Dr Thomas Richard Emerson

Formerly Consultant Psychiatrist, Riverside Health Authority, London

Dr Emerson was born in 1930 into a large Catholic family in London, where his father was a dental practitioner. Thomas was schooled by the Jesuits at St. Ignatius College in Stamford Hill, London, from 1942 to 1949. At school he took part in sports, mainly squash, rackets and tennis, as well as swimming, rowing and judo, all of which he preferred to field games such as rugby and soccer. However, what he lacked in the latter two sports he compensated for in the classroom. He was also a good chess player, and enjoyed reading, studying and listening to music. He was an outstanding scholar: he sailed through his matriculation and higher examinations with credits and distinctions to spare. On leaving school he worked as a technician for the Medical Research Council while he studied at Birkbeck College in the evenings, obtaining a BSc in chemistry in 1957.

His record was so good that virtually all avenues were open to him vis-à-vis the next step up the scholastic ladder. In fact, King's College London was the next step up. Here he completed his PhD degree with no difficulty so that he found that jobs in research were easily open to him. For example, between 1963 and 1965 he worked as a research chemist at Oxford, following which he was ‘seized’ by London University as a lecturer. Then, in 1966, he scaled all the heights of academic chemistry. He decided to perform an academic somersault and began again at the bottom, this time to scale the medical ladder. To this end, he entered St Bartholomew's Medical School as a student, emerging in 1973 with the degrees MB, BS London to hang on his academic belt.

Now a qualified doctor, he completed his house jobs including that of a casualty officer at St Bartholomew's in 1975. It was at this hospital that he formed a taste for psychiatry and ultimately he was appointed a consultant in Riverside Health Authority where he continued his very successful and indeed amazing career in psychiatry. This included work in Hackney, St Mary Abbots and the Gordon Hospitals but mainly in St Bartholomew's where he eventually retired as a consultant psychiatrist in 1995. After retirement, he acted as a volunteer medical advisor to Amnesty International for some years.

He never married and lived for 35 years in a prestigious and expensive flat in the Barbican. After retirement he found himself free to indulge his hobbies, which included a collection of long-case clocks which he presented to the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers; and a valuable porcelain collection presented to the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is important to mention that in his will he left a substantial sum to the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

He died on 10 October 2011.

It is a matter of deep regret that I was never given the privilege of meeting Dr Emerson personally. However, I have gleaned a great deal of valuable information for this obituary from his brother. Equally valuable was the curriculum vitae (10 quarto pages) which he enclosed. Paramount for our purposes, and selected at random, is page 8, headed ‘Scientific Publications’ comprising 12 items, in 6 of which Dr Emerson was the lead writer.