Gordon Dunstan was a priest who made an outstanding contribution to the study of medical ethics and whose work was recognised by four of the medical royal colleges of which he was made Fellow.

He was the leading English moral theologian of his time, committed to the multidisciplinary discussion of issues raised by the practice of medicine. His non-partisan approach, his incisively analytical mind, and his attention to the facts, enabled him to collaborate with a wide cross-section of clinicians and research scientists: and his respect for their professionalism was fully reciprocated.

He argued persuasively that medical ethics must be shown to have an autonomy of its own and held that the concept of Natural Law was a necessary tool in discerning the moral consequences of advances in medicine.

Dunstan gained a First in History at the University of Leeds in 1938 and was awarded an MA with distinction in 1939. He trained for the priesthood at the Mirfield Fathers’ College of the Resurrection and was ordained in 1941. After two curacies, he proceeded to his first academic appointment as Subwarden of St Deiniol’s Library, Hawarden, a post he held until 1949, when he …