An Address

Let me first give expression to my very deep sense of the honour you have done me, in making me a Doctor of Laws of this great University, now in the hundredth year of its activity for higher education and research in Northern Ireland. You may be assured that I value very highly indeed the distinction which you have thus conferred. You have honoured me further by asking me, as my first act as honorary graduate, to perform a simple but significant ceremony. It is my privilege now to declare this fine Assembly Hall open, and to offer it for acceptance by the University, of which you have given me the right proudly to call myself a graduate member. As all present will know, the building and equipment of this Hall have been made possible by one of the generous provisions made under the Will of the late Sir William Whitla, one of this University's most widely distinguished sons, and one of its greatest and most consistent benefactors. This building will most fittingly bear his name, so that all the members of the university, who enjoy its provision for their corporate activities, will be regularly reminded of one, who, throughout the whole of a full life and an active career, gave to the advancement of the Uni-versity's interests, in all directions, a central place in his thoughts and his endeavours. He had a more complete and lifelong association than is usual in an academic career, or in his own chosen profession of a physician, with this one School and University. Here he entered as a student in 1871, graduated M.D. in 1877, and became Professor of Materia Medica and Pharmacology in 1890, retiring from the Chair in 1920, but giving the University still his full service as its Parliamentary Representative at Westminster; here he remained till he died, full of years and honours, in 1933; and, in addition to his provision for the Hall, which we are here to dedicate to the uses which he designed, he bequeathed his residuary estate to the University, and his own beautiful house and garden in Lennoxvale as a lodge of residence for its Vice-Chancellors. I myself had only once the opportunity to meet Sir William Whitla, at the meeting of the British Medical Association here in 1909, when he was its President. I think that, even from that friendly and encouraging, though brief, …