Background
Bannister was born in 1929 in Harrow, England, United Kingdom.
Bannister was born in 1929 in Harrow, England, United Kingdom.
Roger went to Vaughan Primary School in Harrow and continued his education at City of Bath Boys' School and University College School, London; followed by medical school at the University of Oxford (Exeter College and Merton College) and at St Mary's Hospital Medical School (now part of Imperial College London). Bannister graduated from St. Mary’s in 1954, earned a medical degree from Oxford in 1963.
Roger received honorary degrees (Doctor of Science) from the University of Sheffield in 1978, and from the University of Bath in 1984. He also received honorary degrees from the University of Pavia in 1986 and from Brunel University London in 2008 (DUniv), as well as an honorary doctorate from Oxford Brookes University in 2014.
While a student at the University of Oxford and at St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School, London, Bannister won British (1951, 1953–54) and Empire (1954) championships in the mile run and the European title (1954) in the 1,500-metre event. He broke the four-minute barrier with a time of 3 minutes 59.4 seconds in a dual meet at Oxford on May 6, 1954. Breaking the world record (4 minutes 1.3 seconds), held for nine years by Gunder Hägg of Sweden, was almost incidental to his successful defiance of the “psychological” barrier, the general belief in the impossibility of running a mile in less than four minutes. Bannister is said to have achieved his speed through scientific training methods and thorough research into the mechanics of running. He recounted his experiences in the book The Four Minute Mile (1955).
Roger became a neurologist. He wrote papers on the physiology of exercise, heat illness, and neurological subjects, and from 1969 on he edited Brain’s Clinical Neurology (retitled Brain and Bannister’s Clinical Neurology, 7th ed., 1990).
He was appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to sport.
Bannister was an Honorary Fellow of both Exeter College and Merton College, where he studied at the University of Oxford; he was also Honorary Fellow of Harris Manchester College, Oxford.
Bannister was made an Honorary Freeman of the London Borough of Harrow on 4 May 2004.
Bannister married the artist Moyra Jacobsson, daughter of the Swedish economist Per Jacobsson, who served as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.