John Hilton Edwards

John Hilton Edwards studied medicine and zoology at Cambridge University from 1946 to 1949, and then medicine at the Middlesex Hospital 1949-1952. He qualified in medicine in 1952 at the University of Cambridge and subsequently served for one year as a ship's surgeon in the Falkland Islands dependency survey. From 1954 to 1956 he held Hospital appointments in general medicine, neurology, pathology and psychiatry, as well as a lectureship in social medicine at the University of Birmingham. He became a Member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1956, a Fellow in 1972, and from 1979 a Fellow of the Royal Society.

In 1958 Edwards joined the Medical Research Council Population Genetics Unit, Oxford. 1960-1961 he was a geneticist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and from 1961 to 1968 at the Children's Hospital, Birmingham. 1969-1970 he was Visiting Professor of Paediatrics, Cornell, New York and Staff member New York Blood Center. After these experiences at overseas centres, he was appointed as professor of human genetics at the University of Birmingham in 1971. He held this tenure until 1979. That year he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society and in the same year he was appointed to the chair of genetics at the University of Oxford.

We thank Frederick Hecht, MD, for information submitted.