Anthony David Lees, 27 February 1917 - 3 October 1992

Abstract

Tony Lees was a third-generation scientist and academic. His paternal grandfather, David Bridge Lees, graduated from Cambridge in classics, divinity and mathematics, but retrained for the medical profession at Guy’s Hospital before joining the staffs of the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, and later, St Mary’s. Here he carried out research into rheumatism, pneumonia and tuberculosis. His youngest son, Alan Henry Lees, who became Tony’s father, also went up to Cambridge to read Zoology and Botany. After graduation he joined the advisory service of the Ministry of Agriculture in the Vale of Evesham. In 1912 he was appointed plant pathologist at the newly founded Long Ashton Research Station near Bristol, where he conducted research into the control of the ‘big bud’ mite affecting blackcurrants, and later on apple and pear cultivation. Tony’s mother, Mary Hughes Bomford, came from a large farming family near Evesham. After marriage, the couple settled in Long Ashton where their only child, Tony, was born. His mother died prematurely when Tony was only eight years old.