Abstract
On the 13th March 2015, the Society of Biology unveiled a blue plaque at the Kershaw's Hospice in Oldham. This was the former site of Dr Kershaw's Cottage Hospital where in 1971 Patrick Steptoe, Robert Edwards and Jean Purdy set up a small laboratory that ultimately led to the development of in vitro fertilisation or IVF and the birth of Louise Brown. Amongst those present at the ceremony was Professor Andrew Steptoe (British Heart Foundation, Professor of Psychology) the son of Patrick Steptoe. This paper reproduces the text of the speech he made to mark the occasion and is reproduced in Human Fertility for its future historical significance.
I am delighted to be here today to mark the unveiling of this plaque to the work carried out by Patrick Steptoe, Robert Edwards and Jean Purdy at Kershaw's Hospice. In vitro fertilisation (IVF) has been an extraordinary achievement from the medical, scientific and societal perspectives. Medically, it has enriched the lives of first thousands, and now millions, of couples by bringing into the world the babies they so desperately wanted. Scientifically, it broke through barriers to our understanding of fertilisation, early embryological development and implantation. It was a pioneering process that contributed directly to new technologies we now take for granted, including preimplantation genetic diagnosis, cryopreservation and the manipulation of cellular material. At the societal level, IVF and the birth of Louise Brown brought vital issues into the public domain, including the capacity of humans to control their own fates, the ways that science can be used to modify natural processes, and our ability to rectify biological mistakes and improve human potential.
What is remarkable is that these achievements were all carried out here, in what was then a small cottage hospital in a medium-sized town in the Northwest of England, with no particular characteristics that marked it out as a place of scientific innovation. Oldham did not possess a strong scientific tradition, nor did it have a well-funded university or medical laboratories, and funding for research was very limited. That IVF and all its triumphs started here was owed partly to chance, but mostly to the extraordinary efforts, imagination and persistence of the people involved.
The chance element was what brought my father Patrick to Oldham in the first place. He was brought up in Witney near Oxford, and trained in London. After the war, during which he spent two years as a prisoner of war in Italy, he returned to finish his training at St. George's Hospital at Hyde Park Corner in central London – the hospital which is now a luxury hotel. As was the custom, Patrick took the first consultant appointment that was available after his training was completed, and it happened to be at what was then called Boundary Park Hospital in Oldham. Both he and my mother Sheena were from Southern England, and knew very little about the north. She had been an actress and loved the London scene, and he would also have liked to be near the centre of his profession. But he immediately threw himself into the work here, building up obstetrics and gynaecology as a specialised profession. He saw the desperate need of women in Oldham for high-quality modern treatment, and in the early days was often in conflict with the general surgeons who resented this work being taken away from them.
The next phase of imagination and scientific advance came through Robert Edwards and his astonishingly bold vision of applying his expertise in fertilisation biology to humans. From his animal research first in Edinburgh and London and then in Cambridge, he acquired a deep understanding of the early stages of the reproductive process. He could have stopped there and carried on perfecting these techniques in the laboratory and studying early development. But he began to think that with the right medical collaborators, his methods could be harnessed to overcome clinical problems that affected millions of people. From his side, Patrick Steptoe in Oldham was confronted every day with problems of reproduction that were of two sorts – women who had more pregnancies and children than they could cope with, and women desperate to have even one child. He felt deeply about both of these human issues, championing birth control and the use of termination where appropriate, but at the same time seeking out ways to help the infertile.
Figure 1. The plaque at the former site of Dr Kershaw's Cottage Hospital to commemorate the laboratory established there by Patrick Steptoe, Robert Edwards and Jean Purdy.
As many of you will know, their scientific work took years to come to a successful conclusion, first at the Oldham General Hospital and then here at Kershaw's. Jean Purdy was vital to this enterprise. Jean was trained as a nurse but moved to a technical role in Bob Edwards's laboratory in Cambridge and then became the mainstay of the laboratory work at Kershaw's. She spent much of her time at Kershaw's in the 1970s, ending up in a combined laboratory and semi-nursing role, supporting the patients as well as looking after the eggs and embryos. But the work here required a mighty team effort involving not only Patrick, Bob and Jean, but also the medical team including John Webster and others, the vital nursing team led by the redoubtable Muriel Harris, the reproductive biology team, and the many supports from technicians and laboratory staff, the hospital managers, secretaries, cleaners and others who became deeply involved.
Most of all, I think about the infertile women themselves. They came year after year to Kershaw's to undergo the processes of egg removal and embryo transfer. Although they will have harboured hope that they would be lucky, most must have known that there was next to no chance of success for them personally. But they willingly gave themselves so that others would benefit in the future. I vividly remember coming with my father to Kershaw's on my visits from the south of England, driving over with him from my parent's home in Rochdale, often late in the evening to observe oocyte removal or embryo transfer. What struck me was the patient cheerfulness of the women who underwent these procedures, their utter confidence in Patrick and the scientific team, and the kindness with which they were treated by the nurses and other staff here.
So I think that it is very appropriate that the Society of Biology should select the work done here at Kershaw's as among the towering achievements of recent British biology. IVF is now a normal process; millions of men, women and children live on our planet as a result of this work, and they are no different from anybody else. This is how it should be – that what was once an incredible scientific event has become a routine part of life. For this, we can thank Patrick Steptoe, Robert Edwards, Jean Purdy and all the supporting staff here at Oldham for their extraordinary work.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the Society of Biology, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Heritage Lottery Fund for the “Biology: Changing the World” project which funded this plaque. Thanks also to Professor Daniel Brison (University of Manchester) for the photograph used to illustrate this article and to Professor Allan Pacey (Editor in Chief) for help in preparing it for Human Fertility.
Declaration of interest: The author reports no declaration of interest. The authors alone is responsible for the content and writing of the paper.