Wing, Professor John Kenneth (1923-2010)

The following is an interim description which may change when detailed cataloguing takes place in future:

Papers of Professor John Wing. Many of the papers relate to Professor Wing's work with the Medical Research Council or the Royal College of Psychiatrists' Research Unit. Projects that are particularly well represented are SCAN (a WHO document: "Schedules for Clinical Assessments in Neuropsychiatry"), which occurs are various points in the collection of papers; 3HIP (1970 study of Institutionalisation and schizophrenia in three hospitals: there was also a follow-up study 30 years on); and the Camberwell High Contact Study.

1960s-1990s

178 boxes (of these, approximately 60 are large banker's boxes and the remainder are standard archive transfer boxes)

Presented to the Library by Dr Lorna Wing, Dr Wing's wife, in November 2008.

John Kenneth Wing was born in 1923 and served in the Fleet Air Arm during the Second World War. After the War he trained in medicine at University College Hospital, London, passing his MB and BS in 1952 and DPM in 1956. He took his Ph.D. in 1959 and MD in 1960, both from London. In the course of a long and distinguished career in psychiatry he was Professor of Social Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, and Director of the MRC Social Psychiatry Unit. He specialised in particular in issues around schizophrenia and institutional versus community care. Upon his retirement in 1989 he became first Director of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Research Unit. he was also commissioned by the Department of Health to develop the Health of the Nation Outcome Scales (HoNOS), to assess the outcomes for people with mental illnesses; this was completed in 1994 and subsequently adopted both in this country and widely in other countries.

Whilst studying he met his future wife, Dr. Lorna Wing, who was also to become eminent in the field of psychiatry, in particular regarding autism; they had one daughter. Professor Wing died in 2010.

His obituary can be read in The Times for 1st May 2010 or The Psychiatrist (2010) 34: 501.

This collection is currently uncatalogued and cannot be ordered online. Requests to view uncatalogued material are considered on a case by case basis. Please contact collections@wellcomecollection.org for more details.