William Masters was also the birth name of musician Gordon Stretton

Gordon Stretton

Gordon Stretton , born William Masters, To Ann J Masters Nee Williams Born 1862 was a Welsh-African-descended drummer from Liverpool, who first gained fame in the 1910s and later became one of the first Liverpool-based musicians to gain international acclaim...

.

William Howell Masters (December 27, 1915 – February 16, 2001) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 gynecologist

Gynaecology

Gynaecology or gynecology is the medical practice dealing with the health of the female reproductive system . Literally, outside medicine, it means "the science of women"...

, best known as the senior member of the Masters and Johnson

Masters and Johnson

The Masters and Johnson research team, composed of William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson, pioneered research into the nature of human sexual response and the diagnosis and treatment of sexual disorders and dysfunctions from 1957 until the 1990s....

 sexuality research team. Along with Virginia Eshelman Johnson, he pioneered research into the nature of human sexual response

Human sexual response

Human sexual response may refer to:* Human sexual arousal.* Human Sexual Response , a book by William Howell Masters and Virginia Eshelman Johnson.* Human Sexual Response , a New Wave musical group from Boston, Massachusetts, United States....

 and the diagnosis and treatment of sexual disorders and dysfunctions from 1957 until the 1990s.

Biography

Masters was born in Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...

, attended the Lawrenceville School

Lawrenceville School

The Lawrenceville School is a coeducational, independent preparatory boarding school for grades 9–12 located on in the historic community of Lawrenceville, in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, U.S., five miles southwest of Princeton....

 and graduated from Hamilton College. He was a member of Alpha Delta Phi

Alpha Delta Phi

Alpha Delta Phi is a Greek-letter social college fraternity and the fourth-oldest continuous Greek-letter fraternity in the United States and Canada. Alpha Delta Phi was founded on October 29, 1832 by Samuel Eells at Hamilton College and includes former U.S. Presidents, Chief Justices of the U.S....

, and became a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis

Washington University in St. Louis

Washington University in St. Louis is a private research university located in suburban St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1853, and named for George Washington, the university has students and faculty from all fifty U.S. states and more than 110 nations...

. Masters met Johnson in 1957 when he hired her as a research assistant to undertake a comprehensive study of human sexuality. Masters divorced his first wife to marry Johnson in 1971. They divorced two decades later, largely bringing their joint research and business parternership to an end. Masters died in Tucson, Arizona

Tucson, Arizona

Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...

on February 16, 2001.