Marcus Seymour Pembrey, 1868-1934

Marcus Pembrey came of an Oxford family, and was born on May 28, 1868. His father was well known as a learned proof-reader in Oriental languages at the University Press, and from an uncle who had a farm at Bampton in Oxfordshire he acquired that love of the country and interest in agriculture which remained with him throughout his life. He originally intended to become a farmer, and it was largely the influence of Sir Henry Acland that turned his thoughts to Medicine. Even when he was occupied with physiological work at Guy’s Hospital, he managed, with the help of his family, to farm a property in Sussex, and when the time came for him to vacate his chair in 1933 he retired to a farm which he had bought a year or two before at Ramsden in Oxfordshire, where he hoped to maintain an active interest in agriculture and to find some leisure for continuing research in pure physiology, for in his latter years at Guy’s much of his time had been occupied by physiological investigations in connexion with clinical medicine. His death on July 23, 1934, from an attack of cardiac failure within a year from his retirement was sudden and unexpected. He leaves a widow and several sons and daughters.