Rosalind Pitt-Rivers

Rosalind Pitt-Rivers
File:Rosalind Venetia Pitt-Rivers (1907-1990).tif
Born	Rosalind Venetia Henley (1907-03-07)7 March 1907 London, England
Died	Hinton St Mary, Sturminster Newton, Dorset, England
Nationality	British
Institutions	National Institute for Medical Research
Alma mater	Bedford College
Notable awards	FRS (1954)
Spouse	George Pitt-Rivers

Rosalind Venetia Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers FRS (4 March 1907 – 14 January 1990) was a British biochemist. She became the second president of the European Thyroid Association in 1971. She succeeded Jean Roche and was followed by Jack Gross in this position, all three names inextricably linked with the discovery of the thyroid hormone triiodothyronine T3.

Early life and education

Pitt-Rivers was born Rosalind Venetia Henley on 4 March 1907 in London, the eldest of four daughters of the Hon. Anthony Morton Henley (1873–1925), a Captain in the 5th Lancers, and his wife the Hon. Sylvia Laura Stanley (1882–1980). Her father was the third son of Anthony Henley, 3rd Baron Henley and her mother the daughter of Lord Stanley of Alderley.

She was educated at home and later at Notting Hill High School at the age of thirteen. Her interest in chemistry began at the age of twelve when an uncle gave her a chemistry set. She later studied at Bedford College where she was awarded a Bachelor of Science in 1930 with first class honours, and an MSc in 1931.

Personal life

In 1931 she married as his second wife George Pitt-Rivers (1890–1966), anthropologist and eugenist and a grandson of Augustus Pitt Rivers (1827–1900), who founded the anthropology museum named after him in Oxford. She became stepmother to the two boys from his first marriage, Michael and Julian. She gave birth to a son, Anthony, in 1932, but the marriage was dissolved in 1937. During their marriage, her husband had become increasingly pro-eugenics and anti-semitic, drawing closer to German eugenicists and praising Mussolini and Hitler; by 1940 he was interned in the Tower of London under the Defence Regulation 18B.

Career

Only after she separated from Pitt-Rivers in 1937, did she return to study and gain a PhD in Biochemistry from University College medical school in 1939.

She joined the scientific staff of the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) in Mill Hill London in 1942, the largest institute of the UK Medical Research Council (MRC). She later became head of the Division of Chemistry, and retired in 1972.

After helping Jack Gross with the discovery of the T3 hormone and publishing their findings in The Lancet in 1952 she gained international recognition. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1954. In 1973 she was made a fellow of Bedford College, London, in 1983 an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, and in 1986 an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.,

Her publications with Jamshed Tata include The Thyroid Hormones (1959); The Chemistry of Thyroid Diseases (1960); and (with W. R. Trotter) The Thyroid Gland (1964).