Robert Hunter, Baron Hunter of Newington

Robert Brockie Hunter, Baron Hunter of Newington LLD MBE DL FRSE (14 July 1915 – 24 March 1994) was a physician and university administrator. He was the personal physician to Field Marshal Montgomery, during the Second World War in North west Europe from 1944 to 1945. To friends and colleagues he was known simply as Bob Hunter.

Life

He was born on 14 July 1915 the son of Robert Marshall Hunter and his wife Margaret Thorburn Brockie. He was educated at George Watson's College in Edinburgh then studied Medicine at Edinburgh University graduating MB ChB in 1938. In the Second World War he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps and was later appointed as personal physician to Field Marshall Montgomery.^[1] He was demobilised with the rank of Major and returned to Edinburgh to work under Derrick Dunlop.^[2]

From 1947 to 1948 he was Lecturer in Therapeutics, at Edinburgh University, and in 1948 was Lecturer in Clinical Medicine at St Andrews University. He was appointed Professor of Materia Medica, Pharmacology and Therapeutics from 1948 to 1967 and was also Dean of the Faculty of Medicine from 1958-62. In 1963 he became a member of the Ministry of Health Committee on Safety of Drugs and served on this committee until 1968. In academia he moved to the University of Dundee in 1967 becoming Professor of Materia Medica, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, from 1967 to 1968. He was then appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham in 1968, a post he held until 1981. From 1973 to 1980 he was a member of the DHSS Independent Scientific Committee on Smoking and Health.^[3]

Following the revelations in 1962 of the thalidomide disaster of the three previous years Hunter was appointed to the Committee on the Safety of Drugs and was Chairman of the Clinical Trials Sub-Committee.

In 1964 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Anthony Elliot Ritchie, George Howard Bell, Ernest Geoffrey Cullwick and James Macdonald.^[4]

Following his baronetcy in 1978 he was an active participant in the House of Lords and was a very vocal supporter of the National Health Service.

He died of a heart attack whilst in his garden in Birmingham on 24 March 1994.^[5]

Honours

• 1945 - awarded MBE
• 1977 - Knighted
• 1978 - created Baron Hunter of Newington

Family

He was married in 1940 to Kathleen Margaret Douglas with whom he had three sons and one daughter. ^[3][6]

References

1. ↑ BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF FORMER FELLOWS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 1783 – 2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0 902 198 84 X. 
2. ↑ http://munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk/Biography/Details/4996
3. 1 2 Wade, Owen (30 March 1994). "Obituary: Lord Hunter of Newington". The Independent. Retrieved 3 December 2012. 
4. ↑ BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF FORMER FELLOWS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 1783 – 2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0 902 198 84 X. 
5. ↑ Independent (newspaper) obituary 29 March 1994
6. ↑ Obituary Royal Society