Professor Frederick Hope Stone

Psychiatrist; Born September 11, 1921; Died June 21, 2009. Frederick Stone, who has died aged 87, was emeritus professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Glasgow and one of the leading child psychiatrists of his generation.

Psychiatrist; Born September 11, 1921; Died June 21, 2009.

Frederick Stone, who has died aged 87, was emeritus professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Glasgow and one of the leading child psychiatrists of his generation.

His work spanned infant mental health, autism, liaison psychiatry, adoption and juvenile justice. He held numerous high offices including secretary general of the International Association of Child Psychiatry, chairman of the Scottish Division of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, chair of the Strathclyde Children's Panel Advisory Committee and president of Young Minds.

His proudest achievement was probably his participation in the Kilbrandon Committee, whose groundbreaking report led to the establishment of the internationally acclaimed Children's Hearings system in Scotland. He was awarded an OBE for services to children in 1991.

Fred, as he preferred to be called, was born in the west end of Glasgow into a Jewish family of European origin. Educated at Hillhead High School, he graduated in medicine in 1945 from the University of Glasgow. Having trained in paediatrics, he cut his teeth professionally in Israel in the 1950s, when he encountered many traumatised children, including those affected by the Holocaust.

He returned to the UK to address the challenges of Clydeside, where some of the most socially deprived communities in western Europe were located.

He gained fellowships of the London and the Glasgow Royal Colleges of Physicians, and of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and became a foundation fellow of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. He also made a great impact on psychiatry via psychotherapy, his analytic training having honed his skills in understanding emotional disorders and dysfunctional family relationships. He was one of the pioneers of modern child and adolescent psychiatry, taking account of child development, physical and neurological disorders and patterns of family relationships.

Fred Stone was not just a good academic; he achieved significantly important changes that made a lasting difference to services for children, especially in Scotland. He was appointed consultant child psychiatrist at Glasgow's Royal Hospital for Sick Children (Yorkhill) in 1954 and led the first academic department of child psychiatry in Scotland, which opened at 70 University Avenue, in the following year. This out- patient clinic supported a small multidisciplinary team of specialists, some of whom subsequently became nationally and internationally known. The Woodlands Day Centre, where therapy could be combined with education and play, dealt with day patients that included some diagnosed with autism. Paediatric liaison psychiatry at Yorkhill also began during this period, involving physicians and psychiatrists jointly discussing the cause of a disorder, for example abdominal pain. The result was a much more integrated and productive service for children and their families.

When a new hospital building was opened in 1971, Stone's skills were used to design a large department of child and family psychiatry that was functionally integrated with the rest of the hospital. There were two wards of eight beds, a day unit with school rooms and activity areas, and three complete suites of offices for three teams to use for outpatients or sometimes paediatric referrals from the wards. This was a radical step, and one that perhaps only Stone could have engineered. He was appointed to the first chair of child and adolescent psychiatry in Scotland in 1977.

He played a key part in developing the Scottish Children's Hearings system, which responds to children identified as being at risk, as well as those with offending behaviour. The concept of seeking causes and offering possible help to young people and their families represented enormous progress from earlier, more punitive methods. This approach was advocated by the Kilbrandon Committee of 1963-65, of which Stone was an active member, and he retained an interest in the children's panels until his death.

He played a significant role as a member of the Houghton Committee on adoption, and a further important contribution to services for Glasgow was the development of the Notre Dame Child Guidance Clinic and Fern Tower Adolescent Unit. As visiting consultant to these progressive establishments, he gave much time and creative energy. An exceptional orator, he was able to explain complex phenomena in simple terms, usually laced with subtle humour, and was also a good listener.

Away from work he pursued numerous interests. He had a lifelong passion for music and was a gifted pianist whose tastes ranged from Mozart and Haydn to Gershwin and Ellington. So formidable were his skills that he was offered a post as pianist of a cruise-ship dance band in the 1930s. He was active within the Glasgow Jewish community, and was a founder member and honorary life president of Cosgrove Care, an organisation supporting people with learning disabilities.

The death of his beloved wife Zelda in 2006 was a huge blow. As a couple, the Stones were hospitable, amusing and insightful, and anyone visiting their home always felt better for it.

Stone retired from Yorkhill in 1987, having achieved much. Today there are several consultants in the speciality working in four Glasgow district clinics, as well as both child and adolescent inpatient facilities. There is also the Scottish Centre for Autism, the academic unit and a paediatric liaison team at Yorkhill, where the Frederick Stone Unit for child protection bears his name.

The books he authored or to which he contributed (Psychiatry and the Paediatrician, Child Psychiatry for Students, Juvenile Justice in Scotland, Youth Justice and Child Protection) are arguably classics, and he maintained an active interest in services for children long after his formal retirement. He will be missed by many whose lives were enriched by his presence.

He is survived by a brother, three children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.