We are deeply saddened by the death of Professor Margaret Matthews, Emeritus Fellow in Medicine, on Monday 24th November following a short illness.
Professor Matthews was a distinguished anatomist whose association with Oxford and LMH spanned more than six decades. She joined Oxford’s Department of Human Anatomy in 1957 as a Departmental Demonstrator, teaching in the dissecting room as well as in embryology and neuroanatomy classes. Alongside her teaching, she carried out research exploring the extent of shrinkage in nerve cells in the brain following the loss of their normal inputs. At that time, she was one of only two female demonstrators in the department.
In 1971, Professor Matthews was appointed University Lecturer, only the third woman to hold such a position in the Department of Human Anatomy (the first two being Dr Alice Carleton and Dr Pamela Mackinnon). In the same year she was elected as a Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, a college she already knew well as she had been tutoring LMH students in Anatomy since 1958. With this new appointment, her teaching responsibilities expanded to include the provision of classes in Histology and Neuroanatomy for physiology and psychology students.
With the advent of electron microscopy in the 1960s, Professor Matthews shifted her research focus to the autonomic nervous system, studying nerve cells outside the brain that were capable of regenerating their axons (output fibres). Her investigations into the neurones of sympathetic ganglia and their responses to axonal injury opened new fields of study and shaped subsequent research in neural regeneration.
Reflecting on her career, Professor Matthews once said: “What I most enjoyed was making a really important and significant observation and recording it securely. Often one could not relax until the safety of the recording had been confirmed, because the material might perish; but the relief and pleasure were then all the more intense.”
Her achievements were recognised in Oxford and beyond. In 1987, she was elected to Honorary Membership of the American Association of Anatomists in their centenary year. In 1997, she was conferred the title of Professor of Human Anatomy in the second year of Oxford’s Titular Professorships scheme before retiring in 1999.
Within LMH, Professor Matthews was a much-loved colleague, known for her warmth and her curiosity about the lives and wellbeing of younger colleagues. She took a particular interest in supporting other women forging academic careers, and will be remembered for her incisive mind and deep intellectual strength. Professor Matthews was also a generous benefactor to the College, for which we owe her a debt of gratitude.
We extend our sincere condolences to Professor Matthews’ family and friends.
