We were saddened to hear of the death of Emeritus Professor Sir Michael Rutter CBE FRS FRCP FRCPsych FMedSci, who we were fortunate to work with as a Trustee of the Nuffield Foundation.
Professor Sir Michael Rutter was regarded as the ‘father of Child Psychiatry’, transforming our understanding of child and young adult mental health, and laying the foundations of Child Psychiatry and Developmental Psychopathology. In 1973, he was awarded the first UK Professorship in Child Psychiatry and worked at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London for 55 years. In 1992, he was knighted for his contributions to the field.
Sir Michael was a consultant psychiatrist at the Michael Rutter Centre for Children and Adolescents at Maudsley Hospital, which developed an international reputation for providing services and specialist treatments for young people with mental health difficulties. In 1984, he become Director of the Medical Research Council’s MRC Child Psychiatry Research Unit. Sir Michael also served in several other high-profile roles, including Deputy Chair of the Wellcome Trust, Founding Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and Academia Europaea, and President of YoungMinds.
Together with Professor Edmund Sonuga-Barke, Sir Michael led the English and Romanian Adoptee (ERA) Study, co-funded by the Nuffield Foundation. The study, a longitudinal, multi-method investigation of the development of children adopted into the UK from Romania in the early 1990’s, showed how deprivation in early life affects child development, attachment and the formation of new relationships. The study revolutionised our understanding of the impact of early adversity on development.
During his time as a Trustee (1992-2008), Sir Michael made a significant contribution to the Nuffield Foundation. As Chair of our Child Protection and Family Law programme, he provided wise counsel and expert insight on the Foundation’s funding of research and practical projects to help ensure that the legal and institutional framework put children’s well-being at its centre. This programme laid the foundations for our current work in Justice, and Sir Michael’s commitment to methodological rigour remains evident throughout our work.
Sir Michael also chaired our Changing Adolescence programme, which explored the reasons for the increase in young people’s mental health problems between 1975 and 1999, and shed light on how the lives of young people had changed in that time. He was a driving force in establishing our work in young children’s speech and language development, which continues to be a priority of our work in early years.
He was a tireless advocate for the health and well-being of children and young people and his contribution enriched the Foundation in many ways, for which we are grateful. We extend our condolences to his family and friends.
Obituaries of Professor Sir Michael Rutter are published by King’s College London and The Times.
You can read more about Professor Sir Michael’s career on the King’s College London website.
