Janet Vaughan
| Dame Janet Vaughan DBE FRS | |
|---|---|
 Vaughan in 1963 | |
| 6th Principal of Somerville College, Oxford | |
|
In office 1945–1967 | |
| Preceded by | Helen Darbishire |
| Succeeded by | Barbara Craig |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Janet Maria Vaughan 18 October 1899 |
| Died | 9 January 1993 (aged 93) |
| Education | North Foreland Lodge |
| Alma mater | Somerville College, Oxford |
| Profession |
Physician Physiologist Academic administrator |
| Awards |
DBE (1957) FRS (1979) |
Dame Janet Maria Vaughan, DBE, FRS (18 October 1899 – 9 January 1993) was a British physiologist, academic, and academic administrator.[1][2] She researched in haematology and radiation pathology and from 1945 to 1967 was Principal of Somerville College, Oxford.
Early life
Born in Clifton, Bristol, she was the eldest of four children of William Wyamar Vaughan, a cousin of Virginia Woolf and later headmaster of Rugby. At the time of her birth he was an assistant master at Clifton College. Vaughan was educated at home, and later at North Foreland Lodge and Somerville College, Oxford, where she studied medicine under Charles Sherrington and J. B. S. Haldane. She did her clinical training at University College Hospital, London.[1]
Later she received a scholarship from the Rockefeller Foundation to study at Harvard University.[3]
Career
As a female doctor, Vaughan had difficulties gaining access to patients and experimented on pigeons. Woolf described her as 'an attractive woman; competent, disinterested, taking blood tests all day to solve abstract problems'.[3] She suffered from prejudice for her research.[4]
As a young pathologist at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School at Hammersmith Hospital in 1938 she initiated creation of national blood banks in London, setting one up with Federico Duran-Jorda. The modified milk bottle for blood collection and storage was named "MRC bottle" or "Janet Vaughan".[3][5] In 1945 she was sent to Belgium by the Medical Research Council to research starvation, and then into Germany; at war's end she was working in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.[1]
Vaughan's research included blood disease, blood transfusion, the treatment of starvation, and the effect of radioactivity on the bone and bone marrow.[6] Her 1934 book, The Anaemias, was one of the first specialised treatments of blood diseases. After the war, she became known for her work on the effects of plutonium.[1]
From 1945 until her retirement in 1967, while working as a researcher at the Churchill Hospital, she was Principal of Somerville College. She was Principal while Shirley Catlin (later Shirley Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby) and Margaret Roberts (who would later become the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher) studied there. She also served on the Royal Commission on Equal Pay, as a founder trustee of the Nuffield Foundation, and for one year as chairman of the Oxford Regional Hospital Board.[1]
Honours
Vaughan was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 1957 New Year Honours.[7] Oxford University awarded her an honorary DCL in 1967.[1] She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1979.[8]
Publications
- Vaughan, Janet. The Anemias. London: Oxford University Press, 1934.
- Vaughan, Janet. "Leuco-erythoblastic Anemias", Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology 17 (1936):541-64.
- Vaughan, Janet. "Conditions at Belsen Concentration Camp", British Medical Journal, Physiology and treatment of starvation ser. (1945):819
- Vaughan, Janet. The Physiology of Bone. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1969.
- Vaughan, Janet. The Effect of Irradiation of the Skeleton. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1973.
Personal life
She married David Gourlay, of the Wayfarers' Travel Agency, in 1930. They had two daughters.[1]
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Evelyn Irons, Obituary: Dame Janet Vaughan, The Independent, 12 January 1993.
- ↑ "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/42277.
- 1 2 3 Starr, D (1998). Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce. Little, Brown and company. pp. 84–87. ISBN 0 316 91146 1.
- ↑ Watts, Ruth (2007). Women in science : a social and cultural history (1st ed.). London: Routledge. p. 171. ISBN 0415253063.
- ↑ Christopher D. Hillyer (2007). Blood Banking and Transfusion Medicine: Basic Principles & Practice. Elsevier Health Sciences. p. 29. ISBN 0-443-06981-6.
- ↑ edts Ogilvie, Marilyn (2000). The biographical dictionary of women in science. New York [u.a.]: Routledge. p. 1323. ISBN 0415920388.
- ↑ The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 40960. p. 11. 28 December 1956. Retrieved 14 October 2015.
- ↑ Owen, M. (1995). "Dame Janet Maria Vaughan, D. B. E. 18 October 1899-9 January 1993". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 41: 482–426. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1995.0029.
External links
- Royal College of Physicians profile of Dame Janet Vaughan contains a detailed account of her life, based in part on her 1993 Independent obituary
- Red Gold: Innovators & Pioneers — Jane Vaughan, PBS
- Longreads article on Janet Vaughan by Rose George : A very naughty little girl : The extraordinary life of Janet Vaughan, who changed our relationship with blood
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Helen Darbishire |
Principal Somerville College, Oxford 1945-1967 |
Succeeded by Barbara Craig |