William James Stuart

William James Stuart, CBE MA MDChB FRCSEd (1873-1958), surgeon, was the son of the Rev John Stuart, minister of St Andrew's Parish Church, Edinburgh, and the daughter of James Duncan, MD. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy and Edinburgh University. After graduating in 1899, he held a series of resident appointments at the Royal Infirmary Edinburgh, and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1903. In 1906 Stuart was elected an honorary assistant surgeon to the Deaconess Hospital, and in 1908, to a similar position at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

He was associated with these two hospitals for most of his career until his retirement in 1938. Stuart served as a major in the RAMC during the First World War, 1914-1918. In 1938 he was elected President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. 'Pussy' Stuart also had sporting prowess in cricket and, in 1901, he was a reserve for the Scottish International Rugby Team.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, at the age of 66, he returned to the Royal Infirmary to take charge of the surgical wards for three years. In 1944 Stuart was elected president of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh. He also did work for the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society and the YMCA. He was a senior member of the kirk-session of St Andrew's Parish Church, and chairman of the Executive Committee of the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Association. Stuart was awarded the CBE in 1952.