Died 13 October 1952 | ||
William Ewart Gye FRS (born William Ewart Bullock, 11 August 1889, Breaston – 14 October 1952) was a British pathologist and cancer researcher.
After a difficult financial struggle, Bullock matriculated at University College, Nottingham and, after studying chemistry under Kipping, graduated there B.Sc. Lond. in 1906. In 1911 Bulock married his first wife, Elsa Gye, who was a dedicated suffragette. Bullock studied medicine at Edinburgh University and in 1912 graduated there M.B., B.Chir. Edin. At Edinburgh University in 1913 he received the higher degree Doctor of Medicine (M.D. Edin.) and won a gold medal for his medical thesis. In 1913 he joined the staff of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, which at that time was under the direction of Ernest Francis Bashford. When WWI started, Bullock joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and served in France and then Italy in charge of a field ambulance unit. He was reassigned to London as a hospital pathologistl and worked with William Cramer on gas gangrene. After demobilization with the rank of captain, he joined the National Institute for Medical Research at Hampstead, where he worked with Edgar Hartley Kettle on silicosis. In June 1919, William Bullock's wife retook her maiden name, and William Ewart Bullock changed his surname to "Gye", perhaps because he wanted to please his wife and perhaps because he was irritated by having to often explain that he was not the bacteriologist William Bulloch — there is a theory that the name change was in gratitude to a benefactor (not Bullock's wife or father-in-law).
With W. J. Purdy, Gye did experiments confirming Peyton Rous's claims concerning the Rous sarcoma virus. Gye was the director of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund’s laboratories at Mill Hill from 1934 to 1949, when he resigned due to ill health. He was elected F.R.S. in 1938 and F.R.C.P. in 1940.
Gye's first wife, Elsa, bore him three sons and in 1943 died of cancer. On 30 December 1944 William Gye married the famous ophthalmologist Ida Mann and in 1949 they moved to Perth, Western Australia.