David Hull

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David Hull was a true clinical scientist who made major contributions to the understanding of the physiology of newborn babies. He developed a respiratory unit at Great Ormond Street Hospital and set up a new paediatric unit in Nottingham. For many years he was the major adviser on children’s health matters to the government and the chief medical officer, and he was much sought after to lead inquiries where things had gone wrong. He was an adviser to the World Health Organization. Throughout he remained a much respected and humble man.

David was born in Blackburn, the second son of William, a greengrocer, and his wife, Nellie Hayes. His older brother, Derek, became a professor of materials science in Liverpool and then Cambridge. They were both educated at Poulton-le-Fylde Grammar School. During his medical training in Liverpool David undertook an intercalated degree in physiology and became interested in paediatric medicine. A critical move was to Oxford, where he did neonatal physiology research and wrote a seminal paper entitled “Brown fat and the response of the newborn rabbit to cold,” which showed that newborn babies had a pad of brown fat that provided energy necessary for the adaptation to extrauterine life. As senior lecturer and head of the respiratory unit at Great Ormond Street Hospital he continued this. In 1970 the first new UK medical school to be established in the 20th century was opened in Nottingham, and he was invited to take up the foundation chair. He had the opportunity to establish paediatrics as an important part of the medical curriculum recruiting colleagues from around the country and moulded them into a cohesive team which provided excellent care for children and delivered teaching programmes of the highest repute. For many years Nottingham became the place to train in the care of children. David produced a series of textbooks. He was an accomplished artist, with a flair and great skill at presentation, who recognised the power of illustration in teaching; his books became popular all over the world. For many years he espoused the ideal that there should be no subspecialisation in his department and that all of his colleagues were first and foremost general paediatricians. The rapid growth in understanding of the care of children eventually made this impossible, and all major centres now have numerous subspecialists.

Throughout his career he became recognised as a wise leader and man of great integrity. As medical adviser to the Cleveland inquiry into child sexual abuse chaired by Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss he was seen as a wise and balanced man.

David was one of the leaders of a group who strove over many years to transform the British Paediatric Association, of which he was president, into a Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, which received its royal charter in 1996.

Most medicines given to children in the 20th century were unlicensed because adequate clinical studies had not been done on them. In his retirement David set about rectifying this. He gained support from the Nuffield Trust and produced Medicines for Children, a comprehensive volume based on a consensus of those working in the specialty where no hard evidence existed. This has proved an invaluable tool for medical practice which was eventually adopted by the government as the British National Formulary for Children, distributed annually to all doctors.

David was an incredibly well organised and busy man. Once in Crown Court he was asked by an aggressive barrister, trying to undermine his credibility, whether it was true that he currently did the myriad of jobs on his CV and when did he last do a ward round. His answer: “6 o’clock this morning and I will finish it when I am done here.”

David Hull always smartly dressed. He was soft spoken, with a Lancashire accent, and was seen as entirely trustworthy and a huge support to all of his staff especially nurses. He was superb with children and families and literally got down to their level, often seen sitting on the floor, assessing a child who was playing with a toy. Although quiet, he had a humorous streak.

He enjoyed golf, walking, classical music, painting, gardening, and the Telegraph crossword.

He had many honours, including a knighthood in 1993 and the James Spence medal of the British Paediatric Association in 1996

David met his future wife, Carol (née Lloyd), on a tennis court in Liverpool when she was a final year nursing student. They were married in 1960 and had three children, one of whom is a paediatrician in Oxford. The children and his wife survive him.