Peter Orchard Williams

Peter Orchard Williams (23 September 1925 − 25 July 2014) was a British physician, who served as Director of the Wellcome Trust, and of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine.

The son of Agnes (née Birkinshaw) and Robert Williams, he was born on 23 September 1925 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, where his father, a botanist, was curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens.

He read medicine at the University of Cambridge for two years, then spent four years at St Mary's Hospital Medical School.

Williams joined the Wellcome Trust in 1960, becoming director in 1965, and retiring from there in 1991.

He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1991 Birthday Honours. He was a founder member of The Hague Club, and of the Association of Medical Research Charities. He was president of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from 1991 to 1993.

Williams died on 25 July 2014, aged 89, in Woodstock, Oxfordshire.