Researching James Hunt

Beginning his racing career in touring car racing, Hunt progressed into Formula Three, where he attracted the attention of the Hesketh Racing team and soon came under their wing. Hunt's often reckless and action-packed exploits on track earned him the nickname "Hunt the Shunt" (shunt, as a British motor-racing term, means "crash"). Hunt entered Formula One in, driving a March 731 entered by the Hesketh Racing team. He went on to win for Hesketh, driving their own Hesketh 308 car, in both World Championship and non-championship races, before joining the McLaren team at the end of . In his first year with McLaren, Hunt won the 1976 World Drivers' Championship, and he remained with the team for a further two years, although with less success, before moving to the Wolf team in early . Following a string of races in which he failed to finish, Hunt retired from driving halfway through the 1979 season.

After retiring from motor racing, he established a career as a motor racing commentator for the BBC. He died from a heart attack aged 45.

Ramsay Hunt received his M.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1893. He then studied in Paris, Vienna, and Berlin, and returned to practice neurology in New York, working at Cornell University Medical School from 1900 to 1910 with Charles Loomis Dana. In 1910 he joined the faculty at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and what later became their Neurological Institute of New York. He did major research on the anatomy and disorders of the corpus striatum and the extrapyramidal system, and described several movement disorders. He was consulting physician at several New York hospitals, including Lenox Hill Hospital, New York Hospital, Babies Hospital, the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, the Psychiatric Institute, Letchworth Village for Mental Defectives, Montefiore Hospital, and the Craig Colony for Epileptics, and was appointed professor of neurology at Columbia in 1924.

He served as president of the American Neurologic Association in 1920, the New York Neurologic Society in 1929, the American Psychopathological Society in 1932, and the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disorders in 1934. He was also a founder of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and a member of the Association of American Physicians, the American Psychiatric Association, the Association for the Study of Internal Secretions, and the American Medical Association.

During World War I, he was a lieutenant and later a lieutenant colonel in the Army Medical Corps, and served in France as a director of neuropsychiatry.

Hunt described three discrete syndromes, the best known of which is herpes zoster oticus, also known as Ramsay Hunt syndrome type 2.

He married Chicagoan Alice St. John Nolan, and was survived by two children, James Ramsay Hunt Jr. and Alice St. John Hunt.

Hunt was born in Coalville in Leicestershire, where his father was a solicitor. He was educated at the Boys' Grammar School in Ashby de la Zouch, and read modern history at Keble College, Oxford. Studies came easily to him so he spent his energies on extracurricular activities, such as the tradition of spectacular Keble balls and training the Keble crew.

After graduating from Oxford, he joined Boots but decided that management was not for him and that he would read for the bar. He became a housemaster at his alma mater for a year while studying for the bar exams, teaching English and bringing the C stream of English into competition with the A stream, as well as controlling rowdy audience members of his Shakespeare productions by pelting them with mint imperials. He also sang with the local Gilbert & Sullivan pursuing a love of music and singing that continued throughout his life with both choral societies and jazz bands. He was called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1968 and joined the Chambers at 1 King's Bench Walk after serving a pupillage there with David Smout. He practised mainly in criminal law on the Midland and Oxford Circuit, with a side line in personal injury. He was most well known for his ability to connect with a jury and see to the crux of a matter. He served as defence counsel in the Matrix Churchill case in 1992, and in the murder trial of Beverley Allitt in 1993 after which families of the victims praised his sensitive conduct of a powerful defence. He was prosecution counsel in the trial of groom Clem O'Brien for the murder of racehorse trainer Alex Scott in 1995. Such was his appeal to a jury that the police famously sought a change in the law in order to be able to appoint him to a case on the name of a victim rather than a defendant in order to ensure that he would not be against them.

He became head of chambers at 36 Bedford Row from 1991 to 1999, and became a bencher at Gray's Inn. He became a Queen's Counsel in 1987, was a member of the General Council of the Bar from 1989 to 1991 and 1996 to 1999, and Leader of the Midland and Oxford Circuit from 1996 to 1999.

He sat as a Recorder from 1982 to 2000, and as a Deputy High Court judge from 1994 to 2000. He was a member of the General Council of the Bar 1989 - 1991 and 1996 - 1999 and Legal Assessor to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons from 1990 - 2000. In 1999 - 2000, he was Chairman of the Code of Practice Appeal Board of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry. He was knighted when appointed a High Court judge in 2000, in the Queen's Bench Division. On 21 November 2000, he granted an injunction to Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones to prevent publication of pictures of their wedding in Hello! magazine. Although the injunction was overturned by the Court of Appeal, his judgment was later upheld by the House of Lords and Douglas and Zeta-Jones won substantial damages. He sat on the "Donnygate" trial in 2002, in which two men were sent to prison for corruption at Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council.

He believed passionately in the importance of an independent professional bar and spent a great deal of his personal time in training of junior barristers. In recognition of his work, Grays Inn annually awards The James Hunt prize for advocacy. He also believed in local justice and the James Hunt Library at Nottingham Trent University on the Midland & Oxford Circuit is named in his honour.

In 2002, he was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor which he approached with poetry, humor and great humanity. He is survived by his wife - his first and greatest love of his life - and their son and three daughters.

Lewis Carroll was a children’s author, mathematician, and clergyman. He had a stammer that was said to have affected his job. The 1861 census shows that Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was staying at Ore House in 1861 and being treated by Dr Hunt a psellismolligist. Since his book was published in 1865 it is quite possible that some of it was written during his stay.

His other main interest was in anthropology and in 1863 he established the Anthropological Society of London, which after his death merged with the more established Ethnological Society of London to become the Royal Anthropological Institute.