The legacies of Sir William Whitla.

Whitla was one of the outstanding graduates of the Queen's University of Ireland; he had both national and international reputations and was an intellectual giant amongst our predecessors, being a pharmacist, physician, politician, Shakespearian scholar, medical author and benefactor. Unlike other distinguished graduates, his contribution to Northern Ireland has continued to develop through his generous legacies so that his name, although not the man, is probably more widely known now than at the time of his death. I thought that it might be of interest to examine some aspects of the influence of Sir William Whitla on the University and this Society since his death. I do not intend to cover the biographical details of his life extensively as these were admirably described by Dr Cecil Kidd in his Presidential Address to the Ulster Medical Society in 1962. 1,2, 3, 4,5