Emeritus professor of virology, University of Manchester (b 1919; q Cambridge and Middlesex Hospital 1943; MD, FRCP, FRCPath), died from pneumonia on 1 August 2005.
Figure 1.
After four years at Wolverhampton Royal Hospital Thomas Beswick did his wartime military service in the Royal Air Force as a pathologist, attaining the rank of squadron leader. From 1949 to 1956 he undertook a postgraduate diploma in bacteriology in Cambridge, becoming a demonstrator in pathology and subsequently a don. In 1956, at the Medical Research Council in Hampstead, he did groundbreaking research on polio vaccine, including working with Professors Salk and Sabin in America, and brought the current oral vaccine to the United Kingdom. In 1962 he became reader in virology at Manchester University and professor in 1965 until ill health forced him to retire in 1980. He leaves a wife, Gwyneth; four children; and four grandsons.
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