Dale, Sir Henry Hallett (1875-1968)

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0116 Henry Hallett Dale Collection
Held at	: Royal Institution of Great Britain   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.rigb.org/about/heritage-and-collections ›
Full title	: Dale, Sir Henry Hallett (1875-1968)
Date(s)	: 1942-1965
Level of description	: Sub-fonds of the Royal Institution of Great Britain collection
Extent	: 1 box; 0.09 metres
Name of creator(s)	: Dale, Sir Henry Hallett, 1875-1968. Knight. Physiologist. Pharmacologist. Physician.

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Henry Hallett Dale was born the son of Charles James Dale, businessman, and Frances Ann Hallett, in London in 1875. He was educated at Tollington Park College in London and then subsequently at Leys School in Cambridge. He later gained a First in the Natural Sciences Tripos at Trinity College Cambridge, in 1898. In 1900 he began clinical training at St Bartholemew's Hospital, gaining his MD in 1909. In 1904 he married Ellen Harriet Hallett and they had three children. He studied at the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratory in 1904, looking at chemical phase transmissions of nerve fibre endings to responsive cells, as well as the reaction of histamine in animals. In 1914 he became a member of the Medical Research Committee (named Council after 1920), and from 1928 to 1942, he was Director of the Council and that of Biochemistry and Pharmacology at the National Institute for Medical Research. His researches investigated into adrenaline reversal, which became the basis for using phentolamine in the diagnosis of pheochromocytoma. His work on histamine, which he carried out with P P Laidlaw (later Sir) in 1911, highlighted the effects of poisoning and anaphylactic shock. He became a spokesman for the men of science and helped standardize drugs and anti-toxins; he also developed the terms cholinergic and adrenergic. In 1914 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (RS) and was a Secretary of the RS from 1925 to 1935. In 1942 he became Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) and in the same year he was Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the War Cabinet; he held these positions until 1946 and 1947 respectively. In 1947 he was President of the British Association, and from 1948 to 1950, he was President of the Royal Society of Medicine. From 1950 to 1955 he was President of the British Council. He gained many medals for his work such as the RS Copley medal in 1937, and in 1936 he won the Nobel Prize with Otto Loewi for their work on the chemical transmission of nerve endings. In 1932 he was knighted, and in 1943 he was made a Knight of the Grand Cross of the British Empire. The Society for Endocrinology set up an annual Dale medal from 1959 and the RS set up the Dale professorship from 1961. He published many papers in journals such as the Journal of Physiology, and he also published works such as Adventures in Physiology with Excursions into Auto Pharmacology (Pergamon Press, London, 1953) and An Autumn Gleaning (Pergamon Press, London, 1954). He died in 1968.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers of Sir Henry Hallett Dale include three photographs of Sir Henry Hallett Dale; correspondence and papers to and from various recipients, relating to topics such as lectures, students and meetings at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI), 1942-1945; correspondence and papers to and from various recipients, relating to topics such as apparatus for the Davy Faraday Research Laboratory at the RI, 1945-1946; volume containing various aspects of RI accounts such as petty cash and catering supplies, some correspondence is also included, 1943-1965.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

The papers are arranged as follows: photographs (1 envelope); correspondence, 1942-1945 (1 file); correspondence, 1945-1946 (1 file); accounts volume. The final arrangement will be determined in a detailed catalogue of the Royal Institution of Great Britain collection, to be prepared.

Conditions governing access:

Access to bona fide researchers by appointment with the Keeper of the Collections or the Assistant Archivist, the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI).

Conditions governing reproduction:

Reproduction of material is permitted at the discretion of the Keeper of the Collections, RI.

Finding aids:

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Accumulated by the RI during the course of business.

Allied Materials

Related material:

The Royal Institution of Great Britain holds a portrait of Sir Henry Hallett Dale.

Other papers of Sir Henry Hallett Dale are located at: the Royal Society (reference: HD); Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine (reference: PP/HHD; PP/LEW); Public Record Office (reference: CAB127/213-38); Cambridge University Churchill Archives Centre (reference: AVHL); Glasgow University Archives and Business Records Centre (reference: DC/75); Rice University Woodson Research Centre (reference: Julian S Huxley papers); Oxford Bodleian Library (reference: SPSL).

National Register of Archives: Click here to view NRA record

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Description compiled by Miss Ivone Martins, Assistant Archivist, RI.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
April 2001