Dr Roger Smith (1930 – 2026)
Emeritus Fellow Dr Roger Smith MA, MB BChir, MD, PhD, FRCP died at home on Friday 5 June 2026.
Roger was elected Fellow in Nutrition at then-Green College in 1984. He went on to become an Emeritus Fellow in 1995, first of Green College and subsequently of Green Templeton College. Roger was a Consultant Physician and Consultant in Metabolic Medicine at the John Radcliffe Hospital and Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre.
Roger was born just after his identical twin brother, Sydney, in Newcastle under Lyme, where they grew up together and were taught Chemistry by their father in secondary school. Roger went on to achieve a First Class degree in Biochemistry from Trinity College, University of Cambridge, before embarking on clinical training.
Before that, he had completed National Service, which included travelling on a troop ship to Egypt and Cyprus. He later went on to spend two years funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) in Jamaica studying protein malnutrition in children and completed an MD thesis (Cambridge) entitled ‘Studies on the total body water and electrolytes in severe chronic infantile malnutrition’ (1959). He was subsequently funded by the MRC again to spend a year in Los Angeles working on the effects of complete starvation in extreme obesity.
Roger worked at University College Hospital London and Central Middlesex Hospital in a range of roles before moving to Oxford in 1969. In 1971, with Graham Russell, he published what is now described as a seminal paper in The Lancet, reporting the first active treatment for Paget’s disease using bisphosphonates. In the same year he was awarded his PhD (London) on the subject of ‘Hydroxyproline excretion in some bone diseases’. He also maintained a clinical interest in general medicine throughout and was in the mid-1970s also appointed as an NHS Consultant in Oxford.
He continued his interest and clinical commitments in metabolic bone disease at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre until retirement.
Roger was author of a number of books including Electrolyte metabolism in sever infantile malnutrition, Biochemical Disorders of the Skeleton, and Osteogenesis Imperfecta. The Brittle Bone Syndrome as well as over 200 original papers, and several specialist chapters including those to the Oxford Textbook of Medicine.
During his time in Oxford, he enjoyed college and university life, first as a Fellow of Nuffield College, before becoming a Fellow then Emeritus Fellow of Green (now Green Templeton) College. Through his retirement Roger enjoyed and extended his interests including playing tennis, gardening, travelling (especially to places where he could paint) and more recently in painting (mainly watercolours and acrylics).
Roger was a loving husband to Barbara (d.2001) and then Ann, father to Philippa, Julian, Clare and Katy and grandfather to Cari, Tom, Mark, Greg, Ellie and Flora.
The funeral service will be held at St Luke’s Church in Garford, OX13 5PB, on Wednesday 1 July at 12:00, followed by short service at the South Oxfordshire Crematorium, OX13 5PA and then at The Bear Hotel, Wantage OX12 8AB. If you have any questions please contact Dr Katharine Smith.
Family flowers only. Donations may be given in memory of Roger to the British Heart Foundation or to the Paget’s Association.
