Peter Williamson died on July 2nd, 1998, aged 77. He had been in general practice at 15 Sandford Road, Ranelagh, from 1951 to 1990 and lived on there in retirement with his wife Heather. They married in 1963 and had two children, Wendy and Gary.
Peter was brought up in Bray, Co Wicklow, and qualified from Trinity College, Dublin in 1944. After house officer posts at Kidderminster and Swansea, he served in the RAFVR and next had a busy registrar post at Liverpool and St Helen's for two years. He then sat and passed the membership examination of the Royal College of Physicians of London. This examination was a formidable obstacle to very many and was regarded as the sine qua non for entry into specialist training in England.
Peter preferred to set up in Dublin where he established a busy, single-handed practice. In 1953 he was appointed assistant physician to the out-patients department at the Adelaide Hospital and until 1982 held a weekly general medical clinic. He was for many years school doctor to Wesley College, first at St Stephen's Green and Tullamaine and then at Ballinteer. He was medical officer to Jacobs and Ever Ready and to the Gascoigne Home in Heytesbury Street.
Peter was unusually highly qualified. He kept up to date by attending the weekly conferences at the Adelaide Hospital and it was on his visits to the pathology laboratory there that he met Heather. He was to be seen more widely too at the annual update sessions at Dublin's many hospitals. He was notably meticulous in history taking, examination and note taking. This established in his patients a warm rapport and confidence. It resulted too in his diagnosis being very often unassailable. He seemed to be always available, courteous, attentive, open-minded and resourceful. Tributes to his devoted work at all hours of the day and night were part of the social scene among all classes in Dublin 4 and 6.
He was a quiet person, diffident about entering an argument or a controversy but always alert and with a twinkle in his eye and an expansive response to a good story. He was fond of his golf at Carrickmines and was a keen photographer, but above all his family life was his greatest love.
From 1989 Peter had health problems, the incursions of which he resisted with courage. He had a full, dedicated and rewarding life. He left a loving family and many others with grateful and warm memories of him.
E.A.M.