Walters, J. Allan

James Allan Walters, BA, MD, DPM (London, Eng.), FRCP (C), was born in Napanee, Ontario, on 21 July 1906, the son of Charles Augustus Walters and Stella Grace Wagar. He received his early schooling there and went to Queen’s University 1925-26 before attending Trinity College where he obtained his BA in 1930. He received an MD from the University of Toronto in 1933 and was on staff at the Ontario Hospital in Whitby in 1934. The ten years after graduation were spent in postgraduate training in neurology and psychiatry in Canada and England. He served as a major during the Second World War and in early 1943 he was appointed to #1 Canadian Neurological and Psychiatric Hospital in Basingstoke, England, and in 1944 to Northwest Europe.

In 1945 Walters returned to the University of Toronto as attending physician on the Neuropsychiatric Service at the Toronto General Hospital and later to the Psychiatric Division of the Wellesley Hospital. His chief interests were in Parkinson’s Disease and the new concept of psychogenic regional pain which he first described in 1959 and which became the major focus of his later work. Throughout these scientific studies, and for over thirty years of consulting practice, he was known for his sense of humour, kindness, and great understanding.

During his lifetime, Walters received a number of honours including Honorary Fellow at Trinity College in 1978, the Ontario Medical Association Glenn Sawyer Award in 1979, the Queen Elizabeth Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977, and an Academy of Medicine (Toronto) Honorary Life Membership award in 1975.

Walters was an active member of the Trinity College Friends of the Library, the Corporation of Trinity College and the year 3T0. In the 1950s he established the Kathleen and
Allan Walters Bursary Fund which, over the years, has provided scholarships and bursaries to many students in the Faculty of Arts.

In June 1936 Walters married Kathleen Jane Wark who died 12 December 1977. In 1980 he married Anne Hewitt Thompson (née Amys). He died on 26 February 1986 after a brief illness.

2016