| Authorised form of name | Paton; Sir; William Drummond MacDonald (1917 - 1993); pharmacologist |
| Dates | 1917 - 1993 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | Hendon, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom |
| Date of birth | 05 May 1917 |
| Place of death | 13 Staverton Road, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom |
| Date of death | 17 October 1993 |
| DatesAndPlaces | Cremation: Oxford crematorium, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Pharmacologist |
| Research field | Physiology |
| Pharmacology |
| Activity | Education:
Miss Unwin's school in St Albans; Winchester House School in Brackley (1927); Repton School (1931-5); New College, Oxford (1935) BA Oxon (1938); MB BCh (1942); MA(1947); DM (1953)
Career:
Moved to India with his family (1921); returned to England owing to ill health and lived with his maternal grandmother (1923); unfit for military service he took the post of pathologist for two years; joined the physiological laboratory under the direction of G. L. Brown, at the Medical Research Council's research institute in Hampstead, London where he worked on the pharmacology of acetylcholine and its benefits in the control of hypertension; took on joint appointment between the medical unit at University College Hospital and the department of pharmacology at University College, London (1952); chair of pharmacology at Oxford (1959-1984); built up a cannabis research group in Oxford to address unanswered questions about the biological effects of cannabis (1970); acting director of the Wellcome Institute (1984-1989); died of a stroke.
Honours:
CBE 1968; Kt 1979
Awards/Medalds:
Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh 1956
Gairdner Foundation International Award 1959
Memberships:
FRCP
Physiological Society (Secretary 1954–6)
British Pharmacological Society
Wellcome trustee 1978–87
Rhodes trustee 1968–87
Research Defence Society (President 1972–8) |
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 15/03/1956 |
| Age at election | 38 |
| Proposer | Ernest Basil Verney |
| Frank Campbell MacIntosh |
| Bernard Katz |
| Joshua Harold Burn |
| David Whitteridge |
| Marthe Vogt |
| Henry Hallett Dale |
| Harold King |
| Charles Robert Harrington |
| George Lindor Brown |
| Wilhelm Feldberg |
| Relationships | Parents: William Paton (1886–1943), Presbyterian minister and secretary of the International Missionary Council, and Grace Mackenzie (1887–1967), daughter of the Revd David MacDonald, Presbyterian minister at Bexhill, and private secretary to Ramsay MacDonald.
Spouse: (m. 1942) Phoebe Margaret Rooke (b. 1916), hospital almoner. |
| PublishedWorks | RCN 15592
RCN 20042
RCN 20043 |
| OtherInfo | Distinguished for his researches on histamine and methonium compounds. |
| Royal Society Obituary or Memoir | Click to view (may be contained within a meeting notice, presidential address or list of death notices) |
| Related images | Discover a selection of related images in our picture library |
| Source | DNB
Obituaries:
Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 1996 vol 42 pp 289-314, plate, by H P Rang and Lord Perry of Walton |
| Virtual International Authority File | http://viaf.org/viaf/212463856 |
| Code | NA2109 |
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| GLB/65/47/110 | Brown to W D M Paton, Department of Pharmacology, Oxford | 16 April 1963 |
| GLB/57/15 | List of publications by W D M Paton | c1969 |
| GLB/24/22 | 'Ballade to a Returning Traveller' by W D M Paton, Hampstead | 29 October 1947 |
| GLB/24/13 | Thoughts by Bill Paton during the Royal Society discussion meeting of Freezing Tissue | mid 20th century |
| GLB/49/2/2/55 | W D M Paton, Department of Pharmacology, University of Oxford to Brown | 4 October 1968 |
| GLB/65/18/5 | Bill Paton, Department of Pharmacology, Royal College of Surgeons to Brown | 24 January 1956 |
| GLB/25/17 | Newspaper cutting of a cartoon sent by Professor W D M Paton | mid 20th century |
| GLB/65/84 | W D M Paton | December 1953 - January 1971 |
| GLB/21/14 | W D M Paton, Department of Pharmocology, Oxford to Brown | 6 March 1967 |
| GLB/63/2/21 | Application form for Professor W D M Paton to Smith Kline and French Foundation | [c 1970] |
| PB/9/1/101/6 | Royal Society correspondence | 1968 |
| GLB/2/1 | Professor W D M Paton, Royal College of Surgeons of England to Brown | 1 May 1957 |
| GLB/24/12 | Thoughts by Bill Paton during the Royal Society discussion meeting of Freezing Tissue | mid 20th century |
| HWT/5/13 | Agenda (annotated by Thompson), papers and minutes of meeting held on 1 March 1968 | March 1968 |
| HWT/48/3/10/1 | Minutes of meetings held 17 August 1978 and 7 February 1979 and correspondence arising | 1978-1979 |
| PB/1/34/1 | Letters of congratulation on Blackett's Life Peerage | 1969 |
| IM/003455 | Paton, Sir William Drummond MacDonald | nd |
| JV/11/7/166 | Letter from Sir William [Bill] Paton, FRS (University Department of Pharmacology) to Sir John Vane | 4 January 1984 |
| GLB/24/53 | Note from Bill [W D M Paton], Royal College of Surgeons of England, Department of Pharmacology, London | 1956 |
| IM/GA/WRS/9670 | Paton, Sir William Drummond McDonald | nd |
| GLB/2/2 | Brown to Professor W D M Paton, Examination Hall, Queen Square, London | 6 May 1957 |
| EC/1956/16 | Paton, Sir William Drummond MacDonald: certificate of election to the Royal Society | |