Psychiatric Bulletin (2004) 28: 108. doi: 10.1192/pb.28.3.108
© 2004 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Psychiatric Bulletin (2004) 28: 108
© 2004 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Ian Alfred Horton
Formerly Consultant Psychiatrist, Exeter
G. D. P. Wallen
Dr Ian Horton was born on 13 February 1935, and spent his childhood in
Worthing, where he attended the local Grammar School and where, while roaming
the South Downs he developed his affection for nature, and the country-side.
He trained at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he qualified MB.BS in
1951, and spent his 2 years’ National Service in Germany, where he
acquired a love of the country and sound command of the language. He gained
his MRCP(Lond) in 1956, his MRCPsych in 1971 and was elected FRCPsych in
1986.
Following his postgraduate medical experience, Ian did his psychiatric
training at the Maudsley Hospital, but found the aggressively challenging
intellectual climate at the time, uncongenial and destructive. Resisting
requests to stay, he became possibly the youngest consultant then ever
appointed when he took up a post at Stone Hospital, Aylesbury. He often said
he was greatly influenced by Dr David Watt. In 1968, he moved to Exeter,
initially covering the Torbay area, where he quickly established a reputation
as a thoughtful, sensitive, kind man, committed to his patients who continue
to speak warmly of him whenever one meets them.
He became interested in community psychiatry, and led a group to Dingleton
Hospital, Melrose, in the 1970s the leader in the field and from there he
returned very enthused. The outcome was the steady establishment of community
services in the Exeter district. This in turn led to the, not universally
approved, early closure of two of the large psychiatric hospitals, with
devolution of services to the various parts of the extensive Devon catchment
area. He became the consultant to the Tiverton Community Team, where he
remained until the onset of the symptoms of his debilitating final illness.
This forced his premature retirement, but not before the psychotherapy
service, which he had so actively promoted, was set up.
Although well-trained in general medicine, Ian was a ‘natural’
psychiatrist, interested in people, the mind, spirituality and society. He
thought a lot, he tended to agonise and is remembered as saying ‘I do
wish I could be a better person’. He was brought up as a Methodist, but
moved to the Anglican Church only to find that equally unsatisfying.
Ultimately, he joined the Quakers, which seemed to suit his temperament
admirably and with which we will join in a meeting of remembrance.
He loved music, playing the clarinet, literature, nature, walking,
travelling and good conversation: it was particularly distressing that his
illness, which he bore with courage and dignity, robbed him progressively of
the ability to communicate. Ian played an important part in the first phase of
the modernisation of the Devon psychiatric services and he will be remembered
for this, as well as his kindness to both colleagues and patients, all of whom
will greatly miss him. He died on 8 October 2003, and leaves his second wife
Annie, four children by his first wife, Brenda, and seven grandchildren.
