Sir Alexander Haddow

Prof Sir Alexander Haddow FRS FRSE (1907-1976) Was a Scottish physician and pathologist at the forefront of cancer research in the 1940s. He served as Director of the Institute of Cancer Research from 1946 to 1969. He was also President of the Universal Union Against Cancer.

His most important discovery was the Haddow Effect, by which a carconogenic compound can be used to arrest a cancer whose origin is an unrelated carconogen.^[1]

Life

He was born on 18 January 1907 in Leven, Fife the eldest son of William Haddow (d.1928) of Newharthill in Glasgow and his wife, Margaret Docherty. His father and grandfather were coal-miners. The family moved to Broxburn, West Lothian where his father ran a small bar and hotel. Alexander fell very ill with scarlet fever aged ten and remained frail and introverted thereafter. Aged 11 he also suffered from appenicitis. He was much impressed by the family GP, Dr Alexander Scott, on both occasions, and he became his role model. Dr Scott made studies of skin cancers in the local mining population. He was educated at Broxburn High School then Broxburn Academy winning the dux medal in the latter. In 1922 the family suffered a double tragedy when Alexander's younger brother, Willie, was killed in a traffic accident, and his mother died soon after, heart-broken.^[2]

Alexander studied Medicine at Edinburgh University from 1924, graduating MB ChB in 1929. He then went to assist Prof Thomas Jones Mackie as a Houseman at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary also lecturing in bacteriology at the university. He became a full Lecturer in 1932. The university granted him two doctorates (PhD 1937 and MD 1938).^[3]

In 1936 he moved to London to join Ernest Kennaway's team at the Royal Cancer Hospital. In 1946 he succeeded Kennaway as Director of the Chester Beatty Research Institute, later renamed the Institute of Cancer Research In 1958 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. In 1961 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Alan William Greenwood, Robert Cruikshank, Richard Swain and George Lightbody Montgomery. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1966.^[4]

In 1972 he retired to Chalfont St Giles. By this time he was almost totally blind due to diabetes. This also caused him loss of his limbs.^[5]

He died at Amersham General Hospital on 21 January 1976. He was cremated.

Family

He married twice: firstly in 1932 to Lucia Lindsay Crosby Black (d.1968); secondly in 1970 to Feo Standing, a scientific photographer. He had one son by his first marriage, William George Haddow (b.1934). He had two step-children with his second marriage.

References