Obituary – Professor Peter Howdle

The death has been announced of a Past Vice-President of the Methodist Conference, Professor Peter Howdle.

Peter was born in Pontefract in 1948 and introduced to Methodism through his parents. He was educated at The King's School, Pontefract, and the University of Leeds Medical School.

In 1984 he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and worked for a year as a research fellow at Harvard Medical School.

He was on the staff of St James's University Hospital for 37 years, becoming a consultant in 1987, and was also Professor of Clinical Medicine, University of Leeds. He retired in 2009.

Apart from a year spent as Visiting Lecturer at Harvard, 1984–85, he devoted his entire professional career to St James's University Hospital and the University of Leeds Medical School, specialising in gastroenterology, particularly the treatment of coeliac disease.

He was a Trustee of the Medical Council on Alcohol, a Governor and Trustee, and sometime Chair, of the Medical Advisory Council, of Coeliac UK, and a Chair of the Guidelines Committee of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (now the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence).

He was a member of Roundhay (now Oakwood) Church in the Leeds North and East Circuit and became a local preacher in 1975, the fourth generation of his family to do so. He was the Leeds District Stationing Committee representative from 1991 to 2001 and was a member of the connexional Medical Committee and Chair of the Fernley-Hartley Trustees.

He was Vice-President of the Methodist Conference in 2002/2003.

From 2003 to 2014 he was the Methodist Co-Chair of the Joint Implementation Commission of the Anglican-Methodist Covenant and in 2017 was awarded the Lambeth Cross for Ecumenism.

From 2012 to 2019 he served as Chair of the Strategy and Resources Committee of the Methodist Council.

He married Susan in 1972, and they became the first married couple who have both been elected to the Vice-Presidency of the Conference.