| Description | Wilfred ‘Bill’ Sircus was born in 1919 in Liverpool to Leon and Jessie Sircus. He attended the University of Liverpool for a while before the outbreak of the second world war. He enlisted and completed MB ChB before serving in Italy and Austria. He worked at Broadgreen Hospital, Liverpool and in Sheffield before working as a gastroenterologist at the Edinburgh Western General and the University of Edinburgh. He joined the gastroenterology unit at the Western, which was the first of its kind in the UK, as a gastrointestinal physiologist. As part of his work, he became an endoscopist, and published numerous articles, some of which were interdisciplinary studies along with psychiatrists.
He contributed to publications relating to his discipline including the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, Gut, and the book Modern Trends in Gastroenterology III as well as more general medical journals. He was part of additional medical staff of the Committee of Privy Council for Medical Research during the 1960s. Visiting professorships and lecture tours took him all over the world. He became a member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1958. He was a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh and London, senior fellow of the Association of Physicians of Great Britan and Ireland, president of the British Society of Digestive Endoscopy and the president of the World Organisation of Endoscopy 1983-1986. After his retirement he was one of the editors of the Proceedings of the Royal College of Physicians from 1987-1995.
He was married twice, first to Mill, a Norwegian nurse who he met in 1946 and then to Maggie after her death. He had three children as well as many grandchildren and great children. He was survived by his partner of 20 years, Anna Caplan. He died in Cupar, Fife in 2018.
Contents: Photograph of Wilfred (Bill) Sircus, 1943-1986. |