Edward Mellanby, 1884-1955

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Abstract
Death came suddenly, and without recognized warning, to Sir Edward Mellanby on 30 January 1955, before he had completed his 71st year. Nearly six years earlier he had retired, on reaching the official age-limit, from the Secretaryship of the Medical Research Council, which he had held for 16 years. During this period the range and the influence of the Council’s activities for the promotion and support of medical research had undergone a most notable expansion, primarily in the United Kingdom, but widely beyond it also in the British Commonwealth; and Mellanby’s enlightened and resourceful enterprise in proposal and planning, and his vigorous drive in administrative action, had undoubtedly been dominant factors in this remarkable development. Like his only predecessor in the appointment, the late Walter Morley Fletcher, Mellanby had been the Council’s chief executive officer in much more than a merely official sense. Yet, during all the years in which he had carried that heavy load of official responsibility, he had succeeded in maintaining a direct and personal activity in the researches which had so long provided for him, and also for his devoted wife and scientific partner, the central aim and interest of their joint working lives.