Geoffrey Harold Tovey (29 May 1916 – 19 December 2001) was a medical doctor whose scientific contributions in the field of haematology brought him an international reputation.
During the Second World War, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and was posted to the Army Blood Transfusion Service from 1941 to 1946, headed by haematologist Brigadier General L E H Whitby (from New Year 1945 as Brigadier General Sir Lionel Whitby) at Southmead Hospital, Bristol and helped in training RAMC privates at Clifton College as Blood Transfusion Orderlies (including J D R Thomas later famed for ion-selective electrodes that came to be used in blood electrolyte analysis - from 1994 Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at Cardiff University, whom Dr Tovey telephoned soon after being written to about his letter in The Daily Telegraph of 15 April 1998 on "New blood won't revive Service"); in 1945-46 Tovey had command of No.3 Base Transfusion Unit in Poona, India Command.
[1] After the war Dr Geoffrey Tovey returned to the Blood Transfusion Service unit in 1946 at Southmead Hospital, Bristol.
It was in the evening of J D R Thomas's Cardiff marriage on 23 September 1950 that he went with his new wife Gwyneth from Bristol's Royal Hotel to the Reunion at Southmead Hospital of the wartime Blood Transfusion Unit, where they met several former colleagues who'd joined Dr Geoffrey Tovey's staff at the South West Regional Blood Transfusion Service.
[1] In 1959 he advocated the induction of birth at 36 weeks pregnancy to prevent stillbirth in babies affected by Rhesus Haemolytic Disease; this subsequently saved many lives.
[1] As an enthusiastic genealogist in his spare time, Geoffrey traced his family history back to 1577; where records show a William Tovie[5] as owner of The George Inn, Norton St Philip, Somerset, today claimed as one of the oldest public houses in the UK, first licensed to sell alcohol in 1397.