Dale , Sir , Henry Hallett , 1875-1968 , Knight , physiologist, pharmacologist and physician

Dale , Sir , Henry Hallett , 1875-1968 , Knight , physiologist, pharmacologist and physician

Son of a London businessman, Dale was educated at Tollington Park College, London; The Leys School, Cambridge; and Trinity College, Cambridge. He received first class honours in the natural science tripos in 1898, and succeeded Ernest Rutherford to the Coutts-Trotter studentship at Trinity. He was influenced by the physiologists of the 'Cambridge School', Michael Foster, W.H. Gaskell, J.N. Langley and H.K. Anderson. He began his clinical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital (1900-1903), receiving his B.Chir. in 1903 and his M.D. in 1909. He was George Henry Lewes Student and then Sharpey Student with the department of physiology of University College under Starling and Bayliss (1902-1904).

In 1904 he accepted the offer of a research post in physiology from (Sir) Henry Wellcome at the Wellcome Research Laboratories, where he worked for eighteen months as pharmacologist and the remainder of his ten years there as Director. In 1936, on the death of Sir Henry Wellcome, he became a trustee of the Wellcome Trust, becoming its chairman 1938-1960 and continuing as scientific advisor to 1968. In fact he continued to give advice until his death at age ninety three.

In 1914 he became Director of the Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology of the Institute for Medical Research, which in 1920 became the National Institute for Medical Research at Hampstead. In 1923 he became chairman of the Committee of Departmental Directors, and in 1928, the first director of the Institute, a post he held until 1942, when he retired and became Director of the Royal Institution as well as Fullerian professor of chemistry until 1946.
While secretary of the Royal Society (1925-1935) he changed the form of publication of the obituary notices so they were published annually in one volume, and while president (1940-1945) he not only held a meeting of the Royal Society outside Britain for the first time, in India, but also raised the number of Fellows elected to twenty five, and enabled the revolutionary concept of admitting women as Fellows from 1945.