Ralph Ambrose Kekwick

Professor Ralph Ambrose Kekwick (11 November 1908 in Leytonstone Essex – 17 January 2000 in Woodford). was a British biochemist who did pioneering work on human plasma fractionation, including the first production of Factor VIII.

Early life and education Ralph's father was Oliver A. Kekwick (1865–1939) a managing clerk in a firm of ships' chandlers in Royal Albert Dock, London. His mother was Mary E. Price (1868–1958) who, aged 13, was a pupil-teacher at Bromley St Leonard's Church school, Bromley-by-Bow, London. Ralph was the youngest of her three children.

Ralph attended infants' and elementary schools in Leytonstone and in 1919 gained a scholarship to Leyton County High School for boys. His elder brother read chemistry at University College London (UCL) and his accounts of this excited Ralph and set him for a career in science.

At age 16, Ralph passed the School Certificate sufficiently to make him eligible for university entrance and he began at UCL in 1925, a month before his 17th birthday. He obtained a BSc with first class in chemistry in 1928.

In 1966 Kekwick was given a personal Chair in the University of London and was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society (FRS).

Personal life He met his future wife Barbara Stone, a graduate in English from Wells College, whilst in New York in the 1930s. They married in June 1933. He retired in 1971 as his wife was unwell following post-operative complications – she died 18 months later. In 1974 he married his former colleague at the Lister, Margaret Mackay, who later died suddenly in 1982.