The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7469 p311-312
15 September 2007

Society summary

Broadburn On 15 August, Edwin Walter Broadburn MRPharmS, aged 84, of Wild Acres, Hewitts Avenue, New Waltham, Grimsby DN36 4RS. Mr Broadburn registered in 1949.

Gray On 29 August, John Arthur Gray, MRPharmS, aged 89, of 17 St Marks Avenue, Low Moor, Bradford BD12 0TY. Mr Gray registered in 1939.

Kaye On 18 May, Ronald Cockcroft Kaye, FRPharmS, aged 94, of Glen Dhu, 6 Belmont Avenue, Baildon, Shipley, West Yorkshire BD17 5AJ. Mr Kaye registered in 1937.

Kelly On 4 June, Robert John Kelly, MRPharmS, aged 59, of 10 Rockdale, Buncrana, County Donegal, Ireland. Mr Kelly registered in 1972.

Mensley On 21 August, Tom Sayers Mensley, MRPharmS, aged 64, of 1 The Dene, Chester Moor, Chester Le Street, County Durham DH2 3TB. Mr Mensley registered in 1965.

Timmins On 19 August, Leslie Ernest Timmins, MRPharmS, aged 87, of 84 Brownswall Road, Sedgley, Dudley, West Midlands DY3 3NT. Mr Timmins registered in 1942.

Townson On 10 August, Alan Edward Holmes Townson, MRPharmS, aged 49, of 280 Apperley Road, Apperley Bridge, Bradford BD10 0PX. Mr Townson registered in 1983.

Williams On 12 August, George Edward Williams, aged 95, of 44 South Parade, Bramhall, Stockport, Cheshire SK7 3BJ. Mr Williams registered in 1935 and retired from the Register in 2005.

Tributes

Evans In a tribute to the late Fred John Evans (PJ, 8 September, p275) DAVID OKPAKO writes:

The news of the untimely death of Fred Evans came to us in Ibadan, Nigeria, as a shock, and an irreparable loss. As for me, I have lost a good friend. Fred became associated with the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Ibadan, in about 1981 when we were just starting a programme; he understood why we wanted to emphasise pharmacognosy since large numbers of people in this part of the world use plant products as medicines. He helped us to design the curriculum and encouraged Kio Abo, who was just completing his PhD under Fred’s supervision, to join our staff. Dr Abo is now a senior staff member at our department of pharmacognosy.

When the British Council in Nigeria decided to fund academic links between Nigerian and British universities, our proposal for such a link with the University of London’s School of Pharmacy had little difficulty in receiving approval. Fred’s enthusiastic support was significant and he co-ordinated the London end of link activities. The scheme enabled exchange of staff and provided technical aid to Ibadan. It was a great success while it lasted.

Among those who benefited most were junior lecturers whose visits to London helped them to complete research for their Ibadan PhDs in good time; some of them have become heads of their respective departments supervising their own graduate students. In connection with the link programme Fred and his colleagues visited Ibadan many times between 1989 and 1992, often under difficult circumstances demanding courage and commitment.

Fred liked coming to Nigeria and it was not just for the Star beer. He had a long-standing interest in Nigerian flora, especially the Euphorbia species, the active ingredients of which he employed in his investigations of inflammation mechanisms. Professor Evans was a brilliant scientist who obviously also loved teaching.

When I first met him at the “Square”, Fred’s office was a box-like space cramped with plant extracts, coffee mugs and manuscripts at one corner of his spacious research laboratory. The place was bustling with postgraduate students of different nationalities. Fred said that he would rather have a large research laboratory than a large office.

Fred, we in Ibadan shall remember you for all you did for us with gratitude, for your sense of fun and for your readiness to always help. Adieu. May Almighty God guide his wife Mary and their children. Amen.

A. DOUGLAS KINGHORN and ELIZABETH M. WILLIAMSON write:

We are writing to express our great sorrow at the recent passing of our outstanding mentor, Fred J. Evans, of the School of Pharmacy, University of London. From the very beginning of his academic career, Fred demonstrated a highly focused and committed approach to his research, and rapidly established himself as a world expert on the chemistry and biological effects of the tumour-promoting phorbol esters from plants in the Euphorbiaceae family.

