James Ian Summers Robertson

James Ian Summers Robertson was born in Welbeck, Nottinghamshire, and educated at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, and then St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, Ian graduated bachelor of science with 1st class honours in human and comparative anatomy in 1949 and bachelor of medicine, bachelor of surgery with honours, and distinctions in medicine and pathology, in 1952. At St Mary’s he also found time to be captain of both cricket and soccer. He was admitted as a member of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1954 and was subsequently elected as a fellow. Ian did national service with the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1954 to 1956, during which time he represented the army at cricket and rugby union football. He later said that one of his most demanding military duties was batting at first wicket down against Yorkshire. He also played club cricket for Worksop in the Bassetlaw League in the north of England, and later for West of Scotland in the Western Union. He then joined St Mary’s Hospital medical unit, initially as a lecturer in medicine from 1956 to 1964, and, thereafter, as a senior lecturer in therapeutics and honorary consultant physician from 1964 to 1967. From 1956 Stanley Peart led the unit. Peart had purified and sequenced angiotensin II, the product of the action of the renal enzyme renin and the most potent vasopressor …