Joseph Barcroft

Sir Joseph Barcroft, CBE, FRS (26 July 1872 – 21 March 1947) was a British physiologist best known for his studies of the oxygenation of blood.

Born in Newry, County Down into a Quaker family, he was the son of Henry Barcroft DL and Anna Richardson Malcomson of The Glen, Newry – a property purchased for his parents by his mother's uncle, John Grubb Richardson and adjoining his own estate in Bessbrook. He was initially educated at Bootham School, York and later at The Leys School, Cambridge. He married Mary Agnetta Ball, daughter of Sir Robert S. Ball, in 1903.

He received his degree in Medicine and Science in 1896 from Cambridge University, and immediately began his studies of haemoglobin. In May 1910 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and would be awarded their Royal Medal in 1922 and their Copley medal in 1943. He would also deliver their Croonian Lecture in 1935.

In both the First World War and Second World War he had the prestigious role of Chief Physiologist at the Gas Warfare Centre at Porton Down near Salisbury.

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