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date: 08 February 2025

Bashford, Ernest Francisfree

(1873–1923)

Bashford, Ernest Francisfree

(1873–1923)
  • M. P. Earles

Bashford, Ernest Francis (1873–1923), oncologist, was born on 21 November 1873 at High Lawn, Bowdon, Cheshire, the eldest son of William Taylor Bashford, photographer, and his wife, Elizabeth, née Booth. He was educated at George Heriot's School before entering the University of Edinburgh where he had a distinguished academic career. He was Whitman prizeman in clinical medicine, Patterson prizeman in clinical surgery, and appointed to the Houldsworth research scholarship in experimental pharmacology and the Stark scholarship in clinical medicine and pathology. He graduated MB ChB in 1899. Bashford was awarded the M'Cosh graduate scholarship for study and research in the medical schools of Europe. He travelled to Germany where he worked with Paul Ehrlich at the Royal Prussian Institute for Experimental Therapeutics in Frankfurt am Main, and then with Oscar Liebreich in the Pharmacological Institute, Berlin. On his return to Edinburgh he became assistant to Thomas Richard Fraser, professor of materia medica, pharmacology, and clinical medicine.

In 1902 Bashford married Elisabeth, the eldest daughter of Felix Alfermann of Frankfurt am Main; they had one daughter. In the same year he was awarded the MD with gold medal and was appointed general superintendent of research to the newly established Imperial Cancer Research Fund. A year later he became director of the laboratories of the fund which were situated in the Examinations Hall, Victoria Embankment, London, and operated under the direction of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Surgeons of England. During his time as director Bashford established the modern experimental investigation of cancer in Britain. At the time of his appointment there was much speculation concerning the cause of cancer which many believed to be an infectious disease. As a consequence studies of the disease were misdirected and the lack of progress induced considerable pessimism concerning the successful outcome of cancer research. Bashford believed the elucidation of the cause and nature of cancer to be a biological problem and not one confined to human pathology. His approach was to employ a combination of comparative, statistical, and experimental methods to the study of the incidence and growth of malignant tumours. Bashford and his colleague James Alexander Murray made statistical investigations of the zoological distribution of cancer and an ethnological study based on reports received from all parts of the British empire. Their experimental work on animals involved the investigation of the transplantability of animal tumours based on the work of C. O. Jensen of Copenhagen. They developed techniques that enabled them to study growth, immunity, and resistance to implantation of tumours. In the Scientific Report of the Investigations of the Cancer Research Fund (1905) Bashford wrote, 'The comparative study [of the incidence of the disease] and the experimental propagation of cancer have revealed properties of cancer cells incompatible with all the hypotheses which have been advanced in explanation of the process'.

During the twelve years that he directed the laboratory Bashford established the Imperial Cancer Research Fund as an experimental research institution of international status. He also gained for himself an international reputation with his reports for the fund and contributions to the medical literature on pharmacology, immunity, and biochemistry. He was president of the first international cancer congress held in Heidelberg in 1906 and delegate of the British government to the international conference on cancer research in Paris in 1910.

Bashford was described by a contemporary as having a forceful, brilliant, and wayward character. He threw himself with enthusiasm into the controversies that raged around topics of cancer research and he claimed that he personally and successfully opposed the efforts of the German cancer committee to gather all cancer research under its control. After ten years in the post of director the brilliance and resource that characterized his work began to fade and in 1914, at the age of forty-one, he resigned from the Cancer Research Fund on the grounds of ill health. He was succeeded as director by J. A. Murray, who held the post until 1935.

From 1915 Bashford served with the Royal Army Medical Corps, first with the Mediterranean expeditionary force and later in France. After the war he held the post of adviser in pathology for the army of occupation. He was mentioned in dispatches and was appointed OBE in 1919. He died from heart failure at Manderscheid, Eifel, Germany, on 23 August 1923. He was survived by his wife.

Sources

  • WWW, 1916–28
  • BMJ (18 Sept 1923), 440–41
  • The Lancet (8 Sept 1923), 536
  • E. F. Bashford, Scientific report of the investigations of the Cancer Research Fund (1905)
  • b. cert.

Archives

Likenesses

  • photograph, repro. in J. Austoker, A history of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, 1902–1986 (1988)

Wealth at Death

£796 6s. 4d.: probate, 26 Oct 1923, CGPLA Eng. & Wales

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