Barbara Clayton’s death on 11 January 2011 brings to an end a brilliant career but her influence, in so many spheres, will long live on, particularly that of pioneering the role of women in Medicine and her international voice on diet and nutrition. Born in Liverpool she attended. Bromley County School for Girls before going to Edinburgh to study Medicine where she graduated MB ChB with honours in 1946, followed three years later with a PhD based on her work in the MRC endocrinology research unit, and in 1953 graduated MD Edin, with high commendation.
She had moved to St Thomas’s Hospital London working in Endocrinology and Chemical Pathology, moving up the ladder until she was appointed Consultant in Charge, Clinical Pathology, Hospital for Sick Children 1959-1970, the year she was appointed to a personal chair in the Institute of Child Health, University of London until 1979. In 1979 Dame Barbara was appointed to the Chair of Chemical Pathology and Human Metabolism at the University of Southampton. She was also Dean of Medicine there between 1983 and 1986. When Dame Barbara retired from Southampton University in 1987 she was given the honorary title of Honorary Research Professor in Metabolism.
She was Honorary President of the British Nutrition Foundation, Chairman of the Medical/Scientific Panel of the Leukaemia Research Fund, Past President of the National Society for Clean Air and Environmental Protection, Vice-President of the Caroline Walker Trust, President of the Royal College of Pathologists, was appointed y the Secretary of State for Health to the Standing Committee on Postgraduate Education for Doctors, and was President of the Society for the Study of Inborn Errors.
Amongst the many honours bestowed on her she was awarded the British Medical Association’s Gold Medal for distinguished merit, was made an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Biology and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. The Queen appointed her CBE in 1983 and in 1988, Dame of the Order of the British Empire. She was awarded honorary doctorates from the universities of Edinburgh and Southampton. Our College elected her to its Fellowship and she was a Stanley Davidson lecturer.
She lost her husband Professor William Klyne in1977.