David Robert Harvey

David Robert Harvey, emeritus professor of paediatrics and neonatal medicine at Imperial College London, has died aged 74, after a long struggle against Parkinson’s disease. David was a leader among the medical lesbian and gay community, paediatrician at the confinements of HRH the Princess Anne in 1977 and 1981, and HRH the Princess of Wales in 1982 and 1984, an educator, researcher, socialist, Buddhist, bon vivant, polymath, and, above all, a champion for the disadvantaged and an advocate for mothers and babies.

Prior to the 1970s very few preterm babies survived. After qualifying in 1960 from Guy’s Hospital Medical School, David trained with Pamela Davies, Peter Tizard, Otto Woolf, John …