Sir John Williams, 1st Baronet, GCVO (November 6, 1840 – May 24, 1926), was a Welsh physician, who attended Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and was raised to the baronetcy by her in 1894. He is remembered chiefly for his contribution to the collection of the National Library of Wales. He resided for part of his life at Plas Llansteffan, a house he acquired by lease.
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Williams was born in Carmarthenshire, the son of a Welsh Congregational minister. He went to school in Swansea, then to the University of Glasgow, and finally to University College Hospital, London, to complete his medical studies. In 1872 he married Mary Hughes, but they had no children. In 1886, he became a private doctor to the royal family. As well as his career as an obstetric surgeon in London, he helped set up a Welsh hospital in South Africa during the Boer War, and was involved in the campaign against tuberculosis in his native country.
Sir John's leisure hours were largely spent in the acquisition of a large private library, and in 1898, influenced by the palaeographer John Gwenogvryn Evans, he acquired the Peniarth collection of manuscripts. These were donated to the new National Library of Wales when it was built at Aberystwyth. In 1907 he was appointed the first President of the National Library, and two years later he came to live at Aberystwyth. In 1913 he became President of the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth (now Aberystwyth University). On his death, he bequeathed the remainder of his books, plus a large sum of money, to the National Library.
Sir John was accused of the Ripper crimes in a 2005 book, Uncle Jack, written by one of the surgeon's descendants, Tony Williams, and co-authored by Humphrey Price.[1] The authors claim that the victims knew the doctor personally and that they were killed and mutilated in an attempt to research the causes of infertility. The book also claims that a badly blunted surgical knife, which belonged to Sir John Williams, was the murder weapon. [2] Jennifer Pegg demonstrated in two articles that the version of the notebook entry published in Uncle Jack to show that Sir John Williams had met Ripper victim Mary Ann Nichols had been altered for print and did not match the original document. The entry in the original document, housed in the National Library of Wales, was written in different handwriting from that found in the rest of the book. She further demonstrated that much of the other research in the book arguing for a link between Sir John Williams and the Ripper crimes was flawed.[3]
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Stuart Rendel, Baron Rendel |
President of the University College of Wales Aberystwyth 1913-1926 |
Succeeded by Edmund Davies, Baron Edmund-Davies |