Peter Williams (physician)
Peter Orchard Williams, CBE, FRCP (23 September 1925 – 25 July 2014) was a British physician who directed the Wellcome Trust and the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine.
He was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, the son of Agnes (Birkinshaw) and Robert Williams; his father was a botanist and curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens there. Williams studied medicine at the University of Cambridge for two years and then at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School for four years. He did National Service with the Royal Army Medical Corps for three years, including time in Germany.
From 1955 to 1960 he worked as a medical officer for the Medical Research Council. In 1960 he joined the Wellcome Trust, becoming director in 1965 and retiring in 1991. Under his leadership the Trust’s budget grew about a hundred-fold. He received honorary degrees from the University of Birmingham (1989), University of Nottingham (1990), University of the West Indies (1991), University of Glasgow (1992), and University of Oxford (1993). He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1991 and was a founder member of The Hague Club and of the Association of Medical Research Charities. He served as president of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from 1991 to 1993.
Williams died on 25 July 2014 in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, at the age of 88.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 17:22 (CET).