Percival Hartley

Sir Percival Harley CBE MC DSc FRS (28 May 1881 – 16 February 1957) was head of the Medical Research Council Biological Standards Division for 44 years.

Early life
He was born at Calverley, West Yorkshire, England, the son of W T Hartley. He attended Bradford Technical College and then the University of Leeds where he qualified BSc in 1905. He then won a scholarship to the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine in London from 1906-1908. He gained a DSc from the University of London in 1909.

Career
He worked in India for four years then returned to the Lister Institute in 1913 but joined up with the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) and served as a captain from 1915-19 during the First World War. He won the Military Cross in 1917.

He then worked for 3 years at the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories and in 1922 joined the National Institute for Medical Research where he became director of biological samples. He stayed till 1946 when he joined the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He worked at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology from 1949-53 and at the Lister Institute again from 1949-53.

Personal life
He was awarde the CBE in 1922 and FRS in 1937. He was knighted in 1942 for work on penicillin. He married Olga Parnell (d.1950) in 1920 and they had two daughters. He died in London.