Samuel Victor Perry FRS[1] (16 July 1918 – 17 December 2009)[2] was an English biochemist who was a pioneer in the field of muscle biochemistry.

[4] His father died of a heart condition when Perry was 13, and his mother struggled to financially support his university education.

[2] At Liverpool he met future Nobel Prize winner, Rodney Porter and the two struck up a lifelong friendship.

Perry's frontline experience in the army was short, as he was captured early in 1942 when his unit was overrun by Rommel's forces as they attempted to slow the German advance from Benghazi.

[6] Perry spent the next three and a half years in various German prisoner-of-war camps, initially in Italy; after the confusion brought by the Italian Armistice, he made his first escape attempt.

He spent time in camps in Germany and Silesia before the Russian advance forced his movement west to Brunswick.

He was then taken to appear before a military court in Hildesheim, where he was court-martialed for damaging a German train, and placed in solitary confinement for a month.

[2] Despite his numerous failed attempts, Perry managed never to lose a copy of Annual Review of Biochemistry of 1942, volume 11, sent to him through the aid of the Red Cross.

[6] In Cambridge, Perry developed a reputation as a major figure in muscle research and won the Trinity College prize fellowship for his pioneering doctoral thesis.

In 1959, just before his move to Birmingham, he purchased Felin-Werndew a ruined 18th century cornmill in Dinas Cross, Pembrokeshire in Wales.

Using his expertise in manipulating muscle tissue combined with his biochemical knowledge, he was able to isolate myofibril in an uncontracted state, and from that he was able to characterize their protein components.

Seven years later Setsuro Ebashi, identified the factor responsible for calcium sensitivity in muscles, which he called troponin.

[6] This research established Perry as one of the leading figures in the muscle field, and in 1959 he was invited to head a new Biochemistry department at Birmingham University.

Due to the passage of time between the start of the war and recommencement of games, only Dick Guest of England had any prior international experience.

It was a disaster of a campaign for England, drawing against Wales, and losing to Ireland, Scotland and France, and ending bottom of the league.