Alexander Haddow

Sir Alexander Haddow FRS FRSE (18 January 1907 – 21 January 1976) was a Scottish physician and pathologist at the forefront of cancer research in the 1940s. He served as Director of the Institute of Cancer Research from 1946 to 1969. He was also President of the Universal Union Against Cancer.

His most important discovery was the Haddow Effect, by which a carcinogenic compound can be used to arrest a cancer whose origin is an unrelated carcinogen.

Early life Haddow was born on 18 January 1907 in Leven, Fife, Scotland to Margaret Docherty, daughter of a coachman, and William Haddow (d.1928) of Newharthill in Glasgow. His father and grandfather were coal-miners. The family moved to Broxburn, West Lothian, where his father ran Green Tree Tavern, a small bar and hotel. MD 1937 and DSc 1938 ).

In 1972, he retired to Chalfont St Giles. By this time he was almost totally blind due to diabetes, which also caused the loss of his limbs.

Personal life In 1932, Haddow married Lucia Lindsay Crosby Black (d. 1968), a medical practitioner. After the death of his first wife, he remarried in 1970 to Mrs Feo Standing ( Garner; died 30 January 2013), a scientific photographer, 22 years his junior. He gained two step-children by this second marriage.

Death Haddow had diabetes and related blindness. On 21 January 1976, three days after his 69th birthday, Haddow died at Amersham General Hospital in Amersham, England. He was cremated.