Edward Joseph Lister Lowbury (December 12, 1913 - July 10, 2007) was a pioneering and innovative English medical
bacteriologist
A bacteriologist is a microbiologist, or similarly trained professional, in bacteriology -- a subdivision of microbiology that studies bacteria, typically pathogenic ones. Bacteriologists are interested in studying and learning about bacteria, ...
and
pathologist
Pathology is the study of the causal, causes and effects of disease or injury. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when us ...
, and also a published poet.
Life
Edward Lowbury was born in
Hampstead
Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...
to the recently naturalised Benjamin William Loewenberg (of Latvian-Jewish background) and the Brazilian-born Alice Sarah Hallé (of German-Jewish origin) in 1913. The family name was anglicised to Lowbury at the start of World War 1. His father was a medical doctor and Edward’s middle names were chosen in honour of the surgeon
Joseph Lister
Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister, (5 April 182710 February 1912) was a British surgeon, medical scientist, experimental pathologist and a pioneer of antiseptic surgery and preventative medicine. Joseph Lister revolutionised the craft of s ...
who had done so much to reduce post-operative infection. His son was to follow closely in Lister’s footsteps in the medical career that he eventually chose.
Lowbury’s secondary education was as a foundation scholar at
St Paul’s School (London), where he began to specialise in science. He was also twice winner of the school’s Milton Prize – the first time for a sequence of 40 sonnets. Having won a science scholarship to
University College, Oxford
University College (in full The College of the Great Hall of the University of Oxford, colloquially referred to as "Univ") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It has a claim to being the oldest college of the univer ...
, he continued to take an interest in writing, gaining the 1934
Newdigate Prize and the 1937 Matthew Arnold Memorial essay prize.
His initial medical training was at the
Royal London Hospital
The Royal London Hospital is a large teaching hospital in Whitechapel in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is part of Barts Health NHS Trust. It provides district general hospital services for the City of London and Tower Hamlets and s ...
. He was called up to the
Royal Army Medical Corps
The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. The RAMC, the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the Royal Army Dental Corps a ...
in 1943, where he specialised in pathology and was posted to Kenya. There he was one of the editors of the wartime literary magazine ''Equator''. While still in service, his collection ''Crossing the Line'' was given first prize in a competition judged by
Louis MacNeice
Frederick Louis MacNeice (12 September 1907 – 3 September 1963) was an Irish poet and playwright, and a member of the Auden Group, which also included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis. MacNeice's body of work was widely a ...
and accepted for publication. On leaving the army, he took employment with the Common Cold Research Unit with
James Lovelock
James Ephraim Lovelock (26 July 1919 – 26 July 2022) was an English independent scientist, environmentalist and futurist. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the Earth functions as a self-regulating sys ...
as one of his colleagues. Those days are remembered in the last of Lowbury’s “Apocryphal Letters”: ''Gaia – a letter to James Lovelock''.
![Birmingham Accident Hospital R](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Birmingham_Accident_Hospital_R.jpg)
In 1949 Lowbury was appointed head of the microbiology department at the Medical Research Council burns unit of
Birmingham Accident Hospital
Birmingham Accident Hospital, formerly known as Birmingham Accident Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre, was established in April 1941 as Birmingham's response to two reports, the British Medical Association's Committee on Fractures (1935) and th ...
and also taught pathology as a Research Fellow at the
University of Birmingham Medical School
The University of Birmingham Medical School is one of Britain's largest and oldest medical schools with over 400 medical, 70 pharmacy, 140 biomedical science and 130 nursing students graduating each year. It is based at the University of Birmi ...
. As founder of the Hospital Infection Research Laboratory at what is now known as
City Hospital, Birmingham
City Hospital (formerly Dudley Road Hospital, and still commonly referred to as such) is a major hospital located in Birmingham, England, operated by the Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust. It provides an extensive range of genera ...
in 1964, he emerged as one of the foremost researchers in hospital infection, particularly in the prevention of burns infection, the problems of antibiotic resistance and skin disinfection and lectured on his specialities throughout the world before retiring in 1979 and being awarded an
OBE.
Through clinical trials Lowbury confirmed previous work showing that specialist positively pressurised dressing rooms reduced infections. With John Babb he proved that a specialised filter system could remove bacteria from an airstream and retain them, either reducing infection risk or allowing an already infected patient to be treated in an open ward. He documented treatment of infections with
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
''Pseudomonas aeruginosa'' is a common encapsulated, gram-negative, aerobic–facultatively anaerobic, rod-shaped bacterium that can cause disease in plants and animals, including humans. A species of considerable medical importance, ''P. aerugi ...
