Robert Hunter

Who is Robert Hunter?

Robert Brockie Hunter, Lord Hunter of Newington, 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. 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 there became 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 1963 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 and Principal 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.