[2] Medawar was born in London, England, the daughter of Katherine Leslie (née Paton) and Charles Henry Shinglewood Taylor.

She continued to work on the origin and development of lymphocytes under Howard Florey (who later won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945) until her marriage in 1937.

[5] She also worked with the Citizens' Advice Bureau, the National Marriage Guidance Council and also with young offenders at HM Prison Holloway at Hampstead.

She was appointed chairman of the FPA in 1966, owing to the death of Margaret Pyke, and held the post till 1970.

[7] After death, she shared her husband's grave in the graveyard of St Andrew's Church in Alfriston in East Sussex.