Background
Webb was born in India, the son of Indian Army Political Service official Wilfred Webb and Kathleen du Boulay.
university professor virologist cricketer
Webb was born in India, the son of Indian Army Political Service official Wilfred Webb and Kathleen du Boulay.
University of Oxford. Winchester College; New College.
Webb went to New College, Oxford on a scholarship and then trained in medicine at Street Thomas"s Hospital in London. As a cricketer, he was a right-handed batsman who bowled occasional leg breaks. Webb made his first-class debut for Oxford University against Lancashire in the 1946 season, but had little success that season and was dropped after three games.
He did not play any first-class cricket in 1947.
He returned to the Oxford team in 1948 making 36 and 59 in his first match and scoring usefully if unspectacularly in county matches, with a batting average of just 18 before the University Match. In the University Match against Cambridge University, however, Webb"s batting was sensational: he made an unbeaten 145 in 170 minutes, including an eighth wicket partnership of 112 in 50 minutes in which, Wisden Cricketers" Almanack wrote, "Webb was supreme".
With medical studies then taking up his life, that innings was almost the end of Webb in first-class cricket: he reappeared in non-first-class matches for The Army in 1954 and also played one further first-class match that year, representing Hampshire against Oxford University. Webb qualified as a physician at Street Thomas"s Hospital in 1951 and was appointed as a house surgeon.
He took a short-service commission in the British Army as his National Service and was posted to Singapore where he worked in the British Military Hospital.
After his discharge from the army, he stayed in Malaya and then moved to work at Poona in India where he made a study of the Kyasanur Forest disease which affected both monkeys and humans. This led to the first in a long series of learned papers in medical journals and a lifelong career in neurovirology. In 1964 he was appointed as a neurology consultant at Street Thomas"s Hospital, and he was later promoted to professor of neurovirology, remaining there for the rest of his career.
He died on 8 November 2010.