Dr William Mercer Jones

Personal Details

Dr William Mercer Jones MB BS FFARCS DA

Known as: Bill

14/06/1909 to 08/09/1992

Place of birth:  Kilkenny, Ireland

Nationality:  British

CRN:  541406

Education and qualifications

General education Blundell’s School, Devon, England.
Durham University at Newcastle
Primary medical qualification(s) MB BS, University of Durham, 1932
Initial Fellowship and type FFARCS by Election
Year of Fellowship 1953
Other qualification(s) DA (RCP&S), 1946

Professional life and career

Postgraduate career

After qualifying Jones undertook his house jobs at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle-on-Tyne. He then entered general practice in Harrogate, Yorkshire. By 1938 he was also employed as an anaesthetist at Harrogate & District General Hospital. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps in Europe, Iceland and the Gambia, attaining the rank of Major (Specialist Anaesthetist). After demobilisation he returned to his previous positions in Harrogate, but soon gave up general practice to become Senior Anaesthetist to the Harrogate and Ripon Group Hospitals. He remained there as a Consultant Anaesthetist until his retirement about 1978.

Professional interests and activities

He was a member of the British Medical Association, the Royal Society of Medicine, and the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain & Ireland. He rerganised the anaesthetic department at Harrogate General Hospital and in 1966 set up the provincial intensive care unit. He was a co-author of a paper describing  rupture of a main bronchus during lung resection.

Other biographical information

He married Nancy Routledge in 1937 and they had two sons, the elder qualifying in medicine. For the last three decades of his life he lived in a farmhouse at Kettlesing in the Yorkshire dales, where he landscaped the surrounding fields. A founder member of the Ripon Sailing Club, he enjoyed its activities through his retirement. He died at the age of 83, survived by his family.

Author and sources

Author:

Dr Alistair McKenzie

Sources and comments:

[1] Morris RS. Obituary W M Jones FFARCS (with photograph). BMJ 1992; 305: 1288. [2] Medical Registers and Directories. [3] ancestry.co.uk