Researching Peter Williams

Williams was a fencer and a cricket player. He was an artillery officer in the British Indian Army during the Second World War. After the war, he met and married Anne Newmarch of Guy Newmarch, a railway engineer in North China, and Catherine Muir, in London. The couple had two sons, Adam and Piers. Through Anne's connections, Peter Williams got a job with the Dodwell & Co, a Far East trading company in Hong Kong.

He became the director and later the chairman of the company. He was also the chairman of the Inchcape after it purchased the Dodwell for £13 million in 1973. He was also chairman of the Hongkong Electric Company and non-executive director of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, The Hongkong & Kowloon Wharf & Godown Company Limited and The Hong Kong Telephone Company. He succeeded Sir Douglas Clague in 1975 as the deputy chairman of the bank. In 1972, he became chairman of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, As a chamber representative, he was an unofficial member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong from 1972 to 1978. He was also a provisional member of the Executive Council of Hong Kong during the absence of Sir Douglas Clague.

He was also a steward and later chairman of the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club. Under his spell, the Sha Tin Racecourse was opened in 1978. He also greeted Queen Elizabeth II during her visit in Hong Kong in 1975. Williams and his family lived at 35 Magazine Gap Road of The Peak.

He resigned as chairman of the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club in 1981 and retired as the director on 31 May 1982. Shortly after he returned to England, Williams died in London at 9:30 am on 14 October 1982, aged 62.

The son of Agnes (née Birkinshaw) and Robert Williams, he was born on 23 September 1925 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, where his father, a botanist, was curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens.

He read medicine at the University of Cambridge for two years, then spent four years at St Mary's Hospital Medical School. He undertook National Service with the Royal Army Medical Corps for three years, spending some time in Germany. on his return, he was employed from 1955 to 1960 by the Medical Research Council as a medical officer.

Williams joined the Wellcome Trust in 1960, becoming director in 1965, and retiring from there in 1991. During that time, he managed a hundred-fold increase in the Trust's budget.

Williams was awarded honorary degrees by the University of Birmingham (1989), University of Nottingham (1990). University of the West Indies (1991). University of Glasgow (1992), and University of Oxford (1993).

He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1991 Birthday Honours. He was a founder member of The Hague Club, and of the Association of Medical Research Charities. He was president of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from 1991 to 1993.

Williams died on 25 July 2014, aged 89, in Woodstock, Oxfordshire.