John Nicholas Walton, Baron Walton of Detchant (born September 16, 1922) is a British politician and Life Peer.
Lord Walton qualified from Newcastle Medical School (then part of the University of Durham). Walton was President of the British Medical Association (BMA) 1980 to 1982, President of the General Medical Council (GMC) 1982 to 1989 and President of the Royal Society of Medicine from 1984 to 1986. He was also appointed second Warden of Green College, Oxford in 1983, where he stayed until 1989. Green College merged with Templeton College, Oxford in 2008 to become Green Templeton College, located on the site that was previously Green College.
He was created a life peer in 1989 as Baron Walton of Detchant, of Detchant in the County of Northumberland and sits as a crossbencher. In 1992 he became a member of the Science and Technology Committee, leaving in 1996, returning in 1997 and leaving again in 2001. From 1993 to 1994 he was Chair of the Medical Ethics committee. Since 2009 he has been Secretary of the Rare Diseases Group.
He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.[1] He is Patron of The Little Foundation, Honorary Life President of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, Vice President of Parkinson's UK and Honorary Chairman of the United Kingdom Medical Students' Association (UKMSA).