Topley , William Whiteman Carlton , 1886-1944 , bacteriologist

William Whiteman Carlton Topley was born in Lewisham in 1886; graduated BA at St John's College, Cambridge, 1907 and qualified MB B.Ch. from St Thomas's Hospital, 1911. By then he was already an Assistant Director of the Pathology Department at Charing Cross Hospital, London. Always keen on research, war-time experience of a severe epidemic of typhus in Serbia turned his mind to epidemiology, and in 1922 he was appointed Professor of Bacteriology in the University of Manchester.

By 1922, Topley was developing the study of experimental epidemiology, in which he came to rely on the statistical contributions of Major Greenwood. In 1927 both men were appointed to new chairs at the new London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Their collaboration and friendship continued throughout their time at the School, until the threat of war catapulted Topley into organising the Emergency Public Health Laboratory Service (EPHLS). With his younger friend and associate, Graham Wilson, Topley published in 1929 the first of many editions of their classic text, Principles of Bacteriology and Immunity. In 1941 he took over as Secretary to the Agricultural Research Council. War-time stress and a family history of coronary disease caused his sudden death in February 1944, 2 days after his 58th birthday.