| Authorised form of name | Matthews; Sir; Bryan Harold Cabot (1906 - 1986); physiologist |
| Dates | 1906 - 1986 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | Clifton, Bristol, England, United Kingdom |
| Date of birth | 14 June 1906 |
| Place of death | Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, United Kingdom |
| Date of death | 22 July 1986 |
| Occupation | Physiologist |
| Research field | Electrophysiology |
| Musculature |
| Physiology |
| Activity | Education:
Clifton College, Bristol; King's College, Cambridge 1926-1927
Career:
Fellow of Kings's College, Cambridge (1929-1932); head of the Royal Air Force's Physiological Research Unit (1939-1945); head of the RAF Institute of Aviation Medicine (1944-6); Assistant Director of Research, Physiological Laboratory, Cambridge; professor of physiology, Cambridge (1952-1973).
Honours:
CBE 1944; Kt 1952 |
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 14/03/1940 |
| Age at election | 33 |
| Proposer | Thomas Renton Elliott |
| Thomas Lewis |
| Francis Hugh Adam Marshall |
| Joseph Barcroft |
| James Gray |
| Charles Scott Sherrington |
| Edgar Douglas Adrian |
| RSActivity | Royal Society roles:
VP 1956-1958 |
| Relationships | Parents: Harold Evan Matthews, manufacturing pharmacist, who had a factory and shop in Clifton, and Sarah Susannah (Ruby) Harrison, pharmacist.
Brother: Leonard Harrison Matthews FRS 1954
Spouse: 1) (m. 1926) Rachel Katherine (d. 1994), daughter of Gustav Eckhard, Manchester shipping agent, and sister of the wife of the economist F. W. Paish; 2) (m. 1970) Audrey Wentworth, widow of Air Vice-Marshal William Kilpatrick Stewart and daughter of Francis Tyndale, a lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps.
Children: One son and two daughters from his first marriage. |
| OtherInfo | By his design of instruments and development of experimental methods Matthews has greatly influenced the progress of electrophysiology. His own investigations have shown a high degree of originality and clear thinking, besides experimental skill. He has added much to our knowledge of the sense organs and his recent work on the spinal cord has revealed a new kind of interaction between neurons, clearly an important factor in the mechanism of the nervous system. |
| Source | Obituaries:
Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 1990 vol 35 pp 263-279, plate, by Sir John Gray
References:
J K Bradley and E M Tansey, 'The Coming of the Electronic Age to the Cambridge Physiological Laboratory: E D Adrian's Valve Amplifier in 1921' in NR 1996 vol 50 pp 217-228 |
| Code | NA1318 |
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| EC/1940/16 | Matthews, Sir Bryan Harold Cabot: certificate of election to the Royal Society | |
| GLB/19/1/14 | Sir Bryan Matthews, Physiological Laboratory, Downing Street, Cambridge to Brown | 30 January 1960 |
| GLB/65/78/12 | Bryan Matthews, Physiological Laboratory, Cambridge to Brown | 23 December 1960 |
| GLB/65/78/14 | Brown to Bryan Matthews, Physiological Laboratory, Cambridge | 19 October 1961 |
| GLB/65/78/13 | Bryan Matthews, Physiological Laboratory, Cambridge to Brown | 17 October 1961 |
| GLB/65/78/11 | Bryan Matthews, Physiological Laboratory, Cambridge to Brown | 12 December 1960 |
| CMB/278/68 | Paper passed for publication [Phil. Trans.] | 4 April 1956 |
| PB/2/7/9/3 | Letter from Bryan Matthews, enclosing 1p typescript of proposed note to 'Nature' describing negative findings of tests on biological effects produced by magnetic fields made by Matthews in 1939 using Blackett's large electro-magnet. | 17 January 1964 |
| RR/65/152 | Referee's report by Claude Gordon Douglas, on a paper 'Individual variations in ability to acclimatize to high altitude' by Ancel Keys, Bryan Harold Cabot Matthews, W H Forbes and Ross A McFarland | 8 May 1938 |
| RR/69/220 | Referee's report by [J Genver Jones], on a paper 'A new instrument for solving spherical triangles' by Bryan Harold Cabot Matthews | 19 February 1945 |
| RR/68/500 | Referee's report by Bryan Harold Cabot Matthews, on a paper 'Reflex conduction in the giant fibres of the earthworm' by William Albert Hugh Rushton | [1944] |
| RR/68/499 | Referee's report by Bryan Harold Cabot Matthews, on a paper 'Action potentials from the isolated nerve cord of the earthworm' by William Albert Hugh Rushton | [1944] |
| CMB/281/27 | Notes on papers passed for publication in the Proceedings | October 1960 |
| RR/64/85 | Referee's report by Claude Gordon Douglas, on a paper 'Individual variations in ability to acclimatize to high altitude' by Ancel Keys, Bryan Harold Cabot Matthews, W H Forbes and Ross A McFarland | 8 April 1937 |
| RR/74/69 | Referee's report by Bryan Harold Cabot Matthews, on a paper 'Experimental investigations on the afferent fibres in muscle nerves' by L G Brock, John Carew Eccles and W Rall | 18 February 1951 |
| RR/74/71 | Referee's report by Bryan Harold Cabot Matthews, on a paper 'Repetitive monosynaptic activation of motoneurones' by John Carew Eccles and W Rall | 19 February 1951 |