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February 15th

Ernest George Leopold Goffe was born in St Mary, Jamaica in September 1867. His father, John Beecham Goffe, a planter and merchant who was probably born in Barbados, had some nine children with his wife, Margaret, née Clemetson, as well as an unknown number of 'outside' children.

Ernest was educated at York Castle High School, in St Ann, and attended Jamaica College for a year on a scholarship. In 1889 he entered University College, London, to study medicine. An item in the Gleaner, July 11, 1899 recorded his progress in his

profession. He was later on the

staff of the Fever Hospital in

Tottenham, where many soldiers

were treated during WWI. In 1916

he married Edna Mary Powell who

was also a doctor. After the War

they established a practice in

Kingston-on-Thames and there

they raised four sons. Outside of

medicine Ernest Goffe was

interested in sports, Fabian

politics, and literature.

He and his wife visited Jamaica in 1935 to meet with relatives.

He continued working into his 80s, and died in Sussex on November 28, 1952.

The date and place of birth of Alan Powell Goffe are matters of some uncertainty; the date is variously given as July 1920, or July 1921. Some accounts state that he was born in Jamaica, but there seems no indication that his parents ever visited the island before their trip in 1935. In which case his place of birth is for the present unknown.

Alan Goffe was educated at Epsom College, and then for a year at the Institut auf den Rosenberg at St Gallen, Switzerland. He studied medicine at University College Hospital and obtained the M.B., B.S. (Lond.) in 1944. In 1943 he married Elizabeth Olive Hedge, the adopted daughter of William and Maud Hedge; her birth father was Reg Connelly, a songwriter who was the co-author of 'Show me the way to go home' and other songs. The couple had three sons, one of whom, Hugh, died of bone cancer in 1963, and two daughters

In 1947 he acquired the Diploma in Bacteriology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; after holding several posts in London hospitals he did his National Service in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1949 to 1951, being stationed in Egypt where he interested himself in typhoid and other enteric organisms.

After his army service he became more and more deeply involved in the new developments involving vaccines against poliomyelitis, and in 1955 he was appointed to a committee, set up by the Medical Research Council, to introduce the advances made in the United States into Britain. He joined the Wellcome Research Laboratories where he made major contributions to the development of Salk-type and Sabin vaccines, and to adaptation of the measles virus.He was involved with many clinical trials of new and improved vaccines; when advocating the use of a new vaccine he would first vaccinate himself and his

family to demonstrate his belief in its safety,

In 1965 a Department of Experimental Cytology, for fundamental research, was set up at Wellcome to utilize his special talents for original research. He planned and equipped the laboratories and chose the staff, but within eight months of the start of work at the new Department, Alan Goffe died tragically in a boating accident off the Isle of Wight.

His full potential was therefore never to be known: 'he had already won himself a place among the foremost virologists in this country and had an acknowledged international reputation. He was a man of great originality of thought and had a lively imagination, coupled with a thorough knowledge of virology.'

click HERE for a further extract from the obituary in the

JOURNAL of PATHOLOGICAL BACTERIOLOGY, VOL. 93 (1967)