As a supervisor, Fred was uncompromising, rigorous, of very high integrity and one of the most honest people imaginable. Through having continuous close interactions with his team, he embodied exceptionally well the concept of serving as a “scientific apprentice master”. He was an original thinker and had an indefatigable quality that would never allow a problem under consideration to remain unsolved.

Fred recognised a gap in the available scientific literature 20 years ago and one of his abiding achievements was to serve as founding editor for a new journal, Phytotherapy Research, which continues to thrive today.

Working with Fred was always great fun. On one memorable occasion, the department went to the Derby at Epsom, where Fred’s insider knowledge of horse racing made the experience not only enjoyable but actually we made a profit, despite the enormous amounts of beer drunk that day.

He had other talents not many people knew about — he could play darts to a professional standard and, in his youth, had to choose between professional football and academic pharmacy. He thought football was a bit uncertain as a career choice but remained committed to Arsenal for the rest of his life, even through the long and cruel illness that prevented him from working in science.

During this dreadful time he was sustained by his devoted family — his wife Mary and his children Carole, Matthew, Ben and Rebecca — and by his Catholic faith.

Fred Evans was not the sort of person to seek the academic limelight, but he was a major force in the world of pharmacognosy. We are but two of his former students who count ourselves extremely fortunate at having had the opportunity to work with such an exceptional person.

Gray In a tribute to the late John Arthur Gray, EDWARD MALLINSON writes:

John Gray was a pillar of the pharmaceutical profession in Bradford for many years. He qualified as a pharmacist in 1939 at the age of 21 after an apprenticeship and studying for his PhC at the then Bradford Technical College (now the University of Bradford). He took his final examinations on 7 July 1939 at the Society’s House at 36 York Place in Edinburgh — a centre easier (and less expensive) to reach than London for many from the north of England.

He returned some 60 years later to see his granddaughter enter the same profession at the reception for new pharmacists in 1998. Following service in the medical corps in India and Ceylon he returned to Bradford at the end of the 1939–45 war to work in and eventually own a pharmacy in Leeds Road. His career running a community pharmacy spanned some 35 years and he continued to do locums well into his seventies.

I had been aware of Mr Gray from the late 1960s when he and I were regular attendees at the Bradford Grammar School Old Boys’ Dinner, along with Harry Chanter, but it was not until I qualified and became social secretary of the Society’s Bradford branch that I really got to know him.

He was secretary of the local pharmaceutical committee and we liaised over the top table guest list at the annual dinner and dance held in what was then the Victoria Hotel. In those days the local pharmaceutical committee invited the chairmen of the medical, dental and optical committees to attend as their guests and I, as social secretary, negotiated the proportion of the cost they were to pay. I am still unsure who got the best deal but I suspect it was the LPC.

It was not long after one of these dinners that I had to discuss another matter with him, this time one much more important to both him and me. He graciously entrusted to me the care of someone very dear to him and I was married to his daughter the following year. I hope that I have deserved the trust he placed in me and that I have lived up to the expectation he had of me.

Over the past few days I have been in contact with pharmacists in Bradford who knew and worked with my father-in-law; without exception they refer to him as a gentleman who never sought the limelight but got on with the job in a quiet professional way keeping the “show on the road”, leaving others to have the high profile. He was, however, branch chairman in 1970 and an honorary auditor for the branch for many years.

I will remember him as a loving man who welcomed me into his family unconditionally. He followed my career with interest and shared in both my success and failure with equal measure, always encouraging and always offering sound advice when asked.

He was an avid reader of The Pharmaceutical Journal until a few weeks before his death. He read it cover to cover on a Friday and Saturday and would always ring to say if he had seen my name “mentioned in despatches”.

With his passing our profession has lost another member whose contribution was immense and often unsung. I have lost a friend.