, noting that the development of
carbenicillin
Carbenicillin is a bactericidal antibiotic belonging to the carboxypenicillin subgroup of the penicillins. It was discovered by scientists at Beecham and marketed as Pyopen. It has Gram-negative coverage which includes ''Pseudomonas aeruginosa'' ...
resistance used a single mechanism which conferred protection against a range of antibiotics. He further showed that overuse of a new antibiotic led to increased
staphylococcus resistance, and that a subsequent reduction in use reversed the effect. His work with Rod Jones contributed to the development of a pseudomonas vaccine. With Harold Lilly he developed tests for effectiveness of hand washes before alcohol became the norm in 1974. These tests were still the basis for European standards when he died. He worked on
topical
A topical medication is a medication that is applied to a particular place on or in the body. Most often topical medication means application to body surfaces such as the skin or mucous membranes to treat ailments via a large range of classes ...
antibacterial compounds with surgeons Douglas Jackson and Jack Cason, eventually leading to topical silver, which continues in use.
His findings were usefully summed up in the Everett Evans Lecture and the Wallace Memorial Lecture that he gave in the years immediately before his retirement in 1979. He then became a founder member of the Hospital Infection Society, of which he served as its first president and where an annual Lowbury Lecture was sponsored in his honour. Other honours included a
D.Sc.
Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...
at Aston University, where he was made Visiting Professor in Medical Microbiology; an
LL.D
Legum Doctor (Latin: “teacher of the laws”) (LL.D.) or, in English, Doctor of Laws, is a doctorate-level academic degree in law or an honorary degree, depending on the jurisdiction. The double “L” in the abbreviation refers to the earl ...
at Birmingham University; Fellowships of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons, of Physicians and of Pathologists and membership of the New York Academy of Sciences.
In 1954 Lowbury had married Alison Young, daughter of the poet
Andrew Young
Andrew Jackson Young Jr. (born March 12, 1932) is an American politician, diplomat, and activist. Beginning his career as a pastor, Young was an early leader in the civil rights movement, serving as executive director of the Southern Christian L ...
, with whom he had three daughters – Ruth (1955), Pauline (1956) and Miriam (1959). He also published regular collections of poetry: ''Time for Sale'' (1961), ''Daylight Astronomy'' (1968), ''Green Magic'' (for children, 1972), ''The Night Watchman'' (1974). His poetry was widely anthologised and in 1974 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Following his retirement he continued to live (and write) in Birmingham until the death of his wife in 2001 and his deteriorating eyesight made it necessary to move to a nursing home in London.
Poetry
Between 1936-85 Lowbury published seven commercial collections (and shared in two joint collections). Much of that work can be found in the following (which were followed by a new collection):
*''Selected and New Poems 1935-1989'' (Frome, 1990)
*''Collected Poems'' (University of Salzburg, Austria, 1993)
*''Mystic Bridge'' (Frome, 1997)
A considerable part of Lowbury’s poetic output appeared first in small press editions, from which he then drew for his more commercial collections. Pride of place goes to the nine publications from
Roy Lewis
Roy Lewis (6 November 1913 – 9 October 1996) was an English writer and small press printer.
Life and work
Although born in Felixstowe, Lewis was brought up in Birmingham and educated at King Edward's School. After studying at Universit ...
'
Keepsake Press, some quite substantial, such as ''Poetry & Paradox'' (1976) with its 19 poems and introductory essay, or ''Birmingham! Birmingham!'' (1985) with its 22. Comparable with these are ''Goldrush'' from Roger Pringle’s Celandine Press (Shipston-on-Stour, 1983), which has 19 titles of which one is a six-part sequence, and ''Variations from Aldeburgh'' from
Peter Scupham’s Mandeville Press (Hitchin, 1987), which has 13 poems. Several of these books were made even larger by the number of illustrations that accompanied the poems: in the latter work there are eight line drawings by Donald Fairhall, while the three poems in ''Flowering Cypress'' from Kenneth Lindley’s Pointing Finger Press (Hereford, 1986) are supplemented by four of the artist’s woodcuts and a linoprint. Birmingham printers who used Lowbury’s work include F.E.Pardoe (''The Ring'', 1979) and David Wishart, whose Hayloft Press published a number of folded cards between 1987-97.
As a poet, Lowbury has been described as ‘a sort of missing link between the
Georgians
The Georgians, or Kartvelians (; ka, ქართველები, tr, ), are a nation and indigenous Caucasian ethnic group native to Georgia and the South Caucasus. Georgian diaspora communities are also present throughout Russia, Turkey, G ...
and
The Movement
The Movement may refer to:
Politics
* The Movement (Iceland), a political party in Iceland
* The Movement (Israel), a political party in Israel, led by Tzipi Livni
* Civil rights movement, the African-American political movement
* The Movemen ...
’. His work, while remaining formal, avoided the mawkishness of the former and the attitudinising of the latter. Standing apart from literary fashions, he has a place among those of any age who continue to be read for having given lyrical expression to a striking or moving thought in plain and concise language. In this he resembled his father-in-law,
Andrew Young
Andrew Jackson Young Jr. (born March 12, 1932) is an American politician, diplomat, and activist. Beginning his career as a pastor, Young was an early leader in the civil rights movement, serving as executive director of the Southern Christian L ...
, and Lowbury often explained that it was because he recognised Young’s mastery of what he himself wished to achieve in poetry that he first made contact with the older poet.
