David Widgery

"Dr David Widgery (1947–1992) practised locally as a GP. As a socialist and writer his life and work were an inspiration in the fight against injustice" – St Anne's Church, Three Colt Street, Poplar, London E14 7HA David Widgery (27 April 1947 – 26 October 1992) was a British Marxist writer, journalist, polemicist, physician, and activist.

Biography Widgery was born in Barnet and grew up in Maidenhead, Berkshire. He contracted polio as a child and was expelled from sixth form for publishing a magazine.

His books include The Chatto Book of Dissent (1991), an anthology of dissident writings co-edited with Michael Rosen, Some Lives!: A GP's East End (1991), the story of his experience as a doctor in London's East End, The National Health: A Radical Perspective, and Beating Time (1986), an account of the Rock Against Racism movement of the late 1970s.

When Widgery died, aged 45, excess alcohol, barbiturates and pethidine were found in his bloodstream. One obituary described Widgery as "a radical humanist intellectual on permanent loan to revolutionary socialism."

Publications Widgery, D. (1976), The Left in Britain, 1956-68 (Peregrine Books) Widgery, D. (ed) (1980), The Book of the Year: September 1979 to September 1980 (Inklinks) Widgery, D., The National Health: A Radical Perspective Widgery, D. (1986), Beating Time Widgery, D. (1989), Preserving Disorder (Essays on Society & Culture) (Pluto Press) Widgery, D. and Rosen, M. (eds) (1991), The Chatto Book of Dissent (Chatto) Widgery, D. and Shelton, S. (1991), Some Lives!: A GP's East End, London: Sinclair Stevenson. Widgery, D. (1991), Marketa Luskacova: Photographs of Spitalfields (Whitechapel Art Gallery)