Ernest Jackson Lawson Soulsby, Baron Soulsby of Swaffham Prior (born 23 June 1926) is a distinguished microbiologist and parasitologist.
Soulsby was brought up in the former county of Westmorland on the family farm at Williamsgill, Newbiggin, Temple Sowerby. He was educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Penrith, and then at the University of Edinburgh.[1]
Soulsby was Professor of Animal Pathology at the University of Cambridge in the UK from 1978 to 1993. He has been a Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge since 1978.[1]
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Soulsby was a Veterinary Officer for the City of Edinburgh from 1949 to 1952, and then a lecturer in Clinical Parasitology at the University of Bristol from 1952 to 1954. From 1954 to 1963 Soulsby was a lecturer in Animal Pathology at the University of Cambridge. He was Professor of Parasitology at the University of Pennsylvania until 1978, when he returned to the University of Cambridge as Professor of Animal Pathology.
Before his retirement Soulsby was also a visiting professor at various universities in Europe and the United States. He is an honorary member of numerous international parasitology societies and has been awarded numerous honorary degrees and awards.[1]
Soulsby has been a member of the Council of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons since 1978 and is a past President of the Royal Society of Medicine, past President of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and is Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge.
He was created a life peer on 22 May 1990 as Baron Soulsby of Swaffam Prior, of Swaffham Prior in the County of Cambridgeshire[2][3] and was introduced in the House of Lords on 12 June 1990, where he sits as a Conservative.
He served on the Government's inquiry into fox hunting and is an expert adviser to the UK Government on animal welfare, science and technology, biotechnology and environmental issues. He is in addition the President of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee and the President of the Royal Institute of Public Health until 2008, when it merged with the Royal Society of Health to become the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH). He served the new body as President until the end of 2009 and is an Honorary Fellow of the RSPH.[1]
Lord Soulsby is also veterinary surgeon to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Soulsby has published 14 books as well as articles in various veterinary journals.
His granddaughters are Kananu Kirimi (actress) and Iona Soulsby (student of Environmental Science and Development Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand).