AN EMINENT pathologist who was educated in York and Harrogate before emigrating to America has died, aged 91.

Professor Walter Frederick Coulson, who was in demand as a visiting pathologist, lecturer and researcher around the world, died at his home in Beverley Hill, California, said his brother Ronald, of Copmanthorpe.

Born in Harrogate in 1926 to Frederick and Elsie Coulson, he attended Harrogate Grammar and then Nunthorpe Grammar in York, going on to graduate from Edinburgh University with a first class honours degree in pathology.

He edited and contributed to a new standard textbook for surgical pathology, received a research scholarship at Yale University Medical School and later became Chief of Surgical Pathology at UCLA (the University of California Los Angeles). He also became a consultant in pathology to the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in Hiroshima.

Prof Coulson who had a holiday cottage in Welburn, near Malton, is survived by his wife Molly, and children Andrew, Wendy, Thomas, Victoria and Laura.

York-born merchant banker and former Conservative MP Geoffrey Dodsworth has also died, aged 89.

Born in 1928, he attended St Peter’s School and later worked as a Chartered Accountant at Barron & Barron in York until 1963 - with two years in the army from 1946. He became Justice of the Peace for York, in 1960, aged 32, becoming one of the city's youngest magistrates.

In 1964 he became deputy leader of the Conservative Group on City of York Council and was a member for six years.

He had a daughter Helen with his first wife, Isabel Neale who died in 1967 after a long illness. In 1971, he married Elizabeth Beeston and they had two children, Simon and Mary.

He set up a group of companies in the export and import trade in 1963, later becoming managing director of Grindlay Brandt’s Ltd. (a Merchant Bank), in 1974, and director of Grindlays Bank Ltd. (now ANZ), that same year.

In 1988, he set up Dodsworth and Company Ltd in 1988, specialising in equity and bank funding for asset and project finance.

He was an MP for South West Hertfordshire from 1974 to 1979, holding office in the backbench Shipping and Shipbuilding Committees and was Joint Secretary of the Finance Committee among other positions.

Mr Dodsworth, a Freeman of the City of London, was Chairman of the Vale of York constituency Association in 1998 and stood for North Yorkshire County Council in 1997. He retired after undergoing a heart bypass in October 2002.