David Alastair Pearson Anderson, 2nd Viscount Waverley (18 February 1911 – 21 February 1990), was a British hereditary peer and physician. He trained as a physician in Germany and England, served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, and then specialised as a cardiologist. Having succeeded his father as Viscount Waverley in 1958, he also sat in the House of Lords where he regularly spoke on health matters and other interests of his.[1][2][3]
From 1938 to 1939, Anderson was a junior doctor at St Thomas' Hospital, London.[1][2] With the outbreak of the Second World War, he volunteered and joined the medical branch of the Royal Air Force.[2] He was commissioned on 25 September 1939 in the rank of flying officer.[4] He was one of the few doctors in the RAF that were also trained as pilots.[3] He was promoted to flight lieutenant on 25 September 1940,[5] and to squadron leader (temporary) on 1 July 1943.[6] He was demobilized after the end of the War in 1945,[1][3] and he relinquished his commission in 1956 having reached the age of 45 (at which point he was no longer obliged to remain in the reserves).[7]
After the war, he returned to St Thomas' Hospital and developed an interest in cardiology.[2] In 1951, he moved to the Reading Group of Hospitals where he worked as a consultant at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading.[1] He developed his own teaching unit at the hospital, and also published a number of papers on cardiac and vascular disorders.[3] He retired in 1976.[2]
On 13 November 1948, Anderson married Lorna Myrtle Ann Ledgerwood (1925–2013).[10] Together they had three children: one son and two daughters.[1] Their son, John Anderson, succeeded to his father's title as the 3rd Viscount Waverley.[3]
Arms
Coat of arms of David Anderson, 2nd Viscount Waverley
Crest
A demi-lion rampant Or armed and langued Azure holding in his dexter forepaw a branch of olive Proper.
Escutcheon
Argent a saltire engrailed between a mullet in chief and a lotus flower in base and in each flank a crescent Gules on a chief Sable three martlets of the field.
