Penrose , Lionel Sharples , 1898-1972 , geneticist

Born in London, 11 June 1898; educated at the Downs School, Colwall and Leighton Park School, Reading; member of the Society of Friends; joined Friends' Ambulance Unit, 1917; served in France, 1918; read mathematics at St John's College, Cambridge, 1919; awarded degree of Moral Sciences Tripos, 1921; medical course at St Thomas's Hospital, London, 1928; MD, 1930; Research Director at the Royal Eastern Counties' Institution, Colchester, 1930; published the 'Colchester Survey', a detailed account of mentally defective patients and their families, 1938; Director of Psychiatric Research, Ontario, Canada, 1939-1945; returned to England, 1945; appointed to Francis Galton Chair of Eugenics (later renamed the Galton Chair of Human Genetics), University College London, 1945-1965; also appointed Consultant Geneticist, University College Hospital; edited Annals of Human Genetics, 1945-1965; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1953; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1962; set up the Kennedy-Galton Centre for Mental Deficiency Research and Diagnosis at Harperbury Hospital, near St Albans, on his retirement; Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1971; died, 12 May 1972. Publications: Mental defect (Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1933); The influence of heredity on disease (H K Lewis & Co, London, 1934); A clinical and genetic study of 1280 cases of mental defect (HMSO, London, 1938); The biology of mental defect (Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1949); On the objective study of crowd behaviour (H K Lewis & Co, London, 1952); Heredity and environment in human affairs (National Children's Home, London, 1955); Outline of human genetics (Heinemann, London, 1959); editor of Recent advances in human genetics with Helen Lang Brown (J & A Churchill, London, 1961); Mathematical tables for research workers in human genetics with S Maynard-Smith and C A B Smith (J & A Churchill, London, 1961); Down's anomaly with G F Smith (J & A Churchill, London, 1966); various scientific articles.