Joseph Fairweather Lamb

Joseph Fairweather Lamb MB ChB BSc PhD FRSE is a retired senior Scottish academic, emeritus professor and former Chandos Chair of Physiology at the University of St Andrews.

He was born in Brechin in 1928 and was educated at Brechin High School and the University of Edinburgh, where he read medicine. After a spell as a physician he returned to university to obtain a PhD then took lectureships at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow.

In 1969 he was appointed to the Chandos Chair of Physiology at the University of St Andrews and held the post for 24 years until 1993. From 1998 until 2003 he led the Rowett Research Institute at the University of Aberdeen.

He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1986.^[1]

References

Joseph lamb was secretary of the Physiological Society from 192-85. During this time he started 'Save British Science (SBS)' a grassroots movement to counter Mrs Thatchers neglect of the science base. Although based originally in St Andrews SBS then moved to University College London & later changed its name to Campaign for Science & Engineering (CaSE), now a powerful voice for the science base.

In 1995 Joseph Lamb ran the 'Gas Greed' campaign, which was the first attempt to stop the escalation of top salaries. It arose because when British Gas was privatised the executives running it, Cedric Brown & Geordani, paid themselves £0.5 million each instead of the £70k paid to the previous (public) executor. At the company's annual meeting later in the summer 7000 people turned up instead of the usual 500 so the meeting had to be re-located during the last week at a cost 0f £0.5 million. The meeting fired the board but the pension funds reversed this decision.