The originality of the best of his poetry is on a par with that of his scientific work; it was achieved by rejecting the conventional and appealing to reason. But his scepticism was leavened with humour and appreciation of paradox, in which he found the stuff of poetry. One aspect of this, as the critic Glyn Pursglove has pointed out, was his play on words and subtle use of allusion. He also had (in life as in art) a narrative gift which particularly relished the off-beat and macabre. On the other hand, having a weakness for writing occasional verse on request, or prolonging a single theme into a sequence, in the poetry of his retirement he allowed the publication of work that is forced and pedestrian.
Other work
Some 220 (often jointly authored) contributions to scientific and medical journals, textbooks, encyclopaedias, etc., appeared between 1943-79. There were also two larger works of reference written in collaboration with
Graham Ayliffe
Graham Arthur John Ayliffe (2 March 192622 May 2017) was a British medical microbiologist and Emeritus Professor in Medical Microbiology, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. He was instrumental in founding the International Federa ...
et al:
*''Drug Resistance in Antimicrobial Therapy'', with G.A.J.Ayliffe (Springfield, Illinois, 1974)
*''
Control of Hospital Infection: A Practical Handbook'', with G.A.J. Ayliffe, A.M. Geddes and J.D.Williams (London, 1975; revised editions in 1981, 1992)
Lowbury’s bibliography also includes, besides poetry and medical works, two biographies: ''Thomas Campion poet, composer, physician'' (with Timothy Salter and Alison Young, London and New York, 1970) and ''To Shirk No Idleness'', a biography of his father-in-law Andrew Young (with Alison Young, London, 1997). He and his wife had also brought out an edition of ''The Poetical Works of Andrew Young'' (London, 1985) and a ''Selected Poems'' (Manchester 1998). In the latter part of his career, Lowbury had given a number of lectures on literary themes to learned societies; these were eventually collected, along with a few essays, in ''Hallmarks of Poetry'' (University of Salzburg, 1994). One, the 1987 Tredegar Lecture to the Royal Society of Literature on “Medical Poets”, eventually led him to compile his anthology of doctor poets (''Apollo'', London 1990).
The Place of Music
Lowbury grew up surrounded by appreciation of music and regularly played the piano himself until almost the end of his life. He married a teacher of music and his two younger daughters became professional musicians. The eldest recalls his enthusiasm on discovering a new composer and the way he would play their records over and over. Lowbury himself recounted in an interview how, ‘When I was a student, somebody played me a record of Tapiola, the great sound-poem of
Sibelius
Jean Sibelius ( ; ; born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius; 8 December 186520 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. He is widely regarded as his country's greatest composer, and his music is often ...
, and I was so overwhelmed by this that I couldn’t listen to any other music for a time.’ Soon after he wrote his own “Tapiola” and received enthusiastic permission from the composer to dedicate the poem to him.
Soon after arriving in the city, he became a founder member of the Birmingham Chamber Music Society. He also went regularly to the
Aldeburgh Festival
The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the Aldeburgh area of Suffolk, centred on Snape Maltings Concert Hall.
History of the Aldeburgh Festival
Th ...
, at one session of which he gave a talk on
Thomas Campion
Thomas Campion (sometimes spelled Campian; 12 February 1567 – 1 March 1620) was an English composer, poet, and physician. He was born in London, educated at Cambridge, studied law in Gray's inn. He wrote over a hundred lute songs, masques for ...
. Out of these visits grew the poems collected in ''Variations on Aldeburgh''. What had intrigued Lowbury about Thomas Campion was that he too combined medical practice with poetry and musicianship. In 1970 he co-authored a biography of Campion with his wife and the composer
Timothy Salter
Timothy Salter (born in Mexborough, Yorkshire in 1942) is an English composer, conductor and pianist.
Biography
Timothy Salter studied at St John's College, Cambridge, where he won the John Stewart of Rannoch Scholarship in sacred music. His ...
. On a much smaller scale, he gave an account of his father’s former patient, the avant-garde composer
Bernard van Dieren
Bernard Hélène Joseph van Dieren (27 December 188724 April 1936) was a Dutch composer, critic, author, and writer on music, much of whose working life was spent in England.
Biography
Van Dieren was the last of five children of a Dutch Rotterda ...
, in one of his "Apocryphal Letters".
Another result of the co-operation with
Timothy Salter
Timothy Salter (born in Mexborough, Yorkshire in 1942) is an English composer, conductor and pianist.
Biography
Timothy Salter studied at St John's College, Cambridge, where he won the John Stewart of Rannoch Scholarship in sacred music. His ...
was a setting of five Lowbury poems in his cantata “Against the Light” (1971) followed by two other settings in the next decade. During the 1980s there were further settings by two other composers teaching at Birmingham University, Ivor Keys and
John Joubert, as well as by
David Haines.
[“The Snow Is Rising”, 1981 http://davidhaines.co.uk/concert_works.html ]
References
External links
Obituary from ''The Independent'', 18 July 2007
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lowbury, Edward
1913 births
2007 deaths
Military personnel from London
Royal Army Medical Corps soldiers
British Army personnel of World War II
English bacteriologists
Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
English male poets
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
20th-century English poets
20th-century English male writers