of Dietetics.
John Oldroyd Forfar, MC, FRSE was a Scottish paediatrician and academic. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the Second World War and later became a leading civilian paediatrician. He was Professor of Child Life and Health at the University of Edinburgh from 1964 to 1982. He was President of the British Paediatric Association from 1985 to 1988, and was instrumental in the founding of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
Helen Marion Macpherson Mackay was a British paediatrician. She made important contributions to the understanding of childhood nutrition and preventive healthcare. Mackay was the first woman fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
Leonard Birnie Strang FRCP was a Scottish born, British professor of Paediatric sciences and was a Secretary of the Paediatric Committee of the Royal College of Physicians. He was considered an outstanding clinical observer, contributing to the first accounts of harlequinism and of catecholamine secretion in neuroblastoma. However it was his later work that Leonard Strang became famous, leading a team over two decades studying pulmonary vasculature in the perinatal period and even more the central role that secretion of lungs containing fluid plays in lung formation and preparation for birth.
Christine Elizabeth "Tina" Cooper OBE was an English paediatrician and an expert on child abuse. She worked at Newcastle General Hospital for the majority of her career and received an OBE in 1967 for her services to children's health in Sierra Leone, which included establishing a national immunisation programme.
Sir Alan Aird Moncrieff, was a British paediatrician and professor emeritus at University of London. He was most notable for developing the first premature-baby unit in 1947. It was Moncrief who recognised and developed the concept of daily parental visits to the ward, which he developed while at Great Ormond Street, well before the need for this became recognised, and with his ward sister, published an article on Hospital Visiting for Children in 1949.
Wilfrid Walter Payne FRCP was a British pediatrician with his job title also being biochemist and chemical pathologist He was notable for developing flame photometry and chromatography, enzymology, fat balances and chylomicron counting, and for conducting research on gastroenteritis, calcium and phosphorus metabolism, and on coeliac and fibrocystic diseases.
Alfred White Franklin FRCP was an English neonatologist and paediatrician who edited numerous books on child abuse, founded the British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, kept an interest in medical history and wrote on child matters. He was a prominent figure in the field of child abuse prevention.
Seymour Donald Mayneord Court, CBE, FRCSLT, FRCP, Hon FRCGP was a British paediatrician who was known for his achievements in the fields of respiratory disease and the epidemiology of disease in childhood. He was also known for working, in a primary role, that established the importance of research into the social and behavioural aspects of illness in childhood.
Dermod de la Chevallerie MacCarthy FRCP was a British paediatrician, notable for establishing a paediatric unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital and conducting research into common disturbances in childhood and growth in deprived children. He was most notable for his work to encourage mothers to be with their children when in hospitals.
David Robert Harvey was a British paediatrician and considered by his peers to be a champion of the less privileged. Harvey was most notable for developing the training of neonatal medicine doctors at a time when the speciality had no official recognition. Harvey was homosexual and never afraid to disclose it, even at the beginning of his career, when homophobia was more prominent.
British Association of Perinatal Medicine known as BAPM, is a charitable organization that was founded in Bristol in 1976 that is most notable for being a pressure group to advance the standards of perinatal care within the United Kingdom by a dedicated core of professional physicians who are accredited by examination.
Alexander Parker Mowat was a Scottish paediatric hepatologist. He established the paediatric hepatology unit at King's College Hospital, London, which became a referral centre for children across Britain with liver diseases.
Isaac Henry Gosset (1907–1965) was a British consultant paediatrician.
Richard Henry Reeve White was a paediatric nephrologist, emeritus Professor of Paediatric Nephrology from the University of Birmingham morphologist and archivist for British Association for Paediatric Nephrology.