Roy
Porter, the only child of a jeweller, was
born in London on 31st December 1946. After
obtaining a double first in history at Cambridge
University (1968) he was granted a junior fellowship at Christ's
College.
In 1972 he began work as
director of studies in history at Churchill College, Cambridge. Five
years later he was appointed dean of the college. His PhD thesis was
published as The Making of Geology
in 1977.
Porter moved to the Welcome
Institute for the History of Medicine in 1979. Elected a fellow of
the British Academy in 1994, he was also made an honorary fellow of
both the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Porter wrote or edited
over 100 books. This included English Society
in the 18th Century (1990), Gibbon
(1994), Disease, Medicine and Society in
England, 1550-1860 (1995), A Social
History of Madness (1996), Greatest
Benefit to Mankind (1999), London:
A Social History (2000), Bodies
Politic (2001), Enlightenment:
Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (2000) and
Madness (2002).
Roy
Porter, who
retired as professor of the social history of medicine at the Welcome
Institute in 2001, died in Hastings in Sussex on 4th March, 2002.
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
