Charles Dodds

Sir Charles Dodds, Bt
Born	Edward Charles Dodds 13 October 1899
Died	16 December 1973 (aged 74)
Alma mater	Middlesex Hospital
Notable awards	Fellow of the Royal Society[1]

Sir Edward Charles Dodds, 1st Baronet MVO FRS FRSE FRCP LLD (13 October 1899 – 16 December 1973) was a British biochemist.^[1][2][3][4]

Personal Life

He was born in Liverpool in 1899, the only child of Ralph Edward Dodds, a shoe retailer, and Jane (née Pack) Dodds.^[4] The family shortly moved to Leeds, then to Darlington and then to Chesham, Bucks, where he attended Harrow County School. From there he entered the Middlesex Hospital Medical School in London in 1916, spent one year in the army in 1917, and qualified MRCS and LRCP in 1921.

He died at Sussex Square in Paddington, London on 16 December 1973.^[5]

Career

In 1924 he was appointed to the new Chair of Biochemistry at the University of London which was started in the Bland Sutton Institute of Pathology at the Middlesex. Three years later, he was appointed Director of the recently completed Courtauld Institute of Biochemistry and retained these two appointments until his retirement forty years later. His scientific interests were wide and varied; he had a continuing interest in the problem of cancer and of research into its causation, and was an authority on food and diet and also devoted time and energy to the problems of rheumatism. He provided facilities and gave advice and encouragement to younger colleagues in such work as immunopathology, steroid chemistry, cytochemistry and the work which led to the discovery of Aldosterone.

Awards and honours

He was appointed a Member (fourth class) of the Royal Victorian Order in the 1929 Birthday Honours.^[6]

In 1941 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Francis Albert Eley Crew, Alan William Greenwood, James Kendall and Guy Frederic Marrian.^[7]

In 1942 he was elected to Fellowship of the Royal Society^[1] and subsequently served as Vice-President. He served the Royal College of Physicians for some years as Harveian Librarian and in 1962 was elected President, the first to hold the office who was laboratory based and not engaged in clinical practice. During his term of office as President he was invested as a knight into the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (K.St.J.).

He was knighted in 1954,^[8] and created 1st Baronet Dodds of West Chiltington in the County of Sussex on 10 February 1964.^[9][10]

Publications

He co-authored a number of books such as The Laboratory in Surgical practice,Chemical and Physiological Propertes of Medicine and Recent Advances in British Medicine .

Family

In 1923 he had married Constance Elizabeth Jordan (d.1969) of Darlington.

They had one son, Sir Ralph Jordan Dodds, who succeeded to the baronetcy on Charles' death in 1973.

References

1. Dickens, F. (1975). "Edward Charles Dodds 13 October 1899-16 December 1973". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 21: 227–267. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1975.0006. PMID 11615718.
2. Sir Edward Charles Dodds. Munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk. Retrieved on 4 June 2014.
3. Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
4. Whitby, G. (2004). "Dodds, Sir (Edward) Charles, first baronet (1899–1973)". The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31038.
5. BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF FORMER FELLOWS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 1783 – 2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0 902 198 84 X.
6. The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 33501. p. 3671. 3 June 1929.
7. BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF FORMER FELLOWS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 1783 – 2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0 902 198 84 X.
8. The London Gazette: no. 40105. p. 1077. 19 February 1954.
9. The London Gazette: no. 43243. p. 1270. 11 February 1964.
10. Sir Edward Charles Dodds, 1st Bt.. Thepeerage.com. Retrieved on 4 June 2014.