Richard Bayliss

Sir Richard Ian Samuel Bayliss (2 January 1917 – 21 April 2006) was an English physician specialising in endocrinology. He became Physician to the Queen and head of the Medical Household.

Early life and training Richard Bayliss was born in Tettenhall, then in Staffordshire, and was the son of an ironmaster. His early education was at Rugby School, and he then undertook pre-clinical studies in medicine at Clare College, Cambridge. His clinical training was at St Thomas' Hospital Medical School, London, where he qualified in medicine in 1941.

Career Following qualification, during the bombing of London in World War II, Bayliss undertook a number of jobs at St Thomas' Hospital, rising to the position of resident assistant physician.

Personal life Bayliss was an accomplished pianist, and helped to organise the Christmas shows while a student at St Thomas'. He was proficient at jazz, and spent three months as a professional musician in Munich. Bayliss was also a keen skier and had been skiing shortly before his death at the age of 89. He was a lifelong smoker, and suffered from a variety of diseases. In 1964, at the age of 48, he suffered a myocardial infarction (heart attack) and, against medical advice, he was skiing within three weeks. He underwent coronary artery bypass surgery, and also suffered from a leaking aortic aneurysm, and a perforated Meckel's diverticulum. In addition he suffered from histoplasmosis, a fungal infection that he probably contracted while he was in the US. His death was due to cancer.

Bayliss was married three times. From his first marriage with Margaret-Joan Hardman, he had a son, who became a consultant radiologist, and a daughter. He had two daughters from his second marriage with Constance-Ellen Frey. Both these marriages were dissolved, and when he died, his third marriage with countess Marina de Borchgrave d'Altena had lasted 27 years.

Lectures and publications Lectures Both to the Royal College of Physicians: 1974 Croonian Lecture on Idiopathic oedema in women. 1983 Harveian Oration on Thyroid disease as the expression of autoimmune disorder.

Publications Bayliss published 100 papers, and wrote 33 chapters in books. He was also the author of: Practical Procedures in Clinical Medicine (1950) (London, J & A Churchill), which ran to three editions Thyroid Disease: the Facts (Oxford, (1982) Oxford University Press), a book for patients, which also went to three editions. In Sickness and in Health: a Physician Remembers (2007) (Lewes, Book Guild), personal memoirs.

Interviews