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Blood transfusion pioneer. Died aged 91.
The path towards John "Jock" Staveley's knighthood for his role as a pioneer in the field of blood transfusion began with five years of war.
[Image omitted. See PDF] Newly married to cellist Elvira Wycherley, he volunteered for active service abroad in World War II and served in Greece, escaping to Crete, then Syria, Egypt, Libya, and Italy.
After he recovered from wounds received in an ambush in Greece, he was made malarial control officer with Lieutenant-General Sir Bernard Freyberg's New Zealand division in Syria.
"Most of the initial symptoms of malaria show up in blood manifestations, so I became interested," he said. Severely wounded twice, a prisoner of war twice, he returned with a Military Cross and a determination to work in the fast-developing field of blood transfusion. "Having seen on such a scale [in field hospitals] what could be achieved by blood transfusion, my interest never wavered," he wrote.
Following post-graduate study in London and Edinburgh, he was appointed pathologist and then haematologist to the Auckland Hospital Board and set...