Peter Tizard

Tizard retired in 1983. He died on 27 October 1993.

Between 1970 and 1971, Tizard was President of the European Paediatric Research Society. From 1972 to 1983, Tizard was an honorary Consultant Children's Physician at the Oxfordshire Health Authority. Between 1975 and 1978, Tizard was President of the Neonatal Society. In 1982 Tizard was recognised by the country and Knighted and became a Knight Bachelor. From 1982 to 1985, Tizard was President of the British Paediatric Association.

At Hammersmith Hospital, Tizard worked to build up an academic neonatal unit that was a pioneer in the establishment of neonatal care in the UK, and established the scientific basis for the development of such units. To prepare for this endeavour, Tizard spent took a sabbatical as a Nuffield Foundation Medical Fellow 1951, spending a year with Geoffrey S. Dawes, the physiologist at the Nuffield Institute for Medical research in Oxford and who considered to be the foremost international authority on fetal and neonatal physiology. In this manner, Tizard changed, what was then neonatal care, into applied physiology, that was unique in medicine, at the time.

He had married (Elizabeth) Joy Taylor in 1945; they had two sons and a daughter.

During and after World War II, in the years 1942–1946, Tizard served in the Royal Army Medical Corps undertaking general duties in North Africa, Sicily. Tizard later worked as medical specialist in France, Holland and Germany. After the war in 1947, he was appointed to the Great Ormond Street Hospital, as a registrar then a pathologist. In 1949, unable to secure the position of Consultant at Great Ormond, Tizard was promoted to Consultant, and trained as a paediatrician, while working with Reginald Lightwood at St Mary's Hospital, London and Paddington Green Children's Hospital. After two years, Tizard went to America on a research fellowship as Research Fellow in Pediatrics, at the Harvard Medical School, working with Bronson Crothers. In 1954, he was appointed Reader in paediatrics to the Institute of Child Health, in charge of the neonatal unit and an honorary Consultant paediatrician to Hammersmith Hospital, In 1964 was appointed Professor of Paediatrics at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, University of London, heading the neonatal research unit. In 1972, he became the first Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Oxford, specifically Regius Professor of Physic, which came with a fellowship to Jesus College, Oxford. Tizard replaced his old colleague George Pickering.

Tizard was educated at Rugby School and Oriel College, Oxford. He then qualified in medicine at Middlesex Hospital in 1941.

Sir John Peter Mills Tizard FRCP (1 April 1916, London – 27 October 1993, Hillingdon) was a British paediatrician and professor at the University of Oxford. Tizard was principally notable for important research into neonatology and paediatric neurology and being a founder member of the Neonatal Society in 1959. Tizard was considered the most distinguished academic children's physician of his generation.