Henry Hallett Dale - Biography

Biography

Henry Hallett Dale was born in Islington, London, to Charles James Dale, a pottery manufacturer from Staffordshire, and his wife, Frances Anne Hallett, daughter of a furniture manufacturer. Henry was the third of seven children, one of whom (his younger brother, Benjamin Dale) became an accomplished composer and warden of the Royal Academy of Music. Henry was educated at the local Tollington Park College and then The Leys School Cambridge (one of the school's houses is named after him) and in 1894 entered Trinity College at Cambridge University, working under the physiologist John Langley. For a few months in 1903 he also studied under Paul Ehrlich in Frankfurt, Germany. Also in 1903, Dale assisted Ernest Starling and William Bayliss in the vivisection of a dog, by removing the dog's pancreas and then killing the dog with a knife, which ultimately led to the events of the Brown Dog affair.

Dale received his M.D. from Cambridge in 1909. While working at the University College London (UCL), he met and became friends with Otto Loewi. Dale became the Director of the Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology at the National Institute for Medical Research in London in 1914. He was knighted in 1932, receiving the Order of Merit in 1944 and the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire in 1948. Dale served as President of the Royal Society from 1940 to 1945. He became a Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution in 1942. During World War II, he served on the Scientific Advisory Panel to the Cabinet.

In 1904, Dale had married his first cousin Elen Harriet Hallett and had a son and two daughters.