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glands of the domestic fowl. After those Bernard Matthews, whose entire flock the Bledisloe Veterinary Award of the
two years, Peter needed a job. was affected, was too impatient to await Royal Agricultural Society of England
Ian Galloway, director of Pirbright, a vaccine and chose to cull his entire and the Central Veterinary Society’s
offered him the opportunity to study breeding flock and obtain his birds from Victory Medal. An award he especially
foot-and-mouth disease virus, but the an outside source. prized was the Jószef Marek Memorial
offer letter never arrived! However, In 1974, Peter was given the directorship Medal presented to him in 1979 by the
Professor Blakemore at Bristol offered of Houghton Poultry Research Station, veterinary university of Budapest.
him a lectureship in veterinary clinical but it was a difficult time with widespread More recently, with the rebuilding
pathology at Langford and Peter funding cuts to science budgets. programme at the Pirbright Institute, a
accepted, moving to Langford in 1955. The reduced funds resulted in the new stand-alone poultry experimental
During his research, by cannulating amalgamation of the four major veterinary facility has been named the ‘Biggs
chicken lymphatics (his novel technique), institutes – Houghton, Compton and Building’ in recognition of his
Peter was the first to show that, although Pirbright and the Neuropathogenesis contribution to avian science.
chickens have no lymph nodes, they Unit in Edinburgh – to form the Institute
have ‘mural lymphatic nodules’ along the for Animal Health, of which he became Peter’s greatest pride was his marriage
lymphatic walls. the founding director. to Jan and their three children – Alison,
Andrew and John. Alison, a trained
In 1956, LN (Jim) Payne joined Peter’s There was much political pressure to occupational therapist, sadly died in
research group at Bristol studying avian reduce government funding of veterinary 2007. Andrew is a prominent cattle
leukosis. They visited the Houghton research, which Peter fought bravely. veterinarian and John is a highly
Poultry Research Station to obtain fertile Fundamentally a research scientist, Peter successful electronic engineer. It was
eggs of different strains of chicken to was relieved to retire in 1988. He then a special moment for Peter in 2015
explore the graft versus host reaction. became president of the Institute of when Andrew was also presented with
By using the sex chromosome as a Biology, a vice president of the BVA, a the Dalrymple-Champneys award by
marker, they were able to show that the member of the council and committees the BVA – only the second father and
pathology of this reaction was due to of the Royal Society, and a founding son to have been recognised in this
both donor and host cells, probably in fellow and member of council of the way since the award was introduced 88
equal amounts. This novel research was Academy of Medical Science. One of his years earlier.
published in Nature. most enjoyable and rewarding activities He is survived by Jan, Andrew and
In 1959, the Agricultural Research was membership of RVC council for 14 John, nine grandchildren and five great
Council launched a programme on the years, the last eight of which he spent as grandchildren.
‘avian leukosis complex’. Peter was its vice chairman.
invited to lead the programme. Over He has also left his mark on poultry A humanist funeral service for Peter was
the next 13 years, he oversaw the research. He founded the World held on 20 January 2022.
development of specialised facilities at Veterinary Poultry Association and
Houghton for avian research. established the leading avian research

Peter and his team conducted detailed journal, Avian Pathology.
experiments to unravel avian leukosis. A long series of honours attests to
They made the critical discovery that the the respect he commanded. He was
avian leukosis complex comprised two a fellow of the Institute of Biology, the
different diseases, the leukoses caused Royal College of Pathologists, the
by a retrovirus and what he was later to RCVS and the Royal Society. He was
name Marek’s disease. awarded a doctor of science degree by

They established new methods for the the University of London in 1975 and in
transmission of Marek’s disease into 1976 was awarded honorary doctorates
experimental chickens, characterised its of veterinary medicine by the Ludwig-
aetiological agent as a cell-associated Maximilians-Universität, Munich and the
herpesvirus and developed the first University of Liège, Belgium. In 1982,
effective vaccine against any neoplastic he was appointed visiting professor of
disease caused by a virus. This was truly veterinary microbiology at the RVC.
novel and had a considerable impact on He received numerous awards,
our understanding of cancer. including the BOCM Poultry Science
A further discovery was that turkeys Award, the JT Edwards Memorial
could suffer from an oncogenic Medal of the RCVS, the Brian
condition, often fatal, which Peter Hanson Memorial Award of the British
named lymphoproliferative disease Veterinary Poultry Association and
(LPD); this proved to be caused by the Wooldridge Memorial Medal and
a C-type retrovirus. Turkey producer the Dalrymple-Champneys Cup and
Medal of the BVA. Peter also received
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