Background
Geoffrey Harold Tovey was born on 29 May 1916 at Midsomer Norton, Somerset. His mother died of acute pneumonia when Geoffrey was a child. After his mother"s death, he attended Wycliffe College school, then Bristol University.
Geoffrey Harold Tovey was born on 29 May 1916 at Midsomer Norton, Somerset. His mother died of acute pneumonia when Geoffrey was a child. After his mother"s death, he attended Wycliffe College school, then Bristol University.
University of Bristol.
Foreign a short while he worked as a General Practice in Bristol. During the Second World War, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and was posted to the Army Blood Transfusion Service from 1941 to 1946, headed by haematologist Brigadier General L East H Whitby (from New Year 1945 as Brigadier General Sir Lionel Whitby) at Southmead Hospital, Bristol and helped in training Royal Army Medical Corps privates at Clifton College as Blood Transfusion Orderlies (including J Doctorate R Thomas later famed for ion-selective electrodes that came to be used in blood electrolyte analysis - from 1994 Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at Cardiff University, whom Doctor Tovey telephoned soon after being written to about his letter in The Daily Telegraph of 15 April 1998 on "New blood won"t revive Service"). In 1945-1946 Tovey had command of Number.3 Base Transfusion Unit in Poona, India Command.
After the war Doctor Geoffrey Tovey returned to the Blood Transfusion Service unit in 1946 at Southmead Hospital, Bristol.
In that year he was appointed Director of the South West Regional Blood Transfusion Service. Doctor Tovey held the post of Director from 1946 to 1978 Doctor Tovey was one of the first surgeons regularly to perform intrauterine blood transfusions on unborn babies.
In 1959 he advocated the induction of birth at 36 weeks pregnancy to prevent stillbirth in babies affected by Rhesus Haemolytic Disease. This subsequently saved many lives.
He performed early work on the typing of red cells and their antigens, white blood cells (Human Lymphocyte Antigens or HLAs), and the transfusion of platelets and later stem cells in the treatment of leukaemia.
He collaborated with transplant surgeons such as Christiaan Barnard, Michael De Bakey and Sir Roy Calne. He also appeared as an expert witness in a paternity case involving Cary Grant. He was also secretly consulted when the Shah of Iran was dying of leukaemia.
He was appointed by the World Health Organisation to advise countries around the world on the development of safe blood stocks.
With the American firm, Technicon, he helped to develop the first automated blood grouping machines. In 1972 he founded and became the director of the United Kingdom Transplant Service.
He was also president of the International Society of Blood Transfusion. He was Consultant Adviser on Blood Transfusion at the Department of Health and Social Security from 1979 to 1981.
He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1977.