Professor H. F. (Frank) Woods CBE (G 51-57)

Ian Crawford (FS 51-53) has kindly submitted the following tribute:

“Frank Woods was my oldest long-standing friend, a man I liked and admired for his hard work and many achievements during a lifetime in the medical world as a Professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics. The award of the CBE was richly deserved for his public service as a government adviser on toxicity and the safety of food.

He served as a governor of St Bees School for many years until his retirement in 2007 and then as Chairman of the Board for a two year period that came to an end with the closure of the school in 2015.

Frank and I went to the same prep school in Leeds and we travelled together to join St Bees School in September 1951.

When we arrived he was on Meadow House and then went onto Grindal, where he eventually became Head of House and a school prefect. He was the champion debater for several years and a staff sergeant in the CCF (which particularly pleased him).

The passing of exams was to his enormous credit with long hours of study ensuring success, although he had great difficulty in passing 'O' level French (possibly through poor teaching at our prep school) as he needed ten attempts before he passed for what was a necessity to gain entry to Leeds University. (We may have lost other wonderful doctors because of this requirement!)

Frank studied chemistry and biochemistry in Leeds and then obtained an open scholarship to Pembroke College, Oxford to study medicine with clinical work at the Radcliffe Hospital where he qualified as a doctor. He stayed in Oxford as a clinician, lecturer and research fellow before moving to Sheffield in 1976 with his by then wife and their three children.

Here he became a Professor, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry and welcomed on stage for about twenty years many honorary graduates as public orator.

Sadly, his wife Hilary died of cancer at a relatively young age and in his later years he married again, this time to Rosemary, who loved and looked after him to his death in the early part of this year.”

 

 

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