Henry Bedson

Henry Samuel Bedson, MD, MRCP (29 September 1929 – 6 September 1978), was a British virologist and head of the Department of Medical Microbiology at Birmingham Medical School, where his research focused on smallpox and monkeypox virus.

Bedson was head of the smallpox laboratory at Birmingham when Janet Parker, a photographer working above the laboratory, contracted smallpox and died.

Bedson died on 6 September 1978, five days after being discovered with self-inflicted wounds to his throat.

The verdict in court was that Bedson was "not guilty". He was educated at Brighton, Hove and Sussex Grammar School, before gaining admission to the London Hospital Medical College, where his father was professor of bacteriology. In 1976 he was a member of the International Commission for the assessment of smallpox eradication in Pakistan and Afghanistan and of the World Health Organization informal group on monkeypox and related poxviruses viruses, in addition to the dangerous pathogens advisory group established by the Department of Health and Social Security.

In late August 1978, during the bank holiday weekend, Bedson was on-call when he was called by Alasdair Geddes, the region's smallpox expert, to examine fluid samples taken from blisters of Janet Parker, a photographer working above Bedson's smallpox laboratory. She had been admitted to an infectious diseases ward at the East Birmingham Hospital with an initial diagnosis of flu and drug eruption. The day after confirming the specific strain of smallpox, while in quarantine at his home in Cockthorpe Close, Harborne, he committed suicide by cutting his throat and died five days later on Wednesday 6 September. His suicide note read:

In Bedson's Munk's Roll biography published by the Royal College of Physicians, virologist Peter Wildy and Sir Gordon Wolstenholme wrote:

The verdict in court was that Bedson was "not guilty". How Parker exactly became infected with smallpox remains unknown.

Personal and family In 1961, Bedson married Ann Patricia ( Ducker; died 31 January 2019, aged 81), a Yorkshire staff nurse working in Liverpool. They had a son and two daughters: Peter, Ruth and Sarah Elizabeth. He was a close friend of virologist Keith Dumbell, and a godparent to his children.

Bedson's hobbies included cricket, and dry fly fishing, an activity learnt from his childhood days with his father. He owned a holiday home in Llangynog, Wales.

Selected publications