William MacArthur was born in Belmont, County Down, and was educated at Bangor Grammar School and Queen's University, Belfast. He was clinical lecturer in Tropical Medicine at the University of Oxford, and Director-General of the British Army Medical Services. He was a fluent Irish speaker and founded the Queen's University Gaelic Society. He contributed a chapter on 'The Medical History of the Famine' to Edward and Williams' The Great Famine (1956). He was knighted in 1939.

Born:	11 March 1884
Died:	30 July 1964