Marrian, Guy Frederic (1904-1981), CBE, FRS

This collection is a somewhat scrappy record of Marrian's career, as a result of the various moves he made - from University College London, to Toronto, to Edinburgh, to the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London militating against the preservation of more extensive archives.

1918-1984

8 boxes, 2 oversize folders

A. Family and Personal
B. Colleagues
C. Career and professional activities
D. Photographs

Acquired by Dr Joan Austoker from Mrs P Marrian , Dec 1983, May 1984, and held at the Wellcome Unit Oxford; transferred along with other archives from the Unit to the Contemporary Medical Archives Centre in 1996. Confirmed as being a gift by Dr Valerie Marrian, Dec 2012.

Professor Guy Frederic Marrian CBE, FRS (1904-1981) was a biochemist and served as Director of Research for the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, 1959-1968.

Biographical outline:
1904 3 Mar born in London
Educated at Tollington School
While waiting to become eligible for a county scholarship to University College London, took a technician's job at the National Institute for Medical Research, which introduced him to endocrinology
1925 graduated BSc in chemistry. Spent the next eight years at University College London, during which he initiated the work for which he became famous: the identification of two chemicals, pregnanediol and oestriol, involved in female sexual function
1928 5 Nov married Phyllis May Lewis
1930 awarded University of London DSc
1931 Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chemistry
1931 Meldola medal of the Royal Institute of Chemistry
1933 moved to Toronto University in Canada: pioneering work on oestrogen assay and metabolism
1937 election as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
1939 accepted the chair of chemistry in relation to medicine at Edinburgh University
1939-1945 studying the poison gas arsine
1940 Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
During the war, secondment to Medicine Hat in Alberta: presumably doing ultra-secret work on poison gas
1944 Fellow of the Royal Society of London
Post war return to work on steroid-hormone research
1946 Fellow of UCL
1948 Francis Amory prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
1959-1968 director of research at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund
1966 Sir Henry Dale medal of the Society of Endocrinology
1969 CBE
1975 Honorary MD, Edinburgh
1981 24 Jul died

There is a Biographical Memoir of Marrian in Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society and an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. A file containing obituary notices may be found at PP/GFM/A.12/2; and see also PP/GFM/B.3, material from Saul Cohen.

There is a file relating to Guy Marrian's Beit Fellowship among the Beit Memorial Fund archives: SA/BMF/A.2/114 ; some correspondence with both Guy and Phyllis Marrian among Sir Alan Parkes's papers, PP/ASP/A.13 (also photographs and publications).