Sir Wilfrid Percy Henry Sheldon (1901-1983), KCVO, MD, FRCP, FRCOG, was a prominent English consulting physician. He wrote one of the first major textbooks of paediatric medicine and was physician-paediatrician to the household of

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...

for nearly 20 years. Together with researchers in Holland, Sheldon was responsible for the discovery that coeliac disease is related to wheat products in the diet.

Education and career

Wilfrid Percy Henry Sheldon was born on 23 November 1901 at Woodford, Essex. He attended Bancroft's School in Woodford, King's College, London, and King's College Hospital, London, graduating from the latter in 1923. In 1926, he was appointed consulting paediatrician at King's College Hospital and became consultant physician to the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street several years later. He was one of the few full-time early practitioners of paediatric medicine in Britain during this era, when volunteer hospital consultants were not paid for their services. During the Second World War, Sheldon organized hospitals for children evacuated from London. In 1947 he became director of the department of child health at King's College Hospital. Sheldon was physician-paediatrician to the household of

from 1952 to 1971, a period covering the childhoods of the royal siblings Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward. He also maintained a private practice in

Harley Street Harley Street is a street in Marylebone, Central London, which has, since the 19th century housed a large number of private specialists in medicine and surgery. It was named after Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer.< ...

, London. As an advisor in child health to the Department of Health (United Kingdom) from 1952 to 1961, Sheldon was closely involved in establishing paediatric medical programmes under the National Health Service. Sheldon was made Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1954, and Knight Commander in 1959. During the later years of his life, he lived in the Coombe neighborhood of Kingston upon Thames.

Publications

* ''Text Book of Diseases of Infancy and Childhood'' (1936) * ''Dietary Starch and Fat Absorption'' (1949)
List of medical journal articles
authored by Wilfrid Sheldon, University College of London Institute of Child Health

References

* ''Sheldon, Sir Wilfrid Percy Henry'' (1901–1983), by Peter Tizard, rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 201
accessed
* Obituary, British Medical Journal, 24 September 1983 and 1 October 1983 * Obituary, The Lancet, 24 September 1983 * ''Clinical Research in Britain, 1950 - 1980'', a Witness Seminar held at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 9 June 1998 * ''Paediatrics at King's Hospital 50 Years Ago,'' Archives of Disease in Childhood, 1989 * ''Lives of the Fellows,'' Munks Roll, Volume VII, Royal College of Physicians of London

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sheldon, Wilfrid Percy Henry 20th-century English medical doctors 1901 births 1983 deaths Physicians of Great Ormond Street Hospital

Education and career

Publications

See also

References

Footnotes