June Lloyd was born in Kashmir on New Year’s Day 1928, and died on 28th June 2006.
She was educated in England, graduated in medicine from Bristol, with honours and gold medal, in 1951, gained her DPM in 1958 and her MD Bristol in 1966. Her fascination with, and commitment to, child health never wavered. After working with Otto Wolff in Birmingham she became an authority on lipid disorders in children. In 1965 she was appointed senior lecturer at Great Ormond Street and the Institute of Child Health,. In 1975 she became professor of child health at St. George’s Hospital Medical School, setting up a new department of paediatrics. In 1985 she returned to Great Ormond Street as Nuffield professor of child health, in 1988 becoming the first woman president of the British Paediatric Association and in 1992 a Vice President of the RCP London.
When the College of Paediatrics and Child Health was eventually formed her seminal role in its creation was marked by including her on its coat of arms.
All who knew her spoke of her red hair, her ‘feistiness’ and her inability to suffer fools gladly but in the same breath praised her for her clinical, research and managerial skills, the standards she set herself and the many young paediatricians who came to work with her tried to emulate her.
In 1996 she suffered a catastrophic stroke leaving her disabled and unable to speak but nevertheless, assisted by medical peers, she took her place in the House of Lords in 1998. One cannot help but wonder what she would have achieved in the House of Lords - for children, their health and their rights - if she had been fit to attend there.