DR John A Wilson OBE was the physician superintendent of Mearnskirk Hospital, Newton Mearns, from 1929 to 1946. He took a great interest in the welfare of its children.

The Glasgow Corporation-owned hospital, for children suffering from tuberculosis, was officially opened in October 1932 by the then-Duchess of York, the late Queen Mother. “In these open-air pavilions, built to catch every ray of sunshine,” she said, “the patients have every chance to recover.”

A video that can be viewed on the website of Mearns History Group says that Dr Wilson was highly popular, especially with the young patients, to whom he liked to tell the story of Peter Pan. “It was his wish to have erected in the hospital grounds a statue to Peter Pan; he mentioned this to his friend Alfred Ellsworth, a Glasgow businessman who was a frequent benefactor to Mearnskirk Hospital.”

Dr Wilson, however, never lived to see the statue: he died in 1946.

But Mr Ellsworth began raising funds for the statue project, saying it was his “duty to carry on with this great work”.

The noted sculptor Alexander Proudfoot RSA was commissioned to make the statue. And on July 3, 1949, in front of a large crowd of dignitaries and young patients, the statue was unveiled.

It was, this newspaper recorded, a bronze statue, set on a sandstone pedestal with four bronze panels showing characters associated with Peter Pan. It was unveiled by Arthur Bromfield, who had helped Mr Ellsworth raise the necessary funds.

“It was considered a fitting memorial to a great man,” says the Mearns video narrator, “and also testament to the fine work of Alfred Ellsworth, without whose effort none of this would have happened,”

The following year, the hospital children presented Mr Ellsworth with a painting of the statue.

* mearnshistory.org